Mr. Docker Is Off His Rocker! (3 page)

Vacations are the best. No school for a whole week! No teachers yelling at you to stop talking. No homework. No getting up early. No Andrea.

My family went to the beach. I didn't think about school once. It was great.

But then came Monday, the worst day
of the week. When I got on the bus for school, I was tired because I had to get up so early.

“Good morning,” I grunted to Mrs. Kormel, the bus driver.

“Bingle boo,” Mrs. Kormel replied. Mrs. Kormel is not normal.

I thought I was in some weird science fiction movie. All the kids on the bus had strange stuff on their laps. One kid had two soda bottles stuck together, and he
was shaking them to make a little tornado. One kid had a microscope. One kid had a bunch of balloons.

Then I remembered—the science fair!

I sat next to Ryan. He had some boxes of cereal and a big magnet. He said he was going to find out how much iron was in each kind of cereal.

All morning I tried to think of an excuse for not bringing in an experiment. I couldn't say my dog ate it because I used that one last time. Besides, I don't have a dog.

Finally it was time for science. Mr. Docker came to our class so we wouldn't have to carry our experiments to the
science room. Everybody had an experiment on their desk.

Everybody but me.

“Didn't you do an experiment, A.J.?” asked Andrea. “You're going to be in trouble.”

“So is your face,” I said.

Let me give you some advice. If you ever get stuck and you don't know what to say to somebody, just say, “So is your face.” If somebody says you're ugly or some other mean thing, just say, “So is your face.” There's nothing they can say. You really can't go wrong with “So is your face.”

Everybody started asking Mr. Docker questions.

“How can you tell the difference between a crocodile and an alligator?” Emily asked.

“Alligators have bigger snouts,” said Mr. Docker.

Wow, Mr. Docker knows everything!

“Is a zebra white with black stripes or black with white stripes?” Michael asked.

“You'll have to shave a zebra to find out,” said Mr. Docker. “But we don't have time for questions today. I'm anxious to see your experiments. Let's start with the A people.”

Why do we always have to do stuff in ABC order? I always have to go first!

Luckily, Miss I-know-everything had
her hand up, so she got to go first. Andrea brought a big cardboard box up to the front of the room.

“My what-if question was, What if I played music to flowers?” Andrea said. “What kind would help them grow?”

That had to be the dumbest experiment in the history of the world.

Inside the box Andrea had four flowerpots. She made all these charts and graphs to show what she did. Teachers love that stuff.

“I played Beethoven for flower number one,” Andrea said. “Flower number two heard jazz music. Flower number three listened to rock and roll. And with flower
number four, I sang the songs of my favorite show,
Annie
.”

Andrea started singing that dumb song about the sun coming out tomorrow.

“I'm surprised that flower number four didn't die,” I whispered to Ryan.

“And what was your conclusion, Andrea?” asked Mr. Docker.

“Number four grew tallest,” she said. “So my conclusion is that flowers like to hear me sing.”

That's more than I can say for human beings.

“You get an A,” said Mr. Docker. “Who's next? A.J.?”

“A.J. didn't do an experiment,” Andrea
said as she was putting her box away.

“I did too,” I said.

“It must be invisible.”

“So is your face,” I said.

I walked up to the front of the room. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. I had to think fast.

“My what-if question was, What if you don't feed a fish?” I said.

“I beg your pardon?” asked Mr. Docker.

“My chore at home is to put food in our fish tank,” I said. “Well, we went on vacation to the beach last week. So as an
experiment
, I didn't put food in the fish tank.”

“Um-hmm,” said Mr. Docker.

“Then we came home and I looked at the result,” I said.

“And what was the result?” asked Mr. Docker.

“The fish was dead.”

“No food, eh?” said Mr. Docker.

“Well, I gave it plenty of water,” I said.

“And your conclusion?”

“Without food, living things die,” I said.

“Awesome experiment!” Ryan whispered when I got back to my seat. “You should get the Nobel Prize.”

Andrea stood up, like she was all mad.

“That was no experiment!” she said. “You just forgot to feed your fish and you
killed
it! You're such a dumbhead!”

“Oh, you sing to flowers and you call
me
a dumbhead?” I said right back. “Flowers don't even have ears!”

Mr. Docker told me and Andrea to calm down.

“I feel bad about your fish, A.J.,” he said. “But I must admit, you used the scientific method. So I'm giving you an A.”

I stuck my tongue out at Andrea. Ha-ha!
In her face! She spent the whole vacation working on a dumb experiment while I was having fun boogie boarding! And I still got an A! Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on her! It was the greatest moment of my life.

“What kind of fish was it?” Mr. Docker asked me.

“A sucker barb,” I said, and everyone laughed just because “sucker” is a funny word.

“Can you tell us anything about sucker barbs, A.J.?”

I didn't know a thing about sucker barbs. I never even paid any attention to our fish. That's probably why I forgot to feed it before we went on vacation.

“I'll look sucker barbs up in my dictionary,” said Andrea. She started flipping through the pages. “S…S-H…S-P…S-T—”

Suddenly Andrea stopped and screamed.

“What's the matter, Andrea?” asked Mr. Docker.

“Somebody drew a mean picture in my dictionary!”

“It was
you
!” Andrea yelled. “You drew the picture of me in my dictionary next to the word ‘stupid'!”

It was recess. She had dragged me to the big turtle so nobody could hear what she was saying.

“I did not,” I lied.

“Did too.”

We went back and forth like that for a while.

“You'd better be nice to me,” Andrea said, “or I'm going to tell everyone what A.J. stands for.”

“You don't even know what A.J. stands for,” I said. “You're just trying to get me to tell. I know your tricks.”

