Funny Business

by Jon Scieszka

  It might not surprise you that over time, Patrick developed a deep suspicion and even a dislike of me. He looked for every chance to get one over on me, and I used that to my advantage.

  When Patrick was in the fifth grade, he became a huge fan of professional wrestling. This was when the people involved in professional wrestling swore their sport was “real.” I spent hours trying to convince Patrick that it was all staged, but he tuned me out. He was convinced that the blood feud between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant was the real deal, and there was nothing I could do to break the spell.

  Professional wrestlers sport giant, ornate title belts when they win their weight division. Patrick and his fifth-grade friends wanted to be like Hulk Hogan, so they formed an arm-wrestling circuit at their school and made an impressively elaborate title belt out of construction paper. The thing was a real work of art.

  Patrick beat out his classmates to claim the title, and he brought the belt home with him. He proudly displayed his belt on a shelf in his bedroom.

  When I saw it, I knew it had to be mine.

  So I said, “Patrick, do you think I’m immature?”

  “Yeah!” he said, happy to criticize me.

  “Do you think I act my age, or do I act younger?” I said.

  “Younger!” he said, really getting into it.

  “Would you say I act like…a fifth grader?” I asked meekly.

  “YEAH!” he said happily.

  “Would you say I am a fifth grader?” I asked.

  “YEAH! Ha-ha!” he laughed.

  “Okay,” I said. “Wanna arm wrestle?”

  “Sure,” Patrick said, not at all phased by the turn in the conversation.

  We arm wrestled. I beat him. I relieved him of his fifth-grade arm-wrestling belt. To Patrick’s credit, he didn’t contest the results.

  I didn’t always come out on top. Patrick got in his licks, and once or twice, he got the best of me.

  One of those times was when Patrick was about seven years old. He wanted to watch He-Man on TV and I wanted to watch a show with music videos. These were the days before people had multiple televisions in their houses, and the family room was a battlefield.

  There was no question as to who was going to win in this case. I had the muscle, and Patrick was no match for me. I turned the knob on the TV to the channel with the music videos, then I went to get myself a snack from the laundry room (which is where, for some reason, my mom kept the junk food).

  The second I stepped into the laundry room, I heard a click behind me. Patrick had locked me into the laundry room by sliding a chain across the door. I could open the door a crack…just enough to see Patrick turn the channel back to He-Man and settle onto the couch.

  As Patrick got older, he started getting wise to my lying. He even started telling some lies of his own. That’s when things got pretty confusing, and we both realized we needed a fail-safe way of knowing when the other guy was telling the truth.

  So we started using the word “honest” as our bail-out word. Let me explain.

  Let’s say I told Patrick he had to wear pajamas to school because it was pajama day. He might say, “Really?” And I’d say, “Yep.”

  And then he’d say, “Are you lying?” and I’d say, “Nope.”

  But then he’d say, “Honest?” Only it was really drawn out, like this: “Honnnnnest?”

  And that would break me. I’d fess up and tell him the truth, sparing him the humiliation of going to school in his footie pajamas.

  I don’t know how that word became such a powerful truth serum between us. All I know is that it became an unbreakable oath, and neither of us ever dared to lie once that word was uttered. Using the “honest” card was like asking you to swear on your mother’s life. It became a sacred trust.

  One summer, Patrick went to a friend’s for a sleepover. The kid’s name was Andrew, and he was some sort of super-genius. He was the kind of kid who could build a working robot.

  Patrick returned from the overnight with a stunning tale. He said that Andrew had built a working laser cannon, just like the ones in the Star Wars films. Andrew had tossed a tennis ball in the air and fired the laser at it, blowing the ball to bits.

  I didn’t believe Patrick. I peppered him with questions about the details. What color was the laser beam? How long was the blast? What kind of sound did it make? And why did Andrew’s mother allow Andrew to create a dangerous weapon in his bedroom?

