Free My Weirdest School #2 by Dan Gutman Page B

money.”
    â€œOooooh!” everybody oohed.
    â€œGo back to your classrooms and think of some ideas for what we should do with the million dollars,” Mr. Klutz told us. “Theclass that comes up with the best idea will be the first to use whatever we buy with the money. I’ll announce the winning class at the end of the day.”
    We walked a million hundred miles back to our classroom.
    â€œSo,” Mr. Cooper said when we were seated, “what do you think we should buy with the million dollars?”
    â€œPizza!” Ryan shouted. “We should have a giant pizza party for the whole school!”
    â€œYeah!” everybody yelled.
    Ryan should be in the gifted and talented program for coming up with that idea. Who doesn’t like pizza?
    â€œDo you know how many pizzas youcan buy with a million dollars?” Mr. Cooper asked.
    He went to the board and wrote the number 1,000,000 on it. He told us a pizza costs about ten dollars. Then he divided 1,000,000 by 10.
    â€œA hundred thousand pizzas!” shouted Andrea.
    â€œThat’s a lot of pizza!” said Michael.

    â€œI can only eat one or two slices,” said Emily.
    â€œMe too,” said Alexia.
    â€œWe can freeze the rest for leftovers,” said Neil. “That’s what we do at home.”
    â€œMay I ask where we will put all that leftover pizza?” asked Mr. Cooper.
    â€œI know,” said Alexia. “We can buy a thousand refrigerators!”
    â€œYeah!” everybody shouted.
    â€œAnd where are we going to put a thousand refrigerators?” asked Mr. Cooper.
    â€œIn the playground!” Michael said.
    â€œYeah!” everybody shouted.
    â€œAs long as we’re getting all those refrigerators,” said Neil, “let’s buy a milliondollars’ worth of ice cream. I like ice cream better than pizza.”
    â€œYeah!” everybody shouted.
    â€œWhy don’t we just buy a million dollars’ worth of candy?” I suggested. “Then we won’t need any refrigerators.”
    â€œYeah!” everybody shouted.
    We were coming up with some really good ideas. I was sure that our class would win the contest.
    â€œI hate to tell you this,” said Mr. Cooper, “but Ella Mentry did not give us a million dollars to buy junk food. She wants us to buy something useful for the school. We need to think outside the box.”
    I didn’t see any boxes around. If I wasin a box, I know what I would be thinking about—how to get out of the box.
    â€œWe could buy a racing car with a million dollars,” suggested Michael.
    â€œMaybe we could buy a football team,” suggested Neil.
    â€œHow about a skate park?” Alexia suggested.

    â€œWhy not give the million dollars to a school that doesn’t have any money?” suggested Emily.
    â€œ Our school doesn’t have any money!” I told her.
    â€œWell, we have money now ,” said Emily. “We have a million dollars.”
    â€œBut if we gave the million dollars to a school that doesn’t have any money,” I told her, “then we would be a school that doesn’t have any money again!”
    â€œMaybe we should put the money in the bank,” suggested Little Miss Perfect. “Then we could watch it grow.”
    â€œBanks are boring,” I said.
    â€œWell, what if we did something educational with the money,” suggested Mr. Cooper.
    Ugh. He said the E word.
    â€œEducational stuff is boring,” I said.
    â€œWell, A.J.,” said Mr. Cooper. “What is not boring to you?”
    I tried to think of something that isn’t boring. It was hard, because most stuff is boring.
    â€œTV,” I finally said. “TV isn’t boring.”
    That’s when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world.
    â€œI know!” I said. “We should buy one of those big flat-screen TVs for our class. That would be