4 Good Luck

4 Good Luck After we finished arguing, we pledged the allegiance and did Word of the Day. The word of the day was "shamrock." A shamrock is a four-leaf clover that only has three leaves. If you ask me, it should be called a three-leaf clover. Mr. O'Cooper

told us the shamrock is the national flower and the emblem of Ireland. "Should we turn to page twenty-three in our math books?" asked Emily. "No," said Mr. O'Cooper. "We're not going to do math today." Yay! I hate math. "Instead, we're going to learn about Ireland," said Mr. O'Cooper.* Boo! Mr. O'Cooper went to the whiteboard and started drawing pictures of shamrocks. "If four of us each had four shamrocks," he said, "how many shamrocks would we have altogether?"

"Sixteen!" shouted Michael. "Because four times four is sixteen." "Very good, Michael," said Mr. O'Cooper. "Now try this one. There are about five million Irish people living in Ireland. There are about thirty-two million Irish people living in the United States. How many more Irish people live in the United States than live in Ireland?" We all thought that over for a while.

"Twenty-seven million!" shouted Neil. "Correct!" said Mr. O'Cooper. "Hey, wait a minute!" I shouted. "You said we weren't going to do math today. This sounds a lot like a math lesson to me." "No, no. Don't be silly," said Mr. O'Cooper. "We're not learning math. We're learning about Ireland." Mr. O'Cooper taught us a bunch of other stuff about Ireland, and it all involved addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Not fair! When he was done, you'll never believe who came through the door. Nobody! You can't come through a door. Doors are made of wood. I thought we went over that in Chapter 1. But you'll never believe who came through the doorway. It was our music teacher, Mr. Loring! He said we should call him Mr. O'Loring on Saint Patrick's Day, and he started singing a song. Oh, Danny Boy The pipes, the pipes are calling...

That's a weird song. If your pipes are calling, that means somebody must be stuck in your pipes. You need to call a plumber right away. "Follow me, everybody," said Mr. O'Loring. "Where are we going?" Alexia asked. "You'll find out," Mr. O'Loring replied. He led us down the hall and out the back door to the playground. Beyond the blacktop is a big grassy area where we play soccer and stuff. "It's time for our four-leaf-clover hunt!" said Mr. O'Loring. "Yay!" we all shouted. Mr. O'Loring told us that each leaf of a fourleaf clover has a meaning—hope, faith, love, and luck. He said four-leaf clovers are really rare. If we found one, he said, it would bring us good luck for the rest of the day. We got down on our hands and knees and looked for four-leaf clovers. Some of the teachers came out to help—Mr. O'Macky, Miss O'Small, and Mrs. O'Yonkers. Even Mrs. Patty was out there with Jake the Snake in a basket.

"Would you like to touch Jake the Snake?" she asked us. "We already touched him," I reminded her. "We're looking for four-leaf clovers now." We searched for a million hundred minutes. There were a lot of clovers with three leaves, but we couldn't find any four-leaf clovers. That's when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world. "Hey, Ryan," I whispered. "Why don't we just tear one of the leaves in half so it looks like a fourleaf clover?" "That would be cheating, A.J.," Ryan whispered back. "If you cheat, you'll have bad luck for the rest of the day."