Miss Brown Is Upside Down! by Dan Gutman Page B

“A.J. and Andrea are cocaptains. They must be in love !”
    â€œWhen are you gonna get married?” asked Michael.
    If those guys weren’t my best friends, I would hate them.

The next morning, right after we pledged the allegiance, Miss Brown came into our classroom. This time she wasn’t walking on her hands. She was on a pogo stick!
    â€œAnybody can walk on their hands,” she told us. “It’s more creative to hop.”
    â€œThe students are very excited about the Brain Games,” said Mr. Cooper. “Whendo we begin?”
    â€œRight now!” Miss Brown replied. “The most important part of the Brain Games is building our car. So we should work on that first.”
    WHAT?! Building our car? Is she out of her mind?
    â€œWe can’t build a car!” said Ryan.
    â€œWe can’t build a car!” said Michael.
    â€œWe can’t build a car!” said Neil.
    In case you were wondering, everybody was saying that we couldn’t build a car.
    â€œSure you can!” said Miss Brown. “You just have to use your creativity.”
    â€œBut a car needs a motor,” said Andrea. “How can we build a car without a motor?”
    â€œHmmm,” said Miss Brown. “We need tofind something that will turn the wheels. So what turns around?”
    â€œA screwdriver,” said Neil.
    â€œAn eggbeater!” shouted Emily.
    â€œA drill!” yelled Alexia.
    Kids were shouting out all kinds of things that turn. I looked around the room. That’s when I got the greatest ideain the history of the world.

    â€œA pencil sharpener!” I shouted.
    Everybody looked at me like I was crazy.
    â€œA pencil sharpener turns around,” I said.
    â€œBut how can a pencil sharpener power a car?” asked Ryan.
    â€œIt can if it’s an electric pencil sharpener,” I told them.
    Everybody looked at me some more.
    â€œWait a minute!” Andrea said. “Arlo’s right! Remember that remote control pencil sharpener that Mrs. Yonkers showed us?”
    â€œOh, yeah!” everybody said.
    Our computer teacher, Mrs. Yonkers,has a thing for remote controls. She uses a remote control for everything. She even has a remote control remote control. That’s a remote control you use when you’re too lazy to get your regular remote control. You just press a button on the remote control remote control and you can control your remote control remotely. *
    Mr. Cooper went down the hall to talk to Mrs. Yonkers. They came back with the remote control pencil sharpener she invented. It made it possible to sharpen a pencil from ten feet away.
    â€œWe can use the motor from the pencilsharpener to turn the wheels of our car,” I explained, “and then we can move the car with the remote control.”
    I should get the Nobel Prize for that idea. That’s a prize they give to people who don’t have bells.
    While Mrs. Yonkers helped us take the motor out of the pencil sharpener, Mr. Cooper got on the intercom and called a few of the other teachers. Miss Small, our gym teacher, came in with four tennis balls we could use as the wheels for our car. Miss Lazar, our custodian, brought up some wood, screws, and tools so we could build the body of our car. Mr. Docker, our science teacher, helped us figure outa way to steer our car. Ms. Hannah, our art teacher, brought up some paint so we could decorate our car.
    We spent all morning working. Mr. Cooper said we could skip reading, writing, and math for the morning because everybody was doing such a good job.

    Finally, just before lunch, the car was done. We all stood back to look at it.
    â€œWow,” I said. “This car is cool!”

    â€œYou kids are so creative!” said Miss Brown.
    â€œWe should give the car a name,” suggested Ryan.
    Everybody started shouting out names.
    â€œThe Love Bug!”
    â€œSuper Car!”
    â€œFloyd!”
    â€œThe Death