Read an Excerpt
A Package for Ms. JewlsLouis, the yard teacher, frowned.
The school yard was a mess. There were pencils and pieces of paper everywhere. How'd all this junk get here? he wondered. Well, I'm not going to pick it up!
It wasn't his job to pick up garbage. He was just supposed to pass out the balls during lunch and recess, and also make sure the kids didn't kill each other.
He sighed, then began cleaning it up. He loved all the children at Wayside School. He didn't want them playing on a dirty playground.
As he was picking up the pencils and pieces of paper, a large truck drove into the parking lot. It honked its horn twice, then twice more.
Louis ran to the truck. "Quiet!" he whispered. "Children are trying to learn in there!" He pointed at the school.
A short man with big, bushy hair stepped out of the truck. "I have a package for somebody named Mrs. Jewls," he said.
"I'll take it," said Louis.
"Are you Mrs. Jewls?" asked the man.
"No," said Louis.
"I have to give it to Mrs. Jewls," said the man.
Louis thought a moment. He didn't want the man disturbing the children. He knew how much they hated to be interrupted when they were working.
"I'm Mrs. Jewls," he said.
"But you just said you weren't Mrs. Jewls," said the man.
"I changed my mind," said Louis.
The man got the package out of the back of the truck and gave it to Louis. "Here you go, Mrs. Jewls," he said.
"Uhh!" Louis grunted. It was a very heavy package. The word FRAGILE was printed on every side. He had to be careful not to drop it.
The package was so big, Louis couldn't see where he was going.Fortunately, he knew the way to Mrs. Jewls's class by heart. It was straight up.
Wayside School was thirty stories high with only one room on each story. Mrs. Jewls's class was at the very top. It was Louis's favorite class.
He pushed through the door to the school, then started up the stairs. There was no elevator.
There were stairs that led down to the basement too, but nobody ever went down there. There were dead rats living in the basement.
The box was pressed against Louis's face, squashing his nose. Even so, when he reached the fifteenth floor, he could smell Miss Mush cooking in the cafeteria. It smelled like she was making mushrooms. Maybe on my way back I'll stop by Miss Mush's room and get some mushrooms, he thought. He didn't want to miss Miss Mush's mushrooms. They were her specialty.
He huffed and groaned and continued up the stairs. His arms and legs were very sore, but he didn't want to rest. This package might be important, he thought. I have to get it to Mrs. Jewls right away.
He stepped easily from the eighteenth story to the twentieth. There was no nineteenth story.
Miss Zarves taught the class on the nineteenth story. There was no Miss Zarves.
At last he struggled up the final step to the thirtieth story. He knocked on Mrs. Jewls's door with his head.
Mrs. Jewls was in the middle of teaching her class about gravity when she heard the knock "Come in," she called.
"I can't open the door," Louis gasped. "My hands are full. I have a package for you."
Mrs. Jewls faced the class. "Who wants to open the door for Louis?" she asked.
All the children raised their hands. They loved to be interrupted when they were working.
"Oh dear, how shall I choose?" asked Mrs. Jewls. "I have to be fair about this. I know! We'll have a spelling bee. And the winner will get to open the door."
Louis knocked his head against the door again. "It's heavy," he complained. "And I'm very tired."
Wayside School is Falling Down. Copyright © by Louis Sachar. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
