Jake the Fake Keeps It Real Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Craig Robinson and Adam Mansbach

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2017 by Keith Knight

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crown Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Crown and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhousekids.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Robinson, Craig, author. | Mansbach, Adam, author. | Knight, Keith, illustrator.

  Title: Jake the fake keeps it real / Craig Robinson and Adam Mansbach ; illustrations by Keith Knight.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Crown Books for Young Readers, [2017] | Series: Jake the fake ; 1 | Summary: Having faked his way into the Music and Art Academy, a performing arts school for gifted students where his talented older sister rules, sixth-grader Jake, a jokester who can barely play an instrument, will have to think of something quick before the last laugh is on him.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016008916 | ISBN 978-0-553-52351-5 (trade) | ISBN 978-0-553-52352-2 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-553-52353-9 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Schools—Fiction. | Performing arts—Fiction. | Musicians—Fiction. | Gifted children—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Humorous stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.R6364 Jak 2017

  Ebook ISBN 9780553523539

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  I dedicate this story to all those on the beautiful journey of self-discovery.

  —C.R.

  For Eliseo A., Alonzo W., and Ezra H.

  —A.M.

  To my little boys, Jasper and Julian. You plus Jake would make a Tremendous Triangle of Trouble. (Ooh! I smell a new book series!)

  —K.K.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Authors

  About the Illustrator

  Well, my plan of hoping that summer would never end and school would never start has failed. I probably should have seen that coming.

  Tomorrow is my first day of sixth grade, at Music and Art Academy. That’s a big deal. It’s a school for gifted kids: you have to take a test to get in AND do an audition. On your instrument if you’re a music kid, and in your ballet shoes or your clown suit or with your paintings if you’re a dance kid or a clown kid or an art kid or whatever. Though probably there are no clown kids.

  Except me. I’m basically the clown kid, because I faked my way in.

  My audition was playing “Song for My Father” on the piano.

  I’ve played that song seventeen gazillion times, give or take, so I play it really well. More important, my older sister, Lisa, who is a senior at M&AA, told me ahead of time about all the sneaky, tricky stuff the judges were going to do, like make me switch keys in the middle, make me sing along with the song, that kind of thing.

  So I aced it, and all the judges clapped at the end, though I’m sure they clap for every kid, even if he just burps the alphabet and walks offstage, or hits himself in the head with a brick.

  But here’s the thing. “Song for My Father” is the only song I can really play, not counting baby songs that even a one-handed guy who’s missing two fingers on his one hand could play. That guy’s nickname would be Peace Sign, by the way.

  At some point, unless the entire middle school curriculum consists of playing “Song for My Father” over and over, they’re going to realize that I’m not such a great pianist. I don’t read music that well. I can’t really improvise.

  Oh, and I kind of hate playing the piano.

  Also, on the academic admission test, I sort of checked my answers on the math part against the answers of Syreeta Simmons-Kapurnisky, who sat in front of me in fifth grade and is a math brainiac. And on questions where my answer was different from hers, which was most of them, I kind of changed mine to match up with hers.

  Cheating is wrong.

  I know that. And normally I’d never do it. But this was the most important test of my life, so I made an exception. I felt bad about it all summer, but I’m pretty sure I’d have felt worse about flunking.

  The writing part, I did all on my own. I was the best writer in my class last year. At least I thought I was. Writey “Write On” McWriterson, they called me. Though not really because I just made that up. So maybe I one-third deserved to get into Music and Art Academy. And maybe I have a one-third chance of not getting kicked out.

  That kind of math, I can do.

  “Song for My Father” really is a song for my father, because if he (and my mom) weren’t so rah-rah about me going to M&AA, none of this would even be happening. Although, really, the person who is most to blame is Lisa.

  Lisa is basically a unicorn.

  Not in the sense of having a horn in the middle of her forehead, but in the sense of being a rare and unique creature who just flies around the world on silvery wings being adored by mankind, and also she poops glitter.

  Obviously that is not true. But in actual real life, Lisa is:

  a) a senior

  b) who gets straight As

  c) and sang the national anthem at Wrigley Field last year

  d) and is the editor in chief of the Music and Art Academy student newspaper

  e) and, even though this might be weird to say because she is my sister, is really, really, really pretty

  f) and changes her whole style of dressing and her hair at least once a week

  g) and no matter what she’s wearing, even a jacket of my dad’s that my mom likes to say he stole from a hobo, it always looks as if a team of fashion experts put it together for her

  h) and somehow, despite all of this puke-inducing perfection, she is not stuck up at all, but sweet and kind to everybody

  i) except me

  I wouldn’t say Lisa is mean to me, exactly. Some kids, like my best friend, Evan, have older brothers and sisters who do stuff like hold them down and try to spit into their mouths.

