Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom (Wayside School #4) - Louis Sachar Page 0,25

can trim your fingernail for you, if you like,” he offered.

“My fingernail?” asked Miss Zarves, astonished by such a suggestion. “Which one?”

“The long one on the end,” said Myron.

Miss Zarves looked at her hand. “Hmm, now that you mention it, it has gotten long. I guess I hadn’t noticed, because it grew so slowly.”

She held out her hand.

Myron pressed hard on the scissors and snipped it off.

“That does feel better,” said Miss Zarves. “Thank you, Myron.”

Myron held the fingernail up in the air.

Except, he was no longer standing in the front of the classroom. He was standing on the stairs, and everyone else from Mrs. Jewls’s class lay sprawled across the staircase.

“A million!” he shouted triumphantly.

29

After the Storm

The boops and booms had stopped, and the lights were back on.

Myron and the others had to step over all sorts of objects as they made their way back up toward their classroom. The stairs were strewn with books, papers, cafeteria trays, musical instruments, an air pump, a giant stuffed walrus, and even a bust of Sigmund Freud.

Between the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh floors, the stairs were completely blocked off by Mr. Kidswatter’s enormous desk. They all had fun climbing over it, including Mrs. Jewls.

Once back in class, Myron dropped Miss Zarves’s fingernail into the bucket, which, unfortunately, was empty. Sadly, the other nine hundred thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine clippings were gone.

Myron would have written 1,000,000 on the blackboard anyway, but there was no blackboard.

The chalk was there, however.

It was as if everything inside Wayside School had been shuffled like a deck of cards and dealt out randomly to every floor.

(Mrs. Jewls’s blackboard was eventually discovered in the library. Fingernails and toenails would continue to be found for years to come, sometimes in very strange places.)

The sun shined. The sky was as blue as Allison’s eyes. Birds chirped as they flew about.

There had been no birds during the dark days of doom.

Louis, the yard teacher, shoveled snow off the roof. Among other things, the cloud had dumped huge amounts of snow. The playground sparkled white.

Louis had to be careful. The snow was packed high above the guardrails and was very slippery. “Look out, below!” he shouted as he tossed a shovelful of snow over the edge.

Down below the kids were playing a kind of reverse dodgeball. It was the boys against the girls. Every time Louis shouted, “Look out below!” they did the opposite.

Eric Ovens charged past Jenny and dived face-first, sliding across the snow-covered ground. Louis’s clump smacked him right on the head.

“One point!” he exclaimed.

Recess was three hours today. The kids had been sent out to play, while the teachers were stuck with cleaning up the mess made by the storm.

Just as Mrs. Jewls had predicted, now that the Cloud of Doom was gone, the world had become a happier place. The only thing missing was a rainbow.

“Look out below!” Louis called from the other side of the school.

They raced around the building. Leslie dived toward the falling clump. “One point,” she declared.

“No way, Miss Piggy-tails,” said Terrence. “It missed you!”

“Did not!” Leslie insisted. “See, look at all the snow in my hair.”

“That’s ground snow,” argued Terrence.

Dana came to Leslie’s defense. “Some of it came from the ground,” she agreed. “But four flakes came from the air. I saw them.”

“How can you see four snowflakes?” asked Paul.

“Super glasses!” said Dana, pointing to her spectacles. She picked four snowflakes out of Leslie’s hair. “One, two, three, and four. Just like I told you.”

“That proves it!” declared Bebe. “One point!”

Paul scowled. He remained skeptical of her spectacles.

Up on the roof, Louis spotted something sticking out of the snow. It was purple and green, with some yellow dots.

He tried to pull it free, but it was stuck. He pulled hard.

It still wouldn’t budge.

He gave it one hard yank!

The umbrella jerked free, but Louis’s feet slipped out from under him. He fell on his bottom and slid backward across the roof.

“Look out below!” he shouted as he went over the edge.

The children ran to the call. They were quite surprised when they looked up and saw the yard teacher coming toward them.

Louis looked down. He didn’t want to hurt the children.

He considered trying a Mary Poppins, but he was holding the wrong end of the umbrella, and there wasn’t time to change his grip and try to open it.

His best chance was to grab the top of the flagpole.

Wayside School had an extra-tall flagpole so it wouldn’t look puny next to the building.

Louis reached