Free Mr. Granite Is from Another Planet! by Dan Gutman Page A

“P.A.L.” on them. Mr. Klutz, our principal, was up there too. He has no hair at all. I mean none . Mr. Klutz was wearing a green shirt, too, and his head was even painted green. Mr. Klutz is nuts.
    â€œIs it St. Patrick’s Day?” I asked Neil Crouch, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.
    â€œSt. Patrick’s Day is in March, dumbhead,” said Neil.
    â€œSo is your face,” I replied.
    After we finished pledging the allegiance, Mr. Klutz went to the microphone.
    â€œWelcome back to Ella Mentry School,” he announced. “I want to introduce the new members of our staff. This is Mrs. Jafee, our vice principal. And this is Mr. Brad, our school counselor. And over here is our new third-grade teacher, Mr. Granite.”
    The three of them stood up. Everybody clapped. I waved to Mr. Granite. I knew he was going to be my third-grade teacher because I’d met him on the beach over the summer. I even saw him yesterday at Staples.
    â€œWe’re wearing green today to show that Ella Mentry School cares about the environment,” said Mr. Klutz. “This year we’re going to use less energy, create lesswaste, and help the planet. The program will be under Mr. Granite’s supervision.”
    â€œWow,” I whispered to Ryan. “Mr. Granite has super vision! That means he can see through walls!”

    â€œYou returning students know I like to challenge you,” Mr. Klutz continued. “Sohere’s a new challenge. If Ella Mentry School is named the greenest school in the county for the month of September, we’ll have an all-you-can-eat chocolate cake party!”
    YAY!
    Everybody went crazy, because we all love chocolate cake. That’s the first rule of being a kid.

3
Pedal Power
    After the assembly Mr. Granite led us to our new classroom. There were posters all over the walls with pictures of rocket ships and stars and planets. It was cool. But the weird thing was, instead of desks, the room was filled with exercise bicycles!
    â€œWhy are there bikes in here?” askedthis annoying girl named Emily, who is Andrea’s crybaby friend.
    â€œIt’s part of my new P.A.L. program,” said Mr. Granite. “Pedal And Learn. Instead of burning coal or oil to get electricity to run our school, we’re going to pedal these exercise bikes. So we’ll learn new things, save energy, and get exercise all at the same time. It’s a win-win!”
    We get to ride bikes in school? Cool! Bikes are fun. I have a trick bike at home.
    I hopped on a bike between Michael and Ryan.
    â€œIn third grade we’re going to learn a lot about space,” Mr. Granite told us. “So start pedaling, P.A.L.s!”
    â€œI know a poem about space,” I said as I started to pedal my bike. Mr. Granite said I could recite it. It goes like this:
    Boys go to Mars to get candy bars.
    Girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider.
    â€œThat’s not nice, Arlo!” said Andrea.
    â€œNeither is your face.”
    As we pedaled our bikes, Mr. Granite told us lots of stuff about the planets and stars. Did you know that Venus is the hottest planet? It can get up to nine hundred degrees there! I hope they have a lot of swimming pools on Venus. Because when I get really hot, I want to jump in a pool.

    Did you know that a day on Jupiter is less than ten hours long?
    Did you know that astronauts are a little taller in space because there’s no gravity to push their bones together?
    Did you know that the ancient Greeks called our galaxy the Milky Way becausethey thought it was made of drops of milk?
    Those Greeks were weird.
    â€œIt takes eight minutes for the sun’s light to reach Earth,” Mr. Granite told us. “So if the sun exploded right now, we would still have eight minutes to live.”
    Emily jumped off her bike and started freaking out.
    â€œEight minutes to live?” she yelled. “We’ve got to do