Read Mr. Tony Is Full of Baloney! Online
Authors: Dan Gutman
Mr. Tony Is Full of Baloney! (4 page)
“I love it!” Mr. Tony said when we told him about our idea. “Why didn’t
I
think of making the biggest pizza in the world? That will be a lot easier than pogo-juggling and egg-jogging!”
Everybody was excited about getting into
The Guinness Book of World Records
. But Little Miss Perfect had on her worried face.
“What’s the matter, Andrea?” asked Mr. Tony.
“How will we put the pizza in an oven?” she asked. “To make the biggest pizza in the world, don’t we need the biggest oven in the world?”
“Andrea’s right!” said Emily, who always thinks Andrea is right.
“No problem,” said Mr. Tony. “I’ll take care of that. We’ll heat up the tomato sauce and cheese first and then spread them on the pizza crust. We’ll have to make the pizza out in the playground, because it will be too big to fit in here.”
“But there’s another problem,” Andrea said. “What will we do with the pizza after we make it? We can’t eat a pizza that big. And it would be terrible to throw it away, especially after our food drive. What a waste of food.”
“I know! We can give the pizza to a food bank so they can feed hungry people!” I suggested.
“A.J., you’re a genius!” Michael said.
No wonder I’m in the gifted and talented program.
Everything was falling into place. Mom said that The Six Moms would be happy to supply the ingredients for our giant pizza. Ms. LaGrange, our lunch lady, said she would help us heat up the sauce in the kitchen and put the pizza together. Mr. Tony called
The Guinness Book of World Records
people, and they said they would send someone over to see our pizza in person and prove it was the biggest one in the world.
“Let’s not tell anyone else about our giant pizza,” Mr. Tony told us. “Not even Mr. Klutz. If the word gets out that we’re making the biggest pizza in the world, somebody might try to steal our idea and make a bigger pizza than ours.”
My lips were sealed. But not with glue or anything. That would be weird.
Finally, the day came to put together our giant pizza. During recess, three huge trucks drove up onto the playground. One had a ton of cheese in it. One had a ton of tomato sauce in it. And one had a huge pizza crust. Guys wearing overalls got out of the trucks and started unloading all the stuff.
“How did The Six Moms get a truck full of tomato sauce?” I asked my mom.
“We went to Rent-A-Truck-Full-of-Tomato-Sauce,” she said. “You can rent anything.”
Everybody pitched in to help. Ms. Hannah, our art teacher, put gigantic pieces of cardboard down on the playground. We all unrolled the giant pizza crust onto the cardboard. It was the size of a swimming pool!
Then Mr. Tony came out of the school. He was carrying this thing that looked like a big Super Soaker. There was a tank strapped to his back, like the kind scuba divers wear.
“What’s that thing?” Ryan asked.
“It’s a flamethrower,” said Mr. Tony.
“What does it do?” asked Michael.
“It throws flame,” said Mr. Tony.
“So it has the perfect name,” I said.
Mr. Tony pulled the trigger on the flamethrower, and a giant explosion of fire came flying out! We all jumped back. I could feel the heat on my face. Mr. Tony walked around the pizza crust, shooting fire all over it.
“That thing is
cool
!” we all said.
“Where did you get a flamethrower?” Neil the nude kid asked Mr. Tony.
“From Rent-A-Flamethrower,” he replied. “You can rent anything.”
After a few minutes of flamethrowing, the giant pizza crust had turned from white to brown.
“Okay,” Mr. Tony said as he turned off the flamethrower. “It’s cooked. Pour on the sauce!”
The truck full of tomato sauce backed up to the pizza and dumped its load onto the crust. The Six Moms used rakes and shovels to spread the sauce evenly.
“Bring on the cheese!” shouted Mr. Tony.
The Six Moms shoveled cheese off the truck and carried it over to the pizza.
“This is so exciting!” Ryan’s mom said as she scattered shovelfuls of cheese on top of the sauce. “Our first catering job!”
“What a way to start our new company!” said Michael’s mom.
“This is much more fun than making little sandwiches!” said Emily’s mom.
“And now for the toppings!” my mom said, taking a bucket out of her car. “Pepperoni . . . salami . . . baloney . . . pastrami . . .”
“Mom,” I complained, “pizza doesn’t have lunch meat on it!”
“It’s a
fancy
pizza,” Mom told me as she flung the slices of meat on top like little Frisbees.
“Go ahead,” Mr. Tony said. “You can put
anything
on a pizza.”
Finally, after a million hundred hours, the pizza was finished. We all stepped back to look at our masterpiece. We did it! We made the biggest pizza in the world.
Everybody in school came out into the playground to see what all the excitement was about. The teachers were taking pictures with cell phone cameras.
“I’m going to put this up on the school website!” said Mrs. Yonkers, our computer teacher.
“I’m going to write a children’s book about it!” said Mr. Macky, our reading specialist.
“What a mess I will have to clean up!” said Miss Lazar, our custodian.
“Where’s Mr. Klutz?” asked Andrea. “He should be here to see this.”
“Mr. Klutz told me he had to go to a meeting,” said Mrs. Patty, the school secretary. “He’ll be back soon.”
Mr. Tony’s cell phone rang. He answered it and spoke to somebody.
