Mrs. Yonkers Is Bonkers! (4 page)

The next day we were sitting around the vomitorium eating lunch when an announcement came over the loudspeaker.

“Mrs. Yonkers is absent today,” said Mrs. Patty. “All computer classes are canceled.”

Bummer in the summer!

At the next table, the girls were talking about silly stuff, like what dress they should wear to somebody's birthday party and how many rubber bands they should put in their hair. We boys had more important things to talk about.

“I can hang a spoon from my nose,” Ryan said.

“No way,” I said.

Ryan breathed on his spoon. Then he put the spoon on his nose and it hung there! It was the most amazing thing in the history of the world.

Ryan taught me and Michael and Neil the nude kid how to hang spoons from our noses. After that we had a spoon-hanging contest. Ryan won, because he was able to
hang four spoons from his face at the same time. He should be in the gifted and talented program like me.

I opened the lunch bag that my mom packed. Milk. A bag of peanuts. An apple. Carrot sticks.

Ugh! I hate healthy food. I can't believe we're supposed to eat fruits and vegetables. They grow out of the dirt! That's disgusting!

I looked over at the girls' table.

“Andrea,” said Emily, “do you want to trade your stir-fried veggies and fruit kabobs for my tofu nuggets?”

“No thanks,” Andrea replied. “I'm not hungry.”

Andrea looked all sad, like her dog died or something.

“What's the matter with you?” I asked. “Did your dog die or something?”

“I'm worried about Mrs. Yonkers,” Andrea said.

“What about her?” asked Michael.

“She's under so much pressure,” Andrea said. “My mother is a psychologist. She says that when people are under a lot of pressure, they could have a nervous breakdown.”

“Maybe Mrs. Yonkers isn't a computer teacher at all,” I suggested. “Did you ever think of that?”

“What do you mean?” asked Emily.

“Well, maybe she's just
pretending
to be
a computer teacher.”

“Yeah,” said Ryan. “Maybe Mrs. Yonkers is an evil genius who kidnaps computer teachers and forces them to hack into government computer networks. Stuff like that happens all the time, you know.”

“It does?” Emily asked.

“Stop trying to scare Emily,” said Andrea.

“Sure it does,” Michael said. “Maybe Mrs. Yonkers is planning to program
all the computers in the world to crash at the same time.”

“Yeah,” said Neil the nude kid, “and maybe she tied up our
real
computer teacher in the secret dungeon in the basement.”

“I think they moved the secret dungeon up to the third floor,” Ryan said.

“I'll bet Mrs. Yonkers took apart a laser printer, and she's going to torture our real computer teacher with laser beams,” I added. “I saw that in a movie once.”

“We've got to
do
something!” Emily shouted. Then she went running out of the vomitorium.

Emily is weird.

The next morning Mr. Klutz came into our class with his bald head.

“Tomorrow Dr. Carbles is coming to visit our school,” said Mr. Klutz. “He's the president of the Board of Education. He wants to see if we're making any progress with bringing our school into the 21st
century. So I expect all of you to be on your very best behavior.”

“We will!” we all said.

“Is our computer teacher tied up in the dungeon, being shot with laser beams?” Emily asked.

“Not that I know of,” Mr. Klutz replied. “In fact, I think Mrs. Yonkers is in the computer lab, working on her lesson plans now.”

We were all happy that Mrs. Yonkers was back at school. But when we saw her in the computer lab, she looked really tired. She told us she didn't get any sleep last night.

“I was thinking about you kids,” she
told us, “and I think I came up with the solution to your problem.”

She pulled a sheet off a computer in the corner. Attached to the computer was a box that looked sort of like a big microwave oven.

“What's that?” Michael asked.

“I call it the JFT,” Mrs. Yonkers said. “Junk Food Transformer. Watch this.”

She took a piece of broccoli out of a bag on her desk and put it in the Junk Food Transformer. Then she typed something on the computer keyboard. The microwave thing buzzed for a minute or so, and then a bell rang. Mrs. Yonkers opened the door. And you'll never
believe what was in there.

