The World's Greatest Underachiever and the Best Worst Summer Ever

by Henry Winkler

  “I saw their names written down on the sign-up sheet,” Emily said. “It said An Island Magic Trick by Frankie Townsend with the assistance of Miss Ashley Wong.”

  “That does it! I’m going to the luau too,” I declared right then and there. “We’ll just add my name to the sign-up sheet. Do we have to bring our own sleeping bags?”

  “Not so fast, young man,” my dad piped up, swallowing a mouthful of Spanish rice. “This is a privilege you haven’t earned yet.”

  “But, Dad, they’re getting to have so much fun. And all I get to do is a stupid presentation on a famous person I admire.”

  “That sounds most interesting, Hank.”

  “Oh, right! Mr Rock tells me I should do a report on Albert Einstein, and I don’t even have a clue who this guy is, so how can it be interesting to admire someone you don’t even know?”

  “Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity,” Robert the walking encyclopedia spewed out. “I’m so sorry I never got to discuss that with him in person.”

  “I’ll find out where he lives and you can go visit him,” I snapped.

  “He’s dead,” Emily said.

  “I knew that.”

  I got up from the table and headed for my room without even asking to be excused. I didn’t need to be corrected by my little sister in front of Robert the Bony and Bruce the Invisible Gecko.

  “Stanley,” my mum said, “don’t you think if Hank shows us that he’s really trying, we could consider letting him attend the luau? I mean, he does try as hard as he can.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks. Mothers. They can be so great, especially mine.

  There was a long silence as my dad thought about her suggestion.

  “Well, Randi,” he said at last, “I suppose we could consider it.”

  Now is the time to strike, Hankster! Beg if you have to.

  “I’ll do anything, Dad. Anything. Just tell me what.”

  “If you bring me a good grade on your Albert Einstein presentation, I’ll let you go to the luau,” my dad said.

  “How good? Like a C-plus good?”

  He shook his head.

  “B-minus?”

  He shook it again.

  “I think you’re capable of getting an A,” he said.

  That taco must have gone to his head and clogged up his memory.

  “It’s me, Dad. Hank. The not-A student. The not-even-B student. The C student if I’m really lucky and the teacher’s in a good mood, but mostly the D student. Do you know how hard it would be for me to get an A?”

  “You have to reach for the stars, young man. That’s the only way you’ll achieve. I want to make sure you live up to your potential.”

  My dad pushed his chair back and put his napkin on the table. Something told me that this conversation was ending, whether I liked it or not.

  An A on my presentation. Could I do it?

  I had to. There was no way I was going to let that talent show happen without me.

  OK, Mister Albert Einstein. It’s you and me. We’re going all the way to the luau.

  Just one question: who the heck are you?

  Right after dinner, I called Frankie.

  “Meet me in the clubhouse in five minutes,” I said. “And bring Ashweena.”

  “I’m all over it,” Frankie said.

  I took the lift to the basement and walked down the corridor as fast as I could to our clubhouse, which is through the second door on the right. Wait a minute. Did I say the second door on the right? Yes, I did. And guess what? It truly is the second door on the right! This is amazing. I, who don’t know my right from my left, just told you how to get to our clubhouse. I’ll see you there!

  I was the first to arrive. I reached round the door and switched on the light before going in. It can get a little weird in there, because it’s where everyone in our block of flats stores their stuff. A couple of weeks ago, I forgot to turn on the light before I went in and I nearly jumped out of my trainers! There were two creepy red eyes glowing at me from behind the sofa. With the light on, I realized it was the same old stuffed moose head that has been hanging there for as long as I can remember. Welcome to Hank’s brain. Sometimes it doesn’t remember what it already knows.

  While I was waiting in the clubhouse for Frankie and Ashley, I started pacing round in a circle like I do when I’m working out a problem. I paced double fast, because I had two problems to work out. First, there was good old Einstein, whoever he is. And then there was the going-to-the-luau disaster – or should I say, the NOT-going-to-the-luau disaster.

  It’s a good thing Frankie and Ashley arrived right away, or I would have worn a hole in the concrete floor.

