Jacky Ha-Ha

by James Patterson

  Five detentions for a stupid joke?

  Wanting to shove me onstage in the school play where anybody who buys a ticket can laugh at me as I stumble and stutter my way through my l-l-lines and s-s-songs?

  And now I have to go see Dad down at his “office” (which is what he calls the beach), where he’s sitting high up on his lifeguard chair, waiting to whip off his sunglasses and glare down at me?

  Well, actually, maybe I’ll take that as a positive.

  If my father is glaring at me, at least he’s, momentarily, paying attention to me.

  Since the summer is over, Dad’s “office” is nearly deserted. He’s in his lifeguard stand, staring out at the ocean, being disappointed in me.

  Jenny Cornwall is up there with him.

  Remember how my mom said my dad was the best-looking boy on the beach? Well, that’s what everybody says about Jenny Cornwall. Not that she’s a boy. That she’s the “prettiest girl on the beach.”

  Jenny Cornwall used to be a cop down in Trenton, but she got shot and decided lifeguarding was a safer bet. You can still see the scar from the bullet wound on the side of her thigh since her bathing suit shows off a lot of skin, especially in the hip and thigh department. A lot of tan skin.

  The instant I enter Dad’s peripheral vision (lifeguards have the best peripheral vision in the world, by the way), he tips up his shades and says, without even looking at me, “Five detentions on the first day of school? Tell me this isn’t true.”

  I look down at my feet. “It’s true.”

  I can see Jenny Cornwall’s shadow slanting across the sand. She’s shaking her head. Yes, even the prettiest girl on the beach is disappointed with me.

  “What’s your mother going to say when I tell her about this?” asks Dad.

  I look up. “Do you have to tell her?”

  “Of course I do. We’re your parents. Plus, she might have some ideas about what to do with you, because, frankly, I’m all out of them, Jacky.”

  “Why do you have to be this way?” he continues. “Why can’t you buckle down and be more like Victoria? Life isn’t a joke, Jacky. Nobody gets to laugh all the time. Do you seriously think there’s anything funny about paying a mortgage and putting food on the table?”

  “If it was serious, it couldn’t be funny,” I say.

  “What?”

  “You asked me if I seriously thought it was funny…”

  “Your father knows what he said, Jacky.”

  O-kay. Now the prettiest girl on the beach is jumping ugly in my face, too.

  “Here’s the new deal, Jacky,” says my dad. “Whenever you have detention at school, you have a double detention at home. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Not exactly. What’s a d-d-double d-d-d—”

  He doesn’t wait for me to stutter it out.

  “A double detention means for every hour of detention you serve at school, you come straight home and double that hour doing chores around the house.”

  “What k-k-kind of ch-ch-chores?”

  “I’ve made a list.”

  He hands it to me.

  Jeez-oh-man. They’re the worst chores imaginable. Cleaning the oven. Washing windows. Ironing. Dusting. Changing the kitty litter.

  I look up. “We don’t have a cat.”

  “Mrs. Rattner next door has three.”

  Riiiight.

  So I walk home alone, wondering how everything could go so wrong, so fast. Will Sandfleas, our dog, turn against me if I start hanging out with cats?

  And jeez—maybe it’s just my imagination, but Dad seemed awful chummy up in his chair with Jenny Cornwall, the prettiest girl on the beach.

  CHAPTER 12

  Luckily, things don’t stay totally bleak for long.

  When I get home, it’s time for the Fabulous Hart Sister Act.

  First, we do our nightly chores. But since Dad is working late, we do them with a little more pizzazz.

  We fix dinner. Hot dogs and baked beans with Tastykake Krimpets for dessert. Emma makes up the menu. (She’s six, remember.) Hannah, the other middle child, does most of the cooking. I make most of the jokes.

  I grab a wooden spoon and turn it into my microphone.

  Even though I didn’t ask (and neither did anybody else), Victoria gives me advice about my detentions, enlightens us on the history of mustard, and tells us why we should all read Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices.

  “Even Sandfleas?” I crack.

  The dog whimpers. She’s not big on poetry.

