The Terrible Two's Last Laugh Read online

  FOR KEV

  Chapter

  1

  For the last time: Welcome to Yawnee Valley!

  Or, if you’ve never read a book in this series before, for the first time: Welcome to Yawnee Valley!

  Yawnee Valley is full of hills, and Yawnee Valley is full of cows. The hills are green. The cows are various colors. Mostly the cows are black and white, but there are quite a few brown ones. Bob Barkin, a prominent local farmer, claims to own a blue cow, but other people say she is really just grayish. Here is a picture of the cow in question:

  We realize this picture, rendered only in black ink, will not help you decide for yourself whether Bob’s cow is blue. Sadly, we cannot afford to print these books in color. Still, we hope you enjoyed the illustration. That’s a very good-looking cow!

  Yawnee Valley was almost known as “The Milky Pearl in America’s Dairy Diadem,” a motto rejected by the Yawnee Valley Council because only one member knew what a diadem was. (It’s a crown.) The town is home to more cows than people—which you would know if you lived there, which you probably do not, because not many people do, and cows cannot read books. Many billions of people live on Earth, and only 9,980 of them live in Yawnee Valley.

  So:

  What are the odds that this little town would be home to not one but two world-class pranksters?

  And what are the chances that two of Earth’s billions of people should meet in Yawnee Valley and discover that they were soul matches, boon companions, true amigos, and best friends?

  What is the probability that this sleepy hamlet should serve, even briefly, as the stage for one of history’s great pranking duos, a pair of notorious practical jokers known as the Terrible Two?

  We don’t know the answers to these questions. Math was never our best subject. But the odds are long! The chances are slim! It seems very unlikely!

  And yet.

  Yawnee Valley is the hometown of Miles Murphy and Niles Sparks. Here they are now:

  Wait. Sorry. That looks wrong. You can only see Niles in that picture. That is because they are in the middle of a prank.

  Here is a picture from five minutes earlier:

  Much better. Here we go.

  Chapter

  2

  It was Sunday. It was autumn. Miles and Niles, wearing very large coats, sat side by side near the back of the number three bus. The three ran by Niles’s house on Buttercream Lane, out past a pasture owned by Bob Barkin, which is where they were headed. Normally, they would have just ridden their bikes, but today they were carrying a bunch of stuff.

  Beneath their coats, between the two of them, Miles and Niles had strapped to their bodies:

  • Three cans of livestock paint, deep purple

  • Three cans of livestock paint, neon green

  • One cardboard stencil made from a refrigerator box, polka-dot pattern

  • A really long measuring tape

  • Pruning shears

  • Hand tools wrapped in a leather carrying case

  • A Brünte 3030 Hand Reel Push Lawn Mower, disassembled.

  “Are you sure this paint will stick to its fur?” Miles asked.

  “Yes,” Niles said.

  “But are you sure sure?” Miles asked.

  “Yes yes,” Niles said. “It’s livestock paint. That’s what it’s for.”

  “Oh,” said Miles. “OK.”

  Miles didn’t know much about livestock paint, or livestock, because he hadn’t grown up around cows. He had grown up a thousand miles away, in an apartment in a pink building that was close to the ocean. Two years ago, Miles and his mom had moved to Yawnee Valley. And even though it had only been two years, Miles felt like everything that had happened back then, back there in that town by the sea, had happened to somebody else. It felt like his real life was the stuff that had happened since. For Miles, it was like his story began when he met Niles Sparks, which is what it can feel like when you meet your best friend.

  “I thought we were going to wear sunglasses,” said Niles, who was wearing sunglasses.

  “Oh yeah,” said Miles. He got his sunglasses out of his coat and put them on.

  “Why are we wearing sunglasses?” he asked.

  Niles shrugged. “Big coats. Sunglasses. It seemed like a cool look.”

  Miles admired their reflection in the window.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It sure is.”

  The bus stopped at a corner. Its doors hissed open and a woman in a cap and a navy blue uniform stepped aboard.

  “Tickets,” she said to an old man in the front row.

  The old man pulled out a bus ticket. She promptly punched it—click click!—and handed his ticket back.

  “Thank you,” said the old man kindly.

  The bus woman moved on without saying “you’re welcome.”

  “Tickets.”

  A little girl in the next row handed over two tickets, one for her and one for her mother.

  “My mom said I could hold our tickets!” said the little girl.

  “She didn’t want to pay for them though!” said her mother.

  The little girl laughed.

  Her mother laughed.

  The bus woman did not laugh.

  She did not even smile.

  She just punched the tickets—click click!—and handed them back.

  “That lady is a mean person,” the little girl whispered.

  “She might just be having a bad day,” said her mother.

  The little girl’s mother was right. The bus woman was having a bad day. That morning, a veterinarian had told her that her cat, Joseph, was “on the chubby side.” Then, five minutes ago, her husband, whose name was also Joseph, had texted her that the store was out of paprika, which was unacceptable, because on Sunday nights the bus woman always made goulash. All week she looked forward to goulash. It was her second-favorite thing in the world. So yes, she was having a bad day.

