A bunch of kids raised their hands. Uncle Fred ran over and stuck the mic in some kid’s face.

  “Why did the man throw his clock out the window?” the kid asked.

  “I give up,” said Uncle Fred. “Why did the man throw his clock out the window?”

  “He wanted to see time fly!” the kid said.

  That is probably the oldest joke in the book. But Uncle Fred laughed like it was the funniest thing in the history of the world.

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” he cackled. “Get lost, buster!”

  Uncle Fred threw some confetti in the air and ran over to the side of the stage, where Alexia was trying to open the Magic Treasure Chest.

  “How are you making out, Alexia?” he asked.

  “Gross!” she replied. “I’m not making out! I’m trying to open the Magic Treasure Chest.”

  “Keep working at it!” shouted Uncle Fred. Then he sat down in a chair and picked up a book.

  “Now I’m going to read you a story,” Uncle Fred said. “It’s called Winnie the Pooh.”

  What?!

  “He’s going to read a book about poo?” I whispered to Andrea.

  “It’s not poo!” she whispered back. “It’s Pooh. There’s an H at the end. It’s a very famous book, Arlo!”

  I don’t care how famous it is. Why is there an H at the end of poo? That makes no sense at all. Poo sounds the same as Pooh. If you ask me, they should change the title of that book.

  Uncle Fred read to us from Winnie the Pooh. It’s a weird story about a teddy bear that loves honey. I wasn’t really paying attention.

  “The end,” said Uncle Fred, and he closed the book.

  The cue card guy held up a sign that said CLAP, and we all clapped. That’s when I noticed that Uncle Fred was crying.

  “Winnie the Pooh always makes me sad,” he blubbered. “We’ll be right back after this message . . .”

  Uncle Fred is really emotional. After reading Winnie the Pooh, he was slobbering all over the place. He blew his nose into a tissue. Well, he blew his snot into the tissue. It would be weird to blow your nose into a tissue. Noses don’t come off!

  Then Uncle Fred slumped into a chair, and some lady rushed over to give him a glass of water. Somebody else toweled off his face and fussed with his makeup.

  We all looked up at the video screen. Uncle Fred’s face was up there. He was holding a box of Porky’s Pork Sausages.

  “Hey, kids!” he said. “Do you like pork sausages? Who doesn’t, right? Well, if you like pork sausages, I have great news for you. If you send in ten box tops from Porky’s Pork Sausage boxes, you could win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Porky’s Pork Sausage factory in Porkville, Pennsylvania! You’ll get to see how they make their amazing pork sausages.* Doesn’t that sound like fun? Hey, I have an idea! Let’s sing the Porky’s jingle . . .”

  If you like pork,

  and sausages too,

  Porky’s Pork Sausage

  is the sausage for you!

  Well, that was weird.

  While the commercial was playing on the screen, stagehands ran around with brooms and garbage bags cleaning up the confetti that Uncle Fred had thrown all over the place.

  Mrs. Crump, the lady who was the head of the TV network, came out to talk to us again.

  “Hey, kids, isn’t Uncle Fred great?” she asked with way too much enthusiasm.

  “YEAH!” we all shouted.

  “I love Uncle Fred!” some kid yelled.

  “Are you kids having a good time?” asked Mrs. Crump.

  “YEAH!”

  “I-CAN’T-HEAR-YOU!”

  Sheesh. That lady really needs to get her hearing checked.

  “YEAH!” we shouted louder.

  “Are you ready for more Uncle Fred?”

  “YEAH!”

  Uncle Fred got up from his chair. He wasn’t crying anymore.

  “Okay, we’re back,” he said. “Everybody get up on your feet!”

  We all stood up.

  “You kids spend too much time staring at video game screens,” Uncle Fred said. “Let’s all do some jumping jacks!”

  Ugh, I hate jumping jacks. But we had to do a million hundred of them with Uncle Fred. That guy has way too much energy for a grown-up. I almost fell off the bleachers again. I thought I was gonna die.

  “Okay, on to the funny stuff,” said Uncle Fred. “It’s time to sing a song with Mr. Dill, the singing pickle!”

