by Jim Smith
First published in Great Britain 2012
by Jelly Pie an imprint of Egmont UK Ltd
239 Kensington High Street London W8 6SA
Text and illustration copyright © Jim Smith 2012
The moral rights of the author-illustrator have been asserted.
ISBN 978 1 4052 6031 2
eISBN 978 1 7803 1122 7
www.egmont.co.uk
barryloser.com Jellypiebooks.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title page
Copyright
Praise
Being a Loser
The Keel Gang
Granny Harumpadunk
Barry Fakenose
Barry Longlegs
Barry Massive Robot Barry
My loser haircut
The wallpaper show
Fronklespit hairgel
My Loser pants
Sort of genius plan
Operation Reveal the Keel
Darren Darrenicey
The talent contest
Still the talent contest
Even stiller the talent contest
Still even stiller the talent contest
Vending Machine Mum
Being a winner
Being a loser again
About the Author
I’ve never minded that my name’s Barry Loser because my coolness has always cancelled it out, but ever since Darren Darrenofski joined school with his horrible little crocodile face he’s been completely ruining my life about it.
He’s always slurping on cans of Fronkle then burping in my ear.
When I complain that the burp is really loud and stinks of Fronkle he does this annoying little dance and sings ‘Barry Loser’s a Loser’ to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday to You’, which doesn’t work because it’s got too many syllables.
I was in the playground the other day when a ringpull hit me on the back of my neck and went down my jumper and into my pants. I turned round and it was Darren Darrenofski again.
‘Nice really long shoelaces, Barry Loser,’ he said, then he did a burp that went on for about an hour.
‘That’s how long they are,’ he said when it was finished.
‘At least I don’t look like a poo bum crocodile,’ I said back, which sounded a bit loserish when it came out of my mouth but it confused him enough so that I could run off before he threw his whole can of Fronkle at me.
Darren had got me worried that my laces were too long though and I spent the whole of Maths measuring shoelace lengths and came to the conclusion that he was right, so when I got home I cut a bit off each one.
By the way I’m a child genius so I didn’t just throw the leftovers away, I came up with an amazing use for them.
I planted them in the back garden like they were worms and watched from my window with my dad’s binocs as the little birds tried to eat them.
‘Do you want me to grab the end of Darren’s nose and stick it in a letter box?’ asked my friend Bunky as we walked home from school the next day. Bunky isn’t his real name by the way, it’s what his mum calls him.
Luckily he hasn’t heard my mum calling me ‘Snookyflumps’, although come to think of it, nothing could be worse than being called Barry Loser.
I’m gonna do something about my loserish name before Darren completely ruins my life about it even more.
Before Darren I was always one of the cool people at school. Not that I ever say the word ‘cool’, I say ‘keel’. It’s something me and Bunky came up with because in our favourite TV show, Future Ratboy, he says it that way.
The Keel Gang is mostly just me and Bunky hanging out together, watching Future Ratboy and playing it keel.
I’m Future Ratboy and Bunky is his annoying sidekick, Not Bird, except Bunky’s not a bird and he doesn’t say ‘NOT’ after everything.
One of the other things the Keel Gang does is annoy people down my street by knocking on their doors and running off, then phoning them up asking to speak to Poopoo.
Bunky’s favourite person to annoy is Mrs Trumpet Face, who lives in the block of flats at the end of the road with her twin kids and no husband.
In the summer we play wall tennis against her wall until she yells out of the window for us to stop, which is when we run off shouting ‘Trumpet Faccccceeeee!’, giggling and blowing off with fear.
Once when it snowed we painted ourselves blue and pretended we’d frozen to death outside her flat. When she saw us she screamed and started giving Bunky the kiss of life until we got up and ran off shouting ‘Trumpet Faccccceeeee!’
‘Ha ha, she kissed you! You’re married to Mrs Trumpet Face now!’ I said to Bunky after that to annoy him.
I think he secretly liked it though, because for about a year every time I called him Bunky he said, ‘Er, my name’s Mr Trumpet Face now?’ which ended up really annoying me instead.
At lunchtimes the Keel Gang does TV shows in the playground for the other kids.
Our favourite is Vending Machine Mum, which is where I play my mum (who’s turned into a vending machine) and Bunky plays me.
It’s based on how my mum says she feels like a vending machine, always giving me food and ironed clothes and packed lunches without me ever saying thanks.
I made the vending machine costume out of the box the new washing machine came in after our old one exploded foam everywhere.
The costume’s so brilliant and amazing that the first time I wore it Jocelyn Twiggs thought it was real and followed me around all lunch trying to get a can of Diet Fronkle out of it.
We were in the playground acting out Vending Machine Mum the other day and just getting to the bit where she’s making my bed while I’m completely not helping at all, when Darren Darrenofski’s crocodile face snuffled into the front row and started burping Fronkle gas into the scene.
‘Poo, what’s that smell?’ I said, which wasn’t in the script.
‘Maybe your loser son weed the bed,’ said Darren and he threw a ringpull at me, which annoyamazingly went into the coin slot of my costume and everyone laughed.
