Pottymouth and Stoopid

by James Patterson

  A kid dressed up like Thomas Alva Edison. He wore a bow tie and a tweed vest. He’d also put white shoe polish in his hair.

  “Hello, everybody,” he said, waving a flashlight around. “I’m Thomas Alva Edison! Ignore those losers who were just here. Let there be light, because I just invented the lightbulb!”

  The applause was deafening.

  Michael and I and my floppy-eared hat shuffled off.

  “Hicklesnicklepox, eh?” muttered Michael, which made me crack up.

  Because he said it in an awesome Canadian accent.

  Whhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaat?

  Okay, it’s time for the big shocker.

  I’m coming to the reason we’re having this assembly and why people from the Cartoon Factory are following Michael and me around making a documentary about us. Why they’re interviewing a bunch of kids and teachers at our school, plus Mom and Ex-Dad.

  After the history fair, Michael and Anna came over to hang out.

  “We should’ve won the blue ribbon,” said Anna as we passed around a bowl of popcorn.

  I just shook my head. “I can’t believe they gave it to the Thomas Edison guy. Especially after we told everybody about Woodward and Evans.”

  Michael shrugged. “Hey, the dude had that flashlight, a record player, and a telephone.”

  “Edison didn’t invent the telephone!” said Anna. “That was Alexander Graham Bell!”

  Michael shrugged again. “Tell it to the skifferdeejibberdee judges.”

  “We definitely had the best presentation,” said Anna. “Backed up by the most interesting research.”

  “So?” I said. “Nobody ever pays attention to the three of us.”

  “Yes, they do,” said Michael. “But only when they’re calling us names.”

  “Or laughing at us,” added Anna.

  “Right. That too.”

  I aimed the remote at the TV and clicked the button. It was eight o’clock. The Cartoon Factory network usually had something good on at eight.

  That night was no exception.

  “Attention, knuckleheads,” said the jazzed-up announcer who always sounded like a bucktoothed beaver who’d just downed a double shot of Red Bull. “It’s time for a hysterically funny, brand-spankin’-new show. The Cartoon Factory presents the world premiere of Pottymouth and Stoopid!”

  Jaws dropped.

  The popcorn bowl fell to the floor.

  We stared at the screen in disbelief as cartoon letters bounced into each other to spell out our horrible nicknames.

  Whhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaat?

  In Case You Missed It…

  Let me repeat that:

  Whhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaat?

  The Pottymouth & Stoopid show started with a wacky theme song that sounded like the Itchy and Scratchy Show tune from The Simpsons. While some chipmunky voices sang and the title faded away, the two faces in the Pottymouth & Stoopid logo morphed into cartoon characters.

  Pottymouth and Stoopid? They looked exactly…like Michael and me, only Stoopid’s face was orange and Pottymouth’s was brown.

  The opening credits ended, and there we were: a pair of brown and orange cartoon kids in kindergarten.

  A deep-voiced announcer explained: “Pottymouth and Stoopid got their start as A-plus losers way back in preschool, the momentous day they first met.”

  “Hey, Pottymouth?” said the mini-me.

  “Yeah, Stoopid?”

  “Want to finger-paint?”

  “Let’s arm-and-leg-paint instead!”

  And we both jumped into paint buckets.

  “If you haven’t noticed, Pottymouth is famous for making up naughty words,” boomed the announcer as the scene shifted to us on an elementary-school playground. “And Stoopid? Well, he’s just stupid!”

  “Now they’re in middle school,” said the announcer as the scene shifted again. “And if you didn’t think Pottymouth and Stoopid could get any dumber, you are sooooo wrong!”

  Pottymouth and Stoopid were hanging out in a cartoon house’s driveway with a basketball hoop over the garage door, just like me and Michael did all the time.

  “Hey,” said Stoopid. “I have an idea. Let’s invent a new sport. Skateboardball!”

  And Stoopid raced across the asphalt on his board, took his shot, missed it, and slammed into the garage door. Chirping birds swirled around his head.

