My Life Is a Joke Read online

  By the way, why would anybody want to haul gravy around on a train? What’s up with that? Wouldn’t the gravy slosh up and over the sides of the cargo cars?

  Anyhow, the next day, it’s back to school

  The second I step through the front door, Ms. Katherine O’Mara, my favorite teacher, grabs me by the elbow.

  “They need you in the office. Now!”

  “Am I in trouble already?” I say. “How is that possible? It’s not even eight thirty.…”

  “Lauren Furtado is out sick,” says Ms. O’Mara. “Mrs. Turner needs you to do the morning announcements.”

  Lauren Furtado is this girl from the debate squad who has super-duper diction and an incredible speaking voice. My guess? Lauren Furtado will be enunciating stuff on talk radio the second she graduates from college with a degree in Very Proper Public Speaking.

  No way do I want to take her place.

  “B-b-but…”

  “No buts, Jacky,” says Ms. O’Mara. “It’s time for the understudy to go on.”

  “B-b-but c-c-couldn’t y-y-you f-f-find s-s-someone else?”

  That’s right. When the pressure’s on, I stutter.

  Stuttering, of course, is how I got my nickname, Jacky Ha-Ha. When I was in pre-K, my tongue would trip all over itself and mangle my own last name. My old enemy Bubblebutt, a beefy kid who’s been a bully since he punched a Cabbage Patch Kid smack in the face in his baby days, heard me sputtering “Jacky Ha-Ha-Hart” during story time one afternoon and slapped the Jacky Ha-Ha label on me. It’s been stuck there like a KICK ME sign ever since.

  “You’ll do fine, Jacky,” says Ms. O’Mara. “You’re every bit as talented as Lauren Furtado.”

  Ms. O’Mara was a speech and theater major in college. She also appeared in the Broadway production of Annie when she was a kid. She’s helped me a lot, but the truth is whenever I have to do a cold reading (that’s whenever I have to read aloud a bunch of words I haven’t seen before or words I don’t understand), I forget everything I know about controlling my speech impediment and I skitter off the rails into Stutterville again!

  CHAPTER 5

  Ms. O’Mara hurries me into the office.

  Mrs. Turner, the assistant principal, who’s also been very good to me, is standing there smiling. Holding a microphone. She gestures to me.

  I shake my head. “I’m n-n-no L-L-Lauren F-F-Furtado.”

  “Oh, don’t underestimate yourself, Jacqueline!” says Mrs. Turner. She forces the microphone into my hand.

  “Good luck!” whispers Ms. O’Mara. “Just take your time and be you.”

  “Or Lauren Furtado,” says Mrs. Turner, handing me the script. “Lauren’s an excellent announcement reader. Just pretend you’re her or she’s you.…”

  I look at the sheet of paper. It’s filled with words, words, words. Words I have never seen before. Words I don’t know how to pronounce.

  One jumps out at me. On the birthday list I see an eighth grader named Debbie Swierczynski!

  SWIERCZYNSKI!

  What do all those consonants even sound like all smooshed together like that?

  “You’re on!” says Mrs. Turner.

  My mouth is drier than it is after I eat a whole sleeve of saltines.

  “Um, ‘Good morning, starshine,’” I tell the microphone. “‘The earth says hello.…’”

  Okay. I’ve been listening to a ton of Broadway musical albums in my room lately. That line is from a song in Hair. Yes, once upon a time, there was a whole Broadway show about hair. I’m still waiting for one about toenail clippings.

  Reciting lines I’ve memorized is an easy way to avoid my stutter.

  “Stick to the script, Jacqueline,” whispers Mrs. Turner. “Lauren would.”

  I take a deep breath and try to remember all the stuff Ms. O’Mara taught me to tame my stutter. Her most important advice? Take your time.

  “Good… mor… ning… Sea… side… Heights… Mid… dle… School.”

  I’m speaking slower than a turtle stuck in quicksand. I’m even taking pauses between syllables.

  Mrs. Turner gives me the ol’ spinning finger. The universal signal for Let’s speed things up, shall we?

  “H-h-happy b-b-birthday to…”

  (That’s what I call my anticipatory stutter. My mouth knows what’s coming next and it isn’t happy about it.)

  “… to… Deb-bie… S-S-Sewer… uh… Deb-bie Sw-sw-swerve… Sw-sw-sweerz… cuz-zzzzee… zzzin… zzzine… ska-nin-ski-zebra-ski-slope!”

  Ms. O’Mara and Mrs. Turner are staring at me as if I’m a horror movie at the drive-in.

  Or a car wreck.

  Maybe both.

  Fortunately, Ms. O’Mara isn’t just my English teacher and mentor.

  She’s also my friend.

  She sees the panic swirling in my eyes. She can probably also see the flop-sweat stains spiraling around the armpits of my blouse. Heck, everybody can see those. They’re the size of Lake Erie.

  She grabs the microphone.

  “Jacky Hart?” she says. “You crack me up! You know how to pronounce Debbie’s last name.…”

  “I do? I mean, yes. I do.”

  “It’s Swierczynski,” says Ms. O’Mara perfectly.

  “Exactly.”

  “But you couldn’t resist doing a comic bit on it, could you?”

  Ms. O’Mara nods at me. Okay. Now we’re improvising a scene. I don’t stutter when I’m playing a part in a scene. And the number one rule of improv is always to say yes and build on whatever your scene partner throws your way.

  “Yeah. Sorry, Debbie. I wasn’t making fun of your name. I was just kicking off our school-wide celebration of National Consonants Week.”

  “Yes, indeed,” says Ms. O’Mara.

  Now that I’m doing something I’m comfortable with, I’m on a roll and keep going. “We just wanted to alert everyone to the danger of bumping too many consonants up against each other. This week, lend them a vowel, if you have one to spare.”

  “Why, thank you, Jacky, for that very informative public service announcement.”

  “Brought to you by me and the Ad Council,” I say, because I’ve heard announcers say that on TV.

  Ms. O’Mara winks at me and takes over the real announcements.

  Which is a good thing.

  Because the next part is about the lunch menu. Creamy chipped beef on toast, corn, string beans, and a fruit cup.

  Just reading that out loud might make me want to hurl.

  CHAPTER 6

  Ms. O’Mara finishes reading the morning’s announcements.

  “Now please rise and face the flag for the Pledge of Allegiance,” she says.

  I put my hand over my heart (which is racing faster than a rabbit being chased by a pack of dogs being chased by a dinosaur) and recite the pledge flawlessly.

  Because I’ve memorized the words.

  That’s how I was able to play Snoopy in the fall musical and Essie in the spring comedy. I knew my lines. I had a character to hide behind. If I know what I’m doing, if I’ve rehearsed and prepared, if I’m improvising a comic bit with another actor, then I don’t freak out. I don’t stutter.

  When the announcements are finished, Ms. O’Mara and I stroll up the hall together.

  “Cold readings are always my least favorite, too,” she says.

  “I’m sorry.…”

  “No, Jacky. I’m sorry. We shouldn’t’ve asked you to jump in like that. I just thought it might be fun for you. Like being a disc jockey or doing a radio drama…”

  “I didn’t want to goof up and make a m-m-major m-m-mistake.”

  “Jacky, remember what we said about mistakes when you’re onstage doing a show?”

  “Unless you act like you goofed up, people in the audience, who haven’t been to any rehearsals or read the script, will never even know that you made a mistake.”

  “Exactly. The same thing is true when you’re doing a cold reading. If you act like you know what you’re doing,
no one will ever know if you don’t. You have to fake it until you make it. For instance, everybody at this school thinks I’m actually a teacher because I act like a teacher. Truth be told, I never studied teaching in college. I was a high school dropout. The only college I’ve ever attended is that one you see on TV where they teach you how to drive big-rig trucks.”

  “What?”

  “Kidding. But I had you believing it because I acted like I believed it, too.”

  That makes me laugh.

  “See you in class,” says Ms. O’Mara as I stop at my locker.

  “Okay. And I won’t tell anybody you’re a trucker, not a teacher.”

  “Good. It’ll be our secret.”

  She takes off. I work my combination.

  All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see Bubblebutt and his sidekick, Ringworm, sidling up the hall. They’re both wearing black T-shirts with NI plastered across the front, for a heavy metal band named Nine Inch Nails.

  Seriously. In 1991, that was a band, not something you bought at Home Depot if you were building a railroad.

  Anyway, Bubblebutt is smiling.

  Seeing Bubblebutt sauntering up the hall makes me nervous.

  Like I said, he and Ringworm have been tormenting me since my Sesame Street and Muppet Babies days.

  My guess?

  He’s here to make fun of me for stuttering through that birthday announcement!

  CHAPTER 7

  Bubblebutt gives Ringworm an elbow to the ribs, telling him to beat it.

  As always, Ringworm does what Bubblebutt’s elbow tells him to.

  It’s just me and Bubblebutt. Alone. I snuffle the air. Bubblebutt smells like a magazine with a scratch-and-sniff Obsession by Calvin Klein cologne ad tucked inside it. I think he rubbed his face in it.

  He’s smiling at me. Nicely.

  What’s he up to?

  “Uh, hello, Bob,” I say, because that’s Bubblebutt’s real name.

  “Hey, Jacky.”

  I’m so used to him making fun of me that my name sounds a little weird coming out of his mouth. I notice that he won’t look right at me, either.

  Strange. All of a sudden, he seems shy. Almost semihuman.

  Weirder still, in that moment I don’t absolutely despise him. Maybe all that Calvin Klein cologne wafting through the air is making me dizzy. Maybe I’m twelve and things about boys have started becoming a little more, what’s the word I’m looking for?

  Confusing? Complicated?

  Yes. I am complicatedly confused. And Bob? All of a sudden, his perma-sneer seems sort of sweet, in that bad-boy, early-Elvis sort of way.

  “Um, do you need something?” I ask.

  “Yeah. Uh, first of all, hysterical birthday announcement this morning.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Is it really National Consonants Week?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Brought to you by all the letters except A, E, I, O, U.”

  “Huh?”

  “Sorry. That was a Sesame Street joke.”

  “Oh. Cool. You’re funny, Jacky. I can’t believe that, back in the day, I used to make fun of you.”

  “You mean last week?”

  “Yeah. I was so stupid last week.”

  I don’t disagree.

  “Anyway,” says Bob as he tries to dig a hole in the linoleum floor with the toe of his tennis shoe. “School’s almost out.…”

  “No it’s not. It’s not even first period.…”

  “Ha! See? That was another funny joke. Seriously. You crack me up, Jacky. What I meant is that school’s almost out for the summer.”

  “Yeah.…”

  Where is this going? I’m wondering. Bob’s train of thought is like a tin windup toy. You don’t know where it’ll go next, until it bumps into a wall.

  “So,” he says, “anyway…”

  The boy can definitely hem and haw.

  “… I was sort of hoping that, this summer, that maybe you and me—maybe we could get into some trouble. We could, you know, go climb a Ferris wheel together or something. Pull some pranks. Punk some people. Or maybe we could just go see a movie.”

  I gulp.

  Is Bubblebutt asking me out on a date? Does he suddenly have some kind of weird crush on me?

  If he does, I have only two words for it:

  Ewwww. And gross!

  Then again…

  He is kind of cute when he’s being sweet.

  And that Calvin Klein cologne he dunked his head into doesn’t smell so bad.

  Not bad at all.

  So I tell Bob that I’m going to be kind of busy this summer.

  “I need to find a summer job,” I say with a sad shrug.

  He nods grimly. “That’s cool. I guess I’d do that, too, but nobody will hire me. Or if they did, they’d probably fire me, like, an hour later. I’m not what many consider prime employee material.…”

  “Y-y-yeah,” I say, slipping into a stutter because something about being alone with Bob makes me nervous.

  “Nice chatting with you, Jacky. See you around. Good luck finding that job.”

  Wow. He didn’t make fun of my stuttering or even call me Jacky Ha-Ha. Something weird is definitely going on inside that very large head of his.

  And inside mine, too!

