5. Two Words That Should Never Be in the Same Sentence

5 Two Words That Should Never Be in the Same Sentence

I thought that was the end of it. Seeing the ghost of Mr. Klutz had to be just a once-in-a-lifetime bad dream. Nothing like that could ever happen again. But then something else weird happened. The clock struck eleven, and I thought I should really get myself a clock. Just as I was falling back asleep, I heard another spooky voice. "A.J.... A.J.... A.J...." When I opened my eyes, I saw that there were two ghosts floating over my bed. "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" I screamed. The ghosts put their fingers up to their lips. "Shhhhhhh," they whispered. "Help!" I shouted. "Security! There's somebody in my room!" "Shhhhhhh." "What are you doing in my bedroom?" I

asked. "How did you get in here? Isn't this breaking and entering?" The words READ LIKE CRAZY were on the ghosts' shirts, and the ghosts were each carrying a big cardboard box. I looked at the ghosts more closely. They looked a lot like Mr. Macky, our reading specialist, and Mrs. Roopy, our librarian. "Mrs. Roopy?" I called out. "Mr. Macky?" "Never heard of those people," said the ghost that looked like Mrs. Roopy. "We are... the ghosts of summer reading." WHAT?! "Summer" and "reading" are two words that should never be in the same sentence. That's the first rule of being a kid. "I never heard of the ghosts of summer reading," I said. "It's a thing," said Mr. Macky. "You two look just like Mr. Macky and Mrs. Roopy from my school."

"We get that all the time," said the ghost of Mr. Macky. "We brought you some presents, A.J.," said the ghost of Mrs. Roopy. Presents? I like getting presents! Maybe these weren't bad ghosts. I wondered what was in the boxes they were carrying. The ghosts floated down and put them on the edge of my bed. "Is there a new video game system in there?" I asked excitedly. "Is it a new skateboard?" "No," said Mr. Macky. "We brought you some... books."* WHAT!? Books?! I hate books! I don't even know why you're reading this one. Books are boring. Reading is boring. "I don't like to read," I told the two ghosts. They let out eerie cackling laughs as they

opened the boxes.

"That's too bad," said Mr. Macky, pulling out a thick book and handing it to me. "Because this summer your assignment will be to read The Complete Works of William Shakespeare." "Noooooooo!" I shouted, covering my ears. "Not Shakespeare! He's the most boring of all!" Mrs. Roopy pulled a fat book out of her box. "This is the first book of a twenty-book encyclopedia," she told me. "You'll have to read all twenty books." "Noooooooo!" I screamed at her. "Not an encyclopedia!" There was nothing I could do. They were already pulling more books out of their boxes. Fiction. Nonfiction. Chapter books. Nonchapter books. Picture books. Nonpicture books. It was horrible! I wanted to run away to Antarctica and live with the