“Negative. I have my orders. I’m just a vice principal. Gotta do what the big man tells me to do.” She gives me a look. “Wait a second. You’re Jamie Grimm. The funny boy from TV.”
I smile because, hey, it’s always cool to be recognized. “Yeah,” I say as modestly as I can. “Would you like an autograph?”
“No. I would like for you to quickly and efficiently make your way to your first-period class. You are blocking my avenue of ingress. This is a hallway, not a stall way! Move it, Mr. Grimm. Hustle! I want to see skid marks!”
“Yes, ma’am!” I say. I even salute.
I pump my arms furiously and zoom around the corner, then hit a roadblock.
Two of them, actually.
Stevie and Lars.
Chapter 5
BOOKING IT
My worst nightmares are standing in the hallway with their hands on their hips, glaring at me the way hungry lions glare at gazelles.
The two of them, side by side, are so wide, there’s no way I’m getting around them.
“Welcome back to our world, Crip,” says Stevie.
“We missed you, Joke Boy,” adds Lars.
“Really?” I squeak. “I missed you guys, too. Hey, I have an idea. Let’s keep on missing each other. Just pretend I’m not here.”
“Oh, you won’t be here,” says Lars. “Not when we’re through with you.”
“Yeah,” says Stevie. “You’ll be in the emergency room.”
“No, thanks,” I say. “Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt and the hospital gown.”
“Is he making a joke?” Lars whispers to Stevie.
“No,” snarls Stevie. “He is a joke. And I’m about to give him his punch line!”
He balls up his fist.
“Thank you, guys,” I say with a smile. “You’ve been a great crowd. But I’ve got to go.”
I pivot backward, tip up on my rear wheels, spin around, and race down the hall as fast as my arms can push me. Stevie and Lars lumber after me.
“Come back here, Lamie Jamie!” shouts Stevie.
“We’re going to break your face!” adds Lars.
I zip past the office, hoping that the principal will see what’s going on and stop it.
But the only one behind the counter is the school secretary. She smiles and waves at me with her flower-topped pen.
“Hiya, Jamie. Good to have you back, hon.”
I jab a thumb over my shoulder. “Bullies!”
The secretary laughs and keeps waving. “Oh, you’re such a joker, Jamie. Have a nice day, hon.”
I pump harder.
Stevie and Lars start flinging their textbooks at me. Two whiz past my ears like very thick Frisbees. One lands with a thud on the floor. The other veers left and bangs into a locker.
But the books give me an idea.
I need to seek sanctuary in the one place the two bullies would never think to look: the library. Lars and Stevie never use books for anything but weapons, so I’m guessing they don’t even know the school has a library!
I round a corner, shove open a pair of glass doors, and slam on the brakes in the reference section, where I can hide behind a bookcase filled with encyclopedias.
I hear Stevie and Lars skid to a sneaker-squeaking halt in the hallway.
“Where’d he go?” says Stevie.
“I dunno,” says Lars. “What’s this room here?”
“I’m not sure. But it smells like books.”
“Gross.”
“Totally.”
“Let’s get out of here. I’m allergic to books.”
“Me too.”
The two giants clump down the hall.
I’m safe.
For now, anyway.
To be honest, I don’t really use the library all that much. Except for hiding. It really is a bully-free zone because no self-respecting bully would ever voluntarily enter a room with so many books on the shelves.
I decide to stay a little longer and search the stacks. I’m hoping I can find a good book. Something like Wheelchair Karate for Dummies.
Chapter 6
SHOWTIME BY THE SEA
I manage to avoid Stevie and Lars for the rest of the day.
After school, I want to keep on avoiding Stevie, so I head down the boardwalk to Uncle Frankie’s Good Eats by the Sea. As I’m rolling along, swerving through the flocks of squawking seagulls, I’m soaking up more than the sunshine. When you’re a comic, you’re always on the lookout for new material. Especially if you’re starring in a sitcom that needs ideas for eleven more episodes!
