“Can I ask you guys to make another phone call?” she whispers.
“To the authorities about Vincent?” I whisper back. “Don’t worry. He’s harmless. Just a little overenthusiastic.”
“I’m not worried about Vincent,” says Ms. Denning. “It’s your uncle Frankie. He seems so… different. He hasn’t yo-yoed for me in days. He even wants to know which opera is my favorite.”
Gilda and I both gulp. “He asked you about opera?”
Ms. Denning nods.
Wow. Uncle Frankie is in worse shape than we thought.
Chapter 24
UNCLE FRANÇOIS
After school on Monday, Gilda and I head to the diner to grab a quick snack.
And to have a word with Uncle Frankie.
On the way, we pass Crazy Bob—the guy with the cardboard sign about the upcoming alien invasion.
“The Galaxatronians are on their way,” he tells us. “They’ll be here by next weekend. Be sure you pack your toothbrush and a clean pair of underwear, Jamie!”
“Will do,” I tell him. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
Gilda and I each toss a quarter into his cup and hurry along to the diner. Uncle Frankie greets us at the door.
He’s wearing that bow tie again.
“Hiya, Uncle Frankie,” I say.
“Please, James. Call me François. It’s much more distinguished sounding, don’t you think?”
“Hey, I have an idea,” I tell Uncle Frankie. “How about you show us a new yo-yo trick? You can try it out on Gilda and me. Then, if it’s any good, you can show it to Ms. Denning when she gets here.”
“That’s a great idea,” says Gilda.
Uncle Frankie curls his nose like someone just ordered a double portion of liver and onions.
“A yo-yo trick? For Flora? Tut, tut. I’m surprised that you two would suggest such an uncouth, uncultured, and unsophisticated activity. Yo-yoing is beneath the dignity of an intellectual such as Flora.”
“No, it’s not,” I tell him. “Remember the other day, when she didn’t even recognize this place and left?”
Uncle Frankie (I mean François) pats me on the head. “When you’re older, James, you’ll understand. Now if you will excuse me, I must go whip up some tuna tartare!”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“Raw fish,” says Gilda. “Bait.”
“Hardly,” says Uncle Frankie. “It is a gourmet delicacy. Says so in this Gourmet Delicacy magazine I checked out from the public library.” He heads into the kitchen to not cook fish.
I slip behind the counter and take up my usual spot behind the cash register. Gilda grabs a stool.
I look around the dining room. Most of the booths and tables are empty. I see more candles and folded napkins than people. All the changes at the diner haven’t been great for romance or business.
Our most loyal regular, the big, burly bear Mr. Burdzecki, watches Uncle Frankie disappear into the kitchen, then rushes over to the counter.
“Quick,” he says in his thick Russian accent. “Tell me a joke, Jamie. Do not recite more poetry.”
“But Uncle Frankie said—”
“Please. I am begging you. No more poetry! A joke!”
“Um, okay.” I look around to make certain Uncle Frankie can’t hear me. Mr. Burdzecki’s favorite comic is Russian, a guy named Yakov Smirnoff, who was huge back in the 1970s and ’80s. But I know only about six of his jokes, and I’ve told them all to Mr. Burdzecki before. So I just make something up.
“What do you call a Russian who’s eaten too many baked beans?”
Mr. Burdzecki shrugs. “I do not know. What do you call him?”
“Vladimir Tootin!”
Mr. B. slaps his knee. “Jamie, you funny!”
“Thanks,” I say.
“No. I mean this. You funny. Do not forget this. It is who you are. And your poetry? It is not so good as your funny.”
And just like that, I know what I have to do.
I have to give Uncle Frankie the same pep talk he was always giving me back when I was competing in the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest. Whenever I was trying to work joke-book jokes into my act, he’d sit me down (okay, I was already seated, but you get the point) and say, “You’re always better when you make up your own material, Jamie. Just be who you are. Give us your slant on life.”
Now it’s my turn to school him.
Ms. Denning wants Uncle Frankie to be Uncle Frankie, not Chef François.
