Ms. Krup Cracks Me Up! (5 page)

I looked around the room. It was a whole exhibit devoted to poop! Nothing but poop!
^*

“I never thought I'd see poop in a museum,” Emily said.

“Oh, poop is a fascinating part of natural history,” Ms. Krup told us.

We all laughed, because whenever a grown-up says “poop,” you can't help but laugh.

Ms. Krup cracks me up!

“Poop can reveal what an animal eats, how it digests food, and whether or not it's sick,” Ms. Krup said. “Some animals use poop to tell enemies to stay away. Others use it like perfume to attract mates.”
^*

“Ew!” we all said. “Gross!”

Ms. Krup walked around and showed us the displays she made. I had never
seen anyone who was so excited about poop.

“Did you know that the most expensive coffee in the world comes from Palm Civet poop in Indonesia?” Ms. Krup asked us. “It costs a hundred and seventy-five dollars a pound.”

“I'm glad my parents drink tea,” said Michael.

“Really?” Ms. Krup said. “In China they make some tea from caterpillar poop.”

“That's the last time I go to a Chinese restaurant!” I exclaimed.

Ms. Krup showed us a picture of a sloth. “It only poops once a week,” she said.

“That happened to my dad once,” said
Emily. “He had to go to the doctor.”

“A week isn't so long,” Ms. Krup told us.
“Grizzly bears may go six
months
without pooping.”

“No wonder they're so mad!” I said.

“African elephants can produce three hundred pounds of poop every day!” Ms. Krup said.

“Wow!” said Andrea. “What do they do with all that poop?”

“Well, in some parts of Africa and Asia, elephant poop is made into paper.”

“I hope they don't make it into toilet paper,” I said. “Because that would just be weird.”

“Do you know what else is weird?” Ms. Krup said. “Rabbits eat their
own
poop!”

“Ew, disgusting!” we all shouted.

“And termites glue their houses together with poop.”

“Hey, Andrea,” I said, “didn't your dad do that to your house?”

“Oh, snap!” said Michael.

“That's mean, Arlo!”

“Dung beetles push balls of poop around and bury it,” Ms. Krup told us.

“Sounds like one of Arlo's playdates,” Andrea said.

“Oh, snap!” said Michael.

“Storks squirt poop on their legs in hot weather to cool off,” Ms. Krup said.

“So does Andrea,” I said.

We pushed buttons to watch cool videos of animals pooping. Did you know
that a rhinoceros stomps on its poop and kicks it around? It's hilarious. And some boy cranes fling buffalo poop up in the air to impress girl cranes.

“Don't even
think
about it, Arlo,” said Andrea.

“People throw poop around, too,” Ms. Krup told us. “In Wisconsin they have cow chip–tossing contests. One man
threw a cow chip more than half the length of a football field.”

“Remind me not to play football on
that
field,” said Michael.

“People in Wisconsin are weird,” I said.

I had no idea that poop could be so interesting. We got to match poop samples with the animals that pooped them. Then we got to touch an eighty-million-year-old piece of dinosaur poop. Ms. Krup showed us some poop under a microscope too. And we got to push buttons on a map to learn the word for “poop” in different countries.

“Poop is a palindrome,” Ms. Krup said. “Does anybody know what a palindrome is?”

Andrea was waving her dumb hand in the air like she had to go to the bathroom really badly, which would have made perfect sense in “The Amazing World of Poop"! But Ms. Krup called on me instead. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea.

“A palindrome is when you make friends with bees,” I said. “My pal is a drone.”

“Not exactly,” Ms. Krup said. “Andrea?”

“A palindrome is a word that's spelled the same way forward and backward,” she said.

“That's right!”

Why can't three hundred pounds of elephant poop fall on Andrea's head forward
and backward?

“You sure know a lot about poop, Ms. Krup,” said Emily.

“Poop is my life,” Ms. Krup replied.

People who like poop that much are weird. But “The Amazing World of Poop” was really cool. We learned more than anybody would ever want to know about poop. And Ms. Krup said the word “poop” so many times, it didn't even sound funny anymore.

It was really late. Ms. Krup took us back to the
Giganotosaurus
, and we climbed into our sleeping bags.

Finally, I fell asleep. I dreamed about a giant poop that was riding a bicycle. And
it was making some weird sound. A buzzing sound. No, it was a swishing sound.

No, no, I got it. It was a
hissing
sound.

What
was
that weird hissing sound?

“Hey!” I whispered to Ryan, who was in the sleeping bag next to mine. “Stop that hissing!”

“I'm not hissing,” he replied.

“You are, too.”

We went back and forth like that for a
while, until suddenly there was an ear-piercing shriek.

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK!”

