Funny Boy Versus the Bubble-Brained Barbers from the Big Bang (3 page)

The lady next door, Mrs. Miller, came running out of her house in a bathrobe.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Is there a prowler?”

“No, Mrs. Miller,” Bob Foster assured her. “Funny Boy is just getting overexcited again.”

Mrs. Miller looked at me suspiciously, and went back into her house.

Punch says:

Don’t worry about remembering Mrs. Miller. She’s not a major character in this book. She might show up in a future Funny Boy adventure, though.

“Will you calm down?” Bob Foster said, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Just because something looks fuzzy doesn’t mean it has to be a peach or a tennis ball.”

“Yeah,” Punch agreed. “Maybe it’s a big hair ball.”

“I’m going to bed,” Bob Foster said.

He and Punch went inside. I peered into the telescope again. The thing in the sky, whatever it was, was a little bigger. It was getting closer.

As the image got larger, it became clearer. The thing was long and thin, like a rocket. I could make out curved red stripes running down the length of it. It was turning slowly, so the red stripes seemed to be moving up and down.

I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Either this thing was an alien, or there was something wrong with that chili I had for dinner.

I looked into the telescope once again. The thing was even closer. The image was even clearer. This thing that was heading for Earth was ... an enormous barber pole! It was one of those red-and-white things you see outside barbershops!

This looked like a job for Funny Boy.

“Dad!” I shouted, running into the house to find Bob Foster. “Wake up! An alien invasion is coming! I’ve got to save the world! Call the President!”

“It’s late,” Bob Foster yawned. “Saving the world can wait. We’ve got to get you up early tomorrow.”

“What for?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Bob Foster said. “Tomorrow is your first day of school.”

I gulped.

PROUD TO BE A DORK, ­DOOFUS, LAME DWEEB, JERK, FEEBLE MORON, AND A PATHETIC WIMP

I had been on Earth for a few short months. Bob Foster had never mentioned anything about
school.
I just assumed that I wouldn’t have to go.

“Why do I have to go to school?” I whined when Bob Foster opened my bedroom door at the ridiculous hour of seven o’clock in the morning.

“All Earth kids go to school,” Bob Foster informed me.

“But I’m not an Earth kid,” I complained. “I’m from Crouton.”

“As long as you’re living on Earth, you have to go to school. It’s the law.”

“How am I supposed to defend Earth if I’m in school?” I asked. “What if some alien attacks while I’m taking a spelling test or something?”

“You’ll have plenty of time to save the world when you come home from school,” Bob Foster said. “That is, after you finish your homework.”

“Homework? Oh, man! I don’t want to go to school.”

“You’re going, and that’s final!”

“Can I go to school?” my dog Punch asked.

“No!” Bob Foster was getting angry now.

“Why not?”

“Dogs don’t go to school.”

“Dogs don’t talk either,” I pointed out. “But
she
does.”

“You’ll do fine at school,” Bob Foster insisted. “Just try to fit in with the other kids, okay? Here, I bought you some new school clothes.”

Bob Foster handed me a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of LeBron James on the front.

“Why would I want to wear that silly outfit?” I asked. “I’ll just wear what I always wear.”

“Aren’t you afraid the kids might poke fun at you?” Bob Foster asked.

“If they don’t like the way I dress, that’s their problem.”

“Have it your way,” Bob Foster sighed.

I took my yellow cape out of the closet and put it over my pajamas. Then I put on my fake nose and glasses. I was ready for school.

I went to the mirror to adjust my cape. I looked good. Real good. Maybe going to school wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Whatever it was that I had seen in the sky the previous night had not attacked Earth yet. Maybe I had just been imagining things, I thought. Maybe there would be no attack.

Bob Foster pulled up to the front of Herbert Dunn Elementary School and let me out of the car.

“They told me you’re going to be in Mrs. Wonderland’s class,” he said. “Remember—no jokes. You’re here to learn.”

I walked around the hallways for a few minutes until I saw a sign on a classroom door that read
MRS. ALLISON WONDERLAND, FOURTH GRADE
. I took a deep breath, adjusted my cape and fake nose, and walked in.

Everybody turned to look at me. Some of the kids started giggling and poking each other. I hadn’t even said anything yet, and already they thought I was funny. See the power of my humor? Things were off to a great start.

“Check out the dork!” somebody snickered from the back of the class.

“Salvatore!” Mrs. Wonderland said sternly. “Do you want to go to Principal Werner’s office again?”

I sat in the empty seat next to Salvatore, the kid who had said, “Check out the dork.”

Sal Monella was an enormous boy, nearly twice the size of all the other kids in the class. He had big muscles in his arms and he barely fit behind his desk. I could see he had a tattoo on his arm that said
I HATE EVERYTHING, ESPECIALLY YOU.
Salvatore looked old enough to be a college student.

“Thanks for the compliment, Salvatore,” I whispered.

“Anytime, moron,” Salvatore replied.

“You look pretty old,” I said. “How many years have you been in fourth grade?”

“Ten.”

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “You must really like it!”

Salvatore looked at me for a second, shook his head, and went back to what he was doing, carving on his desktop with a pocketknife.

I wanted to make a good first impression on Mrs. Wonderland and the kids in the class, so I thought I would loosen everybody up with a joke or two.

“Hey,” I said cheerfully. “Do you know the difference between mashed potatoes and pea soup?”

“What?” somebody asked.

“Anyone can mash potatoes,” I said.

Nobody laughed except Salvatore.

“Man, that is lame!” Salvatore said. “This guy is pathetic!”

“Thank you, Salvatore!”

I could see that Salvatore and I were going to be good friends. He really appreciated my sense of humor.

“Settle down, everyone,” said Mrs. Wonderland. “We have a new student in our school today. His name is ... uh ... ”

“Funny Boy,” I announced.

“Dweeb boy is more like it,” Salvatore announced, getting some giggles from around the room.

“Thank you!” I whispered to Salvatore again. What a nice guy!

“Quiet!” Mrs. Wonderland said, raising her voice. “Tell the class a little bit about yourself, uh ... Funny Boy.”

“I was born on the planet Crouton,” I began. A few of the kids started giggling. “Crouton is 160,000 million light-years from Earth, in the Magellanic Cloud galaxy. It is shaped like a loaf of bread. Crouton is about the size of Uranus—”

I couldn’t continue, because the whole class was laughing too loud. A few of the kids fell off their chairs. Kids were pounding their desks. One kid passed part of his breakfast through his nose. Like I said, something about Earth’s atmosphere had made me incredibly funny.

I looked at Mrs. Wonderland. She had closed her eyes and was rubbing them with her thumb and first finger. She looked like she was really tired, even though it was only the first day of school.

“I see we have a little comedian on our hands this year,” she said. “I guess you like telling jokes, don’t you?”

“Sure,” I said enthusiastically. “I’d love to! Where do you find a dog with no legs?”

“Where?” asked one of the kids.

“Right where you left him.”

“Yes, thank you,” interrupted Mrs. Wonderland. “Let’s all take out our math books—”