Mr. Burke Is Berserk! Read Online Free Page A

hollered. “Keep digging!”

8
Gilver
    When I got to school the next day, the front door was locked. I went around to the playground, and it was filled with teachers. They were digging holes with shovels, pickaxes, and all kinds of mining equipment.
    I met up with the guys and Alexia. Mrs. Roopy came by on a donkey.
    â€œWhere did you get a donkey?” Alexia asked her.
    â€œIt’s not a donkey,” Mrs. Roopy said. “It’s a burro. His name is Jose.”
    â€œWhere did you get a burro?” Michael asked.
    â€œFrom Rent-A-Burro,” she said. “You can rent anything.”
    As we got closer, we saw the weirdest thing in the history of the world. Mr. Macky, Mr. Burke, Mr. Docker, and Officer Spence all had long beards on their faces! None of them had beards the day before.
    â€œHow did you grow a beard so fast?” Ryan asked Mr. Macky.
    â€œIt’s the gold fever!” he replied, a crazy look in his eyes. “It does that to a man.”
    We sat and watched the teachers digging. They were all shouting “Yee-ha” and calling each other “pardner.” That’s when annoying Andrea and Emily came over.

    â€œThis is terrible!” Andrea said. “The teachers should be inside the school helping us learn things, not out here digging for gold.”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Emily.
    What is their problem?
    â€œCan you possibly be more boring?” asked Alexia.
    â€œYeah, take a chill pill,” I told Andrea. “We get a day off from school.”
    Mr. Burke seemed to know a lot about gold mining, and he was telling the teachers where to dig and what to do.
    â€œAh reckon we need to dig a deeper hole to git at the gold,” he told them. “Fetch me the dynamite, fellers!”
    â€œThey’re going to blow a hole in the playground?” asked Andrea. “That sounds dangerous. Is violence really necessary?”
    â€œWhat do violins have to do with it?” I asked.
    â€œNot ‘violins,’ Arlo! ‘Violence’!”
    Mr. Burke and Mr. Macky dug a deep hole where the monkey bars used to be and put sticks of dynamite in there. Then they stretched a wire from the hole to the other end of the playground.
    â€œY’all cover yer ears now,” Mr. Burke hollered. Then he yelled “Fire in the hole!” and pushed down on this handle thing that looked like a bicycle pump. We all covered our ears.
    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
    There was a huge blast. Rocks and dirt went flying all over the place. It was awesome. We got to see it live and in person. You should have been there!
    â€œWOW,” we all said, which is “MOM” upside down.

    Blowing stuff up is cool . There should be a TV channel that shows nothing but stuff being blown up all day long.
    The explosion blew a giant hole in the ground. The teachers all ran over yelling “Yee-ha.” They climbed into the hole with their shovels and picks.
    â€œYou kids wanna come down into the mine with me and poke around?” Mr. Burke asked us.
    â€œYeah!” said me and the guys and Alexia.
    â€œI don’t want to get my school clothes dirty,” said Andrea.
    â€œMe neither,” said Emily.
    â€œCan you possibly be more boring?” asked Alexia.
    The rest of us climbed into the mine with Mr. Burke. It was dark down there, but some of the teachers had lights on their helmets, so we could see.
    They were digging for a long time, but nobody found any gold. And then Mr. Burke suddenly hit something sharp with his shovel.
    â€œAh think Ah found somethin’!” he said.
    â€œIs it gold?” I asked.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIs it silver?” asked Alexia.
    â€œNo,” Mr. Burke said as he looked at a shiny thing in his hand. “It’s even more valuable than gold and silver. It’s … gilver!”
    â€œGilver?” asked Ryan. “I never heard of gilver.”
    â€œWhat’s gilver?”