Ms. Leakey Is Freaky! (4 page)

My mom always goes grocery shopping on Saturday. And she always tries to get me to come along.

“A.J., let's go grocery shopping,” she said.

“No thanks.”

“Come on, A.J.,” she said. “I'll let you push the cart.”

“Oh, man, I want to watch TV, Mom.”

“I'll buy you a treat,” my mom said. “Sweets for the sweet!”

A treat! The last time I tasted anything sweet, it was that Twinkie that Ms. Leakey tried to grab out of my mouth. I hadn't had candy or cookies in so long, I hardly remembered what they tasted like.

“Let's go!” I told my mom.

We drove to the supermarket. My mom parked the car and got out her shopping list and coupons. I went to get a cart and pushed it through the magic doors that open all by themselves. Those doors are cool.

“Can I get my treat now, Mom?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she told me. “First we have
to do our shopping.”

Bummer in the summer! Shopping is way overrated. I don't know if you ever went grocery shopping with your mom or dad, but it is the most boring thing in the history of the world. We had to go up and down every aisle of the supermarket. I thought I was gonna die. All I wanted was my treat.

When my mom buys a melon, she acts like she's buying a house. She has to feel each melon. She has to smell each melon. Then she has to shake each melon and listen to it. What is her problem?

“It's just a
melon
!” I said. “They're all the same.”

“I have to find the
perfect
melon,” she said.

I hate melon.

Finally, after a million hundred hours, she found the perfect melon. We were finished grocery shopping.

“So, what treat do you want, A.J.?” my mom asked.

I had been thinking about it the whole time we were shopping. At first I wanted an ice-cream pop. But I decided that an ice-cream pop wouldn't last very long. Then I wanted a Devil Dog. But they come in boxes of eight, and I knew my mom would say I could only get
one
treat.

Then I saw something at the end of the
candy aisle. It was a giant box filled to the brim with candy. Just about every kind of candy in the world was in there. I led my mom over to it.

“Okay, you can have
one
treat, A.J.,” my mom said. “Just one. I'll get in line. You choose your treat and meet me in the checkout line.”

I looked over the candy: Milky Way, AirHeads, Mars bars, Twix, Kit Kat, Chunky, mr. Goodbar, York Peppermint Patties, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Mike and Ike, Atomic FireBall, JuJu Fish, Sour Neon Worms, Goobers, Laffy Taffy, Nerds, Sugar Daddy, Baby Ruth, Snickers, Kisses, M & M's (plain
and
peanut), gummi bears,
Dots, Junior Mints, Milk Duds, Good & Plenty, Whoppers, Twizzlers, Dum Dum, Skittles, Butterfinger, Starburst, Crunch, Jolly Rancher, Sweet Pops, Tootsie Roll….

I couldn't decide which one I wanted. Everything looked so good. I wanted them
all
. I thought and thought and thought until my brain was about to explode. Finally, I decided to get a 3 Musketeers bar.

I leaned all the way over.

I reached out to pick up the 3 Musketeers bar.

I picked up the 3 Musketeers bar.

And you'll never believe in a million hundred years what happened next.

A hand came out from under all that candy! It grabbed
my
hand!

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”
I screamed.

It was the scariest thing I had ever seen in my life! It was like one of those movies
where a zombie hand pops out of a grave in the middle of the night.

But then something even
scarier
happened. A person was attached to the hand! The person came up from under the candy.

And that person was…Ms. Leakey!

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”
I screamed.

“DROP THAT CANDY BAR, A.J.!” Ms. Leakey said.

I dropped the 3 Musketeers bar. She was still holding my hand.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Saving your life!” she said. “Do you know what they put in a 3 Musketeers bar? Hydrogenated palm kernel! Soy lecithin!
Corn syrup! Artificial flavors!”

Finally, she let go of my hand, and I ran all the way to the checkout line to meet my mom.

“So, which treat did you choose?” she asked me.

“I changed my mind,” I told her. “I don't want a treat.”

That night I was lying in bed. It was hard to fall asleep. All I could do was think about candy, cookies, cakes, ice cream, and junk food. I just wanted to taste something sweet again.

Then, suddenly, a lightbulb appeared
over my head.
^*
I remembered something. A few months back, on Halloween, I'd taken a Hershey bar out of my Halloween candy and hidden it in my closet. I'd known there would come a day when I would want candy after Halloween was over. I had forgotten about it all this time.

The Hershey bar was still in my closet! I could eat it
now
! This was the greatest night of my life!

I got out of bed and opened my closet door. There's a lot of junk in there, but finally I found the Hershey bar.

I climbed back into bed with the Hershey bar.

I unwrapped the Hershey bar.

Ummm.
It smelled good.

I was about to take a bite of the Hershey bar when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.

Ms. Leakey jumped out from under my bed!

“Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”
I screamed.

“DROP THAT HERSHEY BAR, A.J.!” Ms. Leakey said.

I dropped the Hershey bar. She picked it up.

“Why are you hiding under my bed?” I asked her. “How did you get in here?”

“I climbed in the window,” she told me. “Do you know the average person eats
twenty-two pounds of candy every year?”

“But I just…”

“Well, if you'll excuse me,” Ms. Leakey said, “I need to go do some squat thrusts.”

I had no idea what a squat thrust was,
but it didn't matter. Ms. Leakey opened my window and climbed out. She was gone.

I was still sitting up in bed when my door opened. It was Mom and Dad.

“A.J., are you okay?” Mom asked.

“We heard a scream,” said Dad.

“Ms. Leakey was here!” I told them. “She was hiding under my bed! I went to eat a Hershey bar, but she grabbed it out of my hand! And then she ran away!”

