7 Spooch

Chapter 7 Spooch After recess we went back to Mr. Granite's class. He was talking about saving energy, like always. It was really boring. If you ask me, Mr. Granite should save energy by not talking so much about saving energy. I ripped a sheet of paper out of my notebook and wrote this on it… Ask if we can go see Miss Laney. I folded my note up until it was tiny and passed it to Ryan. He looked at it and raised his hand. "Mr. Granite," Ryan asked, "can I go to the girls' bathroom?"

Everybody laughed. "Miss Laney will call for you if she needs to see you, Ryan," said Mr. Granite. "Please? Please? Please? Please?" Ryan begged. Any time you want something really badly, just say "please" over and over again until grown-ups can't stand it anymore.

That's the first rule of being a kid. "No, I'm sorry, Ryan," Mr. Granite said. That's when I came up with the greatest idea in the history of the world. I raised my hand and Mr. Granite called on me. "I need to go to spooch," I said. "'Spooch'?" Mr. Granite asked. "What's 'spooch'?" "You know, spooch," I told him. "That thing Miss Laney teaches." "Do you mean 'speech,' A.J.?" Mr. Granite asked. "Yeah," I said, "spooch." "Why are you saying 'spooch,' A.J?" he asked. "I didn't say 'spooch,'" I told him. "I said 'spooch.'" "A.J. has a spooch in president," said Ryan. "You mean a speech impediment?"

asked Mr. Granite. "Yeah, that thing," Ryan said. Andrea raised her hand. "Mr. Granite," she said, "I think my tongue is broken. Glub glub glub glub." "Help!" yelled Emily. "I forgot how to talk!" "I think it's contagious!" Ryan hollered. "The whole class might catch it!" Mr. Granite looked like he was worried. I grabbed my throat and pretended to be choking. So did Ryan, Andrea, and Emily. "It's an epidermis!" I yelled. "You mean an epidemic?" asked Mr. Granite. "This sounds like an emergency to me! Okay, A.J., Andrea, Ryan, and Emily, I want you to go see Miss Laney right away! Hurry!" Ha-ha! What a scam. Grown-ups will fall for anything. I knew it would be way more

fun to play cool games with Miss Laney than to sit in Mr. Granite's class and learn how to save energy. "A.J., you're a genius!" Ryan said as we walked down the hall to the girls' bathroom. "You should get the No Bell Prize for that one." That's a prize they give out to people who don't have bells.