Funny Boy Takes on the Chit-Chatting Cheeses from Chattanooga by Dan Gutman Page A

the four-day voyage from Crouton, I realized three things:
    My dog, Punch, who was in the rocket ship with me, now had the power to speak due to some irregularity in Earth’s atmosphere.
    My sense of humor, which was always very powerful on Crouton, suddenly had supernatural strength. I had become frighteningly funny.
    But most of all, I realized that I had to go to the bathroom really badly.
    Punch and I were rescued by a nice man named Bob Foster. Because his name was already Foster, I asked him if he would be my foster father. Bob Foster’s response was to suggest that I jump in a lake.
    Taking a swim sounded like a terrific idea. I could tell that Bob Foster really cared about my well-being. Later, after Punch and I had dried off, we went over to Bob Foster’s house for a visit. Bob Foster invited us to spend the night after we chained ourselves to his coffee table.

    The rest, as they say, is history. Bob Foster, Punch, and I have become one big happy family.

    I skipped a lot of the details, of course. I didn’t tell you anything about the underwear factory. And I didn’t tell you about the time Punch peed on Millard Fillmore’s rug at the White House. You can read about them in Funny Boy #1 and #2 if you want.
    Go ahead. Read those books. The rest of us will wait here. When you finish reading #1 and #2, we’ll all move on to the next chapter, and my next adventure.

CHAPTER 2

    YOU DON’T HAVE TO READ THIS CHAPTER EITHER, BUT YOU MIGHT WANT TO, BECAUSE IT SETS UP THE REST OF THIS RIDICULOUS STORY, AND IF YOU DON’T READ IT, YOU KINDA WON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON LATER.
    It all began the day the cows went on strike.
    It was a cold and dreary Texas day. The clouds were rolling in on the plains and the wind was blowing furiously.
    Not that any of that matters, of course. But books always seem to say what the weather is like. Don’t you just hate that? If you’re ever reading a book and the author starts describing the weather, just skip ahead to the next paragraph. Believe me, you won’t miss a thing. They just put that stuff in to fill pages.
    Anyway, I was telling you about the day the cows went on strike.
    It seems that some scientists had used bioengineering to clone a herd of cows that were far more intelligent than normal cows. These cows, it seems, started wondering what we humans were doing with all the milk we were taking away from them every day. When they found that we were not only drinking it but also turning it into cheese, they got really upset. So they went on strike, refusing to give any more milk until they were given a say on what we humans did with it.

    “No pasteurization without representation,” they mooed.
    Well, to make a long story short, these super-intelligent cows spread the word to the average-intelligent cows. And the average-intelligent cows spread the word to the dumb cows. The dumb cows, not really knowing what to do with this information, told the goats.
    The next thing you know, there was a serious worldwide cheese shortage.
    What does any of this have to do with aliens attacking Earth? Oh, you’re gonna find out. Believe me, you’re gonna find out.

    The day the cows went on strike, I was making my usual rounds as Funny Boy, walking the streets of San Antonio, Texas, where I live. I was searching for evildoers so I could rid the world of them.
    I was looking pretty sharp in my Funny Boy costume—yellow cape over my pajamas and a fake nose and glasses.
    There weren’t any evildoers around, which really bummed me out. Without evildoers, there was no need for Funny Boy, just as if there were no car crashes, there would be no need for automotive repair shops.
    But suddenly, I spotted a guy who was clearly up to no good.
    He was driving an odd-looking little truck slowly down the street. Every so often, he would stop the truck and get out. He had a goofy-looking blue hat on, and a big bag over his shoulder. He got out of the truck and walked up to people’s houses.