Funny Kid [2] Read online

  Dedication

  For Chren.

  Thank you for being

  Max’s great champion and

  for getting in the trenches with us.

  Onward and upward!

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1: Every Hero Has an Origin Story . . .

  2: Prank You Very Much!

  3: Okay, I Probably Need a Plan to Deal with This . . .

  4: Nothing Funny About a Farting Clown! (Don’t Laugh!)

  5: I Cannot Work Under These Conditions!

  6: What’s a Hero Without a Superpower? (Batman . . . Iron Man . . . Mickey Mouse . . .)

  7: Don’t Look at the Other Page! There’s a Turtle Bottom.

  8: This Chapter Contains Old People.

  9: I Spy with My Little Eye . . . No Grandpa.

  10: Just When You Thought It Couldn’t Get Any Worse . . .

  11: Disappearing Old Men and Farting Rockets Are Just the Beginning . . .

  12: Maybe Redhill Needs a Hero, Not a Funny Kid?

  13: You Can Call Me Detective Walburt!

  14: I’m Operating on a Whole Other Level!

  15: Live Life on the Hedge!

  16: This Chapter Doesn’t Go Well for Me. Just Skip It.

  17: Don’t You Dream in Comic Book Form?

  18: A Plan of Pure Genius! (If I Do Say So Myself!)

  19: You’re On, Captain Kickduck!

  20: Hugo Seems to Be Losing His Hearing, Poor Fella.

  21: Yoo-Hoo! Where Are You, Little Clownie-Wownie?

  22: The Stage Is Mine!

  23: Why Can’t I Sleep?

  24: Wait. What?

  25: Hugo’s So Cute When He’s Cranky.

  26: It’s My Big Night!

  27: Ooh. It’s Dark out Here.

  28: And the Winner Is . . .

  Thank You!

  About the Author

  Books by Matt Stanton

  Back Ads

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Can you remember being born?

  I can. I know I was a baby at the time, but I’ve got a really good memory.

  There I was, all cozy and warm, watching TV. (If you’re feeling confused, yes, there was a TV in my mom’s tummy. There was probably one in your mom’s too, you just don’t remember.)

  I was watching Captain Kickbutt, which is still the most awesome cartoon on TV, when suddenly there was this creaking sound.

  It’s probably nothing, I told myself. Just something wrong with the plumbing again. I went back to my show. Then the walls began to wobble! To be honest, I thought we were having an earthquake.

  Now, you have to understand, these were the walls of my happy place. I’d spent a good nine months decorating! I’d hung up pictures, there was a mirror so that I had someone to talk to, even an inspirational quote or two on the fridge.

  Then I heard someone say, “Looks like we’re having a baby!” Weird. I wanted to yell:

  But then things really started to move. I’ll spare you the details, but try to imagine . . . actually, don’t. Just don’t. Finally it was over, and FLASH-BUMP-BOING I was out and everyone could see my bum.

  The doctor gave me to my mom and dad, and they said things like, “It’s a boy” and “I can’t believe he’s real” and “His face looks a bit funny.” Yeah, well, I’d like to see your face after doing the obstacle course I just did. Cut me some slack, people!

  Instead they cut the umbilical cord, took me home, and called me Max.

  Even back then I was a funny kid.

  I quickly discovered that no one had been entertaining my parents, so I figured that must be why they’d brought me on board.

  My mom is a boss in a big company and my dad invents strange things in our backyard shed. They’re pretty busy, so I run the house. I make sure the meals get eaten, the clothes get dirtied, and the rooms get messed up so that there’s always something to clean at the end of the day. To be honest, I think my parents were a little lost before I came along.

  It’s up to me to ask them questions they can’t answer. For example:

  It helps them stay mentally sharp.

  After they’ve had a long and difficult day, I like to help them put their feet up, prop pillows behind their heads, and play the what-are-we-doing-tomorrow? game. It goes like this:

  You can play for hours. They love it. It helps them relax at the end of the day and I know that because the game nearly always ends with a conversation about going to bed.

