My Life Is a Joke

by James Patterson

  The guy might be a tourist. Someone visiting Seaside Heights for a week or two with his family. Or he could just be a local I haven’t met yet. Sophia and the boy aren’t kissing or anything yucky like that, otherwise Sandfleas and I would both be tossing up our cookies (or dog biscuits). The guy’s just looking totally chill, leaning up against a pole with his hair perfectly framing his face. Sophia, on the other hand, is giggling and working the toe of her tennis shoe into the sand.

  “So you’ll be here all summer?” she asks.

  “Yeah. I’m hangin’ at my aunt’s crib. She’s wicked dank.”

  “Huh?”

  “Means she’s awesome.”

  “Wow. You really are from Philly. You know all the slang we never hear around here.”

  “Yeah,” says the guy. “I’m looking forward to learning more about Seaside Heights.” He takes a step toward Sophia. “Seeing all the beautiful sights… including you.”

  Urp. Barf alert.

  Sandfleas grumbles out a low, throaty growl.

  It inspires me.

  I howl. The same werewolf-under-a-full-moon howl I did at the top of the Ferris wheel, only this howl echoes a lot more, bouncing around underneath the boardwalk. It’s like I’m yodeling in the Alps, which I think is the number one tourist thing to do in Switzerland.

  “AH-WOOOO-OOO-OOO-OOOO-OOO…”

  The boy looks over and probably sees a silhouette of a snarling dog and a howling crazy girl with her hands cupped over her mouth.

  “Uh, catch you later, Olivia,” the boy says before he takes off running.

  “Sophia!” my sister calls after him. “My name is Sophia.”

  “My bad,” says the boy, who is already fifty feet away.

  Sophia twirls around so she has a better angle to glare at me.

  “Sandfleas? Is that you? Jacqueline?!?”

  I do a finger-wiggle wave. Sandfleas waggles her tail.

  Sophia kicks at the sand. “Schuyler was going to be my one true love.”

  For this week, anyway, I think.

  “Why do you have to ruin everything for everybody else, Jacky? Why?”

  My big sister stomps away, sobbing dramatically.

  Yeah. I sometimes have that effect on people. Sometimes, even on myself.

  CHAPTER 24

  The next day, I apologize to Sophia at breakfast.

  “I didn’t mean to, you know, ruin your date,” I tell her.

  “I wasn’t on a date last night, Jacky. I was right here at home, in my room. Working on my summer reading list. The Great Gatsby is, um, great. Especially if you like Gatsbys.”

  Did I mention that Mom is in the kitchen, wolfing down a quick cup of coffee and a doughnut before heading off to cop school? (I’m wondering if Comparative Doughnuts 101 is a class they teach at the police academy, since cops love doughnuts so much.)

  “Be good, guys,” Mom says as she packs up her stuff.

  “Or you’ll arrest us, right?” I joke.

  “Can’t,” she jokes back. “Have to ace the course first!”

  She walks out the door. I slurp down a bowl of Lucky Charms (they’re magically delicious) and head off to work on the boardwalk. Sophia sticks out her tongue at me from the front window. All is not forgiven.

  At the Balloon Race booth, business is pretty slow before noon. There have only been three races so far, and the biggest prize anyone won was a huge neon-green stuffed snake.

  So I spend my downtime reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which I found on the bookshelf in the room Sydney used to share with Sophia and Victoria. There’s a reason my oldest sister got into Princeton on a full-ride scholarship. The girl was always reading everything—especially stuff that “challenged her,” like Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Jane Austen. She also has an incredible collection of comic books—mostly Wonder Woman. I think she’s her role model.

  I’m already up to act 3, scene 2 of MSND when I come to this line that Puck says right before he exits the stage:

  I go, I go; look how I go,

  Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.

  I’m not sure what a Tartar is. They’re probably the people who invented tartar sauce.

  So maybe the Tartars were also the people who invented the Filet-O-Fish sandwich at Mickey Dee’s.

  I make a note in the margins to look the word up. Because if I ever get another chance to play Puck, I want to make sure I know what all the words mean.

