Mrs. Yonkers Is Bonkers! (3 page)

We were still depressed about the junk food shortage when we got to computer class that afternoon. When we walked into the lab, Mrs. Yonkers was sitting on top of her desk, and her computer was on her chair. That was weird. You're supposed to sit on your
chair
with the
computer on your
desk
.

It was also weird that Mrs. Yonkers had no shoes on. She was typing with hertoes.

“Why are you typing with your toes, Mrs. Yonkers?” asked Emily.

“I have
so
much work to do,” she told us.

“When I type with my feet, it
leaves my hands free to do something else. So I get twice as much work done. It's a win-win!”

“What are you typing, Mrs. Yonkers?” asked Andrea.

“E-mails,” she replied.

“To who?” asked Ryan.

“To myself,” Mrs. Yonkers said. “I love getting e-mail.”

It seemed to me that Mrs. Yonkers would get
twice
as much work done if she didn't spend half her time writing e-mails to herself. Why are grown-ups so weird?

“Did you find Speedy the turtle?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“Not yet,” said Mrs. Yonkers. “I've been
too busy thinking about Mr. Klutz's problem.”

“What problem?” asked Emily.

“The other day he said it was too bad there isn't a computer program that makes up jokes,” Mrs. Yonkers said. “So I started working on one. It's called Giggle.”

“Oooh, can we try it?” I asked.

“Please? Please? Please? Please?”

“Well…okay.”

Mrs. Yonkers pulled a sheet off a computer in the corner and turned it on. The screen showed the word GIGGLE with an empty box under it. Mrs. Yonkers told us that if you type any word in the box, Giggle will make up a
joke about that word.

“Skateboarding!” I shouted.

“Flowers!” Andrea shouted.

“Boogers!” Michael shouted.

We called out all kinds of suggestions until Neil the nude kid said, “Pig!” We all agreed it would be cool to read jokes about pigs.

Mrs. Yonkers typed PIG in the box and hit the ENTER key. The computer thought about it for a few seconds, and then it showed us a pig joke:

 

Q: WHY DO PIGS GO OINK?

A: BECAUSE FIREMEN BANANA

STOMACH PITCHFORK!

 

“I don't get it,” said Andrea.

“That doesn't make any sense,” said Emily.

“Computers aren't very good at understanding language,” said Mrs. Yonkers. “I'm still ironing out some of the bugs.”

I didn't get the joke either, but I started laughing my head off anyway. If Andrea doesn't think something is funny, it must be.

“Firemen banana stomach pitchfork!” I howled. “That's hilarious!”

Ryan and Michael and Neil the nude kid joined in too. Soon the whole class was cracking up, except Andrea and Emily.

“You're a bunch of dumbheads,” Andrea said.

I must admit, that pig joke was actually pretty lame. But it was just as funny as Mr. Klutz's jokes, if you ask me.

Life without candy and soda pop is a horrible, meaningless existence. Now that the junk food machines were gone from the vomitorium, I was left with no choice. It was time to resort to extreme measures.

I decided to sneak in junk food from home.

The next morning I stuffed a bag of Cracker Jacks into my backpack. I jammed some Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in my pencil case. I put some popcorn in my pants pockets. I had a Charleston Chew in my shoe and gummi bears in my underwear!

“I'm a walking candy store,” I whispered to Michael and Ryan as we went through the front doors of school.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Bells started ringing and sirens started blaring.

“JUNK FOOD ALERT!” announced this computery voice. “JUNK FOOD ALERT!”

Suddenly some guy in a police uniform jumped out from behind the door. He had a gun, handcuffs, and one of those clubs they use to beat up the bad guys on TV.

“Freeze, dirtbag!” he yelled.

“Huh?” I asked. “Who are you?”

“My name is Officer Spence!” he said, pulling my hands behind my back. “I'm the new security guard here. Are you hiding any junk food on your person, young man?”

“You are so busted, A.J.,” said Ryan.

I emptied my pockets for Officer Spence. I handed over the Reese's Peanut
Butter Cups, the popcorn, the gummi bears, the Cracker Jacks, and the Charleston Chews, too.

“Step away from the junk food,” ordered Officer Spence, “and nobody gets hurt.”

By that time a crowd of kids had gathered around to see what all the excitement was about.

“Is Arlo going to jail?” Andrea asked with a huge grin on her face.

“I'm going to let you off with a warning this time, young man,” Officer Spence told me. “But don't bring any more junk food to school. That is, if you know what's good for you.”

