LOTSA LUCK
"GIVE ME THAT FILLET O' FISH! GIVE ME THAT FISH!"
Pepper Clark smacked her Big Mouth Billy Bass, shutting the thing up. She'd spent the entire morning rearranging her comedy props, and so far, she'd been in the zone, as Zoe liked to call it. But this dumb fish just had to start singing and interrupt her concentration.
At least the interruption didn't last very long or throw off her concentration that much. She quickly got back to what she was doing.
To the average human being, a skunk with a comedy routine would be a very strange thing to see, but not to Pepper, her owners, or her friends. She had been doing this sort of thing since she was a kit, watching sitcoms and comedy movies and sometimes that one show on MTV where the guys would do stupid things and sometimes get themselves hurt – but they looked like they were having so much fun doing it!
Pepper wasn't a stupid skunk; she knew better than to attempt any of that. So she figured she'd stick with comedy props, jokes, and puns. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't, and she recently found out that her shtick with the pistachio pudding had run its course. Of course, that was when she tried her paw at insult comedy, which backfired when she took it too far and made Penny Ling cry.
"Pepper's a bit of a perfectionist, isn't she?" Blythe asked; she and Zoe had been watching Pepper arrange her props in a very specific order for the last five minutes.
"The girl is particular with her comedy props," Zoe agreed.
"I heard that!" Pepper cried. She threw on a pair of joke glasses. "Comedy is serious business!"
Zoe sat down on one of the pet beds; Blythe on the bench. The sixteen year old girl held a clipboard in her hands, containing a list of all the animals that were scheduled to get dropped off at Littlest Pet Shop's Day Camp over the next two weeks.
"It seems a bit of a shame for Pepper to waste her talents on another routine performance," Zoe said.
"She does it because she loves it," Blythe told her. She scanned the list.
"So, is anyone special coming today? Or sometime later this week?"
"Let me see here. Looks like an orangutan named O.B. is stopping by sometime later today," Blythe answered.
Pepper's ear perked up when she heard those initials. O.B.? she thought. She can't mean…HIM…can she?
"O.B.?" Zoe repeated. "That's a funny name."
"Oh, wait a minute," Blythe continued, reading off of the list. "It says here that O.B. is short for –"
"OLD BANANAS!" Pepper cried, interrupting her.
"You know this particular ape?" Blythe asked.
Pepper let out a scream of joy. "Old Bananas is coming to Littlest Pet Shop?" She started happily bouncing around the Day Camp room. "YES! YESYESYESYESYESYES YES!"
"She knows him," Blythe and Zoe chuckled together.
"Know him? I'm his biggest fan!" Pepper yelled. "Oh, I have to get ready!" She dove into her box of props. "I can't believe this is happening! Best! Day! EVER!"
"Okay, Pepper, bring it down a notch," Blythe said. "Who's this Old Bananas guy?"
"Who is he?" Pepper repeated. "Well, first off, he's no guy." She reached into her box and pulled out a poster showing a smiling old orangutan, his orange fur groomed professionally and his mouth open in a friendly, toothy grin. "He's only the biggest name in animal comedy!"
"Oh, now I know who you're talking about," Zoe said. "I've seen him on TV once or twice. What was that show called? My Something-Or-Other?"
"That's My Orangutan!" Pepper corrected her. "They just started running it again on Animal Planet. Wait, you think Old Bananas is coming here because he heard about me? That must be it; he wants to see my act!"
"No offense Pepper, but why would you think your comedy act would impress him more than any other acts he's seen?" Blythe asked.
"O. B. taught me everything I know about comedy," Pepper answered. "I've been watching him since I was a kit. The announcer would always say 'Who's that orangutan?' and the audience – including yours truly – would always respond 'That's my orangutan!' But of course, this was before those dumb moral guardians had the show cancelled due to, as they said, 'imitable acts', and of course they had those dorks from PETA try to shut them down for supposed animal cruelty, but I can assure you Old Bananas was well taken care of."
"Those PETA people are a weird bunch," Zoe mused.
"Well, these are the people who wanted to make it so that fish were called 'sea kittens'," Blythe said. "That was a strange time."
"But nobody could match Old Bananas when it came to the good old fashioned prat fall," Pepper continued, ignoring her two friends. "Or throwing pies or delivering other classic comedy shticks like the knock-knock joke or the electric hand buzzer. I think he got someone in the audience with a whoopee cushion one time. But only once, since we all know fart jokes are the lowest form of comedy."
