Timmy Failure It’s the End When I Say It’s the End

by Stephan Pastis

  else.”

  “I get to do lighting!” shouts Nunzio

  Benedici, pulling a piece of paper out of the

  hat. “I guess I just turn the lights on and

  off!”

  “Well, it’s a little more involved than

  that,” says Mr. Jenkins. “But it is relatively

  easy.”

  “I’m craft services!” shouts Rollo, pulling

  his hand from the hat. “Wait. What’s that?”

  “You bring the food,” answers Mr.

  Jenkins.

  “My mother is the greatest cook ever!”

  exclaims Rollo. “Will I be graded on her

  macaroni and cheese?”

  “Perhaps,” answers Mr. Jenkins. “If she

  brings enough for me.”

  “Absurd!” I cry, pointing at Rollo and

  Nunzio. “Rollo just has to eat pasta, and

  Nunzio’s gonna turn off the lights when he’s

  done. How fair is that?”

  “Stop complaining, Timmy, and reach

  into the hat.”

  So I reach into the hat to pick a job.

  “With your eyes closed,” says Mr.

  Jenkins.

  So I reach into the hat again, this time

  with my eyes closed.

  And grab a slip of paper.

  And suddenly, my retirement is ruined.

  “How am I supposed to write an entire

  movie?!” I yell to my mother that night.

  “Hush,” she says, “I’m trying to watch

  TV.”

  So I stand in front of the TV to get her

  attention.

  “What in the world are you wearing?”

  asks my mother.

  “It’s my smoking jacket and pipe,” I

  answer. “Given that I am now retired from

  detective work, I am supposed to be a man of

  leisure.”

  “Where’d you get that pipe?”

  “Husband Dave gave it to me.”

  “No, I didn’t,” says Husband Dave, seated

  beside her on the couch. “He must have

  taken it from my sock drawer.”

  “Give me that,” she says, taking the pipe

  from my mouth.

  “You are no help at all,” I tell Husband

  Dave.

  “Timmy, we have a whole extra bedroom

  in this townhouse,” says my mother. “It’s

  quiet. It has its own computer. Just go in

  there and write. Because the two of us would

  like to watch this film.”

  “Looks boring,” I say, glancing at the

  screen. “What is it?”

  “It’s about a big, fancy ship that hits an

  iceberg,” says my mother. “And there’s a

  man and a woman and they fall in love and

  they kiss.”

  The next day at school, I turn in my proposed

  film synopsis.

  “Timmy,” says Mr. Jenkins, “you just

  stole the plot from the movie Titanic.”

  “Artists don’t steal,” I reply. “They

  borrow.”

  “Yes, but you stole.”

  “Fine. What if I change it slightly and have

  the boat hit an elephant?”

  “How did elephants get into the ocean?”

  “Parachuted from airplanes,” I answer.

  “Timmy, you have to come up with your

  own idea,” says Mr. Jenkins. “That’s all

  there is to it.”

  “But I’m a detective, not a writer! We

  don’t write stories—we ARE the story!”

  “Yeah,” he says, leaning back in his chair

  and putting his feet on the desk.

  “Yeah, what?” I answer.

  “You said you wanted to write your

  memoirs, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, instead of doing that, why not turn

  them into a film?”

  “I have never seen you work so hard on

  anything in your life,” says my mother,

  peeking into my writing hovel, formerly

  known as the extra bedroom.

  “Mother, I’m in the midst of a

  particularly compelling piece of dialogue.

  And the muse is a fickle master. Please.

  Give this writer space.”

  She reaches down and lifts a page of my

  screenplay from the floor.

  “Wow,” she comments.

  “Which draft are you reading?” I ask.

  “This one,” she says.

  “That’s the first scene,” I tell her.

  “That’s quite an entrance.”

  “Yes,” I answer. “My problem now is that

  the screenplay is limited to one hundred

  pages. And my birth sequence alone is

  seventy-five pages.”

  “Maybe you can cut out some parts.”

  “No. It’s all inspired work. So nothing

  can be deleted.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re excited about it.

  But just five more minutes, okay? You have

  school tomorrow and I don’t want you to be

  exhausted.”

  “Got it.”

  “Five minutes,” she says. “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “I stayed up all night writing this,” I

  proclaim to my classmates, all gathered

  together at the city library for our film

  project meeting. “And it is a masterpiece.”

  “Not sleeping is bad for your health,”

  says Molly Moskins. “You could have died.”

  “I know,” I answer. “But sometimes

  that’s the price of art.”

