Gilda sighs. “We promised everybody that the best comic in your after-school class would get a walk-on part on your TV show.”
“But then,” says Pierce, “there wasn’t any class.”
“Everybody thinks you’re totally bogus, dude,” adds Gaynor.
“You had a shot, Jamie,” says Uncle Frankie. “One last chance to save the library. And you blew it.”
“It’s not my fault,” I say, sounding defensive, because, well, I am. “I didn’t even know about the class!”
When people attack, that’s what you do. You get defensive.
“Because you left,” Gilda says stubbornly.
“I did what my boss, Joe Amodio, told me to do,” I tell them. “I went on the Stephen Colbert show to promote my TV show, the one that pays all our salaries and makes this diner famous for something besides yo-yos and greasy spoons!”
Yes, sometimes when you get defensive, you can also get hurtful.
“You did what your boss told you to do?” says Gilda semisarcastically and seriously disappointed. “What about what your heart told you to do?”
“All my heart said was lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. And then it said it a little faster when I was on the set with Stephen, because I was pumped to be performing in front of a national TV audience instead of pretending to be a teacher, which is something I’m not and never will be. Ever since that wreck on the highway, I’m nothing but a crippled kid cracking corny jokes in a wheelchair, and that’s all I’ll ever be.”
“That’s not what I see,” says Gilda softly.
“Then you need to open your eyes!”
I whip around fast because I don’t want everybody to see me crying. I give both tires a good double pump, fly out the door, and head for the boardwalk.
This time, I hope Cool Girl isn’t there.
I also hope Gilda doesn’t come chasing after me.
This time, I just want to be alone.
Chapter 44
NOT-SO-CRAZY BOB
To be super certain no one will join me on the boardwalk, I find a totally random bench.
One I’ve never been to before.
One without even a streetlamp nearby.
The only light is coming from the moon, and it’s doing its best to hide behind clouds because it knows I want to be alone.
Because that’s how I feel. Alone.
No one knows what I’m going through. What I’ve been through.
Okay, maybe Uncle Frankie does.
And Gilda.
And the Smileys.
And Gaynor and Pierce. Maybe even Vincent O’Neil.
Maybe I’m lucky to have friends who care about me so much. Maybe I’m just too embarrassed to admit I let everybody down. That by going into New York City to do the Stephen Colbert show, I might’ve cost Uncle Frankie a second chance at love.
“Hiya, comedian kid.”
I look up. It’s Crazy Bob.
Only he doesn’t look so crazy anymore.
“I’m glad I found you,” says Bob. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. Do you know that you and your goofy friend—the girl with the frizzy hair and the baseball cap—you two are the only kids who ever tossed coins into my cup?”
“No. I did not know that.”
“So, do you know where Miss Frizzy is tonight?”
“Yes,” I say. “Somewhere very disappointed in me.”
Bob nods. “That’ll happen. Anyway, can you pass on a message?”
“I guess.”
“Good, good. Okay, here’s the deal. I’m leaving the boardwalk. I just wanted to thank you two for being decent human beings.”
“Um, you’re welcome, I guess. Where are you headed?”
Bob shrugs. “To whatever’s at the other end of this boardwalk. You see, a while back, I was in a spaceship, which, by the way, looked nothing like a flying saucer. More like a meteor. Zooooom. You know? With a fiery tail?”
O-kay. Maybe Bob still is a little crazy.
“Me and my fellow aliens were flying from Galaxatron to Cyrus Major 14,” he continues. “That’s a star cluster in the Noonoonobby Quadrant.”
“Riiight.”
“There was an accident. We were flying too low and collided with something. Could’ve been a flock of seagulls. Anyway, the spaceship crash-landed out there in the ocean. Everybody else on board? Well, let’s just say they weren’t as lucky as me.”
“You were the sole survivor?”
He nods. “That’s why I’ve spent my days here on the boardwalk, telling people that the Galaxatronians were coming back, because I wanted to see my friends again. My family. But today, I realized something: They’re not coming back. They can’t. But you know what?”
“What?”
“I don’t have to stay here. I can move on. I think it’s what they’d like me to do.”
“Yeah,” I say, smiling for the first time in about an hour. “I think you’re right. It’s okay to be glad you’re alive. That’s what my friend Gilda told me, too.”
“She the one with the frizzy hair?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s a keeper, kid.”
“I know.”
Bob stands up from the bench. Reaches into his pocket.
“Here you go, kid.”
He hands me a grubby quarter. Probably one of the ones I gave him. “Buy your girlfriend something nice. Maybe one of those jawbreaker-sized gum balls.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I think I will.”
Bob gives me a quick salute and drifts down the boardwalk.
Is he really an alien whose spaceship crashed into the Atlantic Ocean? I doubt it. But I figure that’s the story he made up to help him deal with whatever horrible loss he’d gone through, which sounded pretty close to mine. It’s like Uncle Frankie says: Always be kind, because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle you know nothing about.
Even Not-So-Crazy Bob.
I pull out my phone and call Gilda.
“Hi,” she says when she answers.
“Hi. I think I owe you a giant gum ball.”