  But Patrick parried my questions with detailed answers. The laser beam was green. The blast was about the length of his arm. It made a loud sound, but Andrew had stuffed pillows under the door so his parents wouldn’t know what he was up to.

  And there was more. The laser beam had left a scorch mark on the wall, which Andrew had covered up by moving his dresser in front of it.

  I was pretty certain that this was all a lie, but it was a very detailed, well-thought-out lie. All of the pieces were there, and Andrew was a genius after all, so who knew what kind of things he could build?

  I needed to know the truth, so I played the only card I had.

  “Honest?” I asked Patrick.

  He paused for a very long time, then looked me square in the eye and said, in a somber voice, “Honest.”

  That affirmation completely rocked my world. Suddenly, everything I’d seen in science fiction movies was possible. Andrew could build a laser cannon. Could he build one for me? And if he could do that, could he create the Holy Grail of laser weapons: a light saber?

  My mind raced. How could we protect Andrew from the government goons who would surely descend on his house and take his experiments away? This laser cannon had to remain a secret. And most important, how could we profit from this invention? We were going to be rich…I was sure of it.

  As the weeks went by, I tried to set up a time when I could see Andrew’s laser cannon in person. But Patrick was very elusive and noncommittal. He didn’t seem to be able to arrange for an in-person demonstration of this fantastic weapon.

  Finally, Andrew came to our house for a sleepover. Patrick was acting strangely, as if he didn’t want me to talk to Andrew face to face. But finally, I got a moment alone with him.

  “When can I see your laser cannon?” I whispered to him in a feverish tone.

  “My what?” he said.

  “Your laser cannon!” I said, a little impatient.

  But Andrew was being coy. He was playing dumb, which I had to concede was a pretty good strategy given the nature of the weapon.

  I pressed on. “Listen, I know you built a laser cannon in your bedroom and that you blasted a tennis ball to smithereens with it. And I know all about the blast mark on your wall and how you covered it up with a dresser. I’m not going to tell anyone about it, so don’t worry.”

  Andrew stared at me blankly. Man, he was good. By this time, Patrick had entered the room, and he was acting very skittish.

  Then Andrew spoke. “I don’t have a laser cannon. Are you talking about my tennis ball shooter? I made something that can fling a tennis ball across the room.”

  So now I knew. There was no laser cannon. All of the excitement that I had stored up was drained in an instant. Patrick had a sheepish grin. In terms of lying, the student had surpassed the teacher.

  I had to respect him for that, but still, he had broken the sacred oath. Had he not uttered the unbreakable oath? Had he not said, “Honest”?

  I was furious. I marched upstairs to my mother’s room with Patrick nipping at my heels. He begged me not to tell on him, not to expose him as a liar.

  I burst into my mom’s bedroom. She was on the phone. I didn’t give a second thought to interrupting her.

  “Mom!” I said as she put her hand over the phone, annoyed.

  “Patrick told me Andrew built a laser cannon, and he said ‘HONEST’!” I exclaimed, fully expecting her to drop the phone in horror.

  I thought that a grounding was in order. Six months was reasonable. No snacks, no TV, no video games: That wo
uld just about do it.

  “So what?” said Mom.

  I admit I tormented my younger brother growing up, but if you ask me, I did him a favor. As an adult, Patrick is the least jumpy person I know, and I take full credit for that.

  When we were kids, I would scare my brother every chance I got. Any time there was an opportunity to jump out of a closet, or hide behind the shower curtain, or emerge suddenly from the furnace room, I was there.

  One time when Patrick was very young, I spent about an hour in the basement hiding behind a half wall as he played merrily with his Star Wars characters on the other side. I was a very patient hider, all the better to surprise my prey.

  I found some masking tape and rolled it in a perfect, slow arc around the half wall to where Patrick was playing with his action figures. The roll of tape came to a rest right in front of him.

  There was a long period of silence as Patrick tried to make sense of how a roll of masking tape might have moved across the floor all on its own. I think he came to the conclusion that a ghost was responsible.

  “MOMMMMMMMMM!” Patrick yelled.