  Or hide in their closets and then spring out and scare them into peeing on themselves and film it on their phones and put it up on YouTube.

  Lisa mostly just pretends I don’t exist. Or that I do exist, but she can’t for the life of her figure out why, or what I am.

  Most of the time she looks at me with a kind of supreme boredom, the way a unicorn might look at an egg salad sandwich.

  But since Lisa knows everything about Music and Art Academy, which is probably going to change its name to the Lisa Liston Academy when she graduates, I have been asking her for advice a lot this summer. I figure she’s like a cheat code in a video game. And I need all the help I can get.

  The problem is, I can never tell if she’s serious or messing with me. For a unicorn, she has a very good
poker face.

  Her main advice has been that I have to do everything in my power to get Mr. Allen for homeroom.

  Your homeroom teacher is super important in sixth grade, according to Lisa, because you have most of your classes with him. And she swears that Mr. Allen is a total genius and the coolest teacher in the school. Maybe in the universe.

  Another problem is that I know approximately zero kids at Music and Art Academy. Evan and every other kid I know are going to Dobbler Middle School, twelve blocks from my house. Living within walking distance would have been a huge win, according to Evan (who lives eleven blocks away from school, and one block from me) because we’d get an hour more sleep than all the kids who have to take buses, so we’d be better rested and able to achieve World Domination. But now Evan will have to achieve World Domination without me, and I’ll be a sleep-deprived sucker on a bus.

  Lisa says I shouldn’t worry, because everybody comes in not knowing anybody. She says that’s what a magnet school is—a magnet.

  It draws little metal shavings of talent to itself from all over the greater metropolitan area, which she claims is really cool because you get city kids rubbing up against suburban kids rubbing up against kids who live way out in the sticks on farms and stuff and have to wake up basically before they even go to bed to get to school, but everybody has something in common that’s more important than whether they live in an apartment or a house or a barn, and that thing is Skill.*

  Lisa is probably serious about this, because she was looking right at me with big eyes when she said it, and also she really and truly loves Music and Art Academy. But what she seems to forget is that she had friends from summer music camp and city orchestra and stuff like that when she started. (Lisa also plays the alto saxophone. Really, really well. If that is surprising to you, then you probably haven’t been paying attention.)

  So M&AA was like a big family reunion for her and all the other music dorks the second they walked in. Whereas I have not done any of that stuff because:

  a) I’m not good enough,

  b) I never tried,

  c) I was busy playing Horse in my driveway with Evan, and

  d) I’m not actually all that into music.

  So maybe I will be the lonely weirdo in the corner. Or the cool mysterious stranger. Maybe I will reinvent myself as a strong, silent type who girls find fascinating until they get to know him and realize he’s a total fraud.

  Great. Even my fantasies are depressing. I’m going to sleep.

  * * *

  * Except for me.

  My first day of school began with a gigantic stack of banana chocolate chip pancakes dished up by Mom.

  Her main philosophy is that you should stuff yourself silly before any big event in your life. If I were running a marathon, she’d probably roast a pig and stand on the sidelines trying to hand me big chunks of ham instead of cups of Gatorade.

  Most of the time this philosophy is fine with me, but today my stomach was full of butterflies that had chugged too much coffee, so I just picked out all the chocolate chips and ate those.

  Then, in a shocking development, Lisa offered me a ride to school. Because it was the first day, she said. I should not get used to it. Especially since as a senior she will have her first two periods free and be able to sleep until nine-thirty every morning, while a lowly sixth grader like me will have to get up with the roosters. Not that we have any roosters.

  When I say Lisa offered, I don’t mean she drove. She has a license but no car. This does not inconvenience Lisa at all, because Lisa has something better than a car. His name is Pierre.

  Pierre has a French name, but he’s just a regular kid. Actually, that’s not really true. Pierre is a boy version of Lisa, which I guess is why they’re in love or whatever. He’s a star forward on the M&AA basketball team (which is a very bad basketball team, but still), and last year he showed his paintings at a real gallery and sold two. The paintings were just big splashes of magenta and brown with photos he cut out of magazines attached to them with thousands of tiny pins. It made zero-point-zero sense to me, but then again, what I don’t know about art could fill a football stadium.

