Wayside School is Falling Down

Joe forgets his lunch and orders Miss Mush’s terrible-looking potato salad because there is nothing else. Other students in the same situation choose “nothing” instead. Joe tries to add some color to the potato goop by putting mustard and ketchup on it. He sits down with John, who compliments his artistry. Reluctant to eat the potato salad, Joe sticks a fork in it and begins swirling the condiments around. Eventually, it turns orange. John comments that it looks like a face, and so Joe works to create a nose and other facial features. They stare at the results, agreeing that it looks familiar. Suddenly, they realize that it looks like Mrs. Gorf. The face becomes animated, wiggling its ears and saying, “You won’t get away from me this time!” (169). Panicked, they rush to eat the potato salad. They agree that the meal was not as bad as it looked, so they go back for seconds.

It is picture day in Mrs. Jewls’s class, and the students all wear colorful, eccentric outfits—all except Stephen. Stephen wears a three-piece suit and dress shoes, and the other students laugh at him and tease him. Stephen cannot sit down for fear of wrinkling the suit; he tells the other students that he is “just supposed to stand around and look important” (173). He cannot run in the fancy shoes, and they hurt his feet. The other students ask about the function of his tie, and he says that all it does is choke him. He claims that the more the tie chokes him, the better he looks, and he tightens it to show them. He repeats the process several times, and each time the others agree that he looks even more handsome. Finally, his eyes are bulging, and he is turning blue. The class yells for him to tighten it again, but this time the tie rips. Stephen is upset, believing that he no longer looks handsome and important. Mrs. Jewls tells him that he is always great and important no matter what he is wearing, because it is what is underneath a person’s clothes that matters. (It is, she explains, expensive underwear that makes a person important.)

The narrative explains that inside every nice teacher is a mean teacher waiting to get out. One day, Mrs. Jewls struggles to keep the meanness inside her. She tries to teach her students the three facts she has chosen for the day: that London is England’s capital, that seven and four are 11, and that pickles are made from cucumbers and salt brine. The students repeatedly conflate these three facts, creating so much confusion that Mrs. Jewls grows frustrated and allows her meanness to come out. She behaves so badly toward her students that she writes her own name on the discipline list. After she tries to dump pickle juice on Leslie and Paul jumps up to tip the jar of juice away, Mrs. Jewls douses herself with pickle brine. She ends up sending herself home on the kindergarten bus as punishment.

When Maurecia goes inside to get chocolate milk to wash down the peanut butter sandwich she has brought for lunch, Joy steals and eats the sandwich. While Maurecia searches everywhere on the playground for her lunch, Joy cheerfully drinks the chocolate milk. Maurecia returns with a paper bag full of money that she has found. Joy tries to convince Maurecia to keep the money, tempting her with the idea of buying all the ice cream she could ever want, but Maurecia does the right thing and gives the bag to Louis to put in the school’s lost and found. Joy goes to Louis and tells him that she lost a bag of money, but fortunately, Louis does not believe her. The bag is eventually claimed by a man named Mr. Finch. The bag holds all the money he has saved from his life’s work of making pencils. Because Maurecia turned in the money, he can still pursue his dream of opening an ice cream parlor. In gratitude, he gives Maurecia $500 and promises her ice cream for life. When Joy tries to claim part of the credit for Maurecia’s discovery of the money, Mr. Finch gives her a single pencil.

Mrs. Jewls is excited to tell the students that they will begin taking dancing classes with Mrs. Waloosh, a famous dancer. Her students are not at all excited; they are appalled at the idea of dancing in couples, as it will mean touching members of a different sex. On Wednesday, all the students except for Myron go to the second floor, where the dancing lessons are to be held. It is the same room where Louis stores the playground balls. The other students jealously speculate about why Myron is allowed to do whatever he wants to do. Mrs. Waloosh has a distinct accent and a flamboyant outfit. She tells them that they will learn to tango and demonstrates on Ron. Her version of the tango involves throwing Ron in the air, which he enjoys. The other students clamor for their turn, and Mrs. Waloosh obliges. While each student takes a turn, students begin dancing with one another. Because they are not strong enough to throw one another in the air, they push each other to the ground, throw balls at each other, and kick and trip each other. By the end of the class, they are battered and bruised and are enthusiastically looking forward to the next dance class. Myron is disappointed to have missed it.

Mrs. Jewls is attempting to teach a lesson about mammals when Mac interrupts with a story about a “hippie” whose ear was accidentally cut off by a barber. Mac claims that the ear was lost at the hospital afterward and that they looked for it everywhere so it could be reattached. When he says that the class will never guess where it was found, Mrs. Jewls guesses the refrigerator. Mac is puzzled at such a strange guess. Before he can say where the ear was found, Benjamin finally plucks up the courage to tell Mrs. Jewls his real name. She does not seem surprised; she merely tries to return the discussion to the subject of mammals. Benjamin asks whether everyone does not think it is very strange that he would allow everyone to call him Mark Miller for so long, but his classmates all begin chiming in with the ways they have behaved strangely this year. Benjamin feels much better. At lunchtime, Allison runs into the real Mark Miller on the stairs. He is carrying a white lunch sack. He reassures her that she is not trapped on the 19th floor again. He explains that earlier that morning, everyone suddenly realized that he was Mark Miller, not Benjamin Nushmutt. Mrs. Zarves gave him the sack with the instruction to take it to the hospital. When Allison looks inside, she sees that it is an ear. For just a moment, she understands everything that has happened, but just as quickly, the thought is lost again.

On a very windy day, Wayside School sways back and forth, as if it will topple over. Mrs. Jewls announces a fire drill. She rings her cowbell and leads the students up the stairs. Once the class is on the roof, Stephen worries that there will be a real fire; he is afraid that if the fire department believes it is just a drill, they will not send the helicopter to get the students off the roof. Kathy gleefully tells Stephen that the school is about to fall down, and they will all be killed. A storm begins, and students shout about being struck by lightning or killed by a tornado. Stephen keeps insisting that they will die in a fire, and Kathy says they will be killed when the school falls down. Mrs. Jewls keeps ringing her cowbell. The building begins to shake, and they can hear people shouting at them from below. Eventually, they realize that the people are trying to get Mrs. Jewls to stop ringing her cowbell. The constant ringing has brought thousands of cows from neighboring fields, and the cows have begun climbing the stairs. Because it is very hard to get cows to climb back down the stairs, the school building has to be temporarily closed. Only Louis remains behind, desperately trying to get the cows to vacate Wayside School.