Chapter 45
QUITTING TIME?
Gilda and I talk and text all night.
Neither one of us watches me on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
“Yep,” she says. “Sometimes you totally are.”
Then we laugh.
Then we move on.
Gilda has, once again, totally forgiven me.
And yes, me being me, she has to do that a lot!
We return to school on Monday with a renewed renewed sense of purpose and urgency. We will save the library. We will stop Ms. Denning from leaving town. We will buy a humongous gum ball with Not-So-Crazy Bob’s gnarly quarter—but only after we do all the other stuff.
We have five days.
You can do a lot in five days. Heck, I’ve even received spam e-mails telling me I can lose all the weight I want in five days—not that I’m really interested in doing that, but it is good to know that I could if I ever wanted to.
During our free period, we head to the library to do the brainstorming we planned to do last Friday. I vaguely remember that we originally met here to brainstorm ideas for Jamie Funnie, but that would have to wait.
The library—and Uncle Frankie—needed me more.
“Maybe the whole after-school-classes idea was the wrong angle,” says Gilda as we make our way down the hall. “We need to save the library as a library.”
“But you’re right,” I tell her. “The stand-up comedy showcase is still our best chance for getting a ton of kids in here on the big day.”
We roll into the library.
And see a bunch of construction guys stretching measuring tapes against the walls and bookcases.
Ms. Denning is at her desk, packing her tape dispenser and Chinese waving-kitty clock into a cardboard box.
“Ms. Denning?” says Gilda. ??
?What’s going on?”
“I’m following Jamie’s lead,” she says. “I’m giving up.”
“Um, over the weekend I totally changed my mind,” I say. “I’m not doing that giving-up thing anymore. We’re going to save this library!”
“Thanks, you guys,” says Ms. Denning with a sigh. “But I think it’ll be too little, too late. If Coach Ball is so dead set against a library, I’m not sure I want to be a librarian at his school anymore.”
“It’s not his school,” says Gilda. “It’s ours!”
“No, Gilda. Right now, Coach Ball is the one who gets to call all the shots.”
“But what about Uncle Frankie?” I ask.
“I’ll miss him. I’ll miss you guys. I’ll even miss Vincent O’Neil. But I’m tired of fighting a losing battle.”
“So,” I say, “let’s turn it into a winning battle.”
She shakes her head. “Impossible.”
“Impossible? Oh, you mean like me winning a national comedy contest or Gilda winning a full-ride scholarship to UCLA. But guess what? Both of those impossible things turned out to be possible.”
“Impossible is just an opinion,” says Gilda.
Ms. Denning smiles weakly. “I used to believe the same thing.”
That’s when Coach Ball strides into the library.
“Ms. Denning?” he barks. “Have you called Goodwill or the Salvation Army? Come next Monday, we need somebody to haul away all these books!”
“It’s on my to-do list,” she says, glancing back at us.
That’s when Gilda and I realize: We need a to-do list of our own!
Chapter 46
SECRET ANNOUNCEMENT
Item number one on our list: Make a major announcement.
And we need to do it undetected by Coach Ball or his poor sidekick, Ms. Bumgarten.
“The vice principal is in the nurse’s office,” says Gilda. “Apparently, working for a boss who’s also a bully will give you stomach issues.”
“Speaking of the big bully, where’s Coach Ball?” I ask.
“He’s locked inside his office with a pair of muscleheads whose arms look like they’re made out of bowling balls,” reports Gaynor. He’s been tracking the principal for us. “Whoever the two jocks are, they came to school in one of those vans with a humongous ad for Meathead protein shakes.”
“That means they might be in there for a while,” says Pierce. “Coach Ball seems quite dedicated to that particular beverage.”
“Even though it tastes like glue soup,” I add.
“You’ve tried it?” asks Gilda, surprised.
“Once. Stevie has a case of the stuff crammed into the Smileys’ refrigerator. Hoped it might, you know, give me muscles where I need them most.” I nod toward my legs. “So I gagged down a sip. Thought I was going to die. I can’t believe it’s all Stevie drinks or eats every day.”
“Well,” says Gilda, “if Coach Ball is busy, we need to get busy!”
Fortunately, it’s lunchtime. Half the school is in the cafeteria. And anything we tell them, they’ll tell to the other half, who eat lunch later.
I autograph an eight-by-ten glossy for Gus the janitor. (His daughter is a big fan of Jamie Funnie). He brings me the cordless microphone they use for assemblies.
“You’re not going to make another puddle, are you, kid?” he asks before turning it over.
“No, sir. Just a major announcement.”
“And Coach Ball says it’s okay?”
I can’t lie. “Not really.”
Gus shrugs. “Works for me. I’ll be honest with you here, Jamie. I don’t really like our new principal. He pinned me to the floor the other day. And it was a bathroom floor that needed mopping, if you catch my drift.”
I nod so he’ll spare me the gory details.
Gus hands me the mic.
“Knock ’em dead, kiddo!”
I roll to the center of the room.
“Hey, everybody. Don’t want to disturb your lunch. I know it’s beanie-weenie day. Personal fave of mine. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, we are going to host a comedy showcase in the library this coming Friday.”