  CHAPTER 8

  I spend most of the day puzzling over this strange new Bob. Not that I talk to anybody about it. That would be even weirder.

  I do think about discussing it with my mom. She might remember what it was like when she was my age. But these days she’s so busy with cop school and being a mom to seven kids that it’s hard to find alone time with her.

  After school, I find Riley so we can ride our bikes home together. Bike rides are always good for clearing your head.

  Actually, Riley rides a bike, I ride La Bicicletta.

  I used to call my bike Le Bike, because it made me feel, how you say, French. But, as zee summer approaches, I am feeling more Italian. You know—sunny and Mediterranean with a killer tan. I picture myself wearing big bug-eye sunglasses with white frames, my hair tucked under a scarf, my skirt billowing in the breeze, designer shopping bags draped over my handlebars, as I guzzle olive oil from a jug with a wicker basket bottom. And I do not need to pedal La Bicicletta because, in my mind, it is actually Il Vespa, a motor scooter.

  Riding La Bicicletta (even an imaginary one) is way more fun than riding a boring old bike, which is what Riley and I are doing. It’s one of the many advantages of a vivid imagination. Use your imagination, and anything can become interesting. Like doing dishes… just pretend your hands are scuba diving in the sudsy ocean and bringing up buried treasure instead of scraping fish bones off a plate.

  We take a shortcut along the Seaside Heights boardwalk, which is starting to show signs of life as it gears up for the summer season. There are all sorts of food stands, serving everything from pizza to swirl cones to Italian sausage sandwiches smothered in peppers and onions. If you love having heartburn or acid indigestion, this is the place to eat.

  There are also thrill rides and games of chance where you can waste a ton of money trying to win a stuffed pink gorilla for your girlfriend (but then you have to lug the gigantic toy around the boardwalk with you for the rest of the day and into the night).

  And don’t forget the video arcades and fortune-tellers and clubs where loud music spills out the doors all night long.

  It’s a teen paradise.

  Too bad I’m not a teen.

  I’m just twelve and I need to find a summer job.

  Actually, as Riley and I pedal along, past the blinking lights, the sizzling cheesesteaks, and the signs that say NO BICYCLES ALLOWED, I realize that a summer job on the boardwalk may not be horrible.

  Sure, I’ll come home smelling like I’ve been dipped in batter and deep-fried with the Mars bars, but working in a food stall isn’t as hard as, I don’t know, coal mining or something. And if I can land a job at the Ringtoss, Frog Bog, or Pop-a-Balloon booth, I mig
ht earn a few laughs along with my paycheck.

  This is what I’m thinking when, all of a sudden, a pair of police officers step out of the shadows to raise their hands, signaling for Riley and me to freeze right where we are.

  Uh-oh.

  CHAPTER 9

  Can’t you girls read?” asks a gruff police officer.

  He has gray hair that’s been buzz-cut into a bristle-brush flattop. He also wears mirrored sunglasses.

  “Didn’t you see that ‘No Bicycles Allowed’ sign back there?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say, resisting the urge to add something a little more smart-alecky, like And didn’t you see what your hair looked like before you paid your barber?

  Because the other cop isn’t just any old Seasonal Class One officer working the boardwalk beat with Officer Flattop.

  The other cop is Dad.

  Officer Flattop gives us a lecture and lets us off with a warning. Dad pretends he doesn’t know Riley or me.

  I can’t blame him.

  His chances of being offered a full-time job will probably go down the toilet with a very loud WHOOSH! if his superior officers ever find out that his two daughters are complete juvenile delinquents who regularly break the Seaside Heights no-bicycles-on-the-boardwalk law.

  And no, that’s not the big mistake I made that summer, because, officially, summer hadn’t even started yet. My whopper was yet to come. Patience, girls, patience.

  Anyway, Dad and his partner stroll up the boardwalk. Riley and I push our bikes in the opposite direction.

  “Do you think Dad is going to start giving us tickets when we do something wrong at home?” asks Riley.

  “No,” I say. “That’s Mom’s job.”

  “She doesn’t give us tickets.”

  “She doesn’t have to. She just has to give us the Look.”