eird School Daze #2 W y M Dan Gutman Pictures by Jim Paillot To Emma Contents 1 Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 2 Hitting the Beach 8 3 Bummer in the Summer! 16 4 Mr. Sunny Is Weird 26 5 A Strange Visitor 37 6 Nah-Nah-Nah Boo-Boo 43 7 Andrea and the L Word 44 8 Love Is Dumb 53 9 Much Ado About Nothing 59 10 The Sanderpiece 70 11 Glub, Glub 78 12 A.J. to the Rescue 85 13 And the Winner Is . . . 94 14 The Big Surprise Ending That Will Completely Shock You, Unless You Already Guessed It 101 About the Authors Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher 1 Yippee!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My name is A.J. and I hate school. But I don’t care about school anymore. You know why? Because last week I graduated from second grade at Ella Mentry School. And third grade doesn’t start until September. 1 You know what that means? That’s right! It’s summertime! I don’t have to worry about school for THREE WHOLE MONTHS! Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Before school ended my teacher, Mrs. Daisy, told us to write about our favorite season. We had to read our essays in front of everybody. “My favorite season is spring,” wrote Andrea Young, this annoying girl with curly brown hair. “The sun is out. Flowers are blooming. Birds are chirping. Butterflies flit to and fro. It fills me with joy and happiness.” I hate Andrea. 2 What is her problem? Everybody knows the best season of all is summer. That’s the first rule of being a kid! Summer blows the doors off the other seasons. You know why summer is so great? Because you don’t have to sit still all day. You don’t have to pledge the allegiance or have circle time or learn the Word of the Day. You don’t have to line up in ABC order and walk in single file. Teachers don’t yell at you, and you can’t be sent to the principal’s office. There’s no disgusting cafeteria food to eat. You don’t have to read books. No homework! You don’t have to learn stuff. 3 My brain