My Life as a Screaming Skydiver Read online

  Wait a minute! That was it! Of course, I knew it would be risky and more than a little dangerous. But what other choice did I have? More importantly, what other chance did Mr. Blond have?

  I strapped my shaving kit to my waist and slung the spare parachute over a shoulder. Even with the wind roaring in my ears, I could hear my heart pounding. Let’s face it, it’s not every day you leap out of a jet fighter to save somebody’s life (while hopefully not losing your own).

  I reached down to the eject lever beside my own seat, said one final prayer (no deals this time, just the standard: “PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, HELP ME! HELP ME! HELP ME!”), and pulled.

  WOOSHhhh . . .

  I flew out of that cockpit faster than a junk food addict out of a health food store.

  Even though I had two parachutes, falling toward earth was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. Actually the second to the last thing. The last thing was to do what Mr. Blond was doing—falling toward earth with no parachute.

  I began searching the sky, looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Even though he’d only left the cockpit a few seconds earlier, there was nothing but sun and clouds and . . . wait a minute, what was that little speck way down there? That little speck that seemed to have two arms, two legs, and a head tilted back as if it were laughing hysterically?

  Of course, it was Mr. Blond. He was pretty far away, but I wasn’t worried. After all, we were miles and miles up in the air—and I had a plan. All I had to do was strap the rocket-powered toilet paper to my body, light it up, and zip down to him. Then I’d offer him the parachute and save the day. No sweat.

  Except I had nothing to tie the rocket onto me with!

  Then I remembered the toothpaste tube. Of course, why didn’t I think of it! (Actually, I guess I did.) Somehow I managed to pull the tube from my shaving kit and give it a good squeeze. There wasn’t much rope left, just enough to wrap it once around my body and tie the toilet paper to my back, which I did.

  So far so good.

  Now all I had to do was light the end of the roll and . . .

  Wait a minute—I had nothing to light it with!

  Wait another minute! (Good thing we had a couple of minutes to spare.) I suddenly remembered the dental floss. If I could snap just enough floss behind me to make a spark . . .

  I dug into the kit, found the floss, and pulled off a few inches. Now all I had to do was reach around, snap the dental floss against the roll on my back, and fire up the rocket. A simple task for someone with incredible agility and strength. An impossibility for someone like me.

  Still, I had no other choice.

  I tried once and failed. I tried again with the same results. Part of me wanted to give up. But the other part, the responsible part, knew I had to keep trying.

  And so I did. Again and again. And when I got tired of that, again some more, until finally

  K-SNAP!

  K-SPARK!

  VA-ROOOOM!

  The K-SNAP! was the floss finally snapping, the K-SPARK! was the floss finally sparking, and the VA-ROOOOM! was me finally, well, you get the picture.

  I took off like . . . like someone with rocketpowered toilet paper strapped to his back. I tell you, it was pretty exciting to see a plan of mine actually work, like watching history in the making.

  Mr. Blond, on the other hand, looked anything but excited. As I raced toward him, I could see he was still laughing, but his eyes were also growing wild with fear. I couldn’t imagine why. Didn’t he know I was coming to save the day? Didn’t he see me rushing toward him at a gazillion miles an hour with no way to stop? With no way to stop?

  (Now I got it.)

  “Wally he-he-he! You’re coming in way too harhar-har. We’re going to—”

  K-BAMB!

  I smashed into him like a runaway freight train. In fact, we hit so hard that my toothpaste rope broke and the toilet paper shot up and away. Now it was just Mr. Blond and me . . . which was okay, except for the part where he was clinging to me like masking tape, covered in chewing gum, and topped off with Super Glue.

  “Mr. Blond!” I cried. “Move your arm. I can’t see where we’re going!”

  “Don’t worry,” he giggled. “I can see perfectly.”

  “Where are we headed?” I cried.

  “Down.” He broke into another fit of laughter.

  “I have an extra parachute!” I shouted. “Can you slip it on?”

  “This is no time for jokes,” he laughed.

  “No, I’m serious. Take a look.” I motioned to the spare chute under my arm. “If you can take it and slip it on, you’ll be okay.”

  He glanced down to my arm, then giggled. “No way would you do that for me.”

  “Of course I would.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was responsible for your pulling the eject lever.”

  “But . . . I’m your enemy.” His laughter was starting to fade. “You should want me dead.”

  I shook my head. “I’m also supposed to obey God.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’m also responsible for loving my enemies.”

  Thinking I was making a joke, he broke into another burst of laughter. But when he saw the look on my face, he slowly came to a stop. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  He looked down at the parachute one last time and then back up to me.

  I motioned for him to take it.

  He hesitated and then reached out to grab it . . . which was a pretty good idea, considering that the ground was a lot closer than it had been—and getting closer by the second!

  He quickly strapped himself into the chute and then looked back to me. The effects of the Giggle Gun had nearly worn off. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was really moved by what I’d done. He wanted to say something, but it was obvious he couldn’t find the words.

  I nodded to him, making it clear that I understood. He nodded back. And then, without a word, he let go of me and pushed off.

  I watched as he sailed away. After he was fifty or sixty feet from me, he pulled his rip cord, and

  K-WOSH!

  his chute shot out and opened, while I zipped past him like a sack of potatoes (or at least a sack of Wallys).

  I decided to follow his example. I fumbled for my own rip cord, gave it a tug, and

  K-WOSH!

  “OAFF!”

  my chute opened and tugged so hard that I thought the straps were going to rip off my arms. And then, suddenly, I was floating. No screaming wind in my ears, no falling toward the ground at a bazillion miles an hour. Nothing but blue sky and a gentle breeze. Talk about peaceful. And what a view. It was incredible. There was nothing between me and the earth except—

  Nothing!

  I glanced over to Mr. Blond who was steering away from me as fast as he could. And for good reason. When I looked back down, I spotted Tall Guy and Short Stuff directly below me. With all of our aerobatics it looked like we’d managed to dive and circle all the way back around to where we had started.

  I could tell by their actions that they were also recovering from their giggle attack. I knew that they’d be hoping I’d have the Giggle Gun and that they’d be upset when they found out I didn’t. But the last I saw of it, it was going down in flames with the plane, which was kinda unfortunate. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was for the best. After all, if something caused this much trouble, maybe it was better that nobody had it.

  I also knew Tall Guy and Short Stuff would be anything but thrilled about Mr. Blond getting away. In fact, they probably looked at the whole operation as being one, gigantic failure. Maybe they were right.

  Then again, maybe they weren’t. After all, I did come back with one thing. I finally understand the importance of responsibility. Granted, maybe it wasn’t some fancy, secret weapon to save the world—then again, maybe it was. Because if everybody practiced it, if everybody took responsibility for what they did a
nd for helping one another, the world would be a lot better off.

  I glanced back to the ground. It looked like Tall Guy was on a cell phone. I hoped he was calling Dad and Opera and Wall Street to let them know I was okay. Maybe he was even making arrangements to get us all back together again. By the look of things, I had a few more minutes before I landed. And since there was nothing else to do (except worry about how many sprained legs I’d be collecting in that landing), I thought I’d try and finish my Gigabyte Guy story. I didn’t have Ol’ Betsy I, II, III, or IV, but I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to think up an ending in my head.

  So I gave it a shot . . .

  When we last left our story, the extreme and excessively icky Excuso Man had just slipped on his virtual reality gear and was about to duke it out with our hero. The baddest of bad boys reaches for the ENTER key, hits it, and suddenly appears on the computer screen directly behind Gigabyte Guy.

  “All right, Giga Geek!” he cries. “Prepare to meet your match!”

  Our hero spins around just in time to see Excuso Man press his Laser Blaster Wristband (sold in leading toy stores everywhere) and

  Zip Zip Zip

  Gigabyte leaps out of the way just as

  K-BLAM! K-BLAM! K-BLAM!

  the beam hits the desktop publishing program directly behind him.

  Our hero staggers back to his feet, but he barely has time to reboot before Excuso Man leans back and hurls his Turbocharged Electrolights (sold in those same toy stores) at him.

