I Funny--School of Laughs Read online

  There is a smattering of terrified applause.

  Coach Ball breathes into the microphone again. “Speaking of unwanted laughter…”

  Uh-oh.

  He’s looking right at me.

  “I am not amused by the antics of a certain clique of smart-mouth, smart-aleck, smarty-pants kids making fun of my middle school on national television.”

  He does that thing where he points two fingers at his eyes, flicks them around to point at me, and flips them back to point at his eyes again.

  “You are on my radar, Mr. Grimm. Word of advice? You do not want to be on my radar. Bad things happen if you are. BEEP-BEEP, BOOM!”

  I think he’s imitating a radar. And some kind of guided missile.

  He puts his whistle to his lips and blows a shrill blast. “Johannsen? Kosgrov? Front and center. Now!”

  Can this get any worse? Stevie Kosgrov and Lars Johannsen join Coach Ball at center court. They are both wearing chin-strapped headgear that looks like earmuffs made out of football pads.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” says our new principal, “we may not have the talent to field a football team or to win at basketball. But we’ve definitely got the talent to put Long Beach Middle School in the state wrestling finals this year! Especially in the heavyweight division.”

  He claps Stevie and Lars on the back.

  “If you’re tough enough and fast enough to join these two fine gentlemen, come try out for the team. I’ll be the coach, and let me make this perfectly clear: I’ll do whatever it takes to win!”

  What happens when the basketball game starts up again?

  We lose.

  Chapter 10

  DOUBLE GROANERS

  The next day at school, I have a free period, so I swing by the library to check in with Ms. Denning.

  Now that I have a little time to look around, I notice she’s already made a few changes. Everything seems brighter. More fun. She has a display of books that are MS. D.’S FAVES AND RAVES set up on a table in the middle of the room. There’s also a sign-up sheet for a brand-new Battle of the Books team. She even has a trivia question written on a whiteboard: Who are the four Kidd kids in the book Treasure Hunters?

  “And over there,” she says when she sees me checking out the new additions, “is where I plan to put the 3-D printer and our makerspace.”

  “Cool. When’s that going to happen?”

  “Right after I win the lottery.”

  “That would be so awesome.”

  “It would, wouldn’t it?” she says with a smile. “I also wish we had a few windows.”

  Whoever designed this school gave the library glass doors but windowless cinder-block walls. The only lighting is the greenish glow from fluorescent fixtures in the ceiling.

  “So, Jamie, did you come in here to hide today?”

  “No. I just wanted to officially say ‘hi’ and ‘welcome to Long Beach Middle School.’ I was new here last year. I know how tough that can be.”

  “Thanks. Any tips?”

  “Yes. Stay away from the French-bread pizza in the cafeteria. Unless you like burning the roof of your mouth while simultaneously chewing soggy slippers.”

  She laughs. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Hey, Jamie!”

  Vincent O’Neil pops out from behind a wall of shelves. He’s thumbing through the pages of a very thick book. Yep. It’s a joke book.

  “Hey, Jamie—guess what kind of books planets like to read?” he asks me.

  I grimace and give him the corny answer: “Comet books.”

  “Oh. Okay. You’ve heard that one.” He thumbs through the book. “Here’s another.…”

  “See you later, Jamie!” says Vincent. “I need to study some more joke books before our brainstorming session after school!”

  He disappears behind the bookcases. I whisper to Ms. Denning: “Another tip? You might want to limit Vincent to one joke book per day!”

  She winks and shoots me a silent Okay.

  The bell rings and I roll off to my next class.

  When I hit the hallway, I see Stevie Kosgrov standing on top of a water fountain like he’s ready to pounce on the next person who passes by. He’s wearing a ski mask. Lars Johannsen is on the other side of the hall, slamming a metal chair against a steel locker. He’s wearing a ski mask, too. A crowd of terrified kids are frozen around them, like they’re in the ring at a WWE wrestling match.

  Why do I think I’m about to be body-slammed?

