My Life as a Human Hockey Puck

By Bill Myers

Classic stories from the Wally McDoogle series now with new designs and spot illustrations throughout.

Wally McDoogle, klutz-extraordinaire, has stumbled his way into sports stardom. But only Wally could end up playing hockey goalie against the monstrous Mad Dog Miller while being trapped in a chicken suit. Before his misadventures end, Wally finally learns the real dangers of jealousy and envy, and the true value of aspirin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Sep 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9780785233787

Bill Myers

Bill Myers (www.Billmyers.com) is a bestselling author and award-winning writer/director whose work has won sixty national and international awards. His books and videos have sold eight million copies and include The Seeing, Eli, The Voice, My Life as, Forbidden Doors, and McGee and Me.

Book preview

Other My Life As . . . Books

a Smashed Burrito with Extra Hot Sauce

Alien Monster Bait

a Broken Bungee Cord

Crocodile Junk Food

Dinosaur Dental Floss

a Torpedo Test Target

For other books by Bill Myers, including more of the My Life As . . . series, stop by www.billmyers.com.

My Life as a Human Hockey Puck

© 1994, 2020 by Bill Myers

Illustrations © 2020 by Thomas Nelson

Tommy Nelson, PO Box 141000, Nashville, TN 37214

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Tommy Nelson. Tommy Nelson is an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are taken from the International Children’s Bible®. Copyright © 1986, 1988, 1999 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7852-3377-0

Epub Edition June 2020 9780785233787

Cover and interior illustrations: Julianne St. Clair

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Myers, Bill, 1953–

My life as a human hockey puck / Bill Myers.

p.cm. — (The Incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #7)

Summary: Wally McDoogle as team mascot for the Middletown Super Chickens is calamity enough until he is also thrown in to play goalie.

ISBN 978-0–8499–3601–2

[1. Honesty—Fiction. 2. Christian life—Fiction. 3. Humorous stories.]

I. Title. II. Series: Myers, Bill, 1953–.

Incredible worlds of Wally McDoogle ; #7.

PZ7.M98234Myh1994

Printed in the United States of America

20 21 22 23 24 LSC 5 4 3 2 1

For Kristy and Terri—

Cousins and valued friends.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

1. Just for Starters

2. And the Winner Isn’t

3. Time for a Change

4. Mad Dog and Me

5. Heeeeere’s Wally

6. Opening Night Jitters

7. Fine

8. Follow the Bouncing Wally

9. Let the Game Begin

10. Super Cluck to the Rescue

11. Wrapping Up

Peace of mind means a healthy body. But jealousy will rot your bones.

—Proverbs 14:30

Chapter 1

Just for Starters

The nice thing about pain is that it comes in all sorts of sizes—from the . . .

Mini: Excuse-me-you’re-stepping-on-my-bare-feet-with-your-baseball-cleats type of pain to the . . .

Medium: I-sure-wish-we-weren’t-going-through-this-red-light-with-that-semitruck-coming-from-the-other-direction type of pain to the . . .

Maxi-Econo-Sized: What-does-this-bully-mean-when-he-says-he’s-about-to-give-me-some-free-dental-work? type of pain.

Then, of course, there’s the Giant-Industrial-Strength version that I was about to experience.

We were playing flag football in gym class when my old pal Gary the Gorilla (who did not get his name by accident) broke through the line and came after our quarterback with all the gentleness of a locomotive gone crazy.

Our quarterback hesitated, looking very much like a deer caught in the headlights of a car. He spotted me out of the corner of his eye and shouted, Hey, McDoogle, catch!

Being no fool, he got rid of the ball as fast as he could.

Being a total fool, I caught it.

Oh no, groaned Wall Street, one of my best friends (even though she is a girl).

I looked up to see Gary racing in my direction with his arms spread and a grin of major meanness across his face. Somehow I suspected he wasn’t coming to give me a hug.

Hey, Wall Street? She was right beside me.

Yeah, Wally?

How ’bout a handoff?

No thanks.

Why not?

I’m allergic to death.

I looked back to Gary, who was still running toward us at full speed. I see your point.

Wally, should I use my phone to call an ambulance?

Gary was so close I could see the steam coming from his nostrils.

You better make that a hearse.

Wall Street nodded and stepped out of the way. Good luck.

Gary hit me. I’ll save you all the gory details. Let’s just say that even though it was flag football, Gary could never quite tell the difference between pulling out somebody’s flag and scattering their body parts all over the field.

They scraped most of me up and poured me onto the sidelines next to Opera, my other best friend. As usual, he had a note from his mom forbidding him from any physical activity (other than eating junk food—and believe me, the way he chomped on those chips, it was definitely physical). His headphones were on, and he was listening to classical stuff at a volume level just above If This Doesn’t Burst Your Eardrums, Nothing Will.

Coach Killroy didn’t bother to check to see if I was okay. I’d been in his class for six months, and he was getting a little tired of bandaging me up, resetting my bones, and restarting my heart whenever I did anything athletic. It’s not that I was unathletic. The truth of the matter was, I’m really quite a jock. I was even planning on participating in the Olympics . . . just as soon as they had an event for Stupendous Klutziness.

I looked down and saw Opera scribbling away on his paper. What are you doing? I asked.

What? he shouted over his music.

I motioned to the paper. It’s for the essay contest! he yelled. He tore off the sheet, crumpled it, and tossed it on top of a growing mountain of wadded paper beside him. Mrs. Finkelstein is announcing the winners at the end of the day, and I still haven’t got any ideas. What did you write about?

Opera was referring to the sports essay contest WART-TV was holding. The winner would get to do the sports broadcasts for a whole week. Everybody was making a big deal about it. Everybody but me. I had it in the bag, and I knew it.

The way I figured, when God made me, He substituted all of my grace and coordination genes with writing ones. I may not be able to tie my shoes without ending up in the Intensive Care Unit, but believe me, I could write. So, of course I was going to win the writing contest. It was only fair. All I had to do was whip up something and hand it in before the end of the day. That was the easy part. Surviving gym, well, that might be a little tougher.

Hey, McDoogle! Coach Killroy shouted. Can you walk yet?

I looked at my legs,