by Jim Smith
Contents
Cover
Copyright
Title Page
Barry’s birthday
Er, who’s Wolf Tizzler?
More rubbish pressies
The Shnozinator
After I did my bday wee
The unkeelest wee ever
The great birthday telling-off
Yellow jumper
Bad news
Bday Barry
‘What?!’
The Slugbusters
Slug pellets
Ooh la la
1p per slug
A nice sit-down
Cafe Cafe
Fronkle-ccino
Enter Sharonella
Really bad brainstorm
Lamp post nappies
Back to the drawing board
Bday poo
Loo-serish idea
Hi brow
Down the Women’s Beauty aisle
Frozen goods, I mean bads
Nancy’s idea
The parent-shutter-upper-er seven trillion
Naughty Bunky
The worst walk home ever
Back at the Loser residence
Bunky. Or should I say . . .
Nigel V Snooky-flumps
I am not funny
Chat to Wolf !
Chat to Sunil
Not my favourite
Lost Bunky
Too many Fronkleccinos
Monday morning
Super slug!
One last bday plan
About the author and drawer
Some of my good reviews
Back series promotional page
‘Cock-a-doodle-doooooo!’ screeched my baby brother, Desmond Loser the Second, from his bedroom next to mine.
It was 6.17am on Saturday morning, not that I minded because . . .
‘IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!’ I cried, jumping out of bed and running downstairs doing an excitement blowoff on every step.
‘Happy birthday, my darling little Snookyflumps!’ cooed my mum, cuddling me into her bright red fluffy dressing gown.
‘Thanks Mumsy Wumsy!’ I smiled, wriggling out of her cuddle and staring at the ginormous pile of presents sitting on our kitchen table.
In the middle of the pile sat a huge box covered in shiny silver paper.
‘Fandabby-keelness1!’ I cried, doing a bum-wiggle dance until my pyjama bottoms fell down.
I knew exactly what was inside the box – a SHNOZINATOR 9000!
I twizzled one of my eyeballs over to the present list I’d stuck on the fridge door nineteen and three-quarter weeks before.
It said:
My mum spotted me looking at the list. ‘Ooh that reminds me,’ she said. ‘What did you do at school yesterday?’
‘Erm . . . answer boring questions mostly,’ I said, giving myself a mini salute for being so funny.
My mum did a face like a kangaroo eating a hedgehog and I dived into the presents, grabbing a squidgy jumperish-feeling one.2
‘Hmmm . . . let me guess – a yellow hoodie?’ I smiled, ripping it open. I’m famous for wearing yellow hoodies, in case you didn’t know.
Inside the wrapping paper was a white polo neck jumper.
‘Thought it’d make a change from all your yellow hoodies!’ chuckled my dad.
‘Plus it’s just like the one Wolf Tizzler wears in his adverts!’ said my mum, and I did a bday eye-roll because I’m comperleeterly bored of hearing my mum go on about Wolf Tizzler the whole time.
Wolf Tizzler is the annoying child genius who invented the ‘ZOOM-E-BROOM’, a new kind of broom with microscopic wheels on the ends of its bristles.
Wolf Tizzler’s always on TV doing adverts about how the microscopic wheels are supposed to make the ZOOM-E-BROOM go faster when you’re sweeping up.
I think my mum thinks Wolf Tizzler would be the most perfect son ever.
‘Thanks Mum, thanks Dad,’ I said, not that I really wanted a white polo neck jumper.
‘Don’t thank us, it’s from Desmond!’ said my dad.
‘Thanks Desmond,’ I said, even though I knew there was no way my baby brother had gone into a Feeko’s supermarket and bought me a Wolf Tizzler polo neck jumper all on his own.
I reached down and patted him on the head.
‘Me got a biskit!’ shouted Desmond, who was sitting on the floor with his bum squidged into a potty.
He took a bite of the dinosaur-shaped biscuit he was holding. ‘Me not want biskit!’ he spluttered, spraying bits of biscuit all over the kitchen tiles.
