My Life as a Human Hockey Puck

by Bill Myers

  MY Life

  as a

  Human Hockey Puck

  BOOKS BY BILL MYERS

  The Incredible Worlds of Wally McDoogle (20 books):

  —My Life As a Smashed Burrito with Extra Hot Sauce

  —My Life As Alien Monster Bait

  — My Life As a Broken Bungee Cord

  —My Life As Crocodile Junk Food

  —My Life As Dinosaur Dental Floss

  —My Life As a Torpedo Test Target

  —My Life As a Human Hockey Puck

  —My Life As an Afterthought Astronaut

  —My Life As Reindeer Road Kill

  —My Life As a Toasted Time Traveler

  —My Life As Polluted Pond Scum

  —My Life As a Bigfoot Breath Mint

  —My Life As a Blundering Ballerina

  —My Life As a Screaming Skydiver

  —My Life As a Human Hairball

  —My Life As a Walrus Whoopee Cushion

  —My Life As a Mixed-Up Millennium Bug

  —My Life As a Beat-Up Basketball Backboard

  —My Life As a Cowboy Cowpie

  —My Life As Invisible Intestines with Intense Indigestion

  Other Series:

  McGee and Me! (12 books)

  Bloodhounds, Inc. (10 books)

  Forbidden Doors (10 books)

  Teen Nonfiction

  Hot Topics, Tough Questions

  Faith Encounter

  Just Believe It

  Picture Book

  Baseball for Breakfast

  www.Billmyers.com

  the incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle

  MY Life

  as a

  Human Hockey Puck

  BILL MYERS

  MY LIFE AS A HUMAN HOCKEY PUCK

  © 1994 by Bill Myers.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  Scripture quotations are from the International Children’s Bible®, New Century Version®, © 1986, 1988, 1999 by Tommy Nelson®, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Myers, Bill, 1953–

  My life as a human hockey puck / Bill Myers.

  p. cm. — (The Incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #7)

  Summary: Wally McDoogle as team mascot for the Middletown Super Chickens is calamity enough until he is also thrown in to play goalie.

  ISBN 978-0–8499–3601–2

  [1. Honesty—Fiction. 2. Christian life—Fiction. 3. Humorous stories.] I. Title. II. Series: Myers, Bill, 1953– .

  Incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #7.

  PZ7.M98234Myh 1994

  [Fic]—dc20 93-33671

  CIP

  AC

  Printed in the United States of America

  09 10 11 12 13 14 QW 35 34 33 32 31 30

  For Kristy and Terri—

  Cousins and valued friends.

  Peace of mind means a healthy body. But jealousy will rot your bones.

  —Proverbs 14:30

  Contents

  1. Just for Starters...

  2. And the Winner Isn’t...

  3. Time for a Change

  4. Mad Dog and Me

  5. Heeeeere’s Wally

  6. Opening Night Jitters

  7. ‘Fine’

  8. Follow the Bouncing Wally

  9. Let the Game Begin

  10. Super Cluck to the Rescue

  11. Wrapping Up

  Chapter 1

  Just for Starters . . .

  The nice thing about pain is that it comes in all sorts of sizes—from the . . .

  Mini: “Excuse-me-you’re-stepping-on-my-bare-feet-with-your-baseball-cleats” type of pain, to the . . .

  Medium: “I-sure-wish-we-weren’t-going-through-this-red-light-with-that-semitruck-coming-from-the-other-direction” type of pain, to the . . .

  Maxi-Econo-Sized: “What-does-this-bully-mean-when-he-says-he’s-about-to-give-me-some-free-dental-work?” type of pain.

  Then, of course, there’s the . . . Giant , Industrial-Strength version which I was about to experience. . . .

  We were playing flag football in co-ed P.E. when my old pal, Gary the Gorilla (who did not get his name by accident), broke through the line and came after our quarterback with all the gentleness of a locomotive gone crazy.

