The Joke's on Us

by Gordon Korman

  It was true. Edward passed right underneath the girls’ window and continued on behind the school.

  The three boys sped up to a run and quickly closed the gap behind Edward. Boots reached out and spun his brother around.

  Edward looked first shocked and then disgusted. “Would you two old men do me a favour and get a life?” He turned his gaze on Sidney, who was caked with grass and dirt, and wild-eyed from his spill off the fence. “Let me guess. You were drilling for oil with your face.”

  Sidney just stared.

  “What if I wrote Mom that you’ve been coming over here?” Boots raged.

  “Are you going to tell her that you caught me personally?” Edward asked innocently.

  Bruno looked at his watch. “As much as I’d love to hang out here and talk with this insect, I vote for a visit to Cathy and Diane. We haven’t seen them since the first day — and that time, something real ugly came up.” He glared at Edward.

  Boots sighed heavily. “Let’s just get out of here before we all end up in trouble.”

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth, than there was a low growling sound, and a large, dark shape appeared from the front of the school. Rex swaggered into the clearing, his Doberman features becoming clearer in the moonlight. The big animal squinted at them through cruel eyes that were little more than slits.

  “I wonder whose dog it is,” mused Boots.

  “He’s not a dog; he’s a Tyrannosaurus rex!” came Diane’s voice from above. “Miss Scrimmage bought him for protection!”

  “Come on,” scoffed Bruno. “This is what’s been keeping you girls away? A little puppy?”

  Cathy appeared at her side. “Don’t mess with him, Bruno,” she called down. “This is one evil mutt, no lie!”

  “Aha!” shrilled a triumphant voice.

  There, on a side balcony, stood Miss Scrimmage, wrapped in a frilly, pink dressing gown.

  “Please, Miss Scrimmage!” cried Diane. “Punish them, and call Mr. Sturgeon, and make them promise never to come back, but please, please, call off Rex!”

  But Miss Scrimmage was in her finest hour. “A lady may appear to be soft on the outside, Diane — but inside she is as strong as a bar of steel.” She turned her attention to the four cornered, quaking boys. “You brutes have terrorized us for the last time! All right, Rex — sic ’em!”

  Rex barked, a roar that echoed off the trees. The boys jumped back, and Sidney tripped on a tree root. He went down heavily. The big Doberman took three menacing steps toward the group, then yawned hugely and curled up into a ball on the grass, fast asleep.

  On the ground, Sidney had his hands over his eyes. “I can’t look! What’s happening?”

  “I–I think that dog just died —” stammered Bruno.

  Rex began to snore softly.

  “He’s not dead — he’s asleep!” said Boots in disbelief.

  “Asleep?!” Cathy practically jumped out her window with excitement. “That’s us! We did it! A whole week of overfeeding, and it finally paid off!”

  “Just in time to save the guys!” Diane added.

  Miss Scrimmage was livid. “What have you done to my dog, you marauders, you terrorists, you hooligans?” she shrieked down at the Macdonald Hall boys.

  Bruno summed up everyone’s feelings: “Ru-u-u-un!!”

  Cathy and Diane watched the footrace from their window.

  “Wow,” whistled Cathy. “Those guys should try out for the Olympics.”

  Chapter 7

  Marylou Beakman Hates Me

  PHANTOM JOKE SPREE PARALYZES SCHOOL blazoned the banner headline of the Macdonald Hall Student Times.

  Widespread interest had prompted Mark to put out a special edition of the school paper devoted almost completely to the notorious Phantom. In fact, the only article not related to the practical jokes was, REX TO BE PUT ON LOW CALORIE DIET UNTIL VICIOUS AGAIN, MISS SCRIMMAGE SAYS, at the bottom of page four.

  Mark was distributing papers in the dining hall at dinner, and they were going like hotcakes. Students jabbered excitedly about the gags they themselves had witnessed, and read with amazement of the others. Reaction ranged from anger to laughter to outright admiration for the master practical joker.

  “I don’t know whether to kill the guy or shake his hand,” said Larry, engrossed in the paper. “Check this out:

  On Wednesday, the Phantom reprogrammed the class-change bell to knock six minutes off each hour. At the end of eighth period, students and teachers were bewildered to find an entire period still to go, even though they had completed their full schedules.”

