2. Yee-Haw and Ya-Hoo!

2 Yee-Haw and Ya-Hoo! A few days went by. Nobody mentioned the vegetable garden. I thought Mrs. Stoker had forgotten about the idea. But then we were on the playground during recess when she and Miss Banks came over to us.

"Follow me, kids," Mrs. Stoker said, bringing us to the side of the school. "This is the spot where we're going to plant our vegetable garden." Ugh. Mrs. Stoker took a deep breath and threw out her arms. Well, she didn't throw her arms away. She just put them out like a scarecrow. "This garden is going to be great," she told us. "You'll be out in the fresh air blah blah blah. We'll work the land blah blah blah. We'll grow our own food blah blah blah..." "It's time for all of us to stop staring at screens," said Miss Banks, "and get back to nature blah blah blah..."* They went on like that for a while. "I didn't know you were a gardener, Mrs. Stoker," said Andrea, who loves talking to grown- ups for no reason. "Oh, I don't know anything about gardens," Mrs. Stoker replied. "But I found somebody who is going to teach us how to start one." At that moment, I heard a noise in the distance. It was a motor. The noise got louder. We turned around. And then I saw some weird-

looking machine coming down the street toward the school. It was a tractor. "And here she comes now!" said Mrs. Stoker. The tractor drove across the playground and stopped on the grass next to us.

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"YEE-HAW!" A lady hopped off the tractor. She was wearing overalls, a straw hat, and a T-shirt that said TALK DIRT TO ME. A long piece of grass was hanging out of her mouth. "This is Miss Nichol," said Mrs. Stoker. "Welcome to Ella Mentry School." "YA-HOO!" said Miss Nichol. "It's good to be here, y'all!" "Miss Nichol seems kind of young," I said quietly. "Oh, she is young," said Miss Banks. "But she's outstanding in her field." No she wasn't. She was out standing in our field. Mrs. Stoker told us that Miss Nichol grew up on a farm, and that she recently graduated from college with a degree in organic farming. "You grow organs?" I asked. "Is that legal?" "Yee-haw!" yelled Miss Nichol. "That's a knee-slapper!" She slapped her knee and laughed. Some grown-ups slap their knees when they laugh. Nobody knows why.

Miss Nichol told us that she's a graduate student, and she signed up to work with our school as a class project. She said she's studying to get her master's degree in botany. I guess that's the science of bots. "Bots are cool," I said. "I used to watch this show called Robot Wars. They would have a bunch of remote-controlled bots fighting each other to the death." "Not those kinds of bots, dumbhead," said Andrea, rolling her eyes. "Botany is the science of plants." Andrea thinks she is sooooooo smart because she's a member of the P.A.C. That's the Principal Advisory Committee—a group of nerds who get to boss around the principal. I was going to say something mean to her, but I couldn't think of anything good. "I just love growin' stuff," Miss Nichol told us. "I have a green thumb." "You should see a doctor," I said. "Think about it, y'all," she continued. "Startin' a garden is like teachin' kids. Ya plant a seed and nourish it and watch it sprout and grow and