Andrew North Blows Up the World Read Online Free PDF Page B

shared with four other families. And there was no elevator, either. We had to walk—upstairs, both ways!”
    Mr. Cunyan, in case I didn’t mention it, was a very strange person.
    When we finished working on the rap, Mr. Cunyan called the three of us who were singing solos on “Kids Are Music” up to the front to practice.
    “Kids Are Music,” the song I was singing a verse of by myself, was not a very cool song, either. In fact, it was pretty silly. It was all about how kids are full of music from head to toe and how singing makes them want to jump up and down. But I was glad to sing a solo. It was going to give me a chance to wear a suit onstage, and if anyone from the spy company happened to see how sharp I looked in a suit, they’d almost
have
to hire me right on the spot.
    If Mr. Gormulka hadn’t killed me yet.
    I sat patiently through the opening chorus, which the whole class sang, and then through the verse that Madison sang. Could I sneak into Storage Room B after the last bell rang? Maybe I could steal some raw meat from the cafeteria to distract the sharks or construct some sort of suit of armor to protect me against spiders?
    But would armor even work against spiders once they caught me in their web?
    Maybe I could convince Tony to come along with me and distract the sharks and spiders? It was really more of a job for a monkey. Monkeys were fast and could jump out of the spiders’ way, but Tony would probably end up getting eaten.
    Suddenly, everything went quiet. The whole class was staring at me. I had been so busy thinking about getting the calculator back that I had missed the cue for my solo!
    Mr. Cunyan stopped the recording of the background music. “Andrew,” he said, “pay attention, please!”
    I blushed. Big time. My face probably went from peach to pink to red and straight into red-violet. You have to be pretty embarrassed to get all the way to red-violet.
    “Sorry,” I said. “I just got kind of lost, I guess.”
    “Okay,” said Mr. Cunyan. “Let’s try this again.”
    He restarted the music, but this time when I opened my mouth, nothing came out. I froze up!
    Mr. Cunyan stopped the recording again. “All right,” he said. “I want to try that one more time, okay? I know you can do it, Andrew. You’ve done it plenty of times before.”
    I nodded and tried again. That time, I sang it when I was supposed to, but I did a terrible job. I sang all the lines, but I think I got every note wrong. I sounded awful!
    “Okay,” Mr. Cunyan said as I sat back down on the risers next to Tony. “That was fine.”
    “No, it wasn’t!” said Nicole. “Andrew was really pitchy!”
    I gave her a dirty look, but not
too
dirty, because I knew she was right, for once. I had really stunk!
    “I’m not worried about that,” said Mr. Cunyan. “I know you can do it, Andrew. Are you nervous?”
    “Maybe a little,” I said. “Not really, though.” Good spies
never
admit that they’re nervous. It’s unprofessional.
    “He’s just nervous because his brother’s calculator is in Storage Room B,” said Tony.
    I gave his foot a quick kick under the seats.
    “I’m sure everything will be fine tomorrow,” said Mr. Cunyan. “And even if it isn’t, the important thing on this song is that you just keep smiling!”
    It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that I might screw it up. I had imagined bringing the whole crowd to its feet and maybe having a couple talent scouts offer me a record deal. I hadn’t been nervous before, but I was now!
    After we finished practicing, Mr. Cunyan gave us a little pep talk.
    “Now, I know you guys know these songs very well,” he said, “but Mrs. Wellington asked me to tell you how important it is to behave. She wants me to say that anyone who isn’t on their best behavior will be in serious trouble. I know you’ll all behave, though. I just have to tell you to, anyway, because if there’s any trouble, I’ll probably be fired. Either that or she’ll put me on