Funny Business Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  For Lili Stern, my muse.—AJS

  Thanks as always to everyone at Penguin: Francesco Sedita, Bonnie Bader, Caroline Sun, Scottie Bowditch, and

  Jordan Hamessley. Also to Doreen Mulryan Marts, who draws Frannie just like I’d pictured her, and my editor, Judy Goldschmidt. Your support and enthusiasm is unparalleled!

  To Julie Barer, of course, and her assistant, William Boggess. To my family and friends for their support. And of course to my nieces and nephew: Maisie, Mia, Lili, and Adam, without whom I’d have lost touch long ago with the bane and beauty of kid linguistics.—AJS

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

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  Text copyright © 2011 by AJ Stern. Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin

  Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. S.A.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010034451

  eISBN : 978-1-101-48636-8

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  CHAPTER 1

  “This is exciting, isn’t it?” my mom asked, squeezing my hand. It certainly was very exciting. We were standing in line to board an actual airplane—for the first time ever in my worldwide life.

  “Yes!” I said. “Very exciting, indeed.” Indeed is a grown-up word I try to use as oftenly as possible.

  “Maybe you’ll get to meet the pilot!” my dad said as the line started to move.

  That is when my face almost fell off the earth. “A person can do that?” I asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” he answered as we walked down the long and skinny-ish hallway that led to the airplane. My breath was so excitified because we were going to Florida where it’s summer all the time!

  When we stepped onto the plane, I saw three very important people. I knew they were important because they were wearing uniforms. It is a scientific fact that uniforms are very workerish.

  Just then, the pilot stepped out of his office. I liked him right away because when he saw me, a smile grew on his face. I also liked him because he had an office. If you don’t already know this about me, I love offices.

  “Welcome aboard!” he said to me.

  “Thank you,” I answered. “Welcome aboard to you, too!”

  The other uniform people were busy helping other passengers, but I could tell they heard me because they laughed. That’s when my dad introduced me to them.

  “This is Frannie B. Miller—”

  But before he could finish, there was something I needed to remind him about.

  “It’s actually Frankly,” I said. “Mrs. Frankly B. Miller, to be exact,” I handed the pilot one of my homemade business cards. He looked at it with a very big, pilot smile.

  Frankly is a really grown-up word my parents use. It also sounds a lot like my actual name, Frannie, so I use it when I need to sound official. Except for sometimes when I forget.

  I must have sounded really official this time because right after I told him my name was Frankly, the pilot asked me if I wanted to see the cockpit!

  There were so many buttons and levers in the cockpit, I didn’t know how in the worldwide of America the pilot remembered which one did what. He must have been a real genius. I loved all the levers, but I also loved the gold butterfly pin he was wearing. I could not stop staring at it. That’s when he caught me, which was very humilifying, indeed and nevertheless. But, you will not even believe your ears about what happened next.

  The pilot took out the same gold butterfly pin from his pocket and gave it to me. When I looked at it, I saw it wasn’t a butterfly.

  “They’re wings,” he told me.

  I WOWED him with my eyeballs. “They’re for top-level people,” he said. “Only pilots wear them. And Franklys,” he said, with a very professional look in his eyes.

  “I’m a top-level person?” I asked him.

  “You are, indeed.”

  I could not in my worldwide life believe I was a top-level person. Top-level sounded very important.

  After I left the cockpit, my mom, dad, and I walked to our seats. My dad put our bags into cubbies above our heads. When I sat down, I buckled myself in and looked around. Our seats were in Business Class, which is where you sit if you’re going on a business trip.

  A business trip is when your father has to go to Florida for his job. While we were going to be in Florida, we were also going on a trip to Princessland, but there aren’t any special airplane seats for that.

  Some people were already doing their business, so I opened my briefcase, which used to be my dad’s, and pulled out my own work. My work was an activity pack with drawing paper, a book of mazes and riddles and magic tricks, and three reading books. It also had cardboard so I could make more business cards if I needed to.

  The airplane ran really fast when it was taking off and then it rose like a balloon into the sky. When we got up really high, I could see the clouds up close! This was a very special thing to see.

  I would love to have a job with an office in the clouds! I was certainly going to give the pilot my résumé when we got off the plane. A résumé is a list of jobs you’ve had, and I’ve already had a machillion. That’s why I am a top-level person.

