My Life as a Splatted Flat Quarterback Read online

  My Life As a

  Splatted-Flat Quarterback

  Tommy Nelson® Books by Bill Myers

  Series

  SECRET AGENT DINGLEDORF

  . . . and his trusty dog, SPLAT

  The Case of the . . .

  Giggling Geeks • Chewable Worms

  • Flying Toenails • Drooling Dinosaurs •

  Hiccupping Ears • Yodeling Turtles

  The Incredible Worlds of Wally McDoogle

  My Life As . . .

  a Smashed Burrito with Extra Hot Sauce • Alien Monster Bait

  • a Broken Bungee Cord • Crocodile Junk Food •

  Dinosaur Dental Floss • a Torpedo Test Target

  • a Human Hockey Puck • an Afterthought Astronaut •

  Reindeer Road Kill • a Toasted Time Traveler

  • Polluted Pond Scum • a Bigfoot Breath Mint •

  a Blundering Ballerina • a Screaming Skydiver

  • a Human Hairball • a Walrus Whoopee Cushion •

  a Computer Cockroach (Mixed-Up Millennium Bug)

  • a Beat-Up Basketball Backboard • a Cowboy Cowpie •

  Invisible Intestines with Intense Indigestion

  • a Skysurfing Skateboarder • a Tarantula Toe Tickler •

  a Prickly Porcupine from Pluto • a Splatted-Flat Quarterback

  • a Belching Baboon • a Stupendously Stomped Soccer Star •

  The Portal • The Experiment • The Whirlwind • The Tablet

  Picture Book

  Baseball for Breakfast

  www.Billmyers.com

  the incredible worlds of

  WallyMcDoogle

  BILL MYERS

  MY LIFE AS A SPLATTED-FLAT QUARTERBACK

  Copyright © 2005 Bill Myers.

  Cover illustrations by Jeff Mangiat.

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts in reviews.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Tommy Nelson®, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. Visit us on the Web at www.tommynelson.com.

  Tommy Nelson® books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected].

  Scripture quotations in this book are from the International Children’s Bible®, New Century Version®, © 1986, 1988, 1999 by Tommy Nelson®, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Myers, Bill, 1953–

  My life as a splatted-flat quarterback / Bill Myers.

  p. cm.— (The incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; 24)

  Summary: When Wally teases or judges someone unfairly, from his school's janitor to a quarterback playing in the Super Bowl, he suddenly becomes that person, and soon realizes the importance of trying to see others through the eyes of God.

  ISBN-10: 0-8499-5995-0 (HC)

  ISBN-10: 1-4003-0906-9 (TP)

  [1. Empathy—Fiction. 2. Teasing—Fiction. 3. Christian life—Fiction. 4. Humorous stories.] I. Mangiat, Jeff, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.M98234Myld 2005

  [Fic]—dc22

  2005003500

  Printed in the United States of America

  06 07 08 09 10 RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Peggy Patrick Medberry:

  One of God’s great masterpieces.

  “Don’t judge other people,

  and you will not be judged.”

  —Matthew 7:1

  Contents

  1. Just for Starters

  2. Trading Faces

  . . . and other body parts

  3. Stinking Rich

  4. Grand Ol’ Operaland

  5. Wally McDoogle, Please Meet . . .

  er, uh . . . Wally McDoogle.

  6. Wally McDoogle:

  Super Jock? Super Not!

  7. A Taste of SuperstarDUMB

  8. No Pain, No Game

  9. My Big Break!

  . . . actually, several of them

  10. Wrapping Up

  Chapter 1

  Just For Starters

  The next time I start making fun of someone, do me a favor . . .

  —throw me out of a 747 without a parachute.

  —strap antlers to my head and put me in the forest on the first day of deer hunting season.

  —make me eat my little sister’s cooking (without the dog under the table to slip it to).

  Because anything would be better (and less hazardous to my health) than judging some other guy (or guyette).

  It all started when Opera, the human eating machine, and I left the toxic waste site (more commonly referred to as our school cafeteria). We’d just climbed the stairs to the third floor and headed down the hall to Mr. Finglesnorker’s class.