  Later at work, I try to drum up my first crowd of squirt gun shooters with a semi-Shakespearean chant.

  “Hey ho, hey ho; look how you go. Squirt the gun, make the balloon blow.”

  “I’ll give it a shot,” says Bob, ambling up to the front of the booth.

  I’m starting to wonder if he’s stalking me. Also, he’s done something very strange with his hair. I think he’s combed it.

  “Okay, we have one shooter,” I say into my microphone. “But we need two to play. Who’s ready to make a clown pay?”

  “Me,” says Bill, who also just mysteriously appears. He takes the squirt gun right next to Bob.

  “Um, aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I ask him.

  “I’m on break.” He bobs his head toward, well, Bob. “Is this big galoot bothering you?”

  Yes, I want to say. But not in the usual way. He’s kind of making my stomach do weird somersaults and backflips. Why? I have no idea.

  “What’s a galoot?” asks Bob, narrowing his eyes at Bill.

  “Look in the mirror,” says Bill. “You’ll see.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Bob flexes his squirt gun trigger finger. “Fine. Game on, Billy Boy.”

  Bill crouches down to line up his clown mouth shot. “Bring it, Bobbo. Bring it.”

  Wow. If I didn’t know better, I’d say these two boys were challenging each other to a duel… over me.

  CHAPTER 25

  The bell rings.

  A needle-thin jet of water blasts out of both squirt guns to hit the clown targets. With their fingers on the triggers, Bob and Bill use just about every other part of their bodies to bump and nudge each other.

  They’re both doing everything they can to throw off the other guy’s aim and win… me?

  I feel like Sophia must feel on a regular basis. It’s pretty cool to have two guys fighting over you.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” says Vinnie when Bob gives Bill a good butt bump and Bill pushes back with a left elbow jab to Bob’s shooting arm. “That’s against the rules, youse two.”

  “All’s fair in love and war!” shouts Bill.

  “Is that more stupid stuff from Shakespeare?” demands Bob.

  “No! That one’s from me!” cries Bill as his balloon pops a half second before Bob’s. “We have a winner! Me!”

  I have never seen Bill look so excited or, you know, slightly crazed.

  Bob slumps his shoulders. “Best two out of three?” he asks.

  “No thanks,” says Bill. “I prefer one and done!”

  Defeated, Bob slides his squirt gun back into its metal bracket.

  “See you ’round, Jacky.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Catch you later, Bob.”

  Bob slouches off, hands stuffed deep inside his pockets. Vinnie gives Bill a fuzzy pink poodle key chain—the cheapest prize in the booth.

  “Here youse go, kid. Play another game, trade up to a prize that ain’t so lame.”

  “No thank you,” Bill tells Vinnie. Then he turns to me. “What did that mean?”

  “That if you played again you could win a better prize.”

  “I meant that thing with Bob. ‘Catch you later’? Come on, Jacky. That’s Bubblebutt we’re talking about. Bubble. Butt.”

  “His name is Bob.”

  “So are you and he dating or something?”

  “Why? Are you jealous or something?”

  Wow. Boy-girl stuff is difficult. Especially for a girl who, two weeks ago, didn’t really think about boy
s all that much. They were just friends. Now does one have to become my boyfriend? Is that a rule?

  Bill and I might’ve discussed it further, but Vinnie is standing right there, giving me his version of Mom’s Look.

  “Jacky?” he says. “This big-spender friend of yours here says he’s one and done. So you need to bid him adieu, like your pal Shakespeare says. I need youse to drum up a little more business here. Otherwise, I’m not going to have enough pesos in my pockets to buy a Pepsi with my pizza!”

  I look at Bill.

  He looks at me.

  “Later.” We both say it at the same time.

  And then we both go back to working our summer jobs. I throw myself into my carnival barker banter with renewed vigor. I work in some new clown jokes I found in Emma’s Circus Jokes and Riddles book.

  “My parents hired a clown for my birthday party once. It was terrible. The guy was such a Bozo. Why does the blue clown down there look so sad? Because the last shooter broke his funny bone. I wouldn’t want to take over the clown’s job, though. Those are big shoes to fill.”

