Wayside School Is Falling Down (Wayside School 2)

Down below, all the students and teachers clapped their hands.

But it was too late.

Rondi opened the trapdoor. “Cows!” she exclaimed.

The school was filled with cows.

From all over the countryside, cows had heard Mrs. Jewls’s cowbell and heeded the call. There were thousands of them. They filled the stairs and all the classrooms.

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There was no way for the children to get down. Helicopters finally came and took them one at a time off the roof.

Wayside School didn’t blow down. It didn’t burn down. It wasn’t struck by lightning, sucked up in a tornado, or destroyed by an earthquake.

It was cowed.

No one knew how to get rid of the cows. Cows are strange animals. They don’t mind walking upstairs, but nothing can make them walk downstairs.

Someone suggested starving the cows, but the farmers wouldn’t allow that. Thousands of bales of hay were sent in. Several cows had calves.

The newspapers thought it was funny and made jokes about smart cows learning to read and write.

And so Wayside School was closed. The kids and teachers were temporarily sent to different schools.

Only one person stayed behind. He was there all day and all night trying to get the cows to go home.

“C’mon,” pleaded Louis, the yard teacher, as he pushed and pulled on the cows. “Go home. Please? Pretty please?”

Everybody mooed.

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