by Dan Gutman
“YOU COULDN’T MAKE ME LAUGH IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDED ON IT!” Betty roared. “AND BY THE WAY, YOUR LIFE DOES DEPEND ON IT.”
“Oh yeah?” I said. “Listen to this!—An eight-year-old boy hadn’t spoken in his entire life. Then one day, as his family sat down to breakfast, he suddenly asked, ‘Where’s the cream cheese?’ Everyone was shocked. When they recovered, they all asked him why he had never spoken before. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘up until now we’ve always had cream cheese.’”
“UGH. THE LAST TIME I HEARD THAT JOKE,” Betty groaned, “MOUNT RUSHMORE HAD THREE HEADS.”
I was not discouraged. I was just warming up, softening her up for my best jokes.
“Where was the Declaration of Independence signed?” I asked.
“WHERE?” Betty responded.
“On the bottom!”
Nothing. No response at all. If I could just make her laugh a little, I reasoned, I would hit her with my best jokes and she would be unable to eat anything, much less the entire planet.
“YOUR MINDLESS JOKES HAVE BECOME TIRESOME,” Betty said, grabbing me by the arms. “IT IS TIME YOUR MISERABLE LIFE CAME TO AN END. AND EARTH WITH IT!”
“Go ahead and kill him,” Punch said. “He’s fictional anyway.”
“Wait!” I begged. “I have lots more jokes to tell you!”
“ENOUGH JOKES!” Betty roared. “IT IS TIME FOR THE EATING TO BEGIN!”
Betty picked up a bowl and put it on the ground in front of me.
“IT WOULD NOT BE POLITE FOR ME TO EAT ALONE,” she said. “WON’T YOU JOIN ME IN YOUR LAST MEAL, FUNNY BOY?”
“Croutons!” I exclaimed, looking in the bowl.
“NOT JUST CROUTONS,” Betty sneered. “CROUTONITE!”
Croutonite! Little chunks of my home planet. They had been placed in my rocket ship before it was launched to Earth. How did Betty get them? Suddenly, I felt funny. Or, I should say, I didn’t feel funny at all.
“THE CROUTONITE IS SAPPING YOUR POWERS, FUNNY BOY. YOU ARE LOSING YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR!”
Punch says:
I thought that happened on page 1.
She was right! For the first time in my life, I saw no humor at all in the situation.
“Without my sense of humor,” I moaned, “I’ll die!”
“THAT’S RIGHT, FUNNY BOY! AND I WILL RULE THE UNIVERSE! HAHAHAHAHA!”
“You’re a sick, sick alien!”
“DO NOT FEEL SO BAD, FUNNY BOY,” Betty said. “YOU WERE NEVER THAT FUNNY TO BEGIN WITH. PERHAPS YOU HAVE ONE LAST REQUEST BEFORE YOU DIE?”
“Yes,” I groaned. “My last request is that you don’t kill me.”
“THAT WAS YOUR LAST JOKE, FUNNY BOY,” Betty said. “PATHETIC AS IT WAS.”
I could feel my sense of humor slipping away. I tried to think of why the chicken crossed the road. I didn’t have a clue. I couldn’t come up with the reason why firemen wear red suspenders. I had no idea why anyone would throw a clock out a window. Nothing was funny to me anymore.
“Don’t give in!” Bob yelled. “Try telling a joke, Funny Boy!”
“This walrus walks into a dentist’s office,” I groaned, straining to remember the rest. “And he says to the dentist ... uh ... I forgot. I’m too weak. Too weak ...
“YOU ARE HELPLESS BEFORE ME,” Betty boomed. “I DO NOT HAVE TO HEAR YOUR LAME ATTEMPTS AT HUMOR ANYMORE. NOW I MUST BEGIN TO EAT EARTH!”
“Don’t give up now, Funny Boy!” Punch begged. “You’re our only hope!”
“I’m too weak, Punch!” I moaned. “I can’t think of my jokes!”
“How about riddles?” she said. “Maybe they would work.”
“Too weak ... don’t remember the punch lines ...
“I’ll say the punch lines!” Punch announced proudly.
“You?”
It almost made me laugh. Punch never had a sense of humor. She’s so unfunny, she couldn’t make a hyena laugh.
“Let me try,” Punch begged. “I’ve memorized all your jokes. We have nothing to lose at this point. If we don’t try something, we’ll all die!”
Punch says:
It’s about time he gave me a few lines.
“Okay,” I muttered desperately. “I’ll say the riddle and you say the punch line.”
“Hey, Betty!” shouted Punch. “Before you start eating, Funny Boy and I would like to have a word with you.”
Betty waddled over to us. Punch motioned for me to start.
“How long is the longest finger in the world?” I managed to grunt through my pain.
“I DO NOT KNOW.”
“Eleven inches,” Punch replied. “If it were twelve inches, it would be a foot.”
Betty just stared at us with a puzzled expression on her face. Punch motioned for me to try another one.
