My Life as a Computer Cockroach
MY
LIFE
as a
Computer
COCKROACH
Tommy Nelson
®
Books by Bill Myers
The Incredible Worlds of Wally McDoogle
â
My Life As a Smashed Burrito with Extra Hot Sauce
â
My Life As Alien Monster Bait
â
My Life As a Broken Bungee Cord
â
My Life As Crocodile Junk Food
â
My Life As Dinosaur Dental Floss
â
My Life As a Torpedo Test Target
â
My Life As a Human Hockey Puck
âMy Life As an Afterthought Astronaut
âMy Life As Reindeer Road Kill
âMy Life As a Toasted Time Traveler
âMy Life As Polluted Pond Scum
âMy Life As a Bigfoot Breath Mint
âMy Life As a Blundering Ballerina
âMy Life As a Screaming Skydiver
â
My Life As a Human Hairball
â
My Life As a Walrus Whoopee Cushion
â
My Life As a Computer Cockroach (Mixed-Up Millennium Bug)
â
My Life As a Beat-Up Basketball Backboard
â
My Life As a Cowboy Cowpie
â
My Life As Invisible Intestines with Intense Indigestion
â
My Life As a Skysurfing Skateboarder
â
My Life As a Tarantula Toe Tickler
Baseball for Breakfast (
picture book)
SECRET AGENT DINGLEDORF
. . . and his trusty dog, SPLAT
The Case of the Giggling Geeks
The Case of the Chewable Worms
The Case of the Flying Toenails
The Case of the Drooling Dinosaurs
The Case of the Hiccupping Ears
Other Books by Bill Myers
McGee and Me! (series)
Bloodhound, Inc. (series)
Forbidden Doors (series)
The Bloodstone Chronicles
(fantasy)
the incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle
MY
LIFE
as a
Computer
COCKROACH
(Formerly titled
My Life As a Mixed-Up Millennium Bug
)
BILL MYERS
MY LIFE AS A COMPUTER COCKROACH
(formerly published under the title
My Life As a Mixed-Up Millennium Bug
)
© 1999 by Bill Myers
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, except for brief excerpts in reviews.
Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Tommy Nelson
®
. Tommy Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the
International Children's Bible
®
,
New Century Version
®
, © 1983, 1986, 1988.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are from the
Holy Bible, New International Version
. © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Myers, Bill, 1953â
   My life as a computer cockroach (formerly My life as a mixed-up millennium bug) / Bill Myers.
   p. cm. â (The incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #17)
   Summary: When inept Wally McDoogle discovers that whatever he types on his computer turns into reality, what starts as just a little cheating soon escalates into a war.
   ISBN 978-0-8499-4026-2
[1. Computers Fiction. 2. Cheating Fiction. 3. Humorous stories.] I. Title. II. Series: Myers, Bill, 1953â . Incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #17.
PZ7.M98234Mm 1999
[Fic]âdc21
99-35244
CIPP
Printed in the United States of America
09 10 11 12 13 EPAC 17 16 15 14 13
To Nancy Rueâ
Another friend committed to reaching youth
“The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in men who are truthful.”
âProverbs 12:22 (NIV)
Contents
Chapter 1
Just for Starters . . .
So what's so wrong with a little cheating? You know, scribbling an answer or two on your wrist before the test, or embroidering them on the back of the shirt of the person sitting in front of you. Then, of course, there's the ol' standby of hiring a sky writer to scrawl the answers up there in the sky so as you gaze out the window you just happen to come up with all the right answers.
So what's the matter with that?
Unfortunately, I found out the answer the hard way:
PLENTY!
Oh, sorry, didn't mean to shout. I guess I just don't want you to have to go through what I did. Not that you could; after all, there's only one Wally The-Walking-Disaster McDoogle. But still . . .
It all started with P.E., which, as everyone knows, stands for
P
hysical
E
mbarrassment. Once again Coach Kilroy (whose name could just as easily be Coach Kill-Wally) was on my case. All year he'd been threatening to flunk me. That's why Mom and Dad suggested I take the special course he was offering over the winter break for extra credit. It sounded great, except for the part where I actually had to go to class.
“Come on, McDoogle! Stop being a wimp and climb that rope! You're holding up the line! Climb the rope!”
It was all part of an elaborate obstacle course Coach had set up outside on the soccer field. “To get you ready for the big computer crash,” he shouted. “When that Y2K bug hits and there's rioting in the streets, you'll thank your lucky stars that I made you tough enough to survive!”
