by Dan Gutman
“Who can tell the class the name of the sixteenth president?” asked Mrs. Wonderland.
“Ooooooooh! Oooooooooooh!” I said, waving my hand in the air. “I know!”
Nobody else had their hand up. What a bunch of dummies we have in our class.
“Anyone?” asked Mrs. Wonderland.
“Meeeeeeeeeeee!” I yelled. “Call on meeeeeeeeeeee!”
“Anyone else?” asked Mrs. Wonderland.
None of those dummies put their hand up, so after a long sigh, Mrs. Wonderland called on me.
“The sixteenth president,” I said proudly, “was Thornton Dillywad Ping-Pong Nose the Third.”
Everybody started cracking up.
“Are you happy, Funny Boy?” asked Mrs. Wonderland. “I called on you, and you said something ridiculous just to draw attention to yourself and make everyone laugh—as usual.”
“No I didn’t,” I said. “Thornton Dillywad Ping-Pong Nose the Third was the sixteenth president of Crouton, my home planet. He was a great man who defended us in the war against the Kluge People, and he also invented microwave popcorn.”
Mrs. Wonderland rubbed her forehead, which was a sign that she was really happy.
“I wanted to know the name of the sixteenth president of the United States,” she said.
“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” I said. “That was Abraham Lincoln.”
“That’s right!” said Mrs. Wonderland. “And does anybody know why Lincoln grew a beard?”
“He wanted to look like that guy on the five dollar bill,” I shouted.
“He was the guy on the five dollar bill!” said Mrs. Wonderland.
“See?” I said. “It worked!”
Mrs. Wonderland looked out the window for a moment, as if she wanted to jump out of it.
“I’m losing my patience,” she said.
“Well, where did you last have it?” I asked. “Did you look under the cushions on the couch? That’s where I always find stuff that I’ve lost.”
“Can I beat him up now, Mrs. Wonderland?” asked Sal Monella.
“No, Sal,” she replied, “but that is awfully thoughtful of you.”
Wow, Sal must have really wanted to give me a present. I couldn’t wait to see what it was.
“May I go to the bathroom?” Sal asked.
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Wonderland.
I knew perfectly well that Sal Monella didn’t really have to go to the bathroom. He was just saying that to get out of class. Everybody knows that fictional characters don’t have to use the bathroom. You never see anybody go to the bathroom in movies or on TV or in books, like this one.
But then it occurred to me that maybe fictional characters go to imaginary bathrooms in their minds. In any case, Sal got up and left the room.
“May I go to the bathroom?” I asked Mrs. Wonderland.
“Why do you need to go to the bathroom, Funny Boy?”
“I want to take a bath,” I said, which for some reason the rest of the class found amusing.
“Can you be serious for just one minute?” asked Mrs. Wonderland. “Come up here and whisper in my ear why you need to go to the bathroom.”
I went up to Mrs. Wonderland’s desk and whispered in her ear.
“I’ve never been in a bathroom before,” I whispered, “and I’ve always wanted to know what they look like.”
“Go ahead,” she said, rubbing her forehead some more. “Stay there as long as you like. Take all day if you want to.”
I went down the hall to the boy’s bathroom.
I pushed open the door.
I entered the room.
And I was astonished at what I saw in there.
No bath!
How could they have a bathroom with no bath in it? They should call it the “nobathroom.” Or the “bathlessroom.” Or “the room that has sinks and toilets and stalls in it but no bath.”
There was just one person in the bathroom—Sal Monella.
“Okay, Funny Boy,” Sal said, rubbing his hands together. “Now I finally get to beat you up.”
Oh boy! I was going to get a present! And it wasn’t even my birthday!
But where was he hiding it? Sal didn’t have anything in his hand. He just kept punching one fist into his other hand over and over again. I guess he was hiding the present in his pocket.
“Would you mind if I washed my hands first?” I asked Sal. “I hate getting beaten up when my hands are dirty.”
“Go ahead, dork.”
On Crouton, “dork” means somebody who is really smart and cool. Wow, I had no idea that Sal wanted to be friends with me. I thought I should make some small talk with him so we could get to know each other better.
