Summer School! What Genius Thought That Up? Read Free Page A

by. And, get this. He actually started to sing.
    â€œAloha to Summer Fest at PS 87.
    Welcome, my children,
    To a little bit of heaven.”
    If this song was even a tiny sample of what summer school was going to be like, I was going to have to bolt for parts unknown. The only thing that stopped me was Mr. Rock’s friendly face, greeting us as he jogged down the stairs to the school lobby. Mr. Rock is the music teacher at PS 87, and trust me, if you could pick any teacher in the world for your teacher, he’s the one you’d pick. It’s as if he knows what kids are thinking before they even think it.
    Like he could see that I was thinking about how I could escape to the Central Park Zoo and spend the summer living in the monkey habitat. Hey, I love monkeys. They’re so funny.
    â€œHi, Hank,” he said. “You’re in my class.”
    That was the first good news I had heard all morning. Well, let’s be honest. It wasn’t truly good news like “Hey, there’s an all-night kung fu movie marathon on TV tonight.” After all, I still had to go to summer school. Let’s just say it was just okay news, which is better than terrible news, if you know what I mean. Anyway, Mr. Rock could definitely see that I wasn’t jumping up and down with joy.
    â€œI promise you, Hank, summer school will not be the worst experience you’ve ever had on this planet or any other.”
    â€œMr. Rock,” I whispered, “I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but it’s not working.”
    Before Mr. Rock could answer me, Principal Love held up a megaphone to his mouth.
    â€œIf you’re a Junior Explorer, stand to the left of the stairs. If you’re in summer school, stand to the right, please.”
    Almost everyone went to the left of the stairs. I did too. That’s because I still can’t figure out my right from my left. I almost got it a couple of weeks ago when I fell during dodgeball and skinned my left knee. For a whole week, I could tell my left from my right by where the scab was. But when it healed and fell off, I was just as confused as before.
    â€œMr. Zipzer,” I heard Principal Love saying through the megaphone, “you are to go to the RIGHT side of the stairs. The summer-school side.”
    Could this be any more embarrassing? Well, maybe. If Principal Love was on the top of the Empire State Building with a megaphone the size of a blimp, shouting out across the entire city: “Hank Zipzer does not know his left from his right, and that is only one of the many reasons he has to go to summer school!”
    Yeah, that would be a little more embarrassing. But not much.
    I felt like all the kids were staring at me as I slinked over to the right side of the stairs. I looked around to check out who I was standing with. There were kids from both the fourth and fifth grades at my school. I noticed they weren’t exactly the school geniuses. There was Luke “I’ll pick my nose at the drop of a hat” Whitman. Matthew “I’m not toilet-trained yet” Barbarosa. Salvatore “I don’t like Hank Zipzer very much” Mendez. And a girl I had only seen in Mr. Sicilian’s fourth-grade class who was talking on a cell phone saying, “Okay, Nick, I’ll meet you at the bowling alley.” She was smiling a loveydovey kind of smile.
    Nick? Could she be talking to Nick McKelty? His dad does own a bowling alley on 86th Street. And the only other Nick at school insists on being called Nicholas so he won’t be confused with Nick the Tick.
    I looked over at the kids standing on the other side of the stairs. Sure enough, there was Nick McKelty standing at the back of the crowd, clicking off his cell phone and putting it in the pocket of his jeans.
    Oh, no! I was going to be in summer school with Nick McKelty’s girlfriend.
    Wait a minute! How could Nick McKelty get a girlfriend? Hasn’t she watched