Funny Boy Meets the Dumbbell Dentist from Deimos (with Dangerous Dental Decay) (3 page)

WHERE DO FICTIONAL CHARACTERS GO TO THE BATHROOM?

I, Funny Boy, am a student at the Herby Dunn School in San Antonio, Texas. It was named after some guy named Herby Dunn, who invented the electric spoon. It was a spoon that you plugged into the wall. It didn’t have a motor in it, and it didn’t do anything, but it was technically an electrical appliance. There was also a solar-powered one that you could use if you found yourself eating lunch in a tanning booth.

My teacher is Mrs. Allison Wonderland. She’s really nice, and I can tell that she likes me a lot.

“Take a seat, Funny Boy,” said Mrs. Wonderland, when I arrived at school on Monday morning.

“Why?” I asked. “Do you have some extra chairs you’re trying to get rid of?”

“Just sit down,” said Mrs. Wonderland, “and please, no funny stuff today. I had a rough weekend.”

“Of course not,” I said as I climbed on the seat and put my head near the floor and my feet on top of the desk.

“Sit
up
please, Funny Boy,” said Mrs. Wonderland.

“Well, which is it?” I asked. “Do you want me to sit up or do you want me to sit down? I could do both, but I might wind up in the hospital. Speaking of which, do you know what usually winds up in a hospital? Watches!”

All the kids looked at me.

“Do you want me to beat him up, Mrs. Wonderland?” asked Sal Monella from the back row.

“No thank you, Sal,” she replied. “But thank you for offering to help.”

Wow, what a nice guy! On planet Crouton, beating somebody up is what we say when we give somebody a present. At my last birthday party back home, ten kids beat me up. Then we had pizza and cake.

Sal is a huge guy whose fists are bigger than my whole head. He looks like a human meatball. He likes being in fourth grade so much that he’s been in it for ten years.

I looked around for Tupper Camembert, who is the love of my life, the most beautiful girl in the world, my reason for living, and the grandchild of Earl Tupper, the inventor of Tupperware.

“Where’s Tupper?” I asked the kid sitting next to me.

“She’s absent,” he replied. “Mrs. Wonderland said Tupper has a dentist appointment.”

“Oh no!” I sobbed. “How will I make it through a day without seeing my lovely Tupper?”

WARNING! THIS BOOK SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN INTERNALLY. READ IT OUTSIDE.

Allison Wonderland told us to open our social studies books and turn to the chapter on the presidents.

“Who can tell the class the name of the sixteenth president?” asked Mrs. Wonderland.

“Ooooooooh! Oooooooooooh!” I said, waving my hand in the air. “I know!”

Nobody else had their hand up. What a bunch of dummies we have in our class.

“Anyone?” asked Mrs. Wonderland.

“Meeeeeeeeeeee!” I yelled. “Call on meeeeeeeeeeee!”

“Anyone
else
?” asked Mrs. Wonderland.

None of those dummies put their hand up, so after a long sigh, Mrs. Wonderland called on me.

“The sixteenth president,” I said proudly, “was Thornton Dillywad Ping-Pong Nose the Third.”

Everybody started cracking up.

“Are you happy, Funny Boy?” asked Mrs. Wonderland. “I called on you, and you said something ridiculous just to draw attention to yourself and make everyone laugh—as usual.”

“No I didn’t,” I said. “Thornton Dillywad Ping-Pong Nose the Third was the sixteenth president of Crouton, my home planet. He was a great man who defended us in the war against the Kluge People, and he also invented microwave popcorn.”

Mrs. Wonderland rubbed her forehead, which was a sign that she was really happy.

“I wanted to know the name of the sixteenth president of the
United States
,” she said.

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” I said. “That was Abraham Lincoln.”

“That’s right!” said Mrs. Wonderland. “And does anybody know why Lincoln grew a beard?”

“He wanted to look like that guy on the five dollar bill,” I shouted.

“He
was
the guy on the five dollar bill!” said Mrs. Wonderland.

“See?” I said. “It worked!”

Mrs. Wonderland looked out the window for a moment, as if she wanted to jump out of it.