‘Nice shot, Darren!’ said Tracy Pilchard, who was in the audience with her stupid gang, which is her, Donnatella and Sharonella. They call themselves ‘The Cool Girlz’, which is a completely unkeel name in my opinion.
‘Yeah,’ said Donnatella. ‘Nice shotingtons.’ They put ‘ingtons’ on the ends of their words as well, which is also unkeel.
‘Er, Darren, we’re trying to do our TV show?’ I said, all shaking out of anger.
‘What’s it called? Loseroid City?’ he said, and everyone laughed again including Bunky, which I couldn’t believe because it was so unfunny.
‘No, it’s called Darren’s Face is All Crocodiley and He’s Fat from Too Many Fronkles,’ I shouted back.
‘No need to be so horrible, Barry Loser,’ said Sharonella, and everyone in the crowd said ‘yea-eahh!’ even though it was Darren who’d started it, not me.
‘I’ve had enough of this!’ I shouted and ripped myself out of my costume, storming off with everyone watching and saying how much of a loser I was, Bunky included.
Ever since the whole Vending Machine Mum thing I’d been trying to work out how to get back to being one of the keelest people in school.
I’d had a think for about three-quarters of a minute and used my child geniusness to its full extent and come up with a brilliant and amazing plan. There was o
nly one person that could help me with it and that was Granny Harumpadunk.
Mum’s always saying that Granny has lots of ‘issues’. At first I thought she was saying ‘tissues’ and couldn’t work out what the big problem was.
Then I realised it was ‘issues’, and even though I don’t know what it means I kind of get that Granny is a bit weird.
Ever since Grandad died she’s been funny. If you go near his old chair she gets all angry. Not that you would go near it, because Invisigrandad is sitting there.
Invisigrandad was my idea for making her feel better. It’s his hat and glasses and clothes and stuff all puffed out with newspaper. It’s pretty lifelike, apart from it doesn’t snore and do massive burps.
For someone who misses someone so much she’s still pretty grumpy with him.
‘Oh Wilf, will you please stop doing those invisible blowoffs,’ she said the other day, knitting a trunk warmer for an elephant she’s adopted by post, while me and Bunky were watching Future Ratboy on her really old TV.
‘Shhh, you’re ruining Future Ratboy,’ said Bunky.
‘Ooh sorry, Blinky,’ said Granny. ‘Stop invisiburping, Wilf, you’re ruining Future Ratman for Blinky.’
She’s always getting stuff like that wrong and it took me about twelve hours to explain my genius plan to her, but by the end of Future Ratboy she’d got the idea.
‘Leave it to me, Barry!’ she said and I put my hand up to high five her and she grannykissed it.
That’s how I came to be walking to school wearing this bright yellow knitted woollen nose.
‘You look like an idiot!’ said Bunky.
‘Er, I look like Future Ratboy in the episode where his nose gets run over by a bus?’ I said.
‘His nose was all flat and keel in that episode. Yours is fat and unkeel.’
‘Shut up, Bunky,’ I said, but it came out ‘Dut up, Dunky,’ because of my nostrils being blocked by all the wool. I hate Bunky even though he’s my best friend in the whole wide world amen.
The first lesson was Science with Mr Hodgepodge, who has cross-eyes and a bent finger so when he points at someone it’s hard to know who he’s talking to.
‘What’s that monstrosity on your face, Barry Loser?’ he shouted, pointing at Anton Mildew and looking at Fay Snoggles.
‘It’s my Future Ratboy nose!’ I said, but it came out ‘Dit’s dy Duture Datdoy dose’.
‘Well take it off. You look like an anteater,’ he said, so I took it off and put it back on as soon as he looked away, which was immediately.
Because it was so yellow and woolly, as I looked from left to right to read what Mr Hodgepodge was writing on the board all I could see was my nose bobbling around in front of me, which I didn’t mind because it blocked out my view of The Cool Girlz.
‘Ow, your fake nose is hitting my hair,’ said Tracy Pilchard, which was stupid because it wasn’t and hair can’t hurt. ‘Ow, mine too,’ said Donnatella, then Sharonella said, ‘Yeah, mine as wellingtons,’ which I did a chuckle through my nose about because she’d said ‘wellingtons’.
‘It’s not funny, Barry Annoyingnose,’ Darren Darrenofski shouted, and everyone laughed, even Mr Hodgepodge, then Darren burped in my ear.
‘Mmm, dat was dovely, danks Darren,’ I said to confuse him, but I’m not sure it worked because of my blocked-up nose and him being thick.
At first break I was really excited about showing off my nose to everyone in the playground so I ran out of Science. The trouble was that with it bobbling around in front of me all yellowly I couldn’t see Anton Mildew’s lunchbox that he’d left just lying in the middle of the hall and I tripped over it and landed right outside the girls’ toilets.
‘Serves you right for hurting my hair,’ said Tracy, walking past with her plastic jewellery all rattling.
‘Yeah, Sharonella’s got loads of your woolly bogies in her perm,’ Donnatella said. Sharonella just stood there, and from where I was lying I could look up her nostrils and see her ACTUAL bogies.