  By three o’clock, I have a whole mob waiting to take their shot at the crazy clowns. They’re lined up four deep behind all eight squirt guns. Vinnie is raking in boatloads of cash.

  Two new players push their way to the front of the crowd.

  Two cops.

  My dad and his partner, Flattop.

  CHAPTER 26

  My dad still looks like the most handsome boy on the beach, as he was called in his younger days, even decked out in his police-blue pants, sky-blue polo shirt, and navy-blue cop cap.

  Flattop, of course, has a much more official-looking uniform. He also has a badge and a holstered pistol.

  I can’t resist making Dad and his boss the stars of my improvised balloon booth show.

  “Well, well, well,” I say into my microphone. “Here come two real straight shooters, ladies and gentlemen. Seaside Heights’ Finest. Quick Draw McGraw and his partner Mega Mighty Mac Hart. Which one of these two boys in blue will be crowned Top Cop here at the balloon pop?”

  Dad smiles.

  “What do you say, Tom?” Dad says to his senior partner. “Want to give it a try?”

  “What?” says the cop with the gray bristle-brush hair. “You think you can outshoot me, rookie?”

  Dad shrugs. “I don’t get paid to think, sir. But I’m pretty decent with a squirt gun. My daughters taught me.…”

  “Let’s do this thing,” says his senior partner, Tom, grabbing a gun.

  Seeing Dad and Tom assuming their firing stances, jockeying for any slight advantage, reminds me of Bob and Bill doing the same thing. I guess boys never really grow up even when they become men.

  The spectacle of two cops in a water pistol shoot-out makes my already-swollen crowd grow even larger. Vinnie’s money box is bulging with cash. He’s practically drooling. Guys are paying double to shoot it out against the two police officers.

  I gulp a little.

  I sure hope Dad wins. If he doesn’t, I’m afraid several hundred people are going to laugh at him.

  When all the firing slots are filled, Vinnie rings the bell. The water whooshes through the guns. The tin targets are blasted with sizzling water streams. The balloons start inflating.

  I call the play-by-play.

  “Officer Tom takes an early lead. But, look out, Mac Hart is hitting the dead center of his clown’s bull’s-eye. He’s throwing his water straight down the middle and over the plate—just like he did when he played baseball for the Yankees.”

  Dad laughs but keeps his aim steady.

  “Sure, it was the minor-league Oneonta Yankees, but Mac Hart knows how to fire one into the catcher’s mitt or the clown’s mouth.”

  I swing into the kind of catcher chatter I used to do behind the plate when I played on an otherwise-all-boys Little League team (back when summer vacation didn’t mean I had to have a job and serious responsibilities).

  “Hey, squirt gunner can’t squirt. Hey, balloon, balloon. Pop!”

  BANG!

  Dad’s balloon bursts first. The crowd roars. I do a happy dance like Snoopy did in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

  Dad’s prize, besides bragging rights, of course, is pretty awesome. Vinnie is extremely generous. He hands Dad a teddy bear decked out in a New York Yankees uniform. That’s a level-ten prize—and he’s definitely earned it!

  “I’ll beat you next time,” says his new buddy Tom, slapping Dad on the back and laughing.

  “Yes, sir,” says Dad. “I’m sure you will.”

  “Especially if you want to win that full-time job after Labor Day,” says Tom.

  Dad smiles and hands the giant stuffed bear back to me. “Can you take it home for me, Jacky?” he asks. “I can’t really walk the beat with a teddy bear tucked under my arm. No matter how awesome he looks.”

  Dad and I are actually having a pretty sweet moment.

  But then he has to go and spoil it all by saying what I’ve already started thinking.

  “You’re really good at this, Jacky. Hey, maybe this is what you should do with your, you know, flair for showbiz. When you grow up, you could run your own booth, right here on the boardwalk. Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, even though, to tell the truth, in 1991 my dreams are a little bigger than being a carnival barker in Seaside Heights.

  About an hour after Dad leaves the booth, Ms. O’Mara comes along.

