Update: 203 Ways to Skip Class is going to be a book! Because of this, I will not publish the rest. Thanks, Lulu, for making my dream true.

Fifth grader Robert Ethersten is a natural genius at inventing. Having to go to the very important Invention Convention of Massachusetts, he tries to earn money to go by writing a book on how to skip, or miss, class. But will he succeed?

I started writing 203 Ways to Skip Class about three years ago, and I forgot about it after a length of over two years. As I was sifting through my folder, I came across this and decided to finish it.

Apparently I ran out of time to finish it before my self-made deadline of January 1st, so I decided to go ahead and publish the first five chapters of it. When I am finished, I will probably make it a PDF or something. Until then, enjoy.

Note: This is only the first five chapters of 203 Ways to Skip Class.

Chapter 1: Mr. Maloney

It was just a regular day in class to everyone in Mr. Maloney’s class. Every single kid in Mr. Maloney’s class thought only one thing: when is school going to be over?

It was true. Mr. Maloney was the meanest teacher in all of the whole school! He made everyone work from when the bell rang until the principal’s sound came onto the intercom telling everyone that it was time to go home. He even gave everyone worksheets to finish during lunch and recess!

Every single person in his class was tired. Homework every single day was 10 pages, and “No mistakes, or… you don’t want to know.” It was terrible. Almost no one could stand Mr. Maloney. But still, Robert Ethersten handled him easily.

Robert Ethersten was a fifth grader in Mr. Maloney’s class. He was a smart student, and he was fast on every subject. He finished one page of whatever Mr. Maloney gave him in just one minute, and some in even less time. His mind was a practical Library of Congress!

Every time Robert had extra time, he would get out his small locked notebook with “No Peeking” on the front. Inside, he had pages and pages of ideas for inventions, and it was true: He was an inventive inventor.

He had invented many unsuccessful inventions including an alarm that was supposed to tap nicely on the shoulder when one was supposed to wake up, but when he brought it to show off at school, it banged Albert’s nose into a flat pancake, and he was sent to the clinic.

Another time he had made a radio which combined radio and tape cassettes into one blended sound, but the only thing he had managed to do was try to make his father mad. Long story short: He had tried to listen to his narrated story of Dr. Moose with Robert’s littler brother, but all he got was a bunch of nonsense about the local car dealership buying… Dr. Moose?

Most kids would have given up now. But not Robert. He went on inventing as many things as he could, and taking all the risk he could handle without being punished (or sometimes only… a little). Most of them were unsuccessful, but he made 50 cents from a little kid, and that wasn’t bad. But then he got a gumball from a candy machine and that was it with the money.

But that afternoon, he decided that another hour in his room wouldn’t hurt. If he was wrong in the end, nobody had to know. And if he was right… well, everything would happen then.

Chapter 2: The Letter

On the last day of the school year, Mr. Maloney passed out a piece of paper for everyone.

Mr. Maloney said, “You will give a party…” The students cheered, “Yahoo!” Mr. Maloney continued, “…for me.” The students felt let down. Mr. Maloney spoke up again, “You will draw…” The students cheered. “…cards for me!” The students rested their shoulders in disappointment.

Everyone drew cards for Mr. Maloney. Then Mr. Maloney passed out some math assignments and from the bottom of his desk, he got out nineteen stacks of paper, each about 200 sheets. He passed one stack to every student.

“This is your summer homework.” Mr. Maloney announced. The students groaned. Robert’s friend Jacob, said, “Well, you had better start now. Two hundred minutes and counting!”

Once home, he finished the stack in two hours. Then he pushed it aside, checked to see if anyone was looking, and zapped into the kitchen, told his mother he was checking the mail, and then went to the mailbox. He found mail to him. It was wrapped a neat envelope. On it said:

From: Massachusetts Inventing, Co.
200 Invention Delight, BLVD.
Willington, MA 24924

To: Robert Ethersten
Inventions, Ideas, and all Good Stuff, Co.
2043 Backhand, Dr.
Boston, MA 20434

Robert jumped and ran into the house, threw the other mail on the counter, and ran into his room and locked the door. He opened the mail after using his “Ultra Mail Zapper” but it cut the message in half. It read:

Dear Robert (Inventions, Ideas, and all Good Stuff, Co.)

Your request for the Ultra Mail Zapper is approved. Please bring the Ultra Mail Zapper to the yearly MA Invention Convention. I will meet with you in my office on the day of the Convention, as you surely know.

At this time, he had to reconnect the other half (that was zapped by the Mail Zapper) to the message. He rumored around his room until he found some Scotch tape. Sticking them together and quickly jotting down a concept for an “Auto Tape Finder”, he continued reading:

I am room 201, area 5, Institute of Invention, district 5. I look forward to meeting you. Also, there are fees for attending: $50 processing fee, $2000 for booth usage fees, and an additional $500 for the airplane tickets to Willington. Thank you.

Best Regards,

Dr. J. K. Zogerhaven

Robert’s mind zapped with crazy ideas of what might happen. He was so happy he forgot about the amounts of money he had to pay. He rushed over to Jacob’s house to show him the great news. Jacob would be surprised. Maybe he could be his event coordinator!