‘No probbles!’ said my mum, grabbing her ZOOM-E-BROOM and sweeping the crumbs into a dustpan. ‘Thanks to its microscopic bristle-wheel technology, the ZOOM-E-BROOM is up to ninety per cent faster than the next-fastest broom on the market!’ she smiled.
‘Isn’t that what that Rolf Twizzler kid says in his adverts?’ said my dad.
‘Ooh, he’s such a clever boy!’ cooed my mum.
‘I’m clever too!’ I said, yanking my white polo neck over my head. ‘Look – I can hardly get this jumper on what with my ginormous brain and everything!’
‘More like your ginormous nose!’ chuckled my dad, even though his nose is WAY bigger than mine.
After that I opened all my other presents – apart from the huge shiny silver one with the SHNOZINATOR 9000 inside. This is what I got . . .
1. A bright pink piggy bank from my Granny Harumpadunk:
2. Wolf Tizzler’s autobiography, HOW TO BE A GENIUS LIKE ME, from my mum:
3. One of those build-your-own circuit board kits from my dad:
‘Brillikeels,’ I said, pretending I liked them all even though:
1. I don’t have any money to put in a piggy bank
2. Who wants to read a boring old book about a loserish child genius who loves brooms?
3. There was no way I’d be wasting my time building a stupid circuit board when I had a SHNOZINATOR 9000 to play with!
You’re probably wondering what a SHNOZINATOR 9000 is by now. It’s this keel new gaming helmet that makes you feel like you’ve been transported to Shnozville.
Shnozville is where Future Ratboy lives, by the way.
Future Ratboy is my favourite TV show. It’s all about this keel kid who’s been zapped millions of years into the future and transformed into a half-boy, half-rat, half-TV.
‘Oh. My. Keelness!’ I said, ripping open the huge shiny silver present. Inside was a white cardboard box with ‘SHNOZINATOR 9000’ written on it in futuristic letters.
‘A SHNOZINATOR 9000! Thanks, Mummypoos. Thanks, Daddypoos!’ I said, lifting it out of the box and slotting it over my head.
Nothing happened.
‘Er, why in the unkeelness aren’t I in Shnozville?’ I said, my nose beginning to droop.
‘You’ve got to charge it up first, Barry!’ chuckled my dad, pulling a mile-long cable out of the box and plugging it into the wall.
‘Oh yeah!’ I said, and my mum did a face that looked like she thought Wolf Tizzler probably would’ve worked that out.
I lifted the SHNOZINATOR 9000 off my head and plugged it into the other end of the cable and a little green triangle lit up on the side.
‘SHNOZINATOR 9000 CHARGING!’ bleeped a robotty voice.
‘Time for a bday wee!’ I said, plonking the SHNOZINATOR 9000 down on the kitchen table and walking off all happily towards the toilet.
‘Ahhh, that’s what I call a fantastikeels bday wee!’ I said, strolling out of the toilet. ‘Now, let’s see if my SHNOZINATOR 9000’s charged up!’
I walked into the kitchen and froze.
My SHNOZINATOR 9000 wasn’t on the table where I’d left it. Instead, there wa
s a trail of white electric cable stretching from the plug socket through the archway into the living room.
I followed the cable into the living room and froze again.
‘Waaahhh!’ I screamed.
Desmond Loser the Second was sitting on the carpet in front of the telly, his bum squidged into my upside-down SHNOZINATOR 9000 like it was his potty.
He was watching his favourite TV show, Clowny Wowny, and his face was very red. Desmond’s face being very red is never a good thing.
‘Operation Get Desmond’s Bum Out of My SHNOZINATOR 9000 Before He Does a Poo in It!’ I screamed, flying through the air like Future Ratboy.
I scooped Des out of the SHNOZINATOR 9000 and plonked him on the sofa then twizzled round and stared down into my helmet.
The good news was, he hadn’t done a poo. The bad news was, he’d done a wee.
