money.â
âOooooh!â everybody oohed.
âGo back to your classrooms and think of some ideas for what we should do with the million dollars,â Mr. Klutz told us. âTheclass that comes up with the best idea will be the first to use whatever we buy with the money. Iâll announce the winning class at the end of the day.â
We walked a million hundred miles back to our classroom.
âSo,â Mr. Cooper said when we were seated, âwhat do you think we should buy with the million dollars?â
âPizza!â Ryan shouted. âWe should have a giant pizza party for the whole school!â
âYeah!â everybody yelled.
Ryan should be in the gifted and talented program for coming up with that idea. Who doesnât like pizza?
âDo you know how many pizzas youcan buy with a million dollars?â Mr. Cooper asked.
He went to the board and wrote the number 1,000,000 on it. He told us a pizza costs about ten dollars. Then he divided 1,000,000 by 10.
âA hundred thousand pizzas!â shouted Andrea.
âThatâs a lot of pizza!â said Michael.
âI can only eat one or two slices,â said Emily.
âMe too,â said Alexia.
âWe can freeze the rest for leftovers,â said Neil. âThatâs what we do at home.â
âMay I ask where we will put all that leftover pizza?â asked Mr. Cooper.
âI know,â said Alexia. âWe can buy a thousand refrigerators!â
âYeah!â everybody shouted.
âAnd where are we going to put a thousand refrigerators?â asked Mr. Cooper.
âIn the playground!â Michael said.
âYeah!â everybody shouted.
âAs long as weâre getting all those refrigerators,â said Neil, âletâs buy a milliondollarsâ worth of ice cream. I like ice cream better than pizza.â
âYeah!â everybody shouted.
âWhy donât we just buy a million dollarsâ worth of candy?â I suggested. âThen we wonât need any refrigerators.â
âYeah!â everybody shouted.
We were coming up with some really good ideas. I was sure that our class would win the contest.
âI hate to tell you this,â said Mr. Cooper, âbut Ella Mentry did not give us a million dollars to buy junk food. She wants us to buy something useful for the school. We need to think outside the box.â
I didnât see any boxes around. If I wasin a box, I know what I would be thinking aboutâhow to get out of the box.
âWe could buy a racing car with a million dollars,â suggested Michael.
âMaybe we could buy a football team,â suggested Neil.
âHow about a skate park?â Alexia suggested.
âWhy not give the million dollars to a school that doesnât have any money?â suggested Emily.
â Our school doesnât have any money!â I told her.
âWell, we have money now ,â said Emily. âWe have a million dollars.â
âBut if we gave the million dollars to a school that doesnât have any money,â I told her, âthen we would be a school that doesnât have any money again!â
âMaybe we should put the money in the bank,â suggested Little Miss Perfect. âThen we could watch it grow.â
âBanks are boring,â I said.
âWell, what if we did something educational with the money,â suggested Mr. Cooper.
Ugh. He said the E word.
âEducational stuff is boring,â I said.
âWell, A.J.,â said Mr. Cooper. âWhat is not boring to you?â
I tried to think of something that isnât boring. It was hard, because most stuff is boring.
âTV,â I finally said. âTV isnât boring.â
Thatâs when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world.
âI know!â I said. âWe should buy one of those big flat-screen TVs for our class. That would be
Leah Spiegel, Megan Summers