All Shook Up Read Online Free

one, and a kayaker going through some kind of orange Popsicle–colored canyon in the other.
    Looking around, I also noticed that the room was clean. Everything wasn’t covered in a layer of dust like it usually was. When I was younger, I always used to imagine that nobody touched the room between my visits and even the air was kept sealed inside like King Tut’s tomb until I opened the door the next time.
    “What do you think?” My dad thumped a suitcase down on the bed.
    “It’s good, thanks,” I said, being cautiously nice, but not overly nice. I didn’t want my dad thinking a new bedspread and a few posters would suddenly turn me into his best buddy.
    But he kept trying. He had bought a bucket of KFC fried chicken for dinner, which was one of my personal favorites, and here was the real shocker—he’d made a batch of brownies, too. “Ta-da,” he announced, whipping the foil cover off the brownies. “Double chocolate fudge, made by Chef Jerry Denny himself. Who woulda thought this old man could cook?”
    While he was tossing everything onto the table—fried chicken, mashed potatoes, rolls, corn, brownies—I noticed he hadn’t set a place for me. There was only one for himself. This was typical. My dad spent most of the year without having me around, so it was probably easy to forget me when I was there.
Josh? Josh who?
But I guess part of me still thought he should feel guilty about forgetting.
    “You didn’t set anything for me,” I pointed out as I pulled my own plate from the cupboard.
    Dad waved his hand at the table. “Go ahead. I’m not eating. I’ll have the leftovers later.”
    “Later?”
    “Got a gig tonight.”
    A gig? I guess up to this point, I didn’t really get the fact that my dad was serious. Okay, I could see that maybe he was serious about wanting to start a singing business, but I didn’t expect many people would seriously hire him to perform as Elvis Presley. This was Chicago, not Las Vegas. And if it wasn’t for the new sideburns and the dyed hair, my father would look almost nothing like Elvis.
    Dad leaned forward and squinted at the tiny clock on his old stove. “In fact, crap, is that the time? I gotta get ready.” He shoved one last pan onto the table with a metallic clang. “If you need anything, give me a holler upstairs.” As he was going up the steps, he called out to me, “When I come back down, be prepared to meet the King!”
    Looking at it later, this should have been my first clue that my dad had already decided pretending to be a famous dead person was a whole lot more fun than being an ordinary living one.

6. King of the Jungle

    About twenty minutes later, my dad suddenly jumped—and I mean
jumped
—into the kitchen doing some kind of knee-bending, arm-swinging thing. I swear if there had been any food in my mouth, I’d have needed the Heimlich.
    “Say hello to the King,” he shouted, balancing on one knee.
    I stared at the unbelievable sight of my dad, who now looked like a Harley biker. He was dressed entirely in black: black boots and black leather pants and a black leather jacket unzipped halfway down his bare chest. A gold chain dangled around his neck. Shading his eyes were huge gold-framed sunglasses. And his face was orange. Seriously, it was.
    Note to Dad: As far as I know, the real Elvis didn’t have an orange face.
    “How’s my costume?” he said, stretching out his arms to give me the full effect, which showed off enough of his forty-year-old chest hair to make me feel uncomfortable. “It’s the 1968 Comeback Special outfit.”
    “Comeback Special?”
    “It’s what Elvis wore for his first big television show after the army and Hollywood. So whaddaya think? Can the King bring it home, son, huh?” My dad pumped his arm around in a circle and accidentally hit two plastic fish magnets, which went flying off the refrigerator.
    “Bring what home?”
    “It’s a saying, Josh—you know, make it happen, make it work.” My dad gave