Mrs. Yonkers Is Bonkers! (2 page)

There were a bunch of computers in the computer lab, of course! What did you
expect
to see in a computer lab? Man, are you dumb!

But there was something else in the computer lab, too. It was a wheel, like one of those wheels you see in a hamster
cage. Except this one was six feet tall!

“Howdy, y'all!” Mrs. Yonkers said when we opened the door. She wasn't wearing her cheese head anymore. Instead, she was dressed in a jogging outfit and she had on a cowboy hat.

“Wow!” I said. “That's a big wheel!”

“Everything is bigger in Texas,” said Mrs. Yonkers.

“What does it do?” asked Emily.

“It generates electricity. When I run inside the wheel, it powers the computer.”

“Why not just plug the computer into the wall socket?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“This saves energy,” Mrs. Yonkers
explained. “You burn less oil, and you have lower electric bills. Plus, I get exercise. It's a win-win!”

“It's cool!” we all agreed.

Mrs. Yonkers told us that she likes to use technology to solve problems. She even started her own computer company called NERD—New Electronic Research Development.

Mrs. Yonkers showed us a virtual reality helmet, night vision goggles, and some other cool stuff she invented.

“And here is a founding member of the company,” she said as she pulled a big turtle out of a cage. “This is my friend Speedy.”

“He's adorable!” said Andrea, who never misses the chance to brownnose a grown-up.

“What's that thing on his back?” asked Ryan.

“It's a tiny camera,” said Mrs. Yonkers. “I call it Turtle Cam. While Speedy moves around the room, we'll be able to follow
his progress on my website.”

“Can we see how it works?” asked Michael.

“I'm still ironing out the bugs,” said Mrs. Yonkers.

“Please? Please? Please? Please?”
everybody begged.

If you want anything from a grown-up, all you have to do is say “Please” until they can't stand it anymore. That's the first rule of being a kid.

“Well…okay,” Mrs. Yonkers said, putting Speedy on the floor. “Who wants to run on the wheel to turn on the computer?”

“Me! Me! Me! Me!”
everybody yelled.

Mrs. Yonkers did eenie meenie miney
moe. The last moe was Emily, the lucky stiff.

Emily climbed inside the wheel and started running. The wheel turned around, but the computer didn't turn on because Emily runs about as fast as Speedy the turtle.

“Faster, Emily! Faster!” we all yelled.

The computer screen started to flicker on when Emily ran faster. Speedy was walking around the room, and we could see a picture of what he was looking at. Turtle Cam was cool.

“Faster!” we all yelled. “Faster!”

Emily was running as hard as she could. The wheel was spinning really fast now
and making a lot of noise. Speedy walked around to the front of the wheel. And that's when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.

The nuts and bolts that were holding the wheel to its frame must have gotten loose somehow. The wheel started rolling away!

It was heading for the wall!

Emily was still inside, and she was upside down!

“Watch out!” we all yelled.

Speedy barely got out of the way before the wheel crashed into the wall. We all rushed over there. Emily staggered out of the wheel, all dizzy, and fell down. She was on the floor, freaking out. It was hilarious.

“What happened?” Andrea asked Mrs. Yonkers.

“I guess the computer crashed,” she replied.

Emily was shaken up pretty good, but it looked like she was going to be okay.

“Hey, where's Speedy?” asked Ryan.

We looked all around the computer lab. No Speedy.

“He's gone!” cried Mrs. Yonkers.

Mrs. Yonkers wasn't too worried about Speedy the turtle. She said he runs away all the time. But thanks to Turtle Cam, she can usually find him. She turned on another computer, one that was plugged into the wall socket this time.

“There he is!” we shouted when Mrs.
Yonkers clicked on Turtle Cam.

“How did that rascal get outside?” she said. We all watched the screen closely. Speedy was heading toward some cars in the parking lot.

“Maybe he climbed out the window,” Neil the nude kid guessed.

We saw some bushes on the computer screen, and then the screen got darker. All we could see were leaves and sticks.

“Speedy went into the woods!” I said.

“He'll be lost forever!” said Michael.

“We've got to do something!” shouted Emily, and she went running out of the room.

Emily is weird.

“Don't worry,” said Mrs. Yonkers. “I'm sure Speedy will come back. In the meantime, would you like to see my latest top secret invention?”

“Yeah!” we all shouted.

Mrs. Yonkers took a small box out of her desk drawer.

“Is that a remote control?” I asked.

“Yes!” she said. “I'm a remote control
freak
! At home I use a remote control to open my
garage, turn on the TV and microwave, and even start my car. But this remote control is different. It's a
remote control
remote control!”

“What's a remote control remote control?” asked Ryan.

