Laugh Out Loud

by James Patterson

  “Yep. And I totally memorized my favorite passage.”

  “She did,” said Sammy, rolling his eyes. “She repeats it to me all the time.”

  “It’s when the hero realizes he’d forgotten to think about the rescuers who might be searching for him.” Maddie cleared her throat and started reciting her favorite lines: “‘He had to keep thinking of them because if he forgot them and did not think of them they might forget about him. And he had to keep hoping. He had to keep hoping.’” She smiled. “I needed to do the same thing. To keep hoping. Thanks for that, Jimmy. Oh, look! A whole wall of books I haven’t read yet.”

  “You only have thirty more minutes,” said Sammy. “Doctor’s orders.”

  “Next time, I hope I’ll get to stay outside even longer, Jimmy.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I hope so, too.”

  Sammy and Maddie hurried off to find Ms. Sprenkle so they could check out some more books.

  It’s amazing what you can learn from a good book.

  Or from someone who’s read one.

  Seeing Maddie living her dream, I realized that if I kept hope alive, maybe, just maybe, I could still make my dream come true, too!

  Maybe I could still start a book company.

  Maybe I didn’t need physical copies of my books (which had all been sold or destroyed). Maybe I didn’t even need an idea folder, which I’d tossed into the trash.

  Maybe all I really needed was HOPE and one lucky break!

  Before the day was over, I had both!

  Chapter 48

  My Lucky Day

  When I biked home from school that afternoon, guess who was standing in my driveway?

  Hailey, from down the block.

  She was cradling something in her arms.

  My idea folder.

  “You know, Jimmy,” she said, shaking her head and laughing, “you always seem to throw out the most incredible stuff. The ideas in this folder are amazing. The robots and the kid who becomes a superhero and the treasure-hunting family and the mouse who saves his whole family and Rafe spending the worst years of his life in middle school and the girl everybody calls Jacky Ha-Ha.” She took a quick breath. “But my absolute favorite idea is the one about the funny comedian kid in the wheelchair.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Jamie Grimm. He never gives up.”

  “Exactly!” said Hailey. “And neither should you.”

  “I know. But nobody wants to give me the seed money I need to launch my start-up.”

  “Oh, yes they do,” said Hailey. “You just haven’t met them yet.”

  “I’ve tried.”

  Hailey pulled a business card out of her pocket. Handed it to me.

  “Try again.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Friends of my parents. Super-wealthy friends. I would’ve told you about them sooner but they were on this three-month-long vacation over in Nepal studying mindfulness with a mystic on top of a mountain. They’re kind of eccentric.”

  “Eccentric?”

  “You know—bizarre, unconventional, weird. They have to be approached in just the right way.”

  I studied the card.

  “So,” said Hailey. “They just got back from Asia. You want to try pitching them?”

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t want to ‘try.’ I want to DO it!”

  Chapter 49

  Who Is Y?

  Hailey and I headed into the garage and fired up the computer.

  “If we’re going to pitch Mr. and Mrs. Y, we need to know everything there is to know about them,” I said.

  “Totally,” said Hailey. “For instance, did you know they’re the ones who bought my parents’ start-up for a bajillion dollars?”

  “No,” I admitted. “I did not know that.”

  Hailey clicked and clacked computer keys, calling up more searches on the Ys. “Their real last name is Yingerlinger.”

  “I can see why they go with just the Y,” I said.

  “Just last year, before flying to Nepal, Mr. Yingerlinger swam across San Francisco Bay from Alcatraz Island all the way to Aquatic Park in Berkeley. And he wasn’t wearing a wet suit. Just SpongeBob swim trunks. Meanwhile, Mrs. Yingerlinger runs a university for entrepreneurs where part of the graduation ceremony is jumping off a trampoline into a bin of Nerf balls.”

  “This is cool,” I said, calling up a search of my own on my smartphone. “It says, ‘Mr. and Mrs. Yingerlinger prefer moon shots to slow and steady slogs up a hill.’”

