Everybody started yelling and screaming and shrieking and hooting and hollering and freaking out again.

“I just looked that word up on my smartphone,” said Andrea. “It means ‘ingrown toenail.’”*

“What’s an ingrown toenail?” asked Michael.

“That’s when your toenail grows into your skin instead of out,” Mr. Klutz explained.

“Yuck!” everybody shouted. “Gross!”

“Why would a toenail want to grow into your skin?” I asked.

“Toenails don’t want to do anything,” said Neil. “Toenails don’t have brains.”

Toenails are weird.

“That sounds scary,” said Ryan. “What if Mr. Cooper’s toenail grows the wrong way, and it grows inside his body until it comes out the top of his head?”

“Ewww!” everybody started shouting. “Disgusting!”

“Relax, that’s not going to happen,” Mr. Klutz told us. “Nobody has ever had a toenail sticking out of their head.”

“There’s always a first time,” I said.

“Is Mr. Cooper really going to die?” asked Alexia.

“Mr. Cooper is super,” said Ryan. “He has superpowers, so he can’t die. That’s a fact.”

“Nobody ever died from an ingrown toenail,” Mr. Klutz told us.

“There’s always a first time,” I said again.

Emily came back to class and sat in her seat.

“Okay, everyone calm down, please,” said Mr. Klutz. “Mr. Cooper will be back to school tomorrow. He told me he’s going to see his doctor this morning. For the rest of the day, you will have a sub.”

“Sub sandwiches all day?” I shouted. “Hooray!”

“Not a sub sandwich, dumbhead,” said Michael. “A sub is a boat that goes underwater. It’s a submarine.”

I knew that. Submarines are cool. But why would we be getting a submarine all day just because Mr. Cooper has an ingrown toenail? How would a submarine fit inside the classroom anyway?

“Not a submarine, dumbheads!” said Andrea, rolling her eyes. “A sub is a substitute teacher. Right, Mr. Klutz?”

“That’s right, Andrea.”

Andrea smiled the smile she smiles to let everybody know that she knows something nobody else knows.

Personally, I’d rather have a sub sandwich. Or a submarine. But it’s always great when you have a substitute teacher, because then you don’t have to do any work or learn anything. That’s the first rule of being a kid.

“Will our substitute teacher be nice?” asked Emily, who always cares about how nice everybody is.

“Oh yes, she’s very nice,” said Mr. Klutz. “I think you know her already. In fact, here she is now.”

And you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who poked her head into the door at that moment.

Nobody! It would hurt if you poked your head into a door! Why would anybody want to do that? But you’ll never believe who poked her head into the doorway.

I’m not going to tell you.