‘I thought I told you to take that nose off, Barry Anteater,’ Mr Hodgepodge said in Art, where we were supposed to be drawing what was right in front of us. My picture was of a really long nose going off into the distance with the wall behind it, which is probably the most boring drawing in the history of the world amen.
At lunch Bunky didn’t want to sit opposite me because of my nose taking up so much space, so in front of me there was just an empty chair.
‘Having lunch with your invisible friend, Barry Losernose?’ said Darren, queuing up for his Fronkle and chips.
‘Ha ha, yeah!’ chuckled Bunky, leaning over to Anton Mildew. ‘Look, Anton! Barry’s having lunch with his invisible friend!’ he laughed, but Anton didn’t join in because he actually HAS got an invisible friend and it gets jealous of other people’s.
Time goes slower the longer your nose is and that afternoon was my slowest one ever times ten. Bunky tried to cheer me up on the walk home by ripping my nose off and putting it round his neck, pretending he was Granny Harumpadunk with one of her scarves.
‘Ooh, where did I put my glasses so I can watch Future Ratman,’ he said, and I laughed for the first time all day, my head feeling light from the no nose.
Then Darren appeared behind us, all snuffly from running with his Fronkle belly, and started throwing ringpulls at me and singing his ‘Loser’ song, which ruined my life all over again.
Because it’d been sunny the day before, when I woke up the next morning I had a tan everywhere except where my fake nose had been. I was worried Darren might call me Barry Palenose or something so I decided I’d distract him with one of my genius plans.
Before my grandad got really old, his job was going round at midnight changing the broken light bulbs in lamp posts using stilts instead of a ladder.
‘Never trust a ladder, Barry,’ he’d shout down at me from his stilts, wobbling about and waving his arms, all the light bulbs dropping and smashing everywhere.
When they sacked him he gave me the stilts, which is why I was walking to school with them right now.
‘Morning!’ I shouted down at Bunky in my Invisigrandad voice, and he looked around, but all he could see were stilt legs and no me.
‘Invisigrandad? Is that you?’ he said, and I couldn’t tell if he was serious.
‘Granny Harumpadunk told me you think she’s unkeel,’ I said, trying to sound scary.
‘I-I’m sorry, Invisigrandad, I won’t do it again,’ Bunky said, then he looked up at me and shouted, ‘NOT!’
‘Race you to school!’ I said and in about three steps I was there, Bunky running as fast as he could but still taking nine hours.
‘What’s all this crazy business?’ said Mr Hodgepodge when I came into the classroom.
‘It’s my new look!’ I shouted down at him. ‘Keel times ten or what!’
‘Outside now, Loser!’ he shouted, pointing at Donnatella and looking at Sharonella.
‘That’s not fair!’ cried Donnatella and she burst into tears.
Tracy Pilchard ran over, screeching, ‘Emergency group-huggingtons!’ and they all cuddled each other until Tracy Pilchard noticed Sharonella’s new hairband and they started talking about that instead.
That was about as good as the morning got for me, what with Mr Hodgepodge explaining for the billionth time to The Cool Girlz about his cross-eyes and bent finger, then making me stand outside for the whole rest of the lesson like I was a tree.
‘Mr Hodgepodge, it’s raining,’ I shouted after nineteen hours, even though it wasn’t, but he was too busy telling Stuart Shmendrix to stop flicking his bogies at Jocelyn Twiggs to hear me.
Darren, who sits in the back row, had turned his chair round and was staring at me through the glass.
‘Mr Hodge-podge, it’s wain-ing,’ he mouthed in a loserish way, waving his arms around like branches, which got me worried that that was what I looked like, so for the rest of the lesson I kept quiet and made a story up in my head about a tree fa
lling on him.
At lunch I could see down into everybody’s lunchboxes because of how tall I was, which was actually really boring.
‘Here, ducky!’ Bunky was saying, throwing bits of food into my mouth but missing, half of it landing in Sharonella’s hair, which was on top of her stupid head.
‘Sharonella’s got sandwiches and crisps in her hair, Barry Stupidlegs,’ Tracy Pilchard shouted at me from the ground, and I was worried she could see the bogies up MY nostrils.
‘Ha ha, Barry Stupidlegs!’ laughed Bunky and I stepped on his toe with my stilt then said sorry then whispered ‘not’.
It was Games in the afternoon, which was really easy because we were doing running.
‘Work those stilts, Loser!’ Mr Koops the Sports teacher was shouting through his megaphone, and I felt pretty keel because usually he doesn’t even know who I am.
‘Watch this, Mr Koops!’ Darren said and he made his little legs go as fast as he could but I still beat him easily with one step.
‘No Banana, Darrenofski,’ shouted Mr Koops, which is one of his favourite catchphrases. I’ve never seen him with any actual bananas though so it’s lucky no one ever runs fast enough to win one.
On the way home with Bunky I was thinking how my day hadn’t been the worst one of my whole life ever, when I stopped to cross the road for about a millisecond and looked down and saw that someone had stuck a poster to my legpoles.
