Mr. Sunny Is Funny! (2 page)

Nooooooooooooooo!

Not Andrea! Why did it have to be Andrea? Anybody but Andrea! Weren't there any bank robbers or criminals we could share our beach house with?

Little Miss Perfect Know-It-All is so annoying. She thinks she is really smart. I
know she'll be hanging around me all summer, bothering me, and trying to show off how much she knows about everything.

“Please don't let Andrea come here!” I begged my parents. “Please please please please?”

Saying the word “please” over and over again will usually make grown-ups give you anything you want. Nobody knows why.

But it didn't work this time.

“A.J., you be nice to Andrea,” my mother told me. “Her mother and I are good friends.”

I don't get it. Why do I have to be
friends with somebody just because her mom and my mom are friends? It's not fair.

The next morning a car pulled into the driveway, and guess who got out?

Little Miss Annoying and her parents! Andrea was wearing pink sunglasses and a bathing suit that had butterflies on it.

“Hi, Arlo!” said Andrea, who calls me by my real name because she knows I don't like it. “Isn't this going to be
a great summer?”

“It
was
gonna be a great summer,” I said, “but then you showed up.”

“That's not nice, Arlo!”

“Neither is your face,” I told Andrea.

My mother told me to be a gentleman and carry Andrea's suitcase upstairs for her.

“What do you have in here, rocks?” I asked.

“No, silly,” Andrea said. “Books! It's my summer reading. Every summer I set a goal for myself. This year my goal is to read the complete works of Shakespeare.”

“You're gonna read about a guy who shakes a spear?” I asked.

“William Shakespeare is the most famous writer in history!” Andrea said. “If you opened a book once in a while, you'd know that, Arlo.”

“Hey, I opened a book once,” I said. “And then I closed it.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because there were words inside.”

Andrea picked up one of her dumb Shakespeare books and started reading out loud:

“Isn't that lovely, Arlo?” Andrea asked.

“
Zzzzzzzzzz,
” I said, pretending to be asleep.

That Shakespeare guy made no sense at all. The question isn't to be or not to be. I'll tell you what the question is. Do you want ice cream or cake? That is the question. Trick biking or skateboarding? That is the question. TV or video games? That is the question. Would it be better if
a piano or an elephant fell on Andrea's head? That is the question.

Andrea lined up her dumb books on a shelf in ABC order.

“Hey, maybe we can read together on the beach, Arlo!” Andrea said. “What did you bring for summer reading?”

Summer reading?! What is her problem? “Summer” and “reading” are two words that should never be put together in the same sentence. The only reading I brought was a comic book that I finished in the car. It was about a superhero named Mold Man who can turn his body into any shape. He's cool. I bet Mold Man would kick
Shakespeare's butt.

Andrea's mom said we could go to the beach as long as we came back in time for lunch. Then we'd have to wait an hour before we went swimming again. Mothers always make you wait an hour after you eat before you can go swimming. Nobody knows why. I guess sharks can smell the food in your stomach and will eat you to get it.

I showed Andrea how to get to the beach. The backhoe was gone, but Mr. Sunny was out there working on his big pile of sand. He was concentrating so hard that he didn't even notice us.

“Who's that boy?” Andrea asked.

“That's Mr. Sunny, the lifeguard,” I told her.

“He's a hunk!” Andrea whispered.

“A hunk of what?” I asked.

“He's dreamy!”

Andrea had on a zombie face. Her mouth was open, and she was making goo-goo eyes at Mr. Sunny.

Ugh, disgusting!
*

Mr. Sunny had a baseball cap on his head and earphones in his ears. He was working very hard on his sand castle, using a plastic shovel to carve the walls. Finally, he noticed me and Andrea watching him.

“Hi, A.J.!” he said. “Who's your girlfriend?”

“She's not my girlfriend,” I said.

“I'm not his girlfriend,” Andrea said.

“Well, who's your friend that's a girl?” asked Mr. Sunny.

“She's not my friend, either,” I told him. “Friends are people you like. This is Andrea.”

“Charmed,” Andrea said, all giggly. She did one of those courtesy things girls do. “I love your sand castle!”

What a brownnoser! As soon as Andrea started talking to Mr. Sunny, she acted like I wasn't even there.

“I'm gonna win the contest,” Mr. Sunny said. “First prize is a trip to France. I'm gonna go to college there and study sand
sculpture from the great sand masters.”

“That sounds awesome,” Andrea gushed. “Are you in high school?”

“Yeah, I'm sixteen. “

“Is Sunny your real name?” asked Andrea.

“Nah,” Mr. Sunny said. “My name is Evan. Everybody calls me Mr. Sunny because I love the sun so much.”

“‘What's in a name?'” said Andrea. “‘That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' Shakespeare wrote that, you know.”

Ugh.

Mr. Sunny took off his baseball cap and showed it to us. It had solar panels built
right into it! Then he turned around and showed us that his tank top had solar panels built into it too.

“The solar panels power my iPod,” Mr. Sunny told us. “Why do we have to burn gas or coal when all the power we need is right there in the sky? Global warming is a bummer, man.”

“I hate global warming,” Little Miss Brownnoser said. If Mr. Sunny said he hated butterflies, Andrea would probably say she hates them too.

“Excuse me,” Mr. Sunny said. “I can't talk right now. I have to work on my sand castle before the beach fills with kids.”