  “Talk to me, Zip,” Frankie said, coming in and flopping down on Mrs Park’s old sofa with the stuffing coming out of the arms. “What’s wrong?”

  “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

  “You’re doing the circle walk,” Ashley said. “You don’t do the circle walk when nothing’s wrong.”

  I opened my mouth and it all came pouring out like ketchup when you’ve tapped too hard on the bottom of the bottle.

  “OK, first I have to do a presentation on Albert Einstein, whoever he is. And if I don’t get an A, I can’t go to the luau, which would totally suck because— Were you guys really not going to invite me to be part of the Magik 3 trick at the talent show?”

  Frankie got up from the sofa and grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “Zip, I want you to take your arms, put them round you and hold on to yourself,” he said. “You’re freaking out.”

  “But you guys didn’t tell me there was a talent show.”

  “OK, maybe that was wrong,” Frankie said. “We should have told you.”

  “And how come you didn’t invite me?”

  “You’re always invited,” he said. “That’s why it’s called Magik 3, dumbo.”

  An instant silence fell over the room. The only thing you could hear was the swish-swishing of the washing machine in the laundry room down the corridor. Ashley shot Frankie a look, and he understood immediately.

  “I take back the dumbo part,” he said. “You’re not dumb, my man. It’s just an expression. I lost my head.”

  I knew really that Frankie didn’t mean to call me dumb, but if you’re a guy like me who’s always at the bottom of the class, and you feel bad about yourself sometimes, you do get extra sensitive. Know what I mean? Good. Frankie does too.

  “So if I’m part of Magik 3, how come we walked all the way home from school together and no one mentioned a talent show?” I asked.

  “We didn’t want to rub it in,” Ashley said. “Because we didn’t know if you could come or not. The talent show is supposed to be just for Junior Explorers.”

  “But we don’t care about that lame rule, right?” Frankie said. “We’re Magik 3. I say we just give Head Teacher Love the word that we can’t do the act without you. And zengawii, you’re there. No problemo.”

  I felt better. Until I felt worse. I had forgotten about my father.

  “Whoops, problemo,” I said. “The crossword-puzzle whizz who runs my life says I can’t go unless I get an A on my Einstein presentation.”

  “Ouch,” Frankie said. “Yup, that sounds like Stan the Man.”

  “There’s only one solution, Hank,” Ashley said, twirling her ponytail round her index finger like she does when she’s thinking up a plan. “You’ll just have to get an A.”

  “If I could just point out one tiny, itsy-bitsy wrinkle,” I said. “The last A I got was in Plays Well With Others While Building Fire Engines With Blocks.”

  “Congratulations, man,” Frankie said, giving me a high five. “Fire engines are cool.”

  “Frankie, I was three.”

  “In that case, you’re due for an A,” Ashley said.

  “Case closed,” Frankie said.

  He stepped over to the light switch and flipped it up and down. The lights flickered like crazy.

  “Lady
and gentlemen,” he said, “it’s the Magic Hour.”

  Frankie is a terrific magician. Not only does he do the tricks really well, but he has a great flair for drama. Like flipping the lights on and off. Most guys would have just said, “It’s time to plan our magic act.” But not Frankie Townsend. For him, it had to be Magic Hour.

  “I have a concept for our act,” he whispered, pulling us in close. “Zip, I am going to transform you into the ancient Hawaiian king Kahuna Huna.”

  “This is so cool,” Ashley said. “I love Hawaiian themes.”

  “And you,” Frankie said, pointing to Ashley, “will be Princess Leilani.”

  “I can see it now. I’ll cover my costume with blue and green rhinestones like the ocean!”

  “And for our trick, I am going to make King Kahuna Huna here appear out of the smoke from a steaming volcano.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Zengawii,” Frankie said. “Behold.”

  He went to the light switch and flicked it up and down again. For a minute, it looked like there was lightning in the room.

  “Travel with me now to the ancient islands of Hawaii …” Frankie said in his magician’s voice, “…when volcanoes breathed fire and palm trees swayed in the tropical breeze caused by those volcanoes.”

