by Bill Myers
“H-h-help!” I screamed, bouncing up and down on its bony back. “Wh-ere-ere . . . are-re-re . . . the brak-ak-akes . . . on this thing-ing-ing!”
But of course there were no brakes, which explains why we kept running. That, and the fact that
whop-whop-whop-whop
the boys in the SWAT helicopter were scaring him. They obviously thought I was trying to get away and started chasing us.
“THIS IS THE MIDDLETOWN POLICE!” they shouted. “CEASE AND DESIST! CEASE AND DESIST!”
I had no idea who ‘Cease or Desist’ were, but I did recognize my old friends the red laser dots when they reappeared on my jacket for a little reunion. Of course, the helicopter only frightened the giraffe more, making him run harder and faster, which only made me bounce hard-er-er-er and fast-er-er-er, until one bounce was just a little too hard, sending me just a little too high, as he continued running just a little too fast.
Translation: By the time I finally came back down, my giraffe friend was long gone.
Unfortunately, he may have been gone, but
K-CRASH!
my old pal, the popcorn wagon, wasn’t. I landed directly on top of it. I suppose I should have been impressed that Mr. Zookeeper had fixed it so quickly. I would have been more impressed if he hadn’t put newer and faster wheels on it, which meant
Roll . . . roll . . . roll, roll, rollrollrollrollroll . . .
I picked up a lot of speed . . . fast.
So there I was, right back where I started from . . . except I was a little higher up on the hill and going a lot faster. No problem, except for the poor unsuspecting animals who didn’t see me coming:
“Baaaa”—K-Bamb!
“Roarrr” —K-Bump!
“Cock-a-doodle”—K-Bounce!
But, in spite of all the flying fur and feathers, I was able to look ahead and spot my old buddy . . . Baby Baboon. He was sitting on a rock not too far ahead . . . and he was still holding the lotto ticket! It looked a lot gooier and smaller (which probably meant it was now down to 2.1 dollars) but it made no difference. It was still mine, and I was going to get it.
The wagon continued racing toward him.
I leaned out, stretching for all I was worth.
The wagon was nearly there.
I leaned a little farther.
There was his hand . . . there was my ticket . . .
I leaned just a little farther until, finally:
K-SNATCH!
I got it! I got the lotto ticket! Victory was mine! Of course, it would have been more of a victory if I’d had time to celebrate. But it’s hard to celebrate when
K-SMASH!!!
your popcorn wagon has just hit the wall of the walrus exhibit. Even that wouldn’t have been so bad if I would have stopped with it.
But, of course, I didn’t. I just kept on sailing, right over the wall, right over the little walrus lake, and right into a giant boulder.
(Sorry, no sound effects. It’s hard to
remember sound effects when you’ve
been knocked totally unconscious.)
Unfortunately, being totally unconscious is not the same as being totally dead. Which meant I eventually had to wake up. I gave a few groans, rolled over, and slowly opened my eyes.
I wished I hadn’t.
Because there, staring down at me from a rock ledge, was the giant walrus. I couldn’t tell if he was glad for my little visit or not, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to turn on the McDoogle charm just in case he was still a little cranky.
“Nice boy,” I muttered, trying to sit up. “Good fellow.”
He tilted his head at me quizzically.
“You’re a nice walrus, aren’t you?”
He snorted loudly . . .
. . . which made me jump,
. . . which made him jump,
. . . which made me cry out,
. . . which made him jump even more.
The good news was that I had finally discovered a creature who was even more clumsy than myself. The bad news was that when that creature slipped off the ledge, he had no place to fall but directly on top of
“OAFF!”
me.
So there I lay under 3,000 pounds of muscle and blubber, squished flatter than a pancake smashed by a sumo wrestler driving a semi. It was awful, terrible, almost as bad as the time Opera fell on me. (Who knows, maybe the two are distant relatives.) But the fun and games weren’t entirely over. Because, once again I heard
whop-whop-whop-whop—
the SWAT team approaching overhead. This time, however, they didn’t say anything. I guess it’s hard to talk when you can’t stop laughing. Besides, what did they have to worry about? It wasn’t like I was going anywhere. I couldn’t move until the walrus moved. In fact, I could barely breathe. All I could do was just lie there, like some giant walrus whoopee cushion, trying to figure out how I’d gotten into this mess . . . though I suspected a lot of it had to do with that one tiny word whose spelling begins with GR, ends with EED.