  CHAPTER 2

  On the way to the Florida hotel, our driver told us to look outside the window past the highway. A little bit of Princessland was peeking out from behind the trees. We could see Ferris wheels, roller coasters, and the tops of three castles. I could not wait, wait, wait to go.

  After three centuries and a decade of miles, we made it to the hotel. I don’t know enough words to describe how gigantoristic it was.

  There was a fountain right in the center of the lobby with water shooting out of a really short chimney. There were a millionteen desks all over the place. Each one had a sign telling us what it was all about. When I got home I had to r
emember to make signs that said “Check-In” and “Information” and turn my bedroom into a hotel.

  There were lots of people wearing black T-shirts with HH on them. They all wore headphones and sometimes one of them would talk into a walkietalkie! Each person I saw seemed more professional than the last one. I could barely keep my breath together just thinking about all the exciting people I would meet.

  “Hey, nice wings!” said the check-in lady with a name tag that said RUBY. That’s when I remembered that I was still wearing the wing pin the pilot gave me. I gave Ruby the biggest top-level smile of ever.

  Ruby checked us in and told us that if we needed anything else we should just ask the Hotel Helpers. Then, she pointed to the people with the HH’s on their shirts. That’s when I figured out that HH stood for Hotel Helpers!

  “Your room number is five seventeen. If you want to order lunch by the pool, just tell the waiter your room number and he’ll put it on your bill,” Ruby told us.

  Lunch by the pool sounded exactly like something I wanted to eat. 517. 517. 517. 517.

  It is a scientific fact that if you repeat something in your head, you will never forget it, ever.

  Even though this was the only place in America I’d ever traveled to, it was so far my favorite.

  517.

  CHAPTER 3

  Our hotel room opened up by slipping a card into a slot above the doorknob. When the light turned green, it meant we won and could go inside. Red meant we had to play again.

  The hotel room was like an actual apartment! There were two bedrooms, one living room, and a kitchen. The professional name for this type of hotel room is suite.

  “Frannie, look!” my mom called as she slid open the balcony door. I thought the balcony was going to be the Frannie, look! thing she wanted to show me. But, when my feet stepped outside, my eyes saw the balcony was only the second most special thing. When I looked down, I gasped my entire head off. Right below us was a swimming pool the size of Chester. There were a machillion people swimming in it and there were THREE diving boards. One low one, one middle one, and one really high one that I would never, in twenty-eighteen years, go on.

  “How about we unpack, put on our bathing suits, and then go down to the pool?” my dad called from the other room.

  “Sounds like heaven to me,” my mom said, and we closed the balcony door behind us.

  I went into the second room of the suite, which actually was all mine! I looked at every centimeter of my room and opened every drawer that ever existed. Inside one, I found a very official-looking binder with lots of hotelish things inside. A for instance of what I mean is there was a room service menu and a lot of chapters about the entire hotel!

  I ran into my parents’ room to show them.

  “Look! A hotel book!”

  “You can bring that to the pool with you,” my dad said.

  “Really? ”

  “I don’t see why not. Put it in your briefcase and we’ll take it with us.”

  That was a geniusal idea. I ran back to my room, put on my bathing suit, opened my briefcase, and very carefully put the thick, black binder inside. Then, I click-clicked the briefcase shut and followed my parents down the long hall to the elevator and toward the biggest pool in America.

  CHAPTER 4

  When we got to the pool, I wanted to read the hotel book, but I also wanted to swim. That is when I got a geniusal idea. I jumped in the pool and swam around for three million seconds. Then I climbed out, sat on my chair, and read the hotel book. After a page, I went back to the pool and did the same thing. I was going to do this until the book ran out of pages.

  A waiter came over to our area and my parents ordered two hamburgers and a hot dog because that’s my favorite. When the waiter returned with our food, he said, “Can I have your room number, please?”

  My mother turned to look at me. She probably heard my brain question: Please, can I tell him our room number????? She nodded at me, answering yes to my brain question.

  “Five seventeen,” I said very proudly.

  My parents were proud right back. Then they clinked their glasses together and said, “To the Millers!” which is a for instance of what we say when we clink glasses or before we eat dinner. Then my dad turned to me with an announcement face.

  “So, listen, Bird,” my dad began. Bird is my middle name, but please do not tell anyone that. “Tonight, Fred Tilson, a co-worker of mine, is going to meet us for dinner.”