  Pierre is also one of those guys who are just so cool it doesn’t matter if his jeans are covered in paint or if he’s randomly wearing a piece of blue string tied across his chest like Chewbacca’s ammo belt.

  So if you were wondering if there’s such a thing as a male unicorn, the answer is: yup.

  Pierre has to drive twenty minutes out of his way to pick up Lisa, but that’s exactly what he does every day.

  And he doesn’t honk his horn—he actually parks and walks up to the front door and rings the bell. Even my mom says he’s a real gentleman.

  “What’s up, A-Bro-ham Lincoln?” Pierre said when I came to the door with Lisa. “Ready for your first day?”

  “No,” I said.

  Pierre laughed a big friendly laugh, like that was hilarious. “Don’t worry, Bro Diddley,” he told me. “It’s pretty chill. Hop in.” He opened the back door of his station wagon and beckoned me inside.

  The backseat was filled with canvases and balled-up newspapers and coffee cups and all kinds of junk. Meanwhile, Lisa was already in the front seat, her pedicured toenails up on the dashboard, singing along to the song on the radio but going higher on all the high notes and harmonizing with the singer and just casually displaying her perfectness without even thinking about it or trying.

  We’d gone a couple blocks when I felt something wet and gooey on my butt. Sure enough, I had sat on a tube of oil paint, and now I had a huge red stain all over the back of my pants.

  “Why are you squirming around back there?” Lisa asked me.

  I showed her the tube and explained that my first day of school had basically been ruined and we were still eight miles from campus.

  She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. You can pretend you’re a mandrill.” She and Pierre laughed.

  I did not.

  “Seriously, Frosty the Bro-man,” Pierre said, “nobody will care. Half the school walks around covered in paint. Look at me.”

  He showed me his hand, which was green.

  Finally, we pulled into the parking lot, which was full of their friends. Lisa made a little shooing motion at me, and I nodded and scuttled off toward the front door to figure out my life.

  The first place you have to go to figure out your life as a new student at M&AA is the main office, to get your schedule. I followed a bunch of signs there, down one hall and up another, past all these super-happy kids seeing their friends again after a long summer.

  I thought about Evan. I wondered who he was hugging like that right now. We’d promised to stay best friends, but I think both of us knew you can’t just promise something like that.

  When I found the main office, there was a long line of kids snaking out of it.

  For a second, I was shocked at how little they were. Then I realized they were the same size as me because they were sixth graders, too, not older kids like everybody I’d just walked past.

  In front of me was a girl with long, straight black shampoo-commercial hair. She was wearing a bright pink sweater that went down past her knees, and black tights. It was a pretty rad outfit. It also reminded me of something I’d forgotten in the last five minutes, which was that I had a stain on my butt like I’d just pooped out a birthday cake.

  I tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Hey, is this the line for schedules?” even though there was a sign that said “Schedules” five feet away. Sometimes it’s better to say something stupid than to say nothing. That’s called Breaking the Ice.

  She turned around and said “Yup,” but I barely heard her because I was too busy trying not to look surprised by her face. Or more specifically, what was on her face: a spiderweb that started on her eyelid and covered one whole cheek.

  “Is that makeup?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Yeah, eyeliner. What else would it be?”

  “I don’t know,�
� I said. “A tattoo?”

  She made a little snorting sound, like something a very small horse would do. “I wish. My parents would kill me.”

  “I’m Jake,” I said. “I’m new here. Obviously.”

  “Azure,” said Azure. And then she said, “Cool name.”

  I wasn’t sure if she meant her name or mine, but since her name was cool and my name wasn’t, I decided she meant her, so I said, “Yeah, totally.” Then she gave me a weird look and I realized she meant mine and my face got hot from the embarrassment of being a bonehead.

  “So what do you do?” she asked.

  I knew what she meant—what’s your special skill that got you in? But for some reason, such as being a fake, I didn’t feel like answering, so instead I said, “I’m a volunteer fireman” for no reason whatsoever.

  Azure laughed, and her bright green eyes did this cool little jumpy thing. “Good to know,” she said. “But what—”

  Before she could finish, a kid about eight inches taller than me lumbered into line and we both turned to check him out. His hair looked like maybe some beavers had gnawed on it, and he had dark fuzz on his upper lip, and he smelled like a campfire. But when he spoke, his voice reminded me of those tiny down feathers that come out of a pillow when you whap somebody in the face with it.