Once again I thought of Mom’s words, and once again I felt pretty stupid. Sure, I still had the lotto ticket, it was right there in my hand . . . at least what was left of it. But I would have given it away, even if it had all of its numbers, to avoid what I’d been through these last forty-eight hours.
I glanced over to my hand and turned the ticket around, just to see if there were any numbers left. Unfortunately, that was all the movement necessary to catch Ol’ Waldo the Walrus’s attention. The creature tilted his head and then in one swift movement, dropped his neck, wrapped his lips around the ticket, and sucked it into his mouth like a giant vacuum cleaner!
I couldn’t believe it. One minute it was there, the next it was gone. Just like that. Now there was nothing left of the lucky lotto ticket. Nothing at all. Well, nothing except for one very loud and rather obnoxious
“BURP!”
Hmm . . . maybe he really is related to Opera.
Chapter 10
Wrapping Up
For the most part, Mr. Zookeeper was pretty cool about all the damage we did to his place. I mean it wasn’t like he was jumping up and down or screaming or pulling out his hair . . . at least not since he’d been heavily tranquilized and wrapped in a straitjacket.
Unfortunately, Dad didn’t take it quite so well. The best I figure, he was on his second or third heart attack when the SWAT team finally got around to handing me over to him. (They must have figured his punishment would be worse than anything they could throw at me. And this time, they’d finally figured right.)
At the moment Dad was deep into Phase One of the punishment . . .
The Lecture:
This is where he paces back and forth, shaking his head and saying things like, “What could you have possibly been thinking?”
“The lotto ticket,” I mumbled.
“What could have made you so stupid?” he demanded.
“The lotto ticket.”
“What on earth possessed you?”
“The lotto ticket.”
We would have gone on like that for hours if we hadn’t been interrupted by the police. They were leading Big Lug and the woman past us to some police cars. I wanted to wish them luck and tell them there were no hard feelings, but it didn’t look like they could hear.
Big Lug was too busy slapping at imaginary snakes crawling all over his body and screaming, “Get ’em off ! Get ’em off ! Somebody get ’em off !”
And the woman, who was wearing the same dazed expression as Mr. Zookeeper (without the help of the tranquilizer), had definitely blown a mental circuit or two. You could tell by her mindless grin and her even more mindless singing, “La-la-la-la-la-la . . .”
We watched as they were loaded into the cars. Then Dad turned to me and began Phase Two of the punishment . . .
The Sentencing:
“We’ve got to make sure this doesn’t happen again. You’ve got to learn from your mistakes.”
I wanted to tell him that I’d already le
arned, plenty—especially when it came to greed. But I figured it was best to lie low in case he tried to go interactive on me. You know, interactive—that’s when your parents ask you what punishment you think you should have? (Personally, I think such questions should be outlawed as cruel and unusual punishment. I mean, if we go to all of the bother of getting into trouble, the least they can do is figure out how to punish us.) But not Dad.
“So, tell me,” he asked as we climbed into the family van, “what do you think your punishment should be?”
Desperately, I tried to think up something that would be terrible, something that would be horrible, something that would make a lasting impression on me for the rest of my life. There was only one thing that could be so awful . . .
“Make me buy another lotto ticket?” I offered.
He gave me one of those Dad scowls. You know, the type that makes you want to crawl under the seat in your best Wicked-Witch-of-the-West-Meets a-Bucket-of-Water routine. But instead of yelling or anything, he simply said, “I think you better think again.”
I scrunched my forehead into a frown but no answer came.
“Well, you give it some thought,” Dad said as he started up the van. “Right now, I better get you home. Your sister’s waiting with a wonderful dessert she’s made up just for you.”
“That’s it!” I shouted. “That could be my punishment. Make me eat it!”
