by Louis Sachar
“Thanks,” said Gary. “Hey, you know why they call it a pigskin?”
Joe was heading down the field.
“Joe, you know why they call it a pigskin?” Gary called after him.
He watched Joe and Zack give each other high and low fives. He wished he’d get a chance to go out for a pass sometime, instead of always having to hike the ball.
7.
Gary rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. The elevator was old and made bumping and creaking noises, like it was ready to break down at any moment. Gary thought it would be fun to be stuck in an elevator and have to be rescued, but despite all its bumping and creaking the elevator never broke down, at least not when he was in it.
He knocked on the door to Angeline’s apartment.
Her father opened the door. “Hey, Gary, what’s cookin’?” asked Abel Persopolis.
“Mashed potatoes and gravy,” Gary replied. He stepped inside. “Where’s Angeline?”
Abel looked puzzled. “At her school,” he said.
Gary’s heart dropped. “But she called me this morning. She said she was home.”
“That’s impossible,” said Abel. “You sure you weren’t dreaming?”
He wasn’t sure of anything. He shrugged.
“Boo!” shouted Angeline as she jumped up from behind the sofa.
Gary jumped, then laughed.
Angeline laughed too. She was ten years old, but she looked even younger. She only weighed sixty-four pounds.
Gary looked back at her father.
“Gotcha!” Abel said.
Gary smiled. Angeline’s father was normally very stiff and serious. It was nice to see him able to clown around.
“So, you know any new jokes?” asked Angeline.
“Does Mother Goose know any nursery rhymes?” said Abel.
Gary smiled. “Okay,” he said. “Why did Mrs. Snitzberry stand in front of the mirror with her eyes closed?”
Angeline and her father looked at each other. “I don’t know—why?” said Angeline, her face glowing with expectation.
“She wanted to see what she looked like when she was asleep.”
Angeline cracked up. She thought it was the funniest joke she ever heard.
Abel smiled, then walked into the kitchen, leaving the kids alone.
Gary and Angeline sat on the sofa. It was also where Angeline slept when she was home. The sofa folded out into a bed.
“I get to come home every weekend!” Angeline announced.
“Wow, that’s great!”
“We can start playing croquet again,” said Angeline.
“I’ve got lots of hats,” said Gary.
She beamed at him.
“So how’s school?” he asked. Then whispered, “You doing anything top-secret?”
“No.”
Gary rubbed his chin as he stared at her. “Well, of course you have to say that.”
“We don’t do anything top-secret,” Angeline repeated.
Gary nodded knowingly. “Your secret’s safe with me,” he said.
“We do mostly boring stuff,” said Angeline. “Some of the junk is interesting, but it’s like the teachers are trying to fill up our heads with facts. I need to empty my head, not fill it.”
Gary nodded. When he was with Angeline, he always felt like he understood what she was talking about, but then when he got home and thought about it, he realized he had no clue.
“My head’s empty,” he said. “It doesn’t help me.” He knocked his fist against his head, as if to prove it was hollow.
Angeline laughed.
“There’s going to be a talent show at my school,” he said.
“Oh, that’s perfect!” said Angeline. “You can tell jokes!”
He slapped himself in the forehead. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”
“When is it?” she asked.
“November sixteenth.”
“Oh, Floyd Hicks’s birthday,” muttered Angeline. She did some quick calculations in her head, then angrily slammed her fist into the side of the couch. “Bird feathers!” she exclaimed. “Why can’t it be on a Saturday? Bird feathers!”
“It’s a Friday night,” said Gary. “Maybe you can get home in time.”
Angeline shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. The airport limo doesn’t leave until … Maybe.”
“First prize is a hundred dollars,” Gary said.
“Oh. Well, that’s not important,” said Angeline.
He wondered why she said that. Didn’t she think a hundred dollars was a lot of money? Or did she just think he had no chance of winning?
“You should just tell Mrs. Snitzberry jokes for the talent show,” Angeline suggested. “They’re the funniest.”
“I don’t know,” said Gary. “Nobody would know who she is.”
“So, we don’t know who she is either,” said Angeline.
That was true. “But we know we don’t know who she is,” Gary pointed out.
He had once told Angeline a Polish joke. As far as he could remember, it was the only time she didn’t laugh. She said she didn’t like ethnic jokes. She thought they were cruel.
“It was just a joke,” Gary had tried to explain, but deep down he realized she was right.
So after that he never told jokes that made fun of Polish people, or Blacks, or Jews, or Italians, or any other ethnic group. Instead, he made fun of only one person—Mrs. Snitzberry, whoever she was. The name had just popped into his head.
“Why’d Mrs. Snitzberry always wear two pairs of pants when she went golfing?” asked Gary.
“Why?” Angeline asked eagerly.
“In case she got a hole in one.”
Angeline cracked up. “Too bad you’re not in my school,” she said. “Nobody there tells jokes.”
“Right,” said Gary. “All I need is an I.Q. of about three thousand.”
Angeline blushed and looked away.
“Do you like anybody there?” he asked.
“There’s this one girl,” said Angeline. “Lola Baines. I like her. She collects worms. She’s doing this neat project. She teaches worms to go through a maze. Then she grinds them up and feeds them to other worms. Well, the worms don’t really eat the other worms. They ingest them.”
Gary nodded like he understood.
“Then the new worms,” Angeline continued, “the ones that eat the old worms—they can go through the maze on their first try.”
“Really?” asked Gary. “That’s amazing. That means—What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“I wonder,” said Gary. “I mean, I wouldn’t really do it, so don’t worry or anything, but if let’s say I chopped you up, and then I ate you, would I be smart?”
“You’d get a stomachache,” Angeline said. Then she laughed.
“How can you build a maze for worms?” asked Gary. “I mean, can’t they just crawl over walls and stuff?”
“Sandpaper,” said Angeline. “They don’t like to crawl on sandpaper.”
“Oh. That’s neat.”
Angeline smiled mischievously. “You know what I told Lola?” she whispered. She looked around to see if her dad was listening. “I told her you were my boyfriend.”
Gary blushed.
“Is that okay?” Angeline asked.
Gary nodded very quickly.
Angeline smiled at him.
“So,” said Gary. “Did you hear about the three prisoners who were going to be executed by a firing squad? They put the first person up against the wall and were about to shoot him, when suddenly he yelled, ‘EARTHQUAKE!’ While everybody ran for shelter the prisoner got away.
“Well, they finally realized there was no earthquake, so the second prisoner was brought out and put up against the wall. They were about to shoot him, when he yelled, ‘TORNADO!’ Again everyone ran for shelter and the prisoner escaped.
“The third prisoner was Mrs. Snitzberry. They put her up against the wall. ‘Ready … Aim …’ And Mrs. S
nitzberry yelled, ‘FIRE!’ ”
Angeline laughed so hard she fell off the couch.
Later in the afternoon, Gary went to a movie with Angeline, her father, and Mr. Bone.
Mr. Bone’s real name was Melissa Turbone. She had been Gary’s fifth-grade teacher. The other kids in the class all called her Miss Turbone. Gary, and later Angeline, called her Mr. Bone. She never knew it because “Mr. Bone” sounded just like “Miss Turbone.”
Melissa and Angeline’s father had been dating for the last two years. Gary and Angeline hoped they’d get married. It was Melissa who had arranged for Angeline to go to the Manusec School.
“What’s cookin’, Mr. Bone?” said Gary when Melissa got into the car.
“Mashed potatoes and gravy,” she replied.
The movie was about a boy and a dog who ran away from home. Angeline cried during most of the movie.
Gary wished he could cheer her up. “We’re on a double date,” he whispered into her ear. She stopped crying for a moment and laughed, then continued sobbing at the movie. He almost put his arm around her, but chickened out.