“So,” I said to Sal as I soaped up my hands, “why do you think sheep don’t shrink when it rains?”
“I don’t know, dork.”
“I mean, wool shrinks,” I said. “And sheep grow wool on them. So you would think that a sheep would shrink every time it gets wet.”
“You are such a dork, dork,” said Sal Monella.
“If sheep shrunk,” I said, “we’d have a bunch of tiny little sheep running around. That would be cool! Wouldn’t you like to have a little shrunken sheep?”
“No, dork,” Sal said.
“You could carry it to school in your backpack,” I suggested.
“Will you hurry up and finish washing your hands so I can beat you up?” asked Sal Monella.
Sal and I were really getting along well! I felt a little bit awkward because he was going to give me a present, but I didn’t have anything to give him.
“Say, do you want to come over to Bob Foster’s house and hang out with me sometime?” I asked Sal. “We could get a sheep and soak it in water to see how much it shrinks. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“That’s it!” Sal yelled. “I can’t take it anymore!”
I’m not exactly sure what happened next. I bent down to tie my sneaker. Sal must have slipped or something. The next thing I knew, he was on the floor moaning and holding his head. I think he hit it against the sink.
“Owwwwwwwwwww!” he said.
At that very moment, the bathroom door opened and Principal Werner came in. He saw Sal Monella on the ground holding his head and me standing over him.
“Funny Boy!” Principal Werner shouted, “Go to my office! Now!”
WARNING! CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE. IF YOU READ THIS BOOK, YOUR HEAD WILL EXPLODE.
CHAPTER 4
FUNNY BOY IS GOING TO INVENT A NEW KIND OF CAT FOOD IN THIS CHAPTER. YOU DON’T HAVE TO READ IT. YOU CAN SKIP AHEAD TO THE COOL STUFF THAT HAPPENS LATER ON, WHEN THE ALIEN ATTACKS.
Wow! Principal Werner is a known lunatic who tortures, kills, and eats children. This should be interesting.
I hoped Sal was going to be okay. It just goes to show that you should always be careful not to slip and fall in a bathroom, especially when there’s no bath in there. I never did find out what present Sal was going to give me. He went to the nurse’s office so he could have his head X-rayed. They probably won’t find anything.
Principal Werner took my elbow and led me down the hall to his office. He closed the door behind us.
“Take a seat,” he said. “I mean, sit down. So what do you have to say for yourself, young man?”
“Well, I would just like to say that somebody should invent mouse-flavored cat food,” I told him. “Because cats like to chase and eat mice. So wouldn’t you think that they would love a cat food that tasted like mouse?”
“I don’t care what cats eat!” said Principal Werner. “What I care about is my students, and I will not tolerate bullying in this school. We have a zero tolerance policy.”
“I thought tolerance was a good thing,” I told him. “Didn’t you tell us yourself that we should be tolerant of all people? So you should have a 100% tolerance policy.”
Principal Werner looked at me for a long time.
“Are you putting me on?” he finally asked.
“How could I put you
on?” I asked. “You’re not clothes.”
Principal Werner looked at me for an even longer time. Too long.
“I need to go to the nurse’s office to check on Sal Monella,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Then, we’re going to talk about suspending you. Do not leave this room, Funny Boy.”
He left. Wow, I had never been suspended before. It sounded like fun.
I looked around Principal Werner’s office. He had paintings of boats and lighthouses all over the walls. He had model ships and captain’s hats on his shelves. He even had a coatrack that was made from a wooden paddle. Boy, that guy sure likes boating!
In the shelf by the door, I noticed that Principal Werner had a long coiled rope. It was like the kind of rope you would use to tie your boat to a dock.
I picked up the rope and started fooling around with it. First I looped it around the legs of my chair. Then I hooked the other end of the rope around the pipe on the ceiling, like a pulley. Then I sat on the chair and pulled the rope so the chair I was sitting on went up to the ceiling. I tied the rope so I was hanging there. It was fun.
That’s when Principal Werner came back into the office.
“What are you doing up there?” he hollered.