  “It’s true,” said Hailey. “They love crazy big ideas. Like flying cars, grocery stores that grow their own corn…”

  “Seriously?”

  “Hey, they have all those long aisles. Why not plant rows of corn?”

  “Oh-kay.”

  “They’re also big on discovering new ways to save pollinating bees without getting stung!”

  “So,” I said, really starting to believe in my dream again, “they might love a book company for kids run by kids! Especially if we add a trampoline and a bin of Nerf balls to our factory floor plan.”

  We set to work.

  Rafe came over and drew up new blueprints for our book company. He put the trampoline right next to the roller coaster. Maxine and Chris helped me flesh out a few of the ideas in my folder. Maddie sent her brother, Sammy, over with a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

  “She went shopping for the ingredients herself,” Sammy told us. “Her doctor is letting her spend up to two hours a day outside the house now. Maddie hopes it will be three soon!”

  Pierce, Kenny, and Hailey put together a PowerPoint presentation because, apparently, you can’t have a business meeting without one of those.

  We were all set to go!

  “So,” asked Chris, “where exactly are Mr. and Mrs. Yingerlinger’s offices?”

  Good question.

  One that Hailey and I hadn’t researched yet.

  But then we did.

  “Their headquarters is all the way up in Marin County,” reported Hailey glumly. “A two-hour-and-four-minute drive.”

  “Unless you have a flying car,” said Chris. “Then it would probably take an hour, maybe less.”

  “How long is the walk?” asked Maxine. “Because, sorry, Jimmy, you’re not old enough to drive. Or fly.”

  And just like that, all the new air went out of my big idea balloon again.

  Until Mom and Dad stepped into the garage.

  “It’s such a beautiful day outside,” said Mom.

  “We know you kids are busy in here, chasing after your dreams and all,” said Dad. “But even the most enterprising entrepreneurs need to take a break now and then. Whaddya say, Jimmy? Wanna go for a ride?”

  “Yes!” I said. “Right now! To Marin County! And these guys are all coming with us!”

  Chapter 50

  Hit the Road, Jimmy!

  Before we all piled into the minivan, Maxine told me I needed to go inside and change my clothes.

  “You should dress like an author,” she said. “You know. Tweed jacket. Ascot.”

  “What’s an ascot?” asked Chris.

  “It’s like a silk scarf, only smaller.”

  “I don’t have an ascot,” I explained.

  “You should look hipper than tweed,” said Hailey. “Remember, the Yingerlingers are eccentric and kooky. I read somewhere that Mr. Yingerlinger hasn’t worn a business suit or a necktie in two decades. And Mrs. Yingerlinger prefers yoga clothes.”

  I nodded. “Probably better for the trampoline.”

  After some more debate, it was agreed (by everybody except me) that I should go for the full Neil Gaiman look: black leather jacket, black T-shirt, black jeans, slightly rumpled hair. (They also wanted me to grow some beard stubble, but that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.)

  “You guys?” I said, combing my hair with my hand. “This doesn’t feel right. If I’m going in there to ask a pair of bazillionaires to back me, I need to be me. Just straight-up Jimmy, plain a
nd simple.”

  “Not to be confused with Sarah, plain and tall,” cracked Hailey.

  Anyway, I took off all that black and put on my usual sweater and lucky scarf. Even though it was seventy and sunny. Okay, maybe I already do dress like an eccentric author and just never realized it.

  Wardrobe crisis over, we all squeezed into our minivan. Mom drove, Dad argued with the GPS lady’s directions.

  Then it got worse: Mom made us listen to jam bands all the way from San Jose to Marin County.

  “This next guitar solo should cover fifty miles,” she said when a new Grateful Dead tune started playing.

  Apparently, the Grateful Dead were big stars in the Bay Area, back in the days when people had an entire hour to listen to one song.

