My Life Is a Joke Read online

  Copyright

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2017 by James Patterson

  Illustrations by Kerascoët

  Cover design by Faceout Studio, Derek Thornton

  Cover art by Kerascoët

  Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  JIMMY Patterson Books / Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  JIMMYPatterson.org

  First ebook edition: October 2017

  JIMMY Patterson Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The JIMMY Patterson Books® name and logo are trademarks of JBP Business, LLC.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

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  ISBN 978-0-316-43861-2

  E3-20171002-JV-PC

  Contents

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  JIMMY PATTERSON BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  For the Knoxville Children’s Theatre

  —C. G.

  PROLOGUE

  Greetings from jolly old England, darling daughters, where I am feeling anything but jolly.

  In fact, I might be having a panic attack.

  My heart is racing. My palms feel clammy, which is a strange expression, because how can hands feel like clams?

  Anyway, I can barely breathe and it’s not because somebody just told me what the cute-sounding British dish “bubble and squeak” actually is (leftover vegetables mashed together with cabbage, potatoes, and anything else nobody wanted to eat the day before).

  I haven’t been this nervous since the time I climbed the Ferris wheel down the shore in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. (The second time. The time my dad caught me.)

  I think I am freaking out because I am about to do something I’ve always wanted to do but am totally terrified of doing.

  Yes, that makes about as much sense as a book titled How to Read or a waterproof towel.

  As you ladies know, your famous mom is over here in London, rehearsing for William Shakespeare’s play As You Like It at the Globe Theatre.

  I’m playing Rosalind, one of Shakespeare’s funniest, most kick-butt female characters. The new Globe is a re-creation of his famous theater from back in 1599, which, believe it or not, was a year or two before I was born.

  Life is good, right?

  No. Life right now is terrifying!

  Sh-Sh-Shakespeare.

  Just thinking about playing a part in a comedy by the Greatest Writer Who Ever Lived with one of the finest Shakespearean acting companies in the world (or, you know, the globe) makes me extremely shaky.

  So why is my big opportunity such a huge nightmare?

  Because it reminds me of one of the most colossal failures in my whole, entire life.

  Most people may know me as the super-cool Academy Award–winning funny lady and star of Saturday Night Live, but that’s not who I was one summer when I was about your age.

  I was a mess.

  And a failure.

  The star of a one-woman disaster movie.

  Yes, girls, you guessed it. There’s an embarrassingly kooky but meaningful story from my younger days in your immediate future.

  So beware: There are hazardous conditions up ahead.

  CHAPTER 1

  It’s the summer of 1991.

  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys are huge. So is Rollerblade Barbie. What are Rollerblades? Don’t worry, you don’t need to know. Unless you want to twist your ankle, sprain your butt, and scrape most of the skin off your elbows like I did.

  Everybody is saying “Hasta la vista, baby” to each other, and not just in Spanish class, because Ah-nold Schwarzenegger said it in a movie called Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

  In fact, 1991 started out pretty good, especially if you ignored Boyz II Men on the radio. (Yep, they were a thing. And that II? It’s supposed to be a Roman numeral two, not an eleven.)

  In March, Mom came home from Operation Desert Shield, which turned into Operation Desert Storm—a war that, thankfully, only lasted, like, six weeks. Now she’s back in charge of running the Hart house.

  Did I mention my mom, Big Sydney Hart, was a marine? (She’s Big because my sister Little Sydney is named after her.)

  “I want to see those dishes shine, girls!” she tells us every night after dinner. “I want this galley to glisten!”

  “Aye, aye!” we all say.

  “Hoo-ah!” says Mom.

  Emma, the youngest, who we used to call the Little Boss, is now the Little Echo. She tells us to do whatever Mom just told us to do.

  Things are humming along at school, too.

  Yours truly hasn’t had a detention since I played Snoopy in the fall musical, You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. If you knew me at all, you knew that me not having detention was a miracle!

  I also did the spring
show—You Can’t Take It with You. It was a comedy (yay!) and I played Essie Carmichael, a kooky candymaker who dreams of being a ballerina even though she’s a terrible dancer.

  I was hysterical, girls. Your mother always was (and always will be) a terrible dancer. Terrible can be funny. Especially if it’s ballet.