  We do the dishes assembly-line style and add in some of Madonna’s “Vogue” dance moves as Hannah washes, Riley and I dry, Victoria and Sophia put stuff away in the cupboards, and Emma bosses us all around.

  Kitchen tidy, we launch into our nightly chatter while we do group homework. We spread out all over our tiny little living room—on the couch, on the floor, on our ratty old beanbag chair—and help each other with our schoolwork while simultaneously catching up on what happened in everybody’s day. The conversation can be kind of confusing. In fact, if you aren’t one of the Hart girls, you probably have no idea what any of us are talking about.

  That first day of school, the Sister Act went something like this:

  JACKY: So, Riley, do you have Mrs. Trefonas for sixth grade? Because I had her last year.

  VICTORIA: I had her, years ago. And I think she spells her name wrong.

  HANNAH: Years ago, I used to collect Cabbage Patch dolls. They were soooo cute.

  JACKY: I believe Mrs. Trefonas means “Mrs. Three Telephones.” Her ancestors had more phones than anyone in their village.

  SOPHIA: If Mike Guadagno calls, don’t answer the phone.

  RILEY: How will we know if it’s Mike Guadagno?

  JACKY: The room will suddenly smell like Old Spice aftershave.

  HANNAH: Nuh-uh. Eternity for Men. That’s what Mike wears. It’s from Calvin Klein.

  SOPHIA: How did you know that?

  EMMA: Who’s Calvin Klein?

  JACKY: A smelly man in tight blue jeans.

  HANNAH: Anyone up for more dessert?

  By the time we’re finished gabbing, everybody’s homework is not only done, it’s also been thoroughly reviewed by someone who’s already taken the class. Except for Sophia. Since she’s a senior in high school and Sydney is off at college, Sophia is basically on her own.

  We all stay up past our bedtimes, until we hear Dad crunch up our gravel-and-seashell driveway.

  At ten p.m.

  From his lifeguarding job?

  Okay, that’s a little weird. I mean, what kind of overtime is involved in guarding a dark, empty beach? “Hey, you. Yes, you, sand crab. No pinching allowed!”

  By the way, this isn’t the first time Dad’s come home so late from “work.”

  And after seeing them sitting side by side up on that lifeguard chair, I have to wonder: Does Jenny Cornwall, the prettiest girl on the beach, have something to do with Dad’s late nights?

  CHAPTER 13

  I ride Le Bike to school most days.

  I call my bike Le Bike because I want to be one of zose French girls in ze movies, riding around with ze basket filled with ze fresh flowers and long, crusty loaves of bread. I’d wear a striped shirt and a jaunty beret and say, “Bonjour, Pierre,” to everybody I met, even if zat is not their name. I would not, however, be a mime.

  All in all, pedaling Le Bike is much more interesting than riding a bike, which is what Riley does, tagging along beside me.

  Most kids who ride their bikes to school take all sorts of shortcuts. I always take the scenic route. Some days, I even take a detour to cruise the Seaside Heights boardwalk. Summer might be officially over, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still savor the September sunshine and salty air.

  “We’re going to be late,” says Riley.

  “You ever wonder why that statue of a guy holding an ax looks exactly like Alfred E. Neuman from Mad magazine?”

  “Seriously, Jacky…”

  “
And what do they serve at that raw bar place? Drinks made out of uncooked hamburger meat?”

  “It’s seafood, Jacky. Raw clams, oysters…”

  “Do you think the seagulls have a pooping point system? Like, old people are only worth one point because they’re easy to hit, and babies are worth three because they’re a smaller target?”

  Riley finally laughs. “You’re weird, Jacky.”

  “Thanks. I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  I check out all the stuffed dolls hanging on pegboards behind the games of chance that aren’t even open yet. It’s a nice mix of Flintstones, Simpsons, and Jetsons.

  “Do you think cartoons hang out with each other? If so, do you think the Jetsons make fun of the Flintstones’ car? I mean, the Flintstones have to use their feet to drive—the Jetsons’ cars fly.”

  We pass a closed souvenir shop that sells ships in bottles.