  And you know what? When Mom makes me hug her good night, I’m sure I can still hear the Captain Kickbutt theme song playing on repeat inside her tummy.

  I always get in trouble for leaving the TV on.

  A few years after I was born, Mom and Dad had another baby, my little sister, Rosie. That was probably a mistake though.

  They didn’t realize they’d won the lottery with me, even though I tried to tell them having a kid with my level of awesome was pretty rare. Lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice, people! I was a blessing. Rosie’s a dingbat.

  I take my job as Chief Walburt Entertainer (CWE) very seriously, although not everyone appreciates it. I dressed up as a clown once to try to make my grandpa laugh. For some reason, he really didn’t like that. He told me the only use for clowns was as food for the circus lions. Then he went and sat on the toilet for the rest of our visit.

  My grandpa is a grump. Mom says he thinks Planet Earth is his house and everyone else popped in without asking. Dad says not to worry about it and just to pretend that Grandpa has that look on his face because you interrupted him sucking on a lemon.

  I tried sucking on a lemon. It does do that to your face!

  But I don’t let party poopers like Grandpa stop me. Making people laugh is the best thing ever. It’s also pretty much the only thing I’m good at. Being the funny kid is a good gig and I’ll get Grandpa to smile one day. I know I will.

  That is, if the police can ever find him.

  I’m getting way ahead of myself. Let’s go back to Tuesday – the day Grandpa goes missing.

  It starts like any other Tuesday – with me trying to play a prank on our new teacher. (Who am I kidding? I try to play a prank on our new teacher every day. It’s important to practice these things!)

  That’s Miss Sweet. Miss Sweet has just started teaching our class at Redhill Middle School after our last teacher . . . well, you know how it goes. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the . . . out of the . . . fireplace?

  “Nothing!” I reply. This is a lie, of course, but not a bad one. It’s a setup. I don’t want her to believe me. I don’t want anyone else to believe me either.

  I want everybody’s attention though, and now I have it.

  I continue to fumble in my pocket. We’re all sitting at our desks, trying to work on math problems or something, but now all the kids in my class are wondering what I’m hiding.

  That’s Hugo.

  I’m Hugo’s best friend, but I’m leaving my best friend position vacant. You never know who might come along. In the meantime though, ol’ Hugo’s more than welcome to hang around.

  Hugo wants to know the gag, but can wait like everyone else. You can’t ask me what happens at the end of the movie when it’s only just started!

  Miss Sweet is walking toward my desk and straight into my trap. She’s very young for a teacher. Apparently this is her first job after college, which is both good and bad. Good because it makes her the ideal candidate for pranks – her teacher senses aren’t tuned yet to the dangers of the class clown. Bad because it takes time to figure out a new teacher and this one is extra puzzling.

  Miss Sweet doesn’t yell, she doesn’t throw pens, she never stands o
n chairs and points at you. Miss Sweet has this superpower where everyone desperately wants to be liked by her, so kids just do what she wants without her needing to yell at them. It’s really weird. Plus, it makes the whole Student versus Teacher battle much trickier when the teacher is . . . nice.

  “Stand up, please, young Max.”

  “I don’t think this is a good idea, Max,” Hugo hisses as I stand up. “Whatever your idea is.”

  Miss Sweet stops in front of me. “Take your hand out of your pocket,” she says.

  “That’s okay, Max,” she says, and smiles. Smiles! Who is this teacher? “You don’t need to advise me. You can just do what I ask you to do, thank you.”

  Everyone in class is watching. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Kevin and Layla and Abby . . . ugh, Abby. We’ll get to her later. For now, just imagine chomping on a pickle that’s covered in mustard and frog vomit. Yep. Abby makes life taste like that.

  All the kids are craning their necks, trying to see what I’m going to take out of my pocket. This is working perfectly. It’s no good being funny by yourself. (Well, it is, but if anyone sees you telling yourself jokes and then laughing hysterically, they’ll send you to a special doctor.)

