eird School #10 My W Dan Gutman Pictures by Jim Paillot To Emma Contents 1 Science Is for Nerds 1 2 The Power of the Potato 9 3 Stop, Drop, and Roll 20 4 Going on a Field Trip 32 5 The Science (Not) Fair 42 6 Being Nice to Andrea 54 7 The Truth About Mr. Docker 60 8 Don’t Try This at Home 69 9 Spying on Mr. Docker 76 10 The Spudmobile 82 11 My Buzzing, Bubbling Brain 89 12 The Worst Moment of My Life 95 Acknowledgments About the Author and the Illustrator Credits Cover Copyright About the Publisher 1 1 Science Is for Nerds My name is A.J. and I hate school. Why do we need to learn how to read if we have books on CD? Why do we need to learn social studies if that stuff happened a long time ago and we can’t do anything about it now? I hate that stuff. But there’s one subject I really hate. 1 Andrea Young. Well, Andrea is not exactly a subject. She’s this annoying girl in my class. Even her curly brown hair is annoying. “Guess what, A.J.?” Andrea said as we were putting our backpacks away. “Your butt,” I replied. (Anytime somebody asks, “Guess what?” you should always say, “Your butt.” That’s the first rule of being a kid.) “I know what A.J. stands for,” Andrea said. “Do not.” “Do too.” We went back and forth like that for a while. There’s no way Andrea could 2 know what A.J. stands for. I never told anyone. Even my best friends, Ryan and Michael, don’t know. If anyone ever found out what A.J. stands for, I’d have to get a new name. I’d have to leave town. “A.J. stands for—” Andrea never got the chance to finish her sentence because our teacher, Miss Daisy, came in. “Enough chitchatting,” Miss Daisy said. “It’s time for Show and Share.” Oh man! I forgot all about Show and Share! We were supposed to bring in something that starts with the letter D and tell the class about it. I looked in my desk for a D word. Nothing. I looked in 3 my pockets. All I had was lunch money. But wait! A dime! “Dime” begins with D! “I brought in a dime,”