Loving Miss Raggletoots

She was the best teacher ever born in our county, a tiny woman with a giant adventurous soul. Miss Fizzle from Magic School bus was probably designed after someone met Miss Raggletoots. Okay it is not her real name but I cannot give you the true name of this scallywag, for it would be notoriously rude to tell the truth, and the truth is what we need here For the sheer fun of it, and the faster moving along of this tale, I must let you know that I was in the sixth grade, in a small, boring, eight-nine percent uptight, rule-following, Iowa farm town when I met Mrs. Raggletoots. She was a science teacher which may sound boring to those who have not met her, But she was a Scoundrel, A knave, A rogue, And she did nothing by the book, did not attend church, did not wave to mean people, did not respect bullies, did not adhere to social norms of any kind, and cared in no way about laws or rules. Under her jurisdiction, we blew up toys, we blew up chairs, and we learned the ways of a wood chopper, We happy sixth graders chopped up umbrellas, and flower boxes, and books – especially non-fiction books about etiquette, and women’s places and stuff. The only books we did not chop were the science books, as by this time we were all falling in love with science. And we did all kinds of other renegade stuff, Because she wanted to show us How science could be fun. You are a rapscallion, the principal said, yelling at her with a mean face. Two of us were worried, and we told our parents, but They assured us that he would probably not get rid of The favorite-est science teacher we have ever had because of our track record. He did not dare fire her, Because although She was a scoundrel,