Sunday, October 9 (Seven days left):
Adam wearily opened the door to his well loved room. He absent-mindedly examined his trophies and baubles before sinking into his cushy swivel chair, fiddling with a few of the oddities scattered on his desk, utterly frustrated with his failed attempts to make Sydney laugh.
Didn't all thirteen year olds find fart jokes funny?
Sadly, the whoopee cushion on Alfred's chair had not cut it. Well, Alfred did find it enormously funny and had congratulated Adam him after supper. But Sydney just gave him a bothered look, having correctly assumed that it was Adam's fault.
She answered Adam in single syllables for the rest of the meal and ignored his further efforts after supper to engage her.
Frustrated, Adam was forced to conclude that he would have to try harder. He pulled out a drawer and rummaged through, searching for a notebook to record his ideas.
He sat for thirty minutes, thinking and drawing an utter blank. Frustrated at his lack of ideas, he grabbed his notebook and set out to interview his family and friends.
Two hours later, a game plan had been established:
Monday: Knock-knock jokes from Mathew
Tuesday: Regular jokes courtesy of Arthur, Michelle, and Lili
Wednesday: Physical humor, Alfred assisting
Thursday: Something anime related, Kiku hadn't specified.
Friday: Laughing gas, Adam's last choice, but he was confident Sydney would laugh before then
Adam nodded firmly. No way could this fail.
Monday, October 10 (Six days left):
That morning Mathew ceremoniously bestowed his joke book to Adam, explaining that the best jokes had been highlighted. Adam smiled gleefully and thanked his brother.
On the bus he chose to sit by Alfred in order to give himself a chance to read through the jokes and select his 'weapons' of choice. Convinced that he'd found some gems, he smugly overlooked Sydney at lunch in an attempt to lure her into a false sense of security. But on the bus ride home he struck with one of his self-proclaim 'joke-bombs'.
Adam poked Sydney to get her attention; she shot him an irritable glare, as she was still annoyed at his refusal to give her an explanation for why he wanted to sit by Alfred. Undeterred by Sydney's sour attitude Adam dropped his first bomb.
"Knock-knock."
"Who's there?" Sydney grumbled, reluctantly humoring Adam.
"Banana."
"No."
"What do you mean 'no'?" Adam asked, his brow wrinkled in confusion.
"I will not be a part of this joke." Sydney asserted, crossing her arms and turning away.
Adam muttered under his breathe "...and that was my best one..."
"Knock-knock."
Sydney sighed. "Who's there?"
"Madame."
"Madame who?"
"Madame foot's stuck in the door."
Sydney gave him a skeptical look. "Is this really the best you can do?"
Tuesday, October 11 (Five days left):
The next day Adam had more jokes prepared. He had actually tested these out on Alfred and the results had been quite satisfactory (In retrospective this probably was not Adam's most intelligent move, considering the results of his first night.) He once again waited until later in the day, in order to give himself enough practice. Today, he decided to ambush Sydney after supper as she tried to head to her room.
"Hey Kiwi, What do you call it when a blond dyes her hair?" Adam paused for dramatic effect. "Artificial Intelligence."
"Adam, I'mblond and so is the rest of your family."
"Righttttt." Adam rubbed the back of his head, moving along to the next joke quickly. "I murdered someone with a deck of cards, I am now in solitaire confinement."
Sydney rolled her eyes and tried to push past Adam, but he moved to follow her.
"How do you tell the difference between a bad golfer and a bad sky diver?" Adam asked, following closely as she turned into her room. "One says whack! 'Darn!' and the other says 'Darn!' whack!"
"Adam, for crying out loud, I have a test I need to study for!" Sydney exclaimed, throwing her hands up in annoyance.
"But I spent a reallylong time finding these." Adam whined.
"Go." Sydney pointed to her door and made a shooing gesture.
Adam sullenly walked out, metaphorical tail between his legs.
Wednesday (Four days left):
After the bombing on Tuesday night, Adam had been significantly discouraged, but Alfred convinced him that this idea had to be enacted, because there was 'no way' it could fail!
So Adam and Alfred snuck into the middle and high school and left dozens of carefully rigged banana peels. The two quietly gave their approval at the strategic places, confident at least one slip would catch Sydney's eye.
Adam, had not, however planned on being the first victim. The whoosh of air as his feet where suddenly displaced sent Adam landing firmly on his bum. Thankfully the painful incident occurred in front of Sydney and she actually smiled widely for a second mouth, almost opening in mirth. However she quickly caught herself and stalked off afterwards, arms crossed in indignation, leaving Adam in his ridiculously pathetic pose.
Adam would like to have claimed the smile counted, as none of his previous antics had even had close to this effect. Sadly, he knew Sydney would not accept defeat this easily. Her determination was frustrating – otherwise Adam was positive he would have won by now. Surely her history wasn't that bad. As painful as it was to admit, Adam was starting to feel a bit depressed at the lack of emotion from Sydney. He hadn't thought about how much he would miss her expressions if he didn't win right away.
Mathew eventually helped him up after he and Alfred recovered from their raucous laughter.
The rest of the day was filled with truly remarkable demonstrations of poor coordination courtesy of the bananas, but regrettably none had cracked Sydney's uncompromisingly stoic disposition.
Thursday (Three days left):
Thursday backfired horribly. Somehow Sydney discovered Adam's list (Adam suspected Mathew told her about his notebook) and she avoided him like the plague.
She managed to get herself 'stuck' in French Club until dinner time, and then she took an early bedtime, granting Adam no time to force her to watch Kiku's stuff.
Friday (Two days left):
That day Adam awoke find a note taped to his forehead. Puzzled, he quickly ripped it off.
Laughing gas is cheating, Adam.
Sorry to ruin your fun.
Love,
Papa
Cursing to himself, Adam quickly tried to come up with another plan, but poor planning and the unsupported effort left him with no workable ideas.
As Sydney had already figured out his plan had failed she deemed it safe to be near the rest of her family. Adam was reduced to starting every sentence with 'oooh la la' and skipping as much as possible in a desperate attempt to pull out a laugh.
He definitely got a hefty amount of inquisitive stares but Sydney's inshatterable stoicism was not to be broken.
Feeling remarkably discouraged, Adam suddenly recalled Sydney's long awaited 'girl's night' was coming up. A sly grin on his face appeared, and feeling slightly more encouraged he called Michelle.
"Who is it?" A sweet, most definitely fake, voice asked.
"Adam."
"Oh." The polite tone dropped and Michelle's voice quickly shifted to a more natural tone. "What do you want?"
"I have a favor to ask." He began tentatively.
"I figured." Michelle snarked wryly. "Go on."
"Can you find out if Sydney is ticklish for me?" Adam pleaded, fingers crossed.
"I might..." Michelle responded thoughtfully. "What's in it for me?"
Adam froze, he had anticipated the question, but his mind had yet to provide an answer.
Correctly assuming the silence was due to thinking Michelle offered.
"How about you let me in early so I can look through Syd's stuff before we go shopping?"
"Sounds good," Adam agreed, blatantly relieved.
"We have a deal then." He could practically feel Michelle's smug grin through the phone. "Pleasure doing business with you."
Adam nodded and quickly hung up, sinking to the wall in exhausted relief.
AN: This one is a bit short, I know but the next one is longer. I think. Quick note on the names, I know the human names are sometimes confusing so I have a guide to who's who in my profile.
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