“Well, you said that when you got back you wanted to talk about suspending me,” I said. “So I thought I would save you some trouble and suspend myself. Look! No hands!”
“Get out!” he yelled. “Get out of my office!”
WARNING: IF YOU READ THIS BOOK BACKWARD, IT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL. AND IF YOU READ IT FORWARD, IT MAKES EVEN LESS SENSE.
CHAPTER 5
THIS CHAPTER IS REALLY SHORT. SO IF YOUR MOM OR DAD TELLS YOU THAT YOU CAN’T WATCH TV OR GO OUTSIDE UNTIL YOU READ A CHAPTER IN A BOOK, READ THIS ONE.
THAT’LL SHOW ’EM!
By now, you may be getting a little frustrated. I mean, so far there has been nothing in this book about a dumbbell dentist from Deimos. It says right there on the cover that Funny Boy was going to meet the dumbbell dentist from Deimos. At this point there have been lots of dumbbells, but no dentists, from Deimos or anywhere else. You may feel that you have been deceived. You may ask for your money back.
Well, forget that! You’re not getting your money back. I already told you that. We spent your money a long time ago, when we ran out of Q-tips. But what you will get—shortly—is the most incredible encounter with an alien yet. A big, disgusting-looking, saliva-dripping alien. Just be patient, okay?
Meanwhile, in Toad Suck, Arkansas, a spaceship came to a soft landing in a grassy field near the Sock Hop Diner. A big, disgusting-looking, saliva-dripping alien was inside.
See? I told you there would be a big, disgusting-looking, saliva-dripping alien!
CHAPTER 6
THIS CHAPTER IS PRETTY SHORT TOO. I COULD HAVE PADDED IT OUT WITH A LOT OF USELESS INFORMATION, BUT I WOULD NEVER DO A THING LIKE THAT. (FOR INSTANCE, DID YOU KNOW THAT COWS HAVE FOUR STOMACHS? THAT’S A LOT OF STOMACHS! WHY DO THEY NEED SO MANY STOMACHS? YOU’D THINK ONE STOMACH WOULD BE PLENTY FOR A COW. OR MAYBE TWO, IN CASE THE COW NEEDED A BACKUP STOMACH.)
When I got home from school, Bob Foster was there.
“How was work at the underwear factory today?” I asked him.
“Same old, same old,” he said. “I inspected a thousand elastic waistbands. How was school?”
“Very good,” I reported. “I too inspected a thousand elastic waistbands.”
(Well, I wasn’t about to tell Bob Foster that I had been suspended.)
While Bob Foster was preparing dinner, suddenly I felt a rumbling. At first I thought it was an earthquake that would destroy entire towns and leave thousands of people homeless. But then I realized it was much more serious than that.
I was hungry!
It was my stomach rumbling.
“What’s to eat?” I asked Bob Foster.
But before he could even answer, the phone rang. Punch picked it up with her paw. She listened for a minute or so, and then she hung up.
“Who was that?” Bob Foster and I asked.
“It was somebody claiming to be Myles Purgallin, the President of the United States,” Punch said.
“That was President Purgallin!” I yelled.
“Why did you hang up on him?” asked Bob Foster.
“I told him we were about to sit down to eat,” said Punch. “We never talk on the phone during dinner.”
“You told the president that?” asked Bob Foster. “The president is more important than dinner!”
The phone rang again. This time I picked it up.
“Runny Boy, it’s me,” said the voice at the other end of the line. “Myles Purgallin, the President of the United States. Some idiot just hung up on me.”
“How do I know for sure that you’re the president?” I asked him. “Anybody could call up and say they’re the president of the United States. Tell me something only the president knows.”
“The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle,” said the president.
“Hmmm,” I said, “only the President of the United States would know that. You must really be the president!”
“Of course I’m the president, you dope!” said Myles Purgallin. “I need to talk to you. It’s a matter of national importance.”
“Mr. President,” I told him, “I am here to serve you. Your wish is my desire. My mission is to help you and my adopted country.”
“I need you to come to Washington right away,” the president said.
“I’m kinda busy this week,” I told him. “Bob Foster wants me to help him paint the front porch. Can I come next week?”
