8. More Bad News

8 More Bad News

The clock struck two. "A.J.... A.J.... A.J.... A.J.... A.J.... A.J...." "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" I opened my eyes to see that my bedroom was filled with ghosts. There must have been seven or eight of them floating around in there!

I recognized Mrs. Yonkers, our computer teacher, and Ms. Leakey, our health teacher. Miss Small, our Fizz Ed teacher, was there. So was Miss Tracy, who came to school to teach us about astronomy. And Miss Newman, the local TV weather lady. There was Mr. Will, the guy who drives the Ding- Dong ice cream truck. And Mr. Burke, the guy who mows the lawn at school. And Mrs. Lilly, a reporter for the local newspaper. "We are ghosts," they all said at the same time. "I kinda figured that," I told them. "What are you all doing here?" "I have some bad news, A.J.," said the ghost of Mr. Will. "Oh great," I groaned. "Who doesn't? What's your bad news?" "I ran out of ice cream today," said the ghost of Mr. Will.

"That's not so bad," I told him. "You can get more ice cream tomorrow." "No," the ghost of Mr. Will replied. "I'm afraid there's no more ice cream left. There's a worldwide ice cream shortage." WHAT?! "How long is the ice cream shortage supposed to last?" I asked. "Forever," replied the ghost of Mr. Will. "There's no more candy either," said the ghost of Ms. Leakey. "It's all gone." "Nooooooo!" I shouted. "No more ice cream or candy? Those are the two most important food groups! How am I going to survive?" "Sports have been canceled this summer too," said Miss Small sadly. "And all the swimming pools have to be drained," said Mr. Burke. "WHAT?!" I shouted. "No more sports?

No swimming either? What happened?" "We believe it has something to do with the earth's rotation," said Mrs. Yonkers. "I've been tracking it on the computer." "Perhaps I can explain," said Miss Tracy. "For reasons we don't quite understand, the speed that the earth turns around its axis has sped up in the last few days. What happened was, radiation blah blah gravitation blah blah constellation blah blah calculation blah blah calibration blah blah combination blah blah dehydration blah blah navigation blah blah situation blah blah transformation blah blah...." I had no idea what she was talking about. "You see," said Mrs. Newman, "there was a high-pressure blah blah, which caused a thermal inversion vector blah blah, which led to global blah blah and wind chill factor

blah blah blah blah." I had no idea what she was talking about either. But I knew one thing for sure. It was the most horrible thing to happen in the history of the world! "This is big news!" said Mrs. Lilly, sticking a microphone in my face. "I'm writing a story about it for the newspaper. Do you care to comment, A.J.?" "Get out of here!" I shouted at all of them. "Get out of my room!" The ghosts let out eerie cackling laughs before they lined up in single file and flew out the window.* This was the worst night in the history of my life. I simply could not fall back asleep after everything they said. My life was ruined.