"Tell that to Vinnie and Sunil," Zoe said dryly. "Remember the incident with the Doberman?"
"You mean the one that wanted to eat Russell?" Pepper asked.
"Hold on, I wasn't there that day," Blythe said. "This needs context."
Pepper continued, ignoring her request. "Lotsa luck. That was his catchphrase. And there isn't one day where I don't think about O. B. and everything I learned from watching him." She let out a content sigh.
"Well now you'll get to meet him," Blythe reminded her.
"And to get the O. B. Lotsa Luck seal of approval? That's the ultimate animal showbiz seal of approval." She climbed out of the box. "Hey Blythe, can you do me a favor? Get the hammock out of the storage room? Old Bananas always napped in a rope hammock on the show."
"Sure."
"Oh, and you'll come and watch my performance for him, right?" Pepper asked as Blythe started to walk away.
"I wouldn't miss it for anything," Blythe assured her.
"So, Pepper," Zoe said as Blythe left the room. She started playing with a set of chattering teeth that were on the floor. "Are you sure that O. B. will like the routine you've been working on?"
"Oh my skunky stinky gosh!" Pepper gasped. "It's not nearly good enough!" She dove into her box of props. "I can't just perform for the guy; I've got to shine like a star!"
##################################
Blythe was met with the smell of dust and cobwebs when she opened the storage room door. The light flickered as she flipped the switch, but it was enough for her to at least see where she was going and what she was doing. She knew that they'd put the old hammock back here before – they'd used it when a young chimpanzee named Darwin came to visit for the day – but she didn't exactly remember where.
Then again, it was hard for her to remember exactly what was back here; she didn't come into the storage room all that often, unless she was looking for the toolbox her dad had stashed back here – he liked to come down to the shop and fix the shelves for Mrs. Twombly whenever she asked him to.
There it was, sitting atop an old box and rolled up into a ball. She coughed as the dust fell off of it, covering her clothes, skin, and hair. She shook the hammock, trying to keep it at arm's length so she didn't get any more dust on her, before grabbing the feather duster off of the shelf and running it over some of the boxes the hammock had been sitting on.
Something under the dust caught her eye. She knelt down, setting the hammock on the floor, and using the side of her hand, brushed some more of the dust away.
On the box, written in purple lettering, were the words "Kung Fu Quilting".
"What the huh? What the heck is that?" She opened the box and slowly reached inside, not sure what she would find or what unfriendly critter had probably made the box its home.
She pulled out the first thing she grabbed – a poster with a woman in a Kung Fu pose, standing atop a gorgeous square-patterned quilt.
Kung Fu Quilting master Anna T…..Anna T…..Oh my gosh!
Anna T.
Anna Twombly!
Blythe couldn't believe that someone like Mrs. Twombly was at one time a martial arts master, and yet here she was, holding the evidence! But what if this was just a joke? Some kind of prank? Maybe this poster had been made in Photoshop? After all, anyone could do it; Jasper had shown her how.
She had to find out for herself.
###########################
It was a delicate procedure, setting the Jack In The Box in just the part of the windowsill. Most pets – and even most people – didn't realize that comedy was all about the placement of the props, assuming they weren't stand-ups who just told jokes or played with puppets. And even then, they had to write down their jokes and practice them in order to do them properly.
Being funny was hard work, work that most everyone took for granted.
"Pepper, your perfectionism knows no restraints," Russell complimented her; the little hedgehog had been watching her for some time now.
"Restraint is no virtue in the pursuit of comedy," Pepper said. The Jack In The Box popped, shooting out a boxing glove attached to a string; the boxing glove hit her on the top of the head. "Ow! See that? That's what we call slapstick."
"I'm going to assume you got that first thing you said from someone," Russell guessed.
"Someone that I admire very much and I'm hoping to get a very big Lotsa Luck thumbs-up from the guy very soon," Pepper replied.
"So let me see if I've got the facts here," Russell said. "You think that getting an endorsement from a TV primate you've never met will mean you're a great comedienne?"
Pepper reached into her box and pulled out a rainbow wig and a clown nose, which she quickly put on. "Well when you put it that way it sounds kind of silly."
Says the skunk dressed like Bozo the Clown, Russell silently snarked.
"But it's not," Pepper continued. She honked the clown nose. "Not at all. I'm gonna get his thumbs-up Lotsa Luck, and then the world will be my toaster!"
"I think the word you're looking for is 'oyster'," Russell corrected her.
"No, I hate seafood," Pepper said, completely missing the point.