  Man, he was into this.

  Frankie grabbed a plastic pot plant that was buried under some mouldy curtains on one of the storeroom shelves. He waved it under my nose.

  “Oh great Kahuna Huna, can you smell the perfume of the sweet tropical flowers?” he said.

  “Ah-choo!” I sneezed, spraying dust from the plastic plant all over Frankie’s hand. That thing couldn’t have been dustier. I hate to think what would have happened if Robert had been here, with his horrible allergies. He would have blown us all to Fiji and back.

  Frankie was rummaging around the shelves, looking for more props.

  “Can you hear the magical sounds of Hawaiian strings, strumming to the rhythm of the ocean waves?” he said as he pulled something from a box on one of the shelves.

  Frankie held up a toy ukulele he had found in the box. I knew that ukulele. Mrs Fink gave it to Emily and me when she returned from the cruise to the Hawaiian islands that she took for her sixty-fifth birthday. I could never play it, but Emily learned a couple of chords until she got bored with it and started taking flute lessons. Wow, I didn’t know it wound up in the storeroom.

  “Princess Leilani,” Frankie said to Ashley as he handed her the ukulele, “strum to the rhythm of the ocean waves.”

  Ashley grabbed the ukulele and, to my total surprise, started strumming it and singing some weird Hawaiian song that went: “Oh we’re going to a hooky lau. A hooky, hooky, hooky, hooky, hooky lau.” Where in the world had she learned that crazy song? Oh well, at least her singing covered up her ukulele strumming, which was pretty scary.

  Frankie dug around in the boxes some more, pulling out all kinds of strange stuff.

  “Come here, Kahuna Huna, and I will transform you into a king,” he said to me.

  I stood in front of him and he put together a costume that would make your eyes spin round in your head. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but I wasn’t sure if my costume was good or bad, either. It was different, I’ll say that much.

  Frankie wrapped the flowery curtains round my head to make a headdress and then fastened it with a sparkly Christmas decoration that looked like a green, glittery pear. We pulled my shirt off, because what kind of ancient Hawaiian king would wear a Michael Jordan shirt with the words “Stuff It!” on the back? On my upper arms, the part where big muscles would have been if I had big muscles, we tied Emily’s old purple football socks and attached some dangling toy boats made of Lego. Frankie said they tied in with the ocean theme.

  “We need something for his feet,” Ashley said. “The trainers aren’t cutting it.”

  Frankie poked around towards the back of the shelves. He dragged out a box that was labelled “Mrs Eleanor Fink”. Inside were two square cushions made of green velvet with gold tassels hanging from each corner.

  “Take off your shoes and socks,” he told me. He pulled the cushions out of the box and tied each one to my feet using shoelaces from his own old football boots. Once the cushions were on my feet, I tried walking a few steps. OK, it felt good. Trust me, if you ever try walking on cushions, I think you’ll find it a pretty bouncy situation.

  “King Kahuna Huna walks on lava,” Frankie said, “yet his feet feel no pain. Appear, oh great Kahuna Huna – and make us believe in you!”

  I don’t know what got in to me. Maybe it was the bouncy feet. That’s a definite possibility. Or maybe it was the glittery pear hanging from my flowery headdress. That’s less likely but still possible. Or maybe it was Ashley strumming the ukulele and singing, “Oh we’re going to a hooky lau.” Yes, that’s probably it. But all I can tell you is that right there in our clubhouse, I started to do a hula warrior dance.

  I’m talking mega hula. My hips and butt and shoulders were swaying like no ancient Hawaiian king you’ve ever seen.

  “You go, Kahuna Huna!” Frankie shouted. “This stuff is going to knock ’em dead at the talent show.”

  Suddenly, I noticed that Frankie had stopped laughing and Ashley had stopped singing. They were staring at something behind me.

  It was then that I realized we were not alone.

