Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom (Wayside School #4) - Louis Sachar Page 0,6

read the signs, and then tried to open the doors.

Terrence kicked the doors.

Jason rattled the chains. “Look, it’s one long chain,” he determined, “wrapped around four times.”

“What do you think is inside?” asked Leslie.

“Snakes,” said Paul. He was afraid of snakes.

“Spiders,” said Rondi. She was afraid of spiders.

“Monsters,” said Allison.

She loved monsters.

“What if it’s Mrs. Gorf?” guessed Calvin.

Everyone shuddered.

Mrs. Gorf was the worst teacher they’d ever had.

“Give me a boost,” said Mac.

Jenny cupped her hands, and Mac stepped up, first onto Jenny’s hands, then onto the steel bar. He gripped the top edge of the closet and tried to shimmy up.

“Get away from there!” shouted Mrs. Jewls. “All of you!”

She had returned from the teachers’ lounge only to see the children hanging all over the closet, like monkeys.

“Mac, get down, now!”

Mac tried to hop down, but his foot got tangled in the chains, and he fell onto his back.

“Ooh, I think I broke my tailbone,” he complained.

“You’re lucky that’s all you broke!” said Mrs. Jewls.

“What’s inside?” asked Terrence.

“Never you mind!” said Mrs. Jewls. “Don’t you children know the meaning of DANGER? You are not to go anywhere near my closet! Don’t look at it. Don’t even think about it. It’s not there!”

“But I can see it,” said Mac, still lying on the floor.

“It’s Not There!” Mrs. Jewls insisted.

“But—”

“No Ifs, Ands, or Buts!” said Mrs. Jewls.

Everyone shuffled inside the classroom.

Mac was still on the floor. He stood up and adjusted his catcher’s mask, which had become cockeyed when he fell. He took one last look at the closet that wasn’t there, then walked into the classroom, more curious than ever.

8

Science

Twenty-nine hands were raised.

There were only twenty-eight kids in Mrs. Jewls’s class, but Joy stretched both her arms high in the air. She figured it doubled her chance of being chosen. She waved them back and forth, and around in circles.

“Pick me, pick me!” begged Bebe.

“Pick me, Mrs. Jewls,” urged Calvin, sitting next to Bebe.

“Sorry, Calvin, you’re too heavy,” Mrs. Jewls told him. “And your toes are too tiny, Bebe.”

Todd sat behind Joy but Mrs. Jewls couldn’t see him behind Joy’s helicopter arms.

“Okay, Joy!” said Mrs. Jewls.

Everyone else groaned.

Joy was all smiles. “You lose, losers!” she said as she headed toward the door.

This week, for science, they would be studying clouds. Luckily, Mrs. Jewls’s class was on the thirtieth floor. It was the classroom closest to the sky.

Last week, they studied dirt. That wasn’t so lucky. By the time they made it down to the ground, science was over, and they had to turn around and trudge back up.

Everyone brought their science notebooks and gathered just outside the door, by the closet that wasn’t there.

Mrs. Jewls put her hands around Joy’s waist. “Alley-oopsy!” she called out, and lifted Joy straight up.

Joy giggled.

This was why Mrs. Jewls hadn’t chosen Calvin. He was too heavy for her to lift.

Mrs. Jewls set Joy on top of the closet. Just above her, a trapdoor led to the roof. Joy stood on her tiptoes and pushed it open. This was why Mrs. Jewls hadn’t chosen Bebe. Her toes weren’t long enough.

A rope ladder tumbled down.

One by one, the children climbed the rope ladder to the roof.

“Be sure to stay away from the edge,” Mrs. Jewls called up to them.

There was a safety railing around the edge, but it was for taller people. Mrs. Jewls was afraid her students could slip right under it.

She was the last one up through the trapdoor. When she reached the roof, she saw everyone standing at the edge.

“What did I just say?” she demanded.

Everyone stared blankly at her.

“Alley-oopsy?” asked Dameon.

“Well, at least somebody was paying attention,” said Mrs. Jewls. She told everyone to take two steps back, and to sit on their bottoms.

“But then we’ll be farther away from the clouds,” Mac complained.

“Sometimes, safety is more important,” said Mrs. Jewls.

She pointed out the clouds to her class. “That one there is a cumulus cloud.”

Some of the students wrote it down in their notebooks. Bebe drew a picture of a sleeping giant. The cumulus cloud was his pillow.

“And that’s a cirrus cloud over there,” said Mrs. Jewls.

Bebe drew a picture of flying angels. Hundreds of white feathers had fallen from their wings and had swirled into a cloud.

Bebe could draw really fast.

“What kind of cloud is that one, Mrs. Jewls?” asked Benjamin.

He was pointing at a dull, dark cloud way off in the distance.

Mrs. Jewls gasped.

If Bebe were to draw it, her picture would look exactly like the inside of a vacuum cleaner