Chapter 3: The Ad In The Massachusetts Classifieds

Jacob was a word-monster. He nearly recited the dictionary. When Robert knocked on his door, he answered, “I am advancing, moving, coming, converging, docking, drawing near, due, en route, expected, and fated… to move to the door.”

After the astounding long sentence, Robert heard Jacob’s feet stampede for his Deluxe Word Thesaurus With Antonyms, Synonyms, Analogies, and (oh, my) Ideas. Then Jacob murmured, “Is what I said correct? Now let’s see, page 12335, synonyms for coming is…”

Before Jacob could finish, Robert banged on the door and yelled, “This isn’t reciting time! Just let me in!” Jacob put down the thesaurus and reluctantly let Robert in.

Inside, the room was pleasantly soothing. It had a green wallpaper with a smell of cheese and dumplings.

As Jacob began showing his new copy of The Word Magazine and the new game Word Wizard he had, Jacob’s eyes narrowed on the letter. “What’s that?”

Jacob read the first few bits, and then his eyes rounded. He quickly read the rest, and then lied down on his word-covered bed, overwhelmed. “Is that really real?”

Robert smiled. “What do you think? I faked it? Along with the professor’s signature, may I mention… ?”

Jacob said back, “So, now that you’ve got yourself the best dream that’s true, how are ya… sorry, you… going to get the two-thousand dollars? And what’s with Inventions, Ideas, and …I can’t even remember the rest… thing?” Robert stared at him. “I will get a job. That’s what I’ll do.”

Then, Robert left the room, with a nod and murmuring something that sounded like “don’t underestimate a kid”, and after a few seconds, he came back with a newspaper. “Now, let’s see,” Robert murmured. “The classifieds section is A3. Now where is A3?” After a few seconds of looking, he found one job that he seemed interested in. The ad said,

Now Hiring At The Rocking Golf Club! Business is dropping, Call 493-3949

“Ah, ha!” said Robert.

Jacob said, “And speaking of ah ha, do you know that it is explained in the Massachusetts Book of Advanced Skills in grade 5 about what type of sentence that really is? And speaking of Massachusetts, did you know 80% of people can’t spell…”

“Why don’t you interest yourself…” Robert walked out of the door, and murmured silently, “in stupid stuff.” Then he stormed out of the house and jumped on his bike. After a few minutes, he got back to his house.

Robert packed up in his backpack and his tool-set (in case his job was a mechanic), brushed his messy hair, and then left with a wave. He called to his mom, “Going to Rocking Golf Club!”

“Where is that, honey?”

“In town… bye.”

Chapter 4: The Job

Robert soon arrived at the Rocking Golf Club. The minute he stepped into the gate, he couldn’t believe the name Rocking Golf Club because it looked more like it should have been named the Stinking Trash Can. Robert knew that if he were hired, he probably would be in charge of cleaning the place.

The place was worse than any human could imagine. The path was a small dirt road that had weeds growing everywhere that lead to a small house. The small house was peeling with paint, and the sign, “Welcome” seemed like a welcome to a goblin’s house.

The grass was five feet tall and very uncomfortable to any person who came. As soon as the property line was passed, the grass suddenly was huge. Before it, it was nice and low. It was hard to imagine anyone playing golf here.

Robert walked into the small house. The door had ten bees buzzing on top and under the doorstep, Robert saw an ant family picking up a piece of cereal like it was a ten story building.

A small girl was standing at the counter, holding a broken flyswatter and trying to swat a fly. She looked about in the same grade as Robert. In the room, the only cooling device was an ice cube, half melted. Robert stepped up. “Hello, is this the existence of Rocking Golf Club?”

Robert tried his best to sound official. The girl spoke up. “Yes sir it is. I’m Jane. How may I…” At this moment, Jane held up her flyswatter, hit her own head, which she thought was where the fly was, smiled embarrassingly, and continued to talk.

“…help you?” She smiled a mere smile. Robert said, “I’m here to apply for the job posted on the Massachusetts Classifieds.” Jane looked at him. “OK. What skills do you have?”

Robert said, “I have good knowledge of mechanics and machines and could fix up your… er, golf course and everything.

After a short 10 minutes of talking, yelling, pleading, trying-to-finalize-ing, and begging, Robert got his job as a Mechanic. He would be paid 20 dollars a day. He then walked towards Jacob’s house with a smile.

Chapter 5: Shucks.

Robert arrived at Jacob’s house in The welcome took much too long, and when Robert was finally allowed in, his foot hurt from all the tapping it had done in front of the door.

Robert told Jacob about the news. Jacob said, “So that takes care of the first few dollars. Now what about the two-thousand two hundred?” Robert starred at Jacob.

Jacob starred back and said, “Why are you starring at me?” Robert said, “You must have some problem.” And with that, he got out his inventive notebook and a pencil and calculated it. Sure enough, it was 2,200 dollars.

“Shucks,” Robert shook his head at the paper and looked low on the ground.

“What am I gonna do?” Then he walked away starring at the notepad.

“Just how am I going to go to the chance of my lifetime?”

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(copyright) 2008 Brad / chaoticmortal.com. All rights reserved (for this article only).