Of course, my mind also hears a few words from cousin Stevie. “Give that Russian dude a word wedgie, cuz!”

  I reach center stage, wiggle the microphone free from the stand, and decide to listen to the biggest and best voice in my head.

  Gilda. Not Stevie.

  “Thank you, Milton. Good to be back for round two. Ouch. This microphone is still sizzling from where Vasily scorched me. But he missed a few easy shots. For instance, this haircut. Check it out. Incredible what you can do with a bowl and a pair of scissors, am I right?”

  I smile widely. The crowd laughs. Vasily Vasilovich will not have the last word about “Jamie Greem.” And he won’t force me to be something I don’t want to be—a nasty, insulting comic just like him. Because I can make fun of myself better than anybody on this or any other planet.

  Making jokes at your own expense?

  Sometimes it’s the most fun you can have sitting down.

  “HEY, FOLKS, IF you were going to vote for me out of sympathy,” I continue, “please don’t. My life’s pretty great. I’ve got good friends, a fantastic family, and a comfy seat wherever I go. ‘I’m sorry, sir, the concert is all sold out. There are no more seats in the auditorium.’ That’s okay. I’ve got my own.”

  The audience is really with me.

  “Now, I know what you’re thinking. Vasily should be ashamed of himself, making fun of a kid in a wheelchair. After all, I can’t stand up for myself. But don’t you worry, I’m doing fine. Seeing more butts than I’d like, but other than that, fine. I even tried out for the Paralympics. Came home all bruised and battered. That’ll teach me to enter the hurdles. Should’ve stuck with pole vaulting …. I may not be the brightest crayon in the toolshed, but at least I’m also terrible at making analogies.

  “The biggest problem about being stuck in a wheelchair? You’re never quite sure why people like you. It can be confusing. Do they like me or do they like my handicap parking placard? ‘Hey, let’s go to the movies with Jamie! We can park right at the curb.’

  “It’s even worse with girls. You know how it is in middle school. One of your friends tells you that one of their friends heard that one of her friends likes you. It’s so complicated. Romance is like that. No matter how old you are. I heard this husband and wife arguing the other day. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I was a fool when I married you.’ She said, ‘Yes, dear. But I was in love and didn’t notice.’ So what am I, Jamie Grimm, looking for in a girl?”

  I look at the camera and hope Gilda can see the twinkle in my eye, because she, basically, put it there.

  “Nothing. I’m not really looking, because I think I already found her. I just need to tell her how terrific she is. Which I will do later tonight when I give her a call. You know, that’s something we should all do. Quit using your phones to cast votes in this competition. Call somebody you love and let them know about it. Do it tonight. Or today, depending on your time zone. Hey to everybody back home in Long Beach. I love you guys. I can’t wait to come home—where normal is just a setting on the dryer.”

  While the audience cheers, I look up toward the bright lights hanging from a grid thirty feet above my head.

  I love you guys, too. I say it silently.

  But I know Mom, Dad, and Jenny hear me.

  I, OF COURSE, call Gilda and the gang as soon as the show is over.

  “You were awesome!” she tells me. “You probably won’t win, but that doesn’t matter. You were awesome!”

  “Thanks,” I tell her. “And to tell you the truth, I really don’t care if I win or lose. I just want to come home and make silly movies with you.”

  “Um, what about our network television show?”

  “Okay. We can work on that, too.”

  Uncle Frankie grabs the phone from Gilda. “Your mom and I are so proud of you, kiddo!”

  For a second, I wonder if he read my mind when I looked up into the rafters and said my silent prayer. And then I remember: He and Ms. Denning are married and want to adopt me. They’re my new mom and dad.

  “Did the adoption papers go through?” I ask.

  “Like a hot yo-yo through a tub of butter! Welcome to your new family, Jamie.”

  I’m feeling pretty great the next night when we all bus back to the studio for our final results show.

  “Very sneaky move,” says Vasily when he sees me in the wings. “Getting all mushy like that. But it will not work. I will still win.”

  I just shrug. I don’t really care.

