This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and incidents are either products of the author’s
imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2018 by Stephan Pastis
Timmy Failure font copyright © 2012 by Stephan Pastis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted,
or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means,
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and
recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2018
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
This book was typeset in Nimrod.
The illustrations were done in pen and ink.
Candlewick Press
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To my cousin Nick Tripodes, who never
could have guessed when he drew this
odd Santa in a Christmas card that I
would steal it and use it in a book.
Some kids start their day eating a complete,
balanced breakfast.
I start mine trying to throw a principal
out a window.
A window that is ten stories high.
I should have known it would end up like
this when they wouldn’t let me into the bar.
Even after showing my ID.
So I subdue the bouncer with a mix of
charm and martial arts and kick open the
double doors of the bar.
Where I am accosted by two thugs I
recognize: Rick “Drill-A-Kid” Drillashick and
Crispin “Bowling Turkey” Flavius.
“Listen, boys,” I tell them. “It doesn’t
have to go down this way. I’m just here for a
drink.”
But they refuse to listen.
So I hurl them down the surface of the
bar like they are human bowling balls.
And take my seat at the now-empty bar.
Cool as the unopened beer bottle poised
menacingly above my head.
“Dr. Alfredo Goni,” I mutter, tapping my
fingers on the shiny bar. “I should have
known they’d throw an orthodontist at me.”
“Right-o,” he answers menacingly. “And
I brought backup.”
I whip around and see his accomplice.
“I don’t want any trouble,” I tell Mickey
Molar.
It is a tense moment. And nobody moves.
Except the grizzled bartender, who
waddles toward me from behind the bar.
“Whaddya want?” she asks.
“Whiskey, neat,” I tell her. “And don’t
try anything funny, Toots.”
But she ducks. And my eye catches the
quick flash of a beak in the mirror. And I spin
around.
“Edward Higglebottom the Third!” I cry,
hopping off my barstool. “I must say, I wasn’t
expecting a giant chicken.”
And in a flash, the bar explodes in a frenzy
of violence.
Punches. Kicks. Chicken feathers.
And one by one, I hurl a series of would-be
assassins from the high window.
Ron “Speedo Steve.”
“Minnie the Magnificent” Benedici.
Donny “Dangermouse” Dobbs.
And I make a run for the billiards room,
crashing through the makeshift barricade.
And I enter the dark, dingy room.
Where, brandishing a cue stick, is my
school principal, Alexander Scrimshaw.
“We meet again,” I tell him.
“Now look what you’ve done,” he answers,
surveying the damage to the bar.
“Mistakes were made,” I tell him. “But
none of them mine.”
“Yeah, well, to get to me, you’re gonna
have to go through the Scrum Bolo
Chihuahua,” he says, pointing to a giant
Chihuahua perched atop the barroom light.
So I offer the Chihuahua a doggy treat.
And he licks my hand and runs off.
“I expected more,” says Scrimshaw.
I watch as Scrimshaw backs farther
away, waving the pool cue like a club.
“All we wanted was world domination,” he
says, “but you stood in the way. You, Timmy
Failure. So I had to crush you. With algebra
you’ll never use. Pop quizzes you didn’t
expect. Boring novels you couldn’t endure.”
“I know,” I answer. “And all under the
guise of being a school principal.”
“Yes.”
“So what were you, really?” I ask.
“A secret agent for a vast criminal
organization. All school principals are.”
“Of course.”
“So do what you will,” he says. “But you
won’t take me alive.”
“This could get ugly,” I tell him.
“Principals like ugly,” he answers.
And when I turn briefly to check for
more of his goons, he kicks me behind the
knees, sending me reeling.
As I struggle back onto my feet, he runs
for the double doors. I spring like a cougar
onto his back.
And from high atop his shoulders, I grab
him by both ears, steering him into the bar,
the tables, the walls.
Dazed from the impact, he falls to the
ground.
And I drag him to the broken window and
lift him high overhead.
