9 Ch9-How to Drive Grown-ups Crazy

Chapter 9 How to Drive Grown-ups Crazy Well, that whole protest thing was a dumb idea. Luckily none of us got killed. We'd have to think up another way to get rid of Dr. Carbles. "Remember how we got rid of Ms. Todd?" Ryan said the next morning while we were putting our backpacks away. Ms. Todd was a substitute teacher at our school. She tried to murder Miss Daisy and take her job, but we caught her. Ms. Todd was odd. "Yeah, we drove her crazy," I said. "Then we have to drive Dr. Carbles crazy," said Michael. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's driving grown-ups crazy. There are lots of ways to do that. One way is to say everything they say right after they say it. That's a good one. Sometimes I ask my parents "Why?" over and over again. It drives them nuts. But it was Neil the nude kid who had the greatest idea in the history of the world. "We should steal Dr. Carbles's toupee!" Neil said. Yeah! Mr. Klutz told us that if anybody ever found out Dr. Carbles was bald, it would drive him crazy! Neil's idea was genius! He should be in the gifted and talented program. The only problem was, how were we going to steal Dr. Carbles's toupee?

"We could sneak into his house in the middle of the night and rip it off his head," suggested Michael. "Nah," Ryan said. "He probably has an electric fence and a moat around his house." "We could rent a giant wind machine and blow it off his head," suggested Michael. "You can rent anything." "Nah," Ryan said. "It costs a lot of money to rent a giant wind machine." That's when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world. "Hey!" I said. "Every day after lunch, Dr. Carbles stands outside and watches us march around the playground, right?" "Yeah," Michael said. "So what?" "Well, he has a fishing pole in his office," I told the guys. "We could hang the fishing pole out the second-floor window and go fishing for toupee!" "You're a genius!" Neil the nude kid told me. I should get the No Bell Prize. That's a prize they give out to people who don't have bells. During lunch me and Neil snuck out of the vomitorium. We slinked around the halls like secret agents. Nobody was around. All the teachers must have been eating in the teachers' lounge. I opened the door to Dr. Carbles's office. It was empty. Perfect! I grabbed the fishing pole, and we tore out of there. We ran up the steps to the second floor. I handed Neil the pole and opened a window. We peeked out. Dr. Carbles was right below us, standing there with his bullhorn. The kids were just starting to march out of the vomitorium.

"Left! Right!" Dr. Carbles yelled at the kids. "March, you weasels!" "This is gonna be great!" Neil giggled as he stuck the fishing pole out the window. "He'll go crazy once we steal his toupee." "Okay," I told Neil, "drop the hook now." Neil lowered the line until the hook was hanging right above Dr. Carbles's head. "A little to the left," I told Neil. "Lower!" Neil was having a hard time hooking the toupee. "My arms are getting tired," Neil said. I grabbed the pole. Neil helped me guide the hook. It was not easy! The hook kept blowing around.

"Any nibbles yet?" Neil asked. "Nope." But right after I said that, I felt a little pull on the line. "Hey, I think I got it!" I started reeling in the toupee, but there was just one problem. It wouldn't come off Dr. Carbles's head! So I pulled harder. "It's a big one!" I told Neil. "It's a fighter!" I kept tugging on the fishing pole, but the toupee just wouldn't budge.

"It must be glued on good!" Neil said. "Maybe they took hair off other parts of his body and planted it on his head," I said. "I saw that on a TV commercial once." "That's disgusting!" said Neil. Suddenly Dr. Carbles grabbed his toupee and looked up at us. "What's the meaning of this he shouted. Uh-oh. I dropped the pole. It fell out the window and almost hit Dr. Carbles on the head. "A.J., report to my office immediately!" he hollered. "Ooooooooooooooh!" went all the kids on the playground. That's it. My life was over. I would have to move to Antarctica and live with the penguins.