Inside the Closet

Illustrated by Tim Heitz

"**Inside the Closet**" is the twentieth chapter of *Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom*.

## Synopsis

Mrs. Jewls brings Jason inside the closet that is actually there.

## Plot

The chapter opens with Jason finally finishing his long book, and now he's so tired he can barely walk up the stairs to class. He falls asleep on the fourth floor, and wakes up on the twenty-eighth. Allison and Rondi prepare to tease him, but are surprised to learn he actually read the entire book. He had written ten pages for his book report, and questions if anyone had ever written a book over a thousand pages long. He assumes not, since it's probably against the law. He turns in his book report, consisting of ten pages and three pictures. Mrs. Jewls asks him where his paper clip is, and he explains that it must have gotten bent in his backpack, or unbent, really. Now it's just a thin, crooked line. This enrages Mrs. Jewls, who drags him out of the class, to the retaliation of some of the students, but she has them stay still and quiet.

She brings him to the closet outside the room, and starts the elaborate process of unlocking it, as Jason reads the signs on it. Jason remembers Mrs. Jewls saying the closet didn't exist, but she retorts that it actually does. She hands him one end of a metal chain, and walks around the closet four times with the other end to unravel it. The steel bar in front of the closet is held down by two latches, with letter-based combinations that Mrs. Jewls unlocks. She lifts up the steel bar, and throws it down the stairs. In the third stair from the top, there's a secret compartment with two keys, one red, and one green, which she sticks in the opposite-colored keyholes. She must turn them at the same time, to avoid a siren and smokescreen. She opens the doors, revealing that the closet looks completely empty.

Jason, worrying that he will be locked inside, begs for Mrs. Jewls not to lock him in the closet, and rapidly tries to remember everything she did to unlock it, but it starts slipping from his mind quicker than he can remember it. Mrs. Jewls asks why she'd lock him in a closet, and has him look closer. It's not empty, there's a small box of spare paper clips in the corner, which she picks up, and removes a paper clip from to give to Jason. Before she locks the closet back up, she has Jason promise to never tell anyone else where he got the paper clip. Mrs. Jewls shuts the closet, locking the doors, hiding the keys, placing back the steel bar, spinning the locks of the latches, walking the chain back around, and securing the padlock. She tells Jason that she's proud of him for finishing the book, and Jason says he was sorry that it ended. The two return to class.

## Characters

* Jason
* Mrs. Jewls
* Allison
* Rondi

## Trivia

* There are a number of books with over a thousand pages, and even one with over two thousand. Other novels have gone even higher, though they are all split into multiple volumes at that point.
* It is revealed that the closet outside of Mrs. Jewls' classroom actually contains a box of paper clips that Mrs. Jewls wants to keep a secret from her students, which is why she only has a limited amount of paper clips in her desk.