Mrs. Jafee Is Daffy! Read Online Free PDF Page A

BETCHA!”
    I swallowed the ice cream. I was starting to feel sick.
    “MORE CANDY!” she said.
    “No more!” I begged. “Please! Stop! I’ll do anything!”
    “EAT IT!” Mrs. Jafee yelled. “You musteat all this junk food to complete the experiment.”
    I thought I was gonna die.

10
The Un-Civil War
    Well, I know one thing—studies do not show that kids learn better if we eat lots of ice cream, cookies, cake, and candy. After the experiment in Mrs. Jafee’s office, I had to go home and lie down for the rest of the day. I may never eat junk food again. Or at least, not for a few days.
    The next morning was Friday, the best day of the week. * I was a little late getting to school. By the time I arrived, everybody was in the playground. I ran over there and found the kids in my class.
    “What’s going on?” I asked Ryan.
    “Beats me,” he replied.
    That’s when two guys in army uniforms marched out of the gym. One of them was that guy Stonewall Jackson, who I’m pretty sure was really our librarian, Mrs. Roopy. The other one was wearing a blue uniform and a beard. But it was obviously Mrs. Jafee.
    “You guys and gals gave me an idea the other day,” she said. “Studies show thebest way to learn is to do the thing you’re learning. So I thought the best way to learn about the Civil War would be to reenact it, right here at Ella Mentry School!”
    “WHAT?!”
    “We’re gonna have a war in the playground?” one of the fourth graders asked.
    “You betcha!” Mrs. Jafee said. “I will be General Grant of the Union army. And you know General Stonewall Jackson of the Confederate army. Any questions?”
    “Are we going to use real guns?” Andrea asked. “Guns are dangerous.”
    “Of course not,” said Mrs. Jafee. “We will act out the war with water guns.”
    The teachers came out of the gym andpassed out Super Soakers to everybody. It was cool.
    Mrs. Jafee told everybody in second and third grade to go to one end of the playground and everybody in first and fourth grade to go to the other end. The kindergarten kids were given drums to play on the side, because they’re too little to handle Super Soakers.
    Stonewall Jackson led us to our end of the playground. We all gathered aroundhim, I mean her.

    “Kids,” she said, “we, the people, have nothing to fear but fear itself. Four score and seven years ago, the torch was passed to a new generation. And now, it’s morning in America.”
    I didn’t know what she was talking about.
    “Charge!” Mrs. Jafee suddenly yelled from across the playground.
    I looked up and saw abouta hundred kids screaming as they ran toward us with Super Soakers. I thought I was gonna die!
    “Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!” Stonewall Jackson shouted.
    After that it was all pretty confusing. Kids were running all over the place, screaming and shooting water everywhere. Some of those fourth graders were big kids. They were drenching our second graders. We were all getting soaked. Kids were falling down, freaking out, and calling out for their mothers.
    “Run for your lives!” shouted Neil the nude kid.
    “Retreat! Retreat!” hollered Stonewall Jackson, and we all gathered around heragain at the back of the playground.
    “Listen up,” she said. “Those Yankees are beating us badly.”
    “Yankees?” I asked. “Why would we fight a baseball team?”
    Everybody laughed even though I didn’t say anything funny. Andrea rolled her eyes.
    “I thought this was supposed to be a civil war,” she complained. “It doesn’t seem very civil to me.”
    “What are we gonna do, General Jackson?” asked Michael.
    “There’s only one thing we can do,” Stonewall Jackson said. “We need to capture Mrs. Jafee, I mean General Grant.”
    “WHAT?!”
    “It’s our only hope,” Stonewall said. “I need two volunteers.”
    Andrea waved her hand in the air, of course, so she got picked. I looked at my shoes so Stonewall wouldn’t call on