For instance, there’s this one guy I pass almost every day—Crazy Bob. That’s what he calls himself. It’s even printed on the sheet of cardboard he uses for a sign. Crazy Bob likes to stand on the boardwalk and warn everybody about the coming alien invasion.
I always toss a quarter into Crazy Bob’s tin cup. Hey, if the Galaxatronians show up next week, I want to be in good with their earthly ambassador.
I roll into the diner, and Uncle Frankie greets me with a flick of his yo-yo and a big smile.
“Hiya, kiddo. How was school?”
“Weird,” I say. “So much has changed since we’ve been in the studio doing the TV show.”
“Really?” says Uncle Frankie with a sly grin. “Are you sure you’re not the one who’s changed?”
“Positive. I’ve been wearing this same puffy vest since forever. In fact, the 1980s called. Said they wanted it back.”
Frankie laughs.
“You ready to take the stage?” he asks.
“You bet.”
I roll to my usual spot behind the cash register just as Mrs. Sowicky, one of our regulars, shuffles up to the counter.
“Hi, Mrs. S. Can I get you anything else?”
She knows I’m not talking about dessert or a cup of coffee to go. You see, after the horrible car crash that put me in my chair, I spent a lot of time at a hospital called the Hope Trust Rehabilitation Center. The doctors there really believed in laughter being the best medicine. So, after the surgeries and in between physical therapy sessions, I spent my days reading joke books, watching comedy videos, and memorizing the routines of the world’s greatest comedians. At the diner, I’ve become our joke jukebox. A customer picks a comedian; I play some of their greatest hits.
“How about a little George Carlin?” says Mrs. Sowicky.
“No problem. ‘Beethoven was so hard of hearing he thought he was a painter.’” I hit the cash register keys to give myself a bada-bing rim shot.
Mrs. Sowicky smiles, so I give her a second helping of Carlin. “When cheese has its picture taken, what does it say? Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do ‘practice’?”
I hand Mrs. S. her change. She plunks the coins into the tip jar.
“Thanks, Jamie. Good to have you back. Love your show!”
I love it, too. But the show I do when I’m just horsing around at Uncle Frankie’s? I love it even more!
As the tip jar fills up, the diner door swings open and in walks a lady with curly red hair.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Uncle Frankie slipping on his special gold-colored yo-yo—the flashy one with the blinking LEDs inside. They swirl when he twirls.
Hmm. Uncle Frankie pulls out Goldie only for special occasions.
I’m thinking the lady with the curly red hair who just floated through the door is just that: someone special!
Chapter 7
HEART ON A STRING
In case you forgot, Uncle Frankie used to be the junior yo-yo champion of Brooklyn. He won a trophy shaped like a giant yo-yo, complete with a golden string. It made it easy to tug around the house.
Uncle Frankie still knows all the flicks and flourishes. He can do Walk the Dog, Rock the Baby, Barrel Roll, Lindy Loop, Split the Atom, Pop ’n’ Fresh, and Gravity Pull without blinking an eye.
For the lady with the curly red hair, he does them all. Simultaneously.
Uncle Frankie finishes wit
h a grand, backward, upside-down, through-his-legs spin of the yo-yo, without breaking any glasses or sending the silverware flying!
“Fantastic, Francis!” says the lady.
“Thank you, Flora,” says Uncle Frankie, taking a slight bow.
I applaud. Flora looks over at me.
“You’re Jamie!” she says with a big smile.
“Yeah,” I say, blushing a little. (I’m still not used to strangers recognizing me.) “I guess you’ve seen my TV show, huh?”
“No, sorry. I don’t watch much TV. Too many books to read! But I have heard all about you.” She turns to Uncle Frankie. “Francis told me everything! How you won that comedy contest, how you helped him out after the hurricane, how you help out all sorts of charities. How you’re the best nephew in the whole wide world.”
Okay. Now I’m blushing so much, my ears feel like a pair of red-hot toaster coils.
