“I can’t have my stage out in the open,” I remind my dad. “It needs to be somewhere private.”
“You could put Louie’s stage in my room,” Ruby says.
I don’t even dignify that with an answer.
“I’m sorry, but I have to get something off my chest,” Ari huffs at me. “You claim it’s totally important for you to practice your comedy, but then you say it has to be someplace where no one can see you. Well those things are completely opposite! If you don’t want anyone to see you, why even do comedy in the first place? It’s so not fair that I don’t get a room because you’re a chicken!”
I open my mouth to say something back, something super mean, like she’s such a witch that Dad should build her a cauldron in her closet so she can practice her evil cackle, but I only squeak in a tiny voice, “I am going to do my comedy in public someday.”
“Yeah? When? When you’re forty? By then you’ll be way too old, just like Dad!”
As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Ari turns fire-engine red. Everyone looks at my dad and goes silent as a comedian with no jokes.
My mother puts both hands on the table. “You know what? This is too big an issue to decide in one night. I say we clear the table, go for a walk, and plan to talk about this again another time.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Dad says, smiling. But the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. I wonder if he wishes he could go back and change his mind about becoming an artist. Maybe he’d be happier if he had found another marketing job that he hated.
Following your dreams sounds like walking through a pasture of rainbows and flowers and unicorns, but it’s more like trudging through a muddy field in the middle of a thunderstorm with no boots and no umbrella.
The Best Ways to Torture Your Sister
(A guide for brothers)
(I suppose these techniques could also be used by sisters who want to annoy their brothers, but I do not recommend this unless your brother is Ryan Rakefield.)
Copycat: Say whatever words she says and do whatever actions she does. She will try to trip you up by saying things like, “Louie loves unicorns” and, “I’m so happy I’m a girl,” but you must be tough and imitate her anyway!
Almost touching: Move any part of your body—fingers, toes, and elbows work well—as close as you possibly can to your sister without actually touching her.
Hide-and-make-her-go-seek: Hide any object of hers; for example, Ari’s new deodorant. Then sit back and watch while she tears the house apart trying to find it.
Compliments: Say something rude, but make it sound like a compliment. Then your parents can’t get mad at you. When you see your sister in the morning, in your nicest voice, say, “Your hair looks nice. I like when it sticks out all over like that.”
Staring: Simple, but barftastic. Stare at your sister and wait for her to freak out!
AS LOUIE’S CLOSET TURNS
After being forced to participate in the family walk, I race to my closet. Even though Mom said over and over again that nothing has been decided, that we are going to take a very long time to think about it, that we won’t do anything if we can’t come up with a good solution for my comedy stuff, I don’t believe her. Ari won’t give up until she gets her way, and when Ari gets her way, my closet is a goner. I should make the most of the time I have left. I stare at the sign I made for my door and run my fingers over the edge of it. How can my dad even consider the idea of knocking down my closet?
“Ladies and gentlemen and rubber chickens,” I say to my audience, “welcome to the final episode of As Louie’s Closet Turns, the heartwarming drama about a boy and the only storage space he’ll ever love.”
I get a few sniffles from my Pez dispenser collection.
“Previously on our show, Louie’s evil sister Arismella hatched a sinister plot to take over Louie’s Laff Shack, and she hypnotized Louie’s entire family to go along with the plan. Tonight, however, a shocking secret is revealed.”
My T-shirts gasp.
“Louie is…” I make the sound of dramatic dunh, dunh, duuunnnnhhh music. “Louie is adopted.”
The T-shirts gasp again.
“That’s right, folks. Louie isn’t the child of David and Laurie Burger, or the brother of Arismella and Rutabaga, as originally thought. He is actually the missing child of the world’s greatest comedian, Lou Lafferman, kidnapped at birth and hidden with an ordinary family by Lafferman’s archenemy, Klappy the Klown, in an attempt to prevent the Laffermans from becoming an unstoppable comedy dynasty.”
My jeans moan in horror.
“Don’t worry,” I tell them. “Young Louie has a plan. He will soon perform an act at the Bonanza nightclub, and once word of his amazing talent leaks out, his real father will finally find him.”