“Wait, wait, wait,” he says, gasping for
breath. “I will make you a deal.”
“I am about to vanquish my enemy
forever. There is nothing more I could
want.”
“But there is.”
“Then talk fast,” I tell him. “Because
you’re very heavy. Portly, even.”
“Next Tuesday,” he says, “there will be
a pop quiz in geography. Spare my life and
you don’t have to take it.”
“Will I still get a good grade?”
“B,” he answers.
“A minus,” I say.
“B plus,” he counters.
“Deal,” I say, putting him down.
And when I do, he shoves me with both
hands.
And I fall through the window.
Where my shoelace snags on the window
frame.
And my life hangs by a thread.
“You fiend,” I utter as I dangle like the
pendulum of a clock.
“It’s the end of Timmy Failure,” he says,
bending down to cut the shoelace with a
piece of broken glass.
“It’s the end when I say it’s the end,” I
tell him.
And he cuts the shoelace.
“Okay, now it’s the end,” I say.
And I fall.
But not before leaving him with some
final words of wisdom:
“Did he look like this?” I ask my polar bear,
Total, as I show him the sketch I’ve drawn.
“Sorry about the paper,” I add. “It was
the only thing I could find in the house.”
Total stares at the drawing.
“But does it look like him?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
Smaller, he indicates with his paws.
As a detective trained in forensic
drawing, I have had to sketch my fair share
of individuals. But rarely have I had a client
this fussy.
“Like this?” I ask, showing him another
drawing.
Rounder, he indicates with his paws.
“Like this?” I ask again. “Is this what your
big brother looked like?”
And suddenly, my polar bear is quiet.
He pulls the drawing out of my hands
and carries it a few yards away.
Where he sits on the grass and stares at
it. Like it is his actual brother in his hands.
I have known for years that my polar
bear grew up without a mother somewhere
in the Arctic.
But it was not until the two of us
polar bear cubs that something in his furry
brain was jarred loose.
A memory.
One that was buried deep under an
unusually large Arctic snowdrift that
separated him from his brother.
Forcing my polar bear to go it alone.
As he’s remained to this day.
“If you want me to help you reach him,
I will,” I tell him. “But first we have to find
him.”
Total continues staring at the sketch.
“It would be a substantial disruption of
my normal detective business,” I explain.
“But I feel obligated.”
But he remains silent. For he is a
bear. And bears are not good at expressing
emotion.
So I sit down on the grass beside him
and wait.
Hoping for a sign on this bright,
cloudless morning.
And then the sun disappears.
“Timmy, it was a solar eclipse,” says my
best friend, Rollo Tookus.
“Wrong, Rollo Tookus,” I answer. “It was
much more than that.”
“Class,” announces our teacher, Mr.
Jenkins, “before we get started, I’d like a
show of hands. How many of you were able
to see the eclipse this morning?”
My classmates raise their hands.
“And did you all use the special dark
glasses?” asks Mr. Jenkins.
“I used them,” answers Molly Moskins,
still wearing the glasses.
“You can probably take the glasses off
now, Molly. You’re indoors.”
“Is that where I am?” she replies. “I can’t
see a thing.”
“All right,” continues Mr. Jenkins, “which
of you would like to come up and briefly
explain to the class what a solar eclipse is?”
“I will,” volunteers Corrina Corrina, a
former detective and current has-been who
there is absolutely no reason to talk about.
“Great,” says Mr. Jenkins. “Go for it.”
She walks to the front of the class.
“A solar eclipse is when the moon passes
in front of the sun,” she says.
“Very good,” comments Mr. Jenkins.
Rollo raises his hand.
“Yes, Rollo?”
“I knew all of that,” he volunteers.
“I bet you did,” answers Mr. Jenkins.
“Will it be on the final?” asks Rollo.
“Rollo, relax,” says Mr. Jenkins.
“Because I didn’t take any notes,” adds
Rollo.
