6 The Greatest Day of My Life

Chapter 6 The Greatest Day of My Life Finally it was my favorite day of the year—the last day of school. Yay! After we finished pledging the allegiance, Mrs. Daisy had us sing "Happy Birthday." But it wasn't anybody's birthday. We sang "Happy Birthday" to the kids in our class who have birthdays over the summer. Like me. It is totally not fair that my birthday is in the summer. That means my mom can't bring in cupcakes for the class. Bummer in the summer!

We didn't learn anything all day. Mrs. Daisy had us clean the junk out of our desks. I found a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the back that had been there for months. There was green stuff on it. I offered Ryan a quarter if he would take a bite of the sandwich, but he wouldn't. Then we had to take our posters and artwork off the walls so we could bring them home. (The artwork, that is. We couldn't bring the walls home. That would be weird.) Mrs. Dole came in and passed out yearbooks that had pictures of everybody in

the whole school. We spent most of the morning signing each other's yearbooks. I wrote a little note in each one. Like "See you in third grade!" or "Summer rules!" Andrea asked me if she could sign my yearbook. I didn't want her to, but Mrs. Dole was watching. So I let Andrea sign it. She wrote, "I'll miss you, Arlo," above her picture. "Oooooh!" Ryan said. "A.J. let Andrea sign his yearbook. They must be in love!" "When are you gonna get married?" asked Michael. If those guys weren't my best friends, I would hate them. "Will you sign my yearbook, Arlo?" Andrea asked all sweetly, because she knew Mrs. Dole was watching. This is what I wrote in Andrea's yearbook:

"I won't miss you… if I throw a rock at you!" "That's mean!" Andrea said. "So is your face," I told her. Even though I hate school, I had to admit the last day was kind of sad. Mrs. Daisy told us that over the summer she and Mr. Macky were going to move to a bigger house in a different town. She wasn't even sure if she would come back to Ella Mentry School in September. Mrs. Daisy got all sniffly and had to blow her nose in a tissue. That made the girls get all sniffly too. Girls get sniffly real easy. Nobody knows why. I kept looking at the clock, waiting for it to be three o' clock. But it was only one o'clock. Then it was one minute after one o'clock. Then it was two minutes after one o'clock. Then it was three minutes after one o'clock. The clock moves really slowly when

you watch it. For a while, it looked like the hands were moving backwards. Me and the guys threw crumpled-up paper at the girls, but Mrs. Daisy told us to knock it off. After a million hundred hours, it was two o'clock. Isn't the word "o'clock" weird? What's up with that? Me and the guys counted down the hours. The minutes. The seconds. Every second took a minute. Every minute took an hour. Every hour took a week. It was the longest day in the history of the world. I thought it would never end. But finally the little hand was on the three and the big hand was on the twelve. You know what that means. Three o'clock! The bell rang. We all went to hug Mrs. Daisy and then we bolted for the door. We were free! Me and the guys ran out

the front door like prisoners escaping from jail. Everybody was yelling and shouting and jumping. No more pencils, no more books! No more teachers' dirty looks! It was the greatest day of my life.