“It was a guy from
The Guinness Book of World Records
,” he told us excitedly after he hung up. “A lady will be here in a few minutes to measure our pizza and prove we broke the record. She came all the way from England!”
“Channel 7 News called, too,” Mrs. Patty said. “They’re coming over to cover the story. Our pizza is going to be on TV!”
Everybody was freaking out with excitement! Mr. Tony was going to be famous, and it was all because of my genius idea. It was the greatest day of my life.
That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.
But I’m not going to tell you what it was.
Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.
But you have to read the next chapter. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you.
“The lady from
The Guinness Book of World Records
is here!” Mrs. Patty announced over the loudspeaker. “And so is Channel 7 News!”
Everybody was even more excited when two vans pulled up to the school driveway. The Channel 7 News team got out with cameras and microphones and stuff. We all ran over to greet the lady from
The Guinness Book of World Records
.
“Chip chip cheerio, old chap,”
5
she said as she shook hands with Mr. Tony. “So where is this extremely large pizza I heard so much about?”
“Follow me,” Mr. Tony said.
“I can’t wait to see it,” said the Guinness lady. “I have seen some pretty big pizzas in my time, but—”
She never got the chance to finish her sentence because suddenly there was a loud rumbling sound over the playground.
“What’s that?” Andrea asked.
“Look, up in the air!” yelled Ryan.
“It’s a bird!” yelled Michael.
“It’s a plane!” yelled Neil the nude kid.
“No, it’s a parachuting ape!” I yelled.
It was true. High above our heads, an ape was floating down over the school under a big white parachute. The Channel 7 News team pointed their cameras up in the air.
“It’s not an ape,” yelled Andrea. “It’s Mr. Klutz in an ape suit!”
Andrea was right! And he was coming down directly over our heads! Everybody was yelling, screaming, freaking out, and waving their arms trying to signal Mr. Klutz.
“No! Not here!” we were yelling. “Not here!”
Mr. Klutz was coming down right over the pizza!
“Run for your lives!” shouted Neil the nude kid.
“Watch out!”
“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
That’s when Mr. Klutz hit the ground, right in the middle of our pizza.
Splllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttt.
It was a real Kodak moment. Everybody came running over to the edge of the pizza.
“Glub glub!” Mr. Klutz yelled. “Help! I can’t swim!”
“He’s drowning in tomato sauce!” Emily shouted. “We’ve got to
do
something!”
“I’ll save you!” shouted Mr. Tony. He dived headfirst into the middle of the pizza.
Mr. Klutz was flailing all over the place like a fish on the bottom of a boat. Mr. Tony kept trying to grab him, but they were both covered with tomato sauce, and they were just slipping and sliding all over the pizza.
You should have been there! Mr. Klutz was freaking out. We saw it live and in person. He had cheese all over his bald head. And Mr. Tony was full of baloney!
“I say, old chaps,” said the Guinness lady, “why are those blokes wrestling in your giant pizza?”
“The guy with the mustache is our after-school program director,” I told her, “and the bald guy with cheese on his head is our principal.”
“Ah, I see,” said the Guinness lady. “Pizza-wrestling must be some sort of strange American tradition, like baseball.”
Finally, Mr. Tony was able to pull Mr. Klutz off the pizza. The two of them were a mess.
“Who put that giant pizza in the middle of the playground?” asked Mr. Klutz as he wiped tomato sauce off his face.
“We did,” Mr. Tony told him. “We made it so we could get into
The Guinness Book of World Records
. Why did you land on our pizza?”
“It was windy,” Mr. Klutz said. “I saw the big red circle down below me. I got confused. I thought it was the circle on the roof of the school. From up in the air, it looked like a target.”
“It’s not a target!” Mr. Tony explained. “It’s the biggest pizza in the world!”
“Uh, don’t count your chickens until they are hatched,” said the Guinness lady. “I’m terribly sorry, chaps, but I cannot accept this record for
The Guinness Book
.”
“Why not?” we all asked.
“The rules state very clearly that people are supposed to
make
the pizza,” she said, “not wrestle in it.”
“Can’t we get into
The Guinness Book of World Records
for making the biggest pizza with two guys wrestling in it?” asked Michael. “That must be a world record.”
“Sorry, no,” said the Guinness lady.
“Doesn’t Mr. Klutz count as a pizza topping?” I suggested.
“I’m sorry,” said the Guinness lady. “Well, thank you. I’ve had a lovely time, but I’ve got to get back to jolly old England now. Chip chip cheerio, chaps!”
The Guinness lady left, and the Channel 7 News crew packed up their cameras and microphones.
Everybody at school was really sad. Our pizza wasn’t going to be in
The Guinness Book of World Records
. Mr. Tony wasn’t going to be famous. We wouldn’t even be able to give our pizza to the food bank. Hungry people don’t want to eat a pizza that two guys were wrestling in.
6
Mr. Tony was really mad that his pizza was ruined. Mr. Klutz was really mad that his parachute jump was ruined. Miss Lazar was really mad because there was even more cleaning up to do, and she made us all pitch in to help out. It took a million hundred hours.
Finally, I got into the car with my mom to go home. We both smelled like pizza.
“I was
sure
we were going to get into
The Guinness Book of World Records
,” I told her.
“You shouldn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” she replied.
What do chickens have to do with it? We didn’t even put any chicken on the pizza.