  “Because he is on the business trip, too?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” my dad said. “And he brought his little girl also. Her name is Henrietta.”

  I scrunched my face up at her weird name.

  “So we’re having dinner with both of them.”

  “With the mom, too?” I asked.

  “No, Henrietta’s mom isn’t here. She had to stay home because of her job.”

  “Oh,” I said, very interested. “What’s her job?”

  “I think she’s a dentist. You can ask Henrietta.”

  A dentist! That was the one kind of office I do not like visiting. “That’s okay, I’m not so interested in jobs about teeth,” I told him. “How old is Henrietta, anyway?” I asked.

  “I think she’s around eleven.”

  Eleven! Eleven made my face unscrunch. I love eleven-year-olds because they’re older than me, and I love people who are older than me.

  “They’re from California,” my dad told me.

  California! That was the other place where it was summer all the time! I had a feeling that Henrietta was going to be a really fancy type of person.

  “And, she’s going to come to Princessland with us tomorrow, Frannie. Isn’t that exciting?” my mom asked. I nodded.

  I could not wait to meet Henrietta! And that is when my mind started to daydream about being at the amusement park with her. My parents were still talking, but not really about anything my ears thought was important. A for instance of what I mean is that my mother asked, “What time are they meeting us for dinner?” And my dad answered, “Six thirty.”

  See what I mean about not important?

  I got back into the swimming pool, and when I came out, my mom put more sunblock on me. When she rubbed it on my back, I got to watch all the hotel workers do their jobs. I did not know whether I should be a pilot or a hotel worker. Pilots have a real office and hotel workers do not. However and nevertheless, I did not think I could memorize all the pilot buttons but I thought I could remember room numbers. 517.

  “Are you listening, Birdy?” my dad said.

  “Huh?” I turned around and looked at my dad. My mom was putting sunblock on herself, which meant she had stopped putting sunblock on me and I hadn’t even realized!

  “Did you hear what we said?” my mom asked, like I was not the world’s best listener on Earth!

  “Of course I heard you,” I said, which was not really a lie. I heard them many times. I heard them earlier and yesterday and every day of my life!

  “So you will be in charge of ordering room service for dinner?” Mom asked.

  That would have been a good thing to hear if I had been listening.

  “Yes! That is a very great idea. I will order certainly and apparently.”

  My parents gave very big we love our Frannie smiles.

  “Great. Then it’s a plan,” my mom said.

  Ordering room service for dinner was a very big job. I picked up the hotel book and studied the menu. There were so many things to order! Just when I was going to ask their advice, my parents said they were going to take a dip. A dip is an expression adults use when they mean “going for a swim in the pool.”

  The waiter came back to collect our empty glasses.

  “My mom said I could order room service for dinner!” I told him, because my excitification could not stay inside my mouth anymore.

  “How exciting!” he said. “Would you like me to take the order?”

  “But it’s not dinnertime yet,” I explained.
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br />   “That’s okay. You can order anyway. We’ll bring it to your room at the time you tell us.”

  “WOW. That is amazing,” I told him.

  When the waiter asked me, “So, what would you like?” I got a question mark feeling in my stomach. Are you one hundred percent sure you are supposed to order room service tonight?

  I looked at my parents in the pool and wondered whether I should wait for them to come out first. Just to check. But they looked like they were going to be in there for a very long time. Then the waiter said, “Why don’t I come back?” and I got scared he would forget and never return.

  “No! I know what to order,” I told him.

  I remembered that when my parents took me to a fancy restaurant named Balloo, the waiter told us about the specials. A special is when the chef at a restaurant makes a dish that’s not usually on the menu. That’s what makes it special!

  “I will have the special,” I told him.

  “For how many?” he asked. That was a question I hadn’t thought about. I counted the number of people who would be eating dinner: my mom, my dad, me, Henrietta’s dad, and Henrietta.

  “For five people,” I told him.

  “Five specials then?” he asked.

  “Yes! For six thirty, room five seventeen. Thank you very much especially.”

  “You are very welcome.”

  When the waiter walked away, the question mark feeling came back for one half-second. I decided it wasn’t about room service at all, but about meeting Henrietta! Because sometimes wrong and nervous feel the same.

  CHAPTER 5

  My mom said I had to take a shower before dressing up for dinner. We never dressed up for dinner at home because we weren’t on business trips.