  Finally, we arrived in lush and bucolic Marin County. By the way, bucolic is one of those writerly words that I probably shouldn’t use because if I do, everybody, adults included, will have to go find a dictionary and look it up, which means they might miss the rest of my story. I should probably just tell you Marin County has a lot of very beautiful countryside filled with soft green hills.

  And the Yingerlingers had an eighty-acre “ranch” for “growing ideas” smack-dab in the middle of it.

  “This is so amazing!” I said. “I can’t wait till we meet the Yingerlingers!”

  “So,” asked Dad, checking his watch. “When’s your appointment, Jimmy?”

  Ooops.

  Guess what else Hailey and I forgot to do?

  Chapter 51

  My Dream Destination

  Okay. We probably should’ve phoned ahead, but we didn’t.

  “You don’t have an appointment?” said Mom. “Bummer.”

  Yes, ever since she quit her day job, she was sounding more and more like a hip rock star.

  “Guess we could go back home and drive up here again tomorrow,” suggested Dad. “If, you know, they give you an appointment.”

  “No!” I said, and not just because I couldn’t stand another long van ride listening to Mom’s guitar-shredding-hair-bands playlist. “If this is meant to be, it’s meant to be. I’m tired of waiting. This is my dream and it will only come true if I do something about it—now!”

  “Woo-hoo!” shouted all my friends.

  “Rock on!” added Mom.

  And then the van got sort of quiet.

  “So, uh, what exactly are you gonna do, now, Jimmy?” asked Chris.

  I yanked back on the sliding door handle. “I’m going to go inside and see if they accept walk-ins.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “I’m going to camp out in their lobby until they do!”

  Actually, camping in an office building would be awesome. You’d have heat and air conditioning. You wouldn’t have to forage for food, just find the cafeteria or snack machines. And forget digging a latrine. It’s the kind of camping even Alvin Ho from the book Alvin Ho: Allergic to Camping, Hiking, and Other Natural Disasters could enjoy.

  Anyway, I climbed out of the van. My friends tumbled out after me.

  Mom and Dad were eager to join the parade, too. I held up my hand.

  “Um, you guys, if you don’t mind, can you just sort of wait out here in the parking lot?”

  “Huh?” Mom and Dad both said at the same time.

  “My dream is to build a book company for kids that’s run by kids. Bringing in my parents is kind of, you know, ‘off message.’”

  “Sure, sure,” said Dad. “We’ll wait out here.”

  My friends and I headed into the office building, toting a laptop computer, a file folder full of story ideas, and a cardboard tube stuffed with rolled-up sketches. We were carrying my dream!

  Of all the venture capital firms and banks I’d visited on my quest, this one was the most incredibly amazing of them all. There were grown-up toys everywhere. A trampoline. A slide from the second story to the first. A basketball hoop. A mountain of Legos. Foosball, Ping-Pong, and billiards tables. Nap pods. There were even sleek Razor scooters you could ride up and down the halls.

  The offices of Yingerlinger Enterprises also had the one thing I was looking for.

  A reception desk!

  Chapter 52

  The Gatekeepers

  This was it. It was now or never, do or die, and a dozen other sports clichés.

  “Um, excuse me, sir,” I said to the guy sitting behind the desk, which was kind of shaped like a bean you’d find on top of your chili dog.

  “Yes?” The guy was smiling and wearing a super-cool head-mike–earphone combo. “May I help you?”

  “Uh, yeah. I’m Jimmy.”

  The guy stopped tapping his keyboard and held out his hand. “Hello, Jimmy. I’m Guenther.”

  We shook.

  “And, uh, these are my friends,” I said, jabbing a thumb over my shoulder.

  “Hello, Jimmy’s friends,” said Guenther.

  “We’re here to see Mr. and Mrs. Y.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The Ys are who I’m here to see.”

  “Why?”

  “Yes. Mr. and Mrs.”

  Guenther sighed. “For what?”

  “Oh, I have a great idea for a new company. But I don’t have an appointment.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” said Guenther. “Walk-ins are always welcome.”