“Yes sir,” I said meekly.

Ryan and Michael were laughing their heads off like it was the funniest thing in the history of the world. But it wasn't funny to
me
. I thought about running away to Antarctica to live with the penguins, but it would probably be even harder to get junk food there.

“I have to run some tests on this evidence to make sure it's not poisoned,” Officer Spence said as he bit into one of my Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. “You can't be too careful, you know.”

“Hey, that's
my
candy!” I complained.

“There might be a bomb in these Cracker Jacks,” Officer Spence said, ripping open the bag. “I'd better test them.”

He stuffed a fistful of Cracker Jacks
into his mouth.

“This batch is clean,” he said. “Lucky I was here to make sure.”

Officer Spence makes no sense!

But there was something else I still didn't understand. What the heck was it that started beeping when I went through the front door?

That's when Mr. Klutz came running down the hall. He was all excited.

“The new infrared heat-sensing digital junk food detector
works
!” he said. “Mrs. Yonkers is a genius!”

What?! This was one of Mrs. Yonkers's inventions? It was a horrible, terrible, mean invention, if you ask me.

I was really mad at Mrs. Yonkers.

I was so mad that I wouldn't even look at Mrs. Yonkers when we walked into the computer lab that afternoon.

“Is something wrong, A.J.?” she asked.

“Yes, something is wrong,” I replied. “Your junk food detector is a horrible, terrible, mean invention!”

She took me outside the computer lab, and I told her how Officer Spence humiliated me in front of the whole school.

“He took away my junk food and ate it!” I complained. “I love junk food. I
need
junk food.”

“Oh dear!” said Mrs. Yonkers. “This is terrible. I thought I was solving a problem for Mr. Klutz. I didn't realize I was making one for you.”

Mrs. Yonkers was really nice about it. She said she would think of a way to make it up to me. When we went back into the computer lab, I wasn't so mad anymore.

“Today is Virtual Reality Day!” Mrs. Yonkers announced to the class.

She gave each of us a strange-looking helmet. When I put mine on, I couldn't see the computer lab anymore. Instead, I saw a big green field with a castle! I took a step forward, and it looked like I was walking
toward
the castle. It was freaky weird.

“Mrs. Yonkers!” announced Mrs. Patty, the school secretary, over the loudspeaker.

“Please come to the office.”

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Yonkers said. “I'll be right back.”

She told us to be on our best behavior while she was gone. So as soon as she left the room, I shook my butt at the class. But nobody laughed because we all had our virtual reality helmets on.

I went up to the virtual castle in front of me and started exploring it. I thought all the other kids were seeing the same thing I was, but everyone saw something different.

“I'm walking in a barren desert world,” Ryan said.

“I'm on a busy street,” Michael said.

“I'm in outer space,” Andrea said.

We were all stumbling around the computer lab like zombies in a horror movie. Virtual reality is cool.

“Too bad we don't have laser guns,” Neil the nude kid said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Then we could shoot each other.”

“Why do boys constantly think about shooting things?” asked Andrea. “Can't you have fun without hurting other people?”

“No,” I told her.

Me and Andrea started a virtual argument, but we didn't have the chance to finish it because we were interrupted. You'll never believe who walked into the door at that very moment.

It was Emily! She walked right into the door!

“Owwwww!” she howled.

Emily was on the floor, freaking out. What a crybaby!

“I hit my head on the door!” she whined. “I think I have brain damage!”

“No, that happened a long time ago,” I cracked. Some of the kids laughed.

Suddenly Mrs. Yonkers came running back into the computer lab.

“Oh dear!” she said. “What happened?”

“Dumbhead walked into the door,” I explained.

Mrs. Yonkers sat down on the floor and held Emily's head in her arms. Then she did the weirdest thing in the history of the world. She started crying too!

“I'm so sorry!” she cried. “I'm still ironing out some
of the bugs in the virtual reality helmets. The pressure of this new job and my company is starting to get to me. I'm worried about Speedy, too. He's never been gone for so long.”

“It's okay, Mrs. Yonkers,” Emily said. “I'll be all right.”

“It's just that I have so many ideas rumbling around in my head,” Mrs. Yonkers told us. “There's so much I need to accomplish, and I have so little time to do it. Sometimes I wish I could clone myself.”

I didn't feel bad for that crybaby Emily. She falls down for no reason every five minutes. But I
did
feel bad for Mrs. Yonkers. She was a nice lady, even if her inventions were weird.