  I turned round to see Mrs Fink standing in the doorway. She was wearing her big pink dressing gown and a pink hairnet to match. What she wasn’t wearing were her teeth. I know that because her mouth was hanging open and I could see her pink gummy gums. I can’t really blame her. If I were looking at me with my head wrapped in her flowery curtains and my feet strapped to her green cushions, my mouth would hang open too.

  “Mrs Fink, I can explain,” I said.

  “Hankie, what’s to explain? You can hula!” She grinned.

  Before I could say King Kahuna Huna, she grabbed me in her arms and started to dance. I could feel every part of her shake as she swivelled her hips and rotated her knees.

  “Mrs Fink!” I said, but no one could hear me because my head was buried somewhere deep in her – how can I say this? – chesty area.

  I wanted to call for help, but who do you call in a situation like that? The hula police?

  So instead I just kept on dancing.

  Ashley started up her song again. Frankie launched into a Hawaiian-sounding magic chant. And Mrs Fink shook like a bowl full of strawberry jelly.

  I ask you: where are the talent show judges when you need them?

  “Guess what, Mr Rock?” I said as I walked into the classroom the next morning. “I’ve decided to do my presentation on Albert Einstein.”

  “That’s great, Hank. I’m glad to see you’re so excited about this project.”

  “Not only am I excited,” I said, “I’ve decided to get an A.”

  “Making that decision is the first step,” Mr Rock said. “A positive attitude can take you all the way to your goal.”

  As I slid behind my desk, I actually believed that I could do it. The night before, I had called Papa Pete to see if he knew anything about Albert Einstein. He said he knew a few things, but he was going to pick me up after school and take me to a place where I could find out everything I needed to know. I begged him to tell me where, but he said it was a surprise. Papa Pete loves surprises. I do too. I think I get that from him.

  I really, really, really wanted that A. It was the only way my dad was going to let me go to the luau and be in the talent show. And after our rehearsal in the clubhouse, I knew that our act was going to win for sure. I mean, let’s be honest. Who would you vote for? King Kahuna Huna magically appearing from the smoke of a volcano and doing the meanest hula this side of Pittsburgh, or Bruce the Gecko twitching his scaly tail while sitting in my sister Emily’s scaly hand?

  Come on, it’s a no-brainer.

  As I opened my notebook and took out my pencils, I glanced across the aisle at J
oelle. She was all hunched over in her chair, holding her mobile to her ear. Even though she was talking softly, I could hear her.

  “He thinks he’s going to get an A.” She was giggling into the phone. “Can you believe he actually said that?”

  Was she talking about me?

  “I don’t know,” she whispered into the phone. “Some jerk named Alfred Ein-something.”

  She WAS talking about me! But to who? Oh no, I bet it was Nick the Tick.

  I looked out the window at the playground. I could see the Junior Explorers bringing buckets of water over to the sandpit. Frankie had said they were going to have a sandcastle building contest. One Junior Explorer with a huge head and even huger feet was standing off to one side, hunched over a mobile phone. That’s right. It was the one and only Nick McKelty.

  If you can give me ten good reasons why Joelle Adwin and Nick McKelty have to talk on the phone about what mark I might or might not get for my Albert Einstein presentation, I will personally come over to your house and pour you a big bowl of Froot Loops.

  “Don’t you have anything better to talk about?” I whispered to Joelle.

  “We’re not talking about you,” she said.

  “Right, and my name is Bernice.”

  I know, that’s Frankie’s line. He says it all the time. But since Joelle didn’t really know him, and it was such a perfect comeback, I decided Frankie wouldn’t mind if I borrowed it.

  “Joelle, hand me your telephone now, please.”

  It was Mr Rock, standing in the aisle between us. He held out his hand and waited. Joelle flipped the phone shut but didn’t give it to him.

  “It’s mine,” she said. “I need it for emergencies.”

  “It doesn’t belong in school. I’ll give it back after class.”

  “But, Mr Rock,” she whined, “I can’t live without it.”

  “I promise you, Joelle,” Mr Rock said, taking the phone from her. “You’ll live.”

  “My uncle dropped his mobile phone in the toilet and flushed it away by accident,” Luke Whitman said. “And he’s still living.”