  Uncle Fred played the piano while this pickle puppet sang on the video screen.

  I’d be tickled

  if I had a nickel

  for every pickle I ever ate!

  I’d ride my bicycle,

  I’d pedal very quickle

  past all the icicles,

  and I’d never be late!

  “I’ve been playing piano for ten years,” Uncle Fred said when the song ended. “And I’m really tired! I’ll tell you, it’s really hard to play the piano while you’re taking a shower.”

  A picture appeared on the screen of Uncle Fred playing a piano in the shower. The cue card guy held up a sign that said LAUGH. We all laughed.

  “Get lost, buster!” Uncle Fred shouted.

  After that, Uncle Fred played an accordion. Then he interviewed a goat as if it was a person. Then we all played Simon Says. There was a tug-of-war contest too. Finally, some kids raced to see which one could blow up a balloon and then pop the balloon by sitting on it. It was exhausting just to watch Uncle Fred do his show.

  “Hey, Alexia!” he shouted. “How are you making out with the Magic Treasure Chest?”

  “No luck yet,” she replied.

  “Keep working at it!” said Uncle Fred. “Next, we’re going to drop watermelons off the roof of the building and shoot a video of them as they hit the ground and explode. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”*

  “YEAH!”

  “Follow me, kids!”

  We were about to get up and follow Uncle Fred to the roof. But that’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. One of the stagehands came over to Uncle Fred.

  “Uh . . . Uncle Fred,” he said quietly, “we couldn’t get the watermelons.”

  “What?” replied Uncle Fred.

  The stagehand looked like he was trembling with fear.

  “We, uh, went shopping, and they were all out of watermelons.”

  Uncle Fred looked really mad.

  “ARE. YOU. SERIOUS?” he asked, raising his voice.

  “I’m really sorry, Uncle Fred,” said the stagehand. “We went to three supermarkets. They had cantaloupes, but they were all out of watermelons. Do you want us to—”

  “I ASKED FOR WATERMELONS!” Uncle Fred shouted at him. “IT DOESN’T WORK WITH CANTALOUPES! THIS IS UN-BE-LIEV-A-BLE! I WANT WATERMELONS! I NEED WATERMELONS!”

  Uncle Fred’s face was turning red, like the inside of a watermelon. He looked like he was about to explode. The stagehand backed away from him, terrified. The camera operators looked like they were scared of him too.

  Then, suddenly, Uncle Fred fell on the floor and started kicking his feet, pounding the floor with his fists, and screaming like a two-year-old.

  “I WANT MY MOMMY!” shouted Uncle Fred.

  I had never seen a grown-up throw a temper tantrum before. Uncle Fred was out of control! It was amazing! You should have been there! We got to see it live and in-person.

  A bunch of stagehands tried to calm down Uncle Fred. Mrs. Crump came over to talk to us.

  “I’m terribly sorry, kids,” she said. “Funderama is over for today. Uncle Fred isn’t usually like this.”

  Mrs. Crump kept apologizing, and she gave us free tickets to come back and see another episode of Funderama whenever we want. Alexia never was able to open up the treasure chest. As we left the studio, each of us got a goody bag filled with Porky’s Pork Sausages. The bus was waiting for us outside.

  “So how was Funderama?” asked Mrs. Kormel. “Isn’t Uncle Fred great?”

  “He was awesome!” said Ryan.

  “It was cool!” said Neil. “Uncle Fred was totally out of his mind!”

  We were all talking about how much fun we had at the Funderama taping. The only one who didn’t look happy was Little Miss Perfect. Andrea had on her frowny face.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked her. “Was your clog dancing lesson canceled again?”*

  “Very funny, Arlo,” replied Andrea. “I’m worried about Uncle Fred.”

  “What about him?” I asked.

  “Well, my mother is a psychologist,” said Little Miss Know-It-All. “And she told me that grown-ups who act like Uncle Fred have emotional problems.”

  “What?!” I said. “He was just upset because they didn’t get him the watermelons he asked for. What’s the big deal?”