  That’s when I spotted the most clueless person on the face of the earth . . . Megan Melkner.

  Megan was clueless for one reason and one reason only: She thought I was cute. (I know, go figure.) Of course, I tried to help her out by suggesting that she see an eye doctor. (And when that didn’t work, I suggested a brain doctor.) But the poor thing wouldn’t listen to reason.

  Anyway, Megan just got some new braces— complete with all that neck and head gear. So, of course being me, I did the real mature thing by sneaking up behind her and walking like Frankenstein’s monster.

  “Grrrr . . . Arrrr . . . Roarrr . . .”

  Yes sir, a real crowd pleaser (especially for kindergartners).

  Opera sadly shook his head. “That’s nothing,” he burped. Opera always burps after eating, which means he burps all the time. “Check this out.”

  He snuck up behind another kid, Herman Hackalung. Ol’ Hermie holds the record for having the most allergies of any one human being. You name it, he’s allergic to it. And not just normal kid allergies like schoolwork or cleaning your room. No sir, Herman Hackalung is allergic to everything—which explains his constant sniffling, sneezing, and, you guessed it, . . . hacking.

  So Opera started walking behind him sniffling, pretending to wipe his nose, and gasping for breath. (By the looks of things, Opera had just raised the humor level to about first grade.)

  I knew I could top that. No sweat. But where? How? Who would be my next victim?

  I scanned the hallway. Everybody around us was normal. Well, as normal as middle-schoolers can be. Everyone except our all-school bully . . . Gary the Gorilla. I don’t want to say Gary’s brain voltage is low, but the guy has flunked so many times that he’s the only seventh grader I know of who is old enough to have his driver’s license . . . and will soon be eligible for Medicare.

  Gary was one guy you didn’t want to mess with. ’Cause if he messed with you back, you could really get messed up . . . in a broken-body-parts-scattered-throughout-the-school kinda way.

  But time was running out. Mr. Finglesnorker’s class was just ahead. Who else could I make fun of before I get there?

  And then I saw him . . . Old Man Clyde the janitor. He was cleaning up something on the floor with a mop and bucket on rollers. Something that looked an awful lot like what we’d just eaten down at the toxic waste site. (I guess some people’s stomachs aren’t so strong.)

  Nobody knows how old Mr. Clyde is, but rumor has it that he still has his first car, a dinosaur, in his garage. (Don’t laugh, rumor also has it that T. rexes get great gas mileage.)

  Anyway, the old guy was stooped over the floor, mopping away like there was no tomorrow.

  I know it was mean, but I ran up behind him, stooped over, and started imitating him.

  At least that’s what
I wanted to do. But, as you may have noticed, my life doesn’t always go exactly as planned. Especially when God’s in one of His “Let’s-teach-Wally-a-lesson” modes. Which explains my sudden

  Slip . . . Slip . . . Slipping

  across the wet floor.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have time for a lot of slipping since the lockers were nearby. Particularly one locker that just happened to belong to Wall Street (my other best friend, even if she is a girl).

  One locker whose door she just happened to open right into my . . .

  K-Slam!

  face.

  “Oh, sorry, Wally. You all right?”

  I would have answered, but it’s difficult to talk when you’re knocked unconscious.

  But at least I wasn’t slipping. Now, I was just sort of

  Stagger-Stagger-Staggering . . .

  right past Megan.

  “Hi, Wally.” She grinned at me in all her blinding, metal-mouth glory.

  The good news was, I’d regained enough consciousness to answer. The bad news was, I hadn’t regained enough to answer intelligently. So I smiled back and muttered something majorly stupid like:

  “Hi.”

  Which made Megan light up like a 110-volt Christmas tree plugged into a 220 outlet . . . (either that or a nuclear reactor).

  “Oh, Wally!” she cried. “You like me! You like me! You really DO like me!”

  I wanted to stick around and straighten things out, but I was still in the middle of my little . . .

