Phineas L. MacGuire...Erupts!: Chapters 1–6

"Quite a first impression, Mac R.," Mrs. Tuttle said when Mac R. was done making everyone in our class automatically hate him.

Maybe we would have the same habits, such as drawing on our bedroom walls with Chap Stick (the picture shows up about two weeks later, when enough dust has stuck to the Chap Stick wax) or waiting three months to empty the trash can in our room so that any thrown-away, half-eaten snack foods, like bananas or grapes, have decomposed into a pile of slimy goop.

"Nope," she said, prying off the blue lid.

"Eight people will be here at seven PM and it's going to smell like every toilet on the street backfired," she moaned.

When you have grown up with an irritated mother, you know when to leave her alone.

"I was hoping you'd say that."
I heard somebody laughing like my comeback had been really good instead of just okay.

Me and Marcus used to slap high fives all the time. That's how we celebrated our many scientific breakthroughs.

This is her first year of teaching fourth grade after three years of first-grade teaching. She's still getting adjusted.

You fill a film canister halfway with water, drop half a tab of Alka-Seltzer in it, put the top back on, then move out of the way—the cap pops off and flies into the air like a rocket ship. This is an experiment about gas buildup, although not the kind that stinks up your whole house.

There
 are many insects that eat their own kind, including praying mantises (sometimes), lacewing larvae (if there's nothing else around to eat), cannibal mites (which actually aren't insects, but everybody thinks they are, so we counted them), and pirate spiders.

"It's good to collaborate, Aretha," Mrs. Tuttle said. This is a big word with teachers, I've noticed. I had never thought about how they were always making you work in groups and pairs, until I didn't have an automatic partner. Now I am thinking they should just be quiet about all this collaborating and let some people work by themselves sometimes.

I want a description of your project—in stunning, multicolor detail—by Monday.

Maybe something with raptors. Maybe we could build one that really flies.

"Volcanoes do not explode. They erupt."
I may be the world's biggest milk spiller, but I am not sloppy when it comes to scientific terminology.

This morning, after I'd watched Saturday cartoons, I sat at the kitchen table and brainstormed some alternate science fair project ideas.

What makes mold? What stuff gets the moldiest? Why is the cheddar cheese in our refrigerator always moldy?

Our refrigerator is practically a museum of mold.

"She's the manager of the apartment complex," Mac R. said.

"I know it's stupid!" Mac R. stood up and glared at me. "Don't you think I know it's stupid? You're the one that's stupid if you don't think I know it's stupid to tell people that your name is Mac just so you'll have one stupid thing in common with somebody in your class."

It's too bad we can't build a real volcano, like a miniature one. But the lava's around two thousand degrees Fahrenheit or something. It's just this big mass of molten rock charged with gas, and it breaks through the earth's crust, which is totally hard to do.