Miss Kraft Is Daft! (6 page)

At first I thought she would refuse to do it. But Andrea always does anything a grown-up tells her to do, so she went up to the front of the room and climbed into the big box. There was a hole at one end for her head to poke through.

“Are you comfy?” Miss Kraft asked Andrea. “I want to make sure you're comfortable before I saw you in half.”

“Yes,” Andrea said, but she sounded like she didn't mean it. She looked like she might cry.

Miss Kraft went to the closet and took out a saw. It was
gigantic
!

“Eeeeeeeeeeeek!”
Andrea screamed as she looked at the saw.

“Don't worry,” Miss Kraft assured Andrea. “This won't hurt a bit.”

“I'm scared!” said Emily, the big crybaby.

Miss Kraft started sawing the box. Sawdust was flying everywhere. Andrea closed her eyes. The saw dug into the box.
*

“I am The Great Kraftini!” shouted Miss Kraft as she pushed and pulled the saw back and forth.

“Help!” Andrea shouted. “Stop!”

“We've got to
do
something!” Emily shouted, and then she went running out of the room.

“Whew, this is hard work!” Miss Kraft said after a few minutes of sawing. She wiped her face with a tissue. Then she wiped Andrea's face with a tissue.

“Can we stop now?” Andrea begged.

“Stop?” said Miss Kraft. “I'm only halfway done. You know what they say: If you start a job, you should always finish it.”

Miss Kraft went back to sawing for a few minutes, and then she stopped again.

“I'm tired!” she said. “Who wants to take over?”

“Me! Me! Me!” everybody shouted.

“A.J. should take over,” Neil said. “He hates Andrea more than anybody.”

It was true. Nobody hates Andrea more than I do. Sawing her in half would be the greatest moment of my life.

But I knew what would happen. I'd start sawing Andrea in half, and then Mr. Klutz would walk in and suspend me.

Everybody started chanting. “A.J.! A.J.! A.J.!”

“Would you like to finish sawing Andrea in half, A.J.?” asked Miss Kraft.

I
really
wanted to saw Andrea in half. But at the same time, I
really
didn't want to get into trouble again. I was faced with the hardest decision of my life.

I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I was concentrating so hard that my brain hurt.

“A.J.,” said Ryan, “if you don't want to saw Andrea in half, that must mean you're in love with her.”

WHAT?!

“That's right,” said Michael. “A.J., you can prove once and for all that you're not secretly in love with Andrea by sawing her in half.”

“Let me out of here!” Andrea shouted. “I don't want
anybody
to saw me in half!”

“Okay,” I finally agreed. “I'll do it!”

“Yay!” shouted everybody except for Andrea.

I went up to the front of the class, and Miss Kraft handed me the saw.

“Are you sure it's going to be okay?” I asked her.

“Sure I'm sure,” she replied. “Go ahead. I've done this trick a million times. Nothing can go wrong.”

I started sawing the box.

“Help! Help!” Andrea shouted. “Don't do it! Stop, Arlo!”

The sawdust was flying and Andrea was screaming and everybody was hooting and hollering. This was the greatest day of my life.

“Oooooo!”
Ryan said. “A.J. is sawing Andrea in half. They must be in
love
!”

“When are you gonna get married?” asked Michael.

If those guys weren't my best friends, I would hate them.

“Help! No! Stop!” Andrea shouted. I was almost finished sawing through the box.

And you'll never believe in a million hundred years who walked into the room at that moment.

I'm not going to tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you.

But you have to read the next chapter. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you.

Okay, so where were we? Oh, yeah, I was sawing Andrea in half while she was screaming and begging for me to stop. That's when
guess who
walked into the room.

Mr. Klutz! And he was madder than I had ever seen him. I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head like in the cartoons.

“A.J.!” he shouted, grabbing the saw out of my hand. “What are you doing?”

“Uh … nothing,” I replied.

If you get caught doing something really bad and somebody asks you what you're doing, always say “Nothing”—even if you have a giant saw in your hand and you're about to saw somebody in half. That's the first rule of being a kid.

“Sawing students in half is not acceptable behavior in school!” Mr. Klutz yelled. “That's it! I warned you several times, A.J. You are suspended … for the rest of your life!”

“What?! I didn't do anything!” I shouted. “Miss Kraft! Tell him this was all your idea!”

That's when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Miss Kraft snapped her fingers.

Well, that's not the amazing part, because anybody can snap their fingers. The amazing part was that when Miss Kraft snapped her fingers, a big puff of smoke appeared where Mr. Klutz was standing. And when the smoke cleared, Mr. Klutz was gone!

Zap! Just like that. We got to see it live and in person. You should have
been
there!

“How did you do that?” we were all asking. “Where did Mr. Klutz go?”

“A magician never reveals her secrets,” Miss Kraft said. “I
told
you I would take care of Mr. Klutz.”

 

Well, that's pretty much what happened. We didn't see Mr. Klutz for the rest of the day. I don't know where he went.

When I got home, my mom had a snack waiting for me in the kitchen.
*

“How was school today?” she asked. “Did anything interesting happen?”

“Nah,” told her. “School is boring.”

“You say that
every
day, A.J.,” my mom said. “Interesting things
must
happen at school sometimes.”

“Nope.”

Well, I wasn't going to tell
her
that Mr. Granite almost died, or that I tied up Miss Kraft, or that I sawed Andrea in half, or that Mr. Klutz suspended me and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

 

When I got to school the next morning, Miss Kraft was gone and Mr. Granite was back in our class. He wasn't sneezing and honking and blowing his nose anymore.

“Okay everybody,” he said, “turn to page twenty-three in your math books. I've been waiting all year to do this lesson, and today we're finally going to do it.”

“Uh, Mr. Granite,” I said, “we did page twenty-three yesterday.”

“Nice try, A.J.,” said Mr. Granite. “I know you're just trying to get out of doing math, like always.”

“No, he's telling the truth for once in his life, Mr. Granite,” said Andrea. “We already did page twenty-three.”

“Yeah,” everybody said.

“Is that so?” said Mr. Granite. “Well, if you kids think you're so smart, what's eleven times eleven?”