Mr. Tony Is Full of Baloney! Read Online Free PDF Page A

in the world!”
    “Uh, don’t count your chickens until they are hatched,” said the Guinness lady. “I’m terribly sorry, chaps, but I cannot accept this record for The Guinness Book .”
    “Why not?” we all asked.
    “The rules state very clearly that people are supposed to make the pizza,” she said, “not wrestle in it.”
    “Can’t we get into The Guinness Book of World Records for making the biggest pizza with two guys wrestling in it?” asked Michael. “That must be a world record.”
    “Sorry, no,” said the Guinness lady.
    “Doesn’t Mr. Klutz count as a pizza topping?” I suggested.
    “I’m sorry,” said the Guinness lady. “Well, thank you. I’ve had a lovely time, but I’ve got to get back to jolly old England now. Chip chip cheerio, chaps!”
    The Guinness lady left, and the Channel 7 News crew packed up their cameras and microphones.
    Everybody at school was really sad. Our pizza wasn’t going to be in The Guinness Book of World Records . Mr. Tony wasn’t going to be famous. We wouldn’t even be able to give our pizza to the food bank. Hungry people don’t want to eat a pizza that two guys were wrestling in. 6
    Mr. Tony was really mad that his pizza was ruined. Mr. Klutz was really mad that his parachute jump was ruined. Miss Lazar was really mad because there was even more cleaning up to do, and she made us all pitch in to help out. It took a million hundred hours.
    Finally, I got into the car with my mom to go home. We both smelled like pizza.
    “I was sure we were going to get into The Guinness Book of World Records ,” I told her.
    “You shouldn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” she replied.
    What do chickens have to do with it? We didn’t even put any chicken on the pizza.

Chapter 11
A Happy Ending
    When we got home, the phone was ringing. My mom picked it up. She talked with somebody for a long time.
    When she hung up, she said, “I just got some more bad news, A.J.”
    “Your nose isn’t that bad,” I told her.
    “Mr. Klutz is very angry about what happened,” she told me. “He says he’s not going to pay us for all that tomato sauce, cheese, and crust The Six Moms bought to make the pizza.”
    “So?” I said.
    “So my company is bankrupt,” Mom told me sadly. “The Six Moms is out of business.”
    “Wait a minute,” I said. “If The Six Moms is out of business, that means . . .”
    “It means I have to take you out of the after-school program,” she told me.
    “Hooray!” I yelled. “I can watch TV again! Yippee!”
    I was running around and jumping and going crazy. It was the greatest moment of my life.

    I ran to the TV like I was in the Olympics. It had been so long since I watched TV that I almost forgot which remote control turned it on. Finally, I got the TV working. There was a man and a lady on the screen. Below their faces it said BREAKING NEWS! I turned up the volume.
    “This just in,” the news lady said. “A crazy man in an ape costume jumped out of an airplane today over Ella Mentry School. He landed in an enormous pizza that was in the playground. It turns out the man was Mr. Klutz, the principal of the school. Can you believe anybody would do such a crazy thing?”
    “I guess this Mr. Klutz is nuts!” said the newsman sitting next to her. “He’s just another pathetic person trying to get famous. Like that guy who said his son was in a hot-air balloon. It’s just so sad that people want to be famous so badly.”

    “This story has a happy ending though,” the news lady said. “The crazy principal was rescued by Mr. Tony, the after-school program director of Ella Mentry School. He dived right into the pizza and pulled Mr. Klutz out before that nutty principal drowned in tomato sauce.”
    “Mr. Tony is a real hero,” the newsman said, “like that pilot who landed the plane on the river in New York City. Mr. Tony is the one who deserves to be famous, not that crazy principal.”
    “In fact,” the news