Funny Boy Takes on the Chit-Chatting Cheeses from Chattanooga (2 page)

I skipped a lot of the details, of course. I didn’t tell you anything about the underwear factory. And I didn’t tell you about the time Punch peed on Millard Fillmore’s rug at the White House. You can read about them in Funny Boy #1 and #2 if you want.

Go ahead. Read those books. The rest of us will wait here. When you finish reading #1 and #2, we’ll all move on to the next chapter, and my next adventure.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO READ THIS CHAPTER EITHER, BUT YOU MIGHT WANT TO, BECAUSE IT SETS UP THE REST OF THIS RIDICULOUS STORY, AND IF YOU DON’T READ IT, YOU KINDA WON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON LATER.

It all began the day the cows went on strike.

It was a cold and dreary Texas day. The clouds were rolling in on the plains and the wind was blowing furiously.

Not that any of that matters, of course. But books always seem to say what the weather is like. Don’t you just hate that? If you’re ever reading a book and the author starts describing the weather, just skip ahead to the next paragraph. Believe me, you won’t miss a thing. They just put that stuff in to fill pages.

Anyway, I was telling you about the day the cows went on strike.

It seems that some scientists had used bioengineering to clone a herd of cows that were far more intelligent than normal cows. These cows, it seems, started wondering what we humans were doing with all the milk we were taking away from them every day. When they found that we were not only drinking it but also turning it into cheese, they got really upset. So they went on strike, refusing to give any more milk until they were given a say on what we humans did with it.

“No pasteurization without representation,” they mooed.

Well, to make a long story short, these super-intelligent cows spread the word to the average-intelligent cows. And the average-intelligent cows spread the word to the dumb cows. The dumb cows, not really knowing what to do with this information, told the goats.

The next thing you know, there was a serious worldwide cheese shortage.

What does any of this have to do with aliens attacking Earth? Oh, you’re gonna find out. Believe me, you’re gonna find out.

The day the cows went on strike, I was making my usual rounds as Funny Boy, walking the streets of San Antonio, Texas, where I live. I was searching for evildoers so I could rid the world of them.

I was looking pretty sharp in my Funny Boy costume—yellow cape over my pajamas and a fake nose and glasses.

There weren’t any evildoers around, which really bummed me out. Without evildoers, there was no need for Funny Boy, just as if there were no car crashes, there would be no need for automotive repair shops.

But suddenly, I spotted a guy who was clearly up to no good.

He was driving an odd-looking little truck slowly down the street. Every so often, he would stop the truck and get out. He had a goofy-looking blue hat on, and a big bag over his shoulder. He got out of the truck and walked up to people’s houses. Then, without even asking, he would take some stuff out of his bag and just push it through a slot in the front door. After that, he would just walk away and do the same thing to the next house.

“Halt, evildoer!” I shouted, leaping into his path before he could commit any more crimes.

“What can I do for you, sonny boy?”

“My name is not sonny boy,” I informed him. “It’s
Funny
Boy. And you’re under arrest!”

“What for?”

“Illegal dumping,” I snapped. “You can’t just throw garbage into people’s houses and walk away like nothing happened.”

“But I’m a mailman!” the guy protested.

“I’m not falling for that,” I retorted with a sneer. “
All
men are male men.”

The guy started laughing, so I knew it would not be long before he had ceased his illegal activities. As you may know, people find it very difficult to commit crimes and laugh at the same time.

“As Funny Boy,” I continued, “it is my duty to use jokes and humor to make criminals obey the laws of the land.”

“So you’re going to tell me jokes?”

“That’s right,” I replied. “What do you call a boy with three eyes?”

“What?”

“Seymour.”

“That’s terrible,” the man groaned. “Please stop that.”

“I have not yet begun to unleash the power of my humor!” I shouted. “Why don’t elephants smoke?”

“Why?”

“They can’t fit their butts in the ashtray.”

“Okay, okay,” he whimpered, covering his ears. “I’ve heard enough. Please stop telling jokes.”

“I will stop telling jokes if you stop dumping your trash into other people’s houses.”

“Anything, anything.”

By now you are certainly asking yourself what a cheese shortage and mailmen have to do with aliens attacking Earth. You’re probably yelling, “Get to the point!”

Okay, I’ll get to the point.

That very night, four enormous cheeses fell from the sky, and one of them landed on top of a mailman in Appleton, Wisconsin.

YOU MIGHT WANT TO READ THIS CHAPTER BECAUSE THIS IS WHEN THE ALIENS FIRST ARRIVE AND IT’S REALLY COOL. BUT HEY, IT’S A FREE COUNTRY; AND IF YOU DON’T READ IT, NOBODY’S GONNA PUT YOU IN JAIL OR ANYTHING.

We heard about the falling cheeses because Bob Foster, my dog, Punch, and I were sitting in the living room that night watching the Food Network on TV. They were showing a documentary about eggplant.

“Why do we have to watch the Food Network?” Punch asked Bob Foster. “You get over a hundred different channels. Can’t we watch something else?”

“What’s wrong with the Food Network?” Bob asked.

“It’s a whole network about
food
!” Punch and I wailed.

“Okay, okay,” Bob said, picking up the remote control. “I’ll switch to the Weather Channel.”

“No!” Punch and I screamed. “Not the Weather Channel!”

At that moment, the words SPECIAL REPORT flashed on the screen. The three of us stopped arguing. There was a lady on the screen holding a microphone.

“We interrupt ‘The History of Eggplant’ for this special bulletin,” the reporter announced. “This is Pamela Lancashire reporting from Appleton, Wisconsin, where a very strange, unexplainable event has occurred. Let me explain. Minutes ago, four cheeses, each about the size of a school bus, fell from the sky and landed in the parking lot behind this Appleton post office. One of them flattened a mailman named George Gouda.”

The camera pulled back to show an enormous wedge of cheese, with a crushed mail truck beneath it.

“Wow!” Punch exclaimed. “In fact, bowwow!”

(Ever since Punch arrived on Earth and realized she could talk, she has refused to bark like normal dogs.)

“Imagine that!” I said. “Cheese falling from the sky!”

“Did I ever tell you that cheese is my hobby?” Bob Foster commented.

“Hobbies are coin collecting and building model cars,” I scoffed. “You can’t have cheese as a hobby.”

“I’ve always been fascinated by cheese,” Bob continued. “Did you know that there are more than two thousand different kinds of cheese?”

“Will you be quiet?” Punch interrupted. “I’m trying to watch TV.”