Mrs. Lizzy Is Dizzy! (2 page)

Monday was Crazy-Hair Day. My mom put this stinky gel stuff on my hair and combed it all toward the middle to make a fake mohawk. She called it a “fohawk.” It was cool.

Michael sprayed green dye in his hair. Neil the nude kid had on a baldy wig. He
looked just like Mr. Klutz! Ryan put some orange stuff in his hair but left thin, dark lines in it so his head looked like a basketball. Andrea and Emily put colored ribbons and bows all over their hair.

Even Mr. Granite had crazy hair. He showed up with purple dreadlocks. It was hilarious. You should have been there!

After we put our backpacks away and pledged the allegiance, Mr. Granite said it was time for math. I hate math. Why do we have to learn math when there are calculators in the world? That’s like walking ten miles to a store when you can take a car.

It’s really hard to pay attention to math when your teacher has purple dreadlocks. In fact, it was hard to learn
anything
that morning because we were all looking at each other’s crazy hair. My mohawk was itching, too.

After a million hundred hours, it was time for lunch. And then, of course, it was the best time of the day.

Recess!

Recess rocks! It’s the only thing I like about school. We get to go out on the playground and do whatever we want. My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that when you go to heaven, it’s like recess all the time.

I went to play on the swings with Ryan, Michael, and Neil the nude kid. Andrea and her girly friends hung around so they could annoy us, like always.

So there we were, minding our own business on the swings, when this lady walked over from across the street with yellow hair. Well,
her
hair was yellow, not the street. It would be weird if streets were yellow.

Anyway, the hair on both sides of her head was curled up into buns like Princess Leia from
Star Wars
. It looked like she was wearing earmuffs. Or maybe she taped dinner rolls to her head. She looked weird.

“Hi kids!” she said. “My name is Elizabeth. But you can call me Mrs. Lizzy.”

We told Mrs. Lizzy our names. Andrea
and Emily said they liked her hairstyle.

“Are you Princess Leia?” asked Michael.

“Are those dinner rolls taped to your head?” I asked. “Or are you wearing earmuffs?”

“Goodness no!” Mrs. Lizzy said. “This is my real hair.”

“Did you do that for Crazy-Hair Day?” asked Ryan.

“No, I wear my hair like this
every
day,” said Mrs. Lizzy.

If you ask me, she should cut her hair and get earmuffs instead.

“Are you a new teacher?” asked Andrea, who never misses a chance to brownnose a teacher.

“In a way, yes,” Mrs. Lizzy told us. “The Board of Education decided that kids don’t learn enough in school. So they started the ‘Recess Enrichment Program.’ That means you kids will get to learn new things during recess. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

“Yes!” said the girls.

“No!” said the boys.

What?! We have to learn stuff during recess? What’s the deal with
that
?

Mrs. Lizzy told us boys to cheer up. She said that the Recess Enrichment Program will be fun and that she was going to teach us lots of cool things.

Bummer in the summer! It wasn’t fair, if you ask me. Recess is supposed to be for
burning off energy and running around. Nobody told us anything about a Recess Enrichment Program.

This was the worst thing to happen in my life since TV Turnoff Week.

Mother’s Day was coming up on Sunday. Mrs. Lizzy said that for our first recess enrichment project we should make something for our mothers.

“I’m going to cook my mom breakfast in bed,” said Andrea.

“How are you gonna do that?” I asked.
“Do you have a stove in your bed?”

“No, Arlo!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes. “I’m going to make her breakfast on the stove and
then
bring it to her in bed.”

“Oh,” I said. “That’s different.”

“My mom loves to eat breakfast in her pajamas,” Emily said.

“She should put her breakfast on a
plate
,” I told Emily. “Your mom is weird.”

Emily looked all mad, like she was going to start crying. As usual.

“No, dumbhead!” Andrea said to me, rolling her eyes again. “Emily’s mom doesn’t put the breakfast
in
her pajamas! She eats it while she’s
wearing
her pajamas!”

I knew that. I just like yanking Andrea’s and Emily’s chains.

“Mothers like it when you make them a gift for Mother’s Day,” Mrs. Lizzy told us. “Today I’m going to teach you how to make the perfect Mother’s Day gift.”

“What’s the perfect Mother’s Day gift?” asked Ryan.

“A balloon animal!” said Mrs. Lizzy.

She pulled a long red balloon out of her pocket and blew it up. Then she tied the end and twisted the balloon every which way. It was really squeaky. The next thing we knew, the balloon animal was finished.

“See?” Mrs. Lizzy said. “It’s a little doggie! Here, I’ll show you kids how to make one.”

Mrs. Lizzy’s balloon dog was cool. It really looked like a dog. She pulled more
balloons out of her pocket and gave one to each of us.

“Is it really important for children to learn how to make balloon animals?” asked Andrea. “Maybe we should use the Recess Enrichment Program to improve our reading, writing, and math skills.”

“Can you possibly be more boring?” I asked Andrea.

What is her problem? Reading, writing, and math are way overrated. And balloon animals are cool.

“Think of it this way, Andrea,” said Mrs. Lizzy. “When you grow up, you’ll probably go on a job interview one day. What would happen if you were on a job interview and
they asked you to make a balloon animal? If you had never learned how to do that as a child, you wouldn’t get the job. That would be a shame. Unemployment is a big problem in our country. That’s why it’s so important for kids to learn how to make balloon animals.”

Yeah! In her face! I love it when Andrea’s wrong.

“And imagine if all the bad people in the world made balloon animals instead of committing crimes and hurting people,” Mrs. Lizzy told us. “The world would be a much better place, don’t you think?”

Mrs. Lizzy made sense. I liked her a lot. She also made great balloon animals. We
all blew up our balloons and twisted them every which way.

