The Terrible Two's Last Laugh is a kid's novel by Jory John, Mac Barnett, and Kevin Cornell, published in 2018. It is the final book in the The Terrible Two series.
It’s Miles and Niles’s final year at Yawnee Valley Science and Letters Academy, and the Terrible Two have one goal: an epic prank. Something that will leave a lasting legacy at their school. But their smooth sailing gets downright bumpy when they find out that the new superintendent is none other than Bertrand Barkin, their principal’s father . . . and their sworn enemy. Now that Former Principal Barkin is Acting Superintendent Barkin, he has a first order of business: his long-promised revenge on the Terrible Two.
It was preceded by The Terrible Two Go Wild.
Tropes:
- Chekhov's Gun: The concept of a grace note, something "extra" that makes the whole thing better, is introduced on page 57 and later serves as Miles' inspiration for his final prank at Yawnee Valley.
- Easter Egg: Solving the Wheel of Fortune puzzle in Chapter 20 yields the phrase "A FRIEND TO THE END".
- Fauxdian Slip: After Principal Barkin replaces a co-worker's boiled egg with a raw one."'I mean really,' said Principal Barkin, 'a principal who played a practical yolk? I mean, a practical joke!' He winked."
- First Contact: Invoked in the Terrible Two's first prank of the book: fooling a local farmer into believing aliens have cut crop circles into his farm and turned one of his cows green and purple.
- Foreshadowing: When Miles goes to the jeweler to purchase a brass plaque, the shopkeeper confuses the name "Miles" for "Niles" and remarks that it's funny without elaborating. A chapter later, it's revealed that Miles and Niles pulled the exact same prank, having gone to the same jeweler.
- The Ghost: Niles’s parents. We see the families of Miles, Principal Barkin, and even Stuart and Holly. Despite this, we never see Niles’s parents.
- Neither does Niles.
- This trope also applies to Scotty, who is name-dropped several times (even plays a part in the plot) but is never assigned an illustration.
- Heel–Face Turn: Barry Barkin really comes into his own in this one, completing his emotional arc from prim-and-proper-principal to proud prankster. (In his head, at least.)
- The Hyena: Stuart's entire family turns out to be this way; they all "collapse into hysterical tears" after Stuart makes a pun about deodorant.
- Kick the Dog: Bertrand Barkin is particularly cruel in this one, particularly when he gets the private news that Miles will be moving away and immediately tells him about it at school, ruining the afterglow of his and Niles' successful April Fools prank. Even the narrator calls him cruel and awful.
- Maybe Ever After: Holly and Niles. Though they dance once at the end to a romantic song, they are never explicitly confirmed to be together, or even to have feelings for each other.
- Narrative Profanity Filter:"Coach O. wiped the spoon off on his sweatpants and used a word that is acceptable in the teachers' lounge but not elsewhere in school, nor in the pages of this book."
- Plot-Triggering Death: Harriet Nervig's death means that Bertrand Barkin is the new superintendent, and he uses his newfound powers to act as an antagonist towards Miles and Niles.
- Shout-Out: Gus, the janitor, quotes John Webster ("Vain the ambition of kings") and William Edward Hartpole Lecky ("And while the great and wise decay"). Miles and Niles also listen to an opera about Einstein, implied to be Einstein on the Beach in Chapter 31, and pretend to have seen both of the Terminator movies.'"It was like liquid metal Terminator!' said Miles, referring to a movie none of them had seen."
