Chapter 1: Rain
Adam sat in his favorite chair by the window.  He watched as the rain came down outside.  It slammed onto the pavement of his street, a bombardment from the clouds.  Pit Pat Pit Pat.  Adam knew of nothing that made him happier.  Just sitting there, watching the rain, as though nothing more important could be happening around him.  Pit Pat Pit Pat.  In all of his 14 years, Adam had never come across another kid who appreciated this as much as he did.  None of his friends understood.  He loved to hear the roar of a thunderstorm.  Whenever Adam sat there, he felt as though he was waiting for something.  He was waiting for a change.  That’s what rain’s supposed to be isn’t it?  Some sort of courier for new life.  Adam didn’t have a very extraordinary life.  He lived in a town called Enderson where his parents owned a small grocery store.  He went to Enderson Middle School where he got OK grades and had a handful of friends.  He was OK at basketball and played on the second best team.  The one thing he was more than OK at however, was making people laugh.  It wasn’t really a talent at first, most all toddlers can put a smile on someone’s face.  But Adam never grew out of it.  Telling jokes became a part of him as he got older.  It was his way to make friends in school.  It was also his way to make his parents smile.  They stopped doing that very much when Adam got older.  Some days it felt like the family was 1 joke away from being torn apart.  And so with this in mind, Adam now made coming up with funny things to say his new hobby.

Chapter 2: The Best Joke
As the months went by, Adam never gave up.  Every day he coughed up a new joke, hoping that it would somehow change the direction his family was going.  Something died inside him, everytime he heard his parents shouting at eachother.  It didn’t matter what they were arguing about as long as they disagreed.  It could have been politics, money, even what they were eating for dinner.  But he kept trying to get a laugh out of the two of them.  He remembered back to the days when everything was so happy.  They would go to the park and throw around a ball.  They would spend a whole day at the beach.  They would even occasionally go to a baseball game.  But back then, no matter where they were, Adam’s parents would be smiling at eachother as if to say, “we’ve done good.”  That was gone now, swept away by some sort of divide.  Adam felt it everywhere.  At the dinner table, in the car and even when his parents weren’t with each other.

Adam got up from his chair by the window and something hit him.  What if he could find the best joke ever told.  Of course this was completely illogical, how could 1 simple punchline bring his parents back together.  How could a handful of small sentences connect a divide that had been widening for months.  But it was worth a try.
The next day, Adam visited his local library, which was a rare occurrence.  The last time he was here was for some research project in the 4th grade.  The place looked like some sort of penitentiary.  Made of weathered brick, it had a simple white sign above the door which read Enderson Public Library.  Walking in, the place smelled like homework and broken dreams.  He couldn’t stand it here.  There was one librarian at the reception desk.  It looked like she had been here about a decade too long.  “Excuse me ma'am?”, Adam said.  “Yes?”, she responded in a dry and raspy voice.  Adam proceeded to ask her about where the joke books were located.  She directed him to one small section of books.  He grabbed as many as he could carry.  He checked them all out and stuffed them in his backpack.  He rode his bike home smiling.

Chapter 3: The Dream
Adam had a strange dream that night.  He was flying above his town, looking down at all the houses.  They were illuminated by lights coming from the windows and streetlights.  It looked like one big glowing circuit.  He felt all the wind in his face, his hair was flying about and it felt great.  He dipped and dove through the clouds like Superman had in the comic books of Adam’s youth.  He thought that he could make out his house all the way down there and he was contemplating flying down to it.  Then all the lights in his town went out.  He was now just in a black empty vacuum.  Nothingness.  No sound no sight no smell.  All of sudden he dropped.  He was falling down down down through the darkness, it was the worst feeling ever.  Adam had always hated amusement park rides.  Then, all of a sudden, he was in his bed.  He grabbed the soft covers and looked at the light coming in from his window.  He got up dazed and confused.  It felt nice to feel his feet on the bedroom floor.  Adam thought he could hear the hum of a lawnmower down the block.  It was Saturday.  He walked over to his desk a opened one of the joke books.  He flipped through it for a while and then settled on the first page.  The search had begun.

Chapter 4: Searching
Adam spent that whole morning, that afternoon, and the morning and afternoon of every day for the next week with that pile of books.  He had completely ruled out all of the “How did the chicken cross the road?” jokes from being the best joke ever.  He figured they were too cliche and they wouldn’t catch somebody off guard. He liked jokes that did that.  Ones that completely surprised people, because even if they weren’t funny people would still have a reaction.  Next were “knock knock jokes”.  These had potential because almost anything could be said in a knock knock joke.  At the end of the week he had found 3 good knock knock jokes but he was starting to give up hope.  Now there was 1 book left.  It had an odd cover, crimson with a title in fancy cursive.

Jokes
This was a very unoriginal title and Adam expected nothing from the book.  He turned the cover over and read a brief note from the author.
Dear reader,
Whoever you are or wherever you live
I need you to know that this book is for the ones out there searching
I wrote this book to bring people together
It is a compilation of my 10 years studying comedy
Do not waste these jokes on people who are not special to you for they will lose their meaning.
This seemed odd to Adam.  He turned back to the front cover, no author.  He checked the book’s spine, no author.  After forty seconds of looking he had found no indication that this book had a creator.  He flipped through the pages of the book, the pages felt rough and old.  every page had a couple of lines on it, there appeared to be only 30 jokes or so.  But, desperate for some source material, Adam shuffled back to the first page of the book and began to read the jokes.  These jokes were incredible!  Adam’s mind raced as he was shocked by every punchline and he found himself reading over every joke 3 or 4 times.  After 45 minutes of scouring the book, his stomach was sore from laughter and he was certain that he had found the best joke.

Chapter 5: Telling
After finding his joke, Adam decided to wait a whole week before telling it to his parents.  He needed to practice.  Everyday when he came home from school Adam would rehearse his joke for hours, finding which words to emphasize or not.  His parents were arguing as usual at dinner.  Adam had stopped listening to those discussions months ago.  He figured there was no point seeing as those arguments repeated themselves.  This time, something went differently.  His mother’s tone of voice was wavering, and all of a sudden she got up to leave.  Adam knew it was now or never.  His joke had to work.  He was only 4 days into his practicing routine but he got up and touched his mother’s shoulder.  Then he whispered into her ear, “Little Johnny was sitting in class doing math problems when his teacher picked him to answer a question, "Johnny, if there were five birds sitting on a fence and you shot one with your gun, how many would be left?" "None," replied Johnny, "cause the rest would fly away." "Well, the answer is four," said the teacher, "but I like the way you're thinking." Little Johnny says, "I have a question for you. If there were three women eating ice cream cones in a shop, one was licking her cone, the second was biting her cone and the third was sucking her cone, which one is married?" "Well," said the teacher nervously, "I guess the one sucking the cone." "No," said Little Johnny, "the one with the wedding ring on her finger, but I like the way you're thinking."  Adam’s mom realed back in laughter.  Adam hadn’t seen anybody this happy in at least 2 years.  Her face lit up and her eyes were wide.  Her laughter reminded him of a thunderstorm.  Then, Adam went to his chair and listened as his mom repeated the joke to his father.  He heard the thunder and in their voices, a rain storm had finally come to end the drought that was in his household, he heard a change.