A York Peppermint Pattie!

“Wow!” we all shouted.

“What happened to the broccoli?” asked Andrea.

“The Junk Food Transformer turned it into a York Peppermint Pattie!” said Mrs. Yonkers. She unwrapped the Peppermint
Pattie and took a bite out of it.

“That's impossible!” Ryan said. “It's a trick!”

“You think so?” Mrs. Yonkers asked. “Well, watch
this
.”

She took a handful of green beans—the most vile and disgusting food in the history of the world—and put it into the Junk Food Transformer. Then she typed something on the keyboard. The microwave thing started buzzing again. When the bell rang and Mrs. Yonkers opened the door, do you know what was inside?

Three Hershey's bars!

“Wow!” we all shouted.

Mrs. Yonkers peeled off a wrapper and
gave each of us a piece.

“It tastes just like chocolate!” marveled Michael.

“It
is
chocolate,” said Mrs. Yonkers, “yet it has all the vitamins and nutrients of green beans! The Junk Food Transformer turns health food into healthy
junk
food.”

“It's amazing!” said Andrea.

“You should get the No Bell Prize,” I told Mrs. Yonkers.

“Say, can the Junk Food Transformer turn junk food into health food?” asked Ryan.

“Why would anybody want to do that?” I asked.

Ryan is weird.

Mrs. Yonkers said it was okay for us to go back to our classroom and get our healthy lunches from our cubbies. I never ran so fast in my whole life. When we got back to the computer lab, Mrs. Yonkers had a grocery bag filled with fruits and vegetables on her desk. We spent the rest of class turning all the health food into junk food.

It was the greatest day of my life. We made Milk Duds and Sugar Daddys. AirHeads and WarHeads. Ring Pops and Push Pops and Blow Pops and Pop Rocks. We ended up with so much candy, gum, and lollipops that it looked like Halloween. There was no way we could eat it all.
When the bell rang and it was time to go, we stashed a bunch of candy in Mrs. Yonkers's closet.

“This is the greatest invention in the history of the world!” I told Mrs. Yonkers.

“Shhhhh,” she said. “Don't tell anybody yet. It will be our little secret!”

Keeping secrets is
hard
. I wanted to tell my parents about the Junk Food Transformer. I wanted to tell my friend Billy who lives around the corner. I wanted to tell
somebody
.

But I didn't. My lips were sealed. (But not with glue or anything. That would be weird.)

The next morning Mrs. Patty made an announcement over the loudspeaker.

“Mrs. Yonkers is absent today, but please go to the computer lab at your regularly scheduled time.”

That
was weird. If Mrs. Yonkers was absent, who would be our computer teacher? All day long we wondered. Finally, it was time for computer class.

We rushed down the hall.

We opened the door of the computer lab.

And you'll never believe in a million hundred years who was standing there.

It was a
robot
!

“SIT DOWN,” the robot commanded in a computery voice. “PAY ATTENTION.”

The robot looked a lot like Mrs. Yonkers. It even wore a NERDS R COOL T-shirt and a fake cheese head.

“MRS. YONKERS IS NOT FEELING WELL,” the robot said. “I AM MRS. ROBO-YONKERS. I WILL BE YOUR TEACHER TODAY.”

Wow! Mrs. Yonkers built her own robot substitute teacher! Cool! We used to have a sub named Ms. Todd. But then
she tried to murder Miss Daisy and take her job. Ms. Todd was odd.

“Remember Mrs. Yonkers told us that she had so much work, she wished she could clone herself?” Andrea said as we sat down. “Well, I guess she figured out how to do it.”

Clones are cool. My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that scientists have cloned sheep, cats, and cows. But nobody ever cloned a person before.

“STOP TALKING,” said Mrs. Robo-Yonkers. “FOLD YOUR FEET. KEEP YOUR HANDS ON THE FLOOR.”

She sounded almost like a real teacher!