Andrea said her mother is vice president of the PTA (Parents who Talk Alot), and she can find out anything about anybody. Then she whispered in my ear.

“A.J. stands for…”

And then she said it.

Oh no! She was
right
!

She knew! I thought I was gonna die. Andrea was gonna tell everyone. They'd be making fun of me forever. I'd never hear the end of it. My life was over!

I had no choice. There was only one thing I could do.

I would have to be nice to Andrea.

When recess was over, Miss Daisy asked us to pick a partner and work on our social studies worksheet.

“Hey A.J.,” Andrea said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “do you want to be my study buddy?”

Most of the time I work with Ryan or Michael. I would rather die than be study buddies with Andrea. But I would also
rather die than have everyone know what A.J. stands for.

“Okay,” I said.

I was nice to Andrea all afternoon. It was the worst afternoon of my life. Finally three o'clock came. Time to go home. Miss Daisy told us to clean up. Just before the bell rang, Andrea dropped her pencil box on the floor. Pencils rolled all over.

“A.J.,” Andrea said, “be a dear and pick up my pencils.”

Any other day I would laugh at her and tell her to pick up her own dumb pencils. But this wasn't any other day. This was the day I found out that Andrea knew what A.J. stands for.

I picked up her dumb pencils.

On the bus home, I wanted to sit alone, but Ryan and Michael grabbed seats next to me.

“You sure were nice to Andrea today,” Ryan said.

“I saw her talking to you near the big turtle,” said Michael.

“Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea
are in
love
!”

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

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

“Mr. Docker, if I weigh sixty pounds,” Michael asked when we got to the science room, “how much would I weigh on the moon?”

“About ten pounds,” said Mr. Docker, who knows everything.

“My mother should go to the moon,” I
said. “She's always trying to lose weight.”

“Mr. Docker, when I smell something really bad,” asked Ryan, “is that yucky thing inside my nose?”

“Well, yes, tiny particles of it,” said Mr. Docker. “The air carries dust, chemicals, and even animals! Some of that clings to the hairs of your nose.”

“Gross!”

Just having
hair
in your nose is disgusting! Not to mention all that other stuff.

“No more questions today,” Mr. Docker said. “I want to show you something.”

He had a big pot on his desk, and smoke was coming out of it.

“What's that?” Andrea asked.

“Liquid nitrogen,” said Mr. Docker. “It's a gas that has been turned into a very cold liquid. Now don't try this at home, kids.”

He took a long rose and dipped it in the pot. Then he took it out and hit the rose against the chalkboard. The rose petals cracked off like they were potato chips!

“Cool!” we all said.

“It's so cool, it's three hundred fifty degrees below zero,” Mr. Docker said.

Then he blew up a balloon and dipped it in the liquid nitrogen. When he took it out, it was tiny.

“Cold air makes things smaller,” said
Mr. Docker. “Now watch this.”

He took a piece of wood out of his desk drawer. There was a nail sticking out of it. Then he took a banana and held it in the liquid nitrogen for about a minute. When he took it out, he started whacking the nail into the piece of wood with the banana! Cool! I never saw anybody hammer in a nail with a banana before.

After science we went to the vomitorium for lunch. Usually I shoot straw wrappers at Andrea and her annoying friends at the next table. But I had to be nice to her because I didn't want her telling everybody what A.J. stands for.

Andrea and Emily came over to our table.

“Is anyone sitting here?” Andrea asked.

Usually I would say something obnoxious like “The Invisible Man is sitting here, so get lost.” But I didn't.

“You can sit there,” I said. Michael and Ryan giggled and made kissy faces.

Ryan gave me his cupcake and I gave him my asparagus. Ryan will eat anything.

“I wonder what Mr. Docker is eating,” Michael said. “Probably spiders.”

“Yeah,” Ryan said, “I bet he's sprinkling them on his cereal.”

“That's crazy,” I said. “Nobody eats cereal for lunch.”

“Something tells me that if you sprinkle bugs on your food,” said Andrea, “you don't care which meal it is.”

“Mr. Docker sure is weird,” Emily said.

“Maybe he's not a science teacher at all,” I said. “Did you ever think of that?”

“What do you mean?” asked Emily.

“Maybe he's just pretending to be a science teacher,” I said.

“Yeah,” said Ryan. “Maybe he's a mad
scientist who kidnaps real science teachers and swaps brains with them. Stuff like that happens all the time, you know.”

“It does?”

“Stop trying to scare Emily,” said Andrea.

“Think about it,” Michael said. “Mr. Docker told us he has a laboratory at home. He wears a lab coat. He has a weird laugh. He eats bugs. And he uses a banana for a hammer. He's
got
to be a mad scientist!”

“Maybe Mr. Docker is a loony who brainwashes people,” Ryan suggested.

“Brainwash?” Emily was shaking. “What's that?”

“That's a shampoo for bald guys,” I said. “They don't have any hair, so they wash their brains.”

“No it's not,” Ryan said. “I saw brainwashing in a movie. They hook wires up to your head and wipe out your memory so you don't remember anything. Then they program you to turn evil.”

“We've got to do something!” said Emily, and she went running out of the vomitorium. Emily is weird.

“She's right, you know,” Andrea said. “We can't let Mr. Docker get away with brainwashing our real science teacher.”

“What can we do?” asked Michael.

“Mr. Docker lives down the street from
me,” Ryan said. “We can spy on him.”

“Then we can thwart his evil plan,” I said. I always wanted to say “thwart.” It's a cool word. I saw it in a comic book once.

We agreed to go on a secret spying mission at Mr. Docker's house on Saturday.

Shh! Don't tell anybody!