Miss Daisy Is Crazy!

three is nine. But Miss Daisy didn’t seem to know that. Finally she just opened up Andrea’s pencil box and popped the three bonbons into her mouth.
    “Who cares how many bonbons I would have?” she asked. “As long as I get to eat some of them!”
    Miss Daisy really needs a lot of help with arithmetic.
    After she had eaten her bonbons, Miss Daisy passed out bonbons for all of us and we had a bonbon party. Then she said that was enough arithmetic for the day and asked what we wanted to talk about for the rest of our math time.
    “Football!” I shouted.
    Miss Daisy didn’t like that I talked without raising my hand first. Personally, I don’t see what raising my hand has to do with talking. I don’t talk with my hands.
    But she did let me talk, and I told her that football is just about my favoritest thing in the world and I know all about it.
    My dad takes me to every game of the Chargers, a professional football team.
    “Maybe you can help me,” Miss Daisy said. “I always wondered how long is a football field?”
    “A hundred yards,” I told her. “Anybody knows that.”
    “Wow! That’s a big field. With a field that big, how can you and your father see what’s going on?”
    “My dad always tries to get us seats near the fifty-yard line,” I said. “They’re the best tickets.”
    “Why?” Miss Daisy asked.
    “Because the fifty-yard line is right in the middle of the field.”
    “Does that mean that half of a hundred yards would be fifty yards?” she asked.
    “Yup.”
    “I see,” Miss Daisy said. “So if you know there are a hundred yards on a football field, do you know how many pennies there are in a dollar? Andrea?”
    “A hundred!” hollered Andrea Young.
    “Just like a football field!”
    “Really?” said Miss Daisy. “So if half the football field is fifty yards, how many pennies are in half a dollar?”
    “Fifty!” Michael Robinson shouted.
    “Because fifty is half of a hundred and fifty plus fifty makes a hundred!”
    “And half of fifty must be twenty-five because two quarters is fifty cents!” added Emily.
    “And four quarters makes a dollar!” Ryan exclaimed.
    “And four quarters makes a football game, too!” Miss Daisy shouted, jumping up and down with excitement.

    “Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought you told us we were finished with arithmetic.”
    “This wasn’t arithmetic,” she told us. “It was football.”
    “Well, okay,” I said. “Just as long as you weren’t trying to sneak arithmetic into our conversation about football.”
    “Would I do that?” Miss Daisy asked, and then she winked at me.
    Sometimes it’s hard to tell if Miss Daisy is serious or not.

     

On Thursday Principal Klutz came into our class. He was wearing a hat, which almost made him look like a regular person who had hair on his head.
    “I have to go to a meeting,” Principal Klutz told us, “but I heard that some of you second graders had something important you wanted to discuss with me.”
    Miss Daisy said that I could ask my question.
    “Can we buy the school?”
    “Hmmm,” Principal Klutz said. “Hmmm” is what grown-ups say instead of “er” or “um” or “uh” when they don’t know what to say.
    “Why do you want to buy the school?” Principal Klutz asked.
    “Because we want to turn it into a video-game arcade,” I told him.
    “I see,” the principal said. “Schools cost a lot of money.”
    “How much?” I asked. “If you tell us how much it will cost, we’ll raise the money.”
    “I’ll tell you what,” Principal Klutz said.
    “I can’t sell you the school, but I can rent it to you for a night. Do you know the dif-ference between buying and renting?” 

    Andrea Young got her hand up first, as usual.
    “When you buy a video, you get to keep it forever,” she said. “If you rent it, you have to return it to the video store in a couple of days.”
    “That’s right,” the principal said. “Would you be interested in renting the school for a night?”
    “How much would that cost?” I asked.
    “One million pages,” Principal Klutz replied.
    “Huh?”
    “If you kids read a million pages in books, you can turn the school into a video-game arcade for one night.” A million pages! That sounded like a lot of books.
    “How about a thousand pages?” I suggested.
    “A million,” said Principal Klutz. “That’s my final offer. Take it or leave it.”
    “Would it be okay if some of the other classes helped us