Sourpuss

Sunny has to fix her friend Killjoy 300 words

Sourpuss

“Don’t make me laugh!” Killjoy said.

“That’s what I call a challenge,” Sunny said.

“What will happen if I do? Will your teeth fall out? What about your lips, will they fall off? Maybe....”

“Enough! Just don’t do it!”

Sunny pounced on him and began to tickle. He stayed perfectly somber, which wasn’t like him. Dredging in her brain, she began to throw her best jokes at him. He didn’t crack a smile.

“What’s wrong? Why don’t you feel like laughing?” she finally asked.

“I want to, but I can’t!” Killjoy told her.

“Is your laugh track broken? Let’s have a look.”

She opened the front of his metal exoskeleton and poked around.

“Ah ha! I see the problem. Your laugh track is folded over on itself, so it’s struck in neutral. Got a pencil? That’s the trouble with old units like you; things break down easily.”

Sunny took the pencil and began to move the spool on the tape of the laugh track. After quite a while she managed to rewind the tape.

“Let’s give it an easy test. How long does it take for a robot to change a lightbulb?”

“They don’t need to because they carry a flashlight,” Killjoy said with a small gurgle of laughter.

“Let me see what else I can do.”

Sunny rumbled around in her handbag. She pulled out a tape deck.

“I thought I was still carrying this. I saw it at a yard sale and thought of you.”

Opening his port, she pulled out the old track and popped in the new one.

“Let’s try it out. Why did the chicken cross the road?”

“To avoid KFC,” was Killjoy’s quick reply followed by uproarious canned laughter.

“It works!” Sunny cried.

Killjoy smiled broadly.

“Make me laugh whenever you want, friend.”