6. Andrea Is Annoying

6 Andrea Is Annoying A bunch of stagehands tried to calm down Uncle Fred. Mrs. Crump came over to talk to us. "I'm terribly sorry, kids," she said. "Funderama is over for today. Uncle Fred isn't usually like this." Mrs. Crump kept apologizing, and she

gave us free tickets to come back and see another episode of Funderama whenever we want. Alexia never was able to open up the treasure chest. As we left the studio, each of us got a goody bag filled with Porky's Pork Sausages. The bus was waiting for us outside. "So how was Funderama?" asked Mrs. Kormel. "Isn't Uncle Fred great?" "He was awesome!" said Ryan. "It was cool!" said Neil. "Uncle Fred was totally out of his mind!" We were all talking about how much fun we had at the Funderama taping. The only one who didn't look happy was Little Miss Perfect. Andrea had on her frowny face. "What's the matter?" I asked her. "Was your clog dancing lesson canceled again?"*

"Very funny, Arlo," replied Andrea. "I'm worried about Uncle Fred." "What about him?" I asked. "Well, my mother is a psychologist," said Little Miss Know-It-All. "And she told me that grown-ups who act like Uncle Fred have emotional problems."

"What?!" I said. "He was just upset because they didn't get him the watermelons he asked for. What's the big deal?" "Didn't you see the way he was behaving?" asked the Human Homework Machine. "He was so immature, and hyperactive too. My mom told me it's very hard for adults like Uncle Fred to function in the real world with mature people. I think he needs to get professional help." "Your face needs to get professional help," I told Andrea. "Oh, snap!" said Ryan. Andrea is no fun at all. Any time grown-ups act silly, she always says they need to get help. Uncle Fred is cool. He was just having a tough day. The bus pulled up to school, and we walked a million hundred miles to Miss Banks's class. And you'll never believe who walked through the door at that moment. Nobody! You can't walk through a

door! I thought we went over that in Chapter One. But you'll never believe who walked through the doorway. It was us! "I have an announcement to make," Miss Banks said as we walked into the room. Uh-oh. When teachers make announcements, it usually means bad news. Miss Banks took a piece of paper out of her pocket. "The Board of Education," she read off the paper, "has decided that due to poor test scores at Ella Mentry School, Halloween will be canceled this year." What?! "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" shouted Ryan. "They can't do that!" shouted Alexia. "It's not fair!" shouted Neil. Everybody was yelling and screaming and hooting and hollering and freaking out.

"Just kidding!" Miss Banks said as she threw the piece of paper in the garbage can. "It's time for math. Today we're going to talk about irrational numbers." Huh? What's that? "An irrational number," said Miss Banks, "is a real number that can't be expressed as a fraction blah blah blah blah