  And the news she has to share makes me think that Dad is right.

  A balloon-pop booth might be as far as I’ll ever make it in showbiz.

  CHAPTER 27

  Travis Wormowitz is going to be our Puck,” Ms. O’Mara tells me. “He handled the language a little better.”

  I nod. It’s true.

  If the part went to the actor who mangled the language best, I would’ve been a shoo-in.

  “Travis was better prepared than me,” I say.

  “Yes, Jacky, he was,” says Ms. O’Mara, because she’s super-honest that way and doesn’t sugarcoat stuff.

  I’m on my break from the booth. We’re both sipping Cokes out of waxy cups.

  Was this the big, colossal mistake I made that summer? (Blowing the Puck audition, not sipping Coke out of a waxy cup.)

  Well, it was a big one, girls. No doubt about it.

  But, believe it or not, that wasn’t the biggest blunder I made that particular summer. This was not my colossal failure—even though, at the time, it sure felt like it.

  “We’d still love for you to be in the show,” says Ms. O’Mara.

  “As one of the fairies?”

  She nods. “We’d also like you to understudy the part of Puck.”

  “Understudy? What’s that? Do I have to crawl under Travis and study math or something?”

  “No, Jacky,” Ms. O’Mara laughs. “As the understudy, you would learn the role of Puck—all the lines, all the staging—so you’d be able to replace Travis if, for whatever reason, he couldn’t go on.”

  “You mean like if someone accidentally on purpose tripped him while he was Rollerblading and he went flying off the boardwalk, flipped over the railing, and sailed down to the beach, where he hit a concrete bench and twisted his ankle so badly he ended up in the hospital annoying all the nurses?”

  Now it’s Ms. O’Mara’s turn to give me Mom’s patented arched-eyebrow look. (It’s like all grown-ups share the same scowl.)

  “Jacky?” she says.

  “Kidding,” I say, throwing up both hands.

  “It’ll be a great learning experience,” Ms. O’Mara tells me. “When you memorize words…”

  “I don’t have as much trouble saying them,” I finish for her.

  “Exactly.”

  Then I start thinking about what Dad said. I am really good at my job in the booth. It may not be Shakespeare, but it’s fun. I make people laugh. I make money. I help Mom and Dad achieve their dreams.

  But it’s a summer job, and summer lasts o
nly three months. What am I supposed to do the other nine months of the year? Repair punctured balloons for the coming season? Learn more clown jokes? Clean out squirt gun nozzles with bent safety pins?

  And do I really want to be a big fish in a little pond all my life?

  “Which fairy do you guys want me to play?” I ask.

  “Mustardseed.”

  “That’s the one who only has one line. ‘And I,’ right?”

  “She has four other lines,” says Ms. O’Mara. “‘Hail.’ ‘Mustardseed.’ ‘Ready.’ And ‘What’s your will?’”

  “Five lines?”

  “Plus all the group lines.”

  I nod. It isn’t very much, but it’s what I deserve, considering I didn’t prepare for the audition.

  “It’ll give you more time to memorize the Puck speeches,” says Ms. O’Mara.

  I can tell she really wants me to do this. I also have a feeling Dad (and probably Mom) really won’t want me to. It might interfere with the long-term boardwalk barker career plans they have for me.

  “When’s the first rehearsal?” I ask.

  “Tomorrow. The same church. The same basement.”

  I think about it for another half second and then give the only answer Jacky Ha-Ha possibly could:

  “I’ll see you there, Ms. O’Mara.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Because I don’t like it when anybody does something sneaky without telling me (like studying to be a cop without informing his children), I tell Mom and Dad that I got a “teeny, tiny part” in the Shakespeare Down the Shore show.

  “Will it interfere with your work schedule?” asks Dad.

  “No. This part is so small, I’ll probably only have to go to one rehearsal. Maybe one and a half.”

  Mom tells me to “have fun with it.”

  “But don’t neglect your other responsibilities,” adds Dad.

  “Yeah,” says Riley, who doesn’t want to wind up getting stuck on permanent Emma-watching duty.