Miss Lazar Is Bizarre! (2 page)

How was I going to get Emily's ball back? There were no ladders or stairs leading up to the roof of the school. I didn't know how to get up there. There was only one thing to do. I had to go find Miss Lazar. She would be able to figure out how to get up there.

Me and Michael and Ryan went inside the school and down the steps to the basement, where Miss Lazar's room is. We knocked on her door, and she opened it.

Miss Lazar's room is the awesomest room in the school. She doesn't have a bunch of boring books or computers. She's got all kinds of tools and machines and junk all over the place. It is cool.

In the corner I noticed a door with a sign on it that said
SECRET ROOM
. Wow! A secret room! My friend Billy who lives around the corner told me that every school has a secret room down in the basement. Billy says that's where they keep the bad kids.

“What's in the secret room?” Ryan asked Miss Lazar.

“That's where I keep the bad kids,” said Miss Lazar.

Billy was right!

But then Miss Lazar laughed and said she was just joking. She told us she had something very special in the secret room, but she couldn't tell us what it was because, if she did, it wouldn't be secret.

We told Miss Lazar that some kid (not me) threw a tennis ball up on the roof of the school.

“This looks like a job for Super Custodian!” said Miss Lazar, grabbing her toilet bowl plunger. She stuck it into her
belt like a sheriff in a western movie sticks his gun in a holster.

“Why do you need a toilet bowl plunger to get a tennis ball off the roof?” I asked.

“Oh, you never know when a plunger might come in handy,” Miss Lazar said. She's weird.

Miss Lazar marched out to the playground, and we followed her. She looked up at the roof, and then she looked at the wall of the school. Then she did the most amazing thing in the history of the world. She started climbing the wall!

Everybody in the playground stopped what they were doing and ran over to watch. Miss Lazar dug her fingers and the
toes of her shoes into the little cracks between the bricks, and she slowly made her way up the wall. It was amazing! You should have been there!

I guess word got around, because by the time Miss Lazar reached the second floor of the school, even Mr. Klutz had come out to watch.

“What's going on?” Mr. Klutz asked.

“Miss Lazar is climbing up to the roof to get Emily's tennis ball,” Ryan told him.

“I used to do a
little rock climbing in my younger days,” Mr. Klutz said.

Finally Miss Lazar was standing up on the roof of the school. Everybody was craning their neck to see her.

“There are all
kinds
of things up here!” Miss Lazar called down. Suddenly balls and notebooks and hats and other stuff were flying off the roof.

“There's my old Frisbee!” some kid yelled.

“I was
wondering
where that umbrella went,” said somebody else.

Emily got her stupid ball back. Everybody clapped and cheered for Miss Lazar as she climbed back down the wall.

“Wow, Miss Lazar is like Spider-Man!”
one of the third graders hollered. “Okay, everyone,” Mr. Klutz said, clapping his hands. “The show is over, and so is recess. Everyone back to class now.”

“Boooooooo!”

“Hooray for Miss Lazar!” somebody yelled.

“Hip hip hooray!” we all shouted.

“Nothing to it,” Miss Lazar said when she got to the bottom. “Time to mop the cafetorium. Duty calls.”

Then we all giggled because Miss Lazar said “duty” again.

When we came back to class, I noticed that this kid named Robbie who sits in front of me was missing.

“Where's Robbie?” I asked Miss Daisy.

“His mother came to pick him up,” she said. “Robbie wasn't feeling well.”

That was weird. Robbie never told
anyone he was sick.

Miss Daisy asked us to clear off our desks and be on our best behavior, because Mr. Klutz was coming in to talk with us.

Soon Mr. Klutz came in with his bald head. It is
so
shiny! He must wax it or something. Mr. Klutz is weird.

“Hello, second graders,” Mr. Klutz said. “I came in to tell you about a new program at Ella Mentry School. We're going to become a MEAN school.”

“That doesn't sound very nice,” said Andrea Young.

“MEAN stands for Make Excellence A Necessity,” said Mr. Klutz. He wrote
MEAN on the chalkboard and told us that all the parents and teachers and students were going to work really hard so our school would be rated the smartest school in the whole state. Mr. Klutz went on and on about the MEAN program. I wasn't paying much attention. It was really boring.

