He stood at the front of the room. His knees were shaking.
He hated having to stand in front of the class. It was as if Mrs. Jewls had brought him in for show-and-tell. He felt like some kind of weirdo. He just wanted to sit at a desk and be like everybody else.
But worst of all, his name wasn’t Mark Miller.
He was Benjamin Nushmutt. And he had moved from Hempleton, not Magadonia.
Chapter 2 carries the subtitle “Mark Miller” and it immediately becomes ironic. The chapter opens with Mrs. Jewls introducing a new student to the class, Mark Miller from Magadonia. The above insight into the mind of the new student clarifies that the teacher is wrong on every aspect of the subject. Interestingly, this mistake will no be corrected by the end of the chapter as one might expect. In fact, it will not be until Chapter 10 that the new kid known as Mark will finally begin trying to tell everyone his real name. This in ability to get the truth across becomes a recurring subplot that pops up in a chapter in which a substitute teacher shows up in Mrs. Jewl’s class and won’t be reconciled until nearly the end of the book.
She walked up past the eighteenth story and toward the twentieth. There was no nineteenth story in Wayside School. Miss Zarves taught the class on the nineteenth story. There was no Miss Zarves.
Another recurring subplot running throughout the book is the curious case of Miss Zarves and her classroom located on the nineteenth floor. The only problem being, of course, the fact that there is no nineteenth floor in the school. And yet there is a Miss Zarves and she does have a classroom. Of particularly peculiar interest is that the book itself features three different Chapter Nineteens. Each of the three Chapter Nineteens focus on the story of a student named Alison and her quite peculiar dealing with Mizz Zarves and the other students in her classroom.
A Story That isn’t About Socks
This quite is actually the subtitle of Chapter 25. It is a story about class picture day and, specifically, the three-piece suit which Stephen is wearing. Although the other kids laugh at the ensemble, he looks quite natty in the matching gray pants, vest and jacket. In addition, he is wearing a red-and-gold tie and shiny black shoes. Everything up to this point in the book likely leads readers to suspect a coming dose of irony in that the story of class picture is going to revolve around the fact that thought Stephen is dressed to kill, inside his shiny shoes are bare feet with no socks. Or, perhaps, absurdly inappropriate socks like neon orange and pink polka dots or something. The irony is the lack of irony. The story is not about socks at all. Neither their presence nor absence is ever mentioned.
