Mrs. Jafee Is Daffy!

 
1
   The End of Mr. Klutz?

 
2
   A New National Holiday

 
3
   Nice and Calm

 
4
   The New Fizz Ed Teacher

 
5
   I Thought I Was Gonna Die

 
6
   Stonewall Jackson

 
7
   A New Way to Learn

 
8
   Mrs. Jafee’s Evil Plan

 
9
   The Greatest Moment of My Life

10
  The Un-Civil War

11
  Arurahruhmrah

About the Author and the Illustrator

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

My name is A.J. and I hate school.
*

I would rather go shopping for clothes with my mom than go to school. I would rather watch a ballet than go to school. I would rather eat a squirrel that got hit by
a car and was lying in the middle of the road for a week than go to school.

Well, maybe not that last one.

It was Monday, the worst day of the week. Everybody had to go to the all-purpose room, which is a room we use for all purposes, so it has the perfect name.

The whole school was gabbing when our principal, Mr. Klutz, got up on the stage. He was holding a suitcase. Mr. Klutz has no hair at all. I mean
none
. Not even a little on the sides, like my grandpa.

“I have an important announcement to make,” said Mr. Klutz.

“Quiet!” said Michael, who never ties his shoes. “Mr. Klutz is gonna make an important announcement!”

“Shhhhh!” said Ryan, who will eat anything. “Mr. Klutz is gonna make an important announcement!”

“Stop talking!” said Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes. “Mr. Klutz is gonna make an important announcement!”

We were all buzzing so much about Mr. Klutz’s announcement that he couldn’t make the announcement that he was trying to announce.

The teachers held up peace signs with their fingers, which means “shut up.” But nobody shut up.

Mr. Klutz reached into his pocket and pulled out one of those air horn cans that people bring to football games.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

We all covered our ears and stopped talking.

“Boys and girls, I want to let you know that I have to go to the airport, because I’m leaving—”

WHAT?!

“Mr. Klutz is leaving!” one of the second graders yelled.

Everybody started freaking out, screaming, crying, and falling out of their seats. You should have been there!

“Mr. Klutz isn’t going to be our principal anymore!” wailed Andrea Young, this annoying girl in my class with curly brown hair. “He must have been fired!”

“We’ve got to
do
something!” shouted Andrea’s crybaby friend, Emily. Then she went running out of the all-purpose room.

Even the teachers were sobbing and blowing their noses into tissues. Well, they blew the
snot
from their noses into the tissues, not the noses
themselves. If they blew their noses into the tissues, their noses would fall off; and it would be weird to walk around without a nose.

“Don’t leave us!” wailed Ms. Hannah, the art teacher. She jumped onstage and was hanging on to Mr. Klutz’s leg.

“What will we do without you?” moaned Miss Lazar, the custodian.

Mr. Klutz held up the air horn can again.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Everybody stopped yelling and crying.

“As I was saying,” Mr. Klutz said, “I’m leaving…for four days.”

Oh. That’s different.

We were all glad that Mr. Klutz wasn’t leaving for good, because he’s the best principal in the history of the world. One time I got sent to his office for bad behavior and he gave me a candy bar. It was the greatest moment of my life.

After Mr. Klutz’s big announcement, we
went back to class with our teacher, Mr. Granite, who is from another planet.

“G’day, mates!” said Mr. Granite. “This week we’re going to learn about the Civil War. It was called the War between the States because the Northern states and the Southern states fought each other.”

What?! That makes no sense at all.

“If you’re gonna have a war,” Michael said, “you should fight somebody
else
.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Having a war with yourself is like punching yourself in the nose.”

“Maybe we ran out of other countries to fight,” said Ryan, “so we had to fight ourselves.”

“Boys are dumbheads,” said Andrea, rolling her eyes.

I was going to say “So is your face” to Andrea, but you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who walked into the door at that moment.

Nobody, because if you walked into a door it would hurt. But you’ll never believe who walked into the door
way
.

It was Mrs. Jafee, the vice principal!

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, Mrs. Jafee?” asked Mr. Granite.