  Sidney snapped his fingers. “I remember that. It was nuts. Everybody was packed into the hall, pushing and shoving and trying to figure out what we’d missed, and then somebody set off a smoke bomb!”

  “Somebody my foot,” snarled Bruno. “It was the Phantom.”

  “I thought you’d like the Phantom,” Sidney told Bruno. “I mean, he’s exactly your style, and his stunts are brilliant. Half the guys think it’s you and Boots.”

  “Well, it’s not!” snapped Bruno testily.

  “Listen to this one,” put in Boots, skimming his own Student Times. “It says this guy dissected a frog for biology. Overnight, the Phantom took away the frog halves and replaced them with two new live frogs. And this poor kid did a whole science project on how frogs are like worms; when you cut them in half, the two parts go on living on their own.”

  Wilbur scowled over a stack of chicken cutlets. “Well, you can’t blame the Phantom for a guy being stupid,” he said in disgust. “I mean, what kind of an idiot thinks that frogs are like worms? Sheesh!”

  “Wait a minute.” Pete Anderson looked up from his plate. “That was me!” He peered at the paper over Boots’s shoulder. “I knew that sounded familiar. Cool!” he declared. “I made the paper.”

  Wilbur rolled his eyes.

  Bruno looked thoughtful. “Maybe we’ve been thinking about this whole thing the wrong way,” he began slowly. “Maybe we should ask ourselves who stands to benefit the most from the Phantom?”

  “Benefit?” mumbled Wilbur, his mouth full. “Who benefits from practical jokes?”

  Bruno looked to the front of the dining hall where Mark was handing out papers. “Whose stupid newspaper that nobody cares about, let alone reads, is suddenly hot stuff now that he’s got the Phantom to write about?”

  Boots was the first to catch on. “You think Mark is the Phantom? And he’s doing it to create good stories for the Student Times?”

  Sidney spoke up. “He does always complain that nobody takes much of an interest in the paper,” he said breathlessly.

  Bruno nodded sagely. “And that makes Mark the prime suspect.”

  Sidney looked up from his plate. “I thought Edward was the prime suspect.”

  “That was Cathy,” Pete corrected. “She’s the prime suspect.”

  “They’re all suspects,” said Bruno definitely.

  “Aw, come on, Bruno!” Boots exploded. “There’s no way we can watch all of them at the same time.”

  “It depends what you mean by ‘we,’” said Bruno cheerfully. “You and I can’t do it all. But when you throw in Wilbur, Larry, Pete, Sidney —”

  “Hold it.” Wilbur held up a meaty palm as though directing traffic. “I’m not spying on anybody.”

  “It’s not spying,” Bruno insisted. “It’s surveillance.”

  “Surveillance?” repeated Pete. “What’s that?”

  “Spying,” translated Larry. “Look, Bruno, maybe the Phantom’s not so funny anymore, but that doesn’t make him Jack the Ripper. We’ve got classes. We’ve got homework. We hang out with friends. We go to the rec hall every now and then. Sometimes we even sleep! We don’t have time for surveillance.”

  Bruno set his jaw stubbornly. “Every time Boots and I tell The Fish we didn’t do anything, he believes us a little less. One of these days we’re going to end up suspended. And when the jokes don’t stop, The Fish is going to go looking
for somebody else — maybe even you.”

  There was a long silence while they all took in what seemed to be an undeniable truth.

  “I’ll take Mark,” Sidney said finally. “After all, he’s my roommate.”

  Big Wilbur caved in next. “Oh, all right,” he mumbled. “Who’s my assignment?”

  “We’ll draw up a schedule,” said Bruno briskly. “Larry, you cover Mark when Sidney’s not around. Wilbur and Pete switch off on Edward. Boots and I take Scrimmage’s.”

  “This is crazy,” Boots complained. “Cathy and Diane are our friends. Why can’t we just go over there and ask them if they’re behind these practical jokes?”

  Bruno shook his head. “I know it’s tough, but we’re going to have to keep our distance from Cathy and Diane until we can prove they’re not the Phantom.”

