Mrs. Roopy Is Loopy! (2 page)

I took a seat in the lunchroom next to Ryan and Michael. Ryan stuck two of my carrot sticks in his nose, and I told him I'd give him a nickel if he ate them. He did, too. Me, I won't even eat carrot sticks
before
you stick them in your nose.

“Do you think that guy was really George Washington?” Ryan asked.

“I don't know,” Michael said. “What do you think, A.J.?”

That's when Andrea Young leaned over from the next table and opened her big mouth.

“That wasn't George Washington, you dumb heads!” she said. “That was Mrs. Roopy wearing a powdered wig and an army uniform.”

She may have been right, but I didn't want to admit it, because I hate her. Ryan took out a dollar bill from his backpack and looked at the picture of George Washington.

“He sure looked like George Washington,” Ryan said.

“George Washington has been dead for like a hundred years!” Andrea said.

“Even if George Washington was still alive,” Emily said, “I'm sure he would have more important things to do than come to our school and read us stories.”

That's when it hit me. If that army guy was really Mrs. Roopy dressed up as George Washington, maybe Mrs. Roopy isn't a librarian at all!

“Maybe she's just pretending to be a librarian,” I said, “just like she was pretending to be George Washington.”

“Yeah!” Michael said. “Maybe she's a kidnapper and she's got our real librarian locked up in an empty warehouse at the edge of town. I saw that in a movie once.”

“We've got to save her!” Emily said with
tears dribbling down her cheeks. Then she went running out of the room.

There was only one way to solve the problem. We cleaned off our trays and went back to our classroom to ask Miss Daisy if George Washington was really Mrs. Roopy in disguise.

“Don't be silly,” Miss Daisy said. “As it turns out, Mrs. Roopy is absent today. She's home sick in bed. It must have been the real George Washington.”

But what does Miss Daisy know? Everybody knows Miss Daisy is crazy.

Everybody in our class was excited before the next library period. We all wanted to see if George Washington would be there again.

When we got to the library, there was just this lady who looked a little bit like George Washington except she didn't
have on an army uniform or a wig. She looked like a normal lady.

“Good morning, second graders,” she said. “My name is Mrs. Roopy. I'm sorry I couldn't be here the other day for your library period.”

“But you were here!” Ryan shouted.

“You must be
mistaken,” Mrs. Roopy said. “I was home sick in bed.”

“Can we see your wooden teeth again?” Michael asked.

“Yeah, can we?”

“Wooden teeth? Did you know that George Washington didn't have wooden teeth at all? His mouth was filled with cow's teeth.”

“Ewww!” we all shouted.

I asked Mrs. Roopy, “Did the cow have George Washington's teeth in
her
mouth?”

“But that was you, wasn't it, acting like George Washington?” said Michael.

Mrs. Roopy's forehead got all wrinkly just like George Washington's did when we told him about computers. “I don't
know what you're talking about.”

We all looked at one another. I wasn't sure if she was telling the truth or not.

“If I were George Washington, would I have this?” Mrs. Roopy asked. Then she picked up her shirt and showed us her belly. She had a little tattoo of a heart right over her belly button. It was cool.

I had to admit that George Washington would never have a heart-shaped tattoo over his belly button. So maybe that army guy with the
wig wasn't Mrs. Roopy after all.

“Let me show you around the library,” Mrs. Roopy said. “Did you know that books can take you to places you have never been before? They help us explore our world. We have books here on just about every subject you can think of. This is the fiction section. Does anyone know the difference between fiction and nonfiction books?”

“Nonfiction books are books that are not fiction,” Ryan said. “Because ‘non' means
not
, like nonfat milk has no fat in it.”

“And nonsense has no sense in it,” Michael added.

“That's true,” Mrs. Roopy said, “but there's a little more to it.”

“Fiction is what you get when you rub two things together,” I said.

Everybody laughed even though I didn't say anything funny.

“That's friction, A.J.,” Andrea Young said. “Fiction is a made-up story, and non-fiction is based on facts.”

“That's correct,” said Mrs. Roopy, and she smiled at Andrea. I wished Andrea would shut up.

“Oh, who cares what the difference between fiction and nonfiction is?” I said. “All books are boring.”

Everybody went “Ooooooh!” like I had said something really terrible.

“But everybody needs to know how to read, A.J.,” Mrs. Roopy said.

“Not me,” I said. “When I grow up, I'm going to be a trick bike rider because you don't have to know how to read to do tricks on a bike.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Michael and Ryan. We told Mrs. Roopy that, every day after school, me and Michael and Ryan ride our bikes together. I learned how to ride a two-wheeler in kindergarten. Now I can do a bunny hop off a bump, and I know the names of all the famous trick bike riders. I have posters of them all over the walls of my room.

“Gee, I don't know much about bicycle tricks, A.J.,” Mrs. Roopy said. “But I've got posters of my hero on my walls at home too.”

“Who is your hero, Mrs. Roopy?” Andrea asked.

“Melvil Dewey.”

“Melvil Whoey?” I asked.

“Melvil Dewey was a very famous librarian,” Mrs. Roopy said, and her eyes got all bright and sparkly and excited.

“Librarians aren't famous,” I said.

“Melvil Dewey was,” said Mrs. Roopy. “He invented the number system we use to find books in the library. If it weren't for Melvil Dewey, we would never be able to find anything.”

“Wow!” Andrea Young said, as if she was really interested in that boring stuff.

“So if you want to find books about insects, you'd go to number 595,” Mrs. Roopy said. “And if you want to find books about dinosaurs, you'd go to number 567. Libraries all over the world use the system that Melvil Dewey invented. Today we call it the Dewey decimal system.”

“Did all the kids at his school make fun of him because his name was Melvil?” I
asked. I know that if there was a kid named Melvil in our school, we would make fun of him constantly.

“I don't know,” Mrs. Roopy said. “But would you like to hear a song I made up about Melvil Dewey?”

“Yeah!” we all shouted. Listening to songs had to be better than reading books.

Mrs. Roopy went into her office and came back with a guitar and one of those harmonica thingys you wear around your neck. She strummed a few chords to warm up.

“You may have heard a folktale about John Henry, the steel-drivin' man,” Mrs. Roopy said. “Well, this is the story of Melvil Dewey, the book-sortin' man.”

And then she started to sing….

Mrs. Roopy sang the whole song and played her guitar and harmonica, too. It was a pretty cool song. This Melvil Dewey guy had a race with a computer to see who could sort books the fastest. Melvil won the race, but right after he sorted the last book, he dropped dead right on the floor of the library. It was cool.

At the end of the song, Andrea Young got up and gave Mrs. Roopy a standing ovation, so we all had to get up too.

“That's the saddest story I ever heard in my life,” Emily said, wiping tears from her eyes.

At the end of the period, Mrs. Roopy asked us if we had any questions about how to use the library.

“Is it true that if we don't return our library books on time you lock us in a dungeon under the school?” I asked. Everybody laughed even though I didn't say anything funny.

“Don't be silly,” Mrs. Roopy said. “The dungeon is on the third floor.” I think she was telling a joke, but I'm not sure.