3 The Good Old Days

Chapter 3 The Good Old Days Mrs. Daisy came in with our reading teacher, Mr. Macky. They were holding hands and making goo-goo eyes at each other. Ugh! Disgusting! Mr. Macky said he would meet her in the teachers' lounge at lunchtime.* Mrs. Daisy and Mr. Macky haven't been married very long. That's why they're so mushy with each other. Once they've been married for a few years, they'll stop doing all that mushy stuff. My parents have been married for like a century, and they hardly ever do mushy stuff.

"Are you sick, Mrs. Daisy?" asked Emily. "Mr. Klutz told us you went to the doctor." "It was just a checkup," she replied. "Let's get to work. It's time for our Word of the Day. Today's word is 'unique.'" "What does that mean?" asked Michael. "I have no idea," said Mrs. Daisy, who doesn't know anything. "Does anybody know what 'unique' means?" Andrea stuck her hand in the air, of course. Little Miss I-Know-Everything keeps a dictionary on her desk so she can look up words and show everybody how smart she

is. But Mrs. Daisy called on me instead. "'Unique' means furniture that's really old," I said. "My mom has a unique table." Everybody laughed even though I didn't say anything funny. "That's 'antique,' dumbhead!" said Andrea. "'Unique' means something that's one of a kind." "Oh, snap!" said Ryan. "I knew that," I lied. "But a really old piece of furniture that's one of a kind is unique. It's a unique antique." Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea! In her face! No wonder I'm in the gifted and talented program. After we finished our Word of the Day, it was time for writing. I hate writing. "The school year is almost over," Mrs. Daisy said, as she passed out pieces of

paper. "Let's write about our favorite memories of second grade." Mrs. Daisy told us to close our eyes and remember some of the nice things that happened since September. "Remember the time Mrs. Roopy dressed up like Johnny Appleseed?" asked Andrea. "Yeah," we all said. Mrs. Roopy is loopy. "Remember the time we went on a field trip and Mr. Docker ate a bug?" asked Ryan. "Yeah." Mr. Docker is off his rocker. "Remember the time we drove that substitute teacher Ms. Todd crazy and she ran screaming into the parking lot?" Michael asked. "Yeah." Ms. Todd is odd. I couldn't decide if I should write about the time Mr. Klutz was hanging from the flagpole or the time Neil the nude kid's ferret pooped on Emily's head.

"Remember the time we had a food fight in the vomitorium?" Neil asked. Yeah, that was great. I must admit, even though I hate school, we had some fun in second grade. "Those were the good old days," I said. "Remember the time we had a sleepover in the natural history museum and a giant hissing cockroach crawled into Emily's sleeping bag?" "That happened last week, Arlo!" Andrea said.

"So did your face," I told her. Mrs. Daisy said she had to go to the ladies' room and that we should get started writing while she was gone. As soon as she left, I crumpled up a piece of paper and threw it at Andrea. "You are so immature, Arlo!" Andrea said. "Maybe you'll get held back." "Huh?" I asked. "What do you mean, 'held back'?" "Didn't you know?" Andrea said. "They take the bad kids and make them repeat the grade all over again. You're a bad kid, so you might be held back." What?! Could they really do that? If I had known they make kids repeat a grade, I wouldn't have done so much bad stuff.