Uncategorized

English 8 News Article

Sideways Stories from Wayside School Book Cover Sideways Stories from Wayside School
Wayside School Series
Louis Sachar
Children’s Fiction
Avon Books
August 1985
Paperback
124

CAUTION! Another dead rat sighting!
By Ava Regnier
October 1, 2018
Wayside Times in association with Far Fetched Tails
Small Town, USA

Sammy was a new student to Wayside School one rainy day in November. Everyone’s raincoats smelled but Sammy’s smelled the worst. Ms. Jewls then removes his outer raincoat only to find another, and another, and another. Once she removed all of them the boy they thought was there wasn’t. His hidden identity wasn’t a boy but a winged rat.

In an interview with Ms. Jewls, she said “When Sammy first came into the room, he was four feet tall.” (Sachar 65). She went on to explain that after she had taken off six of Sammy’s raincoats he was only three feet tall. Then she recalled Sammy saying “Hey, old windbag, if you take off one more of my coats and throw it out the window, I’ll bite your head off.” (Sachar 66).

After removing many, many raincoats and throwing them out the window, Ms. Jewls said “They [the raincoats] smell too bad for me to allow them in my classroom,” then went to on to say, “You can pick them up when you leave.” (Sachar 66). By the time she removed the last raincoat Sammy was only two inches tall.

In an interview with Rondi, she explained to us that when Ms. Jewls removed Sammy’s final raincoat that he wasn’t a boy at all, he was actually a semi-dead rat. She recalls Ms. Jewls telling the class that she doesn’t allow rats in her classroom. Continuing with her story she said “I’m glad Sammy isn’t allowed in our classroom,” then went on saying, “I didn’t like him very much.” (Sachar 66).

What happened next was probably the most disturbing part of the story. All 27 students and Ms. Jewls herself said they witnessed Sammy spread his wings and fly off with one of Joe’s potatoes.

Tagged

1 thought on “English 8 News Article

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *