My Life Is a Joke

by James Patterson

  I cock my left eyebrow halfway up my forehead and scowl at Riley, doing a pretty decent Mom impression.

  “Hoo-ah!” I bellow, the way a marine would if there were a monster under somebody’s bed.

  Riley laughs, which makes me smile. I think our recent run-in with the law upset her more than it did me.

  “I’m so glad Mom is home safe,” says Riley. “Even if she does give us the Look.”

  “Me too,” I say, because I am.

  We were all worried sick when Mom was over in the Middle East. When your mother is a soldier and goes off to do her job and actually fight in a real war, there’s always a chance that she won’t come home when that job is done. We did a lot of praying when Big Sydney Hart was stationed in Saudi Arabia. We do a lot of praying now that she’s home, too. But these are the happy prayers. The ones where you say, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  We pass a giant fiberglass ice cream cone and a souvenir shop (with stuff like FBI: FULL-BLOODED ITALIAN printed on the T-shirts), then come to a whole cluster of game booths. There’s a Wheel of Fortune, a Baseball Toss, a Whack-a-Mole, and a Balloon Race. The Balloon Race is the goofiest because you aim your squirt gun at a clown’s tiny mouth. When you nail the target with your water jet, a balloon over the clown’s head inflates. First balloon to pop wins.

  As fun as that sounds, the guy running the balloon race sounds totally bored.

  “Win a Tweety for your sweetie,” he drones into his microphone. “Take home a Bart to your sweetheart. Nothing says ‘I love you’ like Winnie the Pooh.”

  He limply gestures toward the stuffed Tweety Bird, Bart Simpson, and Winnie the Pooh prizes dangling off a pegboard behind him.

  I hate to say it, but the guy in the booth is terrible at his job. He’s driving customers away in hordes.

  “I’m going home,” says Riley. “It’s my turn to babysit Emma.”

  “I’ll be right behind you,” I tell her.

  Because I can’t resist.

  The busker in me (busker is a fancy word for “street performer”) wants to pop behind the counter and show the Balloon Race guy how you drum up a crowd!

  CHAPTER 10

  In case you haven’t heard (or forgot), I can pull some pretty crazy stunts and practical jokes.

  For instance, I climbed the Seaside Heights Ferris wheel. Twice.

  I got Bill Phillips to eat chewing gum soaked in hot sauce. The four-fireball variety.

  And then there’s this other thing I did once with shaving cream that I’m definitely not even going to mention because you’d probably do it to everyone if I did!

  It’s like I have this devil on my shoulder, poking and prodding me to do wild and crazy stuff while the angel on my other shoulder is taking a nap or watching music videos on MTV.

  “Excuse me,” I say to the sleepy-eyed, Italian-looking guy who is, once again, reciting the first stanza of his lame rhymes.

  “Yeah? You want to play?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to win a Tweety for your sweetie?”

  “Not exactly. I want to play with your microphone.”

  “Huh?”

  “Look, Vinnie,” I say, reading his name tag, “you don’t have any customers. And you know why?”

  “Because you kids are scared of clowns on account of that Stephen King book, am I right?”

  “No. It’s because your pitch isn’t exactly pitch perfect. You’ve got the steak, but you forgot to add any sizzle.”

  “What? You think you could do better, kid?”

  I show Vinnie my thumb and index finger with just a sliver of space between them. “Little bit.”

  “Fine. Knock yourself out, kid. En-joy.” He hands me the microphone. “I wanted to go grab a slice of pizza anyways. Haven’t eaten for two hours. I’m starving here.…”

  Yes, he actually hands me the microphone and deserts his booth.

  I feel the same rush of adrenaline I always feel right before I go on. It shoots up into my head, tickles my nose, and tingles my toes. It’s the best feeling in the world, I kid you not.

  It’s showtime.

  First I have to get into character, because if I don’t, we’re in for a repeat of the school announcements and Debbie Swierczynski! My character of choice? The classic carnival barker! Or circus ringmaster. Maybe a combination platter.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up!” I say to the crowd walking by the Balloon Race booth. “One of these clowns is about to go down. We’re going to burst his bubble! Say, do you know what happened to the circus lion after he ate a clown? He felt funny! Do you know what they call that gooey red stuff between a circus elephant’s toes? Slow clowns!”