  “Last night’s ratings were through the roof!” Joe Amodio tells me. “Especially when you went on, Jamie baby. People started texting their friends, calling their mothers, tweeting about it. You were trending like crazy, kiddo. That’s why I love you. Always have. Always will. You understand comedy. When it needs a little schmaltz on top. Can’t wait to get back to shooting Jamie Funnie with you and Gilda. She’s your girlfriend, huh? Sweet. Gotta run. We’ll talk.”

  No, we won’t. Because Mr. Amodio never lets anybody get a word in edgewise.

  Peter Kay is back as our host for the results show.

  He does a few funny monologues, imitates Milton Cromwell’s attempts to emcee a live TV show (it’s hysterical—he keeps talking to the wrong cameras), and introduces clips about last night’s drama, confusion, and comedy.

  “I watched it all at home,” says Kay. “Got a little hungry and called up a takeout restaurant. ‘Do you deliver?’ I asked. ‘No,’ they told me. ‘We do lamb, chicken, or fish.’ Anyway, it’s time to announce our winner. Either that or I’m having amnesia and déjà vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before. Jamie? Vasily? Come on out here, you two.”

  This is it.

  My final finals. My last comic competition. The last time I’ll learn if I’m a winner or a loser.

  I know I should be nervous, but I’m not.

  Vasily and I join Peter Kay at center stage. Dramatic music thrums out of speakers. A dozen follow spots swish and swoop up and down until they find us and we look like two prisoners caught trying to break out of the state pen.

  Peter Kay is holding an awesome, globe-shaped glass trophy.

  And Vasily is drooling.

  He wants this thing so badly, he sort of reminds me of a younger me. You know, the Jamie Grimm from last night.

  “THE VOTES HAVE been tabulated,” Peter Kay announces as the drums roll. “The winner of the Planet’s Funniest Kid Comic worldwide competition is …”

  More dramatic music. Tension builds.

  Peter Kay opens a thick envelope. Reads it. To himself. He lets a little more tension build. He must really like dramatic drumrolls.

  Then, finally, after what seems like a week, he reads it out loud:

  “JAMIE GRIMM!”

  The audience goes crazy. Confetti, the sparkly kind, shoots out of cannons. Balloons drop.

  I reach out to shake Vasily’s hand, but he’s already gone, stomping offstage.

  Peter Kay hands me the laughing globe trophy. “Congratulations, Jamie,” he says. “You earned this by being the funniest kid here, not by a sympathy vote.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “But I can’t really accept this.”

  Peter Kay (probably for the first time in his life) is speechless.

  So I keep speaking. “Comedy isn’t about winners and losers. It’s about laughter. The shortest distance between two people. And nobody made me laugh harder than Hamish Gadsby! Hamish, where are you?”

  “I don’t know!” he shouts from backstage. “I’m blind, remember?”

  I’m cracking up. “Get out here, mate. This is yours.”

  Hamish comes onstage. I give him the trophy. He carefully feels it all over. “Great. A glass basketball with a nose. One shot and SMASH. It’s useless. But I want to give this to somebody who made me laugh my glasses off. Chiku Jemaiyo? Where are you? This is now yours.”

  The Kenyan comic comes onstage and immediately awards the trophy to Benji Yatzpan, who gives it to Fadi Hanania, who gives it to Siobhan Kelly, who hands it off to Demarco Coetzee, who thinks Alfie Hobbes should’ve won. But Alfie has a soft spot for mimes, so he gives it to Jean-Claude, who gives it to Ichika (he mimes a kitty cat to call her onstage), who gives it to Miguel, who calls Grace Garner up from the audience. And on and on it goes until every single comic from the competition is onstage—well, everybody except Vasily Vasilovich.

  At the end of our worldwide tour, we kids have figured out what the best comedians in the world have always known. Laughter should bring people together, not tear them apart. A sense of humor is what humans invented so they could stop hitting each other with sticks and clubs.

  Laughter is also what brought me and Gilda together.

  I’m pretty sure that if I’d never met her, there would be a lot less laughter in my life.

  Boy, I can’t wait to head home.