  Stagger-Stagger-Staggering

  routine. Actually, I was getting pretty good at it, until I staggered in front of Gary the Gorilla. Good ol’ Gary. We go way back. All the way to Camp Wahkah Wahkah. Which explains why he looked at me with those warm, gentle eyes and snarled:

  “Get out of my way, jerkface!”

  (You should hear what he calls people he doesn’t like.)

  And what greeting from Gorilla Man would be complete without his stretching both arms out to me, and in a most sincere gesture of friendship, shoving me out of his way?

  “Oaff!” I oaffed, while proceeding to

  Stagger-Stagger-Stagger

  toward Opera.

  “Now that’s funny!” He burped. “I bet even the eighth graders will laugh at that.”

  I managed to give him a thumbs-up as I staggered past and toward my buddy, the janitor. Yes sir, we were about to have a major face-to-face (as in my face planted in his), until I accidentally stepped into his roller bucket.

  Suddenly, I traded in my stagger-stagger- staggering for a new means of transportation (and screaming):

  “Whooa! Wheeeee! Waaaaa!”

  That’s right, I was now

  Roll . . . Roll . . . Rolling

  down the hall!

  “HEY, KID!” Mr. Clyde shouted in his craggy voice. “COME BACK HERE WITH MY BUCKET!”

  I would have loved to obey, but I was too busy with my

  “Whoa!”ing “Wheeeee!”ing “Waaaaa!”ing

  And, of course, performing my world-famous . . .

  “AUGH!”ing.

  The reason was simple. Just ahead was the stairway that led back down all three floors.

  Luckily, there were tons of kids in the hallway to stop me.

  Unluckily, they knew it was the beginning of another “My Life As . . .” book, and they sure didn’t want to ruin a great read for you.

  Lucky for you.

  Not so lucky for me.

  So there I was, shooting down the hallway, with everyone clapping and parting like the Red Sea so I could pass.

  Everyone but Mr. Finglesnorker, who just happened to step out of his classroom.

  “McDoogle, what are you doing?”

  “AUGH!”

  “No shouting in the hallway! You know the rules!”

  “AUGH! AUGH!”

  “I’m warning you, mister, one more scream and you’re getting detention!”

  The good news was, I didn’t scream anymore. I’d hate getting detention (especially if it meant missing my own funeral).

  The bad news was, I didn’t scream because I’d just run out of floor and started

  b-b-b-bouncing

  d-d-d-d-down

  e-e-e-e-each

  s-s-s-s-s-t-t-t-t-t-t-e-e-e-e-e-p-p-p-p-p-p-p.

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to go down all three flights.

  That was the good news. But, as always, there was some bad news. I didn’t have to go down all three flights because the top flight ended in front of a giant window.

  A giant window that I had no choice but to

  K-RASH!

  through, while once again shouting,

  “AUUUGHHH!”

  By now I could hear everyone laughing. Even the eighth graders. (Try and top that, Opera!)

  Of course, that meant I could also hear Mr. Finglesnorker: “All right, McDoogle! After school, one hour, my room!”

  And last, there was the ol’ familiar . . .

  K-SLAM!

  which, as anyone who has ever read one of these stories knows . . . is the sound of one very soft Wally McDoogle slamming into some very hard ground.

  But the hard ground was nothing compared to the hard truth I was about to learn.

  Chapter 2

  Trading Faces

  . . . and body parts

  I don’t know how long I lay unconscious on the ground. I only know it wasn’t quite long enough.

  Because the next thing I knew, I was standing above myself, looking down at myself. I’m not talking about looking into a mirror or anything as normal as that. I’M TALKING ABOUT SEEING MY ACTUAL BODY!

  (Sorry, didn’t mean to shout. That’ll come a few paragraphs later.)

  At first, I thought I might be dead and my soul was about to go to heaven.

  Unfortunately, that would have been the easy way.

  Instead, it was like I was somebody else looking down at me. Somebody else in an old uniform, who was all stooped over and who had more pain in his bones than I get from a dozen of my daily catastrophes.

  Talk about weird. But hang on, the weirdness gets weirder in a weirder-er sort of way.

