Chapter 1: “It’s Very Foolish to Laugh If You Don’t Know What’s Funny in the First Place.” 1 “It’s very foolish to laugh if you don’t know what’s funny in the first place.”
My best friend, Tracy Wu, says I’m really tough on people. She says she wonders sometimes how I can like her. But we both know that’s a big joke. Tracy’s the best friend I’ll ever have. I just wish we were in the same fifth-grade class.

My teacher is Mrs. Minish. I’m not crazy about her. She hardly ever opens the windows in our room because she’s afraid of getting a stiff neck. I never heard anything so dumb. Somedays our room gets hot and stuffy and it smells—like this afternoon. We’d been listening to individual reports on The Mammal for almost an hour. Donna Davidson was standing at the front of the room reading hers. It was on the horse. Donna has this thing about horses.

I tried hard not to fall asleep but it wasn’t easy. For a while I watched Michael and Irwin as they passed a National Geographic back and forth. It was open to a page full of naked people. Wendy and Caroline played Tic Tac Toe behind Wendy’s notebook. Wendy won three games in a row. I wasn’t surprised. Wendy is a very clever person. Besides being class president, she is also group science leader, recess captain and head of the goldfish committee.

Did Mrs. Minish notice anything that was going on or was she just concentrating on Donna’s boring report? I couldn’t tell from looking at her. She had a kind of half-smile on her face and sometimes she kept her eyes closed for longer than a blink.

To make the time go faster I thought about Halloween. It’s just two days away. I love to dress up and go Trick-or-Treating, but I’m definitely not going to be a dumb old witch again this year. Donna will probably be a horse. She dresses up like one every Halloween. Last year she said when she grows up she is going to marry a horse. She has him all picked out and everything. His name is San Salvador. Most of the time Donna smells like a horse but I wouldn’t tell her that because she might think it’s a compliment.

I yawned and wiggled around in my chair.

“In closing,” Donna said, “I would like you to remember that even though some people say horses are stupid that is a big lie! I personally happen to know some very smart horses. And that’s the end of my report.”

The whole class clapped, not because Donna’s report was great, but because it was finally over. Mrs. Minish opened her eyes and said, “Very nice, Donna.”

Earlier, when I had finished my report on the lion, Mrs. Minish said the same thing to me. Very nice, Jill. Just like that. Now I couldn’t be sure if she really meant it. My report wasn’t as dull as Donna’s but it wasn’t as long either. Maybe the longer you talk the better grade you get. That wouldn’t be fair though. Either way, I’m glad Mrs. Minish calls on us alphabetically and that my last name is Brenner. I come right after Bruce Bonaventura.

Mrs. Minish cleared her throat. “Linda Fischer will give the last report for today,” she said. “We’ll hear five more tomorrow and by the middle of next week everyone will have had a turn.”

I didn’t think I’d be able to live through another report.

“Are you ready, Linda?” Mrs. Minish asked.

“Yes,” Linda said, as she walked to the front of the room. “My report is uh… on the whale.”

Caroline and Wendy started another game of Tic Tac Toe while Bruce went to work on his nose. He has a very interesting way of picking it. First he works one nostril and then the other and whatever he gets out he sticks on a piece of yellow paper inside his desk.

The hand on the wall clock jumped. Only ten minutes till the bell. I took a piece of paper out of my desk to keep a record of how many times Linda said And uh… while she gave her report. So far I’d counted seven. Linda’s head is shaped like a potato and sits right on her shoulders, as if she hasn’t got any neck. She’s also the pudgiest girl in our class, but not in our grade. Ruthellen Stark and Elizabeth Ryan are about ten times fatter than Linda, but even they can’t compare to Bruce. If we had a school fat contest he would definitely win. He’s a regular butterball.

“Blubber is a thick layer of fat that lies under the skin and over the muscles of whales,” Linda said. “And uh… it protects them and keeps them warm even in cold water. Blubber is very important. Removing the blubber from a whale is a job done by men called flensers. They peel off the blubber with long knives and uh… cut it into strips.” Linda held up a picture. “This is what blubber looks like,” she said.

Wendy passed a note to Caroline. Caroline read it, then turned around in her seat and passed it to me. I unfolded it. It said: Blubber is a good name for her! I smiled, not because I thought the note was funny, but because Wendy was watching me. When she turned away I crumpled it up and left it in the corner of my desk. The next thing I knew, Robby Winters, who sits next to me, reached out and grabbed it.

Linda kept talking. “And uh… whale oil is obtained by heating the blubber of the whale. European margarine companies are the chief users of whale oil and uh… it also goes into glycerine and some laundry soaps and has other minor uses. Sometimes Eskimos and Japanese eat blubber…”

When Linda said that Wendy laughed out loud and once she started she couldn’t stop. Probably the reason she got the hiccups was she laughed too hard. They were very loud hiccups. The kind you can’t do anything about.

