Ms. Leakey Is Freaky! (3 page)

After lunch we went back to Mr. Granite's class. He was talking about recycling paper when the school secretary, Mrs. Patty, made an announcement over the loudspeaker.

“Mr. Granite, please send A.J. to Ms. Leakey's office.”

“
Oooooooooooh
, A.J.'s in trouble!” said Ryan.

“I told you not to eat that Twinkie, dude,” said Michael.

“Maybe Arlo will get kicked out of school!” said Andrea.

She was rubbing her hands together. That's what people do when they want something really badly. Why can't a truck full of Twinkies fall on Andrea's head?

I didn't want to go to Ms. Leakey's office. You know where I wanted to go? Antarctica. I wanted to run away and live with the penguins. Penguins are cool. Nobody tells penguins they can't eat Twinkies.

I walked really slowly down the hall.
^*
When I opened the door to Ms. Leakey's office, she wasn't in there. I looked around. It was a weird office. There was a treadmill, an organ, a bunch of plants, a giant metal box that looked like a coffin, a hot tub, and a punching bag hanging from the ceiling!

Suddenly, the strangest thing in the history of the world happened. That giant box opened up, and a monster popped out!

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”
I screamed.

The monster pulled a mask off its face.

It wasn't a monster after all. It was Ms. Leakey!

“Hi, A.J.!” she said.

“Why were you lying in a metal box with a mask on your face?” I asked.

“Oh, this is my hyperbaric chamber,” she said. “I was breathing pure oxygen. It's good for the lungs.”

“A hyper-what?” I asked. “Where do you get one of those things?”

“From Rent-A-Hyperbaric Chamber,” she said. “You can rent anything.”

I looked at the row of plants under the window.

“Why do you have a farm in your office?” I asked.

“I grow all my own food,” she told me. “It's organic.”

I guess that means she plays the organ while her food grows. That's weird.

“What's with the hot tub?” I asked.

“It's not a hot tub,” Ms. Leakey told me. “It's an endless pool. I swim laps in it.”

“Really short laps, huh?” I said.

“The endless pool has a current, like a river,” Ms. Leakey told me. “The water shoots past you so you swim in one place. You can swim forever.”

That made no sense at all. Who wants to swim forever without going anywhere?

Ms. Leakey got up out of her weird box.

“Would you like some trail mix, A.J.?” she said, holding out a bag to me.

I looked inside the bag. The stuff looked gross.

“No thanks,” I said. “I don't want to eat trail.”

“It's nuts and fruits and berries,” said Ms. Leakey. “All natural things. Trail mix is good for you.”

“That's why I don't want to eat it.”

“A.J.,” Ms. Leakey said, “can I be frank with you?”

“You can call yourself whatever you want, Frank,” I told her.

“I'm concerned about your diet,” she said. “Tell me, are you getting three square meals a day at home?”

“Well, sometimes my meals are round, Frank,” I told her. “Like when we have pizza, or pancakes.”

Ms. Leakey just shook her head sadly.

“Why do you have a punching bag in
here?” I asked her.

“Eating junk food makes kids frustrated,” she told me. “It helps if they punch the bag. It's good exercise, too.”

“Hitting stuff is fun,” I agreed.

“Would you like to try it, A.J.?”

“Sure.”

Ms. Leakey got a pair of boxing gloves from her closet and put them on me.

“Okay, hit that bag, A.J.!” she said.

I hit the bag. It felt good.

“Hit it again, A.J.” Ms. Leakey yelled. “Harder!”

I punched the bag some more, as hard as I could.

“Punch out fat, A.J.!” shouted Ms.
Leakey. “Punch out sugar!”

I started dancing around the bag like a boxer, punching it, kicking it, ramming it, slamming it. It was fun! That's when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.

A hole opened up in the punching bag. And you'll never believe in a million
hundred years what fell out of the hole.

I'm not gonna tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you.

It was candy! Candy and cookies and popcorn and all kinds of treats fell out! The punching bag was like a big piñata!

This was the greatest day of my life! I got down on my knees and started scooping up the candy. But I couldn't pick it up because of the boxing gloves.

“STOP!” Ms. Leakey shouted. “That candy isn't for eating! It's for punching!”

“But I want to eat it!” I begged. “I
love
candy!”

Ms. Leakey took the boxing gloves off me and walked me back down the hallway.

“A.J.,” she said when we got to Mr. Granite's room, “you are going to be my special project this year. You're a student leader. The other kids want to do what you do. If I can get
you
to eat healthy, I think everyone else will follow. Will you at least
try
to eat better?”

“Okay,” I said. “I'll try.”

“Good,” she replied. “I'll be keeping a very close eye on you to make sure you do. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go do my crunches.”

“You're going to eat breakfast cereal, Frank?” I called after her.

But she didn't hear me. She had already run away.

The next day was Friday. After we pledged the allegiance, it was time for science class. Our science teacher is Mr. Docker. He has a car that runs on potatoes. Mr. Docker is off his rocker.

When we got to the science room, Mr. Docker was talking to a guy I never saw before.