###############################
Penny Ling sat on a stool near the front counter of the shop, chewing on a rod of bamboo, when the man in the khaki outfit walked in. He was accompanied by a primate, a large orange ape. His orange fur was pretty dark, the only light part being the area under his chin, which was part of his old, wrinkling face. His green eyes were set into deep sockets, and his impossibly long arms dragged along the ground.
"I see we have a celebrity with us today," Mrs. Twombly said. "Old Bananas himself." The orangutan hooted and hollered, pointing to the door leading to the Day Camp. "And so talkative, too." She gestured to the door. "Back there is Day Camp. You're going to just love it, Old Bananas, or I'll be a monkey's uncle." She laughed at her own joke, but stopped when she saw Old Bananas roll his eyes.
"Sorry," the ape's caretaker said. "He finds that joke a bit insulting; kind of bums him out."
"Oh my, I am so sorry," Mrs. Twombly apologized. Old Bananas gave one last hoot before moving away, his knuckles dragging against the carpeted floor of the pet shop. "That's right, O. B. Just follow Penny Ling back to the Day Camp. Have fun."
Penny Ling swallowed the last of the bamboo in her mouth and hopped down from the stool. "Mr. O. B., we have someone here who's your biggest fan!"
Old Bananas rolled his eyes. "Haven't heard that one before," he said with a gruff voice.
"Her name is Pepper," Penny Ling continued. "And she's the funniest skunk I know."
"Funny, huh?" Old Bananas asked. "Well, I'll be the judge of that."
Penny Ling led Old Bananas to the Day Camp.
################################
Pepper threw the lid off of a small cardboard box, procuring yet another rubber chicken. The other pets all rolled their eyes; they'd seen the rubber chicken gag done so many times that it just stopped being funny.
"This rubber chicken's fresh out of the box," Pepper said as she hoisted the chicken out of the box, "so let me beak it in." No one laughed, except her. "See what I did there?" she asked. "I said 'beak it in' instead of 'break it in', because it's a chicken, and it has a beak, so….Yeah. Okay, let's try this." She reached into her box of props, pulling out a small desk and a drawing of a road. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" She squeezed the chicken, making it lay a rubber egg right on the yellow line. "To lay it on the line!" Again, she was the only one who laughed.
"You know, until now, I never considered the chicken's motivations," Sunil said.
"Yeah, it explains a heck of a lot," Vinnie agreed.
"You guys, it's a joke, not a discussion about existentialism or anything like that," Pepper said.
The sound of sarcastic clapping came from the back of the room. The pets all turned to look. Pepper's jaw dropped due to the surprise of it all; the rubber chicken fell from her paws. Standing there, in the back of the room, slowly and sarcastically clapping his old, wrinkly hands, was an old orangutan.
An old orangutan who said only one word.
"Ha."
Pepper couldn't believe her own two eyes.
Old Bananas had seen her act!
"I – I didn't know he was watching me rehearse!" she cried to Russell.
Old Bananas slowly approached her. "And if you had, you might have been funny?" he asked gruffly. "Because I can tell you one mistake you made up there, and that was explaining your jokes. I heard on another TV show once that if you have to explain the joke, then there is no joke."
Pepper had nothing to say; she could do nothing but just stare at the old ape.
"Oh, Mr. O. B.!" Russell cried. "We and our very funny friend here Pepper weren't expecting you so soon."
"No, we weren't," Pepper agreed. She was trying to put on a brave face, but she couldn't help but feel completely flustered, now that her comedy icon was looking her right in the eye. "You, uh, actually caught me during rehearsal."
"Sure, sure," Old Bananas grumbled.
"I just can't believe you're really here, Mr. Old Bananas, sir!" Pepper squeaked.
"So your name's Pepe?" Old Bananas asked her.
"Pepper, actually," Russell corrected him.
"I know what I said, little porcupine."
"Yeah, I'm Pepper," Pepper said. "Or Pepe, or Peppi, or whatever you want to call me, your comedyship. So honored to meet you, sir, Mr. Primate, sir."
"The teddy bear tells me you're funny, Papa," Old Bananas said. He moved closer to Pepper, scrutinizing her. "We'll see about that." A wide grin spread across his primate face, and he turned to the rest of the pets. "Alright, pets of Littlest Pet Shop! Who's your orangutan?"
"That's my orangutan!" the other pets cheered.
"You know it," Old Bananas said proudly. He reached into his little satchel he had slung across his shoulder and pulled out a stack of photographs. The photographs went flying as he lost his grip on them. "Whoops. What a klutz I am."