“Aliens have landed!” the president yelled. “Earth could be destroyed by next week!”
Wow! Earth could be destroyed by next week! The front porch was part of Earth. If aliens were coming to destroy Earth, they would certainly destroy the front porch with it. And if they were going to destroy the front porch next week, there was no reason to paint it this week. Hooray! I wouldn’t have to paint the front porch! In fact, I wouldn’t have to paint the front porch ever, because if Earth was going to be destroyed, there would be no front porches left, and no houses with front porches, and nobody would need a front porch anyway because all life would be destroyed and we’d all be dead and—
“I’ll be right over,” I told the president.
ISN’T THIS EXCITING? IF YOU HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL, GO TO SLEEP, OR GO TO THE BATHROOM RIGHT NOW, DON’T! YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS WHAT HAPPENS IN THE NEXT CHAPTER!
CHAPTER 7
WELL, YOU’RE ABOUT HALFWAY THROUGH THE STORY NOW. IF THIS WAS A FOOTBALL GAME, THERE WOULD BE A HALFTIME SHOW HERE. HEY, WOULDN’T IT BE COOL IF SUDDENLY A MARCHING BAND CAME OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR ROOM RIGHT NOW AND STARTED PLAYING?
Punch, Bob Foster, and I rushed to the airport to catch the next flight to Washington, D.C. Bob Foster got the tickets and we all got on the line to go through security.
“Remember, Funny Boy,” Bob Foster warned me, “no jokes. They don’t like it when you make jokes on the security line.”
“Who, me?” I said. “You know I would never make jokes for no reason.”
We were almost at the front of the line when a lady wearing a uniform told me I needed to take off my shoes.
“Sure,” I said, as I took them off. “Is this casual Friday? I didn’t realize you folks were so relaxed around here. Do you need me to take off my cape and fake nose and glasses too?”
“Just the shoes, please.”
“Speaking of shoes,” I asked her, “what type of shoes does a frog wear?”
“I don’t know,” the lady said.
“Open toad.”
I expected her to double over in laughter, but the security lady didn’t even smile. I took that as a challenge, and searched my vast memory for another shoe joke I could tell her.
“Knock knock,” I said.
“Who’s there?”
“Wooden shoe,” I said.
“Wooden sh
oe who?” she asked.
“Wooden shoe like to know?” I told her.
No reaction. Not even a hint of a smile. Oh, this lady was good.
“Get out of here before I put you under arrest,” she said.
“That reminds me,” I said to her, “what did the policeman say to his stomach?”
“What?” the lady asked.
“You’re under a vest.”
“I said get out of here!”
Boy, that lady is good at holding in her laughter! But she has no sole.
Get it? Sole? Shoes?
Forget it.
Meanwhile, in Toad Suck, Arkansas, a hatch opened up in the spaceship that had landed near the Sock Hop Diner. A long ramp was lowered to the ground, and a conveyor belt on the ramp began to move.
One by one, equipment began to emerge from the spaceship and slide down the ramp. A large dental chair. An X-ray machine. A sink. A movable light. Various drills and dental equipment.
(By the way, Toad Suck, Arkansas, is a real place that is thirty-seven miles north of Little Rock. According to legend, it was named “Toad Suck” because the rivermen on the ferry drank so many bottles of booze that they swelled up like toads.)
Ha! And you thought this was just going to be some silly joke book with no educational value.
CHAPTER 8
THIS IS WHERE FUNNY BOY MEETS WITH THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. WELL, NOT THE REAL PRESIDENT. JUST SOME FAKE GUY. THIS WAY, WE DON’T HAVE TO CHANGE THE BOOK EVERY TIME THERE’S A NEW PRESIDENT. PRETTY SMART, HUH?
Bob Foster, Punch, and I just made the flight in time and rushed to the White House in Washington. A guard met us at the gate.
“I have been summoned to vanquish an alien invader who is intent on destroying Earth,” I announced.
“Take a hike, sonny boy,” the guard said.
“The name is Funny Boy,” I corrected him, “and I’m not in the mood for hiking or any other type of exercise right now.”