  Chapter 11

  LET’S GET READY TO RUUUUUMBLE

  I need a victim!” shouts Stevie, teetering on his water fountain perch.

  So Lars grabs one of the spectators, a quivering sixth grader, and hurls him into the ring of kids. Stevie leaps off the water fountain and drops the poor boy to the floor.

  “Hey, Stevie!” I shout as I roll into the center of the ring. “Pick on someone your own size—like that Bob’s Big Boy statue.”

  “Grimm!” Stevie snarls through his mask mouth hole.

  “Time for a Choke-Slam Brainbuster!” shouts Lars.

  Stevie assumes some kind of sumo wrestler pose. “With a Dunking Dogleg Dump-Truck Twist!”

  He and Lars are both on me in a flash.

  “Double-teaming!” shouts a kid in the crowd. “That’s against the rules. One of you has to tag out!”

  Stevie and Lars ignore the WWE fan and the wrestling rule book. Together, they rock my chair forward and toss me out of my seat like you’d toss out the trash. I end up sprawled on the floor, flat on my face.

  They’re going to turn me into Flat Jamie. I close my eyes and brace for impact.

  But then I hear the screech of a gym whistle. I creak open one eye and can see squeaky black sneakers creeping down the hall.

  It’s the new principal!

  I’m saved!

  “Gentlemen,” barks Coach Ball, “what you are doing is completely wrong!”

  Phew.

  I knew, no matter how nutty the principal is about “interscholastic athletics” (which sounds like some sort of game at the book fair), no way would he let bullies terrorize innocent kids in the hallways.

  Coach Ball marches right up to Stevie and Lars and leans in. “One hundred percent, completely, totally wrong.”

  I’m still on my belly, flat on the floor. My chair is ten feet behind me, lying on its side with the top wheel spinning.

  “I was hoping you’d say something, Coach Ball,” says Mr. Getzler, one of the best teachers at Long Beach Middle School, as he comes out of his physics lab. Mr. Getzler teaches students how to build Ping-Pong ball catapults so we can learn about force, momentum, and nailing the garbage can for three points.

  Coach Ball glares at Mr. Getzler.

  “Little help?” I peep.

  Everybody completely ignores me because they’re too busy quaking in their shoes, boots, and penny loafers. Coach Ball is giving them all a dark, icy stare. He’s good. The guy must’ve studied glowering at college.

  “Where was I before Mr. Getzler so rudely interrupted me?” he asks.

  “Uh, you were telling us how wrong we were for beating up little kids,” grunts Lars.

  “And how bad it is to throw my cousin out of his wheelchair?” adds Stevie.

  Coach Ball shakes his bristle-brush head. “That’s not what I’m angry about, boys. On the contrary, I applaud your initiative. You’re eager to get started. But this is the wrong kind of wrestling! We’re not talking about that made-up monkey business on TV. We’re talking Olympic-style Greco-Roman wrestling!”

  He grabs hold of poor Mr. Getzler, who probably wishes he never stepped out of his classroom.

  “Here’s how you execute a two-point takedown.”

  He puts his leg behind Mr. Getzler’s leg, twists him sideways, and hauls him down to the floor.

  “Then you need to flip him over, pin his shoulders to the mat, and hold him there for a count of three!”

  “One, two, three!” chant Stevie and Lars when Mr. Getzler stops squirming and lets Coach Ball press his shoulders to the floor.

  “That’s a pin and that’s how you win,” says Coach Ball.

  He stands up and dusts off his sweatpants.

  “You okay, Getzler?”

  “Well, my head sort of hurts.…”

  “Don’t be such a crybaby. If you’re hurt, go see the school nurse. Maybe she’ll give you a lollipop.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Coach Ball drapes his arms around Stevie’s and Lars’s shoulders.

  “What we need is a proper training facility to teach you boys the fundamentals of Olympic-style wrestling.”

  “You mean like the gym?” says Lars.