  A funny kid needs an audience, which means you have to get everyone’s attention first. I find using a little suspense is a great way to get it.

  Slowly I remove my hand from my pocket. I keep it in a closed fist. The thing everyone wants to see is hidden inside my fingers.

  Miss Sweet extends her open hand toward me. “Give it to me, please,” she says.

  I love this moment . . . right before everyone bursts into laughter. I can sense the love and adoration I’m about to receive. I can almost touch it.

  I stretch out my fist . . . uncurl my fingers . . . and give Miss Sweet a live mouse!

  She shrieks!

  The mouse squeaks!

  Miss Sweet flicks away her hand.

  The mouse flies through the air and lands in Hugo’s hair!

  Hugo screams.

  He leaps up and the mouse goes flying again, this time straight onto Layla’s nose with a squelch and a squeak.

  Layla makes a sound that reminds me of an elephant sitting on a hedgehog, and the mouse drops, scampers across the floor, and up Ryan’s leg into his shorts! It must be warm and cozy in there.

  Ryan stands bolt upright, knocks over two desks, and then flees out the classroom door, the poor little mouse clinging to his undies and creating a strange-looking lump on Ryan’s bottom.

  A room full of furious eyes glare at me.

  “MAAAAX!” they all yell at once.

  Really? Not one laugh?

  Miss Sweet looks at me. Even after that, she won’t yell. How is that even possible? What does a kid have to do?

  “I think you just earned yourself a lunchtime detention, funny kid,” she says.

  Abby Purcell decides this is a good time for her to speak up.

  Oh. So people laugh at that?

  “The Unfunny Kid. The UNFUNNY KID?”

  Hugo, Duck, and I are walking from school to the auditions for the Redhill talent quest. It’s called Redhill’s Got Talent or something.

  I guess I should be focusing on my audition, but I can’t get today’s comedy disaster out of my head.

  The Unfunny Kid! That nickname better not stick.

  “It could have been worse,” Hugo says as we make our way down the main street of Redhill, heading toward the town hall, where the auditions are being held.

  “You could have been sent to the principal,” Hugo says. “I thought that was going to happen for sure. Hey, where did you even get the mouse from?”

  “Duck caught it for me,” I reply. Duck looks up when he hears his name. My devoted feathered friend follows me everywhere. I tell everyone it’s because I’ve trained him. The truth is, he thinks I’m his mommy . . . but I keep that to myself for obvious reasons.

  “Miss Sweet is lovely,” Hugo says with a blissful smile on his face. Ugh, yuck.

  “She can’t be lovely, Hugo. If she’s lovely, then everyone will love her. And if everyone loves her, then I can’t play pranks on her.”

  “Everyone does love her.”

  “Exactly,” I say. ‘The worst-est.’”

  The town hall is in front of us now, and hanging outside is a big banner advertising the talent quest this Saturday. It’s to raise money for Redhill Nursing Home. That’s where Grandpa lives.

  One way to make everyone forget today’s comedy catastrophe is for me to win the talent quest with my stand-up comedy routine.

  All the contestants are taken backstage by the stage manager, a skinny guy named Rupert. His pants are so tight they look like they’ve been stuck onto his legs, like the way Dad puts plastic on my schoolbooks. I wonder if Rupert has to squeeze out the air bubbles when he puts his pants on in the morning. He makes us stand in a big semicircle. I end up next to Abby Purcell.

  “Oh, hi there, Unfunny Kid!”

  Imagine that your shadow could talk to you. All the time. About the most boring things. On and on and on. Well, that’s what Abby’s like, and wherever I go, she manages to be there too.

  Rupert rubs his hands together in circles like he’s rolling a snot ball. I should tell Hugo. Hugo’s a snot-rolling master.

  Despite what our stage manager says, I’m not nervous at all.

  “Performing in front of people is one of our species’ biggest fears,” he continues.

