Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! (29 page)

Kiri does other tricks, too. She loads groceries into a mini shopping cart and pushes it wherever Robar says. She also rolls a bowling ball down a ramp into a set of pins. And she plays dead. Kiri lies very still on her back while holding daisies—so she’s “pushing up daisies.”

STOP, THIEF!

Coatimundis are Central American mammals that look like raccoons with long noses. They are intelligent, inquisitive, and often destructive. In Costa Rica, coatimundis are known for stealing tourists’ lunches and backpacks.

Technical term: The Adam’s apple is called the “laryngeal prominence.”

But Chicago animal trainer Samantha Martin has one named Callie in her Amazing Animals show. Even though Martin describes coatimundis as “nightmares as pets,” Callie is pretty talented. For one trick, she uses her long snout to pickpocket a wallet. Callie also rolls out a red carpet and walks it just like a celebrity.

NOW THAT’S SPEC-CAT-ULAR

Samantha Martin also trains cats. In her Acro-Cats show, felines walk on a high wire, skateboard, and jump through hoops. But most impressive is the all-cat band called the Rock Cats that plays working (but small) guitars, keyboards, and drums. Martin recognizes the band’s appeal, but critiques them honestly: “The drummer has no rhythm. The guitar player is always off pitch. The piano player is in her own world.”

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REAL FLUBBED HEADLINES

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OUR
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HILDREN
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HEN
B
AKING
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IDS
M
AKE
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NACKS
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CHOOL
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ROPOUTS
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EAD IN
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EMETERY
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OSPITALS
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OCTORS

The
Captain Underpants
books have sold more than 14 million copies.

Some more things you may have learned in school that just aren’t true.

FACT?
Africa’s Sahara is the world’s largest desert.

WRONG!
When most people think of a desert, they think of a vast sea of sand with the hot sun beating down. But the technical definition of a desert is a place that receives little to no rainfall.

By that measure, the largest desert on earth is Antarctica. Even though it’s cold and is covered almost entirely with ice, the continent receives nearly no rain, making it the world’s largest desert.

FACT?
The word “ain’t” isn’t in the dictionary.

WRONG!
It’s may be poor grammar to use the word “ain’t,” as in “I ain’t going to say ‘isn’t.’” But just because a word is incorrect doesn’t mean it’s not in the dictionary.

Dictionaries aren’t necessarily authorities on “right” and “wrong” words—they’re merely catalogs of all the words in a language. So “ain’t” is listed as a slang word in most English dictionaries. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay to use. (In fact, there are lots of words in the dictionary that will get you into far more trouble than “ain’t.”)

Superstitious President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to sit at a table set for 13 guests.

On the final leg of our treasure hunt, we sail north. The notorious pirate Blackbeard supposedly stowed his stash off the coast of New England, but the question is…where
?

S
EEKING:
Silver ingots, silver Spanish dollars, gold coins, and pouches of gold dust.

LAST SEEN…
On the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine.

LEGEND:
For years, Captain Blackbeard (a.k.a. Edward Teach) terrorized travelers along the North American coast. He was intimidating to look at. Standing more than six feet tall, he decorated his long beard and curly black hair with beads and black ribbons. His ship—the
Queen Anne’s Revenge
—was just as intimidating. It was manned by menacing pirates, armed with cannons, and protected with reinforced sides. When seafarers saw the
Revenge
coming, they usually didn’t bother to fight. They just handed over whatever precious goods they had on board.

England’s Royal Navy was charged with the task of trying to catch Blackbeard. And in the early 1700s, the authorities closed in on him near Canada. So he and his crew split up their loot and parted ways. Legend says Blackbeard headed for the sparsely populated Isles of Shoals, a group of nine islands off the New England coast. There, he anchored the
Revenge
, married a girl he’d brought from Scotland, and they stayed for their honeymoon. Blackbeard staked out a spot for his treasure and hid it while his wife roamed the island.

