My Life Is a Joke
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.
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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.