History Literature / WaysideSchool

* TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers: Any two of the three Erics have one trait in common which the remaining Eric lacks. So no matter which order you list them in, this trope simultaneously applies to ''all three of them'': Eric Bacon is the one that isn't fat, Eric Fry is the one that's actually a good athlete, and Eric Ovens is the one that isn't a {{Jerkass}} all the time. DoubleSubverted in that the other kids assume that all three Erics are fat, poor athletes, and generally [[{{Jerkass}} jerks]]--even though the narrator explicitly points out otherwise.

* ''Wayside School Is Falling Down'' (1989) introduced a new student to the mix but otherwise follows more-or-less the same structure. At one point a student ends up [[StrangeSecretEntrance stuck on the non-existent 19th story]], which results in three consecutive Chapter 19s.

* AnimalGoesToSchool: In the last story of ''Wayside School is Falling Down'', Mrs. Jewels rings her cowbell really loud to calm the students of the thirtieth floor down. She unknowingly attracted all the cows from the country side and filled up the school. Lewis gets rid of all the cows in the school, except for one that's in the nineteenth floor in Wayside School Gets a Little Stanger.

* BeastInTheBuilding: At the end of ''Wayside School Is Falling Down'', Mrs. Jewels accidentally summons a herd of cattle into the school when she uses a cowbell as an alarm during a fire drill. The cows climb up the building's stairs and end up unable to go back down, forcing the school (a skyscraper where every floor is one classroom) to shut down and temporarily transfer the students while Louis the janitor clears the cattle out. ''Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger'' reveals that he mostly succeeded, but a few cows are still lost within the halls of the place.

** Mrs. Jewls has a weird admiration for paper clips, so it's best that you don't lose the one she gives you at the start of the year, or even worse, ''bend'' one. [[spoiler: It turns out to just be an act; she keeps a spare box of paper clips in a storage closet. When Mrs. Jewls asks the students to ignore picking up the paper clips strewn across the floor as the school is ravaged by the Storm of Doom, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness they know it's serious]].]]

* BigDamnHeroes: Miss Mush, of all people, gets to do this in ''Gets a Little Stranger.'' Upon hearing [[{{Jerkass}} Kathy]] wish her to "have a nice day," she is able to deduce that [[spoiler: Mr. Gorf is an evil substitute stealing the kids' voices, and so whips up a pie full of pepper, carries it up the stairs, and ''smashes it into his face.'' The resulting sneezing frees the kids' voices and foils Mr. Gorf's plans.]] Score one for the lunch lady.

* BookEnds: Louis explains at the beginning of ''Sideways Arithmetic From Wayside School'' that he wrote the book because he wanted to show the readers who wished they could go to Wayside School to "eat ice cream, draw pictures, and watch movies about turtles" that Mrs. Jewls asks tougher questions than they probably expected her to. In the last chapter, Joy invites Sue to come to her house after school, so they can eat ice cream, draw pictures, and watch movies about turtles.

** An impressive example that spans ''all four books'': towards the beginning of the first book, Mrs. Jewls asks Calvin to deliver a note (which she never actually gives him) to Miss Zarves on the nineteenth story. Miss Zarves, however, does not exist (neither does the nineteenth story), and so he's not able to pull it off... [[spoiler: At least until the end of the fourth book, where everyone in Mrs. Jewls's class has to evacuate to avoid the Cloud of Doom, and somehow winds up inside Miss Zarves's classroom. Calvin, reaching inside his pocket, finds the note, and finally gives it to Miss Zarves. This was a gap of ''42 years''.]]

* TheChewToy

* ChildrenAreInnocent: Miss Nogard, who is bitter over a broken engagement and capable of reading thoughts, is asked to [[spoiler: hold Mrs. Jewls' new baby. As she does, Ms. Nogard realizes she's never read a baby's thoughts before. Curious, she listens to Mrs. Jewls' baby's thoughts. Whatever Nogard hears is left to the reader's imagination, but it's described as "pure love, trust, and faith, with no words to get in the way." As a result, Nogard's bitterness fades instantly]].

** Mr. Kidswatter interrupts a noisy music class in Mrs. Jewls' room by saying the teachers have started complaining that they can't hear. After he leaves, [[spoiler: Mrs. Jewls tells the kids to play even louder so that the teachers who couldn't hear their music before can hear them]].

-->''Sideways Stories:'' Everybody booed.
-->''Falling Down:'' Everybody mooed.
-->''A Little Stranger:'' Everybody oooohed.
-->''Cloud of Doom:'' Everybody chewed.

** Later, Miss Nogard, who seems nice on the surface but has the secret ability to read minds, and uses this to turn her students against each other (for example, doing a homework review where she always calls on the person with the wrong answer, and then assigning extra homework because they supposedly did so poorly; in reality, the narration tells the reader, no individual had more than two wrong answers). [[spoiler: She eventually makes a HeelFaceTurn and by book four is considered the kids' ([[LoveInterest and Louis']]) favorite sub]].

* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: [[spoiler: Louis loses his multi-colored mustache when he becomes stricter. It grows back after the sight of Miss Nogard causes him to lighten up again.]]

* FrozenFace: Dana gets her face stuck in a chapter of ''Cloud of Doom''. She gets it unstuck in a staring contest with Mr. Kidswatter, who subsequently gets the face himself, before transferring to Dr. Pickell, who transfers the face to [[spoiler: his own reflection in the mirror, which he shatters, just to be safe.]]
* FreudianExcuse: Wendy Nogard becomes a bitter ChildHater after being abandoned by her lover [[spoiler: for having a [[SpareBodyParts third ear]]]].

-->1. Statement 2 is true.
-->2. Statement 1 is false.
--> '''Narration''': While Joy continues to work on that...

* GoodFeelsGood: Kathy's reasoning for [[spoiler: remaining nice, even after Dr. Pickell shatters the mirror, is because it genuinely feels nice to be good to other people]].

--> D.J. tried their suggestions. When he finished, his mouth was puckered, his shirt was wet, and he still had the hiccups. He felt very patriotic, however.

--> "What button? I don't see a red button, there ''IS'' no red button! Oh here it"

** How Miss Mush is able to figure out what's happening with Mr. Gorf. She hears Kathy say "Have a nice day," and, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness realizing that something is terribly wrong]], explains that there were only two options: either Kathy had suddenly turned nice out of nowhere, or [[spoiler: Mr. Gorf was an evil substitute who was stealing the kids' voices and using them to destroy their lives]]. She figured that the latter was ''far'' more likely and acted accordingly.

-->"And you're a maggot-infested string bean," muttered Louis.
-->"What?" asked Mr. K.
-->"I said, you're a magnificent human being."

* MondegreenGag: "STAR BRINGING PURPLE?" No, "STAR BRINGING YORBEL." No, "STOP BRINGING YORBEL." No, [[spoiler: "STOP RINGING YOUR BELL"]].

** Invoked in a chapter titled, "Mush". Ron has some of Miss Mush's mushroom surprise for lunch, and gets compelled to [[spoiler: suddenly kiss Deedee, then Mrs. Jewls]]. The chapter begins with a [[SnicketWarningLabel warning that the reader probably shouldn't read the rest of it after eating, or before eating, or if the reader planned to eat something ever again]].

** Kathy, formerly a {{Jerkass}}, becomes this in ''Cloud of Doom'' after she's cured of her oppositosis. [[spoiler: Even after getting it back, she remains nice because [[GoodFeelsGood she enjoyed being nice and having friends for a change]].]]

* NightmareRetardant: In-universe example. [[spoiler: Mrs. Gorf returns as a ghost one Halloween afternoon, to exact revenge on Mrs. Jewls' class. Stephen becomes elated that ''someone'' else in the school remembered to celebrate Halloween, and hugs her. This causes her to vanish before she can punish anyone.]]

-->'''Allison:''' What if you have to go to the bathroom?
-->'''Virginia:''' What's a bathroom?

* OhCrap: In the third book, when Mrs. Jewls goes on maternity leave, and the class finds out that their substitute teacher is a man named Mr. Gorf. They wonder if he's Mrs. Gorf's widowed husband, but they're relieved to learn that he's never been married. [[spoiler: They get a second OhCrap when he reveals that he's actually Mrs. Gorf's son.]]

** Averted towards the end of the book, where Louis considers trying this, but unfortunately, he's holding the wrong end of the umbrella. [[spoiler: Instead, the hook of the umbrella's handle catches the school's flagpole, causing him to spin around it several times as he falls to the ground.]]

--> "I don't think 'grumple' is a word," Mrs. Jewls pointed out.
--> "So?" asked D.J. "We should still know how to spell it."
--> "It might become a word someday," Kathy agreed.

* PoorCommunicationKills: At the end of the second book. Failure to understand what everyone is saying results in [[spoiler: Wayside School being flooded by a herd of cows.]]

** Mrs. Gorf turns the kids into apples over the slightest of infractions, fully intending to leave them there and retire early for no real reason than she can. [[spoiler: Her son Mr. Gorf arrives to take revenge on the kids in book three, stealing their voices and trying to ruin their relationships with their parents before Miss Mush intervenes.]]

* SchmuckBait: ''Sideways Arithmetic'' has a chapter solving math problems using words as ciphers for numbers. Mrs. Jewls uses EARS + HEAR as an example problem. Todd blurts out [[spoiler: SWEAR]]... and gets sent home on the kindergarten bus for [[spoiler: swearing]], even though ''that was the correct answer''.