"Well, nobody's perfect," Russell said.
"Give him a second," Pepper said softly.
With a surprisingly graceful cartwheel, Old Bananas grabbed the falling photographs in his feet and transferred them to his hands. The other pets cheered as he handed them a photograph.
"A souvenir, autographed personally by yours truly." Each picture was stamped with a little pawprint in the corner. The pets cheered as Old Bananas flashed a wide, toothy grin.
He turned to Pepper. "Hey Papi, toss that chicken over here." Pepper threw the chicken to Old Bananas; he easily caught it without even looking, and squeezed it between his two massive hands, making it squeak. "How long do chickens work?" he asked the other pets. They just looked at each other, confused.
Old Bananas grinned before delivering the punchline. "Around the cluck." The other pets all laughed –
Except for Russell, who smacked a paw against his face. That was a terrible pun, even by Pepper's standards.
Old Bananas squeaked the chicken again, getting the other pets' attention. "Why did the chicken cross the road twice? Because he was a double-crosser!"
I can't decide if that pun was just as bad or even worse than the last one, Russell thought as the other pets laughed.
"Hey, what does a chicken and a grape have in common? They're both purple…except the chicken." Once again, the other pets laughed.
Okay, that one physically hurt, Russell silently critiqued, and yet there the other pets were, laughing and guffawing, with Sunil and Vinnie rolling on the floor and tears coming from Minka's eyes.
"He's so much funnier in person," Penny Ling mused.
"Yeah, he's killing me," Vinnie said between laughs.
Old Bananas joined Pepper at the windowsill. "And that's how it's done, Petey."
"Looks like someone's quite a hit," Russell mused as the other pets followed Old Bananas to the hammock Blythe had set up earlier.
"Yeah, a hit," Pepper breathed. She just stared at the old ape, wondering how she could ever get someone like that to laugh at her jokes and antics.
##############################
Blythe wasn't sure if she should ask Mrs. Twombly about that Kung Fu Quilting thing she found in the storage room, so she decided to look it up first. But not before calling Youngmee over to tell her about it.
Youngmee joined Blythe in her room as Blythe scoured the Internet. She'd gone to Google, Ask, Wikipedia, and even a martial arts website, and so far, they'd all had similar, if not almost identical, articles about Kung Fu Quilting. That was too much of a coincidence; that meant that it had to be the truth.
"Youngmee, check this out," Blythe called to her friend. "I found this old poster in the pet shop's storage room, so I did a little research, and I found this out about Mrs. Twombly." She moved out of the way to show Youngmee the website.
"Kung Fu Quilting? What the heck is that?" Youngmee asked.
"It's a combination of quilting skills performed with simultaneous kung fu action," Blythe explained. She scrolled down the page, going past various people from all around the world participating in the event.
"Yeah, okay, so what does this have to do with Mrs. Twombly?" Youngmee asked.
Blythe read off of the site. "There was once an amazing woman who was not only the inventor of Kung Fu Quilting, she was its sole world class practitioner. She took her novelty act on the road to global acclaim."
"That still doesn't tell me what –" Youngmee began to say. She stopped when the page came to a woman with short brown hair and a build very similar to Mrs. Twombly.
The name under the picture read "Anna Twombly".
"That's just crazy," Youngmee breathed.
"I can't believe she never mentioned anything about this before," Blythe gasped. She printed the article and subsequent picture. There was so much she wanted to know about this, and what better way to get the information she was looking for than to go right to the source. She had to know how Mrs. Twombly came up with something so unique, and why she decided to hang it up. From what the article told the girls, Anna Twombly was on top of the world during the height of Kung Fu Quilting's popularity.
############################
Pepper had spent the last however long trying to get even a grin out of Old Bananas, but nothing she did seemed to work. She tried her best knock-knock jokes, told the funniest stories she could think of – including one where her owner's dad was pulled out to sea after catching a sea turtle on a fishing line – and a slapstick routine, but the old primate still barely even smirked.
"That O. B. is a tough nut to crack," Russell said. "You've been working your stinky tail off, and he still hasn't so much as giggled at you."
"Yeah," Pepper said softly. "What's the use of performing for him? He doesn't think I'm funny. I'm barely worth a chuckle to him."
"Well, did you really think Old Bananas would be just like he was on television?" Russell asked.
"Of course! TV's all facts all the time!" Pepper shot back.
Russell just stared at her. "Uh huh, sure. Well, Old Bananas is just like anyone else, and there isn't anyone in Downtown City that you can't entertain, right?"