“Flora—I mean, uh, Ms. Denning just moved to Long Beach,” says Frankie. “She’s the new librarian at your school.”
“Seriously?” I say. “I was just in the library this morning.”
“Really?” says Ms. Denning. “I didn’t see you.”
“Good!”
“Excuse me?”
“I was sort of hiding.”
She smiles. “Then you were doing a very good job of it.”
Uncle Frankie raises a single eyebrow and crinkles his forehead. “Why were you hiding in the library, Jamie?”
“All the toilet stalls were already full,” I joke, because I don’t want to tell Uncle Frankie the truth about Stevie gunning for me again. After all, he’s Stevie’s uncle, too, and I don’t feel like getting the whole family involved.
“Well, Jamie,” says Ms. Denning, “you’re welcome to hide out in the library anytime you like. And bring your friends. Please.”
She does it like Henny Youngman delivering his classic joke: “Take my wife. Please.”
“That would be good if you could, Jamie,” says Uncle Frankie. “Maybe you, Gilda, Gaynor, and Pierce can hit the library on a regular basis now that you guys are back in school for a few weeks. You should encourage the other kids to use the library more often, too. Flora’s got all sorts of books in there.”
My turn to arch an eyebrow. It’s a library. Of course it has books.
But I can tell Uncle Frankie isn’t using his brain right now. His heart is currently in charge. He is seriously crushing on Ms. Flora Denning.
“I’d appreciate it if you and your friends could drop by,” says Ms. Denning.
“Me too,” says Uncle Frankie, gesturing with his finger for me to roll closer so he can tell me a secret. “They might shut down the library.”
I guess I’m not the only one who hasn’t been using the library all that much lately. What can I say? I have an iPhone. I Google.
“Coach Ball isn’t a big fan,” says Ms. Denning.
“That’s too bad,” I say. “Um, who’s Coach Ball?”
“Your new principal,” says Uncle Frankie.
“Our principal’s first name is Coach?”
“He used to teach phys ed,” explains Ms. Denning. “He likes being called Coach instead of Principal. He wants to convince the school board that our library space could be better used for other purposes.”
“Like what?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Something without books, I guess.”
Chapter 8
BASKETBALL COURT JESTER
I was bummed to hear that some people want to shut down the school library, but to be honest, it isn’t a major concern of mine.
Like I said, I’ve never used the school library all that much. Just the joke book section. So I don’t have to worry about Ms. Denning’s dilemma.
Which is good because I have a ton of other stuff to worry about.
Did I mention that we have to come up with ideas for eleven more Jamie Funnie episodes? Yes, the show has writers, but they’re always asking me for ideas. I’ve been thinking it might be fun to do a show about me signing up for murderball—that’s a little like wheelchair basketball and it’s insanely intense.
So, on Tuesday night, I go to a basketball game with Gilda, Gaynor, and Pierce—Long Beach Middle versus our rivals from Valley Stream—to do a little research. We, of course, get courtside seats. Not because we’re TV stars or celebrities. No, we’re courtside because it’s really, really, really hard (okay, impossible) for me to climb bleachers in my wheelchair. Climbing Mount Everest would be easier. At least mountains don’t have steps. Their ramps are made out of rock.
“So, guess what I learned from Uncle Frankie?” I say to my buds.
“What?” says Gilda. “A new recipe for deep-fried bacon?”
“No. The new principal and the school board are thinking about closing the library.”
“Cool,” says Gaynor. “Are they going to, like, repaint it or something?”
“No. They want to shut it down forever and use the room for something else.”
“That’s ridiculous,” says Gilda. “We need the library. How do you think I learned so much about making movies? It wasn’t in math class. It was in the library.”
“I enjoy the wide assortment of manga and graphic novels,” adds Pierce. “You can’t learn very much about alien civilizations and supervillains in history textbooks.”
