The next day was Señora Gonzalo’s 80th birthday. Señora Gonzalo was the strictest teacher in school. She had never smiled. Not once. Kids whispered she had a face made of used bricks.

“Impossible,” Lola said.

“That was two years ago!” Pepito yelped.

“Exactly,” Don Ramón said. “You’ve reached Level Two funny. The Snortlepig just woke up. And it’s hungry for the biggest embarrassment of all: the prankster’s own.”

“But my pranks are hilarious,” Pepito said.

Then Pepito, dressed as a giant chicken, waddled in and handed her a cupcake with a single candle. “For you,” he said, voice shaking. “Because you deserve to laugh more than anyone.”

Adventurous kids and forgiving grown-ups. Chapter 1: The Legend of the Squeaky Mushroom Pepito was not a bad boy. This is important to understand. He did not steal cookies from nuns or push goats off cliffs. Pepito was simply… inventive . And his inventions often made adults use a very specific voice—the one that sounds like a teakettle about to whistle.

When Pepito showed him the parchment, Don Ramón’s face went pale.

That evening, Pepito’s mother found a whoopee cushion on her favorite armchair.

“We’re going to make her laugh,” Pepito announced.

“Pepito…” she warned.

One afternoon, Pepito’s best friend, Lola, found him behind the school’s avocado tree, staring at a mushroom.

“There’s a first time for everything,” she sighed. Pepito discovered the Snortlepig’s weakness: it hated genuine laughter. Fake laughter made it stronger. But real, belly-aching, tear-streaming laughter made it shrink.