Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! (25 page)

In the early 20th century, homeless people—known then as hobos—traveled around the country by stowing away in trains. They also had their own colorful lingo.

Wood butcher:
a carpenter

Black strap:
coffee

Hundred on a plate:
a can of beans

Saddle blankets:
pancakes

Tin roof:
a free meal

Wind pudding:
air; having nothing to eat is “living on wind pudding”

Baldy:
an old man

Comet:
a new hobo

Fingy:
a hobo who is missing fingers

Paul Bunyan:
an entertaining liar

Yegg:
a criminal

Coop:
a jail

Bone orchard:
a graveyard

Cozzy:
a public restroom

Crowbar hotel:
a police station

Doghouse:
a caboose

Flop:
sleep

Gooseberry:
to steal clothes off a clothesline

Padding the hoof:
traveling by foot

Bindle:
a pack carried over the shoulder

California blanket:
a newspaper

Grinders:
teeth

Polish the mug:
wash your face

Throw the guts:
to talk too much

Feel like roughing it? There’s a Sandpaper Museum in Two Harbors, Minnesota.

Halloween is supposed to be fun, and we bet it would be super fun to see real bloody eyeballs at your school’s next Halloween party. The teachers might object, though, so here’s a recipe for bloody eyeball ice cubes that’s sure to make them say “Ewww!”

GETTING STARTED:

•
You’ll want to prepare your eyeballs at least one day before you need them, and be sure to get your parents’ permission before you do any cutting.

An adult human eyeball is about two-thirds the size of a ping-pong ball.

DIRECTIONS:

•
Peel the radishes, leaving behind thin streaks of the red skin to look like blood vessels.

•
Using the end of the vegetable peeler, cut a small hole in each radish—about the size of an olive.

•
Stuff one olive (pimiento side out) into each radish.

•
Put one radish in each section of the empty ice tray.

•
Fill the tray with water, freeze overnight, and voilà! Your bloody eyeballs are ready for school.

*      *      *

THREE THINGS PRESIDENTS CAN’T DO?

•
Swim naked. Wrong!—John Quincy Adams liked to go skinny-dipping in the Potomac River.

•
Dress casually. Wrong!—Thomas Jefferson often wore pajamas when greeting visitors.

•
Overeat. Wrong!—William Howard Taft was so fat (about 325 pounds) that he got stuck in the bathtub at the White House…more than once.

The
Mona Lisa
isn’t painted on canvas—it’s painted on a wood panel.

We bet even your teacher won’t be able to get all of these animal questions right. Quiz her and see.

Q. What amphibian’s face looks like Humpty Dumpty
?

A.
The Mexican axolotl, a type of salamander, has a face that many scientists describe as looking like an unbroken egg. It’s called a “walking fish” because it lives mostly in water, but has four legs. Adding to its odd appearance—a long fin and feathery gills that stick out of its head like antenna. These creatures generally grow to be about one foot long and can live for up to 15 years. Wild Mexican axolotls are found only near Lake Xochimilco, not far from Mexico City.

Q. What shell-covered mammal can virtually disappear before your eyes
?

A.
When feeling threatened, the pink fairy armadillo can dig itself into a hole in just a few seconds. This exotic little creature lives only in central Argentina. It’s the smallest member of the armadillo family (about four inches long) and has a pinkish armor shell. Underneath the shell, the animal is covered with white hairs. Pink fairy armadillos prefer dry, warm places and usually burrow near anthills because they like to munch on ants and ant larvae.

Not quite: In 1981, fashion designer Louis Feraud predicted that by the year 2000 people would be able to change their skin color at will.

Q. What tiny creature oozes stinky goop from its skin
?

A.
The warty newt. This small lizardlike European animal has glands in its skin that secrete a foul-smelling, milky goo to keep its enemies away. Most warty newts grow to be about seven inches long. They’re nocturnal—which means they’re awake and hunting at night—and they spend about six months of the year hibernating. Another amazing ability: they can regrow missing body parts.

Q. What living thing has no heart, no blood, no brain, and no bones
?

A.
A jellyfish…and the Arctic lion’s mane jellyfish is the world’s largest. Its blobby body can be eight feet long, with tentacles that float behind it another 100 feet or so. These jellyfish live in the cold waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. They aren’t strong swimmers, so they usually float close to the surface and let the ocean’s currents carry them along. Like all jellyfish, the Arctic lion’s mane jellyfish is made up of 95 percent water. The species has been around for about 650 million years—since long before the dinosaurs.

Q. What large amphibian can’t get any shut-eye
?

A.
It’s tough for Chinese giant salamanders to close their eyes—they have no eyelids. These big guys hail from China (of course) and live in fast-moving streams and rivers. They usually grow to be more than three feet long—some stretch as long as six feet—making them the largest salamanders in the world.

Q. What animal rotates its feet
?

A.
The kinkajou—a little mammal that grows to be about 20 inches long and lives in rain forests from southern Mexico to Brazil—can rotate its feet and turn around by simply pointing them forward or backward. These fruit-eating animals, which are related to raccoons, have long tails, similar to those of monkeys, that help them balance and hang from trees. And their tongues, which measure about five inches long, help them suck up flower nectar and honey to keep up their energy level (and satisfy their sweet tooth).

*      *      *

“Part of being a winner is knowing when enough is enough. Sometimes you have to give up the fight and walk away, and move on to something that’s more productive.”

—Donald Trump

The word
hiccup
has been in use since 1530.

If you’re average, you fart between 14 and 23 times a day. If you fart more than that, here are two things you might want to know.

•
Farts are the result of air or gas getting into your intestines. How does it get in there? Sometimes—like when you’re eating—you swallow air. People who chew gum, eat with their mouths open, smoke, or suck on candy fart more than people who don’t because they swallow more air.

•
Also, your stomach produces gas when it digests food. That’s why there are two types of farts: stinky ones and odorless ones. The stinky ones smell bad because of sulfur gas that’s released after you eat certain foods. Cheese and meat have a lot of sulfur in them, so those farts are more likely to smell. Beans can make you really gassy, but most of them don’t have much sulfur. So bean farts don’t usually smell too bad. (Of course, if you add a lot of cheese to your beans, it’s another story.)

Actress Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem.

Here are the true stories of two notorious crooks who turned their bad habits into (honest) fame and fortune.

C
ATCH HIM IF YOU CAN

One of history’s most notorious cheaters is probably Frank Abagnale Jr. In the 1960s, he went on a worldwide crime spree of frauds, cons, and forgeries that stumped the FBI for years and earned Frank more than $2 million.

The first person he conned: his dad. When he was a teenager in the early 1960s, Abagnale convinced gas station owners to charge fake purchases to his dad’s credit card and then give Abagnale the money instead. The charges showed up as tires or gas, and Abagnale used the cash to buy presents for his girlfriends. From there, he went on to cash forged checks at banks around the world and to perfect his impersonations. Between 1964 and 1969, he passed himself off as a university professor, a lawyer, a pediatrician, and a pilot for Pan Am Airways. He always changed his name and stayed a few steps ahead of the FBI.

But in 1969, when Abagnale was 21 years old, a man in France recognized him from a wanted poster. The French police finally caught him and eventually sent him back to the United States for a trial. He spent less than five years in prison, though, because he agreed to help the FBI track other forgers and crooks. One of the conditions of that job? He couldn’t get paid. So he started his own business (to help companies protect themselves from fraud) and wrote a book about his crimes, called
Catch Me If You Can
. That book became a movie in 2002, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.