Judy Moody Goes to College - Megan Mcdonald [11]
Mr. Todd passed out the tests. Judy got out her college-not-grouchy pencil for good luck. Third-grade pencils were old skool. Judy’s college pencil flew. She erased only two times. She even drew a graph for extra credit. She did not look at her Ask-a-Question Watch 5000 once.
Judy busted that pop quiz. She owned that math test. Mr. Todd was going to be amazed at Judy’s new math-i-tude. Soon she would be the proud owner of buckets of math candy.
Done! Judy looked up. She could not believe her eyes. She, Judy Math-Genius Moody was not done first. She was dead last.
“Time’s up!” said Mr. Todd. “Let’s have fifteen minutes of silent reading while I look over your papers.”
For fifteen silent minutes, Judy read ahead in the Catwings book. She read with her eyes, but not with her brain. All her brain could think was how super-duper great she was going to be in math.
Mr. Todd was frowning. He looked up. He looked back down. Mr. Todd scratched his head. Mr. Todd frowned some more.
He wrote and wrote with his red pencil. Judy could not help noticing he hardly even touched his green-for-good-work pencil.
“Class,” said Mr. Todd, looking up at last. “We have a problem.”
Problem? Of course there was a problem. There were ten problems. Everybody knew math was full of problems.
“I’ve corrected the papers, and the top score goes to Judy Moody.”
“Woo-hoo!” said Judy. But she could not see how being top-of-her-class, best-ever in math was a problem.
“The problem is . . . everybody else failed.”
What!? The whole, entire class flunked! As in flubbed it up big-time. As in got a big fat F.
“Most of you did not even finish your tests. And many of you did not even seem to try. Can anybody tell me what’s going on here?”
The whole class looked down, staring at their desks, the floor, their shoes. Except for Judy.
“Professor Todd,” said Judy, raising her hand. “I know what happened. I got to go to college and become an uber-genius in math, and everybody else fell behind.”
“Hmm,” said Mr. Todd. “Any other ideas? Jessica Finch?”
Jessica cleared her throat. “Well, um, Rocky and Frank thought it would be way-cool to go to college, and they said —”
“It’s our fault,” said Rocky. “We thought if we all flunked, we would need a tutor and we would get to go to college, too.”
“Like Judy,” said Frank.
“You mean you messed up on purpose?” Judy asked.
“Yeah, we just thought it up — during morning recess,” said Frank.
“Professor Todd!” said Judy. “I think I should get all the math candy, since I’m the only one who took the test for serious. And they should all go to the Attitude Tent.”
“Let’s get something straight,” said Mr. Todd. “I realize Mrs. Grossman may have had different rules for the last few weeks. But in my class, we do our work to learn, not to earn candy. As for the tent, well, it seems we have an attitude problem bigger than any tent.”
Class 3T was silent. Not peace-full quiet. Itchy-scratchy quiet.
“We’re sorry,” said Frank.
“We’ll take it again,” said Rocky. “For real this time.”
Mr. Todd nodded.
“Professor Todd?” Judy asked. “I have a question. I mean, I was wondering — if you yelled at our class, but nobody was here to hear it, would it still mean you’re mad at us?”
“Mom! Dad!” Judy said at supper that night. “I mean Kate! Richard! Guess what! Professor Todd gave us a pop quiz in math today, and I owned it. I only got one wrong, and I did the best of all my peeps and my whole entire class.”
“Yeah, but everybody else flunked on purpose,” said Stink, “because they all want to go to college, too.”
Eesh! Word sure traveled fast around Virginia Dare School.
“Who cares? It was sooooo money!” Judy said.
“She doesn’t get money, does she?” asked Stink. “’Cause I’m good in math, so if she gets money, I should get money too!”
“Stink, you’re such a geck. And don’t say, ‘What’s a geck?’ Because that would make you more of a geck.” Fact of Life: Stink = geck. Geck = annoying person!