“‘Men of few words are the best men,'”
Andrea said. “Shakespeare wrote that too.”

Mr. Sunny took off his shirt and went back to carving the castle. When he turned around, I could see the word “SUNNY” written across his back in white letters.

“Is that a tattoo?” I asked.

“No,” Mr. Sunny said. “I cut the letters
S-U-N-N-Y
out of paper and taped them to my back. It's a SUNNY sunburn!”

Andrea was all giggly and told him his sunburn was cool.

“I bet you have lots of girlfriends,” Andrea said.

“Oh, I don't have time for that,” Mr. Sunny replied. “Sand is my life.”

Mr. Sunny is funny! But if you ask me, people who wear solar panels and tape letters to their backs are weird.

Soon the beach was filled with people, blankets, and umbrellas. I went for a swim. When I came back, Andrea and a bunch of other kids were gathered around Mr. Sunny.

“Part of being a lifeguard is to teach you kids about first aid,” he said. “Does anybody know what to do if a person is drowning and can't breathe?”

Little Miss I-Know-Everything waved her hand in the air, just like she was at school. But Mr. Sunny called on me. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on Andrea.

“It depends on who's drowning,” I said. “If the quarterback of your Pee Wee football team is drowning, then you have to get a new quarterback right away. Because if you don't have a quarterback, you'll have to forfeit the game.”

Everybody laughed even though I didn't say anything funny. Andrea rolled her eyes.

“How about you, Andrea?” asked Mr. Sunny.

“If somebody is drowning,” she said, “you give them mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”

“That's right!” Mr. Sunny said.

Andrea stuck her tongue out at me. I
stuck mine out right back at her.

“Arlo, don't you remember when Officer Spence gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Mrs. Daisy at our graduation?” Andrea asked. “It was just last week!”

How am I supposed to remember what happened last week?

“Do you need a volunteer to practice mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on?” asked one of the girls. They all got giggly and waved their hands in the air.

“Me! Me! Me!” shouted Andrea. “Please please please please pick me!”

“Okay,” Mr. Sunny said. “Andrea, you're my volunteer.”

“Yay!” Andrea squealed, jumping up
and down. I tell you, that “please” thing works every time.

Mr. Sunny told Andrea to lie on the sand.

“Okay,” he said, “pretend you were drowning. I dragged you up on the beach, and you can't breathe.”

“I can do that,” I said.

“You can pretend you were drowning and you can't breathe?” Mr. Sunny asked.

“No, I can pretend that Andrea was drowning and can't breathe,” I told him. “I do it every day.”

“You're mean, Arlo!”

Mr. Sunny knelt down next to Andrea. She closed her eyes.

He tilted her head back a little and
pinched her nostrils shut with his fingers.

Then he told us he was going to pretend to blow a few breaths of air into Andrea's mouth so she would be able to breathe again.

He leaned over until his mouth was almost touching hers.

Andrea puckered up her lips.

Ew, disgusting! Mr. Sunny was about to kiss Andrea! I thought I was gonna throw up.

That's when the strangest thing in the history of the world happened.

“Shark!” somebody yelled. “There's a shark in the water!”

We all looked up. Sure enough, in the distance there was a shark fin sticking out of the water!

“WOW!” everybody said, which is “MOM” upside down.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeek!” somebody screamed.

Sharks are scary! My friend Billy, who
lives around the corner, told me a shark can bite your head off like it's eating grapes. I saw a movie where this shark ate a bunch of people. In the end some guy threw a tank filled with gas in the shark's mouth and blew it up. It was cool.

Everybody on the beach was yelling and screaming and freaking out. You
should have been there!

Mr. Sunny blew his whistle and shouted, “Everybody out of the water! Leave this to me. I know how to handle sharks. I'll lure it away from the beach.”

Then he went running into the ocean.

“Mr. Sunny is sooooooo brave!” Andrea sighed.

“That's not brave,” I said. “That's dumb. The shark could bite his head off like a grape.”

We all watched as Mr. Sunny dived into the water. He was swimming right toward the shark! What a dumbhead!

I was sure the shark was going to bite Mr. Sunny's head off like a grape. But it
didn't. Because just as Mr. Sunny reached the shark, we figured something out.

It wasn't a shark after all!

No, it was a guy with a shark fin strapped to his back!

Mr. Sunny dragged him up onto the beach. The guy was wearing flippers and a diving mask. We all gathered around. I thought Mr. Sunny might have to give the guy mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation. He was choking and spitting out water.

“Glub, glub,” said the guy.

“Are you okay, dude?” asked Mr. Sunny.

“G'day, mates!” the guy said. He had a funny voice. “Yes, I believe I am okay.”

“What's your name, man?” asked Mr. Sunny.

“George Granite.”

“Dude, why do you have a shark fin attached to your back?” Mr. Sunny asked. “You scared us to death, man!”

“I am a long-distance swimmer,” Mr. Granite said. “Sometimes I roll over on my back, and the fin helps me stay in a straight line.”

“Where did you swim from?” somebody asked.

“Australia.”

WHAT???!!!

“Australia?!” I said. “That's like a million hundred miles away!”

“You swam all the way across the Pacific Ocean?” asked Andrea.

“Well, I did stop to rest on a passing turtle,” Mr. Granite said.

It was totally amazing. But if you ask me, people who swim across oceans with shark fins on their backs are weird.