5 Ch5-The Science (Not) Fair

Chapter 5 The Science (Not) Fair 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 experi- ment 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 flower- pots. 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