Free Miss Mary Is Scary! by Dan Gutman Page A

all by itself! And then the toilet I was sitting on flushed all by itself! And the sinks andhand dryer turned on too! But nobody was there! It must be ghosts! The bathroom is haunted! Run for your lives!”
    Everybody started freaking out, yelling, screaming, and crying.
    That’s when our custodian, Miss Lazar, came in.
    â€œThere are no ghosts in the bathroom,” Miss Lazar said. “I recently installed automatic sinks, hand dryers, and toilets to save water and electricity. I was just testing them out to see if they work.”
    Oh.
    Well, maybe there aren’t any ghosts in the bathroom after all. But I’m not going in there again for the rest of my life.

2
The New Student Teacher
    Mr. Granite told us that it was his idea to install the new water-saving toilets.
    â€œEvery time you flush a toilet,” he said, “you use up to 5 gallons of water. So five flushes in a day would be…five times five—25 gallons of water a day…”
    Mr. Granite loves math.
    â€œâ€¦and that adds up to 175 gallons a week,” Mr. Granite continued. “And 9,100 gallons a year. And do you know how many gallons of water you will flush down the toilet in your lifetime?”
    He didn’t have the chance to answer the question, because at that moment the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. The door opened.
    Well, that’s not the weird part because doors open all the time. But you’ll never believe who walked into the door.
    Nobody, because if you walked into a door it would hurt. But you’ll never believe who walked into the doorway .
    It was our principal, Mr. Klutz!
    He has no hair at all. I think Mr. Klutz used to have hair, but it fell out a long time ago. That’s what happens when men get old.
    He held up his hand and made a peace sign, which means “shut up.”
    â€œI have big news!” he told us.
    â€œMr. Klutz has a big nose,” I whispered to Ryan, who sits next to me.
    â€œWhat is it?” asked Andrea’s crybaby friend, Emily.
    â€œYou’re going to get a student teacher!” Mr. Klutz announced. “Isn’t that exciting?”
    â€œYes!” said all the girls.
    â€œNo!” said all the boys.
    Wait a minute. Student teacher? Thatdoesn’t make any sense.
    â€œHow can a student be a teacher?” I asked. “Or a teacher be a student? A person can either be a student or a teacher, but not both.”
    â€œA student teacher is somebody who’s learning how to be a teacher, dumbhead,” said Andrea.
    â€œOh, snap!” said Ryan.
    â€œSo is your face,” I told Andrea.
    Any time somebody says something mean to you and you can’t think of what to say, just say, “So is your face.” That’s the first rule of being a kid.
    â€œWhat is our student teacher’s name?” Andrea asked. “When will we meet her?”
    â€œRight now!” Mr. Klutz said. “Come on in here, Mary. Don’t be shy. Kids, this is your new student teacher, Miss Mary.”

    A lady came in. She looked weird. She had black hair, black clothes, black eye makeup, and a tattoo of a black bat on her arm. There was a purple streak in her hair. She had holes in her pants and earbuds in her ears.She was chewing gum and bobbing her head up and down to the music.
    Mr. Granite didn’t look very happy when he saw Miss Mary.
    â€œYo,” she said as she took out one of her earbuds. “What up?”
    â€œYo,” we all replied.
    â€œMiss Mary is going to be a great teacher,” Mr. Klutz told us. “Do you know how I know she’ll be so good?”
    â€œHow?” we all asked.
    â€œBecause,” Mr. Klutz said as he put his arm around her, “Mary is my daughter.”
    WHAT?!

3
Miss Mary Is Weird
    Mr. Klutz has a daughter ? I knew he was married to a lady named Mrs. Klutz. But I didn’t know they had kids.
    Mr. Klutz told us that a long time ago, before