My Weird School Daze #5 Officer Spence Makes No Sense! Dan Gutman Pictures by Jim Paillot 2 To Emma 3 Contents 1 The Mystery of the Missing PB&J 2 Officer Spence Is Weird 3 The Peanut Butter and Jelly Bandit 4 True or False? 5 Nah-Nah-Nah Boo-Boo 6 Searching for Clues 7 You Can’t Say “Butt” in a Children’s Book 8 Mrs. Cooney Is Busted 9 Officer Spence Is Getting Weirder 10 The Peanut Butter and Jelly Bandit Is… 11 Skippy and Jif Save the Day 12 The Truth About Officer Spence About the Author and the Illustrator Credits Copyright About the Publisher 4 5 6 1 The Mystery of the Missing PB&J My name is A.J. and I hate school. I was in the vomitorium eating lunch with the guys. Our lunch lady, Ms. LaGrange, was walking around saying hello to everybody. “Bon appétit!” Ms. LaGrange said when she got to our table. Ms. LaGrange is from France, so she’s always saying weird stuff like “Bon appétit.” I know that “appetite” means “being hungry” and “bon” means “bone.” So when French people get hungry, I guess they eat bones. French people are weird. “I invented a new food!” Ms. LaGrange told us. “Would you like to try it?” I never try new foods. That’s the first rule of being a kid. New foods are yucky. We all looked in the bowl Ms. LaGrange was holding. “What is it?” asked Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn’t food. “Take a guess,” said Ms. LaGrange. “Is it noodles?” asked Michael, who never ties his shoes. “Not exactly,” said Ms. LaGrange. “Is it pasta?” asked Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes. “Nope,” said Ms. LaGrange. “It’s a combination of noodles and pasta.” “What’s it called?” I asked. “Poodlenasta!” said Ms. LaGrange. Poodlenasta? Who names a food poodlenasta? Ms. LaGrange is strange. Ryan tried some poodlenasta, but the rest of us said it looked gross. Neil opened his bag of Crispy Chips. Michael took out a bag of Crunchy Cheezy Crackos. My mom packed me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I love peanut butter. And I lo