“Mrs. Robo-Yonkers,” I said. “I have a
question.”

“STATE YOUR QUESTION,” said Mrs. Robo-Yonkers.

“Firemen banana stomach pitchfork?” I asked.

“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE QUESTION,” said Mrs. Robo-Yonkers. “PLEASE REPEAT THE QUESTION.”

“Football my orange telephone?” I asked.

“DOES NOT COMPUTE,” said Mrs. Robo-Yonkers. “PLEASE REPEAT.”

“Watermelon lawn chair atomic bicycle?” I asked.

“What are you doing, Arlo?” asked Andrea.

“Computers aren't very good at under
standing language,” I said. “I'm yanking her chain. That's what you're supposed to do with substitute teachers. It's the first rule of being a kid.”

“I DO NOT UNDERSTAND,” said Mrs. Robo-Yonkers.

“Monster my upside down moon machine?” I asked.

“Stop it, Arlo!” Andrea said. “You're going to get us in trouble!”

But it was too late. We were already in trouble. Mrs. Robo-Yonkers started shaking and twitching.

“SYSTEM ERROR! SYSTEM ERROR! SYSTEM ERROR!” she droned.

Smoke was coming out of her head,
and sparks were shooting out of her neck. She started turning around in circles and bumping into desks.

“I think she blew a circuit!” said Michael.

Mrs. Robo-Yonkers was rolling crazily around the computer lab, crashing into everything in her path. Kids were diving out of the way.

“Run for your lives!” shouted Neil the nude kid.

“I'll get Mr. Klutz!” yelled Andrea as she ran out of the lab.

Mrs. Robo-Yonkers was bouncing around the computer lab like a pinball. She was out of control. Finally, Mr. Klutz came running in.

“What's wrong?” he yelled.

“Mrs. Robo-Yonkers has gone berserk!” I told him.

“Leave it to me,” Mr. Klutz said. “I used to work with computers in my younger days. Where does Mrs. Yonkers keep the robot's remote control?”

“In a remote location,” I said.

“SYSTEM ERROR! SYSTEM ERROR! SYSTEM ERROR!”

As Mrs. Robo-Yonkers spun around in circles, one of her arms hit Emily before she could duck out of the way.

“Owwww! My head!” Emily was on the floor, freaking out as usual.

“Call Mrs. Cooney!” shouted Mr. Klutz. “Tell her to bring her first-aid kit!”

Mrs. Robo-Yonkers was running around
the computer lab. Mr. Klutz was running around the computer lab. All of us kids were running around the computer lab. It was a lot like that scene in the movie
King Kong
when Kong broke his chains and went running around the streets of New York. Everybody was going crazy.

And you'll never believe who showed up at that very moment.

It was Dr. Carbles, the president of the Board of Education! Oh, snap!

“Klutz!” Dr. Carbles shouted. “What's the meaning of this?”

“Nothing to worry about, sir,” Mr. Klutz said, as Mrs. Robo-Yonkers crashed into the whiteboard.

“Why is it that every time I visit this
school, the students are running around like lunatics?” demanded Dr. Carbles. “These kids are obviously hopped up on junk food!”

“Oh no, sir!” said Mr. Klutz. “We got rid of all the junk food. We even put in a junk food detector at the front door.”

At that very moment, Mrs. Robo-Yonkers rammed into the closet where we hid all the candy the day before. Twinkies and Twix and Jolly Ranchers and Skittles and Chuckles went flying all over the place.

“Klutz!” yelled Dr. Carbles. “What's the meaning of this? I thought you got rid of all the junk food.”

“We did!” Mr. Klutz said. “Somebody get Mrs. Yonkers on the phone!”

That's when Mrs. Cooney (who is beautiful) came running in with her first-aid kit. She took out her cell phone and started dialing frantically. Mrs. Robo-Yonkers was chasing Dr. Carbles around the computer lab. It was just like in that King Kong movie.

Mrs. Robo-Yonkers was bonkers!