Mrs. Patty Is Batty!

1
   Mischief Night

2
   The T.P.ing of Andrea's House

3
   Three Zombies

4
   The Emperor Has No Clothes

5
   “I Rule the School!”

6
   Giant Bananas and Two-headed Astronauts

7
   The Halloween Monster!

8
   The Most Horrible, Dreadful, Disgusting, Repulsive Creature That Ever Walked the Earth

9
   Mrs. Patty's Weird House

10
   Marvin the Headless Mummy

About the Author and the Illustrator

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

My name is A.J. and I hate school.

Well, I have to tell the truth. There is
one
thing about school that I really
love
.

Dismissal! That's when we get to go home!

“Don't forget to wear your Halloween costumes tomorrow,” Mrs. Patty cackled
over the loudspeaker just before the three o'clock bell rang. “Halloween is my favorite holiday!”

She's not kidding. Mrs. Patty celebrates Halloween all year long. There are always cobwebs and spiders covering her desk. She wears earrings that look like little skeletons. And she always has candy in her office. Lots of candy.

I like Mrs. Patty. She's the secretary at Ella Mentry School. That means she sits in the front office all day and makes announcements over the loudspeaker. “Friday is pizza day!” she will say. Or “Miss Lazar, please mop up the throw up in the vomitorium.” Or “Will the children
who left their jackets in the playground please remove their clothes.”

Being a school secretary is like being a DJ. That is a cool job.

I grabbed a piece of candy and ran out the front door of Ella Mentry School with my friends Ryan and Michael. Free at last!

“What should we do for mischief night tonight?” asked Ryan, who once ate a piece of the seat cushion on the school bus.

“Let's T.P. somebody's house,” said Michael, who never ties his shoes.

“Yeah!”

I don't know if you know this or not, but the night before Halloween is mischief
night. That's the night you go out and do mischief, so it has the perfect name. And T.P. stands for toilet paper. On mischief night you go out and throw toilet paper all over people's trees. That's the first rule of being a kid.

“Whose house should we T.P.?” I asked.

“How about Miss Daisy's house?” Ryan suggested. (Miss Daisy is our teacher.)

“Nah,” Michael said, “we'd get in big trouble.”

“How about Mr. Klutz's ho
use?” Ryan suggested. (Mr. Klutz is our principal.)

“Nah,” Michael said, “we'd get in even
bigger
trouble.”

Speaking of trouble, guess who ran by
us at that very moment? It was the most annoying person in the history of the world, little Miss Perfect Andrea Young. She is in our class and has curly brown hair. She thinks she is so smart.

“What's the rush, Andrea?” asked Ryan.

“I have to finish my homework before ballet class,” Andrea said.

“Why don't you do your homework
after
ballet class?” Michael asked.

“After ballet class I have soccer and my cooking class.”

Andrea takes classes in everything. If they gave a class in going to the bathroom, she would take that class so she could get better at it. I hate her.

But seeing Andrea gave me the greatest idea in the history of the world.

“Let's T.P. Andrea's house!” I told the guys.

“A.J., you're a genius!” said Ryan.

After dinner I told my parents I was going down the street to Ryan's house. Ryan told his parents he was going down the street to my house. But me and Ryan didn't go over to each other's houses at all. We both went to Andrea's house. Our parents didn't have to know we were
going out for mischief night. But Michael couldn't come. He was grounded for pulling the arms off his sister's doll.

Me and Ryan each brought a roll of toilet paper in our backpacks.

“This is gonna be great!” Ryan whispered as we hid behind a car across the street from Andrea's house. “Andrea's gonna wake up in the morning and find the trees in her yard are covered in toilet paper!”

I couldn't stop giggling.

“It will be the greatest day in the history of the world,” I said.

It was starting to get dark out, but we still had to be careful because we didn't want to get caught. My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that if you get caught T.P.ing somebody's house, the police put you in a jail with
no
toilet paper. Yuck! But Billy is a big liar anyway.

Me and Ryan tiptoed to Andrea's front lawn like we were spies on a mission. It was cool.

“Be careful not to spit on the ground,” I whispered as we pulled the rolls of toilet paper out of our backpacks.

“Why not?” Ryan asked.

“You don't want to leave any DNA evidence,” I said. “They could scoop up
our spit and prove it came from us.”

“Good thinking,” he agreed.

I'm in the gifted and talented program at school, so I'm constantly thinking up genius stuff like that. Andrea is in the gifted and talented program too (of course).

There's a really big tree in Andrea's front yard. It has a lot of branches, so it's perfect for hanging toilet paper. We decided to loop the toilet paper over the high branches first. After that we would drape it over the low branches until the whole tree was covered.

“Okay,” I said, once we were in position. “Ready…aim…
fire
!”

I threw my roll of toilet paper as high as I could. Ryan threw his roll of toilet paper at the same time. Both rolls went sailing up into the tree. But there was just one problem. Those toilet paper rolls didn't unroll!

One of the toilet paper rolls bounced off Andrea's house. The other one got stuck in the tree somewhere. It never came down. Bummer in the summer!

“What did we do wrong?” Ryan asked.

“I guess we should have unrolled them a little before we threw them,” I said.

“
Now
you tell me!” said Ryan.

We were going to pick up the toilet paper roll and try again. But suddenly a
light went on inside Andrea's house. Andrea stuck her head out the window. Me and Ryan ran and hid behind the tree.

“Shhhh!” Ryan whispered. “I don't think she saw us.”

“Daddy!” I heard Andrea yell. “Somebody is outside throwing stuff at our house!”

“Run for it!” I told Ryan. We didn't stop running until we got home.