Dogs Don't Tell Jokes (2 page)

Gary never cried. He laughed. The more it hurt, the more he laughed.

Like the time he accidentally bumped into Philip Korbin, making him drop his ice cream bar in the dirt.

“Sorry,” Gary said, with a silly grin plastered across his face.

“You think it’s funny, Goon?” asked Philip.

“No,” said Gary, “ha ha.”

Philip pushed him.

“I said I was sorry. Ha. Ha.”

Philip pushed him again, and he fell down. He smiled at the crowd that had gathered around.

“Pick it up!” said Philip.

Gary picked up the ice cream bar. The vanilla ice cream was covered with dirt on all sides. “Looks good, ha ha.”

“Eat it.”

Gary laughed.

“What a goon!” someone said.

“Eat it,” said Philip.

Gary licked the dirty ice cream. “Yum chocolate chips,” he said. “Ha. Ha.”

“All of it,” said Philip.

Gary brought it back to his mouth.

Philip grabbed Gary’s hair with one hand, and his elbow with the other. He shoved the ice cream bar deep into Gary’s mouth. The stick hit against the back of his throat.

Gary continued to laugh as ice cream dripped down his face.

Gary had a girlfriend.

He never told Angeline (that’s her name) she was his girlfriend. He never kissed her, except one time on the cheek when she was asleep. Angeline was only ten years old.

But she laughed at his jokes. She didn’t just laugh. She howled. Sometimes she rolled around on the floor in hysterics.

“You’re the funniest person in the world,” she once told him.

“You can’t know that,” Gary said modestly. “There might be somebody in New Zealand who’s funnier.”

“No, there isn’t,” said Angeline. “You’re the funniest. I know.”

When Angeline spoke like that, Gary believed her. Angeline knew things. Everyone called her a genius—except Gary, because he knew she didn’t like to be called that.

He first met Angeline when he was in the fifth grade. She was only eight years old then, but she was put in the sixth grade. She was the smartest person in his elementary school. She was smarter than the teachers.

So if Angeline Persopolis (that’s her last name) said he was the funniest person in the world, that meant he was the funniest person in the world. It didn’t matter if nobody else laughed at his jokes.

Now Angeline was going to the Manusec School in Nebraska, where she studied astrophysics and nuclear chemistry, then played kickball at recess.

But sometimes, when Gary told his jokes at school, he could hear Angeline laugh a thousand miles away.

He had gone with her to the airport. He remembered standing in the gate area along with Gus, Mr. Bone, and Angeline’s father, Abel Persopolis. Everyone was sad. Gary was afraid that Angeline’s father was going to cry.

Gary told a joke. “Did you hear about the man who fell out of an airplane—and lived?”

“Did he have a parachute?” asked Angeline.

“Nope,” said Gary.

“Did he land in a haystack or something?” asked Angeline.

“Nope,” said Gary. “The airplane was on the ground!”

Angeline laughed.

“No, really,” Gary said. “There was a guy who fell out of an airplane thirty thousand feet up in the air, without a parachute, and the fall didn’t hurt him at all.”

“Really?” asked Angeline.

“Really,” said Gary. “He was fine the whole time he was falling. But when he stopped falling, boy, that hurt!”

Angeline cracked up.

Angeline’s father pointed out to Gary that it wasn’t an appropriate time and place to tell jokes about people falling out of airplanes.

“Yes, it is,” said Gary. “That’s how you keep accidents from happening. You know how to make sure the plane doesn’t crash?”

“How?” asked Angeline.

“I don’t want to hear this,” said Angeline’s father.

“It’s not a joke,” said Gary. “You just think about it crashing. You try to imagine it crashing. You daydream about it crashing. Because,”
Gary concluded, “daydreams never come true.”

As a child traveling alone, Angeline was the first to board the airplane. She started crying as soon as she went through the gateway. She heard her father calling “ ’Bye, Angelini,” but she couldn’t bear to turn around and look at him.

It would be her first time away from her father. Her mother had died when she was only three.

A stewardess took her hand and led her to her seat.

She didn’t want to go to the Manusec School. She wished people didn’t think she was so smart.

“My name is Paula,” said the stewardess as Angeline sat down. “If there’s anything you want, just let me know.”

Angeline shook her head, then wiped her face with the back of her hand. She stared out the window. There was nothing she wanted. Except … “Paula!” she called.

The stewardess came back to her.

“Do you know any good jokes?” asked Angeline.

Floyd Hicks Junior High School was named after Floyd Hicks, a very wealthy and boring man who was born November 16, 1903, and died January 14, 1969. He donated the property on which the school was built. He also wrote a book about himself. There were ten copies in the school library, and no one, not even the librarian, had gotten past the second chapter.

But it was Floyd Hicks Junior High School, so every November 16 they celebrated Floyd Hicks Day in honor of the great man. This year there would be a talent show, which was ironic because Floyd Hicks had absolutely no talent.

The Spirit Club made posters, and Gary spotted one when he came to school.

He went straight to the office.

The office was crowded with kids and adults all waiting to speak to Mrs. Walls, the school secretary, who was constantly being interrupted by the telephone. Gary waited nervously. “This is my big break,” he muttered.

“What?” said the woman beside him, who was holding a box.

Gary looked at her. “Huh?” he said.

The bell rang.

“Oh, great,” he said. “Now I’m late for class.”