  “Sludgepuggle,” said Pottymouth.

  That scene dissolved into another one showing the two cartoon kids flinging mud balls at each other.

  “Snowball fights are fun in April,” said Stoopid. “Your fingers don’t get cold.”

  “And your nose doesn’t dribble grizzlenoogies,” said Pottymouth.

  After a few more stupid stunts—including the two kids taking turns licking a flagpole—Pottymouth and Stoopid went to school and had some fun tricking the secretary in the front office into deserting her post.

  “Hey, Mrs. Toothface,” said Stoopid, “the vending machine in the cafeteria ate my dollar bill.”

  Mrs. Toothface, who had very big teeth that matched her name, glared at Stoopid over the frames of her funny eyeglasses. “The vending machine in the cafeteria doesn’t have a dollar-bill slot.”

  “I know,” said Stoopid. “That’s why I stuffed it in the coin slot.”

  Mrs. Toothface shook her head, grabbed a clinking ring of keys, and stomped out of the office.

  “Walk this way, Stoopid.”

  And then he started waddling the way Mrs. Toothface was waddling. They both looked like hippos in a hurry.

  The scene ended with a laugh track yukking it up as Mrs. Toothface got stuck in the doorway. Stoopid had to push her through. The squeaky sound effect for that bit sounded like a balloon going into a box.

  “More Pottymouth and Stoopid,” said the announcer, “right after these words from our sponsors!”

  We were in a total state of shock during all the commercials.

  Including the one for Big Bob’s Auto Barn.

  And Now, More Pottymouth and Stoopid!

  “Is that supposed to be me?” said Anna as a character who looked like her cartoon twin flitted across the TV carrying a stack of encyclopedias.

  Pottymouth entered the scene from the other side of the screen.

  “Do you know why they call you Pottymouth?” said Anna Britannica. Her cartoon talked through its nose and made her sound like a total nerd.

  Pottymouth shrugged. “Because they’re all a bunch of boomboolly bumbuzzlers?”

  “Perhaps,” said Anna. “But most likely because you are given to the frequent use of vulgar language.”

  “Oh. Why do they call Stoopid ‘Stoopid’?”

  “Because he is.”

  As Pottymouth and the Anna character laughed meanly, she slid offscreen. (Her part was kind of small in the show. Anna was lucky.)

  Next, Pottymouth snuck into the empty school office (accompanied by sneaky piano key plinks) and grabbed hold of the PA microphone.

  The camera moved in for a close-up.

  I think the actor playing Pottymouth was the same guy who did the voice for the Principal Blerguson character, because Pottymouth’s imitation of the principal was dead-on perfect (even better than Michael’s Principal Ferguson impersonation in real life).

  “Greetings, greezspittle students and floofilating faculty, this is Principal Blerguson, your head dorkalodoofus, speaking. The authorities have advised me that zombies from Mars have just landed behind the school. They are not here to learn. They are here to eat your brains. You are, therefore, dismissed for the day. Kindly evacuate your classrooms and cover your ears, kids, because that’s where Martian zombies like to stick their brain-sucking straws. Have a nice day, you flufferknuckles!”

  Stoopid came running into the scene, chased by the slow-moving Mrs. Toothface.

  “Woo-hoo!” shouted Stoopid. “School’s out!”

  “Run, you flufferknuckles!” cried Pottymouth. “Run!”

  While Pottymouth and Stoopid attemp
ted to slap each other a high-five (Stoopid missed), dozens of panicked, screeching cartoon kids streamed out of classroom doors.

  Principal Blerguson, with a whole roll of toilet paper stuck to his shoe, came running out of the staff bathroom, the roll trailing behind him. Mrs. Toothface slipped on a banana peel, landed on her bottom, and bounced down the hall like a runaway tennis ball, crying, “Oh my! Oh my!” the whole way.

  While the panicked mob fled from the school, Pottymouth and Stoopid casually strolled along the sidewalk.

  “So, what do you want to do now?” asked Pottymouth.