For the briefest second Dad almost smiled, then he caught himself and tried to look serious. “No, son,” he said. “Think of something else.”
“What if I ask for seconds?”
“Wallace.”
I sighed heavily and looked out the window. The van slowly pulled away. Off in the distance I could see Wall Street and Opera having similar conversations with their parents. Yes sir, things had not gone well. Not well at all. But, at least it was over. Well, all except for the punishment.
As I rode along, I let my mind drift back to B.B. Boy and Dollar Dude. Sometimes working on stories clears my mind and helps me think better. Let’s see, where were we . . .
When we last left our brilliantly brave, but badly beaten up, B.B. Boy, he was about to come into a lot of money...actually, he was about to become a lot of money. Fives, tens, twenties, you name it, he was becoming it. And not those cool old-fashioned bills either, but those new, weird-looking ones. All thanks to Dollar Dude and his not-so-magnificent Megabuck Beam.
“Why?” our hero gasps as he floats in the center of the ghastly green beam. “Why is turning everything into money so important to you?”
“Because, B.B. Brain, money is what makes people happy.”
“Do you...really...” It’s becoming harder for our hero to talk. Already his lips have turned green and his face shows the outlines of all those balding old-timers who used to be our presidents. “Do you really believe...money is what makes people...happy?”
“Of course,” the Dude answers. “As a bad guy, I’m supposed to believe that kind of stuff.”
“But what about love...” our hero gasps, “and people, and friends?”
“Oh, no!” the boisterous bad boy bellows. “Are we already coming to the moral of this story?”
“I’m afraid so,” our hero answers, although it’s getting harder to understand his words since his teeth and tongue are also turning into paper...another good reason to hurry and get to the moral.
Speaking of morals, here it comes: “Don’t you see...” our hero gasps, “loving money...only leads to...trouble.” By now his voice is barely above a whisper.
“Oh, yeah?” Dude demands. “And just what makes you so smart?”
“I’m not...but our author is.”
“And how does he know?”
“Last forty-eight hours...he spent...making the same mistakes.”
“No way!”
“Way...” our hero gasps. “Why else do we have to wait...all this time...between our scenes?” But that’s all he can say. Now there’s only the dry crackle of dollar bills.
Oh, no! It’s too late! B.B. Boy has completely turned into a lump of loot, a mound of money, a clod of cash. Our story is over. There will be no more lecturing on the evils of loving money.
But, fortunately, Dollar Dude wants to hear more (whew, that was close). With one swift move, he reaches for the reverse switch. Quicker than you can say, “Hey, wait a minute, isn’t this just a little too convenient?” the effects of the machine start to reverse. Soon B.B. Boy’s tongue is a real tongue again, his lips are real lips again, his breath...well, it can still stop a mule at twenty paces.
“Please,” Dollar Dude begs, being careful to avoid B.B. Boy’s breath. “Tell me more about this author of ours. If I can learn from his mistakes, maybe I won’t make them myself.”
“Mistakes,” B.B. Boy chuckles. “If you want mistakes, he’s your man. In fact, as far as I can tell, he’s made every mistake known to the human race...and invented a few new ones along the way. He’s even written a whole series of books about them.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. Hey, I have a neato-keen idea. Why don’t you come on down to my house, and I’ll loan you a couple of them?”
“You’d do that for me? Loan me the books?”
“Sure, that way you won’t have to buy them...(but don’t tell our author friend, he’s sort of sensitive to that kind of stuff. Just look back on page 38).”
“Well,” Dollar Dude grins, “that’s a spiffy swell idea. Thanks, B.B. Boy.”
“Don’t mention it,” B.B. Boy smiles, “...especially to the author.”
And so together, arm in arm, the two conveniently catch the Space Shuttle on its way back to earth as the Megabeam continues reversing its effects, changing those tons of twenties back into buildings, those towers of tens back into light poles, and those mounds of fluffy five-dollar bills back into those strange-looking VW Beetles. (Hey, two out of three isn’t bad!)
I continued staring out the window thinking about the ending of my story. I don’t want to say it was too sweet or sugary, but the next time you go to the dentist and he discovers a half-dozen cavities, you’ll know who is to blame.