Pepper finally smiled after several minutes of pouting. "Yeah, you're right. I can make anyone laugh. Why should he be any different? I am going to crack that nut! Just call me Pepper 'The Nutcracker' Clark! I'm going to win him over, and you, Russell, are going to be my stage partner."
"Wait, what?" Russell asked. "I never agreed to that!"
###############################
Blythe hurried through the doors to the pet shop, the web article she'd printed out held firmly in her hand. "Mrs. Twombly! Mrs. Twombly! I have to ask you about something."
"What is it, Blythe?"
"Is it true that you invented Kung Fu Quilting?" Blythe asked as she held up the poster she'd found in the storage room earlier.
Mrs. Twombly let out a quiet sigh. "I suppose everything winds up online sooner or later," she lamented.
"It says that you were the creator and the world class champion," Blythe said.
"The key word in that last sentence being 'were'," Mrs. Twombly said. "Really, Blythe, all of that should stay in the past where it belongs."
"But Mrs. Twombly," Blythe pleaded. "It –"
"Was nothing," Mrs Twombly said firmly, interrupting her. The phone started to ring. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to take this phone call."
Blythe watched as the older woman walked around the counter to pick up the phone. She was so sure that Mrs. Twombly would want to talk about this, so why was she avoiding the subject? Did something happen back then to make her never want to speak about it again? Or did she never even want to do it to begin with? Was she pressured to create Kung Fu Quilting? Was that why she didn't want to talk about it?
No, that couldn't be the reason. There was more to it.
And Blythe was determined to figure out what that was.
#############################
Pepper rode on her unicycle, balancing a bowling pin in one paw, an avocado pie in the other. Most of the other pets were watching, but Old Bananas was still reclining in his hammock, his eyes half open.
"Sometimes I feel like a bowling pin," Pepper said, starting off another joke, "and at other times I feel like a –"
"Pippy!" Old Bananas called, throwing off her concentration. "Mind your props!"
Pepper leaned forward and back, left and right, trying to stay balanced on the single wheeled cycle while also trying not to lose her grip on her props. But try as she might, it was to no avail; she fell off the unicycle, the bowling pin smacking her on the head and her face going right into the avocado pie.
Russell climbed up onto the windowsill and handed Pepper a tissue. "You were right; he IS a tough nut to crack," Pepper said as she wiped herself down.
"Either that or he's just a plain old nut," Russell said.
"Quiet, you!" Pepper chattered. "He's a showbiz legend! If he says I need to mind my props, then maybe I do." She let out a sigh.
Who was she trying to fool, herself? Old Bananas didn't think she was funny, and the other pets barely laughed at her jokes and slapstick anymore. Maybe, like Blythe had told her once, she was starting to become stale and needed to find a new shtick, but the last time that happened, she nearly ruined her friendship with Penny Ling.
Pepper pushed those thoughts aside. She was going to make Old Bananas laugh before he left today, even if it was the last thing she did.
##############################
The outside windows of the pet shop needed some cleaning, so while Blythe was upstairs doing her homework, Anna decided to grab a bucket and a squeegee. She ran the wet cloth over the window, the rubber part on the other side wiping the soapy water away, leaving shining glass behind.
The door to the apartment complex next door opened, and Blythe stepped out.
"I just need to ask you one more thing, Mrs. Twombly."
"What's that?"
"How did you do it?"
"It was pretty easy," Anna answered. "I just sprayed that part of the window and then ran the squeegee over it."
"No, no, not that," Blythe said. "I mean, how did you come up with combining quilting with martial arts?"
Anna rolled her eyes; Blythe was still on that, wasn't she? Well, she thought, I suppose I'll have to talk about it. I really don't want to, but if it'll make her happy….
"Well," she started, "it all began due to a pretty bad stomachache. The doctor said to lay flat for two weeks. Turns out he was a complete hack, but I didn't know that at the time, so I followed his advice. But do you have any idea what it's like to lie in bed for two weeks straight, only getting up so you can go to the bathroom? It's BORING! I had to do something to keep busy." She pulled a spool of thread and a needle out of her pocket and threaded the needle; then she pulled a stack of colored cloths out of her cleaning bag. "So I decided to take up quilting." She tossed the colored cloths into the air. "But that wasn't enough either, not by itself anyway." Her arms moved, so fast Blythe could barely keep up with them, and when Anna stopped, she was holding a perfectly threaded line of square cloths, the start of a brand new quilt. "So while laid up, I started watching those Bruce Lee kung fu movies from over in China." She pulled more cloths out of the bag and started to stitch them together as she talked. "I loved the leg work, so as I was quilting, one day I got the urge to mix them together. I didn't think much about it at first." She opened up the cloths she had been stitching together, revealing a masterfully knitted quilt, which she held by one corner with her free hand, and the other corner with her toes. "I just did what came naturally to me. Here you go, Blythe – you can have this one." She handed the quilt over to Blythe, who was grinning like a kid at Christmas, watching Anna move and perform.
