The Teacher from Heck by R.L. Stine Page B

Billy knows everything.
    â€œActually,” he said, “the tomato isn’t a fruit or a vegetable. It’s a kind of potato.”
    Mrs. Heinie let out a long sigh. She turned to the chalkboard and wrote tomato in the Fruit column.
    As soon as she turned her back, we went to work.
    I raised my watch, squeezed it, and squirted Sherman Oaks in the face with a spray of water. Wes Updood hiked up his belt buckle, squeezed it, and sprayed my pal Crench in the chest.
    Crench pulled out his squirting MP3 player. He aimed a spray of water at Wes—missed—and hit the wall.
    Kids laughed and cheered.
    At the back of the room, I saw my friend Beast go to work. We call the guy Beast because we don’t know if he’s human or not. He’s very furry for a human. And sometimes he bites if you make him angry.
    Mrs. Heinie keeps him on a leash. But he’s a good dude.
    Beast picked up a bottle of water and squeezed the water into his mouth. Then he tilted his head up and spit a gusher of water over half the room.
    Kids ducked and screamed.
    Mrs. Heinie turned around and squinted through her thick glasses. “Is there a problem?” she asked.
    â€œNo. No problem,” I said. I was mopping my desk with a towel.

    â€œHow about lettuce?” Mrs. Heinie asked. “Come on, class. Is lettuce a fruit or a vegetable?”
    Billy the Brain raised his hand again. “Lettuce is actually an animal,” he said. “That’s because it has a head.”
    Sometimes I wonder about Billy the Brain. Maybe he needs a new nickname. Like Billy the Idiot.
    Mrs. Heinie took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. I pulled out my squirting pencil and gave Sherman a shot in the face.
    Billy the Brain made all our secret squirting things. Thanks to him, just about everything we own squirts water!
    Mrs. Heinie sighed and put her glasses back on. “People, the lettuce is not an animal,” she said. “Does anyone—”
    She stopped. She walked over to Billy the Brain, who sat at the end of the second row. She had her eyes on the laptop on Billy’s desk.
    Uh-oh.

Chapter 4
S WEETY W ETS H IS P ANTS
    â€œYou brought your laptop,” Mrs. Heinie said. “Good. Let’s look up lettuce and see what it says.”
    She reached for the laptop.
    â€œNo. Please—” Billy said. But he wasn’t fast enough.
    Mrs. Heinie leaned down. She started to type—and the laptop blasted her in the face with cold water!
    Water splashed her glasses, ran down her cheeks, and drenched her sweater. She staggered back until she hit the wall. “What’s going on here?” she shrieked.
    Billy shrugged. “I’ve been having problems with my laptop,” he said. “Why does it keep doing that?”
    Â 
    At lunch in the Dining Hall, Billy the Brain leaned over the table and whispered to me. “I have a new idea for a squirting weapon,” he said. “Can you get me a lettuce?”
    A squirting lettuce? Yeah, it sounds kinda dumb. But you can see the dude is always thinking, thinking, thinking !
    Sherman and his Nyce House geeks were winning the Water War. My guys were dripping wet from morning to night. We needed to be clever. We needed some new ideas.
    I took a bite of my salami sandwich. A shadow fell over the table. I looked up to see Joe Sweety hulking over me.
    We call him The Big >Sweety. But not to his face. Joe is the biggest,meanest kid at Rotten School. He lives in Nyce House and is Sherman Oaks’s good buddy.
    Is Joe tough? Well, once I saw him punch out a tree because it wouldn’t get out of his way.
    â€œWhat’s up, Sweety?” I said. “Had enough water battles? Did you come over to surrender?”
    He didn’t say anything. He just leaned over our table.
    â€œHEY—!”
    We all screamed as a powerful stream of water came shooting out of his nose. Both nostrils!
    He soaked Feenman’s pizza slice and my salami sandwich.