  Our quarterback hesitated, looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. He spotted me out of the corner of his eye and shouted, “Hey, McDoogle, catch!”

  Being no fool, he got rid of the ball as fast as he could.

  Being a total fool, I caught it.

  “Oh no,” groaned Wall Street, one of my best friends (even though she is a girl).

  I looked up to see Gary racing in my direction with his arms spread and a grin of major meanness across his face. Somehow I suspected he wasn’t coming to give me a hug.

  “Hey, Wall Street?” She was right beside me.

  “Yeah, Wally?”

  “How ’bout a handoff?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m allergic to death.”

  I looked back to Gary, who was still running toward us at full speed. “I see your point.”

  “Wally, should I use my cellular phone to call an ambulance?”

  Gary was so close I could see the steam coming from his nostrils.

  “You better make that a hearse.”

  Wall Street nodded and stepped out of the way. “Good luck.”

  Gary hit me. I’ll save you all the gory details. Let’s just say that even though it was flag football, Gary could never quite tell the difference between pulling out somebody’s flag and scattering their body parts all over the field.

  They scraped most of me up and poured me onto the sidelines next to Opera, my other best friend. As usual, he had a note from his mom forbidding him from any physical activity (other than eating junk food—and believe me, the way he chomps on those chips, it’s definitely physical). His headphones were on and he was listening to classical stuff at a volume level just above “If This Doesn’t Burst Your Eardrums, Nothing Will.”

  Coach Killroy didn’t bother to check to see if I was okay. I’d been in his P.E. class for six months, and he was getting a little tired of bandaging me up, resetting my bones, and restarting my heart whenever I did anything athletic. It’s not that I’m unathletic. The truth of the matter is, I’m really quite a jock. I’m even planning on participating in the Olympics . . . just as soon as they have an event for Stupendous Klutziness.

  I looked down and saw Opera scribbling away in his notebook. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “What?” he shouted over his music.

  I motioned to the paper.

  “It’s for the essay contest,” he yelled. He tore off the sheet, crumpled it, and tossed it on top of a growing mountain of wadded paper beside him. “Mrs. Finkelstein is announcing the winners at the end of the day, and I still haven’t got any ideas. What did you write about?”

  Opera was referring to the sports essay contest WART-TV was holding. The winner would get to do the sports broadcasts for a whole week. Everybody was makin
g a big deal about it. Everybody but me. I had it in the bag, and I knew it.

  The way I figured, when God made me, He substituted all of my grace and coordination genes with writing ones. I may not be able to tie my shoes without ending up in an Intensive Care Unit, but believe me, I can write. So, of course I was going to win the writing contest. It was only fair. All I had to do was whip up something and hand it in before the end of the day. That was the easy part. Surviving P.E., well, that might be a little tougher. . . .

  “Hey, McDoogle!” Coach Killroy shouted. “Can you walk yet?”

  I looked at my legs, hoping they were missing, or at least broken into lots of little pieces. No such luck. They looked just as healthy as ever.

  “Great,” I moaned, “just great.”

  “Get in there and quarterback for a while,” he ordered.

  I rose unsteadily to my feet and looked at the other team. There were Gary the Gorilla and half-a-dozen of his overfed (and undereducated) goons dragging their bodies (and knuckles) up to the scrimmage line. There was no missing the gleam in their eyes and the saliva drooling out of the corners of their mouths as they anxiously waited to turn me into football shoe goo.

  I turned back to Opera and shouted, “Why don’t you write your story on hockey! You’re a big hockey nut. Write about hockey.”

  “That’s a great idea!” he shouted as he crumpled up his 1,234th piece of paper and started number 1,235. “Thanks.”

  I shrugged. It was no biggie. The way I figured, since I was on my way to meet God, I might as well squeeze in a final good deed to impress Him.

  Twenty minutes later I limped down the hall toward my locker. Somehow, I had made it through another grueling class of P.E., which, as we all know, does NOT stand for Physical Education, but rather Physical Embarrassment.

