Flower Power Read Online Free

him.
    “Hi, bud!” George answered, chuckling.
    The class all laughed with him. Mr. Goodstein did not join in. “Excuse me, but we are discussing science and…”
    “Do you know what flower is the happiest?” Kadeem interrupted the substitute teacher.
    “Which one?” Emma S. asked.
    “The
glad
iola!” Kadeem replied.
    The class all laughed again.
    “It’s a flower joke-off!” Kevin exclaimed. “Awesome.”
    “Why do gardeners hate weeds?” George shouted.
    “Why?” Andrew asked.
    “Because if you give them one inch, they’ll take the whole yard!” George joked.
    “If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?” Kadeem asked the class.
    “What?” Emma W. replied.
    “Pilgrims!” Kadeem shouted. “Get it, Mayflower? Pilgrims?”
    The kids all laughed really hard at that one.
    “That’s enough!” Mr. Goodstein shoutedangrily. “Stop the clowning around. This is school. And school is serious business.”
    The kids all stopped laughing immediately. All except Katie, that is. She wasn’t trying to be bad. It was just that that last joke had been so funny. She couldn’t stop laughing.
    “You—the girl with the red hair!” Mr. Goodstein bellowed. He pointed right at Katie. “Out, now!”
    What! Katie’s heart skipped a beat. She had never been sent out of a classroom before. She blinked a few times so the tears wouldn’t come. Then she stood up and walked quietly out of the classroom.
    This is all to keep Mr. G.,
she reminded herself.
    As the door closed behind her, Katie stood there, alone in the hallway. It was a horrible feeling. She didn’t know how George could stand it.
    Suddenly Katie heard loud footsteps coming down the hall. She turned andcame face-to-face with Mr. Kane, the school principal.
    “Katie, what are you doing out here?” he asked her.
    Katie gulped. “I…um…some kids were telling jokes, and I was laughing and…”
    Just then, a chorus of dropping notebooks could be heard coming from the classroom.
    “What is going on?” Mr. Kane demanded.

    “It’s the new substitute,” Katie said. “He doesn’t know how to control us. Not the way Mr. G. does.
He’s
the best teacher. Everyone is always well behaved for
him
. But today, with Mr. Goodstein, everyone is being bad.”
    “Well, that’s going to stop right now!” Mr. Kane said as he opened the door and stormed into the room.
    Katie smiled. She had let Mr. Kane know what a great teacher Mr. G. was. The principal would never let him leave. George’s plan was working!

Chapter 8
    “It was awesome,” Kevin told Jeremy and Suzanne after school that afternoon. “I thought that sub’s face was going to explode when George and Kadeem started their joke-off.”
    “But Katie Kazoo was the real hero,” George insisted. He smiled at her. “Because of you, Mr. Kane went into our classroom and saw what was happening.”
    “Now he knows for sure Mr. G. is the only teacher for class 4A,” Kevin added.
    “Everything went as planned,” George agreed.
    “We had some action in our class, too,”Suzanne boasted. “Miriam hit Manny Gonzalez in the face with a rubber band. She just missed his eye.”
    “Miriam didn’t do it on purpose,” Jeremy corrected Suzanne. “The rubber band just popped out of her mouth while she was talking to him.”
    “I think she did it to remind everyone that she has braces now,” Suzanne said. “Like
that’s
anything to brag about.”
    Jeremy rolled his eyes and sighed. “Hey, Katie, you want to come over and play tag this afternoon?” he asked.
    “George and I are going to play,” Kevin said.
    “So are Jessica and I,” Suzanne added.
    Katie shook her head sadly. She would have liked to play with her friends. But she had something else she had to do. “I’ve got to go write a hundred-word paper on ‘why I should behave in school.’ Mr. Kane is making me do it.”
    “Wow. Bummer,” Jeremy said.
    “But it’s worth it to keep Mr. G.,” George reminded