“There's something in my sleeping bag!” screamed Emily.

Instantly, everybody was awake and jumping out of their sleeping bags. Emily started running around, freaking out.

“What is it?” Andrea asked.

“Maybe it's a blue-tongued skink!” I yelled.

“It's a bug!” Emily shrieked.

“It must be that rare hissing cockroach from Madagascar!” screamed Andrea.

“It's General Muffin!” Michael yelled.

“Run for your lives!” shouted Neil the
nude kid.

Ryan's mom and Mr. Macky and the rest of the grown-ups tried to calm everybody down, but it was no use. Nobody wanted the cockroach to touch them. We
were all screaming and jumping around. Finally, Ms. Krup came running over.

“What's the matter?” she yelled.

“That disgusting cockroach was in Emily's sleeping bag!” Andrea shouted. “Now we can't find it! I thought you said you captured it.”

“I just said General Muffin was in a safe place,” Ms. Krup explained. “I didn't want you kids to be scared.”

“Well, we're scared
now
!” Andrea shouted.

“Poor General Muffin,” said Ms. Krup.

“Who cares about General Muffin?” Andrea yelled. “It's a cockroach!”

Man, that was a first. Andrea actually
yelled at a grown-up!

“There it is!” Michael suddenly shouted. “There's the cockroach!”

“Where?”

“There!”

“Emily!” Andrea shouted. “It's crawling on your back!”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKK!”

“Let's kill it!” all the boys yelled, and we started chasing after Emily.

“Don't kill General Muffin!” shouted Ms. Krup. “He's very rare!”

“Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!” we all chanted.

Emily was running around like her pants were on fire, and me and all the other boys were chasing her. That's when
the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened. Do you remember that giant bear that was next to the
Giganotosaurus
? Well, while we were
chasing Emily around, Neil the nude kid—he…uh…ran into it.

“Watch out!” Ryan's mom yelled.

The giant bear started to topple over. And do you know where it landed? Right on Emily!

It was hilarious. A real Kodak moment. You should have been there.

“EEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKK!” Emily
screamed, freaking out on the floor. “There's a dead bear on me! Get it off! Get it OFF!”

Sheesh, what a crybaby! So there was a giant hissing cockroach in her sleeping bag and a dead bear fell on top of her. Big deal. Stuff like that happens all the time.

Finally, Mr. Macky and Mr. Docker were able to pull the bear off Emily. Ms.
Krup caught General Muffin with a net and put him in a cage.

After all the excitement was over, the grown-ups brought us into a room for breakfast. They gave us cow chips and scrambled dinosaur eggs, but I don't think they were real.

“I hate natural history,” Emily said.

“Natural history is cool,” said Michael.

We were still eating when Ms. Krup came running into the room.

“Hey, who ate all the candy that was next to the candy machine?” she asked.

I looked at Michael. Michael looked at Andrea. Andrea looked at Emily. Emily looked at me.

“It must have been General Muffin,” I lied.

“Yeah,” Michael said. “You told us he likes candy.”

We probably shouldn't have lied about General Muffin eating the candy. But Ms. Krup shouldn't have lied to us about capturing General Muffin. Lying isn't a very nice thing to do. But I guess sometimes even grown-ups do it.

“The museum will open in five minutes,” somebody announced.

It was time for us to leave. We rolled up our sleeping bags. Ryan's mom said we could look in the gift shop for a few minutes until Mrs. Kormel arrived with the
bus. Andrea felt bad about what happened to Emily, so she bought her a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur bone toothbrush. Neil the nude kid bought a box of fake moose poop that was really just chocolate.

As we were leaving the museum, Ms. Krup gave each of us a diploma that said we were Junior Nature Lovers. There was a picture of a dinosaur on it. I'm going to put mine up in my bedroom.

All in all, the natural history museum was almost not boring.

“Can we come back next week?” I asked Ms. Krup as we lined up at the door.

“Uh, well,” said Ms. Krup, “now that you are official Junior Nature Lovers, you…
uh…don't have to EVER come back here again.”

“Bingle boo,” said Mrs. Kormel as we piled on the bus to go home. “What did you learn about?”

“Poop,” I told her.

 

Well, that's pretty much what happened on the field trip. Maybe Ms. Krup will never find out that we ate all the candy. Maybe General Muffin will stay in his cage from now on. Maybe someday Emily will forget that a giant hissing cockroach crawled into her sleeping bag and that a dead bear fell on her. Maybe Mr. Docker and Mr. Macky will cut their nose hair so they'll stop snoring. Maybe Ms. Krup will stop dressing up like a wild yak and get interested in something besides poop. And maybe we'll be able to talk Mrs. Daisy into taking us on another field trip.

But it won't be easy!