“I’m losing my patience,” she said.

“Well, where did you last have it?” I asked. “Did you look under the cushions on the couch? That’s where I always find stuff that I’ve lost.”

“Can I beat him up
now
, Mrs. Wonderland?” asked Sal Monella.

“No, Sal,” she replied, “but that is awfully thoughtful of you.”

Wow, Sal must have really wanted to give me a present. I couldn’t wait to see what it was.

“May I go to the bathroom?” Sal asked.

“Certainly,” said Mrs. Wonderland.

I knew perfectly well that Sal Monella didn’t
really
have to go to the bathroom. He was just saying that to get out of class. Everybody knows that fictional characters don’t have to use the bathroom. You never see anybody go to the bathroom in movies or on TV or in books, like this one.

But then it occurred to me that maybe fictional characters go to imaginary bathrooms in their minds. In any case, Sal got up and left the room.

“May I go to the bathroom?” I asked Mrs. Wonderland.

“Why do
you
need to go to the bathroom, Funny Boy?”

“I want to take a bath,” I said, which for some reason the rest of the class found amusing.

“Can you be serious for
just one minute
?” asked Mrs. Wonderland. “Come up here and whisper in my ear why you need to go to the bathroom.”

I went up to Mrs. Wonderland’s desk and whispered in her ear.

“I’ve never been in a bathroom before,” I whispered, “and I’ve always wanted to know what they look like.”

“Go ahead,” she said, rubbing her forehead some more. “Stay there as long as you like. Take all day if you want to.”

I went down the hall to the boy’s bathroom.

I pushed open the door.

I entered the room.

And I was astonished at what I saw in there.

No bath!

How could they have a bathroom with no bath in it? They should call it the “nobathroom.” Or the “bathlessroom.” Or “the room that has sinks and toilets and stalls in it but no bath.”

There was just one person in the bathroom—Sal Monella.

“Okay, Funny Boy,” Sal said, rubbing his hands together. “Now I finally get to beat you up.”

Oh boy! I was going to get a present! And it wasn’t even my birthday!

But where was he hiding it? Sal didn’t have anything in his hand. He just kept punching one fist into his other hand over and over again. I guess he was hiding the present in his pocket.

“Would you mind if I washed my hands first?” I asked Sal. “I hate getting beaten up when my hands are dirty.”

“Go ahead, dork.”

On Crouton, “dork” means somebody who is really smart and cool. Wow, I had no idea that Sal wanted to be friends with me. I thought I should make some small talk with him so we could get to know each other better.

“So,” I said to Sal as I soaped up my hands, “why do you think sheep don’t shrink when it rains?”

“I don’t know, dork.”

“I mean, wool shrinks,” I said. “And sheep grow wool on them. So you would think that a sheep would shrink every time it gets wet.”

“You are such a dork, dork,” said Sal Monella.

“If sheep shrunk,” I said, “we’d have a bunch of tiny little sheep running around. That would be cool! Wouldn’t you like to have a little shrunken sheep?”

“No, dork,” Sal said.

“You could carry it to school in your backpack,” I suggested.

“Will you hurry up and finish washing your hands so I can beat you up?” asked Sal Monella.

Sal and I were really getting along well! I felt a little bit awkward because he was going to give me a present, but I didn’t have anything to give him.

“Say, do you want to come over to Bob Foster’s house and hang out with me sometime?” I asked Sal. “We could get a sheep and soak it in water to see how much it shrinks. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“That’s it!” Sal yelled. “I can’t take it anymore!”

I’m not exactly sure what happened next. I bent down to tie my sneaker. Sal must have slipped or something. The next thing I knew, he was on the floor moaning and holding his head. I think he hit it against the sink.

“Owwwwwwwwwww!”
he said.

At that very moment, the bathroom door opened and Principal Werner came in. He saw Sal Monella on the ground holding his head and me standing over him.

“Funny Boy!” Principal Werner shouted, “Go to my office! Now!”

WARNING! CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE. IF YOU READ THIS BOOK, YOUR HEAD WILL EXPLODE.