“A penny and a dollar were on top of the Empire State Building,” I said. “The penny jumped off. Why didn’t the dollar?”
“It had more sense,” Punch replied.
Betty didn’t crack a smile. She sure was a tough audience.
“Which travels faster, heat or cold?” I asked.
“Heat,” Punch replied. “It’s easy to catch cold.”
“THAT WAS SO FUNNY I FORGOT TO LAUGH,” Betty roared.
“Why does corn think farmers are disgusting?” I asked.
“Because they pick their ears,” Punch replied immediately. Punch was right. She did know all my jokes.
“YOU NEED SOME NEW JOKE WRITERS,” Betty said. “THE LAST TIME I HEARD THAT, I FELL OFF MY DINOSAUR.”
“What’s the difference between a fish and a piano?” I asked.
“You can’t tune a fish,” Punch said. “Get it? Tune a fish? Tuna fish?”
“TOTALLY UNFUNNY. NOW YOU MUST DIE!”
“Wait!” I pleaded. “What animal eats with its tail?”
“They all do,” Punch replied. “It’s not like they can take them off!”
“PLEASE SHUT UP,” Betty moaned. “YOU’RE NOT AT ALL FUNNY.”
“Did you know it takes three sheep to make a sweater?” I asked.
“I didn’t even know sheep could knit,” Punch replied.
“SHUT UP!” Betty moaned, holding her ears. “PLEASE SHUT UP.”
“What animal can jump higher than a house?” I asked.
“All of them,” Punch said. “Houses can’t jump.”
“STOP!” Betty moaned. “CAN’T YOU SEE HOW NOT FUNNY YOU ARE?”
“What would you do if you broke your arm in two places?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t go back to those two places anymore,” Punch replied.
“I’M GETTING A MIGRAINE,” Betty moaned, holding her enormous head.
“If you go to the bathroom in France,” I asked, “what are you?”
“You’re a peein’!” Punch said. “Get it, European?”
“OH, THE PAIN ... THE PAIN ...
Seeing an opportunity, Bob rushed forward. He grabbed the bowl of Croutonite and took it away. Almost instantly, I started feeling funny again.
Betty was holding the sides of her head and stumbling around like a wounded animal. I felt a little bad, lowering myself to toilet humor. But, hey, the world was at stake. You gotta do what you gotta do.
“You doubted the power of my amazing sense of humor!” I shouted at Betty. “And look at you now. You’re a pathetic mass of glop. My powers are back. Now I will tell jokes so funny you’ll die laughing.”
“SHUT UP! PLEASE, I’M BEGGING YOU! STOP TELLING YOUR STUPID JOKES!”
Suddenly, Betty gasped for breath, then toppled over with a thud. Her eyes rolled up. There was silence.
“She’s ... dead!” Punch exclaimed. “You killed her.”
It was true. Betty lay there on the White House lawn without moving.
“ ’Twas humor that killed the beast,” I said softly.
“I guess those riddles were so bad, she couldn’t stand it anymore,” Punch said.
“I’d almost rather be dead than have to listen to you two trying
to be funny,” one of the White House security guards added.
“Some folks,” I announced solemnly, “just can’t take a joke.”
CHAPTER 13
THE BIG SURPRISE ENDING THAT WILL COMPLETELY SHOCK YOU, UNLESS YOU ALREADY GUESSED IT
“They’ve got to believe this alien story!” Bob said excitedly. “The thing died right on the White House lawn! I can collect the reward from the National Inspirer. I’ll be rich, rich, rich!”
At that moment, a man with a beard rushed over. I recognized his face right away. It was Steven Spielberg.
“Cut!” he shouted. “That was beautiful! Print it! Take five, everybody!”
“What are you doing here?” I asked Spielberg.
“What do you think?” Spielberg asked. “I’m shooting E.T. Returns. You were terrific! Such drama! Such emotion! You might win the Oscar for best actor!”
“But the President told me the alien was real. He said you were only shooting a movie so the public wouldn’t find out—”
“Now the public will find out the truth!” shouted a voice behind us.
“Who said that?” asked Spielberg.
“I did.”
The voice was coming from inside Betty’s spaceship. It was familiar to me, somehow. We all turned around. Spielberg ordered his crew to quickly turn on their cameras and start filming.
A small figure emerged from the shadows of Betty’s spaceship.
“Bronk!” I shouted.
“Bronk?” Bob asked. “Who’s Bronk?”
“My little brother,” I replied.
“That’s right!” Bronk said with a sneer. “It’s me. Your stinking little brother who you loved to torture so much back home on Crouton. You thought you’d seen the last of me. Not quite, Funny Boy. After Mom and Dad sent you away, I realized something was missing in my life—revenge! I never had the chance to get back at you for those spitballs you shot at me. So I got a spaceship of my own, stopped off at Andromeda to hire Betty and brought her here to destroy Earth ... with you on it.”
“Well, your plan didn’t work,” I told Bronk. “Betty’s dead.”
