Dogs Don't Tell Jokes (Someday Angeline 2)

“Are you all right?”

He shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“I could hear you shouting all over the house.”

“Uh, I was just working on my act for the talent show.”

“I thought you quit the talent show.”

“I changed my mind.”

He jumped as Mrs. Snitzberry pinched his rear end. “All right, kiddo,” she said. “Now you’re talkin’!”

His mother looked at him oddly. “Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked.

“Never felt better!” said Gary. “Besides, quitting never solves anything,” he added, trying to sound rational. “You know how you and Dad are always saying that I never follow through on things. Well, this time I’m going to do it. Whatever it takes, one hundred percent!”

He jumped as Mrs. Snitzberry goosed him again.

“O-kay,” his mother said with some hesitation. “Just so long as you keep it in perspective.”

20.

Gary gathered the scraps of paper with all of his jokes and read through them. Maybe they didn’t all stink. “In fact, some of them are pretty funny, if I do say so myself.” The funny ones were just hard to notice because they were surrounded by garbage.

“What a goon,” he muttered as he read one of the more stupid ones.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was funny. He just needed to tighten it up a little bit.

He picked out all the other jokes that fit with Rudolph. He could definitely u

se the dead skunk jokes.

Kissing worms? Something about it was funny, but it really didn’t make any sense. “No,” he decided.

“It’s just like life,” he philosophized. “I always say whatever comes into my head. And most of it is stupid. So when I say something funny, nobody notices. It’s too bad when you’re talking to people, you can’t go back later and cross out all the stupid things you said.”

But that was what was perfect about doing this comedy routine. He could cross out the bad stuff and say only the good stuff. He could say all the funny jokes and none of the stupid ones!

“I should get Abel to help me. Ha. Ha. He could haul all the garbage away in his truck.”

He picked out his best jokes and started putting them in some kind of order. It came easy. The good jokes seemed to fit together naturally, almost as if some part of his brain had planned it that way all along. He made up some new jokes without even trying. And the new ones were funnier than some of the old ones.

“No, I can’t be sure about that,” he said. “Sometimes I think something is funny one day, and then the next day I realize it’s stupid. I’ll have to look at them again tomorrow and see if I still think they’re funny.”

Tomorrow? Tomorrow was Thursday!

He just wished he had more time—even one extra day.

He worked all afternoon, quickly ate his dinner, then stayed up until almost midnight. He didn’t do his homework. There was just no way.

By the time he went to bed, he knew for the most part which jokes he’d use and the order he’d say them. But it all needed to be polished. He also needed a way to end his routine. He wanted a big finish. “Something to go BANG!” he said as he slammed his fist into his hand.

Plus, he still had to memorize it, get his timing down, and rehearse it. “Of course, first I’ll have to hearse,” he said. “I mean, I can’t rehearse until I’ve at least hearsed one time.”

He stood up on his bed, pounded his chest like Tarzan, then raised his arms in the air and shouted, “The Goon is back!”

He saw Miss Langley first thing Thursday morning and told her he wanted to be back in the talent show.