Silence.
After my terrible comedy classes, I can’t blame them for doubting me. I even doubted myself.
Gilda grabs the microphone from me. “One of our lucky participants will be chosen, at random, to make a special walk-on appearance on the hit TV show Jamie Funnie!”
“Wow,” I say when Gilda hands me back the mic. “A walk-on? I wish I could play that part!”
Everybody laughs.
“Good one, Jamie,” shouts Vincent O’Neil, who, of course, is sitting in the front row again. The guy always gets the best seat in the house.
“And this time,” I say, “I’m not teaching any comedy classes.”
“Woo-hoo!” shouts Vincent.
“Nope. You guys are going to school me! I want to hear jokes about stuff that’s never been joked about before. I want you to surprise me with fresh, new material about subjects that you wouldn’t think would be funny. Everything from archaeology to zoology and all the -ologies in between.”
“Why?” asks Vincent.
“I guess I’m just tired of the same old knock-knock jokes and puns. And I want you guys to learn to find the funny in everything. It might not be easy, but it’s worth trying.”
“Wait a second,” says Max Garner, a kid in the seventh grade. “How are we supposed to make jokes about junk we don’t know anything about?”
“Easy,” I say. “The library. Do a little research. Remember, jokes start with a fact or observation. Then all you have to do is give it a little twist or a funny spin. And don’t forget—everything you’ve ever wanted to know is in that room.”
“All of it?” says Max Garner skeptically.
“Okay. Technically, not everything, because like they say, people learn something new every day. But we’ve got enough information in there to launch a bazillion jokes! So let’s get to work!”
Gilda grabs the microphone again. “You heard Jamie! Let’s do it, people!” she shouts. “Show me the funny! Win a spot on a national TV show!”
Whole tables abandon their beanie weenies and dash up the hall to the library.
If this TV-director thing doesn’t work out, I really think Gilda would be a better coach than Coach Ball.
Not that it would be very hard.
Chapter 47
NERDY JOKE-ATHON
For the next few days, the library is packed.
Everybody is in there grabbing books and trying to work up jokes about subjects no professional comedian has ever joked about before. For instance, atoms. Seriously. When was the last time you heard a guy on TV joking about protons, neutrons, and electrons? But right after Vincent O’Neil grabs a book in the science section, he comes at me with a joke that’s not half bad.
“So, Jamie, listen to this—two atoms are walking along. One of them says, ‘Oh, no, I think I lost an electron.’ ‘Are you sure?’ says the other. ‘Yes, I’m positive.’”
If you haven’t gotten to that part in science class yet, atoms change their charge from negative to positive when they lose an electron. Look, you’re learning something—consider this the world’s funniest textbook!
“I’ve been checking out the history of ancient Rome,” says Max Garner.
“What’ve you got?” I ask him.
“How was the Roman Empire cut in half?”
“I don’t know. How?”
“With a pair of Caesars!”
Okay. It’s kind of corny. But everybody’s having fun learning new stuff and giving it a goofy gag line.
“Jamie, this is amazing,” says Ms. Denning, who’s overwhelmed by the number of students swarming through her stacks.
“We just rebranded the library,” says Gilda. “Instead of an information resource center, it’s a joke creation lab!”
“Well,” says Ms. Denning, “I’ve always said learning should be fun. You guys are
making it funny, too!”
I roll around the room. Check in with everybody doing research.
“This is great, you guys,” I tell them all.
“Remember, the comedy showcase is Friday, so don’t tell me all your jokes. Save some for the show.”
And then I’m hit with the biggest surprise of all.
Stevie Kosgrov bursts into the library and stomps straight toward me.
Uh-oh.
He must’ve been sent by Coach Ball to shut down our library joke lab. Looks like my teaching—and breathing—days are officially over.
I close my eyes, not wanting to see the Meathead-protein-shake-powered fist coming at me.
“I need to hide!” he whispers.
I open my eyes. “Whaaat?”
He looks around quickly like a nervous meerkat. “From Coach Ball. This is the last place on earth he’d look for me.”
I smile because Stevie is reminding me of when I had to hide in the library from him.
“So, uh, why do you need to hide from your coach?” I ask.
“He’s such a big bully. And I didn’t meet my sales quota this week. You should’ve seen what he did to Lars Johannsen!”
“Really? What are you guys selling?”
“Meathead protein shakes. I hate those things. They’re like Milk of Magnesia but without the minty aftertaste.”
When he says that, a couple of kids close by chuckle.
“It’s hard to describe how bad it tastes,” Stevie babbles on. “But have you ever sucked on any of your dirty socks when they were wet?”
Everybody who can hear starts cracking up.
Well, what do you know? Stevie funny.
“The other day,” Stevie continues, “I said to Coach Ball, ‘I want to know what’s in those shakes.’ And he said, ‘No, you don’t.’ When the chemistry teacher asked us, ‘What explosive result do you get when you mix sodium and water?’ I told him, ‘Meathead protein shakes!’ When Coach Ball asked me why I didn’t want to be on the wrestling team anymore, I told him I didn’t have the time or the crayons to explain it to him.”