“But what if he’s too afraid to do his show?” a voice asks out of nowhere.
I search my closet. I know I pretend that inanimate objects are my audience, but I’ve never heard voices before. Then I notice that my closet door is ajar and a mini-unicorn is peeking inside.
“Ruby!” I shout.
“He’s never performed before.” Ruby wiggles the unicorn as if he is the one speaking.
“He’s performed lots of times.” I yank the door open. “In his closet. Besides, it’s none of your business.” I point toward my bedroom door. She’s not supposed to come into my room without permission.
“Rutabaga is adopted, too.” Ruby’s eyes are big and wide and serious. “She’s Louie’s real sister,” she continues, “and she has a special bravery potion, and she can turn into a unicorn.”
“Okay, fine,” I say. Sometimes it’s too much work to argue with Ruby. It doesn’t matter anyway. It’s only a stupid soap-opera spoof. I decide to forget about it.
“Want to play whoopee cushion hide-and-go-seek?” I ask. It’s like regular hide-and-go-seek except you bring a whoopee cushion with you when you hide. Every few minutes you have to fill the cushion up and sit on it.
“Sure!” Ruby takes the whoopee cushion I hand her and races to hide in the front hall closet like she always does. I’ll let her sit in there a few minutes before I pretend that I can’t find her.
Next to the box that holds my whoopee cushion collection is the box that holds my rubber chicken collection and next to that is my fake barf collection. I have tons of comedy stuff in my closet. My stage isn’t the only thing that will need to be relocated if Ari gets her way.
But if I can’t perform in public, maybe there is no point in having a stage. If only Ruby’s bravery potion was real. Or better yet, I wish there was such a thing as a talent potion. I could drink it and instantly become the best fifth-grade comic in the world. Then I wouldn’t be scared anymore, and it wouldn’t even matter if I had my closet.
Barftastic Games That I’ve Invented
(And how to play them)
1. Whoopee Cushion Hide-and-Go-Seek: I just explained this one to you. If you don’t remember how to play it you need to get your memory checked.
2. Psycho Hamsters: Hamsters like to do three things: chew, run, and sniff. Psycho hamsters like to do these things at warp speed. So zoom around your house smelling and chewing everything.
3. Baby Bomb Squad: Position baby dolls all over the swing set: on the swings, trapeze, slide, rock wall, etc. Take a bucket of water balloons, throw them, and knock every doll off.
4. Magical Mystery Unicorns Enter the Cave of Doom: Get a couple of unicorns, turn off the lights, and let the battle begin. Unicorn horns are actually the deadliest weapons in the known universe.
5. Brain-Freeze Tag: Like regular tag, but when you get tagged, your brain turns into a solid block of ice and you must act like a zombie. Your brain can get unfrozen if someone sprinkles grass on your head.
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH GYM?
The next morning, when I go outside to walk to school with Nick, I see that he’s wearing glasses. At first I think they are fake, but then I remember he went to the eye doctor yesterday. I
can’t do anything but stare at him for a few seconds.
“Hello? Earth to Louie?” Nick waves his hand in front of my eyes.
“Sorry,” I say. “You got glasses.”
“Don’t be sorry. They help me see better.” Nick grins.
His glasses are made out of clear plastic and are almost invisible, but then, in a strange way, the fact that you can’t see the glasses only makes them more noticeable. He looks different, and I feel like I stepped through a portal into a bizarro universe. I wonder if I look different to him, too, now that I’m not blurry.
“My dad might turn my closet into Ari’s new bedroom,” I tell him as we start walking to school with Ruby and Henry trailing behind us.
“No way! Where will you do your comedy?” he asks.
“Who knows,” I say. Then I add something that isn’t true, to see what Nick’s reaction will be. “I might give up on comedy. You can’t be a comedian if you don’t tell your jokes out loud anyway.”
Nick thinks about it for a long time. “I guess that’s true.”
I don’t know what I wanted Nick to say, but from the heavy stone his words lodge in my chest, I know that wasn’t it.
