Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger (Wayside School 3)

Eric Fry held the pencil sharpener out another.

And Ron held out the sack of potatoes.

Everyone else crowded around to watch. With everyone on the same side of the classroom, the school leaned a little bit, just like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

“On your mark. … Get set. … Let go!” said Mrs. Drazil.

The objects fell through the air and smashed against the pavement.

A short while later, the judges returned. Their clothes were splattered with coffee. Jenny had bits of potatoes in her hair.

“Was the pencil sharpener first?” asked Terrence.

“It happened so fast,” said Joe. “They all hit about the same time.”

“But the coffeepot made the coolest explosion,” said Jason.

“I think the light bulb hit the ground last,” said John.

“Well, that’s possible,” said Mrs. Drazil. “Gravity causes all objects to fall at the same rate. But air slows them down. That’s called air resistance. And that’s good. Otherwise raindrops would kill us. Air resistance slows all things down a little bit, but it has a greater effect on very light objects, such as a piece of paper. And of course the shape of the paper is important too. A crumpled-up piece of paper will fall faster than—”

“You’re getting boring again,” said Mac.

Mrs. Drazil stopped talking.

“Now we need a new pencil sharpener,” said Leslie.

Paul licked her ear.

g

Chapter 15

An Elephant in Wayside School

The bell rang for recess, and the children exploded out of the building.

Louis, the yard teacher, was ready with a big pile of red and green balls.

The kids called, “Hi, Louis!” and “Over here, Louis!” as he tossed the balls to them: over his shoulder, behind his back, through his legs.

Deedee came charging out of the building. Usually by the time she got to the playground, there were no good balls left,

but she could see one red ball by Louis’s foot.

She knocked over a kid from the tenth floor and shouted, “Hey, Lou—”

Suddenly she stopped.

She had just remembered where she’d heard of Mrs. Drazil.

It was from Louis! He had once told her about the meanest teacher he’d ever had when he was a kid.

She hurried over to her friends to make sure. “Hey, Todd!” she called.

Todd was playing tetherball with Ron. As he turned to look at Deedee, the ball came around and bonked him on the head.

“Do you remember when Louis told us about the meanest teacher he ever had?” asked Deedee.