My Teacher Is an Idiom Read online

  It was a bowl of fried bugs.

  They were mealworms.

  Mrs. Zookey caught her breath. Then she smiled and took one. She looked at Patrick. “I think,” she said, “that it is perfectly good manners to use your fingers when you eat mealworms.” She ate the bug in two bites. “It is crunchy and tastes a little like nuts,” she told us. “Would anyone else like one? You don’t have to, you know. Anyone have a mealworm allergy?”

  Then Dawn Marie took one. “It’s okay plain,” she told us, “but I’d like it better in a cookie.”

  A few kids came up to Mrs. Zookey’s desk. They looked in the blue bowl. Some kids said “Yum” and some said “Yuck.”

  Mr. E. rapped on the classroom door. Mrs. Zookey waved him in.

  As soon as he stepped inside the room, he raised both of his hands high. “Boys and girls,” he said, “I think you’ve learned a great deal during this first week of Mind Your Manners Month. And I want to thank you for your cooperation and enthusiasm.”

  Dawn Marie was finishing off her mealworm. “Needs salt,” she told Sophie, who took another one.

  “My,” Mr. E. said to Mrs. Zookey. “Is it time for treats so early?”

  She smiled and nodded. And without looking, he popped one into his mouth like it was a peanut. It must have felt funny on his tongue, because he leaned over to see what was in the bowl. He must have thought it was popcorn or something. He blinked. Twice. He did not chew. He did not swallow. He looked at Mrs. Zookey.

  “Sophie’s father, Chef Paul Henri, made them this morning,” she told him. “They’re mealworms. He fried them crispy like French fries.”

  Mr. E. still had not chewed. He still had not swallowed. He stared in the blue bowl. His eyes got big, and he clapped his hand over his mouth.

  I looked at Patrick, and Patrick looked at me. We both smiled.

  “We studied mealworms this year,” Patrick told Mr. E. “We gave them names. One of mine was Spike. He was a good worm. I measured him with a ruler.”

  “I called one of mine Uncle Ken,” I told Mr. E. “He turned into a beetle.”

  All the kids but Sophie had been in Mrs. Zookey’s room when we did mealworms. They started calling out their mealworms’ names, like Bubbles and Michael Jordan.

  Mr. E. looked almost as green as his Sumac School T-shirt. He still had not chewed. He still had not swallowed. You could tell he wanted really bad to say something, but he couldn’t talk. A little spit came out of the corner of his mouth. I hoped he wouldn’t sneeze. He looked again at Mrs. Zookey.

  “Mr. E.,” she said. “I have a great idea. You have kept that mealworm nice and warm. Now instead of swallowing it, how about wrapping it up in this?” She reached for the tissue box on her desk, pulled out a tissue, and gave it to him.

  He took it and raised it to his mouth. Before you could say “abracadabra” twice, he had spat the soggy mealworm into the tissue.

  “And that,” Mrs. Zookey told us, “is exactly what you should do with something you’d rather not have in your mouth, like a watermelon seed, a cherry pit, or possibly even a mealworm.” She smiled a very big smile. “That was an excellent demonstration, Mr. E.”

  He cradled the tissue in his hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Zookey,” he said. He looked out at the class. We had not laughed. We knew better. “Happy manners to you all,” he said.

  When he left, the room was quiet, until Patrick said really loud, “I would never eat a mealworm. They wiggle.”

  “They do not wiggle,” Sophie told him. “They are cooked.” She picked up her third worm and put it in her mouth. She slowly chewed and swallowed it. “You see,” she said to the class. “The fingers in the nose!”

  We all stared at her, waiting. She did not stick her fingers in her nose.

  Sophie stared back. “In English you do not say this?” she asked. “In France we say this many, many times: Les doigts dans le nez. It is not about fingers or noses. It only means, ‘This is very easy to do.’”

  “It’s an idiom,” Mrs. Zookey told the class. “It’s like ‘easy as pie.’ When Sophie eats a mealworm, it’s so easy, she could do it with her fingers in her nose.”

  She moved the bug bowl to the front of her desk. “I’ll leave this right here,” she said. “In case anyone wants to nibble.”

  I didn’t nibble. Neither did Patrick. We didn’t nibble together. We laughed instead.

  “I think,” Mrs. Zookey said, “we’ve had quite enough excitement for now. Let’s do some silent reading. It’s time to gather your books.”

  Then she leaned down between Patrick and me. “Do I need to separate you two?” she asked. “Perhaps one of you should sit at Table Six.” Four quiet kids sat at Table Six.

  I shook my head. Patrick said, “No way. Richie . . . I mean, Richard and I are friends. We promise not to talk too much.”

  She narrowed her eyes at us. Then she said, “Fine, but I want you both to watch out for flying insects. They can get you in trouble.”

  When she walked away, I turned to Patrick and Patrick turned to me. “She’s still gonna let us sit together,” he whispered.

  But Patrick and me, we had to toe the line. We had to keep our noses clean. It wouldn’t be easy.

  I saw this picture in my head of Patrick and me putting our toes on a line and trying to stick our fingers into our soapy clean noses. I laughed out loud. And that’s when a big cartoon light bulb lit up over my head.

  “Listen,” I whispered to Patrick. “I just figured out an idiom.” I looked over at Mrs. Zookey. She was sitting on her big blue exercise ball. “See her? She’s sitting on the ball. No idiom. She’s really on it, right?”

  “Right,” Patrick said. “I get it. The thing about Mrs. Zookey is, no matter what happens, she knows what to do and she does it. She’s on the ball. That’s why . . .”

  And we said it together, “Mrs. Zookey is an idiom!”

  She looked up at us and put her finger to her lips. “Shhhhh.”

  She opened her book for silent reading.

  We opened our books, too.

  Patrick scribbled out a note and passed it to me. Richard, it said, I’ve got this great joke. My father told it to me. You’re gonna laugh your head off.

  And he signed it, Your friend, Patrick.

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  About the Author

  JAMIE GILSON is the author of many successful novels, including Thirteen Ways to Sink a Sub and several about Richard and his classmates. She lives in the Chicago area and spends a lot of time eavesdropping on second graders.

  www.jamiegilson.com