  AFTER MY WHIRLWIND tour around the world, I fly home to America wishing my wheelchair were equipped with an odometer. (One of those wrist gadgets that count steps wouldn’t really work. Unless it also counts rolls.)

  I just wish I had some way to track how far I’ve come.

  Think about it: I went from being the Crip from Cornball to the star of my own TV show. From a hick in the sticks to a hit in Hollywood.

  I started my journey scared and alone. Now I’m happy and surrounded by friends and fans and family. In fact, I have a brand-new family—Uncle Frankie and Aunt Flora. We agreed I can still call him Uncle Frankie even though, officially, he’s my new dad. I am going to call Aunt Flora Mom, though. She smiles every time I do.

  I live in their garage with Uncle Frankie’s sweet cherry-red Mustang parked next to my computer table. He says it’s going to be mine one day after he adapts it with hand controls. Even though I don’t live with the Smileys anymore, they come over for dinner often, and Stevie and I watch comedy shows on TV together. It’s incredible how different things are between us.

  Plus, I have good friends at home and all over the world now. I keep in touch with all of the world’s funniest kid comics over video calls. Sometimes our group calls are so funny we can’t hear one another over our laughter. And the one who cracks me up the most?

  Vasily Vasilovich.

  That’s right. After the contest was over and he had no reason to be competitive, he apologized and asked to be friends. He said he’d never had more fun in his entire life than with us.

  All of us were more than happy to say yes. People can change, after all.

  I know I sure have.

  Sometimes I think back to my first kid comic contest in Ronkonkoma. All I could remember were the punch lines to my jokes, but none of the setups.

  Now I remember so much.

  The sad and frightened kids at the Hope Trust Children’s Rehabilitation Center I was able to make smile.

  The performance in the hurricane shelter.

  The show we did to save the library.

  Inviting kids with disabilities to be in the audience of my TV show.

  All the fantastic comedians and jokes and laughter.

  And, of course, I remember the day I first met Gilda Gold.

  How could I forget that? It might turn out to be the most important day in my whole life.

  On my first Saturday home, Gilda and I decide to go to the movies. Together. Yes, it’s a date. There, I said it!

  I hope it’s the first of many.

  With Gilda in my corner, I know I’ll always keep moving forward. Because she’ll always be there to push me.

  Not my wheelchair. Me!

  And after the movie, if it looks like Gilda wants to kiss me, guess what?

  This time, I’ll kiss her first.

  WANT EVEN MORE LAUGHS?

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  NOT SO NORMAL NORBERT

  BY JAMES PATTERSON

  AND JOEY GREEN

  AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK

  FROM AUGUST 2018

  “I PLEDGE SUBSERVIENCE to Loving Leader of the United State of Earth, and to the ground on which he stands, one planet under surveillance, invincible, with conformity and security for all.”

  We’re all standing at attention, holding up two fingers to make the letter V, and saying a bunch of meaningless words to the TruthScreen at the front of our classroom.

  We do this every morning. It’s ridiculous, if you ask me, but I keep my mouth shut. Well, not when I’m saying the pledge. I always recite the pledge.

  You can’t complain about saying the pledge. If you do, the Truth Police burst in and arrest you, and that’s not something you really want. Unless you’re crazy, which I’m definitely not.

  I’m in seventh grade at Middle School Number 1022 in Region 154. Our school is painted gray. The sky is gray. The clouds are gray. My classmates and I all wear the same exact gray jumpsuits and the same gray expressions on our faces. I guess you could say we’re color coordinated.

  Our gray jumpsuits aren’t school uniforms or anything. Everyone on Earth wears them to make us all equal. Even His All-Knowing Eternal Excellency, Loving Leader, wears a gray jumpsuit.

  He’s on the TruthScreen right now. He’s very serious. His white hair is pretty wild. His eyes are really intense. Fierce. Penetrating. He’s not exactly the kind of guy you’d want to run into in a dark alley.

  After saying the pledge, we all sit down at our school desks in unison. Just like we do every morning. It’s time to listen to Loving Leader’s daily Declaration of Dependence.

  Thrilling.

