5 Ch5-Mr. Hynde Gets Funky

Chapter 5 Mr. Hynde Gets Funky If Andrea and her mother got Mr. Hynde fired, it would be a horrible disaster. I was determined to stop them. But in the meantime, I had another problem to worry about. Multiplication. We were just starting to learn about

multiplication, and I didn't get it. I under- stood how 2 plus 2 equals 4. But then how was it possible for 2 times 2 to equal 4 too? I mean, 3 plus 3 and 3 times 3 don't equal the same number. It just didn't make sense. The way I looked at it, if 2 plus 2 equals 4, and 2 times 2 also equals 4, then addi- tion and multiplication were the same thing. And if they were the same thing, why did we have to learn both of them? I was having a tough enough time with addition

and subtraction before this multiplica- tion stuff messed everything up. I asked Miss Daisy to explain how 2 plus 2 and 2 times 2 can both equal 4. "How should I know?" she replied. "I don't know anything about math." Miss Daisy is crazy! "Everybody line up," Miss Daisy said after we finished putting away our math books. "Line up for what?" "It's time for music with Mr. Hynde," Miss Daisy said. "Yippee!" shouted me and Michael and Ryan. "Boo!" said Andrea and Emily.

"Andrea, I thought you loved music," Miss Daisy said. "You've been playing piano ever since you were four." "She must be really tired," I said. Nobody laughed at my joke again, but I didn't care. I'm going to keep telling that joke until somebody laughs. "Mr. Hynde doesn't play music," Andrea said. "He just makes noise." "Well, we have to go to music anyway," said Miss Daisy. Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea! I hate her. We went to the music room in single file. This girl Annette was the line leader. Andrea and Emily were at the end of the

line, which was a first in the history of the world. They always want to get every- where before anyone else. The music room was empty. But sud- denly Mr. Hynde swept in and threw off his cape. "Should we sit like pretzels, Mr. Hynde?" somebody asked. "No way, homeys," Mr. Hynde said. "You sit for reading and writing and arith- metic. In music you get up and shake your booty! The only way to get down is to get up!" Mr. Hynde jumped around like a lunatic, and so did we. It was cool. "Okay, my little peeps," Mr. Hynde said.

"Today we're gonna learn about percus- sion. Which one of you shorties can tell me what percussion is?" I raised my hand and Mr. Hynde called on me. "Percussion is when you say bad words," I said. "That's cussin' brother," Mr. Hynde said. "Andrea?" "Percussion is when one object hits against another object," she said, all proud of herself. "Word up, Andrea!" Mr. Hynde said. Andrea thinks she knows everything. I'd like to percussion her with a stick. "Listen up," Mr. Hynde said. He picked