Funny Boy Meets the Airsick Alien from Andromeda

  FUNNY BOY MEETS THE AIRSICK ALIEN FROM ANDROMEDA

  Dan Gutman

  Illustrated by John Dykes

  Dedicated to Richard Drew,

  the inventor of duct tape.

  Look it up if you don’t believe me.

  Contents

  Warning

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  WARNING: The story you are about to read is fictional. That means I made the whole thing up. If any of the characters in this book claim that they are real, they’re lying. This story is also extremely far-fetched and silly. If there is anything in this book that you find illogical or personally offensive, consult your physician immediately and ask about getting a sense of humor transplant.

  Introduction

  DO YOUR JOB AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT

  Good day, Earthlings! I am Funny Boy, defender of all that is good, enemy of all that is evil. I have come to save your pathetic planet from destruction.

  For years, your scientists have wasted their time arguing about whether or not there is life on other planets. Well, I am here to tell you the truth. Not only is there life on other planets, but the universe is filled with alien sleazeballs who would like nothing better than to destroy Earth for the pure fun of watching it explode into a zillion pieces.

  Your planet needs help badly. That is why I am here.

  My mission—to use the power of jokes, quips, puns, wisecracks, amusing anecdotes, and other forms of humor to fight the forces of badness and evil and wickedness.

  To make a long story short, I have come to save your butt.

  But I will need your help. I am but one lonely superhero and there is only so much I can do on my own. It is up to you to help me. Are you prepared to do your part? I will reveal your mission on the next page.

  Turn the page!

  That’s right. Your mission is to turn the page. Here’s how we will work together ...

  Start reading each page from the top line. Read all the words on the page. Then, when you reach the last word at the bottom of the page ... turn the page.

  Think you can handle that? Good. I knew I could count on you.

  So, in case you skipped the beginning of this book (or you simply haven’t been paying attention) ...

  I will fight the forces of evil.

  You will turn the pages.

  Together, we can save Earth from the unspeakable, repulsive creep from outer space you will meet on these pages. Got it? Good. Now do your job.

  —Funny Boy

  CHAPTER 1

  A PLANET THE SIZE OF URANUS

  “Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Mickey Mouse’s underwear.”

  That was the first joke I ever heard. I was three years old at the time. That’s three Earth years, of course. On my home planet, a year only lasts one day. So I was actually 1,095 years old when I heard the Mickey Mouse joke. I am 3,287 years old now, or nine Earth years.

  I was born on Crouton, which is a planet about the size of Uranus. It is the only place in the universe where anyone can say the word “Uranus” without giggling.

  Crouton is shaped much like a loaf of bread. In fact, the planet is made entirely of bread. That, of course, is why it came to be called Crouton.

  My people—the Croutonians—are gentle folk. Perhaps you’ve heard the Croutonian national anthem. It sounds like a bunch of pots and pans being banged with a wooden spoon and then thrown down a flight of stairs.

  Crouton is 160,000 million light-years from Earth, in the Magellanic Clouds galaxy. It’s just a stone’s throw from Tinkle Major. That is, if you can throw a stone ten million miles.

  For those of you who don’t know what a light-year is, it’s the distance light travels in one year. A light-year is very difficult to measure. That’s because whenever they try to measure a light year, the batteries in the flashlight run out before the year is up and they have to start all over again.

  In scientific terms, a light-year is really, really, really far away. It is farther than the longest, most boring car trip you have ever taken. It’s so far, you could say “Are we there yet?” six billion times in a row, and you still wouldn’t be there yet.

  It’s so far, that if you traveled from Earth to Crouton, the trip would take an entire lifetime. And then, when you finally arrived on Crouton, you would see that there isn’t much going on and you would want to come back home. It’s sort of like a trip to Canada.

  Crouton is very much like Earth, but quite different in some ways, too. For instance, on Crouton golf balls don’t have dimples. They have pimples. On Earth, you drive on the parkway and park on the driveway. But on Crouton, we drive on the sidewalk and park in the swimming pool. Also, Croutonian cows have thirteen udders and each one gives a different variety of soft drink.

  Other than those minor differences, the two planets are pretty much the same.

  Croutonians are very lazy people. Let me give you an example. My father was a volcano chaser. Not a tornado chaser. Not a hurricane chaser. He would chase volcanoes. It’s much easier, because they don’t move all over the place the way tornadoes and hurricanes do. Once you catch a volcano, it pretty much stays put. My dad would chase a volcano until he caught it, then he’d pull up a lawn chair and sit there watching it.

  My mother was pretty average. She was a stay-at-home mom for five years, until the day my dad talked her into going outside. By the time my brother and I were in school, Mom started her own company making finger puppets for people with extremely large hands. In her spare time she would get together with the ladies in her bridge club, and they built some really nice ones.