  “Of course, the hardest part is getting all the tiny shipbuilders to crawl out of the bottle when they’re finished building the boat.”

  Finally, we roll down a ramp and head off to school.

  We’re late, of course. By about thirty minutes.

  “Why so tardy, Miss Hart?” asks Mrs. Turner, who’s standing on the other side of the front door when we breeze into school. “Trouble at home?”

  “Nope. Everything’s hunky-dory. Just had a hankering for a funnel cake, so we stopped by the boardwalk.”

  “The boardwalk?”

  “Yep. I get a better education there than in school, that’s for sure.”

  Mrs. Turner gives me five more detentions. Because she can.

  “You can start serving these along with your first five next Monday afternoon.”

  “Thanks,” I say flippantly. “Something to look forward to.”

  “Am I getting detentions, too?” asks Riley sheepishly.

  “No, Riley. You get a pass. It’s not your fault that Jacqueline Hart is your sister.”

  CHAPTER 14

  On Thursday, I come prepared to make somebody pay for what Mrs. Turner said to Riley.

  That stuff about what a lousy sister I am.

  I find an old cooler Dad keeps in the garage. It smells like fish guts, which will make my prank even better. I grab a can of spray paint and scrawl HUMAN HEAD on the side.

  Next I find an old clipboard and make a fake sign-up sheet.

  Before biology class starts, I sneak into the room and put the cooler on the front lab table. On the chalkboard, I write: “Tomorrow, we will be dissecting a human head. The sign-up list is on my desk. Please indicate which part of the head you would most like to dissect.”

  Half the class and Mrs. Bollendorf, the biology teacher, freak out. She tacks on five more detentions to the ten I already have.

  I guess I totally traumatized Mrs. Bollendorf with that “get to the head of the class” gag, because the next day, we have a substitute biology teacher named Mr. Kant.

  Mr. Kant, the sub, thinks he’s hysterical.

  Nobody is laughing.

  Except Kimberly Massimore. She’ll laugh at anything.

  “Now then,” says Mr. Kant, smugly wiping his hands to get rid of chalk dust, “what were you kids studying with Mrs. Bollendorf?”

  “The circulatory system,” says Kimberly Massimore, batting her eyelashes. “Not the human head.”

  “Very good. The circulatory system. So you children already know the three kinds of blood vessels: arteries, veins, and caterpillars.”

  I groan. Loudly.

  “Is there a problem, Miss…”

  He looks down at his seating chart.

  “Hart,” I say to save him some time. “You know, like the organ that pumps blood through all those arteries, veins, and capillaries.”

  “Very good, Miss Hart,” he says sarcastically. “Why, you must be Mrs. Bollendorf’s favorite student of all time.”

  “Not after yesterday. If I knew she had such a weak stomach, I would’ve made her think we were dissecting rats or maggots… something less gross.”

  “Oh, you’re that clever little girl I heard about in the faculty room—Jacky HeeHaw? The one who brought in the cooler with the ‘human head’ inside it?”

  “Why? Are you missing your brain?”

  “You might think you’re a comedian, Jacky, but notice that no one else is laughing.”

  “Because they’re all busy wondering why you bother trying to hide that huge bald spot!”

  That gets a laugh. We duel with words for maybe ten minutes. Mr. Kant tries to top me, but, well, he can’t. I’m getting way more laughs, so he pulls out his secret weapon.

  You guessed it. The pink pad. He gives me another five detentions.

  “It’s totally unfair,” I tell Mrs. Turner when I turn in my newest pink slip. “It was a battle of wits. And I won f-f-fair and square. Well, maybe it wasn’t totally fair because Mr. Kant’s a half-wit, but I got three times more laughs than he did.”

  “You also have more detentions than anybody in school,” says Mrs. Turner. “Twenty. You racked up a whole month’s worth in just five days.”

  “Four. I took Wednesday off.”

  “Impressive. You can start serving them, an hour at a time, on Monday. Unless…” She slides open her desk drawer and pulls out that stupid play script again. “They’re holding auditions right now in the auditorium.”