“That’s okay,” Bronk said as he reached into his pocket. “I’m still going to get my revenge.”
“He’s going for a gun!” Bob shouted. Everyone dove for cover.
Bronk didn’t pull out a gun. He pulled out a straw. Then he wadded up a piece of paper and put it in his mouth. And then he put the straw to his lips and shot a spitball right at my forehead.
“Ha!” Bronk said triumphantly. “I finally got you back.”
“You’re sick, Bronk,” I said. “Really sick.”
“Cut!” shouted Steven Spielberg. “Beautiful! What an ending! Academy Awards, here I come!”
What an ending, indeed. When the story reached the front pages of all the newspapers the next day, I became an international celebrity superhero known the world over as Funny Boy. Steven Spielberg offered me ten million dollars for the movie rights to my life story. I gave a million dollars to Bob, and as a retirement present, his employer gave him a lifetime supply of underwear. Bronk was sent back to Crouton.
So Punch was right about one thing—we did have a happy ending. After it was all over, she became the first dog in history to have her own talk show.
Well, my work is done here. You have turned the pages. I have used the forces of funniness to thwart evil. Together, we have made the world safe. Safe for remote-control cars that don’t steer. Safe for infomercials for gizmos that don’t make you lose weight. Safe for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and roller hockey and the Cartoon Network.
Until we meet again, my friends, I leave you with one small piece of advice. Always remember my slogan: Laughter is the best medicine. But if you fall off a bridge or something, don’t sit there laughing like an idiot. Call an ambulance.
A Biography of Dan Gutman
Dan Gutman was born in a log cabin in Illinois and used to write by candlelight with a piece of chalk on a shovel. Oh, wait a minute, that was Abraham Lincoln. Actually, Dan Gutman grew up in New Jersey and, for some reason, still lives there.
Somehow, Dan survived his bland and uneventful childhood, and then attended Rutgers University, where he majored in psychology for reasons he can’t explain. After a few years of graduate studies, he disappointed his mother by moving to New York City to become a starving writer.
In the 1980s, after several penniless years writing untrue newspaper articles, unread magazine articles, and unsold screenplays, Gutman supported himself by writing about video games and selling unnecessary body parts. He edited Video Games Player magazine for four years. And, although he knew virtually nothing about computers, he spent the late 1980s writing a syndicated column on the subject.
In 1990, Gutman got the opportunity to write about something that had interested him since childhood: baseball. Beginning with It Ain’t Cheatin’ If You Don’t Get Caught (1990), Gutman wrote several nonfiction books about the sport, covering subjects such as the game’s greatest scandals and the history of its equipment.
The birth of his son, Sam, inspired Gutman to write for kids, beginning with Baseball’s Biggest Bloopers (1993). In 1996, Gutman published The Kid Who Ran for President, a runaway hit about a twelve-year-old who (duh!) runs for president. He also continued writing about baseball, and the following year published Honus & Me, a story about a young boy who finds a rare baseball card that magically takes him back to 1909 to play with Honus Wagner, one of the game’s early greats. This title stemmed a series about time-travel encounters with other baseball stars such as Jackie Robinson, Babe Ruth, and, in Ted & Me (2012), Ted Williams.
In his insatiable quest for world domination, Dan also wrote Miss Daisy Is Crazy (2004) and launched the My Weird School series, which now spans more than forty books, most recently Mayor Hubble Is in Trouble! (2012).
As if he didn’t have enough work to do, Gutman published Mission Unstoppable (2011), the first adventure novel in the Genius Files series, starring fraternal twins Coke and Pepsi McDonald. There will be six books in the series, in which the twins are terrorized by lunatic assassins while traveling cross-country during their summer vacation. These books are totally inappropriate for children, or anybody else for that matter.
Gutman lives in Haddonfield, New Jersey, with his wife and two children. But please don’t stalk him.
Gutman and his sister Lucy in New York in 1956.
A young, stylish Gutman at home in Newark, New Jersey.
Gutman in his Little League uniform in 1968.
Gutman with two babies born in 1990:
the first baseball book he wrote, and his son, Sam.
Gutman in Liverpool, England, at the site of the real Strawberry Field. “I idolize the Beatles and they inspire all my books,” he says.
Gutman and his dentist at play (we hope).
Gutman in the midst of adoring fans at
Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois.
When he’s not writing, Gutman’s busy with his favorite hobby, biking.
Gutman and his wife, Nina, at the spot where they met in 1982.
Gutman’s wife, Nina, with their children, Sam and Emma.
“After thirty years I made the New York Times bestseller list,” says Gutman, posing with the second book of the Genius Files, his hit series.
Visit the author at www.dangutman.com and
www.openroadmedia.com/dangutman.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, plac
es, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1999 by Dan Gutman
Interior illustrations © 1999 by John Dykes
Cover illustration © 2012 by Mike Dietz
cover design by Mimi Bark
ISBN 978-1-4532-5953-5
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY DAN GUTMAN
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