At the end of the movie the boy and the dog came home, the boy’s parents hugged them, and everyone was happy. Gary thought that would cheer Angeline up, but instead it made her cry even harder.
“That was the best movie I ever saw,” she said when they left the theater.
They all went out to dinner.
Gary had a great time. It wasn’t like it was two adults and two kids. They were just four friends out on the town. “So how’s the garbage business, Abel?” he asked.
Angeline’s father drove a garbage truck. “Not too bad, Gary,” he replied. “We just got a C.D. player for the truck. Except it’s hard to hear over the noise. Plus, we have to stop about every thirty seconds, so it’s kind of hard to get into a song.”
“What kind of music do you listen to?” asked Gary.
“I don’t really care,” said Abel. “Gus likes country music. And opera. What do you like?”
Gary shrugged.
“People need to recycle more,” said Mr. Bone. “We waste so much. At the rate it’s going, the garbage dump will be filled up in less than five years. There will be no place to dump.”
Gary nodded. He remembered back in the fifth grade Mr. Bone was always talking about recycling, and saving the rain forests, and whales and stuff.
The waitress came by and took their order. Nobody ordered mashed potatoes and gravy.
“Actually, Gary, you want to know what I like best about my job?” asked Abel.
“What?”
“The little kids. I don’t know what it is, but little kids love to wave at garbage trucks.”
“Do you wave back?” asked Mr. Bone.
“You bet.”
“Tell them about the talent show,” urged Angeline.
“Our school’s going to have a talent show.”
“Gary’s going to tell jokes!” said Angeline.
He shrugged modestly. “I just hope somebody laughs.”
“The important thing is that you do your best,” said Gary’s former fifth-grade teacher.
“I will,” he said. “I’ve already gone through half my jokebooks. I’m searching for the perfect jokes.”
“I thought you were making up your own jokes,” said Angeline.
“Anyone can pick jokes out of a jokebook,” said Melissa.
“Besides, your jokes would be a lot funnier than any jokes in a jokebook,” Angeline said.
Gary thought about it. “Okay, I will!” he said firmly.
“If you’re going to do it, do it right,” said Melissa. “I know you, Gary. You start things and then don’t finish them. You need to give one hundred percent.”
“Oh, I will,” he assured her. “This is the most important thing I’ve ever done in my whole life.”
“Darn, I wish I could be there for it,” said Angeline. “Bird feathers!”
Brenda Thompson (a.k.a. Ruby Goldmine) was very upset. So far only one person had signed up to be in the stupid talent show: Gary W. Boone.
She said a certain unmentionable word. (She definitely did not say “bird feathers.”)
Whatever happened to school spirit? she wondered. Well, if more people didn’t sign up, they’d just have to cancel the talent show, that was all there was to it.
(She said that word which was not “bird feathers” again.)
“Julie, why don’t you be in the talent show?” she asked.
“Why should I?” asked Julie Rose.
“You could win a hundred dollars.”
“Doing what?”
“It doesn’t matter. There are no judges. The audience votes on who wins.”
They both understood the significance of such a system. It didn’t matter whether Julie was talented or not. The voting, like everything else at junior high, would be a popularity contest. And Julie Rose was possibly the most popular girl in school, though she was going steady with a boy in high school.
“I don’t know,” said Julie. She blew a strand of hair off her face.
Brenda also tried convincing some of the boys to be in the talent show.
“You’re a very talented person, Joe.”
Joe Reed shrugged.
“Who all’s signed up for it?” asked Paul.
“Uh, well, there’s Gary Boone …” said Brenda, reading from the paper as if she had a whole list of names. “He’s going to tell jokes.”
“Goon!” said Matt. “I can tell funnier jokes than Goon.”
“Yeah, but you can’t tell your jokes in school,” said Ryan.
The boys laughed.
Brenda licked her lips.
“You know what we should do?” said Paul. “When Goon is up on stage, telling his stupid jokes, somebody should throw a pie in his face.”