  But to be fair, the little girl was also right. The bus woman was a mean person. Even on good days she was like this: grim, unfriendly, perfunctorily punching tickets. Her favorite thing in the world, even above goulash, was throwing people off the bus.

  Not literally throwing them, of course.

  Ejecting them.

  Although at night, sometimes the bus woman would smile in her sleep as she dreamed of hurling passengers through the air—old men, little girls, and mothers somersaulting over lanes of traffic and tumbling through the tall grass that grew by the side of the road.

  So yes, she was a mean person.

  “Tickets,” said the bus woman to a man who was already holding out his ticket.

  In the back of the bus, Niles reached into the breast pocket of his coat.

  His whole body tensed.

  “What’s wrong?” Miles asked.

  Niles dug around in the pocket.

  Then he dug around in all the coat’s other pockets.

  Then he stood up and checked the pockets of his pants.

  “Niles, what’s wrong?” Miles asked.

  Niles shook his head and checked all his pockets again.

  “Niles,” said Miles.

  “Miles,” said Niles. He removed a single piece of paper from his breast pocket. “We only have one ticket.”

  Chapter

  3

  “What do you mean we only have one ticket?” said Miles.

  “How many tickets do you have?” said Niles.

  “None!” said Miles.

  “Exactly,” said Niles.

  “But you said you were going to buy tickets for both of us,” said Miles.

  “I did!” said Niles.

  “So why do you only have one?”

  “I must have lost your
s.”

  “Mine! Why is the lost one mine?”

  “What?”

  “Maybe you lost yours,” said Miles. “Maybe that’s my ticket.”

  “Tickets,” said the bus woman to a kid wearing headphones.

  “It doesn’t matter whose ticket this is,” said Niles, who was holding the ticket where Miles couldn’t reach it. “We both need to get to Bob Barkin’s farm or Operation: First Contact is a bust. This is a two-man job. Plus we’re each carrying half a lawn mower. We need two tickets.”

  “OK.” Miles stopped grabbing at the ticket. “So what do we do?”

  Niles put the ticket back in his pocket. “We think.”

  They sat and they thought while the bus woman worked her way toward the back of the bus.

  “Tickets.”

  Click click!

  “Tickets.”

  Click click!

  “She looks mean,” said Miles.

  “Yeah,” said Niles.

  “Tickets.”

  Click click!

  “Got anything?” said Niles.

  “No,” said Miles. “You?”

  “No,” said Niles. “But we’re kind of counting on you here.”

  “Me?” said Miles. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re good under pressure!” said Niles. “That’s your whole thing!”

  “Oh please,” said Miles.

  He looked down at his shoes.

  “What?” said Niles. “That’s a compliment! You’re good on your feet! You always get us out of tight spots!”

  “Well that’s a lot of pressure!” said Miles.

  “Yeah,” said Niles. “BUT YOU’RE GOOD UNDER PRESSURE!”

  “Stop saying that!” said Miles.

  The bus woman had made it halfway to the boys.

  “Tickets.”

  Click click!

  “Tickets.”

  Click click!

  Miles’s head snapped up.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “I’ll hide.”

  “What?” said Niles.

  Miles was slumped down in his seat, shrugging off his coat. “I’ll hide,” he said. “Hide me.”

  “Brilliant.”

  Niles helped Miles take off his coat. Then Miles got down on the floor, crawled underneath the seats in front of him, and curled up as small as he could, which was not very small, mostly because of all the pranking materials attached to his body.

  “Cover me,” said Miles.

  Niles gently arranged the coat on top of Miles.

  “Don’t move,” said Niles.

  “No duh,” said Miles.

  Niles took off his sunglasses and rested his feet on what was probably Miles’s head.

  Their timing was perfect.

  “Tickets.”

  The bus woman looked down at Niles.

  Niles smiled back up at the bus woman.

  “One moment, please, ma’am.”

  Niles reached into his breast pocket and removed two bus tickets.

  He handed them over.

  “One is for me, and the other’s for my friend.”

  “Your friend?” asked the bus woman.

  “Yeah, my friend down here on the floor.”

  Niles reached down and lifted a corner of the coat.

  “Hello,” Miles said.

  “Why is he wearing sunglasses?” the woman asked.

  “Good question!” said Niles. “Miles, why are you wearing sunglasses?”

  Miles shrugged. “It seemed like a cool look.”

  “There you have it!” said Niles.

  Niles smiled.

  Miles smiled.

  The bus woman made this face:

  Look! It’s hard to say for sure, but there appears to be a hint of a smile!

  Click click!

  She punched the tickets and handed them back to Niles.

  “Thank you!” he said.

  He placed the tickets in his pocket and pulled the coat back over Miles’s face.

  “Thank you,” said Miles, from underneath the coat.

  “Thank you,” said the woman, and she moved on.

  The coat on the floor shook with laughter.

  “It’s really gross down here,” Miles said.

  Niles was laughing too.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s the floor of a bus.”

  “You knew I was going to hide,” said Miles. “You knew the whole time.”

  “Yeah,” said Niles. “I knew.”