  Opera was still babbling on about the writing contest. “I can’t believe you haven’t started,” he shouted over his Walkman while tearing into his second bag of chips.

  “Wally’s a pro,” Wall Street said as she joined us from the girls’ locker room. “Pros can do that sort of thing in their sleep, right Wally?”

  Before I could shrug and fake some modesty, another voice drifted through the air. “Hiii, Waaally.” It was as lovely as a spring day, as soft as a rose petal, and as cunning as a carnival barker. I turned around to see Melissa Sue Avarice, the most beautiful girl in our school.

  She smiled her perfect every-tooth-in-place smile and batted her baby blues in my direction. “I’m really looking forward to seeing you on TV, Wally.”

  I opened my mouth. It was time to play it suave and cool. Time to impress her with my wit and intelligence. “Daa, uhhh, I mean, ummmm, daaa, yeah, uhhh, sure.” So much for wit and intelligence. Not only did her beauty tie my tongue, but it also seemed to be knotting my brain.

  “What makes you so sure he’s going to win?” Opera shouted over his music.

  “Because he’s sooo smart,” Melissa cooed. “Besides, if he doesn’t win, how will he take me to meet Vincent Thrasher, WART-TV’s ultra-hunk anchorman?”

  I nodded eagerly. “Daa, uhhh, I mean, ummmm, daaa . . .”

  She gave me a pathetic look, the same type you give animals lying on the side of the freeway. She forced a smile and headed down the hall. “Good luck, Wally Dolly,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Daa, uhhh, ummm, daaa . . .”

  Wall Street groaned, “ ‘Wally Dolly?’ Give me a break.”

  I nodded. “Daa, uhhh, ummm, daaa . . .”

  Wall Street punched me in the gut. “Knock it off, she’s just a girl.”

  I continued watching Melissa float down the hall. Finally my mouth started working. “That’s no girl, Wall Street, that’s poetry in motion. Melissa Sue Avarice is . . . well, she’s . . . she’s . . .”

  Opera, who was also staring after her, finished the thought with a longing sigh. “She’s an extra-large order of piping hot fries, covered in salt, and drenched in cool, dripping ketchup.”

  I nodded.

  Wall Street looked from me to Opera. “Guys.” And from Opera to me. “Guys?”

  No response from either of us.

  “Guys, she’s nothing but a user.”

  “Exactly,” we sighed in perfect two-part harmony.

  “I can’t believe you two are so blind.”

  “You’re the one who is blind,” I said, still dazed.

  “If you can’t see past her shallow and superficial personality—”

  “You left out, ‘spoiled,’ ” Opera corrected. “Don’t forget ‘spoiled.’”

  “Right. If you can’t see past her shallow, selfish, and spoiled personality to appreciate that beautiful hair, that lovely face, those expensive clothes . . . then you’re the one who is blind.”

  Wall Street glared at us, then she spun around and stormed down the hall, muttering all the way. She had just disappeared into the crowd when I heard another voice. “Hey, McDoogle!”

  I could tell by the prehistoric accent that it was Bruno Pistarini—one of the dimmest bullies in school. I don’t want to say he’s stupid, but he’s the only eighth-grader I know who’s old enough to vote. “We gots some business ta takes care of !” he said.

  One of the major problems of being the all-school punching bag and having your locker this close to a lavatory is that whenever one of these semi-human types feels a little anxious, you may be called upon to help them relax. It’s kind of a public service.

  “Loan me your pad and pencil,” I whispered to Opera. “Looks like I’m going to have some spare time to write that article.”

  “What about your laptop computer?”

  “It’s not waterproof.”

  Opera nodded and quickly handed me his pad and pencil. Then, doing his best to look casual, he slowly turned, tried to whistle (not an easy task with half a bag of potato chips in your mouth), and ran down the hallway screaming for his life.