  I was standing with all the other kids from the school. We’d gathered around the body that looked just like me and watched as it blinked its Wally eyes, shook its Wally head, and tried to regain its Wally consciousness.

  “Hey, Wally?” Opera asked, so faintly I could barely hear. “Are you, burp, okay?”

  “NOT REALLY,” I shouted in a craggy voice about a hundred years older than mine. “I’VE GOT THIS PAIN IN MY BACK, AND EVERY BONE IN MY BODY IS KILLING—”

  Opera turned to me with a frown and interrupted. “Not you, Mr. Clyde. I was talking to Wally.”

  At least, that’s what I thought he said. It was kinda hard to understand anything with how quietly he talked.

  I’d have thought it was a dream or something— especially when Wall Street pushed her way through the crowd and started helping the other Wally out of the three-foot-deep crater he’d made.

  “Here, Wally,” she said, “take my hand. Are you okay? Can you get up? Can you stand?”

  Of course, it had to be a dream. Wall Street would never be nice to me like that . . . unless there was a way to make money out of it. (Wall Street wants to make her first million by the time she’s fifteen—most of it off me.)

  “Let’s hurry and get you back upstairs,” she said.

  “Why?” the other Wally asked.

  “I just called America’s Stupidest Home Videos. They said we could maybe win ten thousand dollars if we got what you just did on video.”

  Maybe it wasn’t a dream.

  “Really,” the other Wally said. “What’s my split?”

  “The usual 50/50: five thousand dollars for me and five thousand dollars for you—minus my four-thousand-dollar fee as your agent and nine hundred ninety-nine dollars for the digital camera.”

  “But . . . that only leaves me with a dollar.”

  “Yeah,” she said, g
rinning. “Pretty good wages for nearly dying, isn’t it?!”

  The other Wally nodded, and I knew for sure it wasn’t a dream. It was just too real.

  Meanwhile, everyone was turning and heading back toward the school.

  “WAIT A MINUTE!” I shouted.

  But nobody paid any attention.

  I started after them, but my legs hurt too much to run. Instead, I had to limp and hobble. “GUYS . . . HEY, GUYS . . .”

  At last, the other Wally turned to me. “What’s up, Mr. Clyde?”

  “MR. CLYDE?” I shouted. “I’M NOT MR.

  CLYDE, I’M WALLY . . . WALLY MCDOOGLE!”

  Everyone laughed.

  “You’re who?” the other Wally asked.

  “I’M YOU.”

  “You’re me?”

  I nodded.

  “If you’re me, then who am I?”

  “I . . . I DON’T KNOW,” I stuttered. “THIS IS CRAZY!”

  “Well, one of you is crazy,” someone shouted, and everybody laughed again.

  “Hold it,” Opera said with a glint in his eye. It was obvious he was going for another laugh. “If Mr. Clyde is you,” he said, pointing at Wally, “then maybe you’re, burp, Mr. Clyde!”

  The other Wally grinned back. “Right . . .” Suddenly, he stooped over and started limping around, shouting like an old man. “YES, YES, YES, IT’S TRUE! I AM MR. CLYDE THE JANITOR!”

  The group laughed some more.

  “No, Wally!” someone shouted. “We’re all Mr. Clyde.”

  “Yeah,” another yelled. “We’re all Mr. Clyde! We’re all Mr. Clyde the janitor!”

  Now everybody stooped over and pretended to hobble as they headed toward the building, shouting, “WHAT? WHAT’D YOU SAY? YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP, ’CAUSE I’M DEEEF!”

  “WAIT A MINUTE!” I yelled. “WAIT A MINUTE!!”

  But, of course, nobody paid attention. They were all too busy making fun of me, or Mr. Clyde, or whoever I was.

  I tried following, but my new old body just couldn’t keep up.

  Yes sir, we’d definitely taken a wrong turn into Weirdville. And between my bad hearing, stooped back, and aching bones, things couldn’t have been much more painful. Well, actually, they could. Because as I watched the other Wally and kids head back into the building, laughing and making fun of me, I felt another type of pain . . . one that had nothing to do with a person’s body, but one that hurt even worse.