The worst thing about your little brother doing a wee into your brand new SHNOZINATOR 9000 before you’ve even managed to charge it up is that WEE COMPERLEETERLY BREAKS A SHNOZINATOR 9000.
‘Oh Barry,’ said my mum, cuddling me into her dressing gown for the second time that morning.
I wriggled out of my mum’s dressing gown and looked at the little green triangle on the side of the helmet. It flickered, turned red, then fizzled out.
‘Can you fix it, Dad?’ I whimpered, feeling like a little light had fizzled out inside my belly.
‘Hmmm, not sure I can Barry,’ said my dad, peering into the SHNOZINATOR 9000. His face peered back up at him, reflected in the pool of wee.
‘Can we take it back to Feeko’s then?’ I said. ‘We could swap it for one that hasn’t got wee all in it!’
My dad looked at me the way I look at my best friend Bunky when I feel sorry for how tiny his brain is.
‘I don’t think Feeko’s takes back SHNOZINATOR 9000s that’ve been weed into, Barry,’ he said.
I stood still for a trillisecond as I tried to work out what to do.
Desmond was sitting on the sofa watching the telly with a grin on his face. Lying on the carpet was his cuddly Clowny Wowny, also doing a grin.
My brain cells started to boil like a kettle.
I walked over to Clowny Wowny and trod on its stupid belly. Then I bent down, grabbed its head and gave it a tug.
Here is a fact about cuddly Clowny Wownys you might not know: their heads rip off much easier than you’d think.
‘Waaahhh!’ screamed Desmond Loser the Second as I dropped Clowny Wowny’s head into my SHNOZINATOR 9000 full of wee and stomped upstairs to bed.
(of chapter)
‘Barry Garry Larry Loser, what DO you think you are doing?’ said my mum, swinging my bedroom door open.
‘I’m having a bday nap,’ I said.
‘Don’t act clever with me, young man. I mean downstairs,’ said my mum, her eyebrows tilting into their angry positions.
‘Ooh, now let me think,’ I said. ‘I believe I was ripping Clowny Wowny’s head off and dunking it in his owner’s wee.’
Saying it out loud like that made me sound like a bit of a weirdo. I grabbed a pillow and squodged it over my head, wishing it was a SHNOZINATOR 9000 that’d zap me straight to Shnozville.
‘I know you’re upset about your Shnozi-whatsitcalled, but that doesn’t mean you can go around breaking other people’s things!’ shouted my mum.
‘But he broke my thing first!’ I screamed.
‘I don’t care,’ said my mum, grabbing my arm and marching me down the stairs again. ‘Desmond’s a baby – he doesn’t know what he’s doing. You’re a big boy, Barry – you should know better!’
‘It’s my birthday! I don’t HAVE to know better!’ I cried. ‘Can we go to Feeko’s, Mum? Pleeease can we get me another SHNOZINATOR 9000?’
‘We most certainly cannot – I’m not made of money, you know!’ said my mum. ‘Now apologise to your little brother.’
‘Sorry I ripped Clowny Wowny’s head off, even though you weed into my SHNOZINATOR 9000,’ I grumbled.
Desmond, who’d comperleeterly forgotten about Clowny Wowny, remembered Clowny Wowny and started to scream again.
‘And you’ll be sewing that head back on as soon as it comes out of the washing machine!’ my mum said to me.
‘Ooh, what a brillikeels bday I’m having!’ I said, flomping down on the sofa.
My dad did one of his funny faces to try and make me laugh.
‘Why don’t you play with your other presents?’ he said, stuffing one of Desmond’s nappies into my SHNOZINATOR 9000 to soak up the wee.
‘Oh what, like my boring old Wolf Tizzler book?’ I mumbled. My mum looked sad for a billisecond, and I felt a bit bad.
‘You could at least have a look,’ she said. ‘Wolf Tizzler’s a very clever young man – you might learn something!’
‘Oh I’m SO sorry your loserish, big-nosed son isn’t all perfect like your darling Wolf Tizzler!’ I cried.
