Ms. Hannah Is Bananas! (2 page)

In the lunchroom I got to sit next to Ryan and Michael. I gave my apple to Ryan, and he gave me his yogurt with sprinkles in it.

“Ms. Hannah is weird,” I said.

“Artists are always weird,” Ryan said. “My mom has a friend who's an artist,
and she's really weird. My mom says that's because artists are creative.”

“Your mom is weird,” Michael said.

“Lots of people are weird,” I told them. “That doesn't make them creative. Some people are just weird, and they're not creative at all. And some people are creative, and they're not at all weird.”

“You're weird, A.J.,” Ryan said.

“Anybody who wears a dress made of pot holders is weird,” Michael said.

“Art teachers are supposed to dress funny,” I said.

“If my dad dressed like that, he'd be fired,” Ryan said.

“Your dad is a businessman,” Michael told Ryan. “He has to wear a tie around his neck every day. It doesn't do anything. It's just a piece of cloth that hangs around his neck. If you ask me, that's pretty weird.”

“Yeah,” I said, “which is weirder, wearing a dress made out of pot holders, or wearing a piece of cloth around your neck for no reason at all?”

“They're both weird,” Ryan said.

“All grown-ups are weird, especially art teachers,” said Michael.

“Ms. Hannah is weird, even for an art teacher,” I said. I noticed that Andrea and Emily at the next table were listening to us. I knew they were listening because they kept shaking their heads and rolling their eyes and snickering at us.

“Maybe Ms. Hannah isn't really an art teacher at all,” I said, just loud enough so the girls would hear it. “Did you ever think about that? Maybe she's just pretending to be an art teacher.”

“Yeah!” Michael said. “Maybe Ms. Hannah is a thief, and she's trying to steal all
our garbage and take over the world. Stuff like that happens in comic books all the time.”

“Maybe our real art teacher was kidnapped, and she's tied up to a chair in the teachers' lounge,” Ryan said.

“And the teachers are shooting BB guns at her,” I added.

“We've got to save her!” Emily suddenly said. There were tears running down her cheeks. Then she got up and went running out of the room.

Me and Ryan and Michael laughed our heads off. That Emily is such a crybaby.

“You boys are weird,” Andrea said.

The next time we had art class, the newspaper ball that Ms. Hannah had been making was
huge
! It was about as high as a desk. Everybody wanted to touch it. Everyone except for me, that is. I remembered that somewhere inside that ball was my booger.

The art room was filled with all kinds of junk kids brought in from home. There were old musical instruments, broken toys, soda cans, plastic wrap, and all kinds of garbage. You should have seen it! Some kid brought in a tennis racquet with no strings.

“What a mess!” Emily said.

“If my bedroom looked like this, my mom would go crazy,” Michael said. “You should throw half this stuff in the garbage, Ms. Hannah.”

“Oh dear, no,” she said. “I don't like to throw things away. In fact, at home the garbagemen bring
me
garbage so I can use it in my art. When I have a day off, I
go to junkyards looking for treasures.”

Ms. Hannah is bananas!

She had some sticky glue that sticks to everything. She told us to make a sculpture out of the junk kids brought in from home.

“Express yourself!” Ms. Hannah said. “Show your creativity! Remember, art is everywhere. Art is light. Art is air. Even things that are invisible can be art.”

Michael started making a robot out of toilet paper tubes. Emily made a doll out of buttons.

I didn't know what to make. I think I'm just not very artistic. I didn't feel like gluing a bunch of junk together. Ms. Hannah walked around looking at every
one's sculptures and telling them how wonderful they were. I hoped Ms. Hannah wouldn't come over to me.

“A.J. isn't making a sculpture,” Andrea said, and she stuck her tongue out at me. I hate her.

“Why aren't you making anything, A.J.?”

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. I had to think fast. “I did make a sculpture,” I said. “This is an invisible sculpture. I call it ‘The Invisible Sculpture.'”

