12. The Next Day at School

12 The Next Day at School

That's all I remember. I woke up covered in sweat. The clock at my bedside said it was seven o'clock, which was weird because I never had a clock at my bedside. I wonder where that clock came from. I looked around. Everything seemed normal. There was no evidence that all those ghosts had visited me during the night. "A.J.!" my mom called from downstairs. "It's time to get up for school." "I don't feel good, Mom," I said. "Can I stay home today?" "Oh, you say that every day, silly!" my mother replied. I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. I went downstairs to eat breakfast and rode my bike to school. The first person I saw when I got to class was Andrea. She was putting her backpack

into her cubby. "Good morning, Arlo," Andrea said cheerfully. "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" I screamed in horror. "Don't touch me! Leave me alone!" "What is your problem?" Andrea asked. "All I said was good morning." I went over to the guys, hoping Andrea wouldn't follow me. "Are you okay, dude?" Ryan asked me. "You look like you've seen a ghost." "I did," I told him. "I feel sick. I think I need to go to the nurse's office."

That's when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Our school nurse, Mrs. Cooney, was walking by our classroom. "Did somebody say the word 'sick'?" she asked excitedly. Mrs. Cooney loves it when kids get sick. If kids didn't get sick, she wouldn't have a job.

"A.J. thinks he's sick," said Michael. Mrs. Cooney pulled a thermometer out of her pocket. "Say ah," she said, poking the thermometer into my mouth. It took a million hundred seconds for the thermometer to beep. Finally it did, and Mrs. Cooney looked at it. "Ninety-eight point six," she said. "Perfectly normal. You're fine, A.J." "Arlo is faking it," Andrea told Mrs. Cooney. "He just wants to get out of school. Arlo does that all the time. But he is really sick—sick in the head!" "Oh, snap!" said Ryan. "Andrea said you're sick in the head! Are you gonna take that, A.J.?"

I looked at Andrea. She had her hands on her hips. When girls put their hands on their hips, it means they're mad. Nobody knows why. "Aren't you going to say something mean back to Andrea?" asked Neil. "Yeah, A.J.," said Michael. "Aren't you going to say something mean back to Andrea?"