  I riff on every corny clown joke I’ve ever heard, then I move on to balloon bashing.

  “Don’t you think balloons are weird? It’s like, ‘Happy birthday. Here’s a plastic bag full of my breath.’ What a great gift! They’re like a whoopee cushion on a string. Pbbbbt!”

  Before long, I have a huge crowd. Every water pistol on the firing line is manned.

  People are handing me fistfuls of money.

  Vinnie strolls back, wrestling with his slimy slice of grease-dribbling pizza.

  “I’ll take that,” he says when he sees the wad of cash I just raked in. I fork it over, of course. (Come on, that devil on my shoulder isn’t that devilish!)

  Vinnie flicks the switch that rings the bells and pumps water through the squirt guns.

  While the shooters laugh and have a blast spraying their clown targets, Vinnie turns to me.

  “You got talent, kid. Real talent. You were born to be a carnie. How’d you like a job this summer?”

  Now, all of a sudden, the angel on my shoulder is wide awake, telling me to say yes immediately and take the job because that’s exactly what Mom and Dad need me to do.

  “Sure,” I say. “Once school’s out.”

  Vinnie and I shake on it.

  And that’s how yours truly, Jacky Hart, landed her first full-time, professional, moneymaking job in show business, at a balloon-popping booth on the boardwalk in Seaside Heights.

  Making $3.80 an hour.

  I was going to be a millionaire!

  Right after I worked 263,158 hours.

  CHAPTER 11

  It’s the last period on the last day of school.

  The unofficial start of summer is just one jangling bell away.

  In my head, I’m already singing that Alice Cooper song “School’s Out,” but I’m not wearing half as much makeup as Mr. Cooper.

  In reality, a place I unfortunately have to visit from time to time, I’m hanging out in Ms. O’Mara’s Honors English class with my buds from the drama club: Dan Napolitano (actor), Jeff Cohen (funny guy), Meredith Crawford (my BFF and an excellent singer), and Bill Phillips (he of the gorgeous hazel eyes).

  Bob/Bubblebutt isn’t in this class. That’s probably a good thing. I’m not sure what kind of belly flops my stomach might start doing if Bill and Bob were in the same room. It’d be a battle of hazel eyes against bad-boy smirk.

  Since it’s the last day of school, we’re supposed to be killing time watching a VHS tape on the VCR.

  (It was 1991, girls. Streaming hadn’t been invented yet. We didn’t even have DVDs! If you wanted to watch a movie, you had to slide a clunky videocassette the size of a math book into the mouth of a machine that sometimes chewed the tape like it was magnetic spaghetti.)

  But nobody is interested in movie watching. We’ve all already seen Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Look Who’s Talking, the only two tapes Ms. O’Mara has in her classroom collection, besides, of course, her mountain of BBC Shakespeare tapes.

  And NOBODY wants to watch those.

  “I’m going to be working in the Balloon Race booth,” I announce.

  “Where you shoot the clown with the water pistol?” says Jeff.

  “Yeah.”

  “Clowns are so creepy,” says Dan.

 
“I know,” I tell him. “That’s why people like to shoot them in the mouth.”

  “I got a job in the T-shirt shop,” says Bill with a grin.

  Did I mention he has two extremely cute dimples? If only he smelled like Bob and Calvin Klein. The cologne, not the guy.

  Meredith, who moved to Seaside Heights from Newark last year, found a job making meatball subs and cheese fries.

  “Mmm,” I say. “I know where I’m having lunch every day.…”

  “Well,” says Jeff, “I’m still waiting to hear, but, fingers crossed, I think I might’ve landed my dream job.”

  “What is it?” asks Dan.

  “Don’t want to jinx it by talking about it. Let’s just say it’s dairy related.”

  “But you’re lactose intolerant,” says Bill.

  “Doesn’t matter. This is the sweetest summer job on the boardwalk.”

  Ms. O’Mara drifts through the door, a big smile on her face.

  “Sorry I’m late, you guys,” she says. “I thought you’d be watching a movie.…”

  “We’ve seen them all,” says Dan.