“Let’s sneak up behind him and pull his pants down,” said Ryan Utt.
“Oh, c’mon,” said Joe. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?” asked Matt.
“It’s not right,” said Joe. “Think about it. The stupid talent show is probably the biggest thing in his life. Goon doesn’t have any friends. All he does is tell jokes. Let him tell his jokes.”
“Aw, you’re breaking my heart,” said Matt.
“Goon’s a clown,” said Paul. “He’ll love it. We can throw a pie in his face and spray him with a seltzer bottle. I bet he’ll laugh right along with everyone else.”
“I don’t think so,” Joe said.
“I say we pants him,” said Ryan.
“Well, you’re not going to get to do anything to him,” said Brenda, “because there’s not going to be a talent show if more people don’t sign up for it.”
“I’m in,” said Matt.
“All right, me too,” said Joe. “But I say we leave Goon alone. His parents will probably be there and everything.”
“Goon has parents?” asked Matt. He screamed in terror.
8.
Gary lay on the floor and looked up at the faces of W. C. Fields, Woody Allen, Jonathan Winters, Robin Williams, and Whoopi Goldberg, almost as if he was waiting for one of them to tell him a joke. They didn’t say a word.
He closed his eyes. “Concentrate!” he said. “Jokes. Funny jokes! Jokes nobody ever heard before.”
Nothing came to him.
He’d never tried to make up jokes before. They always just popped into his head when he was in the middle of talking.
He sat up. “Okay, then I’ll just start talknig.” He looked around. “What should I talk about?
“I need to stand up to think,” he said as he rose to his feet. “I can’t make up jokes sitting down. After all, I’m a stand-up comic!”
He clapped his hands. “That’s one!” he said. “Now I’m cookin’.” He smiled at W. C. Fields. “Now I’m cookin’. What’d the explorer say after he was captured by cannibals and thrown into a pot of boiling water? ‘Now I’m cookin’.’ ”
He turned to Whoopi Goldberg. �
��All right, that wasn’t funny, I admit it, but I’m just getting warmed up.… Of course, that’s what the explorer said too!”
He walked in circles around his room as he continued to talk to himself.
“Last night we had fish for dinner.” (Pause: One … two … three.) “We fed them worms.”
He clapped his hands together. “My mother made spaghetti for the rest of us. You know the difference between a plate of spaghetti and a plate of worms? Well, you better learn if you’re ever invited to our house for dinner!
“I had bad breath last night. I guess I shouldn’t have put so much garlic on my worms.”
He continued to move around the room. He didn’t just walk the floor. He stepped up onto his bed, and then over to his chair, and up on top of his desk. He opened his closet door, then stood behind it so that he was squished between the door and the wall. He closed the door and walked out into the middle of his room again.
He didn’t seem to be aware that he was doing any of this. His mind was focused on one thing only—making up jokes. His body just moved around on its own, as if separated from his brain.
“I had bad breath once. When I came to school, everybody held their noses. Of course, everyone always does that anyway.
“My breath was so bad, when I said the Pledge of Allegiance, I was arrested for mutilating the flag.
“I don’t know why my breath was so bad. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten a dead skunk for breakfast.
“You want to know why I ate a dead skunk for breakfast?
“We were out of pancakes.
“You want to know why I ate a dead skunk for breakfast?
“I couldn’t wait till lunch.
“You want to know why I ate a dead skunk for breakfast?
“Because they make too much noise when they’re alive.
“Did I tell you I had a girlfriend? Sometimes I’m afraid she thinks I’m ugly. She closes her eyes when she kisses me. I know, lots of people close their eyes when they kiss. It’s supposed to be romantic. But she also holds her nose.”
Gary stopped. Would he really be able to talk about kissing a girl, up on stage, in front of hundreds of people? In front of his parents?
“Yes!” he asserted. Like Mr. Bone said, if he was going to do it, then he was going to do it right. One hundred percent.