Timmy Failure It’s the End When I Say It’s the End Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,

  and incidents are either products of the author’s

  imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2018 by Stephan Pastis

  Timmy Failure font copyright © 2012 by Stephan Pastis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted,

  or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means,

  graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and

  recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition 2018

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending

  This book was typeset in Nimrod.

  The illustrations were done in pen and ink.

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  visit us at www.candlewick.com

  Visit www.timmyfailure.com

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  a blog, and more!

  To my cousin Nick Tripodes, who never

  could have guessed when he drew this

  odd Santa in a Christmas card that I

  would steal it and use it in a book.

  Some kids start their day eating a complete,

  balanced breakfast.

  I start mine trying to throw a principal

  out a window.

  A window that is ten stories high.

  I should have known it would end up like

  this when they wouldn’t let me into the bar.

  Even after showing my ID.

  So I subdue the bouncer with a mix of

  charm and martial arts and kick open the

  double doors of the bar.

  Where I am accosted by two thugs I

  recognize: Rick “Drill-A-Kid” Drillashick and

  Crispin “Bowling Turkey” Flavius.

  “Listen, boys,” I tell them. “It doesn’t

  have to go down this way. I’m just here for a

  drink.”

  But they refuse to listen.

  So I hurl them down the surface of the

  bar like they are human bowling balls.

  And take my seat at the now-empty bar.

  Cool as the unopened beer bottle poised

  menacingly above my head.

  “Dr. Alfredo Goni,” I mutter, tapping my

  fingers on the shiny bar. “I should have

  known they’d throw an orthodontist at me.”

  “Right-o,” he answers menacingly. “And

  I brought backup.”

  I whip around and see his accomplice.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” I tell Mickey

  Molar.

  It is a tense moment. And nobody moves.

  Except the grizzled bartender, who

  waddles toward me from behind the bar.

  “Whaddya want?” she asks.

  “Whiskey, neat,” I tell her. “And don’t

  try anything funny, Toots.”

  But she ducks. And my eye catches the

  quick flash of a beak in the mirror. And I spin

  around.

  “Edward Higglebottom the Third!” I cry,

  hopping off my barstool. “I must say, I wasn’t

  expecting a giant chicken.”

  And in a flash, the bar explodes in a frenzy

  of violence.

  Punches. Kicks. Chicken feathers.

  And one by one, I hurl a series of would-be

  assassins from the high window.

  Ron “Speedo Steve.”

  “Minnie the Magnificent” Benedici.

  Donny “Dangermouse” Dobbs.

  And I make a run for the billiards room,

  crashing through the makeshift barricade.

  And I enter the dark, dingy room.

  Where, brandishing a cue stick, is my

  school principal, Alexander Scrimshaw.

  “We meet again,” I tell him.

  “Now look what you’ve done,” he answers,

  surveying the damage to the bar.

  “Mistakes were made,” I tell him. “But

  none of them mine.”

  “Yeah, well, to get to me, you’re gonna

  have to go through the Scrum Bolo

  Chihuahua,” he says, pointing to a giant

  Chihuahua perched atop the barroom light.

  So I offer the Chihuahua a doggy treat.

  And he licks my hand and runs off.

  “I expected more,” says Scrimshaw.

  I watch as Scrimshaw backs farther

  away, waving the pool cue like a club.

  “All we wanted was world domination,” he

  says, “but you stood in the way. You, Timmy

  Failure. So I had to crush you. With algebra

  you’ll never use. Pop quizzes you didn’t

  expect. Boring novels you couldn’t endure.”

  “I know,” I answer. “And all under the

  guise of being a school principal.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what were you, really?” I ask.

  “A secret agent for a vast criminal

  organization. All school principals are.”

  “Of course.”

  “So do what you will,” he says. “But you

  won’t take me alive.”

  “This could get ugly,” I tell him.

  “Principals like ugly,” he answers.

  And when I turn briefly to check for

  more of his goons, he kicks me behind the

  knees, sending me reeling.

  As I struggle back onto my feet, he runs

  for the double doors. I spring like a cougar

  onto his back.

  And from high atop his shoulders, I grab

  him by both ears, steering him into the bar,

  the tables, the walls.

  Dazed from the impact, he falls to the

  ground.