“There, there,” my mom told me as she stroked my head. “You were just having a bad dream. Everything's fine, A.J.”

“See?” my dad said. “Ms. Leakey isn't under your bed. It was just a nightmare.”

“No, she was really here!” I insisted. “She
ran away! She climbed out the window!”

“
Sure
she did,” Dad said.

“You go back to sleep, A.J.” said my mom. “In the morning you probably won't even
remember that this happened.”

Oh, I'll remember. I know what I saw. Ms. Leakey was hiding under my bed, just like she was hiding under the candy in the supermarket.

She was following me! She was watching my every move to make sure I didn't eat candy, cookies, or junk food. She probably put a GPS in my brain so she could track me.

Ms. Leakey was
everywhere
.

Ella Mentry School was getting healthy.
Disgustingly
healthy!

Every day, Mr. Granite told us we were more alert in class, we were standing up straighter, and we were full of energy.

There were no more soda machines in the school. No candy was allowed. Our
lunch lady, Ms. LaGrange, was preparing healthy meals. Our moms and dads were packing lunches for us that were filled with fruits, nuts, vegetables, and other yucky stuff. Our custodian, Miss Lazar, put a sign in front of the school that said
SUGAR–FREE ZONE
. You weren't even allowed to have your parents bring in
cupcakes on your birthday anymore.

It was horrible!

“These tofu hot dogs are delicious!” said Little Miss Perfect while we were eating lunch in the vomitorium. “I feel so much healthier since Ms. Leakey arrived.”

“Me too,” said Emily, who always agrees with everything Andrea says.

“I wish I had a candy bar,” said Michael.

“I heard Ms. Leakey is trying to pass a law that will make it illegal to be caught with sugar packets,” said Ryan.

“I heard she hijacked a truck full of Doritos so it couldn't come into town,” I said.

“Health teachers can't do that,” said Neil the nude kid. “People should be allowed to make up their own minds about what to eat.”

“Yeah!”

“Y'know, maybe Ms. Leakey isn't a health teacher at all,” I said. “Did you ever think of that?”

“What do you mean?” asked Ryan.

“Maybe Ms. Leakey murdered our real
health teacher,” I told them.

“Arlo, stop trying to scare Emily,” said Andrea.

“I'm scared!” said Emily.

“Ms. Leakey is probably the evil twin of our real health teacher,” I said. “She killed her sister, and I bet she buried her in the farm she's got in her office. Stuff like that happens all the time, you know.”

“We've got to
do
something!” shouted Emily. And then she went running out of the vomitorium.

Sheesh, get a grip! That girl will fall for anything.

“I need candy,” said Michael.

“I would pay a million dollars for a Kit
Kat right now,” I said.

“I would sell my little brother for just one gummi bear,” said Neil.

We were all candy deprived and depressed. But that's when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world.

“Hey!” I said. “I know where we can get some candy!”

“Where?” asked Ryan.

“Follow me.”

I scraped off my tray into the garbage can. Then I led the guys out the door into the playground. Even Andrea came along.

It was recess, and kids were all over the playground. I led the gang over to the
corner where the Dumpster is kept.

“That's where Ms. Leakey has been throwing our junk food,” I said, pointing at the Dumpster.

“Of course!” said Ryan. “There must be
lots
of candy in there!”

“You're a genius, A.J.!” said Michael. “You should get the No Bell Prize.”

“I don't know why we didn't think of this before!” said Neil the nude kid. “Dumpster diving is fun.”

“I'm not eating candy out of a Dumpster,” said Andrea. “It's dirty.”

“Fine. Don't,” I told her. “That will leave more for us. Let's go, guys!”

We sneaked around to the back of the
Dumpster really quietly, like secret agents. It was cool.

“Don't do this, Arlo,” whispered Andrea.

“Shhhhhh!”
I said. “If Ms. Leakey finds
us back here, we'll be in big trouble.”

The Dumpster had a heavy lid on it. I couldn't lift it by myself.

Me and the guys put our hands on the edge of the lid.

We pushed open the lid.

And you'll never believe in a million hundred years what we saw in there.

I'm not gonna tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you.

It was Ms. Leakey!

She was sitting on the bottom of the Dumpster, and she was surrounded by every kind of candy and junk food in the world! There were AirHeads, Mars bars, Reese's Pieces, Atomic FireBalls, Goobers,
Nerds, Dots, Milk Duds, Whoppers, Twizzlers, Skittles, Tootsie Rolls….

Well, you get the idea.

And you know what Ms. Leakey had in her mouth?

A Twinkie!

“Ms. Leakey!” I shouted. “What are
you
doing in here?”

Her mouth was full of sodium acid pyrophosphate and all those other chemicals, so she couldn't answer right away.

“I'm…guarding the Dumpster,” Ms. Leakey finally said, “to make sure nobody eats this horrible junk food.”

“You're eating a Twinkie!” I said.

“No, I'm not. I'm…conducting an
experiment,” she said, “I want to see if any of the chemicals in a Twinkie can be used to solve the energy problem. Maybe someday we will have cars that run on Twinkies. This is research.”

“It is not!” shouted Andrea. “You're stuffing your face with junk food! You're a hypocrite!”

“A what?” I said. “She doesn't look like a hippo to me.”

“Not a hippo, dumbhead,” Andrea said. “A hypocrite. That's somebody who acts like they're better than everyone, but they're really worse.”

“It's true! It's true!” Ms. Leakey said, sobbing. “I admit it. I'm not a health nut.
I need sugar! I need sweets! I need candy! I'm a junk food junkie!”

And then she scooped up a handful of candy, jumped out of the Dumpster, and ran away.

Ms. Leakey is freaky!