Jake Drake, Class Clown

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Text copyright © 2002 by Andrew Clements

  Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Janet Pedersen

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Also available in a Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers hardcover edition.

  The text of this book was set in Century ITC.

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition January 2002

  This Aladdin Paperbacks edition September 2007

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Clements, Andrew

  Jake Drake, class clown / Andrew Clements ; illustrated by Dolores Avendaño

  p. cm.

  [1. Student Teachers—Fiction. 2. Teachers—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.]

  PZ7.C59118 Jaf 2002

  [Fic]—dc22

  2001098456

  ISBN-13: 978-0-689-83921-4 (hc.)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-4912-1 (pbk.)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-44246-233-5 (eBook)

  For Priscilla Avery, the best neighbor

  a first-year teacher ever had.

  —A. C.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE New Boss

  CHAPTER TWO Scared Stiff

  CHAPTER THREE Scared Silly

  CHAPTER FOUR Secret Information

  CHAPTER FIVE Unstoppable

  CHAPTER SIX Mr. Funny Bone

  CHAPTER SEVEN Christmas in April

  CHAPTER EIGHT Judge Brattle

  CHAPTER NINE No More Clowning

  CHAPTER ONE

  New Boss

  I’m Jake, Jake Drake. I’m only ten years old, but I already have a full-time job. Because that’s sort of how I think about school. It’s my job.

  I’m in fourth grade now, so I’ve had the same job for more than five years. And if you do something long enough, you get pretty good at it. That’s how come I’m starting to be an expert about school.

  I’ve had a bunch of different bosses so far. Because that’s what a teacher is: the boss. And one thing I know for sure is that it’s no fun when your boss is a sourpuss.

  So far things have been okay for me. A few of my teachers have gotten grumpy now and then, and a couple of them have really yelled once in a while. And this year my fourth-grade teacher is Mr. Thompson, who can get grouchy sometimes. Plus he has brown hair growing out of his ears. So he might be a werewolf.

  Still, I’ve never had a real sourpuss for a teacher—at least not for a whole school year.

  But not Willie. Willie’s my best friend, and last year his third-grade teacher was Mrs. Frule. She’s one of those bosses who walks around with this mad look on her face, sort of like a cat when it’s outside in the rain. If you go past her room, you feel like you should whisper and walk on tiptoe. Because if Mrs. Frule even looks at you, she can always find something to get mad about.

  So third grade was tough for Willie because he’s the kind of kid who loves to smile. Putting Mrs. Frule and Willie into the same classroom was a bad idea.

  When I met Willie at lunch on our first day of third grade, I could tell something was wrong. He looked sort of pale, like maybe he was going to keel over or something. I said, “Hey, are you okay?”

  And he said, “No, I’m not okay. Mrs. Frule already hates me. I spent half the morning getting yelled at, and the other half trying to figure out what I was doing wrong.”

  I asked, “What happened?”

  Willie shrugged. “That’s what I don’t get. I didn’t do anything. I was just sitting there, and all of a sudden I saw Mrs. Frule looking at me. So I smiled at her, and she frowned and said, ‘Young man, wipe that smile off your face.’ So I did. I wiped my hand across my mouth like this, and I stopped smiling. But that made Robbie Kenson start laughing, so then Mrs. Frule got real mad and she made me get up and walk out into the hall. And then she came out and leaned down, like, right into my face. She got so close I could see all the way up her nose. And she shook her finger at me and said, ‘If you ever act like a smart aleck in my classroom again, you are going to be very, very sorry!’”

  Poor guy. That was only Willie’s first day of third grade, and it didn’t get any better. All year long Mrs. Frule yelled at Willie at least three times a week. And he’s one of the good kids! The kids like Jay Karnes and Zack Walton—real troublemakers? For those guys, being in Mrs. Frule’s class was sort of like being in a prison camp. Maybe worse, because in a prison camp, if you mess up, you don’t have to get a note signed by your parents.

  My third-grade teacher was Mrs. Snavin, and she was pretty nice most of the time. I wished Willie could have switched to my class. But it doesn’t work that way. Once school starts, you’re stuck with your teacher for the whole year, and you just have to make the best of it.

  And that’s what Willie did. He didn’t have a lot of fun in third grade, but he lived through it. Even Jay and Zack survived. Because that’s what you do when your teacher is a grumphead. You learn what you have to do to stay alive, and you do it. And you know that once the year is over, you’ll never have that boss again. So you just do your best and wait for summer.

  Like I said, most of my teachers have been pretty nice. Actually, the grumpiest teacher I’ve had so far wasn’t even a teacher. She was a student teacher. And I didn’t have her for that long. Only about three weeks. Which was plenty. Her name was Miss Bruce.

  Miss Bruce showed up on a Monday morning in April near the end of second grade. Mrs. Brattle was my regular teacher that year, and she said, “This is Miss Bruce. She’s in college, and she’s studying to be a teacher. As part of her college work, she’s going to be here in our classroom for a while.”

  I looked at Miss Bruce. She was younger than Mrs. Brattle. A lot younger. She was so young that she sort of looked like Link Baxter’s big sister. Except Link’s sister was only in high school. Plus part of her hair was colored pink. Or sometimes purple.

