“But then we’ll be farther away from the clouds,” Mac complained.
“Sometimes, safety is more important,” said Mrs. Jewls.
She pointed out the clouds to her class. “That one there is a cumulus cloud.”
Some of the students wrote it down in their notebooks. Bebe drew a picture of a sleeping giant. The cumulus cloud was his pillow.
“And that’s a cirrus cloud over there,” said Mrs. Jewls.
Bebe drew a picture of flying angels. Hundreds of white feathers had fallen from their wings and had swirled into a cloud.
Bebe could draw really fast.
“What kind of cloud is that one, Mrs. Jewls?” asked Benjamin.
He was pointing at a dull, dark cloud way off in the distance.
Mrs. Jewls gasped.
If Bebe were to draw it, her picture would look exactly like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag, while the vacuum was still on.
But Bebe had never seen the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag while the vacuum was still on. So she couldn’t draw it.
“Everyone back to the classroom!” Mrs. Jewls shouted. “Double quick!”
The children scrambled to the trapdoor.
“Hurry!” ordered Mrs. Jewls.
Some fell right through. Others got rope burns.
Mrs. Jewls didn’t worry about little things like that.
She was the last one through the hatch. Sitting atop the closet that wasn’t there, she tossed the ladder back on the roof and locked the trapdoor.
She climbed down, stepping onto the chains and steel bar.
The children were waiting quietly inside the classroom, hands folded on their desks.
Mrs. Jewls walked to the side of the room and looked out the window. Either the cloud was moving closer, or it was getting bigger.
Or both.
“What kind of cloud is it, Mrs. Jewls?” asked Leslie.
There are times when adults hide the truth from children, so as not to worry them. But Mrs. Jewls was a teacher. And this was science.
“Take a good look, boys and girls,” she said, pointing out the window. Then, with a slight tremble in her voice, she said, “That is a Cloud of Doom.”
The room darkened.
9
The Gonnnnng
Louis, the yard teacher, was filling a green ball with air when the Cloud of Doom cast its gloomy shadow over the schoolyard. He felt an eerie chill as he pushed down on his air pump.
Suddenly there was a loud BANG, and the next thing Louis knew, he was lying on the blacktop.
He slowly sat up. He wiggled his fingers. He stuck out his tongue and moved it from side to side. He seemed to be okay. He stood up, still a little wobbly.
Bits of green rubber were scattered across the playground. His air pump was on the other side of the dodgeball circle.
The ball must have exploded from too much air, he realized.
He always tried to put the maximum amount of air into each ball. The kids liked them bouncy. The bouncier the better.
He picked up a piece of green rubber. Then another. And another.
There already weren’t enough balls to go around. The school couldn’t afford to lose another one. He’d have to sew it back together.
In the end he found seventy-three pieces. It was unusually dark for this time of day. He hoped he hadn’t missed any.
“The gong!” he remembered. He hurried to the principal’s office, stuffing cotton balls into his ears as he ran.
“You’re late, Louis,” said Mr. Kidswatter, but Louis couldn’t hear him.
He wheeled the giant gong out of the office to the bottom of the stairs.
At one time, the gong had been bright and shiny, but that was before Louis’s time. Now it was dull and heavily dented. A large mallet, also made of iron, hung from a hook bolted to the gong’s wood frame.
Louis unhooked it, and then took a couple of steps backward to steady himself. The mallet was heavy, even for someone as strong as the yard teacher.
He handed it to Mr. Kidswatter, who easily raised it over his shoulder. Mr. Kidswatter had thick arms, a thick neck, and a thick head.
Louis started the countdown. “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
There was a red dot in the center of the gong. On the count of “One!” Mr. Kidswatter swung the mallet and hit it dead center.
GONNNNN-nnnnn-NNNNN-nnnnn-NNNNN-nnnnn-NNNNN . . .
Despite the cotton balls, the sound rattled inside Louis’s head, and echoed up and down the stairs.
. . . nnnnn-NNNNN-nnnnn-NNNNN-nnnnn . . .
Louis took the mallet from Mr. Kidswatter and hung it back on its hook. He wheeled the gong off to the side, just before a river of children flooded down the stairs.
“Hi, Louis!” “Bye, Louis! “See you tomorrow, Louis!” they called to him as they ran by.
He smiled and waved, but all he heard was “Gonnnnnng!”
“Why don’t they ever say those things to me?” Mr. Kidswatter asked a little while later, as they were leaving the school together.
“Maybe if you did something nice?” Louis suggested.
“Like what?” asked the principal.
“Maybe let a kid ring the gong?”
“No way,” snapped Mr. Kidswatter. “That’s the best part about being principal.”
“Or how about getting some more balls for recess?” Louis suggested.
“Too expensive,” said Mr. Kidswatter.
“What if I pay for them?” asked Louis.
Mr. Kidswatter laughed. “You? Where would you get that kind of money? Did you rob a bank?”
“I have money,” said Louis. “I’ve written some books about Wayside School.”
“And you got paid for that?” Mr. Kidswatter asked.
Louis shrugged.
Mr. Kidswatter frowned.
Louis hoped he hadn’t broken a law.
“Do you mention me in the books?” asked Mr. Kidswatter.
“Maybe once or twice,” Louis admitted.
“You don’t say anything bad about me, do you?”
“Ummm . . .” said Louis.
“You should write a chapter about me!” declared Mr. Kidswatter. “Call it ‘The Best Principal Ever!!!’ with three exclamation points.”
“First, you would have to do something that makes you the best principal ever,” Louis explained.
“Like what?”
“Let a kid ring the gong.”
This time, Mr. Kidswatter didn’t snap at Louis. He was thinking about it.
Louis looked up at the gloomy cloud. He hadn’t paid much attention to science, back when he was going to school. He didn’t know it was a Cloud of Doom.
Had he known, he never would have made such a dangerous suggestion to Mr. Kidswatter.
10
Stuck
Everybody has a special talent. Bebe can draw. Joe can stand on his head and sing “Jingle Bells.”
But this story isn’t about Bebe or Joe. It’s about Dana.
Dana can make funny faces.
Just by puffing out one cheek and raising the opposite eyebrow, she can make Jenny and Leslie crack up every time.
Or there’s the one she calls her goofball face. She puts her glasses on upside down. Then she pulls down one corner of her mouth with her pinky finger, while with her other hand, she tugs her earlobe.
When Dameon and Myron saw that one, they laughed so hard they bumped heads.