“Well,” I say, “I’m sure it’s just a rumor. Even if not many kids use it, no way can you have a middle school without a library.”
“Unless you give every kid a free iPad,” says Gaynor. “Free iPads would be awesome.”
Vincent O’Neil, a kid who still cracks the corniest jokes this side of Nebraska (the Cornhusker State), sees us sitting courtside and comes over to entertain us with his latest string of one-liners. When I first met Vincent, he used to tell everybody he was ten billion times funnier than me. Now he just tells everybody the jokes he memorizes out of joke books.
“Looking forward to the B-ball game?” Vincent asks, and I just know he’s memorized a whole slew of basketball jokes off some website.
“Yep,” says Gaynor.
And that’s all Vincent needs to launch into his routine.
“You know, Gilda,” says Vincent. “You remind me of Cinderella.”
“Whaaat?”
Vincent ignores her death glare and bulldozes ahead to his punch line. “Cinderella wanted to play basketball, but the coach kicked her off the team because she kept running away from the ball. Get it? In the fairy tale, Cinderella runs—”
“We got it,” says Gilda.
“Hey, you know what they call a Long Beach Middle School basketball player with a trophy?” Vincent goes on.
I take the bait. “What?”
“A senior citizen. This school hasn’t won a championship in thirty years! And then, it was for showing up and playing nice.”
That one actually makes me grin. “Hey, Vincent,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Gilda and I might brainstorm ideas for new Jamie Funnie episodes tomorrow after school. Want to join us?”
“Me? Help you guys? Writing jokes for Jamie Funnie?”
“Sure. It’ll be fun.”
Gilda gives me a look. And a knee nudge. And maybe a toe stomp. (I can’t feel those.)
Yes, she thinks I’m insane. But, well, I sort of feel sorry for Vincent.
“Just tell me when and where,” he says, sounding super psyched.
“How about the library?” says Gilda. “Nobody ever goes there, so we can have the place to ourselves.”
“Awesome! You guys are the best.”
Vincent knocks knuckles with me and Gilda, then climbs the bleachers to tell his basketball jokes to somebody else.
“Thanks,” I tell Gilda.
“You owe me one,” she says with a sideways grin. “Actually, you might owe me two. Maybe, if we’re lucky, the new librarian will come over and shush Vincent when he starts telling jokes.”
“Nah,” I said. “I met her at the diner. She
’s too nice to shush.”
“What?” says Gaynor. “How can you be a librarian if you don’t tell kids to keep quiet? Shushing is totally in the job description! They learn finger-lip coordination at library school!”
Chapter 9
MORE BASKETBALL JOKES
Speaking of jokes…
I hate to say it, but the Long Beach Middle School basketball team is pretty horrible. And from what everybody tells me, they’ve been horrible for years.
You know those teams that go on tour to play against the Harlem Globetrotters? Their losing streak is something like 2,495 games. The Long Beach Middle School Minnows have a losing streak that’s closer to 3,000.
It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.
We’re down by twenty-nine points at halftime. The cheerleaders aren’t leading cheers. They’re too busy weeping into their pom-poms.
I hear a speaker squeal with feedback and then a THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.
A big barrel of a man with a flattop hairdo, wearing a tracksuit and squeaky black sneakers, marches out to center court with a long microphone cable trailing behind him. He taps the microphone again to make sure it’s working. THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.
“Students?” he booms to the bleachers. “Sit down. Parents, too!”
Everybody immediately does what he says. The guy has that kind of voice. Plus, he’s squinting and scowling and heavy mouth-breathing into the microphone. He reminds me of Darth Vader—but with a double chin and no neck.
“That’s the guy who wants to shut down the library,” whispers Gilda. “Coach Ball. Our new principal.”
“People,” says Coach Ball, pacing back and forth like a general. “I am your new commander in chief here at Long Beach Middle School. As such, I plan on ushering in a new era of sporting excellence. We will no longer be the laughingstock of Long Island interscholastic athletics. We will be champions!”