“Very clever, A.J.!” Ms. Hannah said. “That's using your creativity!”

I stuck out my tongue at Andrea.

“I have an announcement, second
grade,” Ms. Hannah said after clean-up time. “Mr. Klutz has agreed to sponsor a big art contest. There will be a prize for the winner in each grade.”

“What's the prize?” Ryan asked.

“A gift certificate for a hundred dollars to an art supply store.”

Everybody went “ooh” and “wow.” It didn't seem like a great prize to me. I don't like art. What would I do with a bunch of art supplies?

Ms. Hannah said we had to create our artwork at home and bring it in two weeks later if we wanted to be in the contest.

“You can make anything you like,” Ms. Hannah said, “and use whatever materials you want. Freely express yourselves!

Creativity is the most important thing.”

“Can we just draw pictures?” Michael asked.

“Of course!” said Ms. Hannah.

“I hope I win,” I heard Andrea whisper to Emily. “I'm going to make a sculpture with butterflies.”

I hate her. I wonder if there are poisonous butterflies that bite people.

“So who thinks they might enter the contest?” asked Ms. Hannah. Everybody raised their hands except for me.

“What about you, A.J.?”

I didn't say anything. But I'll tell you what I was thinking: I hate art! Art is stupid!

We were out in the playground during recess. Me and Ryan and Michael all agreed that Ms. Hannah was weird. I mean, saving all that garbage is good for the environment and all, but it's kind of weird, too. She doesn't have enough garbage of her own. She has to go get
other
people's garbage.

“She's not an art teacher,” I said. “She's a garbage collector.”

“I still say our real art teacher was kidnapped,” Ryan said. “She's probably tied up to a chair in the teachers' lounge.”

The teachers' lounge is on the second floor of our school. Ryan said he thought it was in a room over the playground. We looked up at the windows and found the one that was probably the teachers' lounge.

“Our real art teacher could be in there right now,” Ryan said, “tied up to a chair and being tortured!”

“Too bad we're too short to see inside,” Michael said.

That's when I came up with the most genius idea in the history of the world.

I told Ryan and Michael that we might be able to see inside the window to the teachers' lounge if we stood on top of each other.

Michael got down on his hands and knees below the window. Ryan climbed up on top of him and hunched down. I climbed up on top of Ryan and stood on his shoulders.

“Can you see anything, A.J.?” Michael grunted.

“Not yet.”

I could almost see into the window. I grabbed hold of the ledge on the window to pull myself up better.

“Hurry up!” Michael said. “My back is going to break!”

That's when I saw them. The teachers! I saw Miss Daisy and Mrs. Roopy and a few of the other teachers. I was looking right into the teachers' top-secret lounge!

“I see them!” I shouted.

“What are they doing?” Ryan asked, all excited.

“Not much,” I said.

“Is anybody tied up to a chair?” Michael asked.

“No.”

“Are they dancing around with each other?” Ryan asked.

“No.”

“Are they playing Pin the Tail on the
Donkey?” Michael asked.

“No,” I said. “They're just sitting there…eating lunch.”

“That's
it
?” Ryan said.

“Wait!” I told them. “Mrs. Roopy is getting something out of the closet!”

“Is it a BB gun?” Michael asked.

“No, it's a paper bag,” I said. “It must be her lunch.”

“This is boring,” Ryan said.

“One more minute,” I said.

“My back is breaking!” Michael hollered.

I don't know exactly what happened next, but all I knew was that Ryan and Michael weren't holding me up anymore.
Nothing
was holding me up anymore.

I was holding on to the ledge of the windowsill with my elbows. If I let go, I would fall. I was afraid my head would bang on the windowsill.

“Help! Help!” I shouted.

I was hanging there for about a million hundred minutes until some of the teachers inside the teachers' lounge noticed me. They rushed over and opened the window.

“A.J., what are you doing out here?” Miss Daisy said as she and the other teachers pulled me inside.

“Uh, I was just hanging around,” I told them.