  “Even my vast collection of Shakespeare videos?”

  “Ewwww,” we all say. Together. Then we make assorted Gag me with a spoon gestures.

  “You guys?” says Ms. O’Mara with a laugh. “Shakespeare is the best.”

  “Definitely,” says Jeff. “Especially when you need to take a nap. Best sleeping pill ever invented…”

  “‘Lord, what fools these mortals be!’” says Ms. O’Mara with a head shake and a sigh.

  “Huh?” says Dan.

  “That’s Shakespeare, Dan. In fact, it’s from a play I thought some of you might want to be in this summer. With a cast of professional actors from New York City, including several Broadway stars. You’d be performing in front of a huge audience—bigger than anything we had for all our school shows combined.”

  Okay.

  Broadway stars? Huge audience?

  She definitely has our attention!

  CHAPTER 12

  Some friends of mine from New York—old Broadway buddies—are starting the first-ever Shakespeare Down the Shore festival right here in Seaside Heights. They’re putting together a cast right now,” Ms. O’Mara tells us.

  “Why do they need kid actors?” I ask.

  “Because their inaugural show is A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Some of the cast needs to be youthful, unlike old dinosaurs like me.”

  “Are you going to be in it?”

  “Hello? It’s Shakespeare! They’ve asked me to play Titania, the queen of the fairies. So I suggested we audition you guys to be my supporting cast.”

  “Huh?” says Dan.

  “Puck, Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed.”

  “Huh?” This time Bill says it.

  “They’re the fairy queen’s fairies.”

  Jeff blushes. Clears his throat. “You want me to play a fairy?”

  “If it helps,” says Ms. O’Mara, “don’t call them fairies, Jeff. Call them shrewd and knavish sprites or merry wanderers of the night.”

  “Oh. Okay. Cool. That’s better.”

  “That’s what Shakespeare calls them,” Ms. O’Mara explains.

  “I know,” I say. “That’s why we couldn’t understand what you were saying about Sprite. I like 7UP better.”

  Everybody laughs.

  “Auditions aren’t until the weekend,” says Ms. O’Mara. “So you have some time to think about it. But it would be such a blast to do a show with you guys. You’re all so good onstage.”

  “True,” says Jeff. “We’re all that and a bag of chips.”

  “Where are they doing the play?” asks Dan.

  Ms. O’Mara smiles. “On the beach, on the same stage as the music fest.”

  “No way,” says Jeff. “That thing is huge.”

  “I know. And there’s nothing better than doing Shakespeare outdoors under the stars. We’re scheduled between the Battle of the Bands and the Southside Johnny concert. My friends have already sold, like, a thousand tickets!”

  I raise my hand.

  “Yes, Jacky?”

  “Are the fairies funny?”

  “Definitely. Especially Puck. He’s very… puckish! You know, playful in a mischievous way.”

  Hmmm, I think. Sounds like me. Especially when that little devil is whispering in my ear.

  “Is that where the word puckish comes from?” asks Bill. “From Puck?”

  “Yes,” says Ms. O’Mara. “We get a lot of modern sayings from Shakespeare. ‘Forever and a day.’ ‘Heart of gold.’ ‘In a pickle.’”

  “Oooh,” says Jeff. “All of a sudden, I’m hungry.”

  The bell rings. It’s the last bell for the last period on the last day of school!

  Ms. O’Mara looks a little sad.

  “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow,’” she says.

  “More Shakespeare?” I ask.

  She nods.

  It’s weird. None of us want to dash out the door, even though the last day of school rivals Christmas morning on the I-can’t-wait-for-it scale.

  But not this year.

  “Wh-wh-when are those auditions a-g-g-gain?” I ask.

  “Saturday. They’re posting notices at the high school, too.”

  “W-w-we’ll think about it,” I say.

  “Yeah,” says Bill, looking at me with a worried look.

  In fact, everybody is looking at me worriedly because, all of a sudden, I’m stuttering again.

  Yep. Just thinking about Shakespeare, with all his strange and mysterious words, will do that to you.

  Well, to me, anyway.

  CHAPTER 13

  The very next morning, on the first day of what was supposed to be my summer vacation, I report for duty at the Balloon Race booth.

