2. Anything Can Be Art

2 Anything Can Be Art Oh, sorry. I must have dozed off in the middle of Professor Armpit's fascinating talk about... whatever he was talking about. What a snoozefest. When I woke up, Professor Armpit was gone. At least I wouldn't have to listen to him talk anymore. But I was wrong.

The next morning, after we pledged the allegiance, Miss Banks announced, "Instead of math and social studies today, we're going on a field trip!" At first, I thought she was just pulling another one of her pranks, but she insisted she was serious. We were really going on a field trip. "Field trip!" yelled Alexia. "Field trip!" yelled Neil. "Field trip!" yelled Ryan. Everybody started yelling "field trip!" Field trips are cool. Well, except for field trips to a field. Those field trips are boring. "Where are we going?" asked Andrea, the Human Homework Machine. "We're taking a tour of a radioactive toxic waste dump," replied Miss Banks. WHAT?! "Just kidding," she said. "We're going to the Museum of Recent Art. Professor Pitt invited us to be his guests." "Yay!" shouted Andrea. "I love

museums!" Ugh, I hate museums. Museums are boring. I would rather have hot needles poked into my eyes than look at a bunch of dumb paintings. But Miss Banks said we had to go. We walked single file to the front door of the school, where the bus was waiting. "Bingle boo!" said our bus driver, Mrs. Kormel. Mrs. Kormel is not normal. She invented her own secret language. It's sort of like French. "Bingle boo" means "hello." "How come we never go on a field trip to a skateboard museum?" I complained to Ryan as we climbed on the bus. "Because there's no such thing as a skateboard museum," he replied. Well, there should be. "Museums are fun!" said Andrea, who sat across the aisle from me. "My mom has been taking me to museums for years." "For years?" I asked. "Don't they close

museums at the end of each day?" Andrea just rolled her eyes. When we arrived at the Museum of Recent Art, we had to climb up a million hundred steps. What's up with that? Why do museums have so many steps in front of them? They should put museums at ground level, like normal buildings. Anyway, you'll never believe who was waiting for us at the top of the steps. It was Ms. Hannah! "I hope you kids are excited," she said as she led us inside the museum. "Within these walls are the greatest works of art of the last hundred years." "WOW," everybody said, which is "MOM" upside down.

Maybe going to the museum wouldn't be so bad. At least we didn't have to learn math or social studies. Ms. Hannah led us down a hallway until she found Professor Armpit's office. "Bonjour!" he said. "Welcome to the Museum of Recent Art. Before we get started on our tour, are there any questions?" "Can we go to the gift shop?" asked Michael. "Maybe later," said Professor Armpit. Gift shops are cool. They have all kinds

of useful stuff, like refrigerator magnets and souvenir spoons with your name on them. If you ask me, I'd rather go to a museum gift shop than go to a museum. "Any other questions?" asked Professor Armpit. "Yeah," I said. "What's the capital of France?" "Uh, Paris," said Professor Armpit. "Why do you ask?" "I just want to make sure you're really French," I told him. "What's your favorite French food?" "French fries," he replied. "Well, okay," I said. "Maybe you really are French." "Come," Professor Armpit told us, "I want to show you some treasures of our collection." We followed him to a big room filled with all kinds of weird art. One painting was a bunch of black lines on a gray background. Another one was a bunch of