  “No thanks. I’m not acting in any play.”

  “It’s a musical.”

  “S-s-same thing. And Charlie Brown isn’t a good man, he’s an idiot. Lucy is always going to yank that football away whenever he tries to k-k-kick it.”

  Just like teachers will always think they’re funnier than you are.

  And they hate it when you prove them wrong.

  CHAPTER 15

  Monday comes, and the good news is that I don’t rack up any more detentions. The bad news? After classes, I head straight to room 102 to start serving my time.

  You’d think I’d work harder to avoid detention hall, since some of the other hard-core offenders are mean, nasty, vicious kids who never really climbed aboard the “Jacky Ha-Ha = Class Clown” bandwagon. They just like tormenting me and my stutter.

  “Wh-wh-why, look-k-k-k. It’s Jac-ack-ack-ack…” says one, a guy I nicknamed Bubblebutt, even though he doesn’t actually know that’s what I call him.

  His buddy, Ringworm (another secret nickname), picks up where Bubblebutt left off: “Ack-key-key-key.”

  Then they do a little duet on the “Ha-Ha-Ha-Hart.”

  “Good afternoon, idiots,” I say. “Wh-wh-what are you guys in here for? Mispronouncing your own names?”

  “We’re here because we like to make dumb, stuttering girls c-c-c-cry,” Bubblebutt says, cracking his knuckles. His little shadow, Ringworm, cracks his, too.

  “How? By burning off their eyebrows with your bad breath?”

  It’s been a while since I did some real trash-talking, and I know I can wipe the floor with Bubblebutt and his lapdog. I got plenty of practice this summer when I played catcher on an all-boys Little League baseball team. I spent every game crouching behind home plate and swapping insults with all the boys batting for the other team. I loved it.

  Before we can really get started, though, the door swings open and a woman strides into the room.

  It’s the new English teacher, Ms. O’Mara. The one who’s directing the Charlie Brown musical. The one who used to be a child star on Broadway, which, frankly, is pretty hard for me to imagine because Ms. O’Mara looks like she’s at least thirty-something years old.

  Ms. O’Mara goes to the desk at the front of the room and picks up the detention list.

  “Jacky Hart?”

  Guess my name is at the top.

  “Here.”

  “Ah, there you are. We missed you at auditions last week. Mrs. Turner told me to keep an eye out for you.”

  “Sorry. I don’t want to get up on stage and sing about what a good man Charlie Brown is. The kid is bald.”

/>   “I know,” says Ms. O’Mara. “But he tries to do a comb-over with that one spit curl he has up front.”

  I try to shock her. “And Snoopy looks dead on top of the doghouse.”

  “Really? I think he looks like Michelangelo, painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”

  “Which,” I say, “was a pretty dumb way to paint a ceiling.”

  “I know,” says Ms. O’Mara. “You’d get paint in your eyes.”

  “You’d roll around on your scaffold, screaming ‘I can’t see what I’m painting!’ Then you’d tumble over the edge, fall to the floor, and die. Unless the floor was actually a trampoline.”

  “True. That’s why I only paint ceilings in bouncy houses.”

  “They had an inflatable bouncy castle at the church carnival once until I ruined it. Guess I should’ve taken off my baseball cleats before I jumped in.”

  And then neither one of us says anything—even though all the kids in the room are cracking up, even the hard-core repeat offenders.

  Who is this new teacher? I wonder. What strange and magical powers does she possess that she can take my funny and make it funnier but then bounce it back to me?

  “By the way, Jacky,” says Ms. O’Mara, “I caught your act on the boardwalk.”

  “Huh?”

  “Last day of summer? Technicolor rainbow?” She uses her hands to mime puke exploding out of her mouth. “You have a lot of stage presence.”

  “No, I had a lot of junk food.”

  “But you held that crowd, Jacky. Had them right in the palm of your hand. That’s not easy to do. Meredith tells me you do it all the time.”

  “You know Meredith Crawford?”

  “Yep. She’s up for Lucy in Charlie Brown. The girl can sing like an angel.”