Mr. Tony Is Full of Baloney! Read Free Page B

underpants in one minute. Can you believe that? And some other guy smashed forty-six wooden toilet seat lids with his head. And then somebody in Texas got into a bathtub with eighty-seven rattlesnakes to set a world record. It was hilarious.
    If you ask me, people who try to set records are weird.

Chapter 7
My Genius Idea
    My mom told me that her catering company wasn’t doing very well. The Six Moms still didn’t have any customers, and nobody wanted to buy their fancy sandwiches. Mom said it was because of the economy, whatever that means.
    But the food drive at school was going great . Every morning there was more food in the cardboard boxes by the front office. And then, finally, one morning we saw a big sign on the wall . . .
    WE DID IT! WE COLLECTED 3,000 POUNDS OF FOOD! GREAT JOB, ELLA MENTRY SCHOOL STUDENTS!

    At lunchtime I sat in the vomitorium with the guys. Andrea and her girlie friends sat at the next table so they could annoy us. Me and Michael had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (that weren’t fancy at all). Ryan and Neil the nude kid bought the school lunch. Ugh, disgusting!
    “When is Mr. Klutz going to jump out of a plane in an ape suit?” asked Neil the nude kid.
    “I hope he does it when we’re at ASKK,” said Michael.
    “Hey, do you think Mr. Tony will pogo-juggle or egg-jog today?” asked Ryan.
    “Who knows?” said Neil. “He sure is a weird guy.”
    “Maybe Mr. Tony isn’t really the ASKK director at all,” I told the guys. “Did you ever think of that?”
    “What do you mean, A.J.?” asked Michael.

    “Well, maybe Mr. Tony is an evil genius who wants to take over the world,” I said. “Maybe he kidnapped our real ASKK director and has him tied up to some railroad tracks. Stuff like that happens all the time, you know.”
    At the next table, Andrea looked all worried.
    “What’s the matter?” I asked her. “Are you afraid that our real ASKK director is tied to the railroad tracks?”
    “No, Arlo,” Andrea said. “I’m worried about Mr. Tony.”
    “What about him?” I asked.
    “My mother is a psychologist,” she said. “She told me that some people are so desperate to be famous that they’ll do just about anything to draw attention to themselves and make people like them. Like those parents who said their son was up in a hot-air balloon last year. And those two people who crashed a party at the White House.”
    “You think Mr. Tony is crazy?” I asked.
    “No,” Andrea said. “But it’s sad that he thinks he has to do such crazy things so people will like him. My mom thinks that’s why he’s addicted to cigarettes, too.”
    “I know how to solve this problem,” I said.
    “How?” asked Emily.
    “It’s simple,” I told them. “We just need to make Mr. Tony famous.”
    “And how are we going to do that, Arlo?” Andrea asked.
    We all thought and thought and thought for a million hundred seconds. That’s when I came up with the greatest idea in the history of the world. It was like a lightbulb appeared over my head. 4
    “Mr. Tony is great at making pizza, right?” I asked.
    “Right,” everybody replied.
    “Well,” I said, “what if he made the biggest pizza in the world? That would make him famous. Maybe he would get into The Guinness Book of World Records . And if your mom is right, maybe Mr. Tony would stop smoking, too.”
    “That just might work, Arlo!” Andrea said.
    “A.J., you’re a genius!” said Michael.
    I should get the No Bell Prize for that idea.
    That’s a prize they give out to people who don’t have bells.

Chapter 8
The Biggest Pizza in the World
    Instead of going out for recess, we all rushed over to the school library. Our media specialist, Mrs. Roopy, was in there eating her lunch.
    “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” she asked.
    That’s grown-up talk for “What are you doing here?”
    “We need to see The Guinness Book of World Records right away!” I told her. I was all out of breath.
    Mrs.