Read Mr. Hynde Is Out of His Mind! Online
Authors: Dan Gutman
Mr. Hynde Is Out of His Mind!
My Weird School #6
Dan Gutman
Pictures by
Jim Paillot
To Emma
1
 Boring, Snoring Mr. Loring
2
 Goody Two-Shoes Andrea
3
 The One-Man Funky Groove Machine
4
 The Plot to Get Rid of Mr. Hynde
5
 Mr. Hynde Gets Funky
6
 Beauty and the Beast
7
 K-i-s-s-i-n-g
8
 The Play
9
 TV, at Last
10
 And the Winner Isâ¦
11
 One Last Song
Boring, Snoring Mr. Loring
My name is A.J. and I hate school.
I hate reading.
I hate writing.
I hate arithmetic.
But there's one horrible subject that I
really
hate more than anything else.
Music.
Music is so dumb! Music is the most
boring subject in the history of the world. Why do we need music class in school, anyway? It's not like I'm going to grow up to be a singer. When I grow up, I'm going to be a professional dirt bike racer.
In first grade last year, the music teacher, Mr. Loring, made us sing all these totally corny songs from prehistoric times, like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore.” Mr. Loring loves boats, I guess. He's weird.
He's about a million hundred years old, and he has long gray hair. Mr. Loring told us that when he was a kid back in the last century, TV wasn't even invented yet. Can you imagine living in a world with
out TV? It must have been horrible! I would die if I didn't have TV.
Mr. Loring's favorite song for us to sing was “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?” You know the song:
Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?
A.J. stole the cookie from the cookie jar.
Who me?
Yes you.
Couldn't be.
Then who?
Ryan stole the cookie from the cookie jar.
I used to like that song, but Mr. Loring made us sing it so many times that I
never wanted to eat another cookie for the rest of my life.
Mr. Loring's other favorite song was “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.” That song got really old too. If any monkeys ever jumped on
my
bed, I would sell the bed. That's disgusting! I don't even like it when my sister jumps on my bed. Forget about monkeys.
“Everybody line up!” said my teacher, Miss Daisy, after we finished pledging the alle
giance.
“Line up for what?” we all asked.
“It's time to go to music,” Miss Daisy said.
“Yippee!” said Andrea Young, this really annoying girl with curly brown hair.
“Boo!” said just about everybody else. Nobody except Andrea and her friend Emily wanted to go see boring, snoring Mr. Loring.
Andrea loves everything about school.
She even loves homework. One day Andrea asked Miss Daisy if we could have
more
homework! Can you imagine asking your teacher to give you more homework?
Andrea is weird.
Goody Two-Shoes Andrea
Miss Daisy let Andrea (the little brownnoser) be the line leader when we walked down the hall to the music room. Her little crybaby friend Emily was the door holder. I walked with my pals Ryan and Michael.
We had just turned the corner outside
our classroom when I saw the most horrible thing in the history of the world. It was a sign on the wall by the office:
Â
NEXT WEEK IS TV TURNOFF WEEK
!
DON'T FORGET TO TURN OFF YOUR TV
!
Â
“Oh no!” Ryan groaned. “Say it's not true!”
“I'll die without TV!” said Michael. “TV Turnoff Week is the worst week of the year!”
“It's the worst week in the history of the world,” I said.
“What are we going to do all week without TV?” asked Ryan.
“I might go crazy,” said Michael.
It was even worse than we thought. The sign said that TV Turnoff Week had been such a success last year that they decided to make it TV Turnoff
Month
this year! Four whole weeks with no TV!
“Guys, this is the end of the world as we know it,” I said.
“Oh, you boys are silly,” Andrea said. “TV is for silly dumbheads anyway. I never watch TV. I'd rather spend my time singing or playing a musical instrument.”
Andrea takes violin lessons and piano lessons and dancing lessons and singing lessons and just about every other kind of dumb lessons they have. If they give lessons in
anything
, Andrea takes them. If
they gave lessons in how to take lessons, Andrea would probably take
them
.
“My mother told me that music cleans the soul,” she said as we walked past the art room.
“Maybe you should try taking a bath,” I said.
Ryan and Michael laughed at my funny joke.
“A.J., you wouldn't be so mean if you tried singing instead of sitting around watching TV all the time,” Andrea said. “I love to sing. I can sing all the songs from
Annie
. That's my favorite movie.”
Ugh.
Then Andrea started singing that song
about the sun coming out tomorrow. It was horrible. The police should use Andrea's singing to punish criminals in jail.
“Can you sing solo?” I asked Andrea when she finally stopped.
“Sure I can,” she said.
“Then why don't you sing
so low
we can't hear you?”
Ryan and Michael cracked up at my funny joke. They are true friends.
“You're mean!” Andrea said.
“Please hold your tongue, A.J.,” said Miss Daisy. Then she told me to be quiet because she knew that I was going to stick my tongue out and hold it.
Finally we got to the music room. Mr. Loring wasn't there yet, so Miss Daisy told us to sit on the rug.
Last year my first-grade teacher told us to sit Indian style, but she got in trouble because some Indian people didn't like it.
So she told us to sit like pretzels instead. Miss Daisy doesn't tell us to sit like Indians or like pretzels. She just says, “Crisscross applesauce,” which doesn't mean anything at all.
I sat in the second row next to Ryan and Michael.
Andrea and Emily sat in the front row, of course. Miss Daisy said we could talk quietly until Mr. Loring arrived.
“Remember when Mr. Loring had us sing âJingle Bells'?” Michael asked.
“Yeah?”
“What's a bobtail?” Michael asked. “You sing âbells on bobtail ring,' but I never knew what a bobtail was.”
“Beats me,” said Ryan.
“I think a bobtail is a kind of car,” I guessed.
“Nobody names a car Bobtail,” said Michael.
“Bob backward is still Bob,” Ryan said. “And tuna backward is a nut.”
“Tuba backward is a butt,” I said.
“I used to have a fish named Fred,” said Ryan.
“What does that have to do with bobtails?” asked Michael.
Nothing,” Ryan said. “I was just thinking about Fred.”
Suddenly that goody two-shoes Andrea turned around.
“You boys are dumbheads,” she said. “A bobtail is a little furry animal with a short tail. Everybody knows that.”
She was probably right, but I don't like Andrea Young telling me anything. She started singing “Jingle Bells.”
“Who asked you?” I interrupted. “You don't know anything about music.”
“Do too!” Andrea said, all mad. “I've been playing the piano ever since I was four years old.”
“Don't you get tired?” I asked.
I thought that was a pretty funny joke, but nobody laughed. Can't win 'em all.
“I can even play a Beethoven sonata,” Andrea bragged, all proud of herself.
“You play with Beethoven's snot?” I said. “That's disgusting!”
Andrea got all huffy and turned back around. Why doesn't a piano fall on her head?
“Boy, Mr. Loring is really late,” Michael said.
“Maybe he died of old age,” said Ryan.
“I think
we're
going to die of old age waiting for him,” I said.
“Maybe he bored himself to death,” said Michael.
“You boys are mean!” said that crybaby Emily. “Mr. Loring is
nice
!”
She looked like she was going to cry. What a baby! My mom says that all you
have to do to get some people upset is to look at them sideways. I tried looking at Emily sideways, but she didn't even notice.
Miss Daisy told us she was going to the office to see what happened to Mr. Loring. She told us to be on our best behavior while she was gone. So as soon as she left the room, me and Michael and Ryan got up and shook our butts at the class. Most of the kids laughed.
That's when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened.