Mr. Granite Is from Another Planet! (5 page)

At three o'clock on Friday, the school secretary, Mrs. Patty, made an announcement that everybody had to go to the all-purpose room. When we got there, Mr. Klutz was up on the stage. He was holding a piece of paper.

“I have big news!” Mr. Klutz told us.

“Mr. Klutz has a big nose,” I whispered to Ryan.

“Are we the greenest school in the county?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“No, we came in second place,” Mr. Klutz said.

Everybody groaned because that meant we weren't going to have a chocolate cake party.

“Second place?” Michael asked. “How could
any
school be greener than ours?”

“Well,” said Mr. Klutz, “the students at one of the other schools actually painted their school green! Too bad
we
didn't think of that.”

I looked at Ryan. Ryan looked at Michael.
Michael looked at me.

“So what's the big news?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“The big news is that we received a letter from the president of the United States!” said Mr. Klutz.

“WOW!” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down. I stuck my tongue out at Andrea, because she had thought it was a dumb idea to write to the president.

Mr. Klutz read the letter:

It was cool to get a letter from the president, even if the letter made no sense at all.

“I have more big news,” Mr. Klutz told us. “Our third-grade teacher, Mr. Granite, is from a planet called Etinarg; and he is going home today. So we're going to have a going-away party…with chocolate cake!”

“YAY!” everybody yelled.

We went out to the playground, where there was the biggest chocolate cake in the history of the world. Everybody was out there, even Jackie Macky. Mr. Brad cut
the cake and Mrs. Jafee passed out pieces to everybody. Mr. Granite's spaceship was out in the field, near the cows. It was covered with potatoes.

“MOOOOOOOO,” said a cow.

We stuffed our faces with so much cake, I thought I was gonna throw up. It was the greatest day of my life. After we finished, Mr. Granite put on a space suit, and we went over to say good-bye to him. It was really sad.

“I'm going to miss you kids,” said Mr. Granite. “When I get home, I'm going to name my Etinarg friends A.J., Andrea, Ryan, Emily, Michael, and Neil.”

“We'll miss you too,” said Andrea.

“I hope that after I am gone,” Mr. Granite told us, “you will keep saving energy and living green.”

“We will!” we all shouted.

Everybody was sad to see Mr. Granite
go. Emily cried, of course. So did some of the teachers. Mr. Granite waved to us as he climbed into his spaceship. Everybody gathered around. Mrs. Yonkers went over to her computer and announced the countdown.

“10…9…8…7…6…5…4…

3…2…1!” said Mrs. Yonkers. “Begin microwaving the potatoes!”

Our science teacher, Mr. Docker, flipped a switch. Nothing happened for like a million hundred seconds. Then there was a little
ding
sound. Steam started pouring out of the potatoes. The whole field smelled like baked potatoes. Slowly, the spaceship began rising off the ground.

“LIFT OFF!” yelled Mrs. Yonkers. “We have liftoff!”

That's when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. One of the cows must have liked the smell of baked
potatoes, because it came running over to the spaceship.

The cow bumped right into it!

The spaceship was going up crooked!

“Houston, we have a problem!” shouted Mr. Docker.

The spaceship zoomed to the left. Then it zoomed to the right. It was zigzagging back and forth in the sky over the school.

“Abandon ship!” shouted Mrs. Yonkers. “Abandon ship!”

The door to the spaceship opened, and Mr. Granite jumped out. A parachute opened, and he floated back down to Earth.

Well, he
almost
floated back down to
Earth. On the way down, his parachute landed on the windmill.

The ropes got all tangled up!

Mr. Granite was caught on the windmill!

He was spinning around and around!

It was a real Kodak moment. You should have been there.

Meanwhile, Mr. Granite's spaceship crash-landed in a field across the street from our school. It exploded! Pieces of baked potato went flying everywhere! It was cool. And we got to see it live and in person.

 

Well, that's pretty much the way it all went down. The windmill finally stopped turning, and the teachers were able to get Mr. Granite back on the ground again.

Maybe Mr. Granite will build another spaceship. Or maybe he'll just stay on Earth and be our teacher. Maybe Andrea will stop recycling her toilet paper and put her head in a paper shredder. Maybe there won't be any more flying saucers in the teachers' lounge. Maybe Jackie Macky will stop sucking her own toes. Maybe the president will trim the hair on the nose attached to his foot. Maybe Ryan will stop talking about E.T. Maybe they'll start selling laser beam pens at Staples. Maybe the sun will explode. Maybe Emily will stop running into cows. Maybe we'll find out what makes Mr. Granite tick. Maybe we'll be able to hear words like “naked” and
“Uranus” without giggling.

But it won't be easy!
^*