  “I dunno,” said Stoopid. “Maybe play electricskateboardball?”

  “Hicklesnicklepox! That sounds awesome!”

  And the show ended with Stoopid racing across the driveway on a really fast motorized skateboard, tossing up his shot, and, of course, slamming into the garage door.

  Again.

  The closing credits started to roll.

  We snapped off the TV.

  And sat there staring at the screen for like an hour.

  School Dazed and Confused

  When Michael and I headed back to school, we didn’t know what to expect.

  Would the Pottymouth & Stoopid show turn us into celebrities?

  Would we, all of a sudden, be famous?

  Would everybody want our autographs?

  Would people stop throwing Tater Tots at us in the cafeteria?

  The answer was no, no, no, and no such luck.

  The next day, we were, basically, walking, talking insult piñatas.

  Everybody lined up to take a potshot at us. It seemed a lot of our fellow middle-grade students had tuned into the Cartoon Factory at eight o’clock, just like we had. The ones who’d missed it watched it on YouTube as soon as they could. So by the time Michael and I came to school, pretty much everyone had seen it.

  “So, Stoopid,” said this guy named Kenny Gregg, “was that cartoon supposed to be you?”

  “I dunno,” I mumbled.

  “Well, he looked like you, he acted like you, and he sure was stupid like you.”

  “No,” I said. “He was stupider.”

  “Maybe. So, I have to ask you one question: Does your face hurt from slamming into the garage door?”

  “It’s a cartoon, Kenny,” I explained. “Cartoons slam into walls all the time.”

  Kenny nodded. “And they never get hurt. What’s up with that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Are you going to blow up or something next week? Because when cartoon characters explode, they come back looking fine. Are you going to blow up?”

  “How should I know?” This might have been the dumbest conversation I’d ever had.

  “So how come the Cartoon Factory did a whole TV show about you?”

  I shrugged. Michael had people coming up to him and asking the same kind of questions, including that girl Emma—the one with the braces.

  “So, are you, like, the real Pottymouth?” Emma asked.

  “My name is Michael.”

  “Riiiight. But everybody calls you Pottymouth, remember?”

  “Yeah. How could I possipoopily forget?”

  “See? There you go, pottymouthing again. I am so confused. How is it even possible that someone would want to base a cartoon character on, you know, you?”

  Michael just shrugged, but Emma kept rattling away, flashing her steel teeth.

  “I mean, I can see why they wanted to make a cartoon about the real SpongeBob. He lives in a pineapple at the bottom of the sea. That’s interesting. But why would they waste their time making you famous? It’s not like you’re anything special.

  “You’re nobody,” said Emma. “All you do is invent words that don’t make any sense. Making a cartoon about you would just be stupid. No, wait. Stoopid’s the other guy.”

  “Emma?” said Michael. “Nothing personal, but sometimes you sound like a dorkalodoofus.”

  “Oh, really? Because that’s what Pottymouth said about Principal Blerguson. You stole that joke from Pottymouth! The one on TV.”

  “No. The cartoon dude stole it from me.”

  Emma propped her hands on her hips. “Who would do something as idiotic as stealing words from you?”

  That was the zillion-dollar question.

  If the characters on the TV show were, somehow, based on me and Michael (and let’s face it, it would be a crazy coincidence if they weren’t), who was responsible?

  And why?

  We were as confused as everybody else. Somebody we knew had taken the worst stuff from our lives and turned it into slapstick comedy for a TV show.

  And hadn’t even bothered to tell us about it.

  FRED GRABOWSKI

  Pottymouth & Stoopid’s Biggest Fan

  I love this show.

  I’ve seen every episode. Six times!

  Remember when Pottymouth tricked Principal Blerguson into celebrating National Boogerschnizzle Day?

  That was so hicklepicklepoxing hysterical.

  I bet you Pottymouth is the one who came up with Mrs. Toothface’s name because it is sooooo perfect.

  And Stoopid? You have to be pretty smart to try some of the dumb stuff he does. Brave too.

