Funny Boy Takes on the Chit-Chatting Cheeses from Chattanooga Read Free Page A

... seven.”
    “Well, it’s not as simple as it seems,” I pointed out. “For example, eight times seven pumpkins would be more than eight times seven apples, because pumpkins are bigger than apples. But if you made the apples into applesauce and scooped out the pumpkin seeds, you would probably have more applesauce than pumpkin seeds. See?”
    Mrs. Wonderland stared at me for a long time.
    “Go to Principal Werner’s office,” she instructed.
    As it turned out, I didn’t have to go to Principal Werner’s office after all, because Principal Werner saw me coming down the hallway and told me to go jump in a lake. I could tell that physical fitness was very important to Principal Werner, because he was constantly telling me to jump in a lake.
    Oddly, there was no lake on the school grounds, so I joined the rest of the class at recess in the playground. A group of the fourth-grade boys were hanging around near the swings, so I joined them.
    “I hate girls,” Sal Monella told the boys.
    “I hate girls, too,” one of the others agreed.
    “Me, too.”
    “Me, too.”
    “Me, too.”
    “Me, too.”
    At that moment, this girl walked by. Not just any old girl. This girl was, without a doubt, THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD!
    Let me try to describe her for you. She had long blond hair, which was curly and dark. She was tall, on the short side. Her body was thin, and just a little overweight. I had never seen anyone like her before.
    “I hate girls, too,” I agreed. “Who’s that ?”
    “It’s the new girl. Tupper Camembert,” Sal told me. “She just moved in around the corner from me. She’s in the other fourth-grade class. This is her first day in school.”
    “Tupper?” somebody asked. “What kind of a dumb name is Tupper?”
    “Who cares? I’m in love!”

    “I’m in love!”
    “I’m in love!”
    “I’m in love!”
    “I’m in love!”
    “I’m in love!” I proclaimed.
    “Forget it,” Sal snickered. “Tupper Camembert wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
    “Oh yeah?” I said. “We’ll see about that!”
    I quickly caught up with Tupper and tapped her on the shoulder.
    “Excuse me,” I said as charmingly as possible. “Can you please tell me what time it is?”
    “No,” Tupper replied. “Why don’t you go jump in a lake?”
    I jogged back over to Sal and the group of boys.
    “You were right,” I huffed to Sal. “She wouldn’t give me the time of day. But she did invite me to go swimming.”
    “What?” the boys all asked, their mouths open.
    “She asked me to jump in a lake,” I replied, which for some reason the boys found amusing.
    “That means she thinks you’re a dork, dork,” said Sal.
    “Go ahead and laugh,” I told them. “1 love Tupper Camembert and none of you will be invited to our eventual wedding. I have seen the girl I will spend the rest of my life with, er, I mean the girl with whom I will spend the rest of my life.”
    “Huh?”
    “Let me shout it from the mountaintops. I’m in love with Tupper Camembert! I will follow her to the ends of the earth. I will follow her until the stars cease to shine. Until the oceans stop waving and the moon stops mooning. I will follow her until Bill Gates runs out of money. Until the Chicago Cubs win the World Series. I love her as no man has ever loved a woman.”
    “What a dork!” Sal replied as the bell rang.

CHAPTER 5

    IF YOU’VE READ ALL THE OTHER CHAPTERS, YOU SHOULD BE TOTALLY HOOKED BY NOW AND WILL WANT TO READ THIS ONE, TOO. OR NOT.
    It was raining and cold when I got up the next morning. But as you very well know, that had nothing to do with the story. So there was no good reason to bring it up.
    The news about the giant alien cheeses wasn’t in the papers that day. But it was the next day. There was a small item in the food section about these “cute” cheeses that were nice enough to travel 40 million light-years to provide Earth with all the cheese we’d need until the cheese shortage was