4. May the Force Be with You

4 May the Force Be with You It felt like a million hundred days until my birthday finally arrived. It was a sunny day, so that meant we could have the party in our backyard instead of inside the house. Yay! Outdoor birthday parties are way more fun than indoor birthday parties. That's

the first rule of birthday parties. About nine o'clock in the morning, a truck came and dropped off three porta potties in our backyard. It didn't occur to me that if you're going to have a bunch of people over to your house, you're going to need more bathrooms. "Wow, I'm glad we hired Mr. Marty," said my mom. "He thinks of everything. That's why he's the number one party planner in the area." "I guess he's also the number two party planner in the area," my dad said. Then he started cracking up even though he didn't say anything funny. The porta potty said "MR. JOHN" on it. My parents told me that toilets used to be called "johns." Nobody knows why. I'm just glad my name isn't John, because then it would be like I was a

toilet. Soon the doorbell rang. My mom went to answer it. And you'll never believe who poked his head into the door at that moment. Nobody! Poking your head into a door would hurt. I thought we went over that in Chapter 2. But you'll never believe who poked his head into the doorway. It was Mr. Marty. He had the Mini- Marty sock puppet on his hand, of course. "Happy birthday, A.J!" said Mini- Marty. "You're going to have a fabulous party. Are you folks excited? This is going to be amazing! Darth Vader will be here any minute. The pizza should be here at noon. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

blah..." He went on like that for a while. Mr. Marty gave my parents some papers to sign, and they gave him a credit card to pay for the party. While they were doing that, the doorbell rang again. "I'll get it!" I yelled. "It's probably Ryan, Michael, and Neil." But it wasn't my friends. You'll never believe who walked into the door at that moment. Nobody! Aren't you paying attention? We just discussed this a few sentences ago! But you'll never believe who walked into the doorway. It was Darth Vader! Yes! The real Darth Vader! Well, Darth Vader is just a character in the movies, so there's no real Darth Vader. But it was a guy in a real Darth

Vader costume, and that's pretty cool. He was tall and scary looking, and he had his lightsaber with him. I couldn't believe the famous Darth Vader was standing right in front of me, staring me in the face. "Happy birthday," Darth Vader said in a plain old regular guy's voice. "Can I use your bathroom?"* Wow! Darth Vader wanted to use our bathroom. I was speechless.

"It's kind of an emergency," he added.