  I love both these guys. Why? I don’t know.

  Maybe because they remind me of me!

  Things Continue to Suck Weasel Eggs

  Gym class was the worst.

  Even Coach Ball had seen Pottymouth & Stoopid on Cartoon Factory.

  “So do you two kids know the guys who write that cartoon?” he asked us while he pounded a basketball on the hardwood floor. Repeatedly. “Because, I’ve got to be honest with you, that Stoopid kid reminded me of you, Mr. Scungili.”

  Yeah, that’s something else my ex-dad gave me. A skeevy last name.

  “Do you still play basketball on your skateboard?” Coach Ball asked.

  “Sometimes,” I mumbled.

  “You ever slam into the wall like Stoopid does all the time on TV?”

  “Once.”

  “That’s what made him so stupid,” snickered a jock named Luke Lucas. “The dumdum banged his skull against a brick wall too many times and dented his brain.”

  Everybody in gym class cracked up, including Coach Ball.

  “That’s pretty funny, Mr. Lucas,” he said. “Hey, Stoopid—”

  “That’s not my name,” I mumbled.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You should call up the knuckleheads at the Cartoon Factory. Tell them to put that line about how you became a dumdum in one of your shows.”

  “It’s not my show,” I mumbled.

  “I’ll do it,” said Luke. “I’ll sell them my joke. TV-show writers get paid a ton of money. The only hard part of the job is getting those tiny little cartoon people to memorize all their lines. They have to rehearse like six hours a day.”

  Just so you know, Luke Lucas always acts like he knows what he’s talking about even when he doesn’t. Especially when he doesn’t.

  “If the cartoons don’t memorize their lines in time, they get erased.”

  Yep. This was from one of the guys who always called me stupid. Listening to Luke Lucas, I had to wonder if maybe he was the inspiration for the cartoon character Stoopid. Not that I would ever say that. When you’ve been made fun of your whole life, you have a hard time making fun of other people because you know how it feels. I think they call that empathy. (I’d ask my teacher, but she already thinks I’m an idiot.)

  After school, everybody wanted to see Michael and me do the moronic stunts that Pottymouth and Stoopid did on their TV show—especially the one where the cartoon Stoopid dunked a basketball without letting go of the ball. His whole body squeezed through the hoop and then the net like a Slurpee going through a straw.

  “Do it, Stoopid!” somebody shouted as a mob clustered around us under the basketball hoops on the playground. “Just like on TV!”

  “Don’t just stand there like a flufferknuckle,
Pottymouth,” shouted somebody else. “Toss Stoopid up in the air like you did on the show!”

  “And scream ‘Hicklesnicklepox!’ when you give him the heave-ho,” added Emma, who had pushed her way to the front of the crowd. “Because when cartoon you said it, I just about died laughing!”

  Michael and I looked at each other and shrugged. After a whole day of nonstop Pottymouth-and-Stoopid-ness, we didn’t have much choice. Our best defense was a good offense, whatever that means. (It’s something coaches and jocks say all the time, but, to be honest, I’ve always thought the best defense was a moat. Or maybe an army of bodyguards.)

  Plus, this could be our best shot ever at making good names for ourselves with the other kids. Names that didn’t involve Pottymouth or Stoopid.

  Anyway, Michael and I started imitating the characters from the TV show.

  “Hey, Pottymouth,” I said to Michael. “I have another amazingly genius idea. The five-point shot!”

  I was quoting from the TV show. Michael and I had watched the thing like eighteen times online as we tried to figure out who knew all those details about our lives. Was it the teachers at school? Did they all have side jobs as writers for the Cartoon Factory?

  “What’s a five-point shot, Stoopid?” asked Michael, delivering the next line from the show perfectly. He put a confounded look on his face, since three is the highest number of points for a single shot in basketball. “How can anybody score that many pumpadillio points?”

  “Easy,” I said. “If I get the ball plus all four of my limbs through the hoop, I score five points!”

  “Does your head count too?” asked Michael, the same way Pottymouth did on TV.