The Carroway Island Gurning Glitch

Ever try to read a book quietly at 2 a.m. without waking your partner? Well, good luck with this one.

Gurning is the upscale art of face-making. If you ever stuck your tongue out at your brother across the supper table, you may have been training for a world championship without knowing it. Yes, it’s real. They still hold the contest every year in Egremont, England, where it was already an old tradition in 1852. That gave Mayor Pike a wildly improbable idea for saving his Carroway Island community.

He’d charge folks $7.25 apiece to see which of their neighbors could make the ugliest face. Seven dollars might have struck you as reasonable, and eight might have struck you as high, but there’s something about that extra quarter that suggests the mayor has done his arithmetic. Besides, somebody in England really did look at a man making an ugly face and think, “We ought to give a prize for that.” You can hardly blame Pike for thinking he knew a few people who could win it.

Then there’s Crazy Jack Mercer. Before long, you’ll be rooting for him, and somewhere between one laugh and the next, you’ll realize how fond you’ve grown of him. By the time his neighbors have to get him to a floatplane in a wheelbarrow, you may find yourself wishing you could take one of the handles. That’s the thing about Carroway. The same folks who’ll pay $7.25 to see what you can do with your face will come running when you need them.

Fair warning, though. At some point you may put the book down, pick up a handheld mirror or turn the camera on your cellphone, and see what sort of face you can make yourself. Good luck explaining that to your partner at two in the morning. And should you make it all the way to the last page with a straight face, Carroway Island has one more surprise in store for you.

Pick up The Carroway Island Gurning Glitch for a little bedtime reading, and you may find yourself laughing into your pillow, trying to keep the mattress from shaking.