The Fincredible Diary of Fin Spencer

by Ciaran Murtagh

  It was only then that I noticed Mrs Skiffington watching me through her office window. Brilliant. Now she thinks I snog pottery in my spare time.

  Never mind. The vases were fine and that was all that mattered! Not that CLAUDIA noticed or anything. BUT WHY WOULD SHE?

  As far as she was concerned there was nothing to fix in the first place. The wedding is back on. Or at least it will be when CLAUDIA realises I exist. AGAIN.

  For the first time in ages school felt normal, which was a relief. Whenever I saw JOSH he was sulking, the big baby, but luckily I now have BRAD to hang around with.

  When I got home things looked bad – ELLIE was smiling at me. As we all know, this usually means only one thing, and I started to worry about what I’d done wrong. I couldn’t think of anything but that means nothing.

  I needn’t have worried. For once, ELLIE wasn’t smiling because I was in trouble, she was smiling because her best friends, Chloe and Porsche, had come for a sleepover. A SLEEPOVER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WEEK? It turns out their school’s closed tomorrow for teacher training! Not that you can call the place they go to a proper school – it’s all skipping and colouring-in as far as I can tell. And who calls their daughter Porsche, anyway? I bet her dad calls their car Rebecca or something.

  I was about to go to my room to play on my Xbox when Mum stopped me. Dad had been ‘held up at work’ and she needed to pop to the shops for more ketchup, so she wanted me to look after the girls for a minute or two. I couldn’t believe Mum fell for that one! Everyone knows that ‘held up at work’ is dad-speak for ‘hanging out with my mates until the coast is clear.’

  I was going to make up some excuse but Mum guessed that’s what I was going to do before I could say anything.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to make some excuse and then go up to your room to play on your Xbox,’ she said. ‘Because I need you to properly keep an eye on them while I’m gone. I won’t be long and I’m trusting you to look out for them.’

  I was about to ignore her and go to play on my Xbox anyway when she read my mind AGAIN. She said that I could play on my Xbox if I wanted – and I did want – but if I also wanted to go to the concert on Saturday – and I did also want to – then I should help her out with the little-sister-and-her friends-sitting.

  I couldn’t believe it! I WAS BEING BLACKMAILED BY MY OWN MOTHER!

  I had no choice, so I went to see what the three little piggies were doing. It was worse than I’d imagined. Before I even got to ELLIE’s bedroom door I could hear them. They were singing into hairbrush microphones at the top of their voices. Seriously, you could hear them on the moon.

  When ELLIE saw me she wanted me to join in and handed me a hairbrush. No way! Helping Mum with the girls did NOT include singing songs into a hairbrush. I was about to tell ELLIE that when Mum appeared at the door to say goodbye and said how nice it was that I was ‘joining in’. Which we all know is mum-speak for ‘Take the hairbrush or I’ll tear those X-WING tickets to pieces!’ I knew what I had to do …

  IT WAS THE WORST MOMENT OF MY LIFE SO FAR. SERIOUSLY. THE. WORST. MOMENT.

  X-WING had better be worth it.

  The song finished and I threw the microphone – I mean hairbrush – onto ELLIE’s bed. ELLIE smiled at me and told me to sing it again. NO WAY! Once was enough! I might actually start to like the song or something. But then I realised that if I didn’t do what ELLIE asked, she’d tell Mum that I hadn’t been joining in and we all know what that means. No X-WING concert. I was trapped! I picked up the hairbrush and sang for all I was worth.

  Sometimes I hate my sister. NO! Scratch that. I ALWAYS hate my sister.

  As I was getting to the end of for the second time, ELLIE turned off the music and announced that it was time for a dolly’s picnic in the garden. So that I didn’t feel left out ELLIE handed me her spare dolly – Penelope Fuzzyface – and, holding my hand, she led me to the garden with her friends.

  Penelope Fuzzyface is TERRIFYING. When ELLIE was little she used to suck Penelope’s nose and now she looks like a hundred horror movie baddies all rolled into one!

  It wasn’t all bad, though. Mum had left some cakes and stuff for the picnic and I got to eat as much cake as I wanted. Normally Mum made me stop after one slice, but it seems that when it’s a picnic for dollies you can eat as much as you like and then blame it on the dolly. Clever, huh?

  As I was polishing off my eighth jam tart ELLIE and the girls decided that it would be fun if they gave me a makeover. I spat jammy crumbs all over Penelope Fuzzyface – which was actually an improvement – and shook my head. I would do a lot of things for my sister … No, hang on, I would do NOTHING for my sister, but on the other hand I would do a lot of things for X-WING tickets. So I closed my eyes, thought of X-WING, and kissed goodbye to my beautiful face. (Which is hard to do.)

  When they’d finished, Ferrari, or whatever her name, is handed me a mirror. I looked like I’d been caught inside an exploding make-up shop.

  ELLIE thought I looked just like Which was kind of true, if Charlie Dimples looked like he’d been caught inside an exploding make-up shop.

  She gave me the hairbrush they’d been using to style my hair and asked me to sing again. By now I had no pride, so I pretended to be really enthusiastic. I was getting to the chorus when BRAD RADLEY arrived and saw me in the garden singing my heart out into a hairbrush. Not literally, of course. That would be disgusting.

  Either way, it was a disaster!

  WORST. MOMENT. EVER.

  I’d forgotten he was coming over to practise the talent-show stunt. He stared at me for what felt like forever and then I saw that he was holding his phone. A shiver ran down my spine. He hadn’t taken a photo, had he?

  I rushed over and demanded to see his phone, but BRAD put it back in his pocket and swore that he hadn’t taken any photos of me or anyone else. I breathed a sigh of relief (and splattered runny lipstick all over Penelope Fuzzyface. Another improvement).

  After I’d finished wiping off the make-up, ELLIE, Chloe and Skoda agreed to watch our stunt. BRAD got out his guitar and started to strum while I got the ramp ready. I wasn’t going to jump over anything today – I just wanted to practise my take-offs and landings.

  BRAD played as I cycled towards the ramp. ELLIE, Chloe and Nissan watched and the stunt went perfectly! Even the dollies looked impressed. (Apart from Penelope Fuzzyface who looked terrifying, as usual.)

  Then BRAD had a brainwave. Why didn’t we practise the stunt again but this time jump over the dollies? I thought it was a great idea but Porsche wasn’t so sure. She didn’t want her dolly to get dirty. But who listens to a girl who’s named after a car? We took the dollies and lined them up in front of the ramp.

  The run up was perfect. BRAD was singing and wiggling his leg like a rock star. But when I hit the ramp there was a loud

  The ramp had broken and I ended up cycling right over the dollies’ heads. Porsche started to cry, which made her sound more like a car than ever! Maybe that’s why her parents called her Porsche in the first place.

  ELLIE was shouting at me that Penelope Fuzzyface was ruined forever, although I thought it was definitely an improvement.

  Then ELLIE started to cry too and Chloe was definitely thinking about it. Mum arrived back just at