Chapter 2

Mrs. Jewls had a terribly nice face. She stood at the bottom of Wayside School and looked up. She was supposed to teach the class on the thirtieth story.

The children on the thirtieth story were scared. They had never told anybody what had happened to Mrs. Gorf. They hadn't had a teacher for three days. They were afraid of what their new teacher would be like. They had heard she'd be a terribly nice teacher. They had never had a nice teacher. They were terribly afraid of nice teachers.

Mrs. Jewls walked up the winding¹, creaking staircaseto the thirtieth story.

She was also afraid. She was afraid of the children. She had heard that they would be horribly cute children. She had never taught cute children. She was horribly afraid of cute children.
She opened the door to the classroom. She was terribly nice. The children could tell just by looking at her.

Mrs. Jewls looked at the children. They were horribly cute. In fact, they were much too cute to be children.

"I don't believe it," said Mrs. Jewls. "It's a room full of monkeys!"

The children looked at each other. They didn't see any monkeys.

"This is ridiculous," said Mrs. Jewls, "just ridiculous. I walked all the way up thirty flights of stairs for nothing but a class of monkeys. What do they think I am? I'm a teacher, not a zookeeper!"

The children looked at her. They didn't know what to say. Todd scratched his head.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Mrs. Jewls. "Please don't get me wrong. I have nothing against monkeys. It is just that I was expecting children. I like monkeys. I really do. Why, I'm sure we can play all kinds of monkey games."

"What are you talking about?" asked Todd.

Mrs. Jewls nearly fell off her chair. "Well, what do you know, a talking monkey. Tomorrow I'll bring you a banana."

"My name is Todd," said Todd.

The children were flabbergasted. They all raised their hands.

"I'm sorry," said Mrs. Jewls, "but I don't haveenough bananas for all of you.

I didn't expect this. Next week I'll bring in a whole bushel."
"I don't want a banana," said Calvin. "I'm not a monkey."

"Would you like a peanut?" asked Mrs. Jewls. "I think I might have a bag of peanuts in my purse. Wait a second. Yes, here it is."

"Thanks," said Calvin. Calvin liked peanuts.

Allison stood up. "I'm not a monkey," she said. "I'm a girl. My name is Allison. And so is everybody else."

Mrs. Jewls was shocked. "Do you mean to tell me that every monkey in here is named Allison?"

"No," said Jenny. "She means we are all children. My name is Jenny."

"No," said Mrs. Jewls. "You're much too cute to be children."

Jason raised his hand.

"Yes," said Mrs. Jewls, "the chimpanzee in the red shirt."

"My name is Jason," said Jason, "and I'm not a chimpanzee."

"You're too small to be a gorilla," said Mrs. Jewls.

"I'm a boy," said Jason.

"You're not a monkey?" asked Mrs. Jewls.

"No," said Jason.

"And the rest of the class, they're not monkeys, either?" asked Mrs. Jewls.

"No," said Allison. "That is what we've been trying to tell you."

"Are you sure?" asked Mrs. Jewls.

"We'd know if we were monkeys, wouldn't we?" asked Calvin.
"I don't know," said Mrs. Jewls. "Do monkeys know that they are monkeys?"

"I don't know," said Allison. "I'm not a monkey."

"No, I suppose you're not," said Mrs. Jewls. "Okay, in that case, we have a lot of work to do-reading, writing, subtraction², addition, spelling. Everybody take out a piece of paper. We will have a test now."

Jason tapped Todd on the shoulder. He said, "Do you want to know something? I liked it better when she thought we were monkeys."

"I know," said Todd. "I guess now it means she won't bring me a banana."

"There will be no talking in class," said Mrs. Jewls. She wrote Todd's name on the blackboard under the word DISCIPLINE.

1 winding   

n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈

参考例句：

• A winding lane led down towards the river.一条弯弯曲曲的小路通向河边。
• The winding trail caused us to lose our orientation.迂回曲折的小道使我们迷失了方向。

2 subtraction   

n.减法，减去

参考例句：

• We do addition and subtraction in arithmetic.在算术里,我们作加减运算。
• They made a subtraction of 50 dollars from my salary.他们从我的薪水里扣除了五十美元。