  “Didn’t you see the way he was behaving?” asked the Human Homework Machine. “He was so immature, and hyperactive too. My mom told me it’s very hard for adults like Uncle Fred to function in the real world with mature people. I think he needs to get professional help.”

  “Your face needs to get professional help,” I told Andrea.

  “Oh, snap!” said Ryan.

  Andrea is no fun at all. Any time grown-ups act silly, she always says they need to get help. Uncle Fred is cool. He was just having a tough day.

  The bus pulled up to school, and we walked a million hundred miles to Miss Banks’s class. And you’ll never believe who walked through the door at that moment.

  Nobody! You can’t walk through a door! I thought we went over that in Chapter One. But you’ll never believe who walked through the doorway.

  It was us!

  “I have an announcement to make,” Miss Banks said as we walked into the room.

  Uh-oh. When teachers make announcements, it usually means bad news. Miss Banks took a piece of paper out of her pocket.

  “The Board of Education,” she read off the paper, “has decided that due to poor test scores at Ella Mentry School, Halloween will be canceled this year.”

  What?!

  “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” shouted Ryan.

  “They can’t do that!” shouted Alexia.

  “It’s not fair!” shouted Neil.

  Everybody was yelling and screaming and hooting and hollering and freaking out.

  “Just kidding!” Miss Banks said as she threw the piece of paper in the garbage can. “It’s time for math. Today we’re going to talk about irrational numbers.”

  Huh? What’s that?

  “An irrational number,” said Miss Banks, “is a real number that can’t be expressed as a fraction blah blah blah blah blah blah . . .”

  What a snoozefest. I had no idea what she was talking about. Fourth grade is hard! Miss Banks went on and on about irrational numbers.

  By dismissal time, I had forgotten all about our visit to Funderama. I had forgotten all about Uncle Fred.

  But he hadn’t forgotten about us.

  When we got to class the next day, we pledged the allegiance and did Word of the Day. Then Miss Banks did the weirdest thing in the history of the world. She started spinning around in circles, skipping around the room, climbing up onto the windowsill, and doing cartwheels.

  “Miss Banks,” asked Andrea, “what are you doing?”

  “I’m pretending to be an irrational number,” she replied. “Get it? Time is fun when you’re having flies!”

  Miss Banks is weird.

  “As I was saying yesterday,” she continued, “blah blah blah blah blah blah . . .”

  She went on and on about irrational numbers. I thought I was going to die from old age. Finally, it was time for lunch, and then recess.

  Do you know what rotini is? It’s this curly pasta. We have a cool slide on our playground that looks a lot like rotini. We call it the Rotini Slide. So it has the perfect name. We were all taking turns sliding down the Rotini Slide, and you’ll never believe in a million hundred years who showed up out of nowhere.

  I’m not going to tell you.

  Okay, okay, I’ll tell you.

  It was Uncle Fred!

  It’s true! A car pulled up to the playground; he stepped out and walked right over to us!

  “Uncle Fred!” we all shouted.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Michael.

  “Can I play with you kids?” he asked.

  Grown-ups never ask to play with us on the playground. Uncle Fred looked a little sad, and that made me feel sad too.

  “Sure, you can play with us,” I told him.

  “Would you like to slide down the Rotini Slide?” Alexia asked him.

  “Yeah!” Uncle Fred said excitedly.

  He climbed up the ladder to the top of the Rotini Slide and slid down.

  “Wheeeee!” he yelled. “Look at me. I’m flying! Yippeeee!”

  It was a little weird. Grown-ups aren’t supposed to slide down slides, and they never say “Yippeeee!” That’s the first rule of being a grown-up.

  When he got to the bottom of the slide, Uncle Fred wanted to climb up and do it again, but Andrea grabbed him by his shoulders.

  “We need to talk, Uncle Fred,” she said. “How old are you?”

  “I’m fifty years old,” he replied.

  Fifty?! Wow, that’s like half a century!

  “Shouldn’t you be at home, Uncle Fred?” Andrea asked. “Or at the TV studio getting ready for the next episode of Funderama?”

  “I don’t like being at home or in the studio,” Uncle Fred whined, a pout on his face. “I want to be here, playing with you kids.”

