Funny Boy Takes on the Chit-Chatting Cheeses from Chattanooga (7 page)

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!” the cheeses chortled.

“Just the opposite, Mr. President.” Fontina grinned gleefully. “Just the opposite!”

“Tell ’em the plan,” Mozzarella smirked.

“Yesterday, we covered your state of New Jersey with a thick layer of cheddar,” Romano reminded us. “Next we will do the same to the rest of the United States. Then we will cover your entire planet, until Earth is one gigantic—cheese ball!”

“That’s horrible!” Bob Foster groaned.

“All’s fair in love and war,” commented Monterey Jack.

“It’s gonna be Earth parmigiana!” Mozzarella cracked.

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!” the other cheeses laughed.

“When Earth is entirely covered by cheese,” Romano continued, “it will block off the rays of the sun. This will trigger massive global cooling. The temperature of your planet will drop lower and lower. It will be another Ice Age! Earth will become uninhabitable and all human life will cease to exist!”

“Welcome to the Cheese Millennium!” Mozzarella cracked.

“Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!” the other cheeses laughed.

“Good plan, eh?” asked Mozzarella.

“That’s the stupidest plan I ever heard in my life,” I told him honestly.

“Who asked you, fake-nose boy?”

“These cheeses are nuts,” Bob whispered to me. “You’d better have some good jokes this time, or we’re finished.”

“What are your demands?” the President asked grimly.

“Our demands are simple,” Fontina replied. “One, you must stop the manufacture, distribution, and sale of all cheese. Two, you must make the eating of cheese punishable by death. Three, you must turn the Smithsonian Institution into the National Museum of Cheese. And four, you must change the Pledge of Allegiance to read as follows: I pledge allegiance to the cheese, who rules the United States of America, and to the Fondue for which it stands, one Nation, individually wrapped, with curds and whey for all.”

“That’s ridiculous!” the President snapped. “It’s out of the question.”

“So you refuse to give in to our demands?”

“I have listened to your silly demands,” the President warned. “Now you must listen to
this.
”

The President gave me a shove forward. I was now face-to-face with the largest cheese in the world.

“Uh, yes,” I stammered. “My name is Funny Boy. And I will defeat you by using my advanced sense of humor.”

“Your
what
?”

“Jokes, puns, quips, wisecracks,” the President answered. “After Funny Boy gets you laughing, you will see the folly of your ways and leave the good people of Earth alone.”

“You must be joking,” Romano replied.

“Of course I’m joking!” I agreed. “That’s why they call me Funny Boy.”

“Go ahead,” the President urged. “Tell him one of those jokes of yours.”

I happened to have just finished reading a book titled
Milton Berle’s Private Joke File,
which was filled with over ten thousand jokes for every occasion. I tried to recall a few of the better ones.

“A father told his son that if he behaved, he could grow up to be just like Lincoln. The kid replied, ‘Who wants to be a tunnel?’”

The cheeses just stared at me.

“It’s not working!” the President whispered to me. “Try another one.”

“I know a kid who was so dumb,” I quipped, “he didn’t know he was ten until he was twelve.”

Nothing. Zip. Zero. Not even a smile.

“You know,” I continued, “when I was little I was so skinny that I had to stand next to my brother to have a shadow.”

“Your jokes are tiresome!” Mozzarella thundered. “Let the cheesing of America begin!”

I glanced out the barn door. White flakes had started to fall from the sky.

“Let’s get out of here!” the President shouted. “Run for your lives!”

“Cheese it!” yelled Bob Foster.

THINGS START GETTING REALLY SILLY HERE, AND WILL ONLY GET SILLIER. IF YOU HAVE ANY SENSE, YOU’LL TURN BACK AND GRAB ONE OF THOSE NEWBERY BOOKS THAT GROWN-UPS THINK YOU SHOULD BE READING INSTEAD OF THIS JUNK.

By the time we got to the airport in Appleton, flakes of falling cheese were starting to stick to the ground. The wheels of the limousine were beginning to skid around the corners, and the driver was struggling to see through the cheese-smeared windshield.

Air Force One, the President’s private plane, was waiting on the runway when we arrived. We ran to it, slipping on the cheese-covered tarmac with every step.

The air traffic controllers didn’t want to let the plane take off, but the President declared the situation a national emergency and forced them to let us go. Slipping and skidding on the cheesy runway, the plane barely made it off the ground.