Anna pointed to a tiny green leaf stuck in one of the bricks near the top floor. "See that leaf all the way up there?"
Blythe squinted her eyes to get a better view. "Oh yeah. What about it?"
With a swift kick, Anna sent the squeegee flying up towards the leaf. The very tip of the squeegee touched the leaf; this was enough to dislodge it and send it gently floating to the ground below. Anna caught the squeegee as it fell, the leaf a few seconds later.
Blythe's innocent blue eyes were wide with surprise and awe.
"Well, I'd say you still got it, Mrs. Twombly," she complimented the older woman.
"Thank you for the kind words, dear, but what I can still do is nothing compared to my prime almost forty years ago," Anna said. "That was during the time of my Kung Fu Quilting mastery."
"I know; I read all about it on that site, . But that still doesn't answer one question: Why did you quit?"
"Well, things like that aren't always sunshine and peanut butter, Blythe," Anna answered. "Others started taking up the art, and soon, I had challengers to my title of Kung Fu Quilting Champion. There's something about a challenge that gets a person so excited and worked up. I thrived on it. But I didn't do it just for me; I turned each match into a benefit for a local charity. But then there was one more challenge, and even though I beat him, I ended up tearing my Achilles tendon."
"Ouch," Blythe winced.
"So I decided it was time to call it quits," Anna continued. "That was March 31, 1981."
"Wasn't that the day Ronald Reagan got shot?" Blythe asked.
"And you wouldn't believe how surprised I was to hear that my retirement announcement overshadowed that," Anna answered. "Normally people go ape when a President is almost killed. Who'd have thought that my retirement would have such an effect like that? But after that, no one ever wanted to hear about Kung Fu Quilting again."
"So that's why you didn't want to talk about it," Blythe guessed. "But how could you just walk away from all that?"
"Some things you just can't control," Anna said as she gathered up her cleaning supplies. "And like I said earlier, all that is in the past."
##############################
Old Bananas had joined the pets, at last, but while the other pets were smiling and showing their support for Pepper, O. B. looked bored out of his orangutan mind. The skunk poked her head out from behind her box of props, seeing Old Bananas scratching under his arm as the pets waited for her to begin her act, with Russell giving a drum roll on a little toy drum she'd found – his role was to provide the drum roll and the rimshots after every punchline.
Pepper counted down from five, then leaped out from behind the box.
"Welcome friends! And honored guest. Glad you could make it on such a gorgeous day. And look at this." Using her tail, she pulled out the umbrella she'd had hidden behind her back. "I've got just the thing for a hot day like this one." She held the umbrella over her head and opened it up, dousing herself with the water she'd filled it with earlier. "Instant shower!"
She was expecting the rimshot, but instead, all she got was Sunil coughing nervously. She glanced over to Russell. "That's your cue, drummer boy," she quietly said.
Russell did the rimshot, but because his timing was way off, the joke had been ruined. Didn't he know that timing was everything when it came to comedy? If a comedienne couldn't afford to be off by even a fraction of a second; that small amount of time could mean the difference between an audience bursting into laughter and applause or an audience that just stared at her like the five headed circus freak.
One joke down, ninety-six more to go, she silently told herself. She tossed the umbrella aside, hitting Russell on the head.
"Ow! Watch where you're throwing those things!" he cried.
Pepper didn't hear him; she was too busy setting up the next part of her act, which involved going bowling with a banana provided by Minka. The banana splattered against one of the pins despite still knocking it over. What was left of the banana landed between the two remaining pins.
"I call it a banana split!" she cheered.
There was still no reaction from Old Bananas or the other pets.
Pepper dug into the box, procuring one of her joke squirt flowers, which she pinned to the fur on her chest. She wasted no time in squeezing the control for the water, spraying Old Bananas in the face. He still just glared at her, looking bored and annoyed and now smelling like a wet ape.
Pepper was starting to get desperate. She tried riding her unicycle while honking a toy horn, but this just resulted in her falling flat on her face; even then, that was part of the act, and while it usually got the other pets to laugh, O. B. was too busy flipping through a book he'd borrowed from Russell earlier.