  Zap Zap Zap

  K-CRACKLE! K-CRACKLE! K-CRACKLE!

  Again, Gigabyte Guy leaps out of the way, as an old solitaire program bites the dust.

  But Excuso Man isn’t finished yet. Next, the crummy cyber creep pulls out his Electrocharged Light Saber and—— “Hold it! Wait a minute!” our hero cries.

  Excuso Man lowers his saber. “Is there a problem?”

  “Well, yeah.” Gigabyte climbs back to his feet. “I mean, doesn’t all this seem pretty violent?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Laser Blaster Wristbands... Turbocharged Electrolights.”

  “This is a superhero story. What do you expect?”

  “I know, but kids will be reading this stuff, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, doesn’t it seem just a little bit, oh, I don’t know...irresponsible to be putting so much violence in a story for kids? I mean, what if they get the wrong idea? What if they actually think that violence is the best way to solve problems?”

  “But,...but we’re super action figures,” Excuso Man argues. “Super action figures are always violent.”

  “Unless, of course, we wanted to start a new trend. Unless, of course, we wanted to start being...responsible. ”

  “Hmm...” Excuso Man begins scratching his 256-bit colored hair on his 3-D animated head.

  Gigabyte Guy continues, “Wouldn’t it be better if we were to work out our differences? You know, talk them over and see if we could reach a compromise?”

  “Yeah, but if we did that, we’d have to admit we’d been wrong during all those other pages.”

  “True, but wouldn’t it also be responsible to admit that we’ve been wrong and try to fix it?”

  Excuso Man begins to nod. “Yes... you have a very good point.” He glances out of the computer screen, thinking of all the future readers. “It’s true, we should be setting a good example.”

  Gigabyte Guy nods. “Exactly.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “I say we admit we were wrong and sit down over a nice bowl of crashed hard drives and discuss our differences. That way we can prove to our readers that violence isn’t the answer. What do you think?”

  Excuso Man hesitates. “Of course, I could think of a hundred excuses but...” Finally, he breaks into a grin and reaches out to shake our hero’s hand. “I’m with you, Gigabyte Guy.”

  “That’s incredibly keen,” exclaims our hero. “And, might I add, just superduperly swell.”

  After selecting a beautiful sunset from an old clip art program, the two stroll arm and arm toward it, knowing that together they will find a way to solve their differences. Together they will find a solution that is safe, fair, and (although pretty corny and not as dramatic as blasting someone to smithereens) they will find an ending that is (here it comes)...responsible.

  “Mizter McDoogle! Mizter McDoogle!”

  I glanced down. Tall Guy and Short Stuff were frantically waving their arms. “You’re cuming in too zteep. Pull back on zee control linez, pull back on zee linez.”

  Of course, I had no idea what they were talking about. I was lucky just to have my parachute open, let alone trying to control it. I gave one last thought to my superhero story. It was a little on the heavy-handed side, but responsibility is a pretty heavy topic. I thought back to what Dad had said about everyone making mistakes. And how the surest sign that I’m growing up is when I admit that I’ve made a mistake and try to fix it.

  “MIZTER McDOOGLE, LOOK OUT! YOU ARE GOING TO LAND RIGHT ON TOP OV UZ! YOU’RE GOING TO LAND RIGHT ON—”

  K-SMASH! K-SMASH!

  “OAVV!” “OAVV!”

  Needless to say, it was a perfect landing— right on top of their heads. I’ll save you the painful details (as if you couldn’t guess). Still, it was great to see my old pals again. And it was just like old times as we began sorting out various body parts and broken bones.

  “Exzcuze me, Mizter McDoogle, pleaze take your elbow out ov mine ear.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  As we pulled ourselves together, I realized another important truth— “Say, is that my kneecap over there?”

  I realized that even though I was growing up and becoming more responsible, it was nice to know that some things about me— “You’re zitting on mine head!”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “Now you are ztepping on mine ear lobz!”

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  It was nice to know that some things about me would never change.