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  “Jamie, how does it feel to be rolling on up to the finals?”

  I think he wants me to say something about my wheelchair, but I don’t go there with him.

  “Great, Biff. There’ll be a lot of talented young comics on that stage with me.”

  “But, correct me if I’m wrong, you’ll be the only comic working in a wheelchair. True?”

  I try to make a joke out of it. “I think I might be the only one wearing a sweater vest, too.”

  Biff keeps smiling his cheesy smile at me. “Jamie, if you were a tree, what kind would you be?”

  “Green, I guess. Except in the fall. Then I’d be kind of reddish orange.”

  Chapter 18

  GOOD MORNING, AMERICA!

  I am totally wiped out by the end of the day but say a quick prayer before my head hits the pillow: “Please, God—no more TV cameras. Until the finals, of course. You can’t do live TV without TV cameras. But you probably knew that.”

  My prayer goes unanswered.

  “Jamie?” Mrs. Smiley is at my door. She’s in her bathrobe and curlers. I check out my alarm clock. She yawns.

  Because it’s 5:05 AM.

  “There’s a camera crew on the front porch.”

  “What?”

  “They’re from BNC.”

  Stevie comes up behind his mom. He’s already in his bodyguard T-shirt and Ray-Ban sunglasses, even though the sun won’t be up for an hour or so. “Want me to deal with ’em, Jamie? Toss ’em off the porch? Punch out their satellite dish?”

  “No,” I say, hauling myself across the mattress so I can transfer into my chair. “If they’re from BNC, then this is probably part of the deal. Let’s go see what they want.”

  “Jamie, my name is Hunter. I’m going to be your segment producer for the next two weeks.”

  “Um, okay. Why do I need a segment producer?”

  “You ever watch American Idol? America’s Got Talent? America’s Favorite Americans?”

  “I’ve seen the first two.…”

  “Right. Because the third one is my idea. Gonna be huge, kid, huge—once the network picks it up or listens to my pitch. But enough about me—this is about you.”

  “Okay.”

  “We need to make sure your backstory is super-sad and sappy.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Because that’s what America wants, kid! Remember that country singer on American Songster, the girl whose father only let her order ketchup, mustard, and relish at McDonald’s because ketchup, mustard, and relish are free and you can mix them in a cup of hot water to make McSoup?”

  “Vaguely…”

  “She went on to win the whole thing. How about the juggler on Super-Talented Americans? The guy who lost everything he owned when he rehearsed that bit with the flaming torches in his living room?”

  “Kind of.”

  “You should. He went on the competition and now has his own show in Vegas.

  “Why’d they both win? Because they gave us a chance to feel good about ourselves by feeling sorry for them.”

  “B-b-but—”

  “Look, kid, for the next couple weeks, we’re gonna follow you around town, school, your uncle’s diner—wherever. We’ll be shooting footage for your background piece.”

  “Okay.”

  “And, Jamie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You wanna win this thing?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then give me the schmaltz, kid.”

  “The what?”

  “The mushy, gushy stuff.” He gestures toward my wheelchair. “Make America cry, kid, and even if your act is lousy, I guarantee you’ll roll out of Hollywood a winner!”

  Chapter 19

  SMILE—YOU’RE ON CANDID CAMERA, 24/7

  The BNC crew follows me everywhere.

  “America wants to see you brush your teeth, Jamie,” says Hunter when I try to close the bathroom door for a little privacy.

  “I’m, uh, going to do… other stuff, too.”

  “Really? Awesome. Hit your floodlight, Gunther,” Hunter says to his camera operator. “America needs to see what really goes on in the handicap stall.”

  “No, they don’t!” Somehow I slam the door shut.

  It’s the last shred of privacy I have all day. While I get dressed (which isn’t as easy for me as it might be for you), they jump into my bedroom.

  “Does Jamie Grimm put his pants on one leg at a time?” booms Hunter. “Let’s find out!”

  When I wheel down the sidewalks of Long Beach, the camera crew walks backward in front of me.

  “Just act natural,” coaches Hunter.

  You ever try to act natural with a camera, floodlights, and a microphone jammed in your face? I figure I need to do something funny to prove why I’m in the finals.

  “Wow, you see that dog walking his person? If he’s good, maybe the dog will give him a cookie shaped like a pizza. Hey, we give dogs cookies shaped like food they like.”

  My smile is so big and fake I know I look like a crazed jack-o’-lantern.

  “Cute, kid,” says Hunter. “But we don’t need funny. We need to tug at America’s heartstrings.”

  “All of them? That’s a lot of strings. Like three hundred and fourteen million. And if they’re heartstrings, they’re gonna be kind of gross and—”

  “Can the comedy, kid. Give me some schmaltz. Tell me what it’s like knowing you’ll never, ever walk down a sidewalk like a normal kid. Never jump rope or play hopscotch with all the other little children at school.”

  “I’m in middle school. Nobody hopscotches, not even the Scottish kids.”

  “Work with me, Jamie. You need to stir up the sympathy vote if you want to win, remember?”

  “I don’t mean to be difficult, Hunter, but I’ve never done that before. In fact, I’ve always done everything I could to avoid winning just because I’m in a wheelchair.”

  “Sure, kid. But in the early rounds, you weren’t up against this kind of competition. You want to win? Make ’em weep. Tell ’em about life in the chair. How it feels to be an orphan. Show America how depressing it is for you to be you every day.”

  He’s right. Some days it is hard being Jamie Grimm.

  Like today, for instance.

  Chapter 20

  GILDA TO THE RESCUE!

  When we finally reach the driveway in front of Long Beach Middle School, all sorts of kids I don’t even know are pushing and shoving each other, fighting to be on camera with me.

  “I’m Jamie’s best friend,” says a kid I’ve never met. “Put me on TV!”

  “I’ve known Jamie Flimm since kindergarten,” says a girl who just last month told everybody my wheelchair smells like a gorilla’s butt.

  Fortunately, Gilda bursts out of the front doors.

  “Jamie?” she hollers. “Wait right there!”

  Her hair is even crazier and bouncier than usual as she races across the parking lot.

  “Who’s she?” asks Hunter.

  “One of my real friends.”

  “Romantic?”

  “Are you kidding? Gilda?”

  Oh, crap. I realize I just basically dissed Gilda while the camera was rolling.

  I try to backpedal, something that’s extremely difficult to do when your legs don’t work, by the way. “I mean, we’re friend friends. We don’t kiss, and junk. Well, we did. Once. But we’re not going to do that again, that’s for sure.”

  Now I slap my forehead. I’m still dissing Gilda.

  “America loves a love story, Jamie,” says Hunter as Gilda runs toward us. “Gunther? Zoom in. Jamie, kiss her!”

  “What?”

  “When the blond chick in the baseball cap gets here, kiss her, kid! And tell her to cry and show us all how hard it is to be in love with a crippled orphan!”

  I’m about to explode.

  Even though she’s winded after her parking lot sprint, Gilda does my exploding for me.

  “You want to lose a lens, camera jocke
y?” she sputters. “Stick it anywhere near my fist again and I’m shattering your glass.”

  “We’re filming clips of Jamie’s everyday life,” Hunter tries to explain. “For his backstory.”

  “Not now, you’re not,” snaps Gilda, hands firmly planted on hips. “Not if you think you’re shooting me. I didn’t sign a waiver. You use one frame with me in it, I’ll sue. Did I mention my father is a lawyer? He loooooves suing people.”

  “Gunther? Chantelle?” Hunter says to his team. “Let’s take five and let these two lovebirds have a moment.”

  “We’re not lovebirds!” I shout as the camera crew walks away. “We’re just friends.”

  Gilda’s nose twitches a little when I say that.

  Great. She ran to my rescue and I say thanks by hurting her feelings. You’d think, given my physical condition, I wouldn’t jam my foot into my mouth on such a regular basis.

  “I’m sorry, Gilda. I didn’t mean to—”

  She shakes her head. “Not important. This, on the other hand, is!”

  She shows me her phone and the news flash she just found on the Web.

  “You’re going to be on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon!”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Nope. Jokes are your department. I just bask in the reflected glow of your awesomeness.”

  Yes, she’s busting my chops a little. But that’s what friends are for: to remind you who you really are even when a major television network is trying to convince you to be somebody you’re not.

  “Did they say when I’ll be on?” I ask, because I’m too nervous to scroll through the on-screen news alert myself.

  “Yep,” Gilda says with a slight grin.

  “Well?”

  “Uh, Jamie, why do you think they call it The TONIGHT Show?”

  “I don’t know. I guess because they already have Today in the morning and…”

  Gilda’s grin grows wider and I finally figure it out.

  “Tonight? I’m going on Jimmy Fallon’s show tonight?”

  She tosses up both hands. “It’s not the Tomorrow or the Sometime Next Week show, now is it, Jamie?”

  Okay. Crank up a new countdown clock. I’ll be on TV at 11:35 PM. Tonight.

  “By the way,” says Gilda, “Fallon tapes his show at five.”

  Oh-kay.

  Chop six and a half hours off the clock.

  Tonight is really this afternoon!

  Chapter 21

  UP PAST MY BEDTIME IN THE AFTERNOON

  After school, we ditch Hunter and the camera crew for the ride into New York City and the Tonight Show taping.

  “Sorry,” Uncle Frankie tells the gang from BNC, “no room in the van. Stevie Kosgrov is a double-wide. Takes up two seats.”

  Uncle Frankie is taking me and cousin Stevie to 30 Rockefeller Center, the same building where, maybe a month ago, he took us to see Saturday Night Live. This time, I don’t invite Gilda, Pierce, and Gaynor, even though they ask. That’s three fewer people I have to face if I choke tonight.

  I could tell they were a little hurt, but I have to do what’s best for me, right?

  “I’m glad the camera crew isn’t riding with us,” I say, finally able to relax. They even wanted to come into the shower with me after gym class, where, by the way, I’ve developed a pretty good three-point non-jump shot. (Not in the shower, in gym class!) I may not be ready for murderball (wheelchair rugby), but I might have a shot at playing H-O-R-S-E in the driveway with my cousins someday.

  “They’re right behind us,” reports Uncle Frankie.

  I look back. They have their own van with a satellite dish. They’re probably shooting footage of me with a zoom lens right now.

  “You want me to make obscene gestures at them?” asks Stevie, who’s riding in back. “I could totally ruin their footage.” Stevie. Always a gentleman.

  “No gesticulating, Stevie,” says Uncle Frankie.

  “Awww,” Stevie moans.

  “I mean it. Just because they’re rude doesn’t mean we have to be crude.”

  “All right already.”

  Wow. Stevie Kosgrov actually listens to Uncle Frankie. I told you the man was amazing, and not just with a yo-yo and a burger.

  Uncle Frankie glances over at me in the passenger seat while he drives.

  “So, Jamie, you ready for this? You know, for years, a shot on The Tonight Show has been a lot of comics’ ticket to the big leagues. I’m talking ‘unknowns’ like Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey, Ellen DeGeneres—the list goes on and on. They were all nobodies until Johnny Carson gave them a chance to do their act in front of his curtain and a couple million eyeballs.”

  I can feel the sweat beading up on my brow. And in my armpits. Some droplets are trickling down my spine, too.

  “Gross,” Stevie groans in disgust. “You’re gonna drown before we even get there.”

  “You’ll do great, Jamie,” says Uncle Frankie, my number one cheerleader. “You always do.”

  “Not really,” I admit. “Remember—I have this bad habit of choking under pressure.”

  Stevie leans over the seat back and makes one of his crude gestures at me.

  This one involves a balled-up fist.

  “Not tonight, cuz. Otherwise, you can choke on this!”

  So there you have it.

  After I die on the most famous comedy stage of all time, Stevie Kosgrov will kill me again.

  I have so much to live for.

  Chapter 22

  HOLLYWOOD IN NEW YORK

  I say good-bye to my family when we’re upstairs at 30 Rock and I head backstage to the dressing rooms for Studio 6B—the same studio where Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show when he taped in New York City over forty years ago!

  There’s a lot of history in this studio.

  And sweat. Most of that is coming from me.

  Hunter and his camera crew have called it a night.

  “We don’t need to see you onstage,” says Hunter. “We’re more interested in your offstage life. Tomorrow, let’s up our game a little, Jamie. Give me a story I can turn into a three-hankie tearjerker. Ciao for now!”

  A nice production assistant named Stella Kim escorts me through the Tonight Show offices to my dressing room.

  “We’re having all eight finalists on the show over the next two weeks,” she explains. “You live closest to New York City, so you’re up first.”

  “Great,” I say, my voice cracking on the ate part.

  “We’re going to park you in the greenroom for now. Oops. Bad choice of words.”

  “That’s okay,” I say.

  “So how do you know Max Weasley?”

  “Who?”

  “Max Weasley. Biggest agent in all of Hollywood.”

  “Um, I don’t think I know who he is.”

  “Really? He sure knows who you are. He’s waiting for you in the greenroom.”

  She opens the door and I see this hyper guy in a shiny suit who is working two cell phones at once. He holds up a finger, asking me to give him a minute. Hey, it’s only four-thirty. He can have a whole half hour.

  He twirls both phones in the air and tucks them into his suit pockets like a gunslinger holstering a pair of six-shooters.

  “You’re Jamie Grimm, am I right?” Max Weasley says to me, kind of gesturing at my wheelchair.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How’d you like to be happy, Grimm?”

  “Happy is good. Usually.”

  “I did some digging, Jamie baby. Can I call you Jamie baby, Jamie baby?”

  “Actually, most people call me Jamie.”

  “Ah! But I’m not most people. I’m me. Max Weasley. Power agent to the stars. Brad. Matt. Sandra. SpongeBob. If you know ’em by their first names, I represent ’em.”

  He flicks me a business card.

  “Jamie baby,” he says, “you’ve got something.”

  “Oh, no, sir.” I point to my legs. “This happened because of an ac
cident, not a disease.”

  “Ha! Got it! You’re funny, kid. A nonstop joke machine. Inside? I’m cracking up. Seriously.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Listen, lollipop, how’d you like to book a one-way ticket out to Hollywood for the big finals?”

  “One-way? But how would I get home?”

  “If we work together, you won’t have to fly back to Nowheresville, Long Island. Hollywood will become your new home. Probably a mansion in Beverly Hills.”

  “Well, if I win and they put me in the sitcom pilot…”

  “Forget sitcoms, kid. I’m talking movies. Summer blockbusters. I see you as the next big action hero.”

  “But, uh, I’m in a wheelchair,” I say. “Most of my action involves rolling forward or tilting backward. I can also pop a pretty mean wheelie.…”

  “We’ll shoot around the chair.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Two little words: Green. Screen. This is the age of CGI, baby. With computers, we can do anything! Work with me and all your dreams will come true. I’ll have you walking, running, jumping, and kicking bad guys off tall buildings in no time.”

  “Really?”

  “Give me a green screen and some computer graphics and I’ll have you flying to the moon!”

  Wow.

  I’ve never really wanted to fly to the moon, but the way Mr. Weasley says it, it sounds like it’d be the coolest thing in the world!

  I’m brought back to earth by a knock on the door.

  It’s the production assistant, Stella.

  “You’re on in twenty minutes, Jamie. Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  I have a feeling I’m going to need more than luck to stop from bombing in front of Jimmy Fallon and the millions of people out in TV Land.

  I’m going to need a few of those Hollywood green screen computer tricks.

  Chapter 23