“Wish me luck,” I say to Gilda.
And then I roll into the kitchen to have the Talk.
Chapter 25
TALKING THE TALK (WITHOUT WALKING THE WALK)
Um, Uncle Frankie? Can we talk?”
He gets a worried look in his eye. “Sure, kiddo. What’s up?”
“Well, I’m probably not the best one to be giving you romantic advice—”
“True,” says Gilda, who is hanging out in the doorway, pretending like she’s not totally eavesdropping on us.
“Come on in,” I tell Gilda with a sigh. “I might need your help.”
“For what?” asks Uncle Frankie.
“Telling you the truth.”
Gilda comes into the kitchen.
“Grab a pickle tub,” I tell her.
She sits down on a five-gallon plastic bucket. Uncle Frankie sits down on the one next to hers.
“So, what’s this all about?” asks Uncle Frankie. “Do we need fresh candles in the dining room? More Mozart symphonies in the jukebox?”
“No,” I say. “We need doo-wop music. And burgers. And fries with gravy.”
“And napkins that don’t look like frozen birds,” adds Gilda.
“Oh. I get it. You kids aren’t crazy about the improvements. Well, our more sophisticated clientele, such as the librarians of the neighborhood, enjoy the finer things in life, including properly folded napkins and flickering candelabras.”
I shake my head. “No, they don’t. They like yo-yos and you-you.”
“Huh?”
“Ms. Denning,” says Gilda. “She likes you for you, sir. The old you. The one in the white apron with the grease stains and ketchup splatters.”
“It’s like you always tell me, Uncle Frankie,” I say. “It’s always best to be yourself instead of some version of who you think other people want you to be.”
Uncle Frankie smiles a little. “Flora wants me to yo-yo?”
I nod. “Yes!”
“She likes you for you,” says Gilda. “As a guy, you probably have a hard time realizing that. Most guys never know when a girl is truly interested in them.”
Gilda gives me a funny, eyebrows-raised look. I don’t know why.
“She told you kids this?” asks Uncle Frankie, fiddling with his black bow tie.
“Yep,” I say.
“I see,” he says, looking like he’s doing some serious thinking. After a moment, he jumps up and shouts, “Thank goodness!”
Gilda and I can only stare as he yanks off his tie and then peels open his formal monkey suit like Superman.
Gilda and I help Uncle Frankie blow out all the candles in the restaurant and turn up all the lights.
“Buh-bye, Mr. Mozart!” Uncle Frankie bops the side of the jukebox. A doo-wop group starts singing “Why Do Fools Fall in Love.”
One line strikes me as extremely strange: “Why does the rain fall from up above?”
“Because it would be weird if rain came up out of the dirt,” I want to tell the singer. But he’s too busy rhyming above with love.
And that’s when Ms. Denning comes through the door. She’s beaming. Uncle Frankie is beaming and twirling his yo-yo. Fools are falling in love all over the place!
“Isn’t this wonderful?” says Gilda, batting her eyes at me.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Now we can order a cheeseburger deluxe with cheesy fries again.”
The way Gilda rolls her eyes at me tells me one thing.
That wasn’t the answer she was going
for.
Chapter 26
HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN
Uncle Frankie is back to flipping burgers with one hand while twirling yo-yo tricks with the other.
“I call this little combo the Breakaway Pinwheel Lindy Loop with a Time-Warp Twist!” he says, showing off his flashy moves to Ms. Denning.
Ms. Denning is thrilled.
“Now this is the Francis I…”
Whatever she was about to say, she changes it in midsentence.
“Remember.”
Ms. Denning becomes even happier when Pierce and Gaynor show up with the poster they’ve been putting together for the Stand Up for Books benefit this coming Friday night.
“You really got Jacky Hart and Jim Gaffigan?” She sounds amazed.
“Yep,” says Gilda. “Gaffigan loves food. Told me a diner is his idea of what heaven will be like. Especially if there’s pie.”