Finally Mr. Klutz finished talking, and he asked if any of us had questions. I raised my hand, and he called on me.

“Does Miss Lazar have super powers?”

“Uh, no, A.J.,” Mr. Klutz said. “She's just a regular custodian.”

“Regular?” asked Ryan. “Then how did she climb the wall?”

“That was simple rock climbing,” Mr. Klutz said. “It's not that difficult.”

“Miss Lazar is cool,” some kid said.

“That's not a question,” said Mr. Klutz. “Does anyone have any
questions
?”

“Is the toilet in the boys' bathroom haunted?” I asked.

You see, my friend Billy around the corner once told me that sometimes a toilet will overflow because there's a ghost inside it pushing the water out.

“Of course the toilet is not haunted,”
said Mr. Klutz. “Don't be silly.”

“That was cool when Miss Lazar fixed the toilet,” Michael said.

“That's not a question, Michael,” said Mr. Klutz.

“That was cool when Miss Lazar fixed the toilet, wasn't it?” Michael asked.

“Yeah,” everybody agreed.

“Okay, that's enough about Miss Lazar,” said Mr. Klutz. “Does anyone have any
other
questions?”

“Mr. Klutz, do you wish you were Super Custodian instead of being a plain old boring principal?” Ryan asked.

“I have to go now,” said Mr. Klutz.

I don't know exactly how it happened. I guess some kid in my class told some kid in another class that the toilet in the boys' bathroom was haunted. That kid told some other kid, and that kid told some other kid. By two o'clock, everybody in school was talking about the-
ghost in the toilet bowl.

None of the boys wanted to go in the boys' room. I wouldn't want to go into a boys' room if there was a ghost in the toilet bowl. Would you?

Usually Miss Daisy lets us go to the boys' room after lunch. But none of us wanted to go in there. I figured I'd wait until I got home. All the boys in school were holding it in all day. We thought we were gonna explode!

“Boys, will you please go to the boys' room?” Miss Daisy said.

“No!” all of us boys replied. “There's a ghost in the toilet!”

“Then use the girls' room,” she said.

“No way!” I said. “The girls' room has cooties.”

None of the boys in the school wanted to go to the boys' room. It must have been another bathroom emergency, because Mr. Klutz called all the boys in the whole school into the gym to talk to us.

“I promise you, the boys' bathroom is
not
haunted,” Mr. Klutz announced. “I have been in there. There is
no
ghost in the toilet. It is perfectly safe to use the bathroom.”

“I don't believe you,” some fifth grader yelled.

“Me neither,” said somebody else.

“I bet Miss Lazar would know if the bathroom is haunted,” Ryan said. “She knows everything.”

“Yeah!” Michael agreed.

Everybody started chanting, “Miss Lazar! Miss Lazar! Miss Lazar!” It was cool.

Mr. Klutz called Miss Lazar on his walkie-talkie, and we all cheered when she rode into the gym on her scooter. She had her toilet bowl plunger with her, as usual.

“This looks like a job for Super Custodian!” said Miss Lazar.

“Is the boys' room haunted, Miss Lazar?” asked Mr. Klutz.

“Of course not,” said Miss Lazar.

“So you killed the ghost that was in the toilet bowl?” some first grader asked.

“There was no ghost in the toilet bowl,” Miss Lazar said.

“Miss Lazar is just being modest,” said Ryan.

“Hooray for Miss Lazar!” somebody yelled. “She killed the ghost!”

“SHE KILLED THE GHOST!” everybody started chanting. “SHE KILLED THE GHOST!”

“Now we can use the boys' room again!” I yelled.

“Hip hip hooray for Miss Lazar!” everybody shouted.

I thought Mr. Klutz would be happy, but he looked like he was all mad about something. One of the fourth graders raised his hand and Mr. Klutz called on him.

“May I please go to the boys' room?” the kid asked.

“Yes!” Mr. Klutz yelled. “Go! That's what I've been trying to tell you to do!”

Every boy in the school started running for the boys' room like they were giving out free candy in there. It was cool.