  “I don’t want to die,” says Rollo Tookus.

  “I just want to get an A.”

  “I should tell all of you one thing right

  now,” I continue. “And that is that I plan on

  running a very tight ship on this film. So if

  any of you are less than fully committed to

  my vision, you should probably leave now.”

  Angel de Manzanas Naranjas rises and

  heads for the door.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “I’m not even partially committed,” he

  says.

  The library door slams behind him.

  “None of you saw that,” announces Toody

  Tululu, hopping to her feet.

  “Why not?” asks Nunzio Benedici, seated

  next to her.

  “Because I’m in charge of publicity on

  this film, and we can’t have the world finding

  out that the production is already falling

  apart.”

  “Nothing is falling apart,” I remind them.

  “I have everything under control.”

  “Can we talk about costs?” asks Corrina

  Corrina. “Because I’m the producer and I

  have to see to it that we don’t spend more

  than the nine hundred dollars Mr. Jenkins

  is giving us.”

  “None of you are going to worry about

  costs,” I say without looking in Corrina

  Corrina’s direction. “The bar scene alone will

  cost ten times that.”

  “What bar scene?” asks Rollo.

  “I walk into a bar filled with mobsters,

  and one by one I throw each of them out a

  tenth-story window.”

  “The actors could die,” interjects Molly.

  “I vote that nobody dies in this film.”

  “No one is gonna die,” I remind her.

  “Because we have trained stuntmen.”

  “Who?” she asks.

  “Max Hodges,” I tell her
.

  “I’m not a trained stuntman,” interrupts

  Max.

  “You will be,” I assure him.

  “No, I won’t,” answers Max, standing up.

  “Because I’m going home.”

  Max opens the library door and leaves.

  “Fine,” I answer. “We’ll just make Gunnar

  or Jimmy Weber or Nunzio the stuntmen.”

  “No way. I’m in charge of lighting,” says

  Nunzio, springing from his seat and turning

  off the lights.

  We are momentarily in darkness.

  When the lights are turned back on,

  Gunnar and Jimmy Weber are gone.

  “Oh, God,” says Toody Tululu. “This

  whole thing is a disaster.”

  “There will be no talk of disasters,” I

  announce. “You will all be proud to say you

  were a part of this film.”

  “I don’t even know what it’s about,” says

  Scutaro Holmes.

  “It’s about a boy and his polar bear,” I

  explain. “And you, Scutaro, are lucky enough

  to be playing the polar bear.”

  “Do I get to eat anyone?” asks Scutaro.

  “Only the evil ogre.”

  “Who’s the evil ogre?”

  “Principal Scrimshaw,” I explain.

  “Timmy,” interjects Rollo, “we can’t

  make a film where a polar bear eats our

  school principal. We’ll get a bad grade.”

  “Yes, well, if need be, I have a PG-rated

  version where the polar bear just chases

  Scrimshaw off a cliff and he falls to the

  valley floor.”

  “Then he better bounce off the valley

  floor!” yells Molly. “And live happily ever

  after.”

  “Okay,” says a voice from behind us,

  “you guys are gonna have to keep your voices

  down.”

  We all turn to see the city librarian, Flo,

  standing behind us.

  “I’m fine lending you kids one of our

  conference rooms to work on your film, but

  not if you’re gonna be loud.”

  “Sorry, Flo,” I tell him. “We’re having

  artistic differences.”

  “But please don’t tell anyone,” adds Toody

  Tululu.

  “All right, well, we’re closing up anyway,”

  says Flo. “You have two minutes.”

  “But, Flo,” I plead, “I still have to explain

  my artistic vision. That’ll take hours.”

  “Do it in two minutes,” Flo says as he

  walks out the conference-room door.

  With Flo gone, I sit quietly, thinking of

  how I can cram my brilliant vision of the

  film into a mere two minutes.

  And then a boy wearing a scarf speaks

  up.

  “I don’t need to hear your vision,” he

  says. “I have my own.”

  “I don’t even know who you are,” I say to the

  boy with the scarf after we both leave the now-

  closed library.

  “Tom John John,” he answers.

  “What kind of a name is that?”

  “What do you mean? My name is Tom,

  but that’s my dad’s name also, so my family

  calls me by my first and middle names put

  together, which is ‘Tom John.’”

  “But you said ‘John’ twice.”

  “Yes, ‘John’ is our last name also.”

  “That’s quite odd,” I tell him.

  “Not as odd as forcing all of us to make a

  film about your life,” says Tom John John.