  “Why don’t you leave him alone, Andrea?” I asked. “He’s not bothering anybody.”

  “You’re a fifty-year-old man!” Andrea told Uncle Fred. “You shouldn’t be playing on a playground and acting like a little kid. Don’t you think it’s time for you to grow up?”*

  “Chillax, Andrea,” Neil said. “We want to play with him.”

  Uncle Fred sat at the bottom of the slide for a minute, like he was thinking over what Andrea had said. And then the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened.

  He started sobbing.

  “See what you did, Andrea!” I told her. “You made him feel sad.”

  “Yeah!” everybody agreed.

  Uncle Fred was crying and slobbering all over himself. Emily took a tissue out of her pocket and gave it to him.

  “No, Andrea’s right,” Uncle Fred said, after blowing his nose with a snort. “I shouldn’t be here.”

  We all gathered around Uncle Fred and put our hands on his shoulders.

  “I don’t have any grown-up friends,” Uncle Fred said sadly. “I don’t fit in when I’m around grown-ups. And I’m too old to play with kids. So I don’t fit in with anybody.”

  “You can come and play with us anytime,” said Neil.

  “There, there,” said Andrea, giving Uncle Fred a hug.

  Why do people say “there, there” when they want to make sad people feel better? What does “there, there” mean, anyway? Where is there? And why would saying “there, there” cheer anybody up?

  “All I ever wanted to do was make people happy,” sobbed Uncle Fred. “I’m just a sad, pathetic clown.”

  And then he started in crying again.

  “You’re not pathetic,” said Alexia, “and there’s nothing wrong with being a clown.”

  “Yeah,” added Emily. “Clowns make people happy.”

  Uncle Fred told us that when he was in college he wanted to become a teacher, but he was told that he was too immature. That’s why he went into children’s television in the first place.

  “I didn’t mean to make you sad,” Andrea told him. “I just thought somebody needed to tell you the truth.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Uncle Fred said. “From now on, I’m going to be better.”

  “That’s great,” Andrea told him. “It’s okay to be silly, but sometimes, grown-ups need to act like mature adults.”

  Uncle Fred closed his eyes for a minute, and then he turned to us.

  “But I don’t know how to be a mature grown-up,” he finally said. “I don’t know how grown-ups are supposed to act.”

  That’s when I got the greatest idea in the history of the world.

  “I know!” I told him. “We can teach you!”

  Did you ever play the Talk Like a Grown-Up game? That’s my favorite game in the world. We play it all the time. It’s easy. All you have to do is talk like a grown-up.

  “You can teach me how to be like a mature grown-up?” asked Uncle Fred.

  “Of course we can,” I told him. “It’s simple. Watch.”

  Ryan got up and stood in front of me.

  “Hello, Ryan,” I said, putting on my low man voice.

  “Hello, A.J.,” Ryan replied, in his own deep man voice, and we shook hands.

  Grown-ups are always shaking hands with each other. Nobody knows why.

  “Nice weather we’ve been having,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Ryan. “They say it may rain on Friday.”

  “Wait a minute!” interrupted Uncle Fred. “Why are you talking about the weather?”

  “Because that’s mostly what grown-ups talk about,” I told him. “They’re always talking about the weather.”

  “Who cares about the weather?” Uncle Fred asked.

  “Nobody,” I explained. “Just watch and learn.”

  Ryan and I faced each other again.

  “Do you want to play golf next week, Ryan?” I asked. Because grown-ups are always playing golf.

  “That’s a great idea,” replied Ryan. “I need to work on my putting.”

  “How’s business, old man?” I asked.

  “I made a million dollars on Tuesday,” replied Ryan.

  “Well, that’s inflation,” I said.* “You should buy yourself a new car.”

  “Maybe I will,” said Ryan. “Say, how about those Dodgers?”

  “They may go all the way this season,” I replied.

  “The grass in my yard is getting too high,” said Ryan.

  “You need to mow it,” I replied.

  Then I turned to Uncle Fred. “See?” I said. “It’s easy to talk like a grown-up!”