(That’s grown-up talk for “What are
you
doing here?”)

“Howdy, guys and gals!” said Mrs. Jafee. “I’m still new at Ella Mentry School, so I wanted to introduce myself to each class personally. With Mr. Klutz away for four
days, I say it’s a good chance for us to get to know each other better, by golly.”

“Does anybody know what the word ‘vice’ means in ‘vice principal’?” asked Mr. Granite.

A bunch of hands shot in the air. Mr. Granite called on Michael.

“Vice means ‘not good enough,’” Michael said. “Like, the vice president isn’t good enough to be president.”

“Uh, not exactly,” said Mrs. Jafee.

I got called on next.

“My dad uses a vice in his workshop to hold stuff,” I said. “I took one of my sister’s dolls and crushed it in the vice. That was cool.”

“Uh, not that kind of vice, A.J.,” said Mr. Granite.

Andrea was waving her hands around like somebody who was stranded on a desert island trying to signal a plane. She is so annoying. Andrea keeps a dictionary
on her desk so she can look up words and show everybody how smart she is.

“A vice is a bad habit, like smoking, drinking, or gambling,” she said.

“Yes, but that’s not it either,” said Mr. Granite.

Ha! For the first time in her life, Andrea got something wrong! It should be a national holiday. They could call it Dumbhead Andrea Day. We should get that day off from school every year. Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea! In her face!

“Vice means ‘instead of’ or ‘in the place of,’” Mrs. Jafee told us. “I’m going to be responsible while Mr. Klutz is away. Do you know what it means to be responsible?”

“That means you mess up a lot,” I said.
“Any time something goes wrong at my house, my mom says I’m responsible.”

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

“You haven’t been vice principal for very long, Mrs. Jafee,” said Mr. Granite. “Are you sure you have enough experience to be principal?”

“You betcha!” Mrs. Jafee said. “When I sit at my desk, I can see Mr. Klutz’s office.”

I didn’t see what that had to do with anything.

“Where did Mr. Klutz go?” asked Emily.

“He is on his way to Principal Camp,” Mrs. Jafee told us. “He’s going to learn how to be a better principal.”

“But Mr. Klutz is already a great
principal,” said Neil the nude kid.

“He’ll be even better when he gets back,” Mrs. Jafee said.

“Principal Camp sounds like fun,” said Emily.

“What if something terrible happens to Mr. Klutz at Principal Camp?” I asked.

“Like what, A.J.?” said Mr. Granite.

“Well, what if his canoe tips over and he drowns in the lake?” I asked.

“They don’t have canoes and lakes at Principal Camp, Arlo!” Andrea said, rolling her eyes. She calls me by my real name because she knows I don’t like it.

“They do too.”

“Do not.”

We went on like that for a while. Andrea said that Principal Camp was probably just a bunch of grown-ups sitting around eating cheese and crackers. That’s what all grown-ups do.

“I like cheese and crackers,” said Ryan.

“What kind of cheese will they have?” asked Michael. “I like monster cheese.”

“It’s not monster cheese, dumbhead,” said Andrea. “It’s Muenster cheese.”

“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.

“My mom told me there used to be a TV show called
The Munsters
,” said Neil.

Mr. Granite made the shut-up peace sign with his fingers.

“Okeydokey, can we get back on topic, please?” asked Mrs. Jafee. “Everything is going to be fine while Mr. Klutz is away. What could possibly go wrong?”

I remember the last time somebody asked what could possibly go wrong. It was our graduation from second grade. I threw my cap in the air and it knocked over the eternal flame and set Emily on fire and Emily freaked out and knocked over the graduation cake and Neil the
nude kid almost got trampled by a goat that escaped from the petting zoo and the fire department came and sprayed water on everybody and Andrea’s mom and Ryan’s mom started wrestling each other and my teacher Miss Daisy fainted and we thought the school security guard was kissing her even though he was just giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and then we found out that Miss Daisy fainted because she was pregnant.

You should have been there!

But I’m sure nothing like that could
possibly
happen this time.