Her desperation was growing. She wanted – no, she needed – to get this ape to at least smile at her antics. The gag arrow wasn't cutting it; he just spent the entire time picking fleas out of Sunil's fur, with Minka giving him a grooming at the same time. The other pets were also looking very bored and annoyed. They knew Pepper was better than this.
Pepper knew that as well, but she had never felt such desperation before. She needed to get Old Bananas to laugh.
So she decided to try everything she could think of at once. Blowing a bagpipe while wearing the joke glasses; juggling her bouncy balls; pretending to use her wagon as a rowboat; throwing Zoe a bone that her owner had modeled after one of those vibrating Bumble Ball things.
She tried so many things, everything she could think of, but the only result – besides Old Bananas actually falling asleep – was her tiring herself out.
This was getting ridiculous! How was she supposed to prove to him that she was funny if he wasn't even paying attention to her? She knew that comedy was a subjective matter, meaning that different pets and people found different things funny, but Old Bananas' humor – which Pepper based her own jokes and antics on – was supposed to be universally adored, wasn't it? So why was he not even cracking a smile at his own jokes?
Sunil shook O. B.'s arm, waking him up. The old ape wasted no time in resting his head on his hand, looking incredibly bored and tired.
Pepper sighed; she was running out of ideas.
#################################
There was more to this than Mrs. Twombly was letting on, Blythe was sure of it. Sure, she had explained about her history with Kung Fu Quilting earlier, but when it came to why she quit….That explanation about a torn tendon couldn't have been the whole story.
"Mrs. Twombly, can you explain something to me?" she asked the older woman.
"Okay, how about Einstein's Theory of Relativity?" Mrs. Twombly suggested. "That's always fun."
"No, not how long it would take for a heavy object to reach deep space while moving at light speed," Blythe said. "I want to know how you could be on top of the world and then just give it all up?"
"Simple: Those Achilles tendon injuries hurt like nothing else."
"Yeah, but it healed, or you wouldn't be walking around today. What about after that? There was nothing stopping you from going back, was there?"
"Well, no denying I was good at Kung Fu Quilting."
"Good?" Blythe shouted. "You were better than good! You were the queen! The best! The sport's creator!"
"True, but the moment I opened Littlest Pet Shop, I knew that I had found my true calling. I might have been famous, sure, but fame doesn't equal happiness. I don't need to do Kung Fu Quilting anymore, because, well, I've already done it."
"Well, I'd like to learn it," Blythe said. "And I bet my friends would, too. I've already told Youngmee about it, and Sue's a big sport nut, so she'll probably enjoy it."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Oh, do you have the time?"
"Uh, 2:30?"
"Shoot, I'm running late." She hurried back to the Day Camp.
Blythe quietly opened the door – she didn't want to disturb Pepper – and made her way past the other pets to sit next to Penny Ling. "What'd I miss?" she asked the little panda cub.
"Pepper's gone through all her props," Penny Ling answered.
She's not kidding, Blythe silently observed; all of Pepper's comedy props – the air horns, the singing fish, the gag arrows, the bowling pins, the joke flowers, the electric hand buzzer, the rubber chicken, and the chattering teeth – were stacked as high as they could be in Pepper's little wagon.
"She hasn't had much success," Penny Ling continued. "Old Bananas hasn't even cracked a smile at her."
"He must be one tough nut to crack."
Pepper wiped some sweat from her forehead. She was exhausted, physically and mentally, having gone through all her props and jokes. At this rate, Old Bananas was never going to laugh at her.
But then she saw Blythe. If there was one creature in this world, be it pet or otherwise, who could help her get through this and finally make O. B. laugh, it was her best human friend. Blythe smiled sweetly and flashed Pepper a supportive thumbs-up.
Pepper took a deep breath, having caught her second wind.
It was time to end the comedy act, hopefully with a laugh from Old Bananas this time.
"Hey," she started. "Have you ever seen the way someone walks when they have an itch in a place where they can't reach it?" She saw Blythe and the other pets – minus O. B., of course – all grin and smile.
It's amazing how a subject just about everyone knows about can be the basis for a comedy act, Pepper thought. She started walking across the makeshift stage, but her walk was stilted and jittery, as she was trying to imitate someone with an itch in an unreachable place. She heard Blythe start to laugh, the other pets following her a second later.
