It was the first time all year Terrence had volunteered to read.
All day, everyone paid very close attention. They all wanted the teacher to call on them. Because as funny as it was when Mrs. Franklin called somebody else Benjamin, it was even funnier when she called you Benjamin.
So everyone worked hard and listened closely. As a result, they learned more from the substitute in a day than they usually learned from Mrs. Jewls in a month.
When the final bell rang, everyone crowded around her desk.
“Are you coming back tomorrow, Mrs. Franklin?” asked Eric Bacon.
“Please, Mrs. Franklin, say you will,” pleaded Kathy.
“You’re the best substitute teacher we’ve ever had!” said Jason.
The substitute smiled. “School is over,” she said. “You don’t have to call me Mrs. Franklin anymore. That sounds so formal. Since we’re friends now, you may call me by my first name.”
“What is your first name?” asked Maurecia.
The substitute gathered up her things and put them in a straw bag. “Benjamin,” she said, then walked out of the room.
Everyone stared silently after her.
“Do you think that’s really her name?” asked Joy.
g
Chapter 19 (first)
A Bad Case of the Sillies
Allison started up the stairs five minutes before the bell rang for school to start. The stairs were completely empty. Allison liked it that way. When the bell rang, the stairs would be crammed with a thousand screaming kids scurrying to their rooms, but now it was nice and peaceful.
She walked up past the eighteenth story and toward the twentieth. There was no nineteenth story in Wayside School. Miss Zarves taught the class on the nineteenth story. There was no Miss Zarves.
Allison didn’t understand it. If there was no nineteenth story, then wasn’t her class really on the twenty-ninth?
Suddenly she heard footsteps charging up behind her. She turned around to see Ron and Deedee racing.
She leaned against the wall to get out of their way, but Deedee stamped on her foot; then Ron’s elbow jammed her in the stomach.
“Umph!” she grunted, as she fell and rolled down three steps.
Deedee and Ron didn’t even stop to say they were sorry.
Allison slowly stood up. Fortunately she wasn’t hurt, but her windbreaker was torn.
She thought Ron and Deedee were silly. They race up the stairs, and then when they get to Mrs. Jewls’s room they’re too pooped to learn anything.
Allison thought all the kids in Mrs. Jewls’s class were silly, even Rondi, and Rondi was her best friend. Then there was Jason, who was always pestering her. That was because Jason hated her. Or else he loved her. Allison wasn’t sure which.
When she got to class, Deedee and Ron were sitting with their heads flat on their desks and their tongues hanging out.
“You could have said you were sorry,” Allison said as she walked past them. She sat up straight in her chair, folded her hands on her desk, and waited as everyone else wandered in.
Jason entered the room carrying a glass bowl with a goldfish swimming inside it. “Look what I brought!” he said.
“What’s the name of your goldfish?” asked Mrs. Jewls.
“Shark!” said Jason.