“Oh, there will be,” says Uncle Frankie. “Apple, cherry, and banana cream!”
“Those dudes from the funny-kid competition are coming, too,” says Gaynor, tapping their names on the poster.
“Antony Guerrero, the Klein sisters, and Ben Baccaro all said yes,” adds Pierce.
“And of course,” says Gilda, “Jamie is the headliner. The big draw. The hometown hero. The one everybody is coming to see, live and in person.”
Gulp.
I wish she hadn’t put it that way. Did I mention that I have a bad habit of panicking right before my biggest shows? You could write a book about it. Maybe even five.
As everybody else has a great dinner of meat loaf, peas, and mashed potatoes, I can feel the flop sweat dribbling down my back like rain gushing out of a leaf-clogged gutter.
That night, things go from bad to worse to horrible.
The aliens land!
Yep. Crazy Bob was right.
The Galaxatronians arrive early. Around midnight. They blast the boardwalk, demolish the diner, and totally scorch the school. On the plus side, since we don’t have a school or a library anymore, I don’t have to worry about prepping a lesson plan for that class on how to be a comedian.
Too bad I wake up and realize the world hasn’t come to an end. It was just another one of my wacky nightmares. I guess it comes from falling asleep worrying about all the scary stuff: the benefit, the comedy class, and the fact that Stevie Kosgrov sleeps two doors down.
The next morning, I roll into the library and talk to Ms. Denning.
“I think I have to focus on the benefit show this week,” I tell her. “When that’s done, I’ll put together my plans for the comedy class.” I gesture toward the calendar, where the last day of the month is circled in red. “We’ll still have two whole weeks to pack the library with kids for the big day at the end of the month.”
“That sounds like an excellent idea,” she says. “I bet we can sign up a ton of students for your class at the benefit concert! Plus, with you, Jacky Hart, and Jim Gaffigan, who knows—we might raise enough money to buy more books, more computers, more iPads, and a 3-D printer for our new makerspace! If we have those things, that’ll be sure to draw more kids to the library, too. No pressure, though.”
Outside, I’m smiling and nodding.
Inside? I’m sweating and dying!
Chapter 27
BRAINSTORMS WITH A CHANCE OF FOG
I realize that what I need (besides a bus ticket out of town) is some brand-new material for the benefit show.
So after school, Gilda, Pierce, Gaynor, and I meet in the library to work up a fresh routine.
“Okay,” says Gilda, “it’s a benefit for the school library.…”
“So just do a string of library jokes, dude,” says Gaynor. “Duh. That was easy.”
“Well done,” says Pierce. He and Gaynor knock knuckles.
Then they look at me.
“Um, okay, uh…” I rack my brain, trying to remember any library jokes I might’ve read or heard. “Okay. Here’s one. A guy comes into the library with an overdue book. The librarian says, ‘This book about amnesia was due four weeks ago!’ The guy says, ‘Really? I forgot.’”
Gaynor chuckles. Pierce grimaces. Gilda shakes her head.
And that’s when Vincent O’Neil barges into the room.
“Hi, guys. Is this another brainstorming session?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “I need new material for the Stand Up for Books show…this Friday night! It’s like three days away because it is three days away!”
I’m pretty sure everyone can hear the panic in my voice.
“Well,” says Vincent, “since it’s a benefit for a library, you should do library and librarian jokes!”
“That’s what I said!” exclaims Gaynor. “Total no-brainer, dude.”
“However,” says Pierce, “it might be best if they were good jokes.”
“No problemo!” says Vincent. “I’ve got a million of ’em! Do you know where librarians sleep? Between the covers. When they eat dinner, they use bookplates. If you go to a seven-story library and check out seven books, how many are left? None! I told you they had only seven stories!”
“O-kay,” says Gilda when Vincent finishes his run of one-liners. And then she gets that look in her eye again. The one where you can actually see the brainstorm clouds swirling madly inside her brain. “Oooh. I’ve got it. This is fabtastic. You don’t write any material!”
“What?”