  “RAHHHRRRRR!” I screamed, leaping up from my hiding place. Patrick just about jumped out of his skin.

  But this was a rare victory for me. Over the years, Patrick became more and more immune to my scare tactics. Even my best-executed screams and sudden appearances seemed to elicit less and less of a reaction over time. Finally, when Patrick was a teenager, it became impossible for me to get any kind of response at all.

  We had a deck on the back of the house, and my parents installed a hot tub. Before they filled it with water, I asked my father to help me to pull a prank on Patrick. It was a cold winter night, and I climbed into the empty hot tub and had my father put the heavy cover over me. Then my father went inside the house and asked Patrick to help lift the cover off of the hot tub.

  From where I was hiding, I could hear the muffled sounds of my father and brother approaching. As soon as they lifted the cover off of the hot tub, I sprang out and screamed like a cat whose tail had been run over by a truck.

  I was sure that this prank would be enough to scare anyone half to death. Even my father, who was in on the trick, was startled. But I got no response out of Patrick at all. Nothing. He might as well have been doing his taxes. That’s when I realized that trying to scare him was hopeless. I haven’t even tried in all the years since.

  A few minutes after I pulled the hot tub trick, Patrick’s friend, a big football player named Mike, came to our house. I quickly got my father and my brother to put the cover back over me to see if we could scare Mike.

  I did the same thing, leaping out of the hot tub and screaming. This time, the trick worked. I think I nearly scared Mike to death. He hyperventilated over the side of the deck for about fifteen minutes, trying to catch his breath. So at least that proved the trick itself was a good one. Just not good enough to scare Patrick.

  Even today, Patrick is always calm, and nothing really seems to rattle him. I just hope he knows he has his big brother to thank for that.

  Sadly, all good things come to an end. Over time, the abuse I heaped upon Patrick ended, and we became more like peers. Or maybe just more like normal brothers.

  Of course, brothers can still be rivals, and each of us needed a way to prove supremacy over the other. And just as we came up with a sacred trust in the word “honest,” we came up with a competition that was based on honor, sportsmanship, and a stuffed lion.

  The name of the game was Last Licks, and I believe it’s one of the purest games ever invented. It took us years to develop the rules of the game and create a perfect, balanced sport. I won’t be surprised if one day Last Licks becomes an official Olympics event.

  Here are the rules of Last Licks. You start with an agreed-upon projectile. For us it was a mangy, stuffed lion that belonged to our dog, Woofie. The object can’t be too hard or too soft. You have to be able to bean it at someone’s head without causing too much damage.

  You also need a dog for this game, and if you don’t have one, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Cat people need not apply.

  Last Licks starts with someone pegging the other with the projectile. That’s the official start of the game. It doesn’t matter if the other person is watching TV, reading a magazine, or eating. They need to stop what they’re doing and engage in the game.

  When the person who threw the projectile hits his target, he then taunts the other person by saying, “Last Licks!” and making his forefinger and thumb into an L. He then flips the L back and forth, preferably saying, “LL!” in an annoying fashion.

  If the other person does not reciprocate or engage in the game, the taunting continues. This can go on for days if necessary.

  The next step is for the person who has been hit to throw the projectile back at the original attacker. Here’s where the rules become more complicated.

  If the person throwing the projectile hits his mark, he now has “Last Licks” and can do some taunting of his own. If, however, the other person catches the projectile, the hit doesn’t count. The person who caught the projectile has five seconds to place the projectile on the ground so the thrower can recover it. If the catcher does not cough up the projectile in five seconds, then it’s as good as if he had been hit.

  Here’s where the dog comes into play. By this time in the game, the dog is excited that his stuffed animal is being thrown around and is watching it like a hawk. If the stuffed animal lands or is placed on the ground, the dog is likely to snatch it up and run away. This is where the game gets fun. The person with “Last Licks” can taunt the opposing player as the opposing player tries to chase down the dog with the projectile in its mouth.

