“Really?” asked Gary. “I don’t remember that.”
“It was cute because you were four years old. But you’re not four years old anymore, Gary.”
“You make it sound like I’ve got some kind of disease or something. Joke-itis. Ha. Ha.”
“Just try to go three weeks without telling a joke,” said his father. “See what happens.”
“And you’ll pay me a hundred dollars?”
“That’s right.”
Gary looked at them. In a way it seemed too good to be true. In another, it made him feel like he’d just eaten a dead skunk. “But how would you find out if I told someone a joke at school or someplace?”
“We trust you,” his mother said.
“So, do we have a deal?” asked his father.
“Sure,” said Gary. “I’ll get the cards.”
“What?”
“To deal!” He laughed like a hyena.
9.
Gary crossed the street in front of Floyd Hicks Junior High. He felt like a brand-new person. “The new improved Goon,” he said, then laughed. “No, not Goon.” He didn’t want to be called Goon anymore.
“I don’t have to be funny,” he said.
It was like he was wearing all new clothes. “No, not new clothes,” he said. He still looked the same on the outside. “New underwear! It’s like I’ve been wearing the same pair of underpants for ten years, and now I’ve finally gotten a new pair.”
He’d just say normal things and make some normal friends. And he’d get a hundred dollars from his parents for not telling a joke, and another hundred when he won the talent show.
He tried to figure out what a normal kid would buy with two hundred dollars. Maybe a Nintendo.
“Hey, Joe,” says Gary. “You want to come over after school and play with my Nintendo?”
“Sure, Gary,” says Joe Reed.
“Hi, Gary, how’re you doin’?” asks Ryan Utt.
“Okay.”
“So, Gary,” says Matt Hughes. “You got any plans this weekend?”
“Not really.”
“Good, why don’t you come over to my house? We’re going to … to … to …”
Gary’s daydream had to end there. He didn’t know what normal kids did on weekends.
He and Angeline liked to play croquet.
Ira Feldman was arguing about something with Steve and Michael Higgins. Steve and Michael were twin brothers. All three were holding baseball cards.
Gary joined them. Apparently, Ira was trying to convince one of the Higgins brothers to trade a certain baseball card, while the other Higgins brother was advising against it.
Gary nodded his head several times as he listened to them.