At school, after Principal Newton finishes reading the morning announcements, our class gets in line for gym.
Definitely not barftastic.
Our gym teacher, Mr. Lamb, is as large as a refrigerator and made out of solid muscle. In a voice that sounds like a megaphone, he assigns everyone a number. We have to sit down in order on the red line. I’m number two because my last name starts with B. Thermos is number one.
Mr. Lamb tells everyone with an even number to look toward the clock wall and everyone with an odd number to look toward the drinking fountain wall. I turn my head, and there is Thermos. Up close I can see that she has two brown braids tucked into her baseball cap and a little birthmark next to her right eyebrow. She doesn’t look at me. She’s staring up at Mr. Lamb like he’s passing out free candy. It should be illegal to be that happy in gym.
“The person you are looking at right now,” barks Mr. Lamb, “will be your gym partner for the rest of the year.”
I gulp.
If my life had a remote control, I would hit Rewind and erase that last part, because there’s no way I can be partners with Thermos for an entire year. Thermos is sporty, and I’m coordinationally challenged. Once she figures it out, she’ll probably tease me worse than Ryan Rakefield.
I almost raise my hand and tell Mr. Lamb that Thermos was staring at him when he said the stuff about partners, therefore technically Thermos is his partner. But Mr. Lamb is standing with his arms behind his back like a drill sergeant. The bigger the muscles, the smaller the funny bone. I keep my observation to myself.
Mr. Lamb barks, “Sit-ups. Odd numbers, hold your partner’s feet and count. You have one minute. When I blow my whistle, switch. On three. Hut! Two! Three!”
I wonder if my mom talks that way in gym class. It’s hard to imagine.
Thermos grabs my ankles. It’s completely barfdiculous that we have to be partners. If I get any mental trauma from this, I am suing Mr. Lamb. I put my hands behind my head and try to sit up. My stomach muscles start to shake.
“Come on, Louie!” Thermos cheers. “You can do it!”
I struggle all the way up and Thermos shouts, “One!” which means everyone in the class knows that I’ve only done one sit-up so far. Each time I make it to the top she shouts the number even louder. By the time Mr. Lamb blows the whistle again, everyone knows that I only did seventeen sit-ups.
“Thanks a lot,” I say to her in my most sarcastic voice.
“What?” she says, eyes wide.
“Never mind.” She’s probably trying to get me to admit that I only did seventeen sit-ups out loud so she can laugh at me.
“Partners, switch!” shouts Mr. Lamb.
I don’t want to hold Thermos’s ankles. I am philosophically opposed to touching girls, especially with Ryan Rakefield fifteen feet away ready to make kissing faces at a moment’s notice. When Mr. Lamb blows the whistle, I take my index fingers and place them on the big-toe parts of Thermos’s gym shoes.
Thermos does her sit-ups so fast it’s as if she has a motor. Her glasses bounce up and down on her nose. She doesn’t even need me to hold her feet. Maybe she’s not a girl after all; maybe she’s a robot. The whistle blows again. Fifty-four. Thermos did fifty-four sit-ups.
“Okay, fifth graders, three laps around the gym.” Mr. Lamb stares right at me. “No walking!”
Thermos races off and has already done a third of a lap before I’ve even tightened my shoelaces. You can’t be too careful about shoelaces. If you don’t tighten your laces, then you will probably step on a droopy aglet. That’s the plastic part at the end. If you step on an aglet, then your shoe will become untied. Then you’ll trip. Which will cause you to do a somersault fall. Then your eyelid will flip inside out and Ryan Rakefield will call you the Lidless Loser for the rest of the week.
Um, I take it back. That didn’t actually happen. Really.
Thermos laps me and is way ahead of everyone in our gym class except for Ryan. He’s right behind her. Thermos glances over her shoulder and speeds up. Ryan stays with her. Thermos takes the corner on the inside and Ryan falls back a bit, but then he gets a burst of speed and nearly catches Thermos again.
“Go, Ryan!” Jamal shouts.