  The perfect move in Last Licks is when you throw the projectile at the opposing player’s head, it bounces off, and the dog catches it and runs away. There’s really nothing better than that. It’s like pulling off a perfect McTwisty 1260 on a snowboard.

  So how do you win at Last Licks? It can’t go on forever, of course. There has to be a winner and a loser.

  The game ends when your dad wakes up and comes downstairs. See, Last Licks is always played late at night, in the family room, right underneath your parents’ bedroom. And something always happens to wake Dad up. You knock over a lamp, you break a piece of glass, the dog starts barking uncontrollably—something always happens to wake Dad up. And when Dad comes downstairs to give you a piece of his mind, the game is over, and whoever has Last Licks wins for the night.

  Like I said, it’s a perfect game. It was honed over years of play testing, rule changing, and waking up Dad. And I’m proud to say that over time, I netted the most wins. I was awesome at bouncing the lion off of Patrick’s head and landing it right in Woofie’s mouth.

  Of course, we couldn’t stay kids forever. Patrick and I each went off to college, came back to stay with Mom and Dad for a bit, then moved out. But shortly before our parents sold the house we grew up in, Patrick and I found ourselves hanging out in the family room and talking about old times.

  I spotted a ragged-looking tail underneath the couch. Could it be…the stuffed lion?

  We played one last rowdy game of Last Licks. And although my opponent battled fiercely, by the time Dad came downstairs and the dust had settled, I can proudly say I was the winner.

  Honest.

  “WHAT? YOU THINK YOU GOT IT ROUGH?”

  BY CHRISTOPHER PAUL CURTIS

  My gramps, Papa Red, has been living with us for a year now and is straight-up nuts. I don’t say that because the man can’t understand anything that was invented after the wheel, either. I say that because one day I’m gonna be a writer and I’ve trained myself to be real observant. As part of doing research for my upcoming autobiography I’ve read a bunch of issues of Modern Psychology and now, instead of wanting to knock Papa Red the mess out, I understand that he can’t help himself. The magazines say it’s all understandable why he lost his mind: it’s because of his father, Iron John, a man
who was so far off the deep end he was at the bottom of the ocean.

  Papa Red knew, kind of, what it was that had drove him nuts, too. Man, I’d be neighbors with Oprah Winfrey if I had a dollar for every time in the past twelve months he told me and my worthless brother, Chester, something like, “What? You little chumps think you got it rough? Y’all little momma’s boys ain’t got no idea what rough is. When I was your age my old man was so rough on me and my brothers and sisters that…” Then you fill in the blanks with any story that involves torturing children right up to the point of death.

  It was Monday and my turn to sit with Papa Red. I got to his bedroom door and Chester was standing just inside the doorway.

  Great. I was just in time to hear Gramps’s latest “had it so rough” story.

  He was saying to Chester, “That ain’t nothing. My daddy was so rough on us that he’d hang us upside down from the clothesline and smear honey on our faces and wouldn’t cut us down until the crows had come and plucked our eyes out! You hear me, boy? You got any idea how it feels to be dangling from a clothesline waiting for a crow to come pluck your eyes out? Sometimes the crows wouldn’t show up for days! Days, I’m saying! And not every crow in the world likes the taste of honey, neither, so you just hung there and waited until one with a sweet tooth flew by. And you best not try to wiggle off that clothesline or when Iron John caught hold of you he’d really put you on punishment! Now that’s being rough!”

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head. Chester, who I already told you is a certified moron, had to point out the obvious, “But Papa Red, I’m looking at your eyes right now. How’d you get ’em back from the crow?”

  Papa Red was real old-school, and back talk and sass like that always lead him to violence, and even though he’s stuck sitting in his wheelchair he can still do some damage if you aren’t careful. Right after you’d sass him he’d say something like, “Huh? I didn’t quite catch that, you know. I ain’t hearing good as I used to.” Then he’d try to distract you by cupping his left hand around his ear all the while reaching down with his right hand to grab hold of what he called his licking stick, hoping he could lure you a little closer.