  My brother—his name is Bronk—and I always had a normal relationship. I hated his guts and he hated mine. Once, as a practical joke, he put chlorine from our swimming pool into my oatmeal. To pay him back, I put darts on the blades of the ceiling fan over his bed and programmed it to turn on when his alarm clock went off in the morning. Mom grounded both of us for a week.

  We also have a dog, a cocker spaniel named Punchline, who doesn’t do much more than bark all day. More on her later.

  All in all, I had a typical, happy, carefree childhood on the planet Crouton. And then one day, something terrible happened.

  Planetary Profile of Crouton

  Population: Yes, there are people there.

  Geography: The mountainous regions are quite low and flat, while the lowlands are elevated and very steep.

  Capital: Yes, and we have small letters, too.

  Industries: We manufacture bubble wrap paper, zip-pers, snorkels, novelty T-shirts, automobile air fresh-eners, meat thermometers, and those stupid plastic CD cases that are so hard to open.

  Agriculture: Every day we grow more disgusted than the day before.

  Currency: The blang. One blang equals fifteen hundred kleegmores.

  State bird: The hippopotamus. There are no birds on Crouton, and we had to pick something.

  State flag: An enormous piece of toast hanging off a flagpole.

  State sport: Those wooden paddles with a rubber ball attached to an elastic string, whatever they’re called.

  Religion: We worship a big orange melon that some lady thinks looks like Elvis Presley’s head.

  State motto: “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” />
  CHAPTER 2

  HOW TO BE SO ANNOYING THAT YOUR PARENTS SHOOT YOU INTO OUTER SPACE IN A ROCKET

  You’re probably wondering how I became Funny Boy.

  Funny you should ask.

  It all started when I was a little kid back on the planet Crouton. Everybody always thought I was funny. When I fell down while learning how to walk, everybody thought it was funny. When I was learning how to use a spoon and the food fell out of my mouth and dribbled down my face, everybody thought it was funny. When I fell off a cliff into an active volcano filled with molten lava, everybody thought it was hysterical.

  Okay, I made that last one up. But the point is, no matter what I did, people always thought it was funny. I discovered very early that I had this unusual talent to make people laugh.

  It didn’t take long to discover that I could use this talent to my advantage. For instance, one day for the fun of it I called up my dad’s boss and told him my father had stolen a million blangs from the company. My dad was furious when he found out. But I guess he thought it over and realized how funny it was, because he was hardly mad at all when he got out of jail three months later.

  Another time I was in art class at school and this bully started bothering me. I told him to leave me alone.

  “Make me,” he challenged.

  So I took a piece of clay and built a statue that looked just like him.

  “There,” I said, as I presented the statue to him. “I made you.”

  The bully started laughing at me and never bothered me again.

  I discovered something that has stayed with me my entire life—while people are laughing at me, they usually don’t do mean things to me. So I figured that if I could keep people laughing at me, fewer mean things would happen.

  On Crouton, I was a bit of a smart aleck, I must admit. My favorite thing to do was to play the “Why” game. Did you ever play this game with your parents?

  It’s simple. These are the rules: Anytime anybody says anything, you just reply, “Why?”

  So, for example, if your mom asks you to tie your shoes, you say, “Why?”

  “So you won’t trip and fall.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you might get hurt.”

  “Why?”

  “Because a part of your body will hit the ground hard.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of gravity.”

  “Why?”

  See what I mean? You could go on forever like that. The “Why” game is one of the most annoying things kids can do to grown-ups. It ranks right up there with the “I’ll Repeat Everything You Say Right After You Say It” game.

  As you might imagine, I was pretty annoying. One day at breakfast, when my mom wasn’t looking, I shot a spitball at my brother Bronk for the fun of it. He kicked me under the table. So I shot another spitball at him. Nailed him right in the forehead. So he told on me.

  “I didn’t do anything!” I lied. I made sure to start whistling, because people who are innocent always whistle.

  “You shoot one more spitball at your brother,” Mom said, “and I’m going to put you in a rocket and send you to Earth!”

  “Earth?!” I shuddered with horror. “No, please! Anything but that! I’ll do whatever you say! Just don’t send me to Earth!”

  You see, at Croutonian schools they teach kids about all the other planets, including Earth. It sounded like an awful place. My science book said that on Earth, kids have to straighten up their rooms and make their own beds.

  Is that dumb or what? On Crouton, kids don’t have to straighten up their rooms. Their rooms aren’t crooked. And you don’t have to make your own bed, either. You just go to a store and buy a bed.

  I learned that in Earth schools, kids have to fold their hands and sit on the floor like a pretzel. I tried to fold my hands once. I tried really hard. But they just wouldn’t fold.

  I tried to sit like a pretzel, too. It was impossible, and it took me a week to get all the salt out of my ears.

  On Earth, I learned, people go on vacation and take lots of pictures. How horrible! If Earth people ever came to Crouton for a vacation, I would hide all my pictures so nobody could take them.