  My eyes grew wide. “Really?” I couldn’t believe my luck! “You guys will see anybody? You’ll listen to any idea?”

  “Company policy. Mr. and Mrs. Yingerlinger always say, ‘We never know when the next big new idea is going to waltz through our front door.’ Therefore, I have to warmly welcome any and all crackpots, nutjobs, and whackaloons—no matter their age.”

  Guenther smiled and blinked at me. A lot.

  “Would you children like some milk and cookies?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “We want to pitch our idea to Mr. and Mrs. Y!”

  “Of course you do. So do half the high-tech wizards in Silicon Valley. But before you kids can even think about meeting the Yingerlingers, you have to pass through the Unsolicited Ideas Screeners.”

  He tapped a key. A number scrolled out of one of those “take a number” red plastic ticket dispensers they have at the deli counter in the supermarket.

  So…

  Three hours later, we were finally ushered into a conference room. Six bleary-eyed executives were seated on the other side of the table. They looked like they’d been smelling bad cheese all day.

  “Um, where should we hook up the laptop?” asked Kenny. “We have a PowerPoint—”

  “No,” moaned one of the execs. “Not another PowerPoint!”

  “We have diagrams and junk,” said Rafe.

  “No!” all the execs wailed. “No more slides! No more charts! No more diagrams! Just pitch us your idea.”

  All my friends turned to look at me.

  I gulped. Mopped the sweat off my forehead with the tip of my scarf.

  “You can do this, Jimmy,” whispered Maxine.

  “There is no try,” said Chris. “Only do!”

  Then all my buds started a low-volume chant. “Jim-my, Jim-my, Jim-my…”

  I took in a deep breath.

  I was ready to pitch as if it were the last inning of the last game of the World Series and we needed one more out to win!

  Chapter 53

  Dream Time

  “First of all,” I said, “thank you for your time…”

  “Speaking of time,” said a lady on the other side of the conference table as she flipped over an hourglass egg timer. “You’ve got two minutes.”

  “My name is Jimmy,” I said quickly. “And these are my friends.”

  Everybody waved. Quickly. The execs rolled their eyes.

  “We have a dream,” I said, remembering that guy in the wheelchair, the one who refused to give up no matter what obstacle he bumped into. “We want to start a book company for kids that’s run by kids.”
>
  Rafe rolled out the floor plan.

  “It’d be a super-fun place to work because we’d only make books that were super-fun to read. Why? Because I believe a kid who reads is a kid who can succeed. I want to make reading fun for kids—through stories and voices that speak to them and expand their world. And I want to make more books available to more kids—through teacher scholarships, bookstore funding, school library support, and book donations.”

  “Um, is this a company or a charity?” asked a guy on the other side of the table.

  “Both!” I answered. “And we’ve got to reach out to parents, too. Because I really think it’s every adult’s responsibility to get books into kids’ hands and into kids’ lives.”

  “What kind of books?” asked the lady.

  “The kind kids can’t put down. Maybe a story about an artistic kid in middle school having the worst years of his life because he’s a round peg in a square hole. I want to do a story about a family of treasure hunters. And one about a kid in a wheelchair who wants to be the world’s funniest stand-up comic, even though he doesn’t exactly fit the job description.”

  I opened my idea folder and dumped the papers on the table.

  “I want to write about a house full of robots and a public school superhero and a mouse with a big vocabulary and an even bigger heart and two guys named Pottymouth and Stoopid…”

  The lady raised both eyebrows. “The mouse has these two guys?”

  “No. Sorry. I have so many ideas they sometimes come out in a jumble. Ideas that, together, we can turn into books that kids will love.”

  “But don’t take Jimmy’s word for it,” said Chris Grabbetts (who could probably write commercials for late-night TV). “Listen to this unsolicited testimonial from his next-door neighbor, Maddie.”

  Chris flipped our laptop around and tapped the Play button.

  A video clip filled the screen.