  And I drag him to the broken window and

  lift him high overhead.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” he says, gasping for

  breath. “I will make you a deal.”

  “I am about to vanquish my enemy

  forever. There is nothing more I could

  want.”

  “But there is.”

  “Then talk fast,” I tell him. “Because

  you’re very heavy. Portly, even.”

  “Next Tuesday,” he says, “there will be

  a pop quiz in geography. Spare my life and

  you don’t have to take it.”

  “Will I still get a good grade?”

  “B,” he answers.

  “A minus,” I say.

  “B plus,” he counters.

  “Deal,” I say, putting him down.

  And when I do, he shoves me with both

  hands.

  And I fall through the window.

  Where my shoelace snags on the window

  frame.

  And my life hangs by a thread.

  “You fiend,” I utter as I dangle like the

  pendulum of a clock.

  “It’s the end of Timmy Failure,” he says,

  bending down to cut the shoelace with a

  piece of broken glass.

  “It’s the end when I say it’s the end,” I

  tell him.

  And he cuts the shoelace.

  “Okay, now it’s the end,” I say.

  And I fall.

  But not before leaving him with some<
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  final words of wisdom:

  “Did he look like this?” I ask my polar bear,

  Total, as I show him the sketch I’ve drawn.

  “Sorry about the paper,” I add. “It was

  the only thing I could find in the house.”

  Total stares at the drawing.

  “But does it look like him?” I ask.

  He shakes his head.

  Smaller, he indicates with his paws.

  As a detective trained in forensic

  drawing, I have had to sketch my fair share

  of individuals. But rarely have I had a client

  this fussy.

  “Like this?” I ask, showing him another

  drawing.

  Rounder, he indicates with his paws.

  “Like this?” I ask again. “Is this what your

  big brother looked like?”

  And suddenly, my polar bear is quiet.

  He pulls the drawing out of my hands

  and carries it a few yards away.

  Where he sits on the grass and stares at

  it. Like it is his actual brother in his hands.

  I have known for years that my polar

  bear grew up without a mother somewhere

  in the Arctic.

  But it was not until the two of us

  watched a nature documentary about two

  polar bear cubs that something in his furry

  brain was jarred loose.

  A memory.

  One that was buried deep under an

  unusually large Arctic snowdrift that

  separated him from his brother.

  Forcing my polar bear to go it alone.

  As he’s remained to this day.

  “If you want me to help you reach him,

  I will,” I tell him. “But first we have to find

  him.”

  Total continues staring at the sketch.

  “It would be a substantial disruption of

  my normal detective business,” I explain.

  “But I feel obligated.”

  But he remains silent. For he is a

  bear. And bears are not good at expressing

  emotion.

  So I sit down on the grass beside him

  and wait.

  Hoping for a sign on this bright,

  cloudless morning.

  And then the sun disappears.

  “Timmy, it was a solar eclipse,” says my

  best friend, Rollo Tookus.

  “Wrong, Rollo Tookus,” I answer. “It was

  much more than that.”

  “Class,” announces our teacher, Mr.

  Jenkins, “before we get started, I’d like a

  show of hands. How many of you were able

  to see the eclipse this morning?”

  My classmates raise their hands.

  “And did you all use the special dark

  glasses?” asks Mr. Jenkins.

  “I used them,” answers Molly Moskins,

  still wearing the glasses.

  “You can probably take the glasses off

  now, Molly. You’re indoors.”

  “Is that where I am?” she replies. “I can’t

  see a thing.”

  “All right,” continues Mr. Jenkins, “which

  of you would like to come up and briefly

  explain to the class what a solar eclipse is?”

  “I will,” volunteers Corrina Corrina, a

  former detective and current has-been who

  there is absolutely no reason to talk about.

  “Great,” says Mr. Jenkins. “Go for it.”

  She walks to the front of the class.

  “A solar eclipse is when the moon passes

  in front of the sun,” she says.

  “Very good,” comments Mr. Jenkins.

  Rollo raises his hand.

  “Yes, Rollo?”

  “I knew all of that,” he volunteers.

  “I bet you did,” answers Mr. Jenkins.

  “Will it be on the final?” asks Rollo.

  “Rollo, relax,” says Mr. Jenkins.

  “Because I didn’t take any notes,” adds

  Rollo.