  “They probably don’t know anything about it,” Boots said sourly. “How could they, except from us?”

  Bruno was adamant. “The only way to be sure is to watch them day and night.”

  “Day and night?” repeated Boots. “How can we do that? We don’t live there, remember?”

  “I’ve already thought of that,” Bruno assured him. “If Cathy and Diane are pulling this Phantom stuff, they must be sneaking over to the Hall. So all we have to do is keep watch on the drainpipe outside their window. That’s the only way for them to sneak out.”

  “No chance!” snapped Boots. “My parents didn’t send me to the Hall to spend every night hunkered down in Miss Scrimmage’s apple orchard, being eaten by mosquitoes, watching a stupid drainpipe!”

  “We don’t have to go there,” said Bruno impatiently. “We can watch by telescope in the comfort of our own room.”

  “Telescope? What telescope?”

  “Elmer’s telescope,” Bruno explained. “If it can pick up the Crab Nebula, surely it can reach as far as Scrimmage’s.” He looked around the table. “By the way, where is Elmer?”

  * * *

  Bruno knocked on the door of room 201 in Dormitory 2.

  “Come in,” came a feeble voice.

  Bruno and Boots exchanged a confused look and entered.

  The room was normally cluttered with Elmer’s experiments, gadgets and inventions, but never before had it appeared so disorganized. The enormous chemistry lab was half on and half off the table. Beakers and flasks lay every which way. One test tube had emptied out onto the floor, where its contents had burned a big hole in the carpet. Elmer’s computer workstation was on, but the program appeared to be stuck in an endless loop. All the screen showed was the flashing word “ERROR.” The printer hammered out this message on reams of continuous paper that had slipped from the desk and were off-loading into the fish tank. Frantic tropical fish were darting around in murky, unfiltered water. The many experiment charts on the walls had not been updated in several days.

  Elmer sat in the middle of this chaos with his head slumped down on the glass top of his ant farm, looking miserable.

  “Elmer!” Bruno exclaimed. “What happened?”

  The school genius looked around but did not seem to notice the junkyard his room had become.

  Boots spoke up. “Your room! Your stuff! Your experiments!”

  Elmer dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “I can’t concentrate on anything. Marylou Beakman hates me.”

  Bruno’s face softened with sympathy. “Aw, Elm, I’m sorry. It was the bird stuff, wasn’t it?”

  Elmer shrugged miserably. “Who knows? After two rare and special gifts, she never even thanked me. Not a call or a letter. I might as well not exist.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Bruno suspiciously. “You don’t know she hates you. You’re just guessing.”

  Elmer threw his hands up in despair. “What other explanation could there be? She must really despise me to ignore remarkable presents like those. I must be utterly repulsive to her!”

  “A million things could have gone wrong,” Bruno insisted. “The packages could have got lost in the mail. Or Miss Scrimmage might have delivered them to the wrong room — you know how dizzy she is.”

  “Or they could have been stolen,” Boots jumped in. “Stolen by some frustrated scientist who couldn’t get his own rodent skull and bird droppings.”

  This brought a faint glimmer of hope to Elmer’s sad eyes. “Do you really think so?”

  “Listen, Elm,” said Bruno, “you’re not going to get this girl through the mail. You could ship her a whole rain forest by special delivery and it wouldn’t help you. The secret of a good relationship is communication.”

  Elmer nodded in slow understanding. “Fax, right? You think I should fax her.”

  “Not that kind of communication!” managed Boots. Getting through to Elmer was like wading through molasses.

  “Look,” said Bruno. “The next time we go over to Scrimmage’s, you’re coming with us. It’s time to meet Marylou face to face.”

  Elmer turned several shades of pale. “But — but it’s against the rules —! Miss Scrimmage has a big dog —! I wouldn’t know what to say!”

  “Well, you’ve got plenty of time to think of something,” said Bruno.

  “Indubitably!” Elmer began writing furiously in a notebook. He tore off the top sheet and handed it to Bruno.

  “Hello, Marylou,” Bruno read aloud. “What is your opinion of the Frummet-Zinkerstein method of transpolar coordinates?”

  “Kind of technical,” Boots commented in a strangled voice.