Thermos and Ryan have half a lap left to go, and they are heading toward the finish line at a million miles per hour, but neither one of them is slowing down. I worry they are going to crash into the wall. It’s a padded wall, but it still hurts when you crash into it. Please do not ask how I know this.
Then in a split second, Ryan spins around and ends his last lap by trotting backward. Thermos smashes into the wall, but Ryan acts like he doesn’t notice and sits down on the red line without looking. It could have been a funny bit of physical comedy, if you forgot about Thermos. She sits down on the red line a few feet from Ryan, hugging her elbow and rubbing her knee. She brushes off Mr. Lamb when he asks her if she wants to go to the nurse’s office.
Of course, by the time I start my last lap, I’m the only kid still running. Everyone in my class is sitting on the red line waiting for me to finish. They stare at me as I come down the home stretch, and Ryan calls out, “By the time he finishes, gym will be over!”
It makes my skin crawl. I wish I could teach Ryan a lesson. He doesn’t know anything about real comedy. Real comedians can be funny without embarrassing other people. If I was in my closet, I’d do a hilarious finish to end my lap, like Ryan’s, only a million times better.
Then my brain thinks, Why not? And before I have time to provide the lengthy and well-documented answer, Because that would be a huge mistake, my feet stop running.
My plan is to fall forward, then do a last-minute somersault, like Gene Wilder did in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. If I do it perfectly, it will look barfmazing. Unfortunately, even though I tightened my shoelaces, I still manage to step on an aglet as I set up for my stunt. The second I start to fall I sense that my balance is off. My right foot has pinned my left. I tuck my head, hoping that’ll get me rolling, but instead I land in a one-two forehead-belly splat on the floor.
Ladies and gentlemen … Louie Burger.
Everybody laughs. I laugh, too, like that was the joke I had planned. Hopefully, everyone will think I wiped out on purpose.
“Hey, Splatburger,” Ryan calls, “I thought the only place you could belly flop was a swimming pool. Guess I was wrong!”
That sets off more laughter and sinks my little ship of hope. Once again, instead of being a real comedian, I’m the class joke.
“Burger,” Mr. Lamb growls, “tie your shoes.”
I slink over to the empty spot next to Nick, forehead throbbing. He shakes his head at me.
“Did you do that on purpose?” he asks.
“That depends on your definition of on purpose,” I answer, rubbing my forehead.<
br />
“Well, don’t worry,” he says. “I’m sure everyone will forget about it by lunchtime.”
Maybe.
I’m not counting on it.
Confessions of a Fifth-Grade Splatburger
(Life’s most embarrassing moments)
In first grade, I accidentally ate Louisa Planter’s snowman eraser because I thought it was a Christmas cookie.
In second grade, I wore camouflage pants to school on field day because I thought they would make me invisible and that no one would see me hiding in the middle of the soccer field.
In third grade, when the entire school was sitting quietly in the hallway with our heads down for a tornado drill, I started singing “Bananaphone,” because I forgot I wasn’t alone.
In fourth grade, I wore a T-shirt to school that I’d pulled fresh out of the dryer. A pair of Ruby’s unicorn underpants were static-clinged to my back for the entire day.
In fifth grade, I belly flopped on the gymnasium floor.
ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM
On Friday before lunch recess, Mrs. Adler stands up in front of the class, clears her throat, and announces our first big assignment: the hero project.
“Each of you will choose one person, or maybe a group of people, whom you admire more than anyone else. They can be alive today or figures from the past.”
As soon as she says it, fireworks shoot up my spine, because I know who my hero is going to be: Lou Lafferman.
“There will be three parts to this project: a biography, a letter, and an oral presentation.”
Ryan raises his hand. “Are we allowed to work with partners?” he asks.
Mrs. Adler purses her lips. “Hmmm. A hero is a personal thing, but I suppose two students might have the same hero. Okay, I’ll allow it, as long as the two students both truly look up to their chosen subject.”
Barftastic! I look at Nick. We could do a Barf Brothers tribute to the world’s greatest comedian!
The Barftastic Life of Louie Burger Page 4
