Tales of the Madman Underground Chapter 8 Summary

Tales of the Madman Underground

  • Marti gives Karl a ride back to his house, where he finds his mom working on her theory about Nixon being an alien.
  • Karl's mom asks him if he can take her paycheck off direct deposit and stop making "all those payments." "Those payments," as she calls them, are the mortgage and bills.
  • Karl tries to explain to her (again) that she can't just party away all of her money—she has responsibilities as a homeowner. Then, to make things worse, he has to tell her about the raccoon mauling her cat.
  • His mom also tells Karl that she met Marti's mom, and the two of them are going out drinking. So, now we know Marti's mom is terrible, too. The plot thickens.
  • When he returns to Marti's car, Karl breaks the news to her about their moms partying together. Marti doesn't seem too thrilled to hear this.
  • Karl's McDonald's boss is super chill and lets him bring friends to work with him while he mops up the place. Marti hangs out with him, and they talk more about his life, including his five jobs.
  • Karl is in the middle of explaining how he doesn't understand what's up with Paul when Harris and Tierden come screeching through the parking lot to perform their nightly ritual of splashing water all over the front window so Karl has to stay late cleaning it up.
  • What they don't know is that he deliberately waits to do the windows last because of this. Ooh. He's got you there, losers.
  • Karl tells Marti not to worry about Harris and Tierden—they have dumb nicknames for everyone at school and she's only stupid if she listens to them.
  • One thing they do know, though, is to leave the Madman girls alone. Last year, an incident with Cheryl forced the Madman boys to teach them a lesson.
  • Want to hear the story? Good—because here it comes....