  “Did Mr. Jenkins approve that?”

  “Yes, he approved it,” I inform him. “It

  was his idea. And if you’d like to contribute

  to the film, perhaps I could find you a job

  bringing me coffee or feeding the mules.”

  “Yes, well, I have a much different concept

  of our respective roles.”

  “Well, good for you, Tom John John, but

  I’m the writer, and when it comes to a film,

  there is nobody more important than the

  writer.”

  “Yes, there is,” he answers.

  “No, there’s not,” I reply.

  As we argue, I see Rollo Tookus waiting

  for the bus to pick him up from the library.

  So I turn to him to break the tie.

  “Hey, Rollo, tell this kid with the scarf

  who the most important person on a film is.”

  “The director,” Rollo shouts over the

  rumble of his arriving bus.

  “A director?” I yell back at him. “Who’s

  ever heard of a director?”

  “Mr. Jenkins explained it all to us,”

  answers Rollo as he boards his bus. “But I

  think you were writing your memoirs.”

  “All right, fine,” I shout. “Say there is

  such a thing as a director, what’s he do?”

  “He’s in charge of the whole film,”

  answers Rollo from his seat on the bus.

  “The whole film?” I mumble as the bus

  starts moving. “Then who’s this clown?” I

  yell, pointing at Tom John John.

  Rollo pokes his head out the window

  of the departing bus and shouts:

  “He’s the directorrrrrrr!”

  “Tom John John is a transfer student,”

  says my mother as we drive in her car. “I

  think one of the parents said his family hops

  around a lot. Mostly in Europe.”

  “So we can deport him,” I tell her.

  “Kick him out of the country? No,

  Timmy. We can’t kick him out of the country.”

  “But he wears a scarf. It’s very pompous.”

  “You wear a scarf, Timmy.”

  “Yes. And it makes me look quite

  distinguished. He, on the other hand, looks

  buffoonish.”

  She stops the car in front of a storage

  facility.

  “Is this where your storage unit is?” I

  ask.

  “Yep.”

  “Why do we even have a storage unit?”

  “Because when we moved out of our

  house, I had nowhere to keep the stuff from

  our garage,” she says as she unlocks the

  padlock on the large metallic door. “Now,

  help me push this door up.”

  We push up the large metallic door and I

  see a large array of boxes.

  “This place is huge,” I tell her. “Have you

  thought about living in here?”

  “No, Timmy. We have a nice home.”

  “Yeah, but what if Husband Dave gets on

  your nerves? You could hide here.”

  “I’m not gonna hide in a storage unit,

  Timmy.”

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  “Well, maybe I should have a key. In

  case Husband Dave gets on my nerves.”

  “Are you gonna start looking through

  these boxes or not?” she asks. “You’re the

  one who wanted to look for something.”

  It’s true. I did.

  And there, on top of a box, I find it.

  It’s a well-known fact that many advanced

  mammals can communicate over long

  distances.

  For lions, it is a roar that can echo

  across canyons.

  For whales, it is a tone that can carry for

  miles underwater.

  And for polar bears, it is the fax

  machine.

  Not much is kno
wn about how polar

  bears got their hands on so many fax

  machines. Some speculate that when people

  started discarding them in the 2000s, they

  were scooped up by polar bears posing as

  Goodwill truck drivers.

  Though we’ll never know for sure.

  In any event, the way a fax machine

  works is this:

  You stick a piece of paper into a machine

  that reads all the information on the

  paper.

  Then you dial the fax number of

  whomever you want to send the document to.

  Then, like magic, the other person’s fax

  machine spits out an identical copy of your

  document.

  At first, polar bears were confused by

  the technology. They thought that when you

  stuck a piece of paper into a fax machine, it

  magically flew through the air to the other

  person’s fax machine, the same as if you had

  just folded it up into a paper airplane and

  sailed it over to your friend.

  As such, they tried to use it to send

  bologna.

  But once they figured out the technol-

  ogy, polar bears created a vast network of

  communication capable of spreading news,

  sharing gossip, and finding relatives.

  “This is how we’re going to find your big

  brother,” I explain to Total, holding the fax

  machine I got from my mother’s storage unit.

  He just stares at it.

  “And we’ll keep it here in my writ-

  ing hovel, which will also serve as our

  headquarters for this top-secret mission.”

  “WHATT for short,” I inform him.

  Total is so happy, he hugs me.

  “All right, let’s not get emotional,” I tell

  him. “I’m only helping you because we’re