  So now it’s June, and life is pretty sweet. Mom’s home safe and sound. School’s almost over. I’m looking forward to a fun-in-the-sun Jersey Shore summer. The beach! The boardwalk! Bill Phillips!

  Yes, he still has those crazy-gorgeous hazel eyes and I still have a kind-of, sort-of crush on him. Hey, I’m twelve going on thirteen. It’s summer. It happens.

  My big plans when school’s out?

  Goofing off. Lazing around. Hitting the beach. Doing a whole lot of nothing.

  Unfortunately, Dad and Mom have different plans.

  Very different.

  CHAPTER 2

  Girls?” says Mom when the dishes are cleaned, dried, and put away and she’s all out of hoo-ahs. “Your father will be home in fifteen minutes.”

  “Should we have saved some chicken pot pie for him?” asks Hannah. She’s fourteen and super-sweet. “I would’ve skipped my second helping if I knew Dad was coming home in time to eat.…”

  “What about the third helping?” asks Sophia. She’s eighteen and the second oldest or, as she likes to put it, the “oldest sister still living at home,” because Little Sydney, who’s nineteen, is in college at Princeton. Hannah and Sophia are both kind of boy-crazy. And sometimes, they’re both crazy about the same boy at the same time.

  Awk-ward.

  “If you want my opinion,” says Victoria, who’s only fifteen but already knows everything about anything, “it’s extremely rude for Sophia to count how many helpings of chicken pot pie Hannah had for dinner.”

  “Girls?”

  That’s all Mom has to say. Especially when she cocks her left eyebrow up half an inch and gives us…

  “Your father already had dinner with some colleagues at the diner,” says Mom.

  “Good,” says Hannah. “But if he’s still hungry, he can have some of my fudge. I hid some under my pillow.…”

  Yes, Hannah does that. A lot. Which is why, sometimes, she wakes up with melted chocolate in her ear.

  “He’s fine, honey,” says Mom. “Your father and I need to see you all in the living room at nineteen hundred hours. Family meeting.”

  “Nineteen hundred hours” is military speak for 7:00 p.m. I glance at the kitchen clock. It’s 6:46.

  “Between now and then,” says Mom, “finish your homework. Dis-missed!”

  Everybody bustles out of the kitchen except Riley and me. Riley’s eleven and is in the unfortunate position of being my next-younger sister. That means she looks up to me, which is not always the best or wisest move. (I wasn’t exactly a super-duper role model when I was twelve. Okay, I was probably the worst role model ever. A dinner roll would’ve been a better role model.)

  “What do you think’s going on?” Riley asks.

  “I don’t know!” I pretend to panic. “The suspense is killing me. Literally!” I bring my hands up to my throat, bug out my eyes, and act like I’ve just swallowed poison, then collapse to the ground. “Gak! I’m dead! Killed by suspense.”

  Riley laughs.

  I take a little bow.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s probably something good. Hey, maybe now that Mom is home, we’re all going somewhere cool for a family vacation.”

  “Do you think it’s Disney World?” gasps Riley, her eyes going wide.

  She’s been wanting to go to Disney World ever since she saw the New Kids on the Block Wildest Dreams special on TV. (FYI—New Kids on the Block were the big boy band back in the 1990s. They were sort of like whoever’s replaced Justin Bieber and One Direction on your lunch boxes.)

  “I hope so,” I tell Riley.

  Dad arrives home at 6:59, on the dot. We all assemble in the living room.

  “Girls?” he says. “I have some terrific news.”

  “We’re going to Disney World?” Riley blurts out, sounding like a Super Bowl commercial.

  “Not this summer, dear,” says Mom. “Your father has a new job!”

  “You’re not going to head up the lifeguards?” I say.

  “No, ma’am,” says Dad, taking Mom’s hand. “In fact, I am taking the first steps on the road to my dream job.”

  “You’re going to be a cop?” gushes sweet Hannah. “Oh, Dad, that is so wonderful! All your hard work, all your studying, all your nights away from home…”

  It’s true. Dad worked really hard studying to take his police officer exam. So hard, we hardly ever saw him last fall. Some of us even got a little suspicious about where he was going all the time. (That would’ve been me.)

  “Congratulations, Father,” says Victoria.

  “Woo-hoo!” I say, giving Dad a hearty arm pump.

  Emma just races across the room and hugs his leg.

  Dad laughs. “Thank you, ladies. I couldn’t have done it without your support.”