  Of course Niles had known, and Miles knew that Niles had known, and this knowledge made them laugh harder. They laughed till their stomachs ached, till the corners of their eyes were wet with tears.

  A hand emerged from underneath the coat, a hand with two fingers raised in the air, just like this:

  And Niles touched his fingertips to Miles’s fingertips, and they laughed some more.

  They laughed because they understood what all great pranksters do: A practical joke can be a hatpin in the balloon of tyranny, a firecracker in the chapel of mundanity, but it can also be a secret handshake between friends. A prank is sometimes a slap. It is sometimes a pop. But it is sometimes a hug. A prank played on a fellow prankster can be a message in code. It says: “Hello, friend. I know you.”

  Chapter

  4

  The next day was Monday. It was a school day.

  But it was not just any Monday and not just any school day. The next day was the first day of a new year at Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy.

  Before school, Niles waited for Miles in the same spot he always waited for Miles: next to a fire hydrant, in the only square on the sidewalk that didn’t have any cracks. A few feet away, on the front lawn, a huge marquee read PRINCIPAL BARKIN SEZ: WELCOME BACK, BOVINES! LET’S MAKE THIS OUR BEST YEAR!!!

  Niles kicked a pebble with a shiny black oxford, size 8½. (Longtime readers may have noticed his feet had grown one and a half sizes since the start of this series!) A line of cars curved through the school’s parking lot. Drivers honked their horns and jockeyed for spaces next to the curb.

  A blue sedan swung up and parked next to Niles. Miles Murphy stepped out.

  “Bye, Mom,” said Miles.

  He shut the car door.

  Judy Murphy rolled down a window.

  “Bye, Miles,” she said. “Hi, Niles!”

  “Hello, Judy!” said Niles. “I like your haircut! It really flatters your face!”

  “Thank you, Niles,” said Judy. “I like your haircut too!”

  Niles ran his hand across the top of his head. “Oh thanks!” he said. “It wasn’t exactly my choice but I’m getting used to it!”

  Judy gave him a thumbs-up. It was a reassuring gesture ruined by an alarming flurry of whistle blowing nearby.

  The whistle belonged to Coach B., who had Morning Drop-Off Duty. He ran up to the Murphys’ car, blowing his whistle and jabbing his thumb toward the exit.

  Coach B. did not like wearing the bright orange reflective Drop-Off Duty vest. He found it embarrassing, and compensated by blowing his whistle even more than usual, which was really saying something. “Move on, ma’am!” he shouted. “You gotta move on!”

  “OK, but please don’t call me ma’am!” said Judy. She waved at Miles, and then at Niles, and then at Coach B., before putting on her blinker and pulling away.

  Coach B. went off to blow his whistle at some more cars.

  Miles joined Niles in their sidewalk square.

  “So you decided to wear the suit,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Niles. “I decided to wear the suit.”

  If you haven’t read the first three books in this series, you should know that the Terrible Two was not just a pranking club. For a long time, the Terrible Two had been an S.P.C. (a Secret Pranking Club). The main reason the club had been a secret was that Niles Sparks believed that a prankster should never be a yak. In Niles’s S.P.L. (Secret Pranking Language), a yak was somebody who bragged about being a prankster. And the problem with braggin
g about being a prankster was that then everybody knew you were a prankster: your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother. Your teacher, your principal. The mayor. The grocer. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, if you knew a candlestick maker, which Niles Sparks didn’t. Your Aunt Janine, if you had an aunt named Janine, which Niles Sparks did. When people knew you were a prankster, they watched you constantly, trying to divine what prank you were going to play next. That kind of scrutiny made for, in Niles’s words, “suboptimal operating conditions.” That’s because a good prank is surprising, and you can’t surprise someone who is expecting to be surprised. Plus, let’s say you somehow managed to catch the world unawares with a brilliant practical joke. Once people recovered, they were probably going to hold you responsible. Once people knew you were a prankster, you were the permanent prime suspect.

  And so Niles Sparks had created a secret identity for himself. Over years, at first accidentally and then on purpose, he’d developed a reputation as a kiss-up, a lickspittle, a goody-goody. He cleaned the class pet’s cage. He reminded teachers when they forgot to collect homework. He wore a suit to school every day. It was the perfect cover. But somewhere along the line (toward the end of book two, actually), his cover had been blown. The Terrible Two had been exposed. And now everybody knew that Niles Sparks was not a rule-loving toady. He was a rule-breaking ruffian.

  If you have read the first three books in this series, you already know all this. You could have skipped the last two paragraphs. But it’s too late now. Sorry.

  Anyway, now their S.P.C. was just a P.C. And now Niles Sparks was just Niles Sparks. In the weeks leading up to their first day of school, Niles had been asking himself (and sometimes Miles) a big question:

  How do you be a prankster, with everyone watching you all the time?

  Which grew into an even bigger question:

  How do you be yourself, with everyone watching you all the time?

  And of course that question soon morphed into the hugest question yet:

  Who is Niles Sparks?

  And then, inside Niles’s brain, all these questions coalesced, gathering together like skittering bits of claw and fur into one monstrous, terrifying question: