i rd School #3 My We Dan Gutman Pictures by Jim Paillot To Emma Contents 1 That Army Guy 1 2 The Librarian 7 3 George Washington’s Teeth 14 4 Dumbheads 19 5 Mrs. Roopy’s Hero 24 6 Johnny Applesauce 38 7 One Small Step for Man 43 8 Nursery Rhyme Week 50 9 Mrs. Roopy’s Problem 59 10 The Evidence 63 11 Just Admit It! 71 12 The Proof 79 About the Author and the Illustrator Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher 1 That Army Guy My name is A.J. and I hate school. If you ask me, they shouldn’t teach kids how to read and write in school. They shouldn’t teach math. They should teach kids how to do tricks on their bikes. That’s what I want to learn! But my teacher, Miss Daisy, thinks reading and 1 writing and math are really important for some reason. Miss Daisy told us to write a story for homework and draw a picture to go with it. We read the stories out loud the next day in class. Andrea Young, who thinks she knows everything, made up a story about a family of flowers who were sad because it was cloudy outside. Then the sun came flowers got happy again. It was a really dumb story, if you ask me. Flowers aren’t happy or sad. They just sit there and do nothing. They don’t even have families! But Miss Daisy kept telling Andrea how great the story was. My story was about these giant maneating monsters fighting on trick bikes in outer space until they were all dead. I drew cool pictures to go with it. Emily, this girl with red hair, said my story was scary. But Emily thinks everything is scary. Miss Daisy said I had a good imagination, but she asked me if next time I could try to write a story that didn’t have so much violence in it. “What’s violent about giant man-eating monsters fighting on trick bikes in outer space?” I asked. Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny. Andrea said maybe I could have the man-eating monsters make up at the end of the story and tell each other they were sorry. “Monsters don’t a