The Thing I Love

My name is A.J. and I love school.

Going to school is just so much fun! I wish we could go to school at night. I wish we could go to school on the weekend. I wish we never had vacations.

Just kidding!

I hate school! Do you know what I would rather do than go to school? I would rather eat a dead-bug sandwich. No, I would rather eat a live-bug sandwich. That would be even worse than a dead-bug sandwich, because the bugs would still be moving around in the sandwich while I was eating it. Ugh, disgusting! But even more disgusting than eating a live-bug sandwich is going to school.

I don't hate everything, you know. Some stuff I love. Like video games. And skateboarding. And trick biking.

I'll tell you the one thing that I really love more than anything in the world. And it's not Andrea Young, this annoying girl in my class with curly brown hair.

I love Pee Wee Football.

In the fall I play football every Saturday. Football is cool because you get to push and shove and yell and knock kids on their butts. And the best part is, you don't even get punished!

At school, if you push and shove and yell and knock kids on their butts, you have to go to the principal's office. But in football you're supposed to push and shove and yell and knock kids on their butts.

That's why I hate school and love Pee Wee Football. If you ask me, the world would be a better place if they closed all the schools and turned them into Pee Wee Football camps.

The only problem is, my team stinks! We're called the Moose, and we lost every game last season. Every game!

The good news is, we're getting a new coach this year named Coach Hyatt. I bet he'll be a lot better than our old coach, Mr. Boozer. Mr. Boozer was a loser.

I put on my uniform and shoulder pads to get ready for our first practice. Shoulder pads are cool because they make it look like you have big muscles. Our uniform is red, and we have red helmets with a lightning bolt down the middle.

Mom drove me to practice at the high school field. We got out of the car and looked around until we found the other guys in the seventy-pound league.

"Give me a good-bye hug, A.J.," my mom said.

Mom is always trying to hug me, especially in front of other kids. Moms are weird.

"Not now, Mom."

"Hug me, A.J.," my mom said.

"No way."

"I want a hug, A.J.," my mom said.

"I don't think so."

Mom reached out to grab me. But I faked left. Then I faked right. Then I faked left again. Ha-ha! I totally faked out my mom! She can't play football to save her life. Eat my dust, Mom!

There were around twenty kids with red uniforms like mine. Some of them were in my class, and some others I didn't know.

"I can't wait to meet Coach Hyatt," said my friend Michael, who never ties his shoes.

"I hope he lets me be the kicker," said Ryan, who will eat anything, even stuff that isn't food.

"I hope he lets me play fullback," said Neil, who we call the nude kid even though he wears clothes.

"I hope he lets me be the quarterback because — "

I didn't get the chance to finish my sentence, because that's when a cool car pulled up. It looked just like a real car, only smaller. Michael knows all about cars. He said it was a Mini Cooper.

Coach Hyatt and some kid got out of the little car. They were coming over to us. The coach had on a red shirt and a red hat, and wore a whistle around his neck.

But there was something really strange about him.

He wasn't a him at all!

Coach Hyatt was...a...