  “And,” says Mom, “he won’t be able to continue doing it without your continued support.”

  “That’s right, girls,” says Dad. “I know school’s nearly over. That you all had big plans for the summer.”

  Uh-oh.

  Dad just said “had.” As in, past tense.

  That means we probably shouldn’t have them anymore.

  CHAPTER 3

  Seaside Heights, New Jersey, is a shore town.

  That means, starting in June, when the tourists and day-trippers descend on our sandy beaches, the population will swell from the twenty-four hundred people who actually live here to the twenty or thirty thousand who come here to play, eat junk food, show off their tans, and cool off in the surf. That also means the police department needs some extra, summer-only help.

  “I am now a Seasonal Class One officer with the Seaside Heights Police Department,” Dad proudly announces.

  “And,” adds Mom, “if things go well this summer, we’re pretty sure your father will be offered a full-time job on the force right after Labor Day.”

  “One seasonal officer typically is,” says Dad, bouncing up on the balls of his feet like he’s so happy he could burst. “My days of heading up the lifeguarding crew are over, ladies.”

  “Hoo-ah!” says Mom. Then they hug.

  This was great news for Dad, also known as the best-looking boy on the beach. Mac Hart was inching closer to living his dream, doing the thing he wanted to do more than anything in the world—especially since his professional baseball career was cut short after he met Mom, hung up his cleats, and had seven kids, all girls. If Mom and Dad had played with us, we could have been our own softball team.

  “Eventually,” says Mom, “the police department job will give your father a nice salary.”

  “And benefits!” says Dad.

  “But…”

  Yep. There’s always a but. And this but sounds like a big one.

  “… this seasonal position will not pay well at all.”

  Dad nods. “The pay stinks.”

  “And there are no benefits,” says Mom.

  “Plus, I have to buy my own uniforms.”

  “What about your pistol?” asks Sophia. “Do you have to buy that, too?”

  “Seasonal officers don’t carry sidearms,” says Dad. “Mostly, we write parking tickets. Help out with traffic congestion. Check beach badges. That sort of thing.”

  “And,” says Mom, “because my dream is also to, one day, become a police officer, I have enrolled in an eight-week, intensive summer training program at the community college. Just like the one your father took last fall.”

  “So,” says Dad, “your mother will not be pulling down a salary at all for two months.”

  “I won’t be able to do as much cooking, cleaning, and childcare, either,” she adds.

  Now they both look at us.

  “We need your help, ki
ds,” says Mom.

  “We need you girls to find jobs this summer,” says Dad. “All of you who are old enough to work need to bring home a steady paycheck.”

  “Otherwise,” says Mom, “we may not be able to afford groceries.”

  Hannah gasps when she hears that. She likes to eat. Then again, so do I.

  “We’re also going to need some help in the babysitting department,” says Dad, looking to Emma. She’s six. No way is anybody hiring her this summer. At least, not legally. New Jersey has child labor laws. You have to be twelve to get your working papers.

  “You girls will need to take turns looking after your youngest sister,” says Mom. “And walking Sandfleas.”

  Sandfleas is our dog. She’s a girl, too.

  “What about me?” asks Riley.

  “You’re eleven,” says Dad. “You’ll have to look after yourself and help around the house.”

  “And,” says Mom, “if Jacky can’t find a job, she can help you.”

  Great.

  My lazy, hazy, crazy plans for the summer have just been put on hold. I’ll either be working or I’ll be the chief cook, floor scrubber, toilet swisher, and babysitter at home.

  So much for fun in the sun.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mom and Dad were the first ones to tell me that “if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

  Maybe not, but it sure sounded like us kids would have to work—every day during our so-called summer vacation.

  “The shops and booths along the boardwalk are always hiring summer help,” says Mom. “Plus, you can learn a lot holding down a job. It’ll be a good experience for all of you.”

  “And,” says Dad, “you can keep half of your take-home pay.”

  That sounds better.

  “But,” says Mom, “all allowances will forthwith be suspended until after Labor Day.”

  Okay. Maybe not so much.

  Because if we want pocket change for ice cream, video games, CDs, movie tickets, popcorn, Slurpees, bubble gum, new swimsuits—all the essentials of summer life—we have to go out and earn it. Our ride on the Mom and Dad gravy train is over.