The Whirlwind by Bill Myers

Author:Bill Myers [Myers, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780692744864
Publisher: Amaris Media International
Published: 2016-06-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Perfection at Last

It took all of the concentration Josh had left, not to mention courage, to finally start believing the coach. Maybe she was right, maybe he really could survive in this Realm of Perfect Popularity. After all, he had spent his whole life trying to be popular. He had devoted all of his energy to impressing people. Things really weren’t that much different here.

First he had to regain his intelligence—to convince someone that he was smart so he could be smart again. That meant finding a creature even more ignorant than himself.

“Over there,” the coach’s voice called.

“Where?” Josh asked nervously.

“I hear a dog barking.”

Not far away Josh saw a French poodle type of creature jumping up and down in the air. “But he’ll bite me.”

“Go ahead, he won’t hurt you.”

“But—”

“Do it! Convince him you’re smarter!”

“But—”

“Do you want to stay like this forever?”

“No, but—”

“Then hurry,” the coach urged. “Hurry!”

Reluctantly and more than a little frightened, Josh stepped forward. “Excuse me,” he called to the animal. “Excuse me!”

“Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap!” the poodle replied as she continued jumping mindlessly into the air.

“If it’s not too much trouble, I mean if you don’t mind, could I talk to you a second?”

“Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap!”

“Right.” Josh swallowed. He took a breath for courage and continued. “Look, I appear to be pretty smart, don’t I?”

“Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap!”

“I see,” Josh replied, not seeing at all. “But at least I’m not jumping into the air and yapping my head off, right?”

“Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap!”

“So . . . ” He took another breath. “Since I’m not annoying everybody or making a total fool of myself as you are . . . well, wouldn’t that at least make me smarter than you?”

“Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap!”

Although the dog appeared to be thinking of nothing, something must have happened inside her little brain. Because suddenly Joshua felt intelligence returning. Not a lot, but a little.

Yet that was only the beginning. Now he had to find other folks with equal or less intelligence than the poodle and convince them. No problem. First, he approached a professional wrestler and asked the same questions. The results were the same. He grew smarter. Next there was the teen covered in tattoos who had more rivets in her body than a naval shipyard. Another success.

And on and on he went.

Then he had to regain his courage by convincing someone more cowardly than himself that he was courageous. Fortunately, there was a chicken-like creature pecking away in the nearby sand. And since a chicken is the most timid animal in the universe (why do you think it’s called chicken?) it took only a second to get her to run from him, flapping her wings and clucking for her life. As she did, she must have thought how brave he was because, suddenly, he had instant courage.

Next, he wanted to work on honesty. A brief chat with a used car salesman would take care of that.

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