It turns out that even a semi-cruddy house in the city is worth something. Once we sold Grandma’s, it was enough to help pay the rent on our new place for a long time. We’re in an apartment now, not a house, but it’s big enough for all four of us. That means no more sleeping on the couch!
I guess if there’s a bad part to all this, it would be Matty the Freak. I tried calling him again before we moved out of the city, but he never called me back.
And you know what? That’s okay too. I had a lot of fun with Matty for a while there, but I don’t think he was ever a very good friend to begin with.
Besides, maybe none of this good stuff would have happened if he hadn’t done what he did. So I can’t be completely mad about that either. I even got to put him on my Get a Life list—twice! Not only did I make a friend for the first time in middle school, but I also lost one for the first time. (Hey, getting a life is all about the good and the bad, right?)
And yes, I still have my list. I’m up to 279 things now, and counting. Once I thought about it, I figured why stop at 195? Or ever? Sometimes Mom says life is just a work in progress, and that seems about right to me. I’m still working on getting a life, and MAYBE even turning myself into an artist. Who knows?
Which brings me to the last, very best thing that happened.
Swifty gave me something else I could add to my list that I’d never done before—my very own art show.
Maybe it was because the pressure was off… I don’t know… but it didn’t even take me long to figure out what I wanted to do. In fact, it kind of seemed obvious once I thought about it.
Turn the page and check it out.
Everyone came to the opening reception at Swifty’s and ate a ton of pie. Jeanne brought her parents. Ms. Donatello brought her husband. Bigfoot Hairy brought chocolate cigars. Even a couple of my new teachers at Airbrook were there. It was a little embarrassing, but in another way it was also kind of the best night of my life.
I mean… so far, anyway.
FLOP SWEAT
Have you ever done something extremely stupid like, oh, I don’t know, try to make a room filled with total strangers laugh until their sides hurt?
Totally dumb, right?
Well, that’s why my humble story is going to start with some pretty yucky tension—plus a little heavy-duty drama (and, hopefully, a few funnies so we don’t all go nuts).
Okay, so how, exactly, did I get into this mess—up onstage at a comedy club, baking like a bag of French fries under a hot spotlight that shows off my sweat stains (including one that sort of looks like Jabba the Hutt), with about a thousand beady eyeballs drilling into me?
A very good question that you ask.
To tell you the truth, it’s one I’m asking, too!
What am I, Jamie Grimm, doing here trying to win something called the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic Contest?
What was I thinking?
But wait. Hold on. It gets even worse.
While the whole audience stares and waits for me to say something (anything) funny, I’m up here choking.
That’s right—my mind is a total and complete blank.
And I just said, “No, I’m Jamie Grimm.”
That’s the punch line. The end of a joke.
All it needs is whatever comes before the punch line. You know—all the stuff I can’t remember.
So I sweat some more. The audience stares some more.
I don’t think this is how a comedy act is supposed to go. I’m pretty sure jokes are usually involved. And people laughing.
“Um, hi.” I finally squeak out a few words. “The other day at school, we had this substitute teacher. Very tough. Sort of like Mrs. Darth Vader. Had the heavy breathing, the deep voice. During roll call, she said, ‘Are you chewing gum, young man?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m Jamie Grimm.’ ”
I wait (for what seems like hours) and, yes, the audience kind of chuckles. It’s not a huge laugh, but it’s a start.
Okay. Phew. I can tell a joke. All is not lost. Yet. But hold on for a sec. We need to talk about something else. A major twist to my tale.
“A major twist?” you say. “Already?”
Yep. And, trust me, you weren’t expecting this one.
To be totally honest, neither was I.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN… ME!
Hi.
Presenting me. Jamie Grimm. The sit-down comic.
So, can you deal with this? Some people can. Some can’t. Sometimes even I can’t deal with it (like just about every morning, when I wake up and look at myself in the mirror).
But you know what they say: “If life gives you lemons, learn how to juggle.”
Or, even better, learn how to make people laugh.
So that’s what I decided to do.
Seriously. I tried to teach myself how to be funny. I did a whole bunch of homework and read every joke book and joke website I could find, just so I could become a comedian and make people laugh.
I guess you could say I’m obsessed with being a stand-up comic—even though I don’t exactly fit the job description.
But unlike a lot of homework (algebra, you know I’m talking about you), this was fun.
I got to study all the greats: Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, Kevin James, Ellen DeGeneres, Chris Rock, Steven Wright, Joan Rivers, George Carlin.
I also filled dozens of notebooks with jokes I made up myself—like my second one-liner at the comedy contest.
“Wow, what a crowd,” I say, surveying the audience. “Standing room only. Good thing I brought my own chair.”
It takes a second, but they laugh—right after I let them know it’s okay, because I’m smiling, too.
This second laugh? Well, it’s definitely bigger than that first chuckle. Who knows—maybe I actually have a shot at winning this thing.
So now I’m not only nervous, I’m pumped!
I really, really, really (and I mean really) want to take my best shot at becoming the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic.
Because, in a lot of ways, my whole life has been leading up to this one sweet (if sweaty) moment in the spotlight!
WELCOME TO MY WORLD
But, hey, I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
We should probably go back to the beginning—or at least a beginning.
So let’s check out a typical day in my ordinary, humdrum life in Long Beach, a suburb of New York City—back before my very strange appearance at the Ronkonkoma Comedy Club.
Here’s me, just an average kid on an average day in my average house as I open our average door and head off to an average below-average school.
Zombies are everywhere.
Well, that’s what I see. You might call ’em “ordinary people.” To me, these scary people stumbling down the sidewalks are the living dead!
A pack of brain-numb freaks who crawl out of the ground every morning and shuffle off to work. They’re waving at me, grunting “Hul-lo, Ja-mie!” I wave and grunt back.
So what streets do my freaky zombie friends like best? The dead ends, of course.
Fortunately, my neighbors move extremely slowly (lots of foot-dragging and Frankenstein-style lurching). So I never really have to worry about them running me down to scoop out my brains like I’m their personal pudding cup.
There’s this one zombie I see almost every morning. He’s usually dribbling his coffee and eating a doughnut.
“Do zombies eat doughnuts with their fingers?” you might ask.
No. They usually eat their fingers separately.
The school crossing guard? She can stop traffic just by holding up her hand. With her other hand.
Are there really zombies on my way to school every morning?
Of course there are! But only inside my head. Only in my wild imagination. I guess you could say I try to see the funny side of any situation. You should try it sometime. It makes life a lot more interesting.
So how did I end up here in this zombified suburb not too far from New York City?
>
Well, that, my friends, is a very interesting story….
A STRANGER IN AN EVEN STRANGER LAND
I moved to Long Beach on Long Island only a couple months ago from a small town out in the country. I guess you could say I’m a hick straight from the sticks.
To make my long story a little shorter, Long Beach isn’t my home, and I don’t think it ever will be. Have you ever felt like you don’t fit in? That you don’t belong where you are but you’re sort of stuck there? Well, that’s exactly how I feel each and every day since I moved to Long Beach.
Moving to a brand-new town also means I have to face a brand-new bunch of kids, and bullies, at my brand-new school.
Now, like all the other schools I’ve ever attended, the hallways of Long Beach Middle School are plastered with all sorts of NO BULLYING posters. There’s only one problem: Bullies, it turns out, don’t read too much. I guess reading really isn’t a job requirement in the high-paying fields of name-calling, nose-punching, and atomic-wedgie-yanking.
You want to know the secret to not getting beat up at school?
Well, I don’t really have scientific proof or anything, but, in my experience, comedy works. Most of the time, anyway.
That’s right: Never underestimate the power of a good laugh. It can stop some of the fiercest middle-school monsters.
For instance, if you hit your local bully with a pretty good joke, he or she might be too busy laughing to hit you back. It’s true: Punch lines can actually beat punches because it’s pretty hard for a bully to give you a triple nipple cripple if he’s doubled over, holding his sides, and laughing his head off.
