Chapter One

Chillin' at the School Store

My name is A.J. and I hate school.

The only cool part of Ella Mentry School is the school store. It's a little room near the office where they sell stuff. Mostly they have pencils and pens and junk like that. They never have anything useful, like skateboards or video games. Still, it's cool to buy stuff when you're at school.

The school store is open in the morning before the bell rings. The only problem is, I spent all my allowance over the weekend on a new football because some kid stole mine. So I didn't even have a dime to buy anything at the school store. Bummer in the summer!

"Guess what I bought with my own money?" this girl with curly brown hair named Andrea Young whispered to her crybaby friend Emily. Knowing Andrea, it was probably an encyclopedia.

"What did you buy?" asked Emily.

"An encyclopedia!" Andrea said, all excited. "It's an encyclopedia for kids!"

Ugh. Andrea loves reading and books and school and anything else that's boring. She keeps a dictionary on her desk so she can look up words and show everybody how much she knows. Andrea is like a human filing cabinet.

"You know what I'm going to do with my encyclopedia?" Andrea asked Emily.Knowing Andrea, she would probably read the whole thing in ABC order so she would know everything in the world.

"I'm going to read it in ABC order," Andrea bragged. "If I finish one letter every day, by the end of the month I'll know everything! Won't that be cool?"

Yeah, cool like an oven. I wish a set of encyclopedias would fall on Andrea's head.

The bell rang and we all rushed to class. Our teacher, Miss Daisy, told us to put away our stuff and get ready for circle time. That's when we sit around in a circle, so it has the perfect name.

Suddenly the voice of the school secretary, Mrs. Patty, came over the loudspeaker.

"Miss Daisy, please send Andrea and A.J. to Ms. Coco's room."

"Oooooh!" my friend Ryan said. "A.J. and Andrea are going to Ms. Coco's room again. They must be in love!"

"When are you gonna get married?" asked my other friend Michael.

If those guys weren't my best friends, I would hate them.

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Excerpted from Ms. Coco Is Loco! by Dan Gutman
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