“I worked my way through college by making balloon animals,” Mrs. Lizzie told us. “I graduated with a degree in balloon animal construction.”

“College must have been a lot cheaper in those days,” I said.

Some kids from the other classes gathered around to watch us make balloon animals. It was cool.

Maybe the Recess Enrichment Program wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Tuesday was Crazy-Clothes Day. I wore my dad’s pinstriped shirt, a red bow tie, soccer shorts, mittens, and knee pads. Knee pads are cool because you can flop down on your knees and it doesn’t hurt.

“A.J.,” Ryan said when he saw me come into our classroom, “those are the craziest
clothes I ever saw.”

Like he should talk! Ryan was wearing his sister’s dress, his mom’s fur coat, and a pair of 2009 glasses that had the
00
go over his eyes and the
2
and the
9
on either side of his head.

Everybody was wearing crazy clothes.

At recess, guess who showed up at the playground again? Mrs. Lizzy, of course.
She was wearing a black plastic trash bag with holes cut out for her arms and legs. And she was carrying a bucket.

“Hi kids!” she said when she saw us.

“Hi Mrs. Lizzy!” we all yelled.

“Did you dress like that because it’s Crazy-Clothes Day?” asked Andrea.

“No,” she replied, “I always dress like this on Tuesdays.”

That was weird. But if you think
that
was weird, you’ll never believe in a million hundred years what Mrs. Lizzy brought with her to the playground.

I’m not gonna tell you.

Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.

It was a goat!

She had a goat with her! And it was on a leash!

“Where did you get that goat, Mrs. Lizzy?” asked Michael.

“From Rent-A-Goat,” she told us. “You can rent anything. This is my friend Pootie. Goats are my favorite animals. Do you kids have pets at home?”

“I have a ferret named Wiggles,” said Neil the nude kid.

(Last year on Presidents’ Day, Neil brought Wiggles to school. Wiggles escaped from his cage, got lost, climbed onto Emily’s head, and was elected president of the school. That was weird.)

“I have a dog and some fish,” I said. “It’s my job to feed the fish. But one time a fish jumped out of the tank and my dog ate it. That night my mom asked me if I fed the fish and I told her that I fed the fish to the dog. I wasn’t too upset when my dog ate my fish, because at least my fish didn’t eat my dog. That would have been weird.”

Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny.

“Well, today for recess enrichment we’re
going to learn another important life skill,” Mrs. Lizzie told us. “I’m going to teach you how to milk Pootie the goat.”

What?!

“Naaaaaaayyyyy,” said Pootie.

“Milk comes out of goats?” I asked. “I thought milk came out of cows.”

“It comes out of goats, too, Arlo,” said Andrea. Little Miss Know-It-All was proud of herself because she knew something I didn’t know. I hate her.

“See, we learned something already,” said Mrs. Lizzy. “Goats give milk.”

“I have a question,” said Andrea.

“Yes?”

“Is it really important for us to learn how
to milk a goat?” Andrea asked. “I thought the Recess Enrichment Program was for us to learn how to do useful things, like use a camera, play musical instruments, or do arts and crafts projects.”

“That’s an excellent question, Andrea,” said Mrs. Lizzy. “But what if you were playing in the playground one day and a goat wandered over? And what if the goat needed to be milked? And what if you had never learned how to milk a goat? That would be a shame. The poor goat wouldn’t get milked. That’s why this is so important. You never know when you might have to milk a goat.”

“Naaaaaaayyyyy,” said Pootie.

I really didn’t think there was much
chance that a goat was going to wander over to our playground. But I wasn’t complaining, because Mrs. Lizzy told Andrea she was wrong. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea. It was the greatest day of my life.

“Okay,” Mrs. Lizzy said, getting down on her knees, “this is how you milk a goat.”

Mrs. Lizzy put her bucket under Pootie. Then she grabbed Pootie’s udder and started pulling on it every which way. It looked like she was going to make it into a balloon animal! But Pootie didn’t seem to mind. Soon milk started coming out, and Mrs. Lizzy squirted it into the bucket.

“Ew, disgusting!” I said.

“Naaaaaaayyyyy,” said Pootie.

We were all giggling and making rude remarks and pretending to throw up. Emily couldn’t even watch.

“This is hard on my knees,” Mrs. Lizzy said. “How about one of you takes over and milks Pootie?”

None of us wanted to milk Pootie. I looked at the ground. Ryan looked at the ground. Neil looked at the ground. Even
Andrea
looked at the ground. If you don’t want the teacher to call on you, always look at the ground. That’s the first rule of being a kid.

“A.J.,” Mrs. Lizzy said, “you’re wearing knee pads. How about
you
milk Pootie?”

“Yeah!” everybody agreed.

“That’s a great idea!” said Michael. “A.J. should milk Pootie. He’s got knee pads.”

I knew the only reason Michael thought it was a great idea for me to milk Pootie was because
he
wouldn’t have to milk Pootie.

That’s the last time I wear knee pads to school.

I got down on my knees. Mrs. Lizzy showed me how to take Pootie’s udders and yank on them to squirt the milk into the bucket. I’m not going to bore you with all the details. But it was disgusting. I thought I was gonna throw up. Pootie didn’t complain, though. She seemed happy to get milked.

“So, what do you think, A.J.?” asked Mrs. Lizzy. “Isn’t milking a goat fun?”

“I think I’ll never drink milk again,” I told her.

“Arlo, you probably never drink milk
anyway
,” Andrea said, rolling her eyes.

“I do too,” I said. “I have Milk Duds and Milky Way bars all the time. They have milk in them.”

Why can’t a goat fall on Andrea’s head?