That was Coach's new mission in life . . . to help us survive some sort of big, worldwide computer crash. I appreciated the thought, but right now I just wanted to survive the last eighteen minutes of class.
I'd been hanging on to that rope, trying to climb it, for just a little past forever. But with no success. (Unless you call my arms stretching a good foot and a half longer than they're supposed to “success.”) It's not that I'm a wimpâshoot, sometimes I work out for hours on end . . . if you call pushing all those buttons on the TV remote “working out”!
“Forget it, McDoogle!” Coach finally shouted. “Move on to the next station! Move it! Move it! Move it!”
Gratefully, I “moved it” and ran to the next station in the obstacle course . . . dragging my newly stretched arms on the ground behind me.
Unfortunately, this station was no better. We were to run through eight tires and up to a giant wall with a fishing net and then climb it. Well, everyone else was running through the eight tires up to the giant wall with the fishing net and climbing it. I, on the other hand, was stepping into one tire and
“Whoa!”
K-Flop
falling on my face. Then stepping into the next one and falling on my face.
“Whoa!”
K-Flop
Of course, Coach was shouting his usual encouragement, “McDoogle, you moron!” but I wasn't worried. I knew I'd make it to the wall before nightfall.
“Whoa!”
K-Flop
“Whoa!”
K-Flop
I just wasn't sure which night.
Anyway, after running through the eight tires with my mandatory eight falls, I finally made it to the wall. It was kind of weak and wobbly, since Coach had just built it the day before, but that wasn't my concern. All I had to do was put my foot in the netting and pull myself up. There, that wasn't so hard. Just put my other foot in the netting and . . . uh-oh. I don't know how I did it, but in 1.3 seconds I managed to get myself slightly stuck. In another 2.6 seconds I got myself majorly stuck.
“McDoogle!” Coach was definitely not happy.
I tried harder, squirming and wiggling, but the more I wiggled the more tangled I got. Finally, I'd turned the nice fish netting into some sort of knotted up crochet.
“McDOOGLE!!”
Fortunately, Wall Street, my best friend, even if she is a girl, was also taking the course, and she raced to my side to help. Over the years she's had lots of experience in getting me out of problems. “Come on, Wally,” she said. “We don't want Coach to flunk you. Just put your foot there . . . no, there . . . NO, Wally,
there
. . .”
Unfortunately, her version of
there
was slightly different from mine . . . which meant we soon turned that nice piece of crochet I had made into an even nicer knitted sweater.
“McDOOGLE!!”
So there I was, dangling upside down from the fishing net doing my best imitation of a human piñata, when my other best friend, Opera, who was also taking the course, came on the scene. Not only does Opera love classical music (which explains the Walkman headphones surgically attached to his ears), but he also loves junk food (which explains why he weighs just slightly less than a Mack truck).
“Here, Wally,” he shouted. “Grab my hands and I'll pull you down.”
It wasn't a bad ideaâand thanks to my newly stretched arms I was able to reach down to him. He grabbed my hands and began to pull.
No problem . . . except for Opera's weight . . . and the weak, wobbly wall . . . and all that pulling.
creak . . . groan
“What's that?” I yelled.
“Don't know!” he shouted and pulled harder.
Creak . . . Groan
“Uh, Opera?”
More pulling.
CREAK . . . GROAN
“Oh, Opera?”
Until, finally . . .
CREAK . . .
GROAN . . .
the entire wall started to fall.
“Look out!” Wall Street cried. “It's coming down!”
She was right. The wall and I were falling straight toward the ground. For one terrifying second I was afraid I'd be smashed flatter than a tortilla hit by a semi carrying a load of sumo wrestlers . . . until I saw the tires.
The good news was the wall and I weren't going to hit the ground at all. We were going to land right on the tires . . . right on those nice rubbery, bouncy tires. And I was right, they were nice, rubbery, and bouncy. So bouncy that as soon as I hit them I flew back up and out of the net. Not, of course, without accidentally getting my leg stuck in one of the tires and sort of pulling it up with me. Once again I came back down, this time landing on my own private tire, and once again
Boing!
Boing!
I flew back up.
So there I was,
bounce . . . bounce . . . bouncing . . .
across the soccer field like a giant basketball, when I realized two very important facts:
1.
I was about to run out of the nice, soft soccer field, and
2.
My next stop would be the not-so-nice (and definitely not-so-soft) teachers' parking lot.