CHAPTER 3

“... Hank, as I was saying, Ms. Adolf was injured while doing a triple turn in a rumba contest with her partner from Argentina,” Mr. Rock said.

No way.

She really is that cool!

Hank Zipzer, you’re a psychic!

I mean, a guy doesn’t just randomly think that his teacher is a rumba dancer and then it turns out to be true, unless he has powers from the great beyond. Maybe I should open a fortune-telling office. And get a turban. I don’t need a crystal ball; I’ve got one in my brain. I immediately got busy imagining what my business cards would look like. Should they be simple and just say, “Hank Zipzer, Mind Reader?” Or maybe I should go with something rhyming like “Hank the Fortune Teller for Gals and Fellers.” Or maybe something weird and mysterious like “Travel with Swami Zipzer to the Great Beyond.”

I was still trying to decide if my cards should be blue with white letters or black with orange letters and a purple lightning bolt when I thought I heard my name mentioned again.

“Were you listening, Hank?” Mr. Rock was saying when I checked back into reality.

“Um . . . does half-listening count?” I asked him. “Because I heard a lot of what you said, just not the last part.”

“You mean the part where I asked everyone to open their social studies books to chapter seven?” Mr. Rock said with a smile.

“Those words just whizzed by my head at supersonic speed, sir,” I said.

Everyone cracked up, everyone except Nick McKelty. Nick McKelty only laughs at things he says or does. And by the way, the things he does are never funny . . . unless you consider sticking your tongue out to show people a half-eaten granola bar funny. That’s his idea of a major laugh.

I quickly opened my book. I didn’t want to be a flake when Mr. Rock was teaching. He was being really nice about my not listening. Ms. Adolf would have given me a big-time lecture about the importance of paying attention. I flipped through the pages, but I wasn’t finding chapter seven.

McKelty reached over to my desk and turned to the right page.

“Here you go, Zipperbutt. Chapter seven. I found it because I knew you couldn’t.”

“That’s enough of that talk, Nick,” Mr. Rock said. “Now, let’s begin by reading the chapter introduction out loud. And by the way, guys, if you’re wondering why we’re doing this, it’s because I teach music and not American government, and this chapter is about American government. So we’re all going to learn together. Okay?”

I told you Mr. Rock was cool. I mean, when was the last time you heard a teacher admit that he didn’t know that much about the subject so you’re all going to learn together?

“Let’s start with Ashley in row one,” Mr. Rock said. “We’ll go around the room, and each person will come to the front and read a paragraph. That sounds pretty painless, doesn’t it?”

That’s when my brain pushed the panic button. It’s not that I have anything against social studies. I actually loved when we learned about the ancient Egyptians and how they buried their kings with gold jewelry and lots of food and stuff so they would be happy and not too hungry in the afterlife. But if there’s one thing on this whole earth that is unbelievably hard for me, it’s reading out loud. I stumble over words, even simple ones that I know how to read. My eyes jump around on the page so much that I can’t follow even a single sentence. I see words that aren’t there, and leave out the ones that are. It’s really frustrating to me, because I feel like I could read out loud with great expression, if I could just get the words right.

“Bet you can’t wait for your turn. Right, Zipper Dunce?” McKelty whispered.

McKelty’s been listening to me screw up reading out loud since first grade, and he really enjoys giving me a hard time about it. I knew he was looking forward to watching me get up in front of the class and make a fool of myself.

Ashley read the first paragraph, and she was perfect, as always. It was all about how the Founding Fathers set up the Constitution and the government and all that stuff. The only thing I kept thinking was why the Founding Fathers had to use so many big words that were hard to pronounce.

After Ashley, we went across the front row. Katie Sperling and Ryan Shimozato and Heather Payne all read. After each paragraph, we would stop and Mr. Rock would talk about what was interesting or important. I kept raising my hand and asking a lot of questions, hoping that we’d use up all the social studies time before we got to my turn to read.

“How come they were called Founding Fathers and not Founding Dads?” I asked.

“Why did they call it a constitution and not A Bunch of Rules?”

“When the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia, did they eat a cheesesteak? And if they did, was it with or without the Cheez Whiz?”

“I didn’t know you were so fascinated by American history,” Mr. Rock said to me after my third question. “I’m glad to see that, Hank.”

But even with all my questions, the old hands on the clock were moving slowly and there was still time for more reading. That meant we moved into the next row. My row.

Frankie went next, then Nick McKelty, who was lucky and got the shortest paragraph on the page. It was only one sentence long. Why couldn’t that have been me?

I guess McKelty got through his reading okay, but I really wouldn’t know because I didn’t hear a word he read. All I heard was the thumping of my heart. It gets really loud when I get nervous, and I was big-time nervous.

“Okay, Hank,” Mr. Rock said. “The next paragraph is yours. Come on up.”

“Mr. Rock,” I said, “I would love to do some oral reading, really I would. But it’s just that I woke up this morning with a frog in my throat. Didn’t I, Frankie?”

Frankie gave me one of those “Are you nuts, dude?” looks. I shot him back one of my “If I ever needed you, it’s now, dude” looks. And without missing a beat, Frankie came through.

“He sounded so hoarse, he must have swallowed a bullfrog,” Frankie said. “Isn’t that right, Ashley?”

Ashley gave him one of her “Oh, don’t drag me into this” looks, and I shot her one my “Hey, what are friends for?” looks. And without missing a beat, Ashley came through.

“It was such a big bullfrog, we almost saddled him up and rode him to school,” she said.

Now the whole class was rolling in the aisles and stomping their feet. Mr. Rock laughed, too.

“You’re a lot of fun, Hank,” he said.

I grinned and sighed with relief. Wow, that had been a close call, but once again, my sense of humor had gotten me out of an embarrassing situation.

Whoops, not so fast, Hank.

“But,” Mr. Rock went on, “I don’t hear you being hoarse now, so it seems that the bullfrog has moved to another pond. Come on up and don’t forget your book.”

I didn’t understand why Mr. Rock was making me do this. He must have known that I’d hate it.

The walk to the front of the class seemed like it was seven thousand miles long. My feet felt like they had hundred-pound weights attached to them. My stomach was flipping and flopping all over the place. This was really my worst nightmare.

I opened the book and cleared my throat.