The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids

#12 Cupid Doesn’t Flip Hamburgers by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones, 1995.

Valentine’s Day is approaching, and Eddie is annoyed by all of the hearts and girly decorations around the school.  However, that’s nothing compared to Mrs. Rosenbloom, the new cook in the cafeteria at school.  The first time the kids meet her, she gushes about how much she loves Valentine’s Day.  Everything she serves them has a Valentine theme – lots of red foods and heart-shaped foods.  Most of the other kids don’t mind the Valentine theme because the food is better than it used to be, but Eddie resolves to do something about it.

Before Eddie can do anything, Carey, a girl Eddie normally doesn’t like, suddenly develops a crush on him after eating one of Mrs. Rosenbloom’s Valentine cookies.  The next day, Ben, the fourth-grade bully, gets a sudden crush on Issy after eating a Valentine cookie.  Even Mrs. Jeepers and Principal Davis are falling in love!  (Mrs. Jeepers is a widow.)  Eddie becomes convinced that Mrs. Rosenbloom has doctored the Valentine cookies with a love potion!  He thinks that she’s going to use it to take over the school!

At first, the others don’t believe Eddie, and in any case, what’s wrong with spreading a little love around?  The problems start when both Melody and Liza eat Valentine cookies at the same time and both of them fall in love with Howie.  The two girls, normally best friends, start fighting over Howie.  Howie is embarrassed and worried that this weird love fight will break up their friendship.  The two boys find themselves trying to dodge the girls while starting to worry that, if the romance between Mrs. Jeepers and the principal flourishes, Mrs. Jeepers will turn Principal Davis into a vampire. (One of the things I appreciate about this series is how it draws on real folklore and mythology. The boys are right that, assuming that Mrs. Jeepers actually is a vampire, she can’t be in love with the principal without revealing it to him and probably changing him into a vampire, too.)

The boys come up with a plan to change Mrs. Rosenbloom’s cookie recipe for the worst, but before this escapade is over, even Eddie gets a taste of love.  As with other books in this series, Mrs. Rosenbloom eventually leaves the school, and things return to normal (or what passes for normal in Mrs. Jeepers’ class).

The book is available online to borrow for free through Internet Archive.