  You really couldn’t blame him. For some people, living can be a habit that’s really hard to break. Unfortunately, I don’t have that problem.

  Suddenly, a hand the size of Seattle grabbed my collar and hoisted me into the air. As Bruno threw me over his shoulder and hauled me down the hall, I flipped open the notepad and began to write. It wouldn’t be my best work, with all of the distractions and everything, but at least it would help take my mind off the upcoming pain.

  As usual, Bruno kicked open the locker room door. BAMB!

  As usual, I was greeted by the kids suiting up for next period’s P.E.: “Hey, Wally . . . How’s it going, McDoogle? . . .

  Good luck on that essay contest.”

  I nodded and continued writing.

  Bruno entered the bathroom and kicked open the stall door. BANG!

  Suddenly, I was turned upside down and held dangling by my ankles. But, before the fun and games really got started, I cleared my throat. “Uh, Bruno?”

  “What?” He sounded as brain-dead as ever.

  “Would you mind holding off for just a second? I’m almost done writing this essay.”

  “Well, hurry, I ain’t got all day.”

  I nodded and scribbled away.

  “Aren’t ya done yet?”

  “Just about.” I completed the last sentence with a flair and dotted the period. “Thanks, Bruno, you’re a pal.”

  “Don’t mention it.” With that he opened the toilet lid, pushed down the flush lever . . . SWOOOOSH! . . . and stuck my head into the swirling water.

  Ah yes, the ever-popular “Swirlie.” One of my favorites. The good news was I had finished the article. It only took a minute and twenty-three seconds to write. And, as usual, it was great. But not as great as it was going to be to appear for a solid week on WART-TV with the ever-beautiful Melissa Sue Avarice waiting for me in the wings. How lucky could a guy get? SWOOOOSH!

  Oh boy, a double-header. I really was lucky.

  Chapter 2

  And the Winner Isn’t . . .

  After taking a few more laps around
the toilet, I swung by the office and dropped off my essay. It was a little wet around the edges but still readable and still pretty good.

  I pulled ol’ Betsy, my laptop computer, out of my locker and headed to the library for study hall. Mr. Hackelburn, the librarian, didn’t notice me as I slipped into the chair beside Opera.

  This was the last period of the day. Since I only had about four zillion hours of homework ahead of me, I figured I’d waste some time with another one of my superhero stories. I popped open Betsy’s lid, snapped her on, and began to write. . . .

  It had been another boring day of outer space superherohood for the ever-so- magnificent Macho Man McDoogle. Already he had captured and returned Saturn’s rings (someone was trying to sell them as giant Hula Hoops), plugged up two black holes (a job that took more than your average mouthful of chewing gum), and finally learned the real words to “The Star-Spangled Banner” (although he’s still not sure what “twilight’s last screaming” means).

  Now he is on the distant planet “This ­Gets ­Stranger Yet,” trying not to yawn during a parade they are holding in his honor. Why are they making such a big deal? All he did was save their world from total destruction. All he did was toss a couple of nuclear bombs in the path of a runaway asteroid that was about to turn them all into intergalactic roadkill. Why all the fuss?

  Who knows. But, here he sits, high atop a float, waving his marvelously manly arms to his adoring fans. Of course, it’s hard to see over his gigantic rippling muscles. And every time he flexes, his bulging biceps rip out his XXXX-Large shirt. But it’s a small price to pay for being the strongest man in the universe.

  Suddenly a rare three-headed Bubble-­brain breaks through the cheering crowd. “Oh Macho Man, Macho Man——you’re so strong, you’re so brave, you’re so... so...”

  “Macho?” Macho Man smiles.

  “Yes,” she sighs, “Macho. And I love you sooo much.”

  “Of course you do,” Macho Man grins while striking a manly pose. “What’s not to love? These tremendously thick triceps? These larger-than-life thighs?” He wiggles his toes, and they tear through his shoes. “Even these tremendous tootsies are terrifically tough.”