  Punch says:

  That’s the trouble with Croutonians—they’re way too literal.

  Earth sounded like a terrible place to me. When Croutonian parents get mad at their kids, they always threaten to send them to Earth.

  Still, I never really believed half that stuff they told us about Earth. I never thought my parents would actually send me there, either. So I did what any other normal Croutonian kid would do.

  I shot another spitball at Bronk.

  The next thing I knew, I was strapped into a rocket on a launching pad.

  10, 9, 8, 7 ...

  My parents were doing the countdown.

  ... 6, 5, 4, 3 ...

  Through the window of the rocket, I saw Bronk. He had his finger on the launch button. And an evil smirk on his face.

  ... 2, 1—Liftoff!

  The force of the rocket taking off pushed my body against the seat so hard, my cheeks were flapping like a flag on a windy day. I felt like my flesh was going to fly off.

  As you can tell, Croutonian parents are pretty strict. When Earth kids misbehave, you might get sent to your room. My parents sent me to another planet.

  Still, Mom and Dad really loved me. They put my dog, Punchline, in the rocket with me to keep me company. That would have been great, but I never really liked Punch.

  To protect us during our flight to Earth, Mom and Dad packed the rocket with croutons. They were supposed to absorb the impact when the rocket landed, sort of like those Styrofoam peanuts you use to send packages that you don’t want damaged in the mail.

  As Punch and I entered Earth’s atmosphere, I looked out the small window of the rocket. We were heading directly for a building about the size of a football field. The rocket must have been going at least three hundred miles per hour. “This is it, Punch,” I said seconds before we hit the roof. “It was nice knowing you.”

  I was sure

  we

  were about

  to

  die.

  CHAPTER 3

  A LIFETIME SUPPLY OF UNDERWEAR

  As luck would have it, there was a glass skylight in the roof. Our rocket smashed through the skylight and mysteriously began slowing down. It was as if we put on the brakes.

  Finally, the rocket stopped with a gentle bump. It felt like I had landed on a soft pillow. There was no explosion, no fire. Punch and I were alive.

  I looked out the window. Everything was white.

  Snow, I figured immediately. We had crashed into a building filled with soft snow!

  No, that didn’t make sense. Why would they put snow inside a building? How could they put snow inside a building? I looked more closely at the window.

  Underwear!

  A lifetime supply of it. We had crashed into an underwear factory, and landed on tons of cotton boxers, briefs, and panties. Of all the places to land, we hit one of the softest things on Earth.

  What were the chances of that, huh?

  When somebody comes to another planet, he usually has superpowers, right? When Superman arrived from Krypton, he knew right away he could do things humans couldn’t do. He had super vision and super hearing. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound. He could stop bullets. He could bend steel with his bare hands. He could always find a pay phone booth that wasn’t in use.

  Well, when I arrived from Crouton, I expected to have some superpowers, too. But nothing was different. I wasn’t extra-strong or anything. In fact, I hurt my hand pounding on the door of the rocket trying to get it open.

  “Nice move, brainless!” a voice suddenly said. “Now we’ll never get out of here.”

  I turned around. There was nobody in the rocket besides Punchline and me.

  “Who said that?” I asked.

  “Who do you think, moron?” Punch replied.


  “You ... can talk?”

  “Apparently so,” Punch said, looking quite pleased with herself.

  This wasn’t fair! Something about Earth’s atmosphere had given Punch the ability to speak, but I didn’t have any superpowers at all. What a rip-off!

  “Now that your hand is possibly broken,” Punch said, “do you have any other brilliant ideas to get us out of here?”

  “You could try barking,” I suggested.

  “Sorry,” Punch said, turning up her nose at the suggestion. “I don’t bark anymore.”

  “Help! Help!” I hollered, pounding the walls. “Let us out!”

  “Why are you so uptight?” Punch asked calmly. “This isn’t the real world. We’re just fictional characters in some book.”

  “Huh?”

  “You and me,” she explained. “We’re not real. We’re fictional. It’s only a book that kids will read.”

  “It is not!” I exclaimed. “It’s real! If we were fictional characters, my hand wouldn’t hurt so much, now would it?” I had her there.

  Punch says:

  Does it still hurt if the dog that bites you is fictional?

  “Believe whatever you want,” Punch said, leaning back and putting her paws behind her head. “I’m not worried. We’ll be rescued soon. Wait and see. Fictional stories always have a happy ending.”

  Punch had only been talking for a minute, and I was already sick of listening to her.

  After about a half hour of yelling, I heard a noise outside the rocket. Somebody was digging through the underwear.

  “I told you we’d be rescued,” Punch said. “It never fails.”

  Finally, the door to the rocket creaked open. A man’s face peered inside.

  “Holy cow!” he said. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

  The man was wearing a white uniform with a name tag on it that read “Foster.” He had brown skin, much darker than mine. I had never seen anyone with dark skin before.