** "A Package For Mrs. Jewls", the first chapter of ''Wayside School is Falling Down'', has Louis carry a [[TechnologyMarchesOn heavy]] computer from the first floor to Mrs. Jewls' floor. When he reaches her door, he has to hold up the computer for several ''more'' minutes, while the kids decide who should open the door. After Louis finally brings the package inside the room, Mrs. Jewls unpacks the computer and proclaims that it will help her students learn new things more quickly. [[spoiler: She then demonstrates the concept of gravity by dropping the computer out the window and letting the kids see how quickly it can fall to the ground and smash.]]
** The construction of one-way elevators in the school that are ''literally'' one-way, not even going back for students on floors behind it. [[spoiler: They're used until they reach the top and bottom floors, and then are never able to be used again.]]
* ShoutOut:

* SickeninglySweet: "Love and a Dead Rat" ends with Dameon and Mrs. Jewels having a sweet conversation about love. It's so sappy that the dead rat inside Mrs. Jewels' desk comes back to life and walks out.

** There are three Erics in Mrs. Jewls's class, which often leads to confusion. In the first book, it's explained how each of them got a nickname that doesn't represent them well at all, just because it corresponds to a trait that the other two Erics have - the skinny Eric Bacon is nicknamed "Fatso," the athletic Eric Fry is named "Butterfingers," and the kind Eric Ovens is nicknamed "Crabapple." In the chapter "Eric, Eric, and Eric" in the second book, Mr. Kidswatter calls Mrs. Jewls to send Eric to the principal's office, because he found an appointment card with Eric's name on it that called Kidswatter a "mugworm griblick." Mrs. Jewls sends all three Erics down one by one, and Mr. Kidswatter can't figure out which one of them wrote the mean message (though it's heavily implied that Eric Bacon did it). In the third book, the first chapter sees the Erics greet each other- but we can’t tell which one is greeting which because none of them use their last names.

-->"'''Warning: Do not read this story right after eating. In fact, don't read it right before eating either. In fact, just to be safe, don't read this story if you're ever planning to eat again.'''"

-->"''(Author's note: Due to strict rules about confidentiality, and to avoid unnecessary embarrassment for those involved, the names of the characters have been omitted from this story. Please don't try to guess.)''"

* StartOfDarkness: [[spoiler: Miss Nogard's backstory is revealed in the first chapter after Mrs. Drazil is forced to leave. You'd expect it would have been after her mind-reading trick was revealed.]]

*** In "The Bells of Wayside," Todd is struggling with a difficult day in class when Mrs. Jewls piles up homework, has the class prepare for an Ultimate Test, and has two strikes against him on her discipline list. However, at the end of the chapter, [[spoiler: the "Erase-the-Blackboard-Bell" rings, forcing Mrs. Jewls to erase the board, postponing the test, cancelling all the homework assignments, and getting Todd out of trouble for the day.]]
*** In "Blame It on the Cloud," everyone in Mrs. Jewls's class has to write their name on the discipline list after using the cloud as a scapegoat for their bad behavior... [[spoiler: Except Todd. He's the only one who's been good.]]

* TookALevelInKindness: Kathy, in ''Cloud of Doom'', after Dr. Pickell cures her of her "oppositosis." [[spoiler: She remains this way, even after the mirror he had her imagine stepping through shatters, simply because GoodFeelsGood.]]

---> ''On June tenth there was a blizzard.''

--->[[spoiler: Ray? [[InventedIndividual Who's Ray]]?]]

--->[[spoiler: "Mrs. Gorf was my mommy!"]]

* WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing: In the first book, Calvin is asked by Mrs. Jewls to deliver a note to [[MissingFloor to the nineteenth story, which doesn't exist]]. After finding nothing between eighteen and twenty, he asks Louis for advice, who points out that he doesn't even have a note to deliver, as he wasn't given one. When he returns to the classroom in defeat, Mrs. Jewls congratulates him on a job well done and gives him a lollipop, which he accepts with confusion. {{Lampshaded}} by this exchange:
--> '''Jason:''' ''You delivered a note to Miss Zarves on the nineteenth story? How did you do it?''\\

* WorldOfPun: The books are full of puns, both {{stealth|Pun}} and otherwise.

* OneParagraphChapter: ''Sideways Stories'' has one. "There is no Miss Zarves. There is no nineteenth story. Sorry."

** Mr. Kidswatter finally has elevators installed in the school, but he doesn't want the chaos that the stairs had with kids constantly running into each other because they were on the wrong side of the stairwell, so the elevators were programmed to only go in one direction. One only goes up, and the other only goes down. They end up working perfectly once, and then never again.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** In the third book, two elevators are installed, one that only goes up and one that only goes down. They work perfectly once each, and can never be used again.
** At the end of ''Falling Down'', the school is flooded with a herd of cows. The opening chapter of ''Little Stranger'' showed that despite Wayside School being a WorldOfWeirdness, the cows caused so much damage to the school that the students had to be sent to other schools while Wayside was repaired.

* PsychopathicManchild: Dr. Jane Payne, in addition to being as DepravedDentist, is rather immature, as her favorite response to people informing her that she upsets them is to tell them to rub a monkey's tummy with their head.