I took a seat next to the President. He was looking out the window thoughtfully, watching the flakes of cheese blanket the state of Wisconsin.

“I failed you, Mr. President,” I admitted sadly.

The President turned to me, with sympathy and understanding in his eyes. He put his hand gently on my shoulder.

“You’re right,” he said. “You screwed up everything. You’re a loser and a dope. Worse than that, you’re not the least bit funny. I can’t believe I entrusted the fate of the nation to a dumb kid with a yellow cape and a fake nose and glasses. What could I have been thinking? Now leave me alone before I start to choke you.”

Almost in tears, I left the President’s side and moved to the rear of the plane, where Punch and Bob Foster were gazing out their window.

“I was just thinking,” Punch was telling Bob.

“About what?” Bob replied.

“Two things. First, I was thinking about invisible ink. If it’s invisible, how do you know when you’ve run out of it? Second, I was thinking about how many perfectly good trees they had to cut down to print this stupid book. And how many electrons must be wasted for the e-book version?”

“How can you be worrying about things like that at a time like this?” I complained. “The world is about to end! And it’s all my fault.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Bob Foster consoled me. “You gave it your best shot.”

“Yeah,” agreed Punch. “It’s not your fault that those jokes were so terrible. Blame it on Milton Berle.”

Air Force One has a big-screen television set, and the pilot must have turned it on. Bob Foster’s favorite channel—the Weather Channel—was on. A lady was standing in front of a map of the United States. Instead of clouds floating over the country, there were a bunch of cheese wedges.

“... a forty percent chance of cheese across the Midwest tonight,” she announced, “with accumulations of twelve inches or more in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. You can expect the cheese storm to taper off after midnight, and then the cheese should start falling across the Northeast and Gulf Coast states. So take along an umbrella, and a cheese grater in case you need to dig out your car. Roads are expected to be slippery, and extremely smelly. Stay tuned for the five-day forecast, in the unlikely event that our planet lasts that long. ...

I was too depressed to watch the rest of the weather report. I had failed my President, and I had failed my adopted planet. I wasn’t feeling funny at all. It was only a matter of time before Earth would be completely covered in cheese. And there was nothing I could do about it.

There was a phone built in to the seat in front of me. I picked it up. A White House operator came on and asked me who I wanted to speak with. I gave her the name of the one person I cared about most in this time of need. The love of my life—Tupper Camembert.

“How did you get my number?” Tupper asked when I told her who I was.

“Never mind that,” I snapped. “Is anything falling from the sky in Texas yet?”

“No, why?”

“Tupper, I’m flying over Wisconsin, and it’s getting cheesed just like New Jersey did yesterday. Soon the whole country and the whole world will be one big cheese ball.”

“Very funny.”

“This is serious, Tupper. I’m in Air Force One right now. I was just chatting with the President.”

“If you think that’s going to impress me, you’re wrong,” Tupper hissed. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be your girlfriend. I wouldn’t be your girlfriend if the world were going to end tomorrow.”

“But, Tupper,” I pleaded, “that’s why I’m calling. There’s a good possibility the world
is
going to end tomorrow. Before that happens, I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.”

Click.
She hung up on me.

THIS CHAPTER IS TOTALLY RIDICULOUS. CLEARLY IT IS THE PRODUCT OF A SICK MIND.

The cheese hadn’t started falling in Washington yet when we touched down at Ronald Reagan Airport. A limo whisked us all to the White House, where the President had called an emergency press conference to brief the nation on what was happening.

Bob Foster, Punch, and I gathered in the East Room of the White House. Hundreds of reporters and photographers were already there, anxiously awaiting the President’s opening words.

“My fellow Americans,” he said somberly, “I come before you with a heavy heart. We are in a time of national emergency.

“A few short days ago some rather large, malodorous cheeses fell out of the sky and landed behind a post office in Wisconsin. Nobody thought much of it at the time. However, since then we have learned that these cheeses are living, breathing creatures from another planet. And they are angry.

“The covering of New Jersey and Wisconsin with cheese over the last few days was only the beginning. My fellow Americans, these cheeses intend to coat our entire world with cheese, block out the sun, and set off a new Ice Age that will wipe out all life on planet Earth.”

A gasp was heard from the reporters and photographers. Hands shot in the air to ask questions, but the President gestured for the reporters to let him finish his statement.