  Miss Bruce’s hair was reddish blond. That first day she had on a blue shirt and a green skirt and blue shoes. Her nose was kind of small. Or maybe her nose was mostly hidden, because she wore a big pair of glasses with black rims. And her nose had freckles, too.

  For her first three days Miss Bruce didn’t do much. Sometimes she helped Mrs. Brattle pass out papers. Once she read part of a story out loud. But most of the time she just sat in a chair near the back of the room and watched.

  By Wednesday we’d gotten used to her hanging around. No one paid much attention to Miss Bruce. Except me. I kept looking at her during those first three days.

  And I noticed something.

  Back in second grade, Willie and I were both in Mrs. Brattle’s class, so at lunch on Wednesday I asked Willie a question. I asked, “Have you noticed anything funny about Miss Bruce?”

  “Funny?” said Willie. “You mean like the way she squints and wrinkles her nose when she looks at the chalkboard? I think that’s kind of funny, don’t you?”

  “No,” I said, “I mean funny like strange. Have you ever seen her smile?”

  Willie was scraping the icing off an Oreo with his front teeth. He stopped right in the middle of the c
ookie. His eyes opened wide and he said, “You’re right! I haven’t seen her smile at all! Have you?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Not once. I wonder why.”

  Willie finished his first scrape and then started licking the leftovers. He stopped with his tongue sticking out. Then he gulped real fast and said, “Hey! Maybe she can’t smile! Maybe she has a special problem, like if she smiles, her teeth fall out or something! Or maybe… maybe she’s… an alien! Yeah, she’s an alien, and she doesn’t know how to smile, and… and she’s going to use her special powers… to turn all of us into hamburgers and beam us up to her spaceship!”

  Willie’s like that. He has a lot of imagination.

  But in a way, Willie was right. Miss Bruce did seem to have some special powers.

  And there was one power she had that was going to change my life for a while. Because Miss Bruce was about to turn me into Jake Drake, Class Clown.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Scared Stiff

  Thursday morning Mrs. Brattle asked us all to be quiet and listen. She asked Miss Bruce to come and stand next to her at the front of the classroom. Then Mrs. Brattle said, “For the next several weeks, Miss Bruce is going to be your teacher. I’m going to be helping Mrs. Reed in the library during this time, so I’ll probably see you every day. And I’ll even be here in the classroom sometimes. But Miss Bruce will be your teacher. I want all of you to be on your very best behavior for her.”

  And then Mrs. Brattle picked up her purse and a stack of papers and walked out of the room.

  We all sat at our tables and looked at Miss Bruce. And Miss Bruce stood there at the front of the room and looked at us. Then she said, “Let’s begin by talking about the rules.” Her voice sounded kind of high and squeaky. “First of all, it is going to be quiet in my classroom. No talking, no whispering, and no shouting or laughing. You may not talk unless you raise your hand first and I give you permission. We have a lot of work to do, and we don’t have time for any fooling around. I have very high expectations for each one of you, and I’m going to demand excellence. Is that clear?”

  Miss Bruce lifted up her eyebrows, all the way above her big glasses. And she looked around the class. And she didn’t smile.

  I looked around too and I could see this look on everyone’s face. Sort of a scared look. Even Link Baxter looked scared, and that almost never happened.

  Then Miss Bruce clapped her hands together twice and said, “All right. Now. Let’s not waste any time. Please get out your math workbooks.”

  Laura Pell raised her hand. When Miss Bruce nodded at her, Laura said, “We always have reading before math.”

  Miss Bruce didn’t smile. She said, “What’s your name?”

  “Laura.”

  Miss Bruce said, “Laura, I want you to answer a question for me, all right?”

  In a real small voice Laura said, “Okay.”

  “Now, Laura,” said Miss Bruce, “who is your teacher?”

  Laura smiled, because that was an easy question. She said, “My teacher is Mrs. Brattle.”

  Miss Bruce raised her eyebrows and leaned forward, and she said, “Now, Laura, please think. What did Mrs. Brattle just say? Who is your teacher for the next few weeks?”

  In a tiny little voice Laura said, “You are.”

  Miss Bruce nodded at her and said, “That’s right, Laura, I am your teacher now. And what did I ask you to do a minute ago?”

  Laura said, “You said to get out our math workbooks.”

  Miss Bruce nodded. “And now I’m going to say it again: Class, please get out your math workbooks.”

  So we did. We all got out our math workbooks. Then we turned to page 47 like Miss Bruce told us to, and we did some addition problems. There was no talking. There was no whispering. There was no looking out the window. And there was no smiling.

  We took the worksheet out of the workbook when Miss Bruce told us to. We wrote our names on our papers when Miss Bruce told us to. Then we passed in the papers. Quietly.

  Then it was time for social studies. We had to read three pages in our People and Places book. Quietly. And then answer some questions on page 83. We had to write down our answers with no talking and no looking at our neighbors’ papers. That’s what Miss Bruce said. Like she thought we might cheat. And she didn’t smile.