  Elmer nodded in reluctant agreement. “Transpolar coordinates can be tricky,” he admitted. “Maybe I should start with something simpler, like vector algebra.”

  “First things first,” put in Bruno. “We need to borrow your telescope, okay?”

  “Excellent,” Elmer approved. He looked around and spotted it stuffed lens-first into the open ant farm. “Help yourself. May I recommend the constellation of Cygnus. On a clear night you can make out a globular cluster between the second and third stars.”

  “We’re not following stars; we’re following the movements of Cathy Burton and Diane Grant.” He fished the instrument out of the ant farm, brushing away sand and insects. “Hey, Elm, maybe you should get this place cleaned up a little.”

  “Right,” added Boots. “We can help if you want.” But Elmer was already back into his notebook, scribbling conversation starters for Marylou.

  Chapter 8

  Traffic Jam

  A car horn honked. A truck geared down in a roar of machinery. Air brakes whooshed.

  Mr. Sturgeon opened one eye and punched his pillow. Where were all these traffic noises coming from? At Macdonald Hall one usually woke to birds singing, crickets chirping and, occasionally, the soothing sound of rain on the roof. The noise from Highway 48 seldom penetrated to the Headmaster’s little cottage on the south lawn.

  There was a loud blast from an air horn.

  Mr. Sturgeon vaulted out of bed, stubbing his sore toe and yelping in pain.

  His wife sat up abruptly. “William! What is it?”

  He peered through the venetian blinds and gasped. “A traffic jam,” he replied in wonder.

  “On Highway 48?”

  “No, on our driveway.”

  She joined him at the window. Long lines of cars, trucks and vans led off the highway and up the circular drive to the Faculty Building. There the traffic was forced onto the narrow lane that serviced the south lawn. A sharp left looped around the pool building and disappeared from view. But the Sturgeons could make out the tops of transport trucks above the dormitory roofs way over on the north side of the campus. Beyond there, finally, the traffic merged back onto the highway.

  Mrs. Sturgeon gawked. “How odd! Why on earth would all the cars come onto our private road?”

  The Headmaster’s brow clouded. “Unless my eyes deceive me, Mildred, those are detour signs out on the road. Someone has deliberately diverted Highway 48 through Macdonald Hall.”

  She frowned. “But who would want to do that?”

&
nbsp; Mr. Sturgeon limped to the closet and shrugged into his red silk bathrobe. “I think we may safely assume that our practical joker has struck again.”

  “The Phantom!” she exclaimed.

  The squealing of brakes under their window made them both jump.

  “Please don’t use that nickname, Mildred. It glamorizes gross misbehaviour the likes of which I have never seen. When I get my hands on that so-called Phantom, he will indeed wish himself a ghost!” He stepped into his slippers.

  “But I thought running the school had become a ‘no-brainer,’” she put in. “Surely you must know who this person is.”

  “I have my suspicions,” the Headmaster replied, limping out of the room.

  “My goodness,” she called. “Just after you complained that things were so predictable, here we are in the midst of chaos!”

  “I didn’t know when I was well-off!” he snapped over his shoulder, and pounded down the stairs.

  Stumping along with his cane, he burst out the front door just in time to see Mr. Fudge running toward him. The Dormitory 3 Housemaster was waving his arms in agitation.

  “Mr. Sturgeon! There are cars on the campus!”

  “Your powers of observation are keen as ever, Fudge,” said the Headmaster ironically. He stormed over to his rosebushes where a sign was balanced on the top branches:

  DETOUR

  A large brown feather was neatly taped to the cardboard. Similar signs stood all along the parade route, guiding bewildered motorists through the maze.

  The Headmaster’s eyes darted to Highway 48, where the notice on a big sawhorse declared:

  ROAD CLOSED

  USE BYPASS

  “I want these signs removed,” ordered Mr. Sturgeon, “starting with the ones in the street. Get some of the students to help you. Quickly!”

  Mr. Fudge rushed off.

  There was a loud hissing sound. Steam began pouring out from under the hood of an elegant Mercedes. It ground to a halt, blocking the road. Horns honked and angry shouts filled the air.

  “What’s going on up there?”

  “Move out!”

  “What is this, Times Square?”