Read Jackie's Jokes for Free Online

place, our home was a shambles.
    "Great," Durinda said. "We're no better off than we were before. In fact, we're worse off, since someone will now have to clean this place and I have an awful feeling about who that someone will be."
    "There's only one thing for it," Jackie said decisively. "We'll need to get in that computer."
    So we all proceeded with dragging feet to the computer in Mommy's private study. Even though Pete had suspected Daddy was organized, Mommy was the only one who had a computer in the house.
    We stared at that technology beast, unwilling to draw close to it.
    "Well, Annie," Rebecca said, "aren't you going to take charge? You usually like doing that."
    "Oh no," Annie said. "Not this time. Why, Jackie's done so well with taking control of this whole tax problem, I think she should be the one."
    Without even taking the deep breath that any of us would have taken before starting, Jackie strode to Mommy's desk and sat in Mommy's chair.

    Then she hit the power button on the computer, and the dark screen turned a brilliant shade of red.
    That made us jump. The computers at school glowed an eerie blue when they were turned on. Leave it to Mommy to march to her own drummer.
    "Okay," Jackie said. "It looks like we need to know the password to get in to see the files. What would such a password be?"
    "Usually," Marcia said, "people select words that are important to them."
    "Right," Annie said. "It's easier to remember that way. But you don't want it to be too easy, because then others will be able to guess it."
    "How about Daddy's name?" Durinda suggested. "He's important to Mommy."
    Jackie tried typing in Robert, but it didn't work.
    One strange thing we noticed as Jackie typed: her fingers flew over the keys in a blur. This was odd, because whenever we had to type on the computers at school, we'd all been hunt-and-peck kinds of typists.
    "What about trying our names?" Georgia suggested. "I should think we're as important to Mommy as Daddy is."
    That didn't work either. Not when Jackie tried the names individually, not when she strung them all together in one long word.
    "What about avocado? "Petal suggested.
    We ignored her.
    "What about Huit? "Rebecca suggested.
    No luck.
    "These are all too easy and obvious," Annie said.
    "Except for avocado ," Marcia pointed out.
    "Which is exactly why it could very well be—" Petal started to say, but she got cut off.
    "I know!" Zinnia's eyes were lit up with excitement." Eights! I'll bet anything the password is Eights! "
    Only it wasn't.
    We were all puzzled, not to mention out of ideas.
    But then Jackie's eyes lit up even brighter than Zinnia's, and she pressed one single key rapidly several times.
    "What are you doing? "Annie asked.
    She didn't have to wait for an answer, however, because— poof! —we were suddenly in.
    "What password did you use?" Marcia asked, always curious. In truth, we were all curious.
    "I simply hit the number eight eight times," Jackie said with a smile. "That's us numerically: we're eight Eights."
    Once we were in, it was no problem finding the right file. There it was: Taxes 2007.
    "Open it up," Annie said.
    "Print it all out," Marcia said.
    So that's what Jackie did.
    "Okay, now close the computer down quick," Petal said, "before something tragic happens to us."
    "Not so fast," Jackie said. "I've been thinking lately. Ever since New Year's Eve, we've mostly discovered things—powers, gifts, who's evil and who's not—by events happening to us. Don't you think it's time we took a more active role in finding out what's going on?"
    "How do you propose we do that? "Rebecca demanded.
    "By looking around in Mommy's computer," Jackie said with a twinkle in her eye.
    "Oh no!" Petal cried. "That will bring disaster down upon our heads!"
    "I say you go for it," Annie directed Jackie, ignoring Petal's cries.
    Jackie looked down the list of files. There were so many of them! A lot of them looked like they might be interesting, like the one marked