‘Don’t be silly Barry, you know you’ll always be my number one Snookyflumps!’ cooed my mum. ‘Anyway, it’s not like your Shnozi-whatsit’s working so you may as well give it a go.’
She passed me the book and plodded off into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. ‘Stupid rectangular cuboid,’ I said, opening it up and starting to read.
And to my surpriseypoos it immedikeely gave me one of my brilliant and amazekeel ideas.
‘Happy birthkeels to you!’ sang my best friends Bunky and Nancy Verkenwerken two hours, eighteen minutes and thirty-six seconds later, when I opened the front door and saw them standing there.
‘Did you get a SHNOZINATOR 9000?’ grinned Bunky. ‘Is it the keelest thing in the whole wide world amen? Why aren’t you wearing it right now? If I had a SHNOZINATOR 9000 I’d put it on and never take it off again for the rest of my life!’
I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.
‘Desmond Loser the Second used it as a potty so I ripped Clowny Wowny’s head off and dunked it in the wee,’ I said. ‘I just sewed his head back on. Back to front.’
Nancy and Bunky gasped.
‘I am SO sorry, Barry,’ said Bunky, leaning forwards and giving me a hug, which was weird. I don’t think Bunky’s ever given me a hug before.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said, wriggling out of his weirdo hug. ‘I’m comperleeterly over it.’
‘That’s good,’ said Nancy, giving me a funny look because the last time something bad like that happened to me, it took about nine years for me to recover.
‘Nice polo neck, by the way!’ she smiled. ‘You look like Wolf Tizzler!’
Bunky looked at my polo neck and scratched his bum. ‘Erm, what’re you doing with your yellow hoodie?’ he said.
‘I’ll put it back on later,’ I said. ‘I’m only wearing this because it’s my bday jumper.’
‘Can I wear it then?’ said Bunky. ‘Your yellow hoodie, I mean?’
I’ve always had the feeling Bunky secretly wanted my yellow hoodie, just from the way he looked at it. Now I knew I’d been right all along.
‘Er, no-o?’ I said. ‘Get your OWN yellow hoodie!’
‘I would if I could,’ said Bunky. ‘But my mum keeps on buying these stupid stripy ones!’ He pointed down at his stripy jumper. It was true, I’d never seen him wearing anything else.
‘Tough luck, Stripy,’ I said. ‘Nobody wears Barry Loserkeel’s yellow hoodie – apart from Barry Loserkeel!’
Bunky stomped his foot on the ground. ‘My name isn’t Stripy!’ he cried, as Nancy pointed at my book.
‘Er, what are you doing with that?’ she said.
‘It’s my new Wolf Tizzler book,’ I said, holding it up so they could read the title. ‘I’ve just been reading it!’
‘You read a BOOK?’ said Bunky, screwing his face up like used wrapping paper.
‘Well, the first chapter . . .’ I said.
‘What in the keelnees did you do THAT for?’ said Bunky.
‘I know, it’s weird,’ I said. ‘And what’s even weirderer is I’m
actukeely quite enjoying it!’
Nancy rolled her eyes like a two-wheeled sellotape dispenser. ‘Shock horror!’ she chuckled.
‘Bunky, Nancy, I’ve got some bad news,’ I said, comperleeterly out of the blue.
Nancy’s eyebrows tilted into their worried positions. ‘What is it, Barry? Are you OK?’
‘Sorry, did I say BAD news? I meant GOOD!’ I smiled. ‘I was just trying to get your attention – it’s one of Wolf Tizzler’s tricks!’
I held up the page in HOW TO BE A GENIUS LIKE ME where Wolf Tizzler talks about saying things like ‘I’ve got some bad news’ to make people’s ears prick up.
‘So what’s your news?’ asked Nancy.
‘I’m becoming an inventor!’ I said, pulling at the neck of my polo neck.
I don’t know if you’ve ever worn a polo neck before, but it really clings to your neck.