Lord of the Rings
author J. R. R. Tolkien snored so loudly his wife made him sleep in the bathroom.

THE BIG GUNS ARE COMING!

But one day in 1718, a British warship appeared in the distance. In a hurry, Blackbeard either ditched his new bride or asked her to stay behind to guard the loot. Either way, she remained on the islands until she died in 1735. (Some say she’s still there, haunting the area and whispering, “He will come again.”)

Blackbeard sailed for the Carolinas, where the Royal Navy eventually caught and killed him. (The soldiers cut off his head and hung it from his ship’s bow to scare other would-be thieves.) Just before that final battle, a fellow pirate asked Blackbeard if his wife knew where the treasure was. The captain replied that nobody but he and the devil knew where it was, and that “the longest liver shall take it.”

UNDISCOVERED RICHES

It’s hard to know just how much treasure Blackbeard collected over the years, but some of the ships he plundered kept records. We know he snatched a fortune—including 400,000 silver Spanish dollars—from two ships in 1717. He also stole loot from his own crew that’s worth over $300,000 today. Like most pirates, Blackbeard spent his money recklessly, but he also claimed to have hidden some.

KEEP LOOKING

People have been searching the Isles of Shoals for Blackbeard’s treasure for centuries. Someone did find a few silver ingots under a rock on one of the islands (called Smuttynose) in the 1800s, but no one knows for sure if the pieces were Blackbeard’s.

Most treasure hunters believe that if the fortune is there, it’s probably buried on Smuttynose, Appledore, Star, or Lunging Island. Why? Blackbeard could have easily sailed to any of them, and there are lots of good hiding spots. Lunging is shaped like a dumbbell, and at high tide, the ocean rises over the center, marking a clear spot where someone could bury his loot when the water recedes. There also used to be a cave nearby—it’s underground now. In the 1950s, sonar tests showed that the cave might contain metal—perhaps silver. But no one’s been able to get to it. And in 2000, the History Channel even sent geologists to search Lunging Island. But no treasure has been discovered…yet.

Swim over to the first two treasure tales on
pages 50
and
97
.

Book actually published in 1981:
The Pictorial Book of Tongue Coating
.

Did you know that Porter the Wonder Dog has the biggest appetite at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute? He can eat 10 dog treats in one sitting! (The rest of us can’t even eat one.) Here are some other “biggest” things.

…SWIMMING POOL

The San Alfonso del Mar resort in Chile is home to the largest swimming pool in the world. It’s more than half a mile long (3,323 feet), holds 66 million gallons of water, and is 115 feet deep at its deepest point. The water is always a comfy 79°F, and it’s not just for swimming: you can scuba dive, kayak, snorkel, and sail on it.

…POOL TOY

If you’re going to play in that pool, you’ll need an enormous pool toy. Consider this one: in 2001, a company in Ontario, Canada, built a “pool noodle” that was a mile long…even longer than the pool in Chile!

…OBJECT REMOVED FROM A HUMAN SKULL

In 1998, an intruder at a friend’s house in Jacksonville, Florida, stabbed Michael Hill in the head with an eight-inch hunting knife. Hill didn’t feel any pain at first and even walked to another house with the knife still in his brain. A friend rushed him to the hospital, where doctors carefully removed the knife. Within a week, Hill was well enough to go home.

A red snapper is a fish. But in Maine, it’s also a hot dog.

…TOWER OF BOWLING BALLS

In 1998, David Kremer from Wisconsin stacked 10 bowling balls on top of each other. Here’s the really amazing part—he didn’t use any glue. The balls were perfectly balanced.

…GOLDFISH

In 2002, an aquarium in Hong Kong, China, found itself the owner of the world’s largest goldfish. Called Bruce, he was more than 15 inches long…about the size of an average cat.

There are three types of people—those who can count and those who can’t.

The next time you’re struggling with homework, think about this: some of the most successful people in history dropped out—or were kicked out—of school.

T
HE NUTTY PROFESSOR