1
The Bells of Wayside
It is very important that the children at Wayside School know the bell system.
The first bell in the morning sounds like this: WHOOP-WHOOP! WHOOP-WHOOP! WHOOP-WHOOP!
When they hear it, they know they have sixteen minutes to get to class. That’s not too difficult for those in Mr. Hardgroves’s class on the third floor.
But Wayside School is a thirty-story building, with one room on each floor. So for those who happen to be in Mrs. Jewls’s class, way up on the thirtieth floor, they must be ready on first whoop.
Todd was in Mrs. Jewls’s class. He was stuck behind a mass of kids outside the building waiting for the doors to open. He jumped up and down, trying to see over the heads of those in front of him. If he was late, Mrs. Jewls would put his name on the blackboard, under the word DISCIPLINE.
The kids who went to class on the lower floors often dilly-dallied. If Todd got stuck behind a large group of dilly-dalliers, he’d have no chance.
Inside the principal’s office, Mr. Kidswatter sat behind his enormous desk as he watched the clock. At the moment the second hand reached the number twelve, he shrieked into his microphone. “WHOOP-WHOOP! WHOOP-WHOOP! WHOOP-WHOOP!”
The doors unlocked, and the children stampeded into the building and up the stairs. Todd tried his best to weave his way to the front, but there wasn’t a lot of room.
Eight minutes later, Mr. Kidswatter tugged on the rope hanging through the hole in the ceiling, and the second bell rang. CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Todd counted the clangs. Eight. That meant he now had eight minutes to get to class. Seven or nine clangs would have meant something completely different. Seven meant a helicopter was landing on the roof. Nine clangs meant a porcupine had entered the building.
So far, he had only made it to the seventh floor, but he had finally managed to weave his way past all the dilly-dalliers. There was nothing to slow him down now.
When he reached the eighteenth floor, he heard this sound: ching-a-ling, ching-a-ling, ching-a-ling.
Nothing to worry about there. That just meant they were out of doughnuts in the teachers’ lounge.
The scary bell was the late bell. It didn’t matter where he was. It always sounded like an angry driver was slamming on a car horn, right behind him. It made Todd jump every time.
He quickly dashed from the eighteenth to the twentieth floor. There was no nineteenth floor.
His legs were sore, and he was breathing hard as he reached the top. Just ahead, he could see Joy entering the classroom.
“Don’t shut the—” Todd shouted.
Joy shut the door behind her.
“Goozack,” said Todd.
He was just opening it when the horn blared, as if right behind him.
“You’re late, Todd,” said Mrs. Jewls as he entered the classroom. “Write your—”
“I know,” he said. He wrote his name on the blackboard, under the word DISCIPLINE.
Other bells rang throughout the day. At noon, the lunch bell kaboinked three times. Three kaboinks meant macaroons and cheese.
The bell for recess was just a single ding, but nobody ever missed it.
At the end of each day, Mr. Kidswatter would bang a giant gong with a large iron mallet. It was his favorite thing about being principal.
Todd sat at his desk, glumly looking at the blackboard. The day had started off badly for him and had only gotten worse.
There was now a check mark next to his name, under the word DISCIPLINE.
Next to that, Mrs. Jewls kept adding new homework assignments.
READ A BOOK. WRITE A BOOK REPORT. DRAW A PICTURE. (DON’T FORGET YOUR PAPER CLIP!!!)
HISTORY—READ PAGES 55–59 AND ANSWER QUESTIONS ON PAGES 61 AND 62.
MATH WORKSHEET—DO EVEN- AND ODD-NUMBERED PROBLEMS.
SCIENCE—READ PAGES 29–34, AND DO EXPERIMENT ON 37.
Todd had a sick feeling in his stomach, and it wasn’t just the mac and cheese. In big letters, across the top of the blackboard, Mrs. Jewls had written:
ULTIMATE TEST STARTS TOMORROW!
Mrs. Jewls had been warning the class about the Ultimate Test all year. The test would last for three days. If he failed, Todd would be sent back to kindergarten.
And then he heard it—the most magical bell of all!
Ping . . . PONG!
This bell had only rung once in the history of Wayside School, and nobody knew who rang it. But everyone knew what it meant.
All around, kids began cheering and clapping their hands. Shouts of joy could be heard coming from every floor of Wayside School.
Todd just sat there, in stunned disbelief.
It rang again.
Ping . . . PONG!
It was the Erase-the-Blackboard bell.
Mrs. Jewls had no choice. She picked up the eraser. Up and down Wayside School, teachers were doing the same thing.
Todd smiled as the homework assignments were wiped away. The Ultimate Test was canceled. His name was removed from the discipline list, and even the word DISCIPLINE soon disappeared.
Deep in the basement, a man with a black mustache snapped open a black attaché case. Another man, also with a black mustache, placed a small silver ball into the case. A third man, who was bald, put in a solid gold Ping-Pong paddle.
2
A Million
By the time Terrence got to school, he had already kicked ninety-nine different things.
It started the moment he woke up. He kicked his bed. He kicked Rocky, his favorite stuffed animal. When he left his bedroom, he kicked the door shut.
He kicked the wall as he sat at the kitchen counter and ate cereal. He kicked a table. He kicked three chairs. He kicked rocks on the way to school. He kicked the flagpole.
Still, as much as Terrence liked to kick things, it would take him his whole life to kick a million things.
“How much is a million?” Mrs. Jewls asked her class.
“Ooh! Ooh! I know, I know!” said Mac, stretching his hand high.
Mrs. Jewls called on Mac.
“A million,” Mac answered proudly.
“Well, yes, I suppose that’s correct,” said Mrs. Jewls. “A million is a million. Anyone else? John.”
John lowered his hand. “Nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine . . .” He paused, then added, “Plus one.” He smiled.
“Ooh, that’s good, John,” said Dana, very impressed.
“John’s really smart,” Joe agreed.
Terrence wasn’t paying attention. His big toe hurt from all that kicking. His toenail was too long.
Sharie, who had been sleeping at her desk, suddenly awoke and said, “Ten times ten, times ten, times ten, times ten, times ten.” She rested her head on her red-and-blue overcoat and went back to sleep.
“Is that right, Mrs. Jewls?” asked Jason.
“Um . . .” said Mrs. Jewls as she tried to multiply all of Sharie’s tens. “Well, if Sharie said it, it must be right!”
“Arithmetic makes my brain numb,” said Dameon.
“That’s why they’re called ‘numb-ers,’” said D.J.
Terrence’s big toe throbbed in pain. He couldn’t think about anything else.
“There’s really one way to understand just how big a million is,” said Mrs. Jewls. “And it’s not by using arithmetic. We need to collect a million somethings.”