Pretty soon Robby Winters was laughing too. He doesn’t laugh like an ordinary person—that is, no noise comes out. But his whole body shakes and tears run out of his eyes and just watching him is enough to make anybody start in, so the next minute we were all roaring—all except Linda and Mrs. Minish. She clapped her hands and said, “Exactly what is going on here?”

Wendy let out a loud hiccup.

Mrs. Minish said, “Wendy, you are excused. Go and get a drink of water.”

Wendy stood up and ran out of the room.

By then Wendy’s note about Blubber had travelled halfway around the class and I couldn’t stop laughing, even when Mrs. Minish looked right at me and said, “Jill Brenner, will you please explain the joke.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Well, Jill… I’m waiting…”

“I don’t know the joke,” I finally said, finding it hard to talk at all.

“You don’t know why you’re laughing?” Mrs. Minish asked.

I shook my head.

“It’s very foolish to laugh if you don’t know what’s funny in the first place.”

I nodded.

“If you can’t control yourself you can march straight to Mr. Nichols’ office and explain the situation to him.”

I nodded again.

“I’m waiting for your answer, Jill.”

“I forgot the question, Mrs. Minish.”

“The question is, can you control yourself?”

“Oh… yes, Mrs. Minish… I can.”

“I hope so. Linda, you may continue,” Mrs. Minish said.

“I’m done,” Linda told her.

“Well… that was a very nice report.”

The bell rang then. We pushed back our chairs and ran for the row of lockers behind our desks. Mrs. Minish has to dismiss us at exactly two thirty-five. Otherwise we’d miss our buses.

It’s very important to get on the right one. On the first day of school my brother, Kenny, got on the wrong bus and wound up all the way across town. Since my mother and father were both at work the principal of Longmeadow School had to drive Kenny home. I would never make such a mistake. My bus is H-4. That means Hillside School, route number four. I’m glad Kenny doesn’t go to my school. Next year he will, but right now he is just in fourth grade and only fifth and sixth graders go to Hillside.

When I got on the bus Tracy was saving me a seat. Caroline and Wendy found two seats across from us. Before this year I’d never been in either one of their classes but this is my second time with Linda Fischer and I’ve been with Donna, Bruce and Robby since kindergarten.

“We had the best afternoon,” Tracy said. “Mr. Vandenburg invented this game to help us get our multiplication facts straight and I was forty-eight and every time he called out six times eight or four times twelve I had to jump up and yell Here! It was so much fun.”

“You’re lucky to be in his class,” I said. “I wish he’d give Mrs. Minish some ideas.”

“She’s the wrong type.”

“You’re telling me!”

As Linda climbed onto the bus Wendy shouted, “Here comes Blubber!” And a bunch of kids called out, “Hi, Blubber.”

Our bus pulled out of the driveway and as soon as we turned the corner and got going Robby Winters sailed a paper airplane down the aisle. It landed on my head.

“Pass it here, Jill,” Wendy called. When I did, she whipped out a Magic Marker and wrote I’m Blubber—Fly Me on the wing. Then she stood up and aimed the plane at Linda.

The group of girls who always sit in the last row of seats started singing to the tune of “Beautiful Dreamer,” Blubbery blubber… blub, blub, blub, blub…

At the same time, the airplane landed on two sixth-grade boys who ripped it up to make spit balls. They shot them at Linda. Then Irwin grabbed her jacket off her lap. “She won’t need a coat this winter,” he said. “She’s got her blubber to keep her warm.” He tossed the jacket up front and we played Keep-Away with it.

“Some people even eat blubber!” Caroline shrieked, catching Linda’s jacket. “She said so herself.”

“Ohhh… disgusting!” Ruthellen Stark moaned, clutching her stomach.

“Sick!”

The girls in the back started their song again. Blubbery blubber… blub, blub, blub, blub…

The bus driver yelled, “Shut up or I’ll put you all off!”

Nobody paid any attention.

Linda picked the spit balls out of her hair but she still didn’t say anything. She just sat there, looking out the window.

When we reached the first stop Wendy threw Linda’s jacket to me. She and Caroline ran down the aisle and as Linda stood up, Wendy called back, “Bye, Blubber!”

Linda stopped at my row. I could tell she was close to crying because last year, when Robby stepped on her finger by mistake, she got the same look on her face, right before the tears started rolling.

“Oh, here,” I said and I tossed her the jacket. She got off and I saw her race down the street away from Wendy and Caroline. They were still laughing.

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