So every morning, before heading off to school, just make sure you pack some good jokes along with your lunch. For instance, you could distract your bully with a one-liner from one of my all-time favorite stand-up comics, Steven Wright: “Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID, he just whipped out a quarter?”
If that doesn’t work, go with some surefire Homer Simpson: “Operator! Give me the number for 911!”
All I’m saying is that laughing is healthy. A lot healthier than getting socked in the stomach. Especially if you had a big breakfast.
Read more in
I FUNNY
Coming December 10, 2012!
BOOKS BY JAMES PATTERSON
for Readers of All Ages
The Witch & Wizard Novels
Witch & Wizard (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)
The Gift (with Ned Rust)
The Fire (with Jill Dembowski)
The Maximum Ride Novels
The Angel Experiment
School’s Out—Forever
Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports
The Final Warning
MAX
FANG
ANGEL
The Daniel X Novels
The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (with Michael Ledwidge)
Watch the Skies (with Ned Rust)
Demons and Druids (with Adam Sadler)
Game Over (with Ned Rust)
The Middle School Novels
Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)
Middle School: Get Me out of Here! (with Chris Tebbetts, illustrated by Laura Park)
Illustrated Novels
Daniel X: Alien Hunter (graphic novel; with Leopoldo Gout)
Daniel X: The Manga, Vols. 1 – 2 (with SeungHui Kye)
Maximum Ride: The Manga, Vols. 1 – 5 (with NaRae Lee)
Witch & Wizard: The Manga, Vols. 1 – 2 (with Svetlana Chmakova)
For previews of upcoming books in these series and other information, visit www.maximumride.com, www.daniel-x.com, www.witchandwizard.com, and www.middleschoolbook.com.
For more information about the author, visit www.JamesPatterson.com.
CONTENTS
WELCOME
THE AUTHORS WOULD LIKE TO THANK
CHAPTER 1: WHOOM!
CHAPTER 2: MOVING DAY
CHAPTER 3: OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT
CHAPTER 4: MY TOP TEN (ACTUALLY ONLY SIX)
CHAPTER 5: WELCOME TO THE BIG CITY!
CHAPTER 6: SMALL AND FULL
CHAPTER 7: A NIGHT ON THE TOWN
CHAPTER 8: TIME OUT
CHAPTER 9: MOM THROWS A CURVEBALL
CHAPTER 10: THE RETURN OF THE DRAGON LADY
CHAPTER 11: THE INTERVIEW
CHAPTER 12: IN
CHAPTER 13: GREETINGS FROM THE BIG CITY!
CHAPTER 14: TWENTY-TWO HOURS AND FORTY-NINE MINUTES LATER (NOT THAT I WAS COUNTING OR ANYTHING)
CHAPTER 15: THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE
CHAPTER 16: FIRST DAY ON PLANET CATHEDRAL
CHAPTER 17: THE BIG CATCH (AND I DON’T MEAN FISH)
CHAPTER 18: THE STUFF OF ART
CHAPTER 19: WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
CHAPTER 20: CRIT-ICAL CONDITION
CHAPTER 21: BATHROOM BLUES
CHAPTER 22: REVENGE IS SWEET (AND WET)
CHAPTER 23: OPERATION: GET A LIFE
CHAPTER 24: GREAT, BAD, WORSE
CHAPTER 25: THE CRAWLEY
CHAPTER 26: COVERT OPS
CHAPTER 27: TIPS FOR SURVIVAL
CHAPTER 28: MY NEW LIFE, STEP 1
CHAPTER 29: LEO TURNS UP THE HEAT
CHAPTER 30: ANOTHER WAY OF LOOKING AT IT
CHAPTER 31: WELCOME TO DUMPSTER DIVING
CHAPTER 32: THE BIG PICTURE
CHAPTER 33: QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS
CHAPTER 34: SCARY HAIRY
CHAPTER 35: SPILLING (SOME OF) THE BEANS
CHAPTER 36: BEST. DAY. EVER!
CHAPTER 37: DOTTY ON THE LINE
CHAPTER 38: HERE WE GO AGAIN
CHAPTER 39: W-A-R
CHAPTER 40: RE-REVENGE
CHAPTER 41: A REALLY GOOD PLAN
CHAPTER 42: OPERATION: ART-NAP
CHAPTER 43: EVERYTHING I DESERVED, AND THEN SOME
CHAPTER 44: RAFE KHATCHADORIAN, WORST SON EVER
CHAPTER 45: HOW RAFE SURVIVED HIS IN-SCHOOL SUSPENSION
CHAPTER 46: THE NEXT-BEST THING
CHAPTER 47: HAPPY HOLIDAZE
CHAPTER 48: GO BIG OR GO HOME
CHAPTER 49: STAKEOUT!
CHAPTER 50: NABBED!
CHAPTER 51: NOT RIGHT NOW
CHAPTER 52: THIRTY-TWO TRILLION AND COUNTING
CHAPTER 53: FIVE-DOLLAR POSTCARDS, SOME GUY NAMED MONDRIAN, AND A FEW OTHER THINGS THAT WENT OVER MY HEAD
CHAPTER 54: BIG-CITY TAKEDOWN!
CHAPTER 55: NOT IT
CHAPTER 56: MAD MATTY
CHAPTER 57: THE FIRST PART OF THE WORST PART
CHAPTER 58: THE REST OF THE WORST
CHAPTER 59: I’M OUT OF HERE
CHAPTER 60: JUST PASSING THROUGH
CHAPTER 61: ON THE ROAD AGAIN
CHAPTER 62: HEY, IF YOU HAD TO RIDE A HOT AND SMELLY BUS ALL THE WAY BACK TO HILLS VILLAGE, YOU’D START MAKING STUFF UP TOO
CHAPTER 63: I’M BAAAAAACK!
CHAPTER 64: SLEEPOVER
CHAPTER 65: TRUTH
CHAPTER 66: TIME OUT
CHAPTER 67: TALL STACK
CHAPTER 68: MY HAPPY(ISH) ENDING
A PREVIEW OF I FUNNY: A MIDDLE SCHOOL STORY
BOOKS BY JAMES PATTERSON
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by James Patterson
Illustrations by Laura Park
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contactin
g the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
www.hachettebookgroup.com
First e-book edition: May 2012
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN 978-0-316-20670-9
Table of Contents
WELCOME
THE AUTHORS WOULD LIKE TO THANK:
CHAPTER 1: WHOOM!
CHAPTER 2: MOVING DAY
CHAPTER 3: OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT
CHAPTER 4: MY TOP TEN (ACTUALLY ONLY SIX)
CHAPTER 5: WELCOME TO THE BIG CITY!
CHAPTER 6: SMALL AND FULL
CHAPTER 7: A NIGHT ON THE TOWN
CHAPTER 8: TIME OUT
CHAPTER 9: MOM THROWS A CURVEBALL
CHAPTER 10: THE RETURN OF THE DRAGON LADY
CHAPTER 11: THE INTERVIEW
CHAPTER 12: IN
CHAPTER 13: GREETINGS FROM THE BIG CITY!
CHAPTER 14: TWENTY-TWO HOURS AND FORTY-NINE MINUTES LATER (NOT THAT I WAS COUNTING OR ANYTHING)
CHAPTER 15: THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE
CHAPTER 16: FIRST DAY ON PLANET CATHEDRAL
CHAPTER 17: THE BIG CATCH (AND I DON’T MEAN FISH)
CHAPTER 18: THE STUFF OF ART
CHAPTER 19: WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA?
CHAPTER 20: CRIT-ICAL CONDITION
CHAPTER 21: BATHROOM BLUES
CHAPTER 22: REVENGE IS SWEET (AND WET)
CHAPTER 23: OPERATION: GET A LIFE
CHAPTER 24: GREAT, BAD, WORSE
CHAPTER 25: THE CRAWLEY
CHAPTER 26: COVERT OPS
CHAPTER 27: TIPS FOR SURVIVAL
CHAPTER 28: MY NEW LIFE, STEP 1
Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! Page 9