  “We could take it away from the basketball team,” suggests Stevie. “They stink so bad, they don’t need to practice.”

  Coach Ball shakes his head. “The gym is where we’ll host our matches. But for training, we need a wrestling room. Someplace without windows but plenty of space to lay down mats.”

  “The faculty lounge doesn’t have any windows,” moans Mr. Getzler.

  I guess when you’re a teacher, you have to stay on the principal’s good side no matter what.

  “Excellent suggestion, Getzler,” says the new principal. “Come on, team. Let’s hit the faculty lounge.” He pounds his fist into his hand. “It’s time to clear out a few coffeepots!”

  Chapter 12

  CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF SPITBALLS

  After school, Gilda, Vincent O’Neil, and I meet up in the library to spitball ideas for new Jamie Funnie episodes.

  “Should I go to the cafeteria and grab a straw?” asks Vincent. “For the spitballing?”

  “It’s just a term,” I say. “We all toss out ideas. Then we see which ones stick to the walls.
”

  “Cool.”

  “And Vincent?” says Gilda.

  “Yeah?”

  “We don’t need jokes right now. Just story ideas.”

  “Oh. Okay. So I guess you don’t want to know what washes up on very small, teeny-tiny beaches.”

  I think about it for half a second. “Microwaves?”

  “Yeah,” says Vincent sadly.

  Gilda tries her best not to groan. Really, she does. It’s hard.

  “You guys need anything?” asks Ms. Denning as she walks past our table rolling a cart filled with books she’s going to reshelve.

  “No,” I say. “But thanks for keeping the library open after school.”

  “No problem. In fact, I’m thinking about staying open for a couple of extra hours every day. Hosting some new activities.”

  “That’d be great,” I say. “Not everybody has a diner to hang out in like I do.”

  “Will you be there tonight?” she asks.

  “Yep. The blue plate special is meat loaf.”

  “That’s the problem with meat,” cracks Vincent. “It’s so lazy. Always loafing around.”

  “Well, have fun, guys,” says Ms. Denning. “See you at the diner, Jamie!” She trundles away with her cart.

  “She’s nice,” says Gilda.

  I nod. “Uncle Frankie would definitely agree.”

  “Yeah,” says Vincent. “I’ll be super sad when they fire her.”

  “Whaaat?” says Gilda.

  “Haven’t you guys heard? The new principal wants to shut down the library. If you don’t have a library, you don’t really need a librarian. Hey, speaking of librarians…”

  Hoo-boy. Here we go again.

  “Do you guys know how many librarians it takes to screw in a lightbulb?”

  “No,” says Gilda with a sigh.

  “Neither do the librarians,” says Vincent. “But they all know how to look up the answer!”

  That’s when Principal (I mean Coach) Ball marches into the library with a whole slew of people wearing suits.

  “This is the spare room I was telling you about,” says Coach Ball. “The Internet and Google have made libraries obsolete. We don’t need a room full of dusty books and encyclopedias.”

  “Actually,” says Ms. Bumgarten, “a library is very—”

  “Bumgarten,” snarls Coach Ball.

  “Sir?”

  “When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “As I was saying, we don’t really need a library anymore. We just need a couple of computers—which we already have in the tech lab.”

  “A school without a library?” says a lady in a business suit. “I don’t know.…”

  “The kids won’t miss it, Mrs. Critchett,” says Coach Ball. “Heck, there’s never anybody in here anyhow.”

  “We’re in here!” says Gilda, standing up defiantly.

  “I meant normal students,” sneers Coach Ball. “Not two smart alecks and a wisenheimer.”

  “Which one of us is the wisenheimer?” asks Vincent.

  “Whoever I say it is!”

  “Right. Gotcha. Thanks.”

  Coach Ball makes his pitch to the suits. “Look, Mrs. Critchett, being president of the school board means you need to think about Long Beach Middle’s future, not its past. Well, the future has already left this library behind. That’s why we should repurpose this space that nobody wants or needs and turn it into a practice facility. A sweat room for my new wrestling team!”

