CHAPTER 11

THERE ARE SOME QUESTIONS YOU SHOULDN’T ANSWER

Way back before you were a better person, you learned that the school secretary taught Miss Hackerman’s class after Iggy hit Miss Hackerman with the basketball. Guess why it was the school secretary, who wasn’t even a real teacher, who taught the class, instead of Mrs. Wander.

That’s right! You’re so smart.

Because Mrs. Wander was busy yelling at Iggy.

Actually, she wasn’t yelling the whole time. She talked, blah-blah-blah, and then suddenly she yelled when she got to words like “ir­res­pon­sible” and “dan­ger­ous” and “self-control” and “lack of respect” and “rules” and “if you can’t” and “then we’ll have to” and “we cannot have this kind of” and “you are lucky you didn’t” and, in the end, “Do you understand what you’ve done wrong, Iggy?”

(If this book were about Iggy becoming a better person, this is the place it would happen. He would think back to the gardening tape and realize that all his troubles had started there. He would say to himself, If I had never played that trick with the gardening tape, I wouldn’t be in trouble now. I am going to stop playing tricks and start planting flowers by the side of the road. He would tell this to Mrs. Wander and add, “Thank you, Mrs. Wander, for teaching me how to be a better person.” And then she would smile at him, because she was really nice underneath it all. And then they would dance or something.)

(However, this book is not about that.)

“Do you understand what you’ve done wrong, Iggy?” asked Mrs. Wander.

“Yes,” said Iggy. He knew exactly what he had done wrong. He had tried to be quiet and good. He had tried to be good so Mrs. Wander wouldn’t call him into her office and yell at him about gardening tape, and what happened? He had ended up in her office with her yelling at him about basketballs.

Obviously, he had tried too hard. If he had not waited patiently but had busted into the fifth graders’ game, he wouldn’t have been so mad at the end of recess. If he hadn’t been so mad at the end of recess, he wouldn’t have tried to make the long shot to the basket near the fifth-grade line. If he hadn’t tried to make the long shot, the ball wouldn’t have hit Miss Hackerman. And if he hadn’t hit Miss Hackerman, she wouldn’t have crumpled to the ground, and he wouldn’t have lost all chance of getting her instead of Ms. Keets for his teacher next year. Now Miss Hackerman would never allow him in her class. He was going to be stuck with Ms. Keets. His life was ruined.

So, yes, Iggy had learned his lesson. He would never try to be that good again. Was he going to try to be bad? No. No, no, no! He didn’t want to be bad. He wanted to be the way he was. And the way he was, it wasn’t bad. He might do something bad, but he wasn’t bad. BAD and IGGY were not equal. He didn’t think so, anyway. So maybe he would try to stop doing this bad thing or that bad thing. But trying to be one hundred percent completely good? It just led to trouble.*

“Tell me what you’ve learned, Iggy,” asked Mrs. Wander.

This is what’s called a trick question.

Iggy knew he shouldn’t tell Mrs. Wander what he had, in fact, learned. So this is what he said: “I learned I should go to basketball camp this summer. I mean, I know I’m going to get better when I’m taller, and it’s not like anyone else could’ve made that basket—it was like three hundred feet, so no way—but still, I need to work on my outside shot. I wasn’t aiming for Miss Hackerman,” he added. “So could I please be in her class next year?”

For some reason, this answer caused Iggy to get suspended.