  I was also in charge of making sure Emma had breakfast. She wanted pizza. Cheese pizza. Good thing we had some in the fridge.

  Since school’s out, mobs of middle school, high school, and college kids are already cruising up and down the boardwalk.

  “Okay, Funny Girl,” says Vinnie, rubbing his tiny hands together like a greedy raccoon. “Here come the suckers. Start reeling them in.”

  My new boss likes to wear a white tank top and a thick gold necklace with a medallion the size of a hood ornament dangling from its ropy chain. I think he also combs his back hair.

  Anyway, he leans back against a wall, wrapping his arms around a tin money box like he’s hugging it.

  I start my spiel with a little riff on an old Motown hit. “Ladies and gentlemen, there’s nothing worse than the tears of a clown when people shoot him in the face with squirt guns. Bozo goes bananas. It’s pop-goes-the-weasel time. Step right up. Pretend it’s Ronald McDonald and he won’t tell you what’s in a Big Mac’s secret sauce.…”

  We do a very brisk morning business.

  “Take a lunch break, kid,” Vinnie tells me around one. “You earned it. I already doubled the take from yesterday when youse was at school.”

  I meet Meredith and Bill at the pizza place that’s sort of in between all our jobs. We each grab a slice and a cup of soda on ice.

  “How was your morning?” I ask.

  “Slow,” says Meredith. “Nobody really wants meatball subs and cheese fries for breakfast.”

  “I sold five T-shirts,” says Bill. “Three that said ‘Stupid.’ Two with the finger pointing sideways that said ‘I’m with Stupid.’”

  “Guess one of the ‘Stupids’ really was,” I quip.

  “Definitely.”

  We’re all stuffing pizza into our mouths when, surprise, Ms. O’Mara comes over to our picnic table balancing a red plastic tray. She’s having a calzone, which is sort of like a slice of pizza folded over on top of itself.

  “Hey, guys,” she says.

  “Um, what are you doing here?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “School’s out. I had the day off. I’m on vacation for two whole months. Thought I should eat some vacation
food, which, by the way, is ten times better than cafeteria food. I also wanted to talk to you guys some more about the Shakespeare show.”

  I lean back and fake a huge, arm-stretching yawn. “Bo-rrring…”

  Bill and Meredith giggle.

  “Jacky,” says Ms. O’Mara, pulling a funny frown face, “you’re not giving poor Bill a chance. Don’t say he’s boring.”

  “Do you think I’m boring, Jacky?” says Bill.

  “Of course not. You’re, you know… practical.”

  “Isn’t that another word for boring?”

  “You guys?” says Ms. O’Mara. “I meant Bill as in William as in Shakespeare. For instance, did you know that in Shakespeare’s day, he had to make everybody in his whole audience happy? From the rich nobles up in the galleries to the lowly groundlings down in the pit.”

  “What are groundlings?” asks Meredith. “Are they like Gremlins?”

  “I love that movie,” I say.

  “Groundlings,” says Ms. O’Mara, “were rowdy theatergoers who paid a penny to stand on the ground at the foot of the stage while the more, shall we say, sophisticated folks sat upstairs in cushioned seats. The richer you were, the higher your box seat. And if Shakespeare didn’t make the groundlings laugh, guess what happened?”

  “He felt terrible,” I say, because that’s how I feel when I tell a joke and nobody even chuckles.

  “I’m sure he did. But his actors had it worse. They had to dodge a barrage of rotten fruit and vegetables.”

  “Seriously?” says Bill.

  “Yep,” says Ms. O’Mara. “If Shakespeare’s audience didn’t like his shows, they let him know it. They voted with their produce.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Ms. O’Mara fills our lunch break with all sorts of interesting stuff about theater back in Shakespeare’s day.

  She tells us how all the girls’ parts were played by boys with high-pitched voices, since girls weren’t allowed to act back then. How the plays had to be performed during the day while the sun shone, since electricity and theatrical lighting hadn’t been invented yet. How, since there was very little scenery, the audience had to fill in the blanks by using their imagination. How there was a trapdoor in the stage floor for quick exits and entrances.