  Ms. Denning comes out from behind a bookcase.

  “Do you know which American president often talked about his wrestling days as a young man in Illinois?”

  “No, Ms. Denning,” fumes Coach Ball. “And frankly, I don’t care. Neither does anybody else.”

  “Abraham Lincoln,” says Ms. Denning pleasantly. “I learned that right here, today, in this library.”

  “Really? Well, I could’ve learned it in two seconds with Google!”

  “I just did,” says one of the school board guys, fiddling with his phone. “And did you know that the longest Olympic wrestling contest ever was the 1912 semifinal bout between Martin Klein for Russia and Alfred Asikainen of Finland, which went on for almost twelve hours?”

  “No,” admits Ms. Denning.

  Me? I’m trying to imagine the stink in the air after that eleven-hour wrestling match.

  Chapter 13

  JOKES TO THE RESCUE!

  The library is the heart and soul of any school,” insists Ms. Denning.

  “Agreed,” says Ms. Bumgarten. “And if I may add—”

  “No, you may not,” says Coach Ball, cutting her off again. I guess speaking isn’t a job requirement for vice principals.

  Ms. Denning courageously keeps going. “The school library is the one place where kids can expand their horizons and independently study whatever interests they wish to pursue.”

  “Well, who wants them doing that?” says Coach Ball. “Students should be at their desks studying what the school board tells them to study so they can get ready for their state standardized tests! They shouldn’t be in here daydreaming and thinking on their own!”

  “Jamie?” pleads Gilda.

  Uh-oh. When I glance over at her, she has that Do something! look in her eye.

  And I think she wants me to do it now.

  Of course, she’s probably right. Shutting down the school library might be wrong, foolish, and imprudent—a word I just learned by cracking open the library’s ginormous thesaurus. If Coach Ball gets rid of the school’s library, it could be a huge mistake. I couldn’t stand the thought of all these books getting thrown out to make room for wrestling mats. (Actually, I can’t stand for anything, but you get the idea.)

  It’s time to roll into action.

  I back away from the table and whirl around to face my audience.

  “Hiya, folks. I’m Jamie Grimm.”

  Yep. It’s time for a command performance, even if there are only eight people in the crowd.

  I go for my big finish.

  “Speaking for all the students at Long Beach Middle School—which is extremely hard to do unless you’re the best ventriloquist in the world—we need this library, ladies and gentlemen! We cannot let it close! Let the wrestling team sweat somewhere else. I suggest Miami. In August. They can all visit their grandmothers at the same time. Thank you! I’m Jamie Grimm, and you’ve been a great crowd!”

  Coach Ball is scowling at me.

  Again.

  The school board members (and Ms. Denning) are smiling and clapping. They loved my impromptu stand-up bit!

  “You’re Jamie Grimm!” gushes one lady. “I’m Lexi Critchett! I know you!”

  “From TV!” gushes another member of the board.

  “You funny!” they all gush together.

  “Maybe we should give this matter further consideration before turning the library into a sweat room, Coach Ball,” says Mrs. Critchett, who, I’m pretty sure, is in charge of the school board. Which means she’s Coach Ball’s boss.

  Yes!

  I think we might’ve just bought Ms. Denning and the library a little extra time. I know for certain that I’ve just made a very powerful enemy.

  One with a flattop haircut and a closet full of tracksuits.

  Coach Ball is eyeballing me like I’m a gnat and he’s the windshield.

  Maybe I should just go ahead and change my Google name to SplatOnWheels567.

  Chapter 14

  DINOSAUR ROAR

  You people are just trying to avoid the inevitable!” Coach Ball snarls at the school board members. “This library is a dinosaur.”

  “I respectfully disagree,” I say, trying to blink some of the flop sweat out of my eyes. What can I say? Authority figures make me nervous. I don’t do well with confrontation, either.

  But I keep going.

  Mostly because Gilda looks so worried. The library is her sanctuary.