  “My fellow earthlings,” says Loving Leader. “Conformity makes us free. Free to conform. Because we all know different is dangerous. Different is diabolical. Different is a disease. Yes, a disease detrimental to our way of life. A disease that destroys the equality we’ve fought so hard to win. And what causes this horrible disease? The evils of individuality. The wicked spark of imagination. The foul stench of creativity. Shoot for the moon, my friends, and what happens? You explode in a

  deadly fireball and get burned to a crisp. Individuality is an illness. Imagination is insanity. Creativity is crazy. Originality threatens our way of life ….”

  He goes on and on and on. Blah, blah, blahbity blah. Naturally, my mind wanders, and I look out the window at those gray clouds in the gray sky and start thinking back to when I was a little kid. I remember my father playing catch with me, and my mother singing a lullaby before tucking me into bed and kissing me good night.

  “You there!” shouts Loving Leader. “You, staring out the window!”

  I nearly jump out of my skin. I turn my head from the window and look at the TruthScreen, giving Loving Leader my undivided attention.

  “You’re not daydreaming, are you?” asks Loving Leader, pointing his finger directly at yours truly.

  “M-me?” I stammer.

  “Yes, you! Norbert Riddle, Person Number GK198B-3.”

  “No, Your All-Knowing Eternal Excellency. I would never dream of daydreaming.”

  “Good,” he says. “Because daydreaming is one of the

  three deadly warning signs of imagination. And we all know that imagination is … what?”

  “Insanity!” shouts everyone in my class. Including me.

  Loving Leader smiles widely. In a creepy sort of way. “To remain free, we must all conform, we must stamp out our uniqueness for the greater good,” he says. “Remember, Loving Leader sees all, knows all, and loves all.” He holds up two fingers to make the letter V. The TruthScreen goes black.

  Our teacher, mean old Mrs. Hurlbutt, tells us that she’s going to the lavatory, which is a fancy way of saying she needs to use the bathroom. “I expect you all to be on your best behavior while I’m gone, so no one gets arrested by the Truth Police and mysteriously disappears, never to be heard from again. Like Norbert’s parents!”

  All my classmates gasp.

  I can’t believe Mrs. Hurlbutt just said that. She’s a horrible teacher. And a horrible person. Yeah, the Truth Police took away my parents when I was a little kid. But that’s none of her business. I’m the one who lost my mother and father. I’m the one forced to grow up without

  the two most important people in my life. I’m the one stuck living with my boring aunt and uncle.

  Now I’m steaming mad. At Mrs. Hurlbutt. At Loving Leader. At this stupid school. At everything!

  Enough is enough! I’ll show them!

  The minute that nasty old biddy steps into the hallway, I rise to my feet, walk to the front of the classroom, and stand on top of Mrs. Hurlbutt’s desk. Everyone in the class stares at me. Then I mess up my mop of hair to look like Loving Leader.

  “My fellow earthlings,” I say, doing my best impression. “Conformity is the freedom to wear gray jumpsuits like everyone else. The freedom to think like everyone else. The freedom to agree with everything I say. The freedom to be sheep. Baaa! Baaa! Baaa!”

  Everyone stares at me in complete shock. No one can believe I’m actually making fun of Loving Leader. No one laughs. They’re too scared to even crack a smile.

  Until a kid named Drew Weaver bursts out laughing.

  Then everyone else starts chuckling too, nervously at first, then hysterically, giving me the green light to keep going. Suddenly I’m on a roll.

  “As Your All-Knowing Eternal Excellency, I say this: My planet, my rules. The world belongs to me. The Earth, the moon, the planets, the stars. They’re mine. All mine. Fear me, obey me, love me, and together we’ll make the world safe for mediocrity. Like I always say, creativity stinks! Imagination stinks! Originality stinks! Remember, Loving Leader smelt it, because Loving Leader dealt it.” I hold up two fingers to make the letter L—for “loser.”

  Laughter fills the room. Drew applauds, and the other kids join in, smiling widely. I feel like I’m on top of the world. Even though I’m only on top of Mrs. Hurlbutt’s desk.