  I looked over at Laura Pell. Her face didn’t move, sort of like she was wearing a mask. She sat up straight in her chair. She didn’t smile at all. She kept her eyes looking down at her table. When she was done with her work, she folded her hands and put them in her lap. She looked like a statue.

  And I knew why Laura was acting that way. She was scared of making a mistake. She was scared of Miss Bruce—scared stiff. Because when you get a grumphead for a boss, that can happen. And if your boss is grumpy and fussy and picky all at once, it’s extra scary.

  It was so quiet in our classroom. All I could hear was the squeaking of Miss Bruce’s blue shoes as she walked around the room.

  I took a quick look at the rest of the kids. Willie was scared. And Andrea Selton. Everyone was scared stiff, even Ben Grumson, who was even tougher to scare than Link Baxter.

  And so was I. I sat still. Willie was sitting at my table, just two feet away, but I never looked at him. Because I was afraid we might smile at each other and get caught. And then Miss Bruce might get mad at us.

  A part of me had decided to be careful. Part of me wanted to make sure there wasn’t any trouble.

  But there was another part of me that didn’t want to sit there like a bag of potatoes. This other part of me didn’t want to just fold my hands and look down at my desk.

  There was a part of me that didn’t care if Miss Bruce got mad. That was the part of me that wanted to stand on my head and stick out my tongue and yell, really loud.

  But did I?

  No. That first day when Miss Bruce took over our class, I didn’t dare.

  I was too scared, just like everyone else.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Scared Silly

  I’m usually happy on Friday mornings.

  Friday means that the next day is Saturday, and on most Saturdays Willie and I mess around together. We watch some TV. We ride our bikes, play some computer games, and mostly have fun. If the weather’s good, we work on our fort in the woods behind Willie’s house. So Friday means work is almost over for the week.

  But the Friday after Miss Bruce took over, I didn’t feel happy. It felt like it was going to be the hardest day of my life.

  On the bus ride to school that day, I thought, Maybe Miss Bruce will be nicer today. Maybe she’ll smile a little. Today will probably be a lot better than yesterday.

  I was wrong.

  Friday started off like Thursday had. First we did a math worksheet. Instead of passing them in, we exchanged papers. Miss Bruce read the right answers for us. And she never smiled.

  Then we did a map-skills sheet for social studies. We marked North, South, East, and West. We colored the rivers and lakes blue. We found the railroads and the highways. We found the mountains and the cities. Then Miss Bruce turned on the overhead projector and showed us how our maps should look. She said we could fix our maps if we had any mess-ups. That was sort of nice of her, but she never smiled.

  Gym was great. Not because I love gym, because most of the time I don’t. Gym was great because Miss Bruce wasn’t there.

  After gym, we all went back to class. There was no laughing, and nobody was late, not even one second.

  Then Miss Bruce said we were going to have a spelling bee, and everyone was glad. Spelling bees are always fun, right? Wrong. Not when Miss Bruce is the boss.

  Miss Bruce looked down at the seating chart and then looked through her big glasses at Meaghan Wright. She said, “You’ll be first, Meaghan. Remember the rules: You have to say the word, then spell it, and then say it again. Ready?”

  Meaghan nodded, so Miss Bruce said, “The first word is ‘mouse.’”

  Meaghan looked up at the ceiling.
Then she took a deep breath and said, “M-o-…”

  Miss Bruce shook her head and said, “Please stop.”

  Real fast, Meaghan said, “Oh, oh—I know. I forgot to say the word first, right? Mouse; m-o-…”

  Shaking her head, Miss Bruce said, “I’m sorry, Meaghan, but you didn’t follow the rules, and it’s important that we all learn to follow directions exactly. So that means you are out.”

  Meaghan said, “But sometimes we get to have a second chance. Because I know how to spell the word.”

  Miss Bruce didn’t smile. She didn’t even blink. She shook her head and said, “I believe it’s very important to be thinking all the time. That’s what I expect of myself, and I expect it of every one of you, too. I’m sorry, but you are out.”

  Miss Bruce looked down at the seating chart, but I kept looking at Meaghan. I felt bad for her. She was chewing on her bottom lip. She looked like she might even cry.

  Miss Bruce looked up from the chart. She looked right at Willie and said, “Philip, the word is ‘mouse.’”

  Willie smiled and said, “Um, Miss Bruce? Everyone calls me Willie, ’cause my last name is Willis. And I like Willie better than Philip too. So you can call me Willie.”

  Miss Bruce looked at Willie and said, “When we get to know each other a little better, then perhaps I’ll use your nickname. But for now, I’d like to use your real name, all right? Now, Philip, the first word is ‘mouse.’”

  For a second Willie looked like he thought Miss Bruce was kidding about calling him Philip. But she just stood there with her eyebrows up, waiting. Then he knew it was for real.

  Willie was so surprised he didn’t know what to do. So he gulped once or twice. And then he gulped some more.

  Miss Bruce said, “I guess Philip is not ready to play, so for this round Philip is out.” She looked down at the seating chart again, and then she looked right at me. “Jake, the first word is ‘mouse.’”