“Mr. Klutz,” I told him, “we have come to make a deal with you.”

“Really? What kind of deal?”

“We decided that we will read a million minutes with our parents, but only if you don’t jump off the roof.”

“Only if I don’t jump off the roof?” he said, looking puzzled. “But I was going to jump off the roof as an incentive to encourage you to read with your parents at night.”

“Well, we’re going to read with our parents at night as an incentive to make you not jump off the roof.”

“This is highly unusual,” Mr. Klutz said. “I thought the principal should offer the students incentives, not the other way around.”

“Your incentives have been getting more and more dangerous,” Andrea told him. “We’re afraid that you might get killed trying to help us learn.”

“Yeah, and if you die, we’ll feel guilty,” I added.

“Now, let me get this straight,” Mr. Klutz said. “I offered to jump off the roof if you read a million minutes at night with your parents. But you are saying you will only read a million minutes with your parents if I don’t jump off the roof. Correct?”

“That’s right,” we said.

“What if I jumped off the basketball backboard in the gym into a swimming pool filled with foam blocks?” Mr. Klutz asked. “Would that be okay?”

“No!” we all said.

“Can I wear a suit made of bubble wrap and jump off the stage in the auditorium?”

“No!”

“No jumping off anything,” Andrea insisted. “Not if you want us to read or write or do math. That’s our final offer. Take it or leave it.”

“You drive a hard bargain.” Mr. Klutz sighed. “Okay, I won’t jump.”

“Have a nice day!” we all said.

13

Poor Mr. Klutz

The kids in the other grades were disappointed when they heard that Mr. Klutz had changed his mind about bungee-jumping off the roof of the school. Some of them were even mad at us for stopping him.

But when it was announced that there would be a field trip to Water World if we reached our goal instead, they stopped being mad. Water World is probably the coolest water park in California.

A few days before vacation, the school still hadn’t reached our goal of a million minutes of reading with our parents. It looked like we were not going to make it in time.

Then Mr. Klutz got on the loudspeaker during morning announcements. “Students, there are three more nights to go before vacation,” he told us. “I hate to do this, but if you don’t reach your goal by Friday, the field trip to Water World will be called off and I will have no choice but to jump off the roof. Have a nice day.”