Mrs. Lilly Is Silly! (2 page)

But you'll never believe who ran into the
doorway
.

I'm not gonna tell you.

Okay, okay, I'll tell you! But you have to read the next chapter. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you!

It was a lady who came running into our classroom. She was wearing an old-time man's hat and a trench coat.
*
There was a camera around her neck and a notepad in her hand. She was all out of breath.

“Is Career Day over?” she asked.

“Mrs. Lilly!” said Mr. Granite.

I recognized Mrs. Lilly. She's a reporter for our local paper, the
News Tribune Bulletin Inquirer
. She wrote an article about our school when a squirrel ate through the power lines and all the lights went out. They put my picture in the paper and everything. My mom put it up on the refrigerator.

“Sorry I'm late,” Mrs. Lilly said. “I had to write a big story about a tree.”

“Why did you write about a tree?” asked Andrea.

“Yeah, why did you write about a tree?” asked Emily, who always does whatever Andrea does.

“It fell down,” said Mrs. Lilly.

“So what?” asked Ryan. “Don't trees fall down all the time?”

“Well, this tree landed on a house.”

“Was anybody hurt?” asked Emily, all worried.

“No.”

“Then why was it a big story?” asked Mr. Granite.

“The tree fell on Mayor Hubble's house,” Mrs. Lilly told us.

“Oh, and that's a big story?” asked Alexia.

“Well, it landed on the mayor's bathroom,” Mrs. Lilly said, “and the mayor was
in
the bathroom at the time. You see, a tree falling down is boring. And a tree falling down on the mayor's house is still pretty boring. But a tree falling down on the mayor's bathroom while he's on the toilet is a great human interest story. That's what I look for: human interest stories.”

“What happened to Mayor Hubble?” asked Emily, all concerned.

“He had to go,” said Mrs. Lilly.

“Of course he had to go,” I said. “That's why he was in the bathroom.”

“No,” said Mrs. Lilly. “I mean, after he went, he had to go.”

“How can you go right after you went?” asked Neil the nude kid.

We went back and forth like that for a while until Mr. Granite interrupted.

“I'm terribly sorry,” he said. “This is all very interesting, but we have to do our math lesson now.”

Ugh. I hate math.

“That's too bad,” said Mrs. Lilly. “I wanted to show the kids how we make the newspaper.”

“Oh, that would be neat!” said Andrea. “Don't you want to learn how they make the newspaper?”

“Yes!” said all the girls except for Alexia.

“No!” said all the boys and Alexia.

“Maybe you can come back another time to show the class how to make a newspaper,” suggested Mr. Granite.

“I have a better idea,” said Mrs. Lilly. “When I come back, the kids and I can make a real newspaper
together
!”

“That's a
wonderful
idea!” said Mr. Granite. “Would you kids like to make a real newspaper with Mrs. Lilly?”

“Yes!” yelled all the girls except for Alexia.

“No!” yelled all the boys and Alexia.

“I can see the headline now,” said Mrs. lilly. “ ‘KIDS MAKE NEWSPAPER!' I love it! But for now, I've got to go.”

“Do you have to go, or do you have to
go
?” I asked.

“I have to go,” she replied, “and it's an emergency!”

I still didn't know if Mrs. Lilly had to go, or if she had to
go
. In any case, she went running out of the room.

Mrs. Lilly is silly.

“Okay,” Mr. Granite said after Mrs. Lilly was gone, “turn to page twenty-three in your math books.”

We all took out our math books and turned to page twenty-three. But you'll never believe who walked into the doorway a few minutes later.

It was Mrs. Lilly again!

“Mrs. Lilly! I thought you said you had to go,” said Mr. Granite. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company
now
?”

(That's grown-up talk for “What are
you
doing here?”)

“I did have to go,” Mrs. Lilly replied. “And I went. Now I'm back.”

“I'm glad a tree didn't fall on you,” I told her.

“But I thought you were going to come back another
day
,” said Mr. Granite. “We're starting our math lesson now.”

“Math, eh?” Mrs. Lilly said. “Well, if we print up a newspaper with ten pages in it and there are five articles on each page, how many articles can we fit into the newspaper?”

Some kids raised their hands. Mrs. Lilly called on Little Miss I-Know-Everything, of course.

“Fifty!” said Andrea. “Because five tens make fifty.”

“Correct!” said Mrs. Lilly. “See, we just did a math lesson. Now let's write some of those articles for our newspaper.”

“Yay!” we all shouted.

“I give up,” said Mr. Granite. “If you need me, I'll be in the teachers' lounge.”

He went to the teachers' lounge, which is a secret room where the teachers go to have hot tub parties.

Mrs. Lilly took off her trench coat, and we all gathered around her on the floor.

“What should we write about?” asked Emily.

“Write about what you know,” said Mrs. Lilly. “You know a lot about your school. How about we make a school newspaper? We can call it…
The Ella Mentry Sentry
. You can all write articles for it.”

“Yay!” everybody yelled.

Little Miss Annoying was all excited, and she was waving her hand around like it was on fire.

“I already wrote something at home,” Andrea announced, pulling some papers out of her desk. “Maybe we can use it in our newspaper.”

Ugh. Could she possibly be more boring? Only Andrea would write an article for a newspaper before she even knew we were going to
make
a newspaper. She held up her dumb article so we could all see it. The first page said:

I LOVE ELLA MENTRY SCHOOL

By Brenda Myers

“Who's Brenda Myers?” asked Alexia.

“That's my pen name,” said Andrea.

“You name your pens?” I said. “That's weird.”

Andrea rolled her eyes and then she read her article out loud. It was all about how our school was built in 1961, and it was named after a teacher named Ella Mentry. Then it went on to talk about a bunch of other really boring stuff, like the history of the school. I thought I was gonna die from boredom.

When the torture was over, Andrea looked up at Mrs. Lilly and waited for her to say how wonderful that dumb article was. What a brownnoser! But that's when the most amazing thing in the history of the world happened.

Mrs. Lilly dropped Andrea's article into the garbage can!

“That was terrible,” she said.

“Oh, snap!” said Ryan.

Well, Andrea looked like she was going to
explode
! I don't think a grown-up
ever
said anything like
that
to her. Ha-ha! Nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea! In her face! It was the greatest moment of my life.