  Not mine. The stage is my natural habitat. I was born for this. I’ve been making people laugh since day one. Unleash me on the world! Hollywood awaits!

  “We are going to commence with some relaxation exercises.”

  This Rupert guy is taking it all very seriously. I can’t believe he called us “species.” Speak for yourself, pal.

  Then someone farts.

  “Sorry, that was me.”

  No, not me!

  I turn to look at the contestant who claimed the gaseous eruption. It’s a clown!

  People laugh at that. Not Rupert.

  “What is your name, clown?”

  “Me? Oh, I’m Tumbles.”

  “Well, Tumbles, I’d like to remind you that you’re in the theater.” Rupert says that last word like it’s two words – the-ater. “A little respect, please.”

  “Yes, sir!” Tumbles salutes with his big red glove.

  Rupert looks like he’s got a hamster or two of his own, only his are stuck right up inside.

  We do breathing exercises to de-stress, although no one seems more stressed than Rupert himself.

  “Deep breath in. Hold. Hold. Okay, breathe out. Slowly. Slowly. Tumbles! No raspberries!”

  There are only two people who aren’t finding Tumbles very funny.

  Rupert, because I think he accidentally got a whole roll of toilet paper stuck in his bottom last time he went to the bathroom, and me, because I was not expecting to be competing with another comedian.

  I look around at the other contestants. They are more like what I had in mind. An opera singer, a man who has strapped a whole lot of saucepans to his body and is going to play Mozart on them, Abby Purcell pretending to be a magician, a mime artist, someone with a puppet, and a guy dressed as a horse.

  In other words, I was expecting a whole stage full of pathetic performances that make the audience feel like they have indigestion for an hour.

  Then I would come on as the funny kid, everyone would laugh, and I would win the competition and sign a ten-million-dollar book deal.

  Only now we have a problem. Someone else is funny.

  I think I’d better go talk to him.

  I don’t have to wait long for my opportunity. Rupert explains how the auditions are going to work – there are three judges who will decide if we make the cut to perform for the whole town on Saturday – then he puts us in a line. Tumbles and I find ourselves at the end behind Abby. I turn around to face him, comic versus comic.

  “Just so you know, Tumble-Pants, yo
u’re going down.” I point at the puffy flowers that are stuck to his clown suit as I talk.

  “Really? And who’s going to beat me? You?” The clown folds his enormous arms.

  Ooh, good one, Max (if I do say so myself).

  Tumbles draws an invisible circle around my face with his finger.

  Abby bursts out laughing.

  Grrrrrrr . . .

  All right, Tumbles. You’re going to pay for that.

  Most of the other contestants audition and they’re as terrible as you’d expect. I’ve got this sewn up.

  Then it’s Abby Purcell’s turn.

  Sonic the Hedgehog has Dr. Robotnik. Ben 10 has Vilgax. I have Abby Purcell.

  She thinks she’s going to beat me with a few magic tricks. Abby walks onto the stage wearing a black cape and a top hat. The hall is silent. Tumbles and I watch from the wings.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” she begins. “I am Abby the Purcellian, magician extraordinaire. I am an illustrator of illusion, a heroic hypnotist, and a master of mystery. And, what’s more, I’m only eleven!”

  Oh, give me a break.

  Abby lifts her top hat to reveal a white bunny perched on her head.

  Big deal.

  I agree.

  “. . . but it’s quite something to hide a cat under your rabbit.” As she lifts the bunny off her head, she reveals a kitten hiding underneath it. The judges clap.

  Tumbles whispers into my ear like a devil on my shoulder. “Ooh, she’s good.”

  “Go back to the circus, Dumbo!” I hiss.

  Abby proceeds to juggle the hat, rabbit, and cat. Surely they can’t be real. How is she even doing that? She then holds out the hat, and the rabbit and the cat fall inside it. I’m having a bit of a hard time pretending to be unimpressed.

  Then she shows everyone the inside of the hat and it’s completely empty!