“Okay,” says Mr. Jenkins, “let’s all—”
“Mr. Jenkins,” I say, raising my hand,
something I have done only four times this
semester, three of which were to ask:
“Yes, Timmy,” says Mr. Jenkins. “What
do you want?”
“I’d like to say more about the solar
eclipse we saw this morning.”
As I have never volunteered for one
academic exercise in the history of my
education, my teacher is momentarily
stunned.
“Okay, Timmy. Sure. But make it brief.”
I walk to the front of the class and climb
atop Mr. Jenkins’s chair.
“What you saw this morning was a sign
from the gods,” I announce.
No one speaks.
“And, thus, I hereby retire from the
detective business.”
The news of my retirement stuns my
classmates, sending them into a dazed
stupor that is visible at recess.
But there is nothing I can do to help them.
For my decision is final.
“Want to play kickball with the rest of
us?” Rollo asks me.
“It’ll be okay, Rollo,” I remind him.
“We’ll still be friends and I shall still be
attending school.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks as
a stray kickball rolls past us.
Max Hodges runs past us to chase the
ball.
“You will all be okay,” I tell Rollo. “For
my spirit shall be with ye unto the end of
time.”
Max overhears us.
“You really are a weirdo,” he says.
I wait until he is gone. “Keep your voice
down, Rollo. Spies abound.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t really get the whole
retirement thing,” Rollo says. “I mean, what
does an eclipse have to do with your quitting
the detective business?”
It’s moments like this when I realize
that a 4.6 grade point average is really quite
meaningless.
“Okay, Rollo, if I have to lay it out, I
will,” I say, sighing.
“Okay, but hurry up. I want to go play.”
“Don’t rush me, Rollo,” I reply, pointing
toward my bear behind the fence. “Because
this is about the big guy.”
“God?”
“Total,” I answer. “But, yes, the gods
also.”
“I don’t understand.”
So I try again.
“Rollo, my polar bear informed me that
he needed my help. But I hesitated, because
I knew the strains it would put on my
detective business, both in terms of time and
money. And caught in this moral quandary, I
looked to the heavens.”
“And?”
“And the sun disappeared from the sky.”
“Yeah. The moon covered it.”
“No,” I answer. “I think it exploded.”
“Timmy, if the sun exploded, why is it
back in the sky now?”
“Well, I’m not a physicist,” I explain, “but
it must have un-exploded.”
Rollo just stares.
“The point is that the heavens spoke to
me, Rollo. And they said, ‘Timmy, ye must
retire.’”
“Okay,” says Rollo. “I’m gonna go play
now.”
So off he runs.
And I use the rest of recess to write my
memoirs.
“You interrupted me in the middle of my
writing,” I inform my teacher, Mr. Jenkins.
“And you seized that without a warrant.”
“Timmy, you got back from recess a half
hour ago and you haven’t looked up from
your desk once,” he says, glancing at the
documents he has grabbed. “And what is
this you’re writing, anyway?”
“Please do not look at that. It’s highly
confidential.”
“Fine,” he says, handing the pages back
to me. “But, Timmy, you need to pay
attention and not be working on your own
stuff.”
“I can do both.”
“Okay,” says Mr. Jenkins. “What have
we been talking about for the last thirty
minutes?”
“The solar eclipse,” I answer.
“That was before recess.”
“Well, then I have no idea. Perhaps
you’re jumping from topic to topic too
rapidly.”
“I can help him,” interrupts Rollo,
handing me a document.
“What is this?” I ask.
“What he’s been talking about,” says
Rollo. “The big project for the semester.”
So I peruse the document.
“WHAT?” I cry. “I have no time for a
stupid film.”
“You said you’re retired now,” answers
Mr. Jenkins. “So you have plenty of time.”
“I’m retired to do other things,” I tell
him. “Like help my polar bear. And write my
memoirs.”
“And work on a film,” replies Mr.
Jenkins, pointing to his desk. “Now, go pick
a job out of the hat like Nunzio and everyone