“You do an improv. An off-the-cuff, seat-of-your-pants, no-prep book talk!”
“Huh?”
Gilda hops up and grabs a library cart loaded down with books that Ms. Denning plans on reshelving.
“Close your eyes and pick one,” she tells me. “And then tell me about it.”
I give it a shot. What do I have to lose?
The first book I pluck off the cart is The Maze Runner, by James Dashner.
“Ah, yes,” I say. “One of my favorites. It’s all about a mouse in a twisted psychology experiment who can’t find the cheese in a maze, so he keeps running around.” I do a rodent face and a squeaky mouse voice. “Where’s my cheese? Come to think of it, where are my Cheetos? Where’s the nearest Chuck E. Cheese’s? It’s my birthday!”
Everybody cracks up.
Gilda tosses me another book.
“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” I say, reading the title. And then I wing another book talk. “This is all about a very hairy guy who likes to make pottery. He has one of those wheels and all sorts of wet clay, but every time he goes to throw a bowl, his hair gets tangled up in the spinning mud.” I grab my throat like my long locks have become a noose around my neck. “Ack! It’s dangerous being a hairy potter.…”
“Hysterical!” declares Gilda.
“Awesome,” adds Gaynor.
“Very amusing,” says Pierce.
“And,” says Vincent, “if you run out of ideas, you can always use some of my librarian jokes.”
“Thanks,” I say.
But I don’t think I’m going to need any of Vincent’s material. Thanks to Gilda, I feel funny again!
Chapter 28
ROLLING ON THE FLOOR LAUGHING
Friday night, the diner is packed.
It’s standing room only for everybody except me and a few of my wheelchair buds.
Uncle Frankie is in his tuxedo (but he’s not saying “Tut, tut” or calling himself François anymore) giving everybody the red carpet treatment as they enter. Ms. Denning shows up wearing a sparkly gown. I think she made it with a glue gun and sequins in her new makerspace at the library. The Smileys are there, too. Fortunately, Stevie isn’t with them. I spy the new principal, Coach Ball, lurking in the shadows near the jukebox. He’s chugging some kind of goopy protein shake out of a plastic bottle. And belching.
Then Jacky Hart comes in with some of her castmates from Saturday Night Live. Jim Gaffigan is right behind her, and the crowd goes crazy.
“Welcome, everybody,” I say, since I’m the emcee, or master of ceremonies. “Thank yo
u all for being here tonight and helping us raise so much money for the Long Beach Middle School library!”
The crowd applauds.
“We hope to have you all rolling on the floor with laughter… not just me and my pals in the wheelchairs. And don’t forget to bid on all the cool stuff in the silent auction. Jacky Hart has donated an autographed copy of her book, Jacky Ha-Ha. I signed a copy of the first Jamie Funnie TV show script. And Mr. Gaffigan signed a sandwich he didn’t finish for lunch today.”
Gaffigan leans down and takes my mic. “Do you know how hard it is to sign your name in mustard and ketchup?” he jokes.
We start the show with some hilarious routines from my pals from the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest.
Ben and the Klein sisters are hysterical, like always. But Antony Guerrero, who was the Southwest Regionals winner from Albuquerque, New Mexico, does a killer set that slays everybody.
(Nobody really died—that’s just what we say when a comedian is amazing!)
I’ve always admired Antony’s comedy. He’s fearless and never worries about being politically correct.
After he finishes, Jacky Hart takes the stage with a few of her Saturday Night Live friends.
Since we’re in a diner doing a benefit for a literary cause, they do a funny sketch about Shakespeare’s Hamelet—a play all about a ham and Swiss omelet.
It’s pretty funny. Especially when Jacky and her friends do modern dance moves, pretending to be the sizzling, shriveling ham.
Gilda wheels in a library cart loaded down with books. “You’re up after Gaffigan,” she reminds me.
Not that she has to.
I’m sweating more than that fried ham in Jacky Ha-Ha’s Hamelet.
Especially when I notice who just slipped into the diner: Stevie Kosgrov and Lars Johannsen!