“Are you talking to me?” asked the woman with the box.

“Huh?” said Gary.

He imagined himself up on stage in the auditorium,
jokes rolling off his tongue, and the audience rolling in the aisles. Suddenly he’d become popular. Kids who had never talked to him before started hanging around, waiting for more of his jokes.

“Gary, you’re too much!” says Brenda Thompson, one of the more popular girls in the seventh grade
.

“Just call me Goon,” he replies
.

“Yes, Gary?” said Mrs. Walls.

“Just call me Goon,” he said.

Mrs. Walls stared at him.

He laughed, then said, “Uh, I want to sign up.”

“What?”

The woman next to him set her box down on the counter.

“For the talent show,” said Gary. “I want to be in the talent show.”

“So?”

“So, how do I sign up for it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Can you ask somebody?”

Mrs. Walls sighed, then headed to the back of the office. She returned a moment later.
Nobody in the office seemed to know—or care, for that matter. All anyone seemed interested in was why Gary wasn’t in class where he belonged.

“All I want to do is sign up for the talent show,” he said aloud as he headed to class. Around him, posters urged him to be in the show and show off his talents. First prize would be a one-hundred-dollar savings bond. Second prize would be a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate at Zulu’s Records and Tapes. And third prize would be two free sundaes at Maurecia’s Ice Cream Parlor.

But none of the posters said where or how to sign up for it.

“I know I can do that,” he said.

He learned the talent show would be on November 16.
He couldn’t remember today’s date, but he knew the month was October. He figured he had about a month to get ready.

“It’ll probably take me that long just to sign up for the stupid thing,” he grumbled.

Mrs. Carlisle glanced at him but didn’t say anything when he walked in late. The date was on the board:
Tuesday, October 23.
He figured it out at the desk. At first he didn’t know if October had thirty or thirty-one days, but then he remembered Halloween was October 31. The talent show would be on a Friday. He had exactly three weeks and three days.

He spoke to Mrs. Carlisle after class. “Do you know where you’re supposed to sign up for the talent show?”

Mrs. Carlisle didn’t seem to understand the question. “The show is for students, not teachers,” she said.

“I know. I want to be in the show. Do you know who I’m supposed to tell? I’m not supposed to just walk up on stage without telling anyone, am I?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” said Mrs. Carlisle, but she didn’t know whom he was supposed to tell.

“So’d you hear?” he asked. “They’re not making pencils any longer.”

“Pardon?”

“They’re long enough already!”

Gary sat at his desk in math, looking at Miss Langley but not really listening. It was beginning to feel like a bad dream—one where he just wanted to do something simple, like open his locker, but for some reason could never get it done.

He decided he’d wait until fifth period, gym, and talk to Joe Reed. Joe would know.

“Gary,” said Miss Langley as Gary was leaving math class. “The homework assignment is on the board.”

He glanced at the board. He knew it was there. He’d already written it down. She didn’t have to keep telling him every single day.

“What does she think I am—
stupid?
”

Outside at recess, he decided he couldn’t wait until fifth period. What if it was too late? What if Joe was absent?

He spotted Ira Feldman sitting on a planter, looking at his baseball cards.

“Hi, Ira,” said Gary.

“Goon,” Ira muttered, then looked back at his baseball cards. Ira owned more than a thousand baseball cards, but for some reason had chosen to bring a certain eight of them to school.

“So’d you hear?” asked Gary. “After this year, they’re not making bats any longer.”

“What? That’s crazy. Aluminum bats are no good. Even if you’re jammed, you can still get a solid hit. That’s—”

Gary had no idea what Ira was talking about. He hadn’t said anything about aluminum or wooden bats. “They’re long enough already!”

“Huh?”

“They’re not making bats any longer. They’re long enough already.”

Ira proceeded to explain to Gary how different players liked different-sized bats. Rod Carew, for example, used a very short bat, whereas Willie Stargell used a big bat.

Gary nodded along. He didn’t know who any of these people were. “So,” he said, “do you know anything about the talent show?”

“No, not really.”

“Do you know where you’re supposed to sign up for it?”

Ira shrugged.

“It’s not too late, is it?”

Ira didn’t know that, either.

Gary wished he could talk to Angeline. She’d know about the talent show. It didn’t matter that she was a thousand miles away in another school. Somehow, she’d know.

Paul Wattenburg, Ryan Utt, and Matt Hughes were sitting on the grass.

“If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?” asked Gary.

“Your butt,” said Ryan.

“What do you want, Goon?” asked Paul.

“Have you seen Joe Reed?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’ve
seen
him,” said Matt. “I saw him yesterday.”

Paul and Ryan laughed.

“So, I was wondering,” said Gary, “do you know where you’re supposed to sign up for the talent show?”

“Yeah, on your butt,” said Ryan.

(Evidently,
butt
was Ryan Utt’s favorite word. Probably because it rhymed with his last name.)

“What do you want, Goon?” Paul asked again.

He had just told them. He wanted to sign up for the talent show. “I want to be in the talent show.”

“You gonna dance?” asked Matt.

Matt’s friends laughed.

“The Dance of the Goon!” said Matt.

They laughed again.

“I’m going to tell jokes,” said Gary.

“Well, let’s hear one,” Paul urged.

Gary thought a second. “What do you call a cow without legs?”

They stared at him.

“Ground beef.”

They stared at him.

“You better stick to dancing,” said Matt.