Still, it doesn’t hurt to bring some happiness into the world. And if people can learn from all of my mishaps, so much the better. Because, as far as I can tell, it will be a long, long time before they come to an end.
You’ll want to read them all.
THE INCREDIBLE WORLDS OF
WALLY MCDOOGLE
#1—My Life As a Smashed Burrito with Extra Hot Sauce
Twelve-year-old Wally—“The walking disaster area”—is forced to stand up to Camp Wahkah Wahkah’s number one all-American bad guy. One hilarious mishap follows another until, fighting together for their very lives, Wally learns the need for even his worst enemy to receive Jesus Christ.
(ISBN 0-8499-3402-8)
#2—My Life As Alien Monster Bait
“Hollyweird” comes to Middletown! Wally’s a superstar! A movie company has chosen our hero to be eaten by their mechanical “Mutant from Mars!” It’s a close race as to which will consume Wally first—the disaster-plagued special effects “monster” or his own out-of-control pride . . . until he learns the cost of true friendship and of God’s command for humility.
(ISBN 0-8499-3403-6)
#3—My Life As a Broken Bungee Cord
A hot-air balloon race! What could be more fun? Then again, we’re talking about Wally McDoogle, the “Human Catastrophe.” Calamity builds on calamity until, with his life on the line, Wally learns what it means to FULLY put his trust in God.
(ISBN 0-8499-3404-4)
#4—My Life As Crocodile Junk Food
Wally visits missionary friends in the South American rain forest. Here he stumbles onto a whole new set of impossible predicaments . . . until he understands the need and joy of sharing Jesus Christ with others. (ISBN 0-8499-3405-2)
#5—My Life As Dinosaur Dental Floss
It starts with a practical joke that snowballs into n
ear disaster. Risking his life to protect his country, Wally is pursued by a SWAT team, bungling terrorists, photosnapping tourists, Gary the Gorilla, and a TV news reporter. After prehistoric-size mishaps and a talk with the President, Wally learns that maybe honesty really is the best policy.
(ISBN 0-8499-3537-7)
#6—My Life As a Torpedo Test Target
Wally uncovers the mysterious secrets of a sunken submarine. As dreams of fame and glory increase, so do the famous McDoogle mishaps. Besides hostile sea creatures, hostile pirates, and hostile Wally McDoogle clumsiness, there is the war against his own greed and selfishness. It isn’t until Wally finds himself on a wild ride atop a misguided torpedo that he realizes the source of true greatness.
(ISBN 0-8499-3538-5)
#7—My Life As a Human Hockey Puck
Look out . . . Wally McDoogle turns athlete! Jealousy and envy drive Wally from one hilarious calamity to another until, as the team’s mascot, he learns humility while suddenly being thrown in to play goalie for the Middletown Super Chickens! (ISBN 0-8499-3601-2)
#8—My Life As an Afterthought Astronaut
“Just cause I didn’t follow the rules doesn’t make it my fault that the Space Shuttle almost crashed. Well, okay, maybe it was sort of my fault. But not the part when Pilot O’Brien was spacewalking and I accidently knocked him halfway to Jupiter. . . .” So begins another hilarious Wally McDoogle MISadventure as our boy blunder stows aboard the Space Shuttle and learns the importance of: Obeying the Rules!
(ISBN 0-8499-3602-0)
#9—My Life As Reindeer Road Kill
Santa on an out-of-control four wheeler? Electrical Rudolph on the rampage? Nothing unusual, just Wally McDoogle doing some last-minute Christmas shopping . . . FOR GOD! Our boy blunder dreams that an angel has invited him to a birthday party for Jesus. Chaos and comedy follow as he turns the town upside down looking for the perfect gift, until he finally bumbles his way into the real reason for the Season. (ISBN 0-8499-3866-X)
#10—My Life As a Toasted Time Traveler
Wally travels back from the future to warn himself of an upcoming accident. But before he knows it, there are more Wallys running around than even Wally himself can handle. Catastrophes reach an all-time high as Wally tries to out-think God and rewrite history. (ISBN 0-8499-3867-8)
