Mr. Burke Is Berserk! (3 page)

“You kids are here to
learn
,” said the mayor, “not to sit around drawing pictures and singing silly songs. That's just a big waste of money.”

Everybody looked really sad when Ms. Hannah and Mr. Loring walked out of the all-purpose room.

“The next things we need to cut are school supplies,” said Mayor Hubble. “So from now on we're going to stop buying glue sticks, rulers, erasers, tape, and markers. You can have one pencil per classroom.”

“That's off the wall!” yelled Miss Small.

“Oh, stop whining,” said Mayor Hubble. “This will improve everyone's schoolwork. If the students only have one pencil, they'll make fewer mistakes.”

“What about crayons?” asked Miss Holly, our Spanish teacher.

“No more crayons,” said Mayor Hubble. “You can melt down candles and make them into crayons. That will save us a lot of money.”

“That's loopy!” yelled Mrs. Roopy.

The mayor pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket to remind him of the other things he was going to cut.

“Starting today,” he announced, “I'm turning off the water fountains in the hallways. Do you know what the biggest waste of water in the world is? Water fountains! The water just shoots right out of them!”

“That's bizarre!” yelled Miss Lazar, our custodian.

“Oh, give me a break,” Mayor Hubble said. “It's not like people
need
water to live or anything. And I know you kids just go to the water fountain when you don't want to sit in class. You're not fooling anybody.”

Well, he was right about
that
.

“That's daffy!” yelled Mrs. Jafee.

“From now on,” the mayor continued, “there will be no more toilet paper in the bathrooms. That stuff costs way too much money.”

“You're getting rid of the toilet paper?” shouted Alexia. “What are we supposed to use?”

“Post-it Notes,” said the mayor.

“That's loony!” yelled Mrs. Cooney, the school nurse. “And disgusting!”

“From now on the teachers will have their pay cut in half,” the mayor continued. “You teachers make way too much money.”

Teachers get paid? That was a new one on me. I thought they just came to school every day because they had no place else to go.

“But we hardly make any money as it is!” yelled Mrs. Yonkers, our computer teacher.

“What do
you
teach?” Mayor Hubble asked Mrs. Yonkers.

“I'm the computer teacher.”

“Well, you're fired,” said the mayor. “I'm replacing you with a computer. A computer should be able to teach a computer class much better than a human being anyway. And computers don't whine and complain like people do.”

“He's off his rocker!” yelled Mr. Docker, our science teacher.

“You crybaby teachers should be thankful you have jobs at all,” said the mayor. “Oh, and I want the coffee machine and the hot tub removed from the teachers' lounge.”

“We don't have a hot tub in the teachers' lounge,” said Mrs. Jafee.

“You don't?” said the mayor. “Hmmm. Then put a hot tub in the teachers' lounge and then take it out. We have no money to spend on silly things like hot tubs for teachers.”

“He's loco!” said Ms. Coco, the gifted and talented teacher.

Mayor Hubble was getting more and more excited as he talked about all the cuts he was going to make.

“After we get rid of the hot tub in the teachers' lounge,” he said, “get rid of the tables and chairs in there and sell them on eBay.”

“Do you expect the teachers to sit on the
floor
?” asked Mr. Granite.

“Yes!” said Mayor Hubble. “It will be like a picnic every day. You like picnics, don't you? Who doesn't like a picnic?”

“He's gone mad!” said Dr. Brad, the school counselor.

“Come to think of it,” said the mayor, “why do you teachers need a lounge anyway? You don't have time for lounging around in hot tubs and having picnics. This is a school, not some beach resort.”

“But we don't
have
a hot tub!” yelled Miss Laney, our speech teacher.

“Not anymore you won't,” said the mayor. “Not after I get rid of the one we're putting in. All these cuts will help us balance the budget. And when the voters see how much money I saved, they'll vote to reelect me in November.”

“Are
you
going to take a pay cut too?” asked Mrs. Jafee.

“Don't be silly,” said Mayor Hubble. “I'm giving myself a raise for coming up with these great ideas to save money.”

“That makes no sense!” yelled Officer Spence, our security guard. “We
need
pencils and glue sticks and water fountains and toilet paper. We
need
tables and chairs. We need all those things that you're going to cut.”

“Yeah!” shouted all the teachers.

“If Mr. Klutz was here, he would never allow any of this,” said Mr. Granite.

“That's right!” shouted the teachers.

“Well, Mr. Klutz isn't here, is he?” asked Mayor Hubble. “He's at principal camp.”

Everybody was really mad. And you'll never believe who poked his head into the door at that moment.

Nobody! Poking your head into doors is dumb. I thought we went over that in the last chapter.

But you'll never believe who poked his head into the
doorway
.
^*

It was Mr. Burke, the groundskeeper!

“Ah mowed the lawn,” said Mr. Burke.

“Ah trimmed the bushes. Ah been busier than a one-armed man hangin' wallpaper, and Ah am plum tuckered out. What do you want me to do next?”

“Next?” asked Mayor Hubble. “The next thing you can do is go home. There's no money in the budget for a groundskeeper anymore. So you're fired. Have a nice day.”

I think that was the moment when Mr. Burke went berserk.

None of us could believe that Mr. Burke had been fired. Who would mow the lawn? Who would trim the bushes? Who would rake the leaves in the fall and shovel the snow in the winter?

Mr. Burke didn't say a word. He just stood up and walked slowly out the doorway.

When we got back to class, I looked out the window and saw Mr. Burke sitting all by himself on the monkey bars in the playground. It was sad.

“Okay, it's time for math,” said Mr. Granite. “Get out your pencils and turn to page twenty-three in your math books. Do the first problem and write the answer in your notebook.”

Ugh. I hate math.

“I don't have a pencil,” said Ryan.

“Me neither,” said Michael.

“My pencil is gone!” said Neil the nude kid.

“Somebody stole my pencil, too!” said Alexia.

“Somebody took
all
of our pencils!” said Andrea.

It was true! All of our pencils were gone. Our glue sticks, tape, erasers, and rulers were gone, too.

“Somebody stole our stuff!” I shouted.

“Who would steal school supplies?” asked Andrea.

“Mayor Hubble!” said Mr. Granite. “He's probably going to sell our school supplies on eBay so he can balance the budget.”

“Wow,” I said, “he didn't waste any time.”

“Mayor Hubble is
mean
!” said Emily.

“That may be true, but we still have to do math,” said Mr. Granite. “There's one pencil on my desk. We'll just have to share the class pencil.”

“Can I use the class pencil
first
?” asked Little Miss Perfect. “I already know the answer to the first problem.”

Andrea always knows the answer to
every
problem. I hate her.

“I want the class pencil first!” I shouted. “Please, Mr. Granite?”

I didn't even want the dumb pencil. I just didn't want Little Miss Know-It-All to get it.

“Andrea and A.J. may
share
the class pencil,” said Mr. Granite. “Then pass it down to the next person.”

“Oooooh!”
Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea are going to share the class pencil. They must be in
love
!”

“When are you gonna get married?” asked Michael.

If those guys weren't my best friends, I would hate them.

Andrea snatched the pencil from Mr. Granite before I could get it. I grabbed the other end of the pencil.

“I get to use the class pencil
first
, Arlo!” said Andrea.

“No,” I shouted at her, “we're supposed to share it.”

“Me!”

“No, me!”

“Both of you! Knock it—”

Mr. Granite didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. Because at that moment the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.

SNAP!

The class pencil broke in half.

“Look what you did, Arlo!” shouted Andrea. “You broke the class pencil!”

“I didn't break it,” I shouted back at her. “
You
broke it!”

“I did not!”

“Did too.”

“Now we can't do math,” said Michael.

“Yay!” said Ryan. “No math!”

“Mr. Granite, Arlo broke the class pencil on purpose so he wouldn't have to do math!” Andrea yelled.

“I did not!”

“Did too!”

Andrea started hitting me, and I hit her back.

“Stop!” shouted Mr. Granite. “I will not have violence in my classroom!”

“What do you have against violins?” I asked.

“Not violins, Arlo!” said Andrea, rolling her eyes. “Violence!”

“Oh. That sounds a lot like violins to me.”

“Forget the class pencil,” said Mr. Granite. “We'll use the whiteboard. You kids will
not
get out of doing math
this
time.”