  “Okay,” says Mr. Jenkins, “let’s all—”

  “Mr. Jenkins,” I say, raising my hand,

  something I have done only four times this

  semester, three of which were to ask:

  “Yes, Timmy,” says Mr. Jenkins. “What

  do you want?”

  “I’d like to say more about the solar

  eclipse we saw this morning.”

  As I have never volunteered for one

  academic exercise in the history of my

  education, my teacher is momentarily

  stunned.

  “Okay, Timmy. Sure. But make it brief.”

  I walk to the front of the class and climb

  atop Mr. Jenkins’s chair.

  “What you saw this morning was a sign

  from the gods,” I announce.

  No one speaks.

  “And, thus, I hereby retire from the

  detective business.”

  The news of my retirement stuns my

  classmates, sending them into a dazed

  stupor that is visible at recess.

  But there is nothing I can do to help them.

  For my decision is final.

  “Want to play kickball with the rest of

  us?” Rollo asks me.

  “It’ll be okay, Rollo,” I remind him.

  “We’ll still be friends and I shall still be

  attending school.”

  “What are you talking about?” he asks as

  a stray kickball rolls past us.

  “My retirement,” I remind him.

  Max Hodges runs past us to chase the

  ball.

  “You will all be okay,” I tell Rollo. “For

  my spirit shall be with ye unto the end of

  time.”

  Max overhears us.

  “You really are a weirdo,” he says.

  I wait until he is gone. “Keep your voice

  down, Rollo. Spies abound.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t really get the whole

  retirement thing,” Rollo says. “I mean, what

  does an eclipse have to do with your quitting

  the detective business?”

  It’s moments like this when I realize

  that a 4.6 grade point average is really quite

  meaningless.

  “Okay, Rollo, if I have to lay it out, I

  will,” I say, sighing.

  “Okay, but hurry up. I want to go play.”

  “Don’t rush me, Rollo,” I reply, pointing

  toward my bear behind the fence. “Because

  this is about the big guy.”

  “God?”

  “Total,” I answer. “But, yes, the gods

  also.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  So I try again.

  “Rollo, my polar bear informed me that

  he needed my help. But I hesitated, because

  I knew the strains it would put on my

  detective business, both in terms of time and

  money. And caught in this moral quandary, I

  looked to the heavens.”

  “And?”

  “And the sun disappeared from the sky.”

  “Yeah. The moon covered it.”

  “No,” I answer. “I think it exploded.”

  “Timmy, if the sun exploded, why is it

  back in the sky now?”

  “Well, I’m not a physicist,” I explain, “but

  it must have un-exploded.”

  Rollo just stares.

  “The point is that the heavens spoke to

  me, Rollo. And they said, ‘Timmy, ye must

  retire.’”

  “Okay,” says Rollo. “I’m gonna go play

  now.”
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  So off he runs.

  And I use the rest of recess to write my

  memoirs.

  “You interrupted me in the middle of my

  writing,” I inform my teacher, Mr. Jenkins.

  “And you seized that without a warrant.”

  “Timmy, you got back from recess a half

  hour ago and you haven’t looked up from

  your desk once,” he says, glancing at the

  documents he has grabbed. “And what is

  this you’re writing, anyway?”

  “Please do not look at that. It’s highly

  confidential.”

  “Fine,” he says, handing the pages back

  to me. “But, Timmy, you need to pay

  attention and not be working on your own

  stuff.”

  “I can do both.”

  “Okay,” says Mr. Jenkins. “What have

  we been talking about for the last thirty

  minutes?”

  “The solar eclipse,” I answer.

  “That was before recess.”

  “Well, then I have no idea. Perhaps

  you’re jumping from topic to topic too

  rapidly.”

  “I can help him,” interrupts Rollo,

  handing me a document.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “What he’s been talking about,” says

  Rollo. “The big project for the semester.”

  So I peruse the document.

  “WHAT?” I cry. “I have no time for a

  stupid film.”

  “You said you’re retired now,” answers

  Mr. Jenkins. “So you have plenty of time.”

  “I’m retired to do other things,” I tell

  him. “Like help my polar bear. And write my

  memoirs.”

  “And work on a film,” replies Mr.

  Jenkins, pointing to his desk. “Now, go pick

  a job out of the hat like Nunzio and everyone