“It's a remote control you use when you don't feel like getting off the couch to pick up your regular remote control,” said Mrs. Yonkers. “You just press a button on the remote control remote control, and then you can control your remote control.”

“That's cool!” we all agreed. Mrs. Yonkers is a genius. She should get the No Bell Prize. That's a prize they give to
people who don't have bells.

“You should invent a
remote control
remote control remote control,” suggested Michael.

“That would be silly,” Mrs. Yonkers said. She took another box out of her desk drawer. “But check this out. It's the world's first remote control pencil sharpener!”

“Wow!” we all said.

“How does it work?” I asked.

“You put your pencil in this little hole, and you can go as far as fifty feet away to turn it on,” Mrs. Yonkers said. “Then you go back and get your pencil—all sharpened and ready to use.”

“That's cool!” I said.

“Why would anybody want to do that?” asked Andrea. “Isn't it easier just to stay right there at the pencil sharpener?”

“It's cooler to sharpen pencils by remote control,” I told Andrea. Doing
anything
by remote control is cool, if you ask me.

“Also, this is the first pencil sharpener that gives you a workout,” Mrs. Yonkers explained. “I like to jog around the room while my pencil is being sharpened. It's a win-win!”

“Can we try it out?” asked Neil the nude kid.

“Well, I'm still ironing out the bugs,” Mrs. Yonkers said.

“Please? Please? Please? Please?”

“Well…okay.”

Mrs. Yonkers stuck a pencil into the sharpener. Then she picked up her remote control and led us over to the other end of the computer lab.

“Now watch this,” she said, and she pushed a button on the remote. The pencil sharpener started making noises. We all clapped our hands. And then…

BAM!

There was a huge explosion! Pieces of pencil and pencil sharpener went flying all over the computer lab!

“Duck!” I shouted.

We all stopped, dropped, and rolled like
we do during a fire drill.

When we got up off the floor, there was smoke pouring out of what was left of the pencil sharpener. It was cool!

I thought Mrs. Yonkers was going to be upset that her remote control pencil
sharpener had exploded into a million hundred pieces. But she didn't seem to mind at all.

“Lucky I used the remote control,” she said. “We were out of harm's way, and nobody got hurt. Imagine how many kids would have been injured if we had used a
regular
pencil sharpener and it exploded. Remote control pencil sharpeners are much safer.”

Mrs. Yonkers is bonkers!

After dismissal, me and Michael and Ryan searched the woods behind the school for Speedy the turtle. We couldn't find him anywhere. I guess he ran away.

We were sad. But we were even sadder the next morning when we got to school. Two big guys wearing overalls were
wheeling the soda pop and candy machines out of the vomitorium, where we eat lunch.

“Say good-bye to sugar!” cried Mrs. Cooney, who is beautiful. “From now on, there will only be healthy food at Ella Mentry School.”

“NO!” I yelled, hugging the candy machine. “Don't take it away!”

Mrs. Cooney told me I was being silly. She said that after I stopped eating junk food, I wouldn't even miss it.

“Can I just say my good-byes to the soda and candy machines one last time?” I begged.

“Well, I suppose so,” said Mrs. Cooney.

I got down on my knees in front of the machines. No more Good & Plenty. No more Almond Joy. No more Jujyfruits or M&M's or Starburst or Laffy Taffy. No more Sprite or Sierra Mist or Mountain Dew. No more junk food! How would we survive?

I thought I was gonna die. Tears started welling up in my eyes.

Michael suggested we have a moment of silence in honor of junk food. I thought that was a great idea. All the guys gathered around the machines.

During the moment of silence, I thought about all the good times we had eating candy and drinking soda pop. I even made up a poem for the occasion. I put my hand over my heart and recited it:

Some other kids joined us and watched as the guys in overalls loaded up the machines and wheeled them out of the vomitorium. We were all sniffling.

That's when Andrea and her annoying girly friends came over.

“What's the big deal?” she asked. “I like to eat healthy snacks like carrot sticks and fresh fruit. Kids should have a balanced diet.”

I wish her diet would get unbalanced
and fall on her head.

All I could think about that morning was junk food. While Miss Daisy was telling the class about precipitation (which is just some fancy grown-up word for rain and snow), I was searching through my desk for something to eat. A Tootsie Roll Pop. A Smartie. A Froot Loops. A tic tac. ANYTHING.

“I need sugar!” I whispered to Ryan. “I'm dying!”

Finally, in my back pocket, I found something. An old LifeSaver! It was covered with so much lint that I couldn't even tell what flavor it was. But I ate it anyway. Sometimes, in a survival situation,
a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

I guess that's why they call LifeSavers lifesavers. Because that LifeSaver
was
a lifesaver!