“I'd like you to meet Mr. Harrison,” Mr. Docker told us. “He's the new tech guy for our school.”

“Tech guy?” we all asked. “What's a tech guy?”

“I fix things that are broken,” said Mr. Harrison. “Computers, copy machines, telephones. I build things, too.”

Mr. Harrison was tall and skinny. He had weird hair and one of those plastic pocket protectors on his shirt with a bunch of pens sticking out of it. His pants were too short. What a nerd!

“Mr. Harrison and I built something together,” said Mr. Docker.

Mr. Harrison took a remote control out of his pocket and pushed a button. And
you'll never believe what happened next. A robot came walking out of the closet!

“We want to introduce you to Mr. Slug,” said Mr. Docker.

Mr. Slug walked to the front of the class, bumping into a few desks along the way. He didn't look like any robot I ever saw. He had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, a can of beer in one hand, and a bag of potato chips in his other hand. His eyes were crossed. Mr. Slug was a mess.

“You shouldn't have cigarettes and beer in school,” said Andrea. “It's a bad influence on children.”

“Yes, we know,” said Mr. Docker. “Ms. Leakey inspired us to build Mr. Slug. We
wanted to show what happens to people who smoke and drink and eat poorly.”

“Does Mr. Slug talk?” I asked.

“Sure,” said Mr. Harrison. “Mr. Slug, how…are…you…feeling…today?”

Mr. Slug had a speaker on the side of his head. He made a sound like a cough. Then he coughed again. Then he had a coughing fit.

“OH…I…FEEL…LOUSY,” Mr. Slug said in a computery voice. “I…AM…SO…TIRED. NEED…TO…LIE…DOWN. WHAT…DAY…IS…IT?”

Mr. Slug stumbled around the front of the room. Then he let out a burp.

“He doesn't sound very good,” I said. “He sounds like he's gonna die.”

“Does Mr. Slug run on batteries?” asked Michael.

“No,” said Mr. Docker. “He runs on potatoes.”

That figured.

“Check this out,” said Mr. Harrison.

He opened a door in Mr. Slug's chest. You could look right into his body and see his insides. It was cool.

“Here's Mr. Slug's heart,” said Mr. Harrison, “and here are his lungs. See how black they are? That's what happens when you smoke cigarettes.”

Mr. Slug stumbled around the front of the room some more and then bumped into the whiteboard.

“OH…MY…HEAD.” Mr. Slug moaned.

“So,” said Mr. Docker. “Did you kids learn anything from Mr. Slug?”

“Yeah,” I said, “robots are cool!”

When I came home from school on Friday, my mom dumped the stuff from my backpack on the kitchen table like always. A piece of paper flew out….

“Ms. Leakey must have opened her own restaurant,” my mom said. “We should go there for dinner tonight.”

“What kind of a restaurant is it?” I asked suspiciously.

“The coupon says it's fast food,” my mom said.

Fast food? I
love
fast food!

When my dad came home from work, we all piled into the car to go to Ms. Leakey's
new restaurant. There was a big sign out front:

McLeakey's

My dad pulled the car up to the drive-through window.
^*
There was a big clown face with a hole where his mouth should be next to the window.

“May I take your order?” asked the clown face.

“Tell the clown what you want, A.J.,” said my dad.

“I'll have a hamburger,” I said.

“You should avoid eating too much red
meat,” the clown face said. “It has a lot of fat in it.”

“Can I get a hot dog?” I asked.

“Are you crazy?” said the clown face. “Do you have any idea what they put in hot dogs? Trust me, you don't want to know.”

“How about some chicken nuggets?” I asked.

“Don't even
think
about it!” said the clown face.

I slapped my head and looked in the window to check out the menu. It was hard to read the letters. I noticed there was a tree in the middle of the restaurant. That was weird.

“Well, what
do
you have?” I asked.

“We have broccoli burgers, meatless meatballs, vegetarian ribs, McMelon, ten kinds of tofu….”

“Toe food!” I said. “I'm not eating food made from toes.”

“Well, one of the kinds of tofu is nofu,” said the clown face.

“What's that?” my dad asked.

“That's tofu with no toes in it,” said the clown face.

“What do you have to drink?” I asked.

“Protein shakes, soy shakes, vitamin shakes, wheat grass shakes…”

“Can I just get a soda?” I asked.

“Are you out of your mind?” asked the clown face. “That stuff'll kill ya! One can of soda contains ten packets of sugar in it. You might as well just eat poison. How about a bowl of steam? It's ninety-nine cents.”

“No thanks,” I said. “I'm not hungry.”

“Me neither,” said my sister, Amy.

“Oh, and we have apples, too,” said the clown face.

“We'll just have two apples,” said my dad.

“Coming right up,” said the clown face. “That will be one dollar. Pull up to the next window.”

My dad drove up to the next window. There was a guy wearing a paper hat. My dad gave him a dollar bill. The guy reached behind him and pulled two apples off the tree that was in the middle of the restaurant. He tossed them to my dad.

“See, I told you it was fast food,” said my mom.

McLeakey's is the weirdest restaurant in the history of the world.