She was glad to finally get some laughs, but she couldn't let that distract her. Continuing with the act, she used a cat's scratching post as a backscratcher, but this resulted in her being flung off the thing and slamming against the wall, resulting in more laughter from her audience.
She took a peek. Old Bananas still wasn't laughing – he wasn't even grinning – but at least he looked interested this time, even if he was chewing on one of Minka's bananas.
It's a start. She took Russell from his little drum set and used him as a backscratcher; of course, it was all still part of the act. And she was glad to hear Blythe and the other pets laughing harder than they'd ever laughed before; that was what a comedienne lived for.
Old Bananas popped the last of the banana into his mouth as Pepper dropped Russell and grabbed the wagon with her paw. "Thank you! Thank you!" She took a bow, then began walking across the windowsill-stage.
O. B. threw the banana peel in Pepper's path. This didn't go unnoticed.
"Oldest trick in the book," Pepper chuckled. She stepped over the banana peel –
But forgot about her wagon. The wheel slipped on the peel, and her props went flying out of the wagon, off the little makeshift stage –
And buried Old Bananas.
Old Bananas dug himself free; one of the gag arrows was placed on his head, he had the joke glasses attached to his face, and a set of chattering teeth was in his mouth, chattering away.
"In the words of Old Bananas himself, HA!" Pepper cheered. The other pets laughed and applauded.
Old Bananas spit the chattering teeth out of his mouth and removed the rest of the joke props. He stared at Pepper for what felt like an eternity, his old brown eyes seeming to bore their way into her soul.
And then it happened, the one thing Pepper was hoping for but started to think was an impossibility.
Old Bananas was laughing.
"Now THAT'S minding your props, Pee-Wee!" he laughed. "Take another bow. I'd say you've earned it."
The old orangutan had no idea how happy Pepper was to hear that. It had been her dream to perform for her comedy idol, and now here she was, getting the recognition she'd hoped she'd get from the ape himself. She bowed as the other pets laughed and applauded, closing her eyes so no one saw the tears of joy that were starting to form.
Old Bananas walked up to Pepper and put one of his massive hands around her. "Look at this. Pepe le Pew here thinks I taught her everything she knows. And now here she is, funnier than me."
"Wait, what?" Pepper asked, confused. "I thought you were disappointed in me. I couldn't get you to laugh for….How long have you been here now? I hate not being able to tell time sometimes."
Old Bananas gave her a gentle pat on her little skunk shoulders. "That was all an act, to prepare you for the rigors of show business. You'll get people who will laugh at every little thing you do, and you'll get people who are unpleasable no matter what. Remember, comedy is a subjective matter, probably the most subjective matter in the world. What could be funny for one person might be boring for the other. You need to get a read on your audience and adjust your act accordingly. It took you some time, but you managed to do it."
"Only because my friend Blythe was here," Pepper said. She waved a paw at Blythe, who waved back.
"And that gave you your second wind, didn't it? Don't feel bad; all comedians go through it. And that second wind was enough to bring the house down, so in my opinion, Pepper, you're ready for the big leagues."
Pepper gasped. "You know my name!"
"I knew it the moment I walked through the door," Old Bananas said. "And I've been laughing the entire time, but, well, you know."
"Yeah, it was all an act."
There was a knock on the window. A tall man in a khaki outfit was waving to Old Bananas. "That's my caretaker. Guess it's time to head off. But one last thing before I go, Pepper." He flashed her a giant smile and an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "Lotsa Luck!"
Pepper's jaw dropped as she watched Old Bananas leave the Day Camp. I have lived, she thought. I. Have. Lived.
"So," Russell said, bringing her back to reality. "How does it feel now that you've gotten O. B.'s official seal of approval?"
"It's a great feeling," Pepper answered. "But not as great as getting a laugh out of all of my friends."
###########################
Anna had dug out her old kung fu gi, plus four more for Blythe and her friends. It felt good to be wearing it after more than thirty years, and surprisingly, it still fit perfectly. And if she were being honest with herself, Blythe and her three friends looked good in their own gis.
"Here we go, kids."
Blythe, Sue, Jasper, and Youngmee each held an unfinished quilt in their hands. The four of them started threading the needle through the squares as Anna started the lesson.
"Kick and stitch," Anna said in a very rhythmic fashion. "Kick and stitch. Keep up that method. Jasper, try not to kick Sue now."
Blythe glanced over to the window of the Day Camp. The pets were watching them. Pepper flashed her her best thumbs-up – something that was hard for a skunk to do, considering that they lacked actual thumbs – and Blythe heard her say two words through the glass.
"Lotsa Luck!"