Mr. Hynde Is Out of His Mind! (3 page)

I really missed TV.

TV Turnoff Month started, and I had to go a whole day without any TV. It was horrible! I thought I was gonna die!

Believe it or not, I couldn't wait for school to start. There's a TV in our classroom, but we hardly ever get to watch it,
so at least I wasn't missing anything.

Plus, we had music class. And music class with Mr. Hynde is better than TV anyway.

“Good news, my little shorties,” Mr. Hynde said. “In honor of TV Turnoff Month, we're gonna put on a play!”

“Yippee!” shouted all the girls. “Plays are fun.”

“Boo!” moaned all the boys. “Plays are dumb.”

“This play's gonna be off the hook, dudes,” Mr. Hynde told us. “It's gonna be a hip-hop play.”

“I was in a play at day camp last summer,” said Andrea. “It was called
The
Princess and the Pea
. I played the beautiful princess.”

“Did you pee right on the stage?” I asked. “That's disgusting!”

“Not
that
kind of pea, A.J.!”

“We're gonna put on
Beauty and the Beast
,” said Mr. Hynde. “Now who wants to be Beauty?”

“I do! I do! I do!” shouted Andrea and a few of the other girls.

Mr. Hynde did eeny meeny minie moe, and guess which smarty-pants brownnoser little Miss Perfect who should have a refrigerator fall on her head won?

“Okay, Andrea is the beauty,” said Mr. Hynde. “Now which one of you little
dudes wants to be the beast?”

None of us boys raised his hand. No way I was going to be some dumb beast in a dumb play.

“Don't bail on me, brothers,” Mr. Hynde said. “
One
of you homeboys has to be the beast or we can't have the play.”

I looked over at Ryan and Michael. They were both looking at the floor and had their arms folded across their chests.

“We don't want to be in a play,” Ryan said.

“Oh, I forgot to clue you,” Mr. Hynde said. “The beast gets to lock Beauty in a dungeon and torture her.”

“I'll be the beast!” I shouted before
anybody else could get his hand in the air.

“Okay, A.J. is the beast,” Mr. Hynde said.

This play is going to be cool!

Me and Ryan and Michael were sitting around the playground at recess. Michael was looking through the script for the play that Mr. Hynde gave me.

“Did you read this, A.J.?” Michael asked.

“Nah,” I said, “reading is boring.”

“Well, you might want to read this,”
Michael said. “It says here that the beast has to kiss Beauty.”

“What?! Let me see that!” I grabbed the script. He was right! It said it right there on the last page.

Beauty and the beast kiss.

“Oooooh!” Ryan said. “A.J. and Andrea are in
love
!”

“Shut up!” I said. “I thought I just had to lock her in a dungeon.”

“First you lock her in a dungeon,” Michael said. “In the end you fall in love and you've got to kiss her.”

“That's disgusting!” I said. “I wouldn't kiss Andrea if they paid me a million dollars.”

“You're gonna have to,” Michael said. “And nobody's gonna pay you a dime.”

Then Michael and Ryan started singing:

If those guys weren't my best friends, I would really hate them.

“I won't do it!” I said. “I'll run away someplace where they'll never find me.”

Michael and Ryan sang the dumb kissing song again, so I left. I was really mad.

I didn't exactly know where to run to. I figured I'd go to the boys' room and hang out in there for a while.

But on the way to the boys' room, I passed the music room. The door was closed, but there's a little window in the door. I stood on my tiptoes and looked inside. Mr. Hynde was in there.

I put my ear against the door. I could hear a drum machine, and Mr. Hynde
was rapping, too. I couldn't make out the words. I opened the door.

“Yo, Beast!” Mr. Hynde said. “You the man! How's it hangin', brother?”

“Okay, I guess,” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Layin' down some beats,” Mr. Hynde said. “I'm workin' on my own CD.”

“Cool!” I said. “Are you gonna be a famous rapper?”

“Word up, cuz,” Mr. Hynde said. “Maybe someday I'll be a star and you can say I used to be your music teacher. Hey, you want my autograph? Once I get famous, I might not sign 'em anymore.”

“No thanks,” I said.

“What's the matter, Beast?” said Mr. Hynde. “You bummed out 'cause you can't watch TV?”

“No, I've got a problem, Mr. Hynde.”

“Be straight,” he said. “You can tell me.”

“I don't want to be the beast.”

“Why not, dude?” Mr. Hynde asked. “The beast is the man! The beast rules!”

“I don't want to kiss Andrea Young,” I admitted.

“Ohhhh,” Mr. Hynde said. “Kissin' is gross, eh? 'Fraid you'll get cooties?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Let me clue you, brother,” said Mr. Hynde. “Kissin' girls is fly. Someday all you're gonna wanna do is kiss girls.
Someday, when you wanna kiss a girl, that girl might not wanna kiss you. It's kinda like gettin' my autograph. You
should do it now, 'cause you might not have the chance later. Besides, it's just a play. It doesn't mean you like her.”

“But Andrea is horrible and disgusting!”

Mr. Hynde sat down at his desk.

“A.J., when I was a little shortie like you, I thought green beans were horrible and disgusting,” he said. “But my mama said I had to eat 'em. She told me to pretend the green beans were somethin' I really liked. So I pretended they were oatmeal cookies. Then they didn't taste so bad. See what I mean?”

“I don't like oatmeal cookies,” I said.

“Well, what
do
you like?” Mr. Hynde asked.

I thought about it for a minute.

“I like dirt bikes,” I said. “When I grow up, I'm gonna be a dirt bike racer.”

“So pretend Andrea is a dirt bike,” he suggested.

“Huh?”

“Go ahead, give it a shot,” Mr. Hynde said. “We need you in there. You're my beast, dude. Nobody else can be the beast. You're the beast from the east.”

“Well, okay,” I said.

I still didn't know if I'd be able to kiss Andrea without throwing up.

For the next week, the second grade rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed the play. After school I went home and rehearsed my lines some more. I couldn't turn on the TV anyway, so it was good to have something to do.

In school we rehearsed the whole play
from start to finish. It was fun torturing Andrea. The only part we didn't rehearse was the kissing part. Mr. Hynde said we would save that for the real show on Friday night.

Ryan and Michael couldn't believe that I was really going to kiss Andrea. I told them that Mr. Hynde said it wouldn't be so horrible if I pretended she was a dirt bike.

“I wouldn't kiss a dirt bike,” Ryan said.

“Well, what
would
you kiss?” I asked.

“I really like football,” Ryan said. “I'd kiss a football.”

Ryan is weird.

Finally the night of the big show
arrived. Everybody was dressed up in his or her costume. We peeked through the curtains in the multipurpose room and saw all the parents were there. I was nervous. Mr. Hynde told us everything was going to be fine.

We were waiting for the curtain to open when Andrea pulled me aside.

“A.J.,” she said, “I want you to know that just because we have to kiss each other doesn't mean I like you.”

“I don't like you, either,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “I'm glad we agree on something.”

“Kissing girls is gross,” I told her.

“Kissing boys is gross too,” she said. “I
even went to Mr. Hynde and told him I didn't want to be in the play because I didn't want to kiss you.”

“So did I!”

“He told me I should pretend that you're something I really like,” Andrea said.

“That's what he told me!” I said. “I'm going to pretend you're a dirt bike.”

“I'm going to pretend you're an encyclopedia,” Andrea said.

“Fine.”

So we did the play. I remembered all my lines, and locking Andrea in the dungeon was fun. Everything was going great.

But the whole time, in the back of my mind, I was thinking that soon I would have to kiss Andrea. It was a horrible thought.

We were a minute away from the big kissing part. The whole cast was up on the stage.

Andrea was standing right next to me. I was really nervous.

Michael leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Remember, she's a dirt bike,” he said.

Emily leaned over and whispered to Andrea. “Remember, he's an encyclopedia,” she said.

And then, before I could catch my
breath, it was time. The big moment. The kiss.

I leaned over toward Andrea.

Andrea leaned over toward me.

My heart was beating fast. I closed my eyes.

Dirt bike. Dirt bike. Dirt bike. Dirt bike.

I was trying really hard to pretend that Andrea was a dirt bike.

And at that very moment, the most amazing thing in the
history of the world happened.

Andrea didn't kiss me.

I opened my eyes. Andrea had stepped up to the microphone at the front of the stage.

She started singing!

“‘The sun will come out tomorrow…'” she sang.

She was singing that dumb stick-out-your-chin-and-grin song from that
Annie
movie! It wasn't even in the script!

“‘Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love you
tomorrow…'”

It was horrible and all, but it was still the greatest moment in my life because at least I didn't have to kiss Andrea.

All the parents were smiling and nodding their heads. When Andrea finished singing the dumb song, they all went crazy, clapping and cheering and whistling and stamping their feet. Andrea bowed, and the play was over.

“I'm sorry, A.J.,” Andrea said to me during the standing ovation. “I just couldn't do it. I was afraid that if I kissed you, I might throw up.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Me too.”

Andrea gave me a hug.

“Oooooh!” Ryan said, “A.J. and Andrea are in
love
!”

The audience was still clapping when we noticed Mr. Hynde at the side of the stage behind the curtain. He was crying!

We all ran over to him. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. I figured Mr. Hynde was upset because Andrea messed up his hip-hop play.

“What's wrong, Mr. Hynde?” Emily asked.

“What was that song?” he asked, wiping the tears
with his sleeve.

“It's called ‘Tomorrow,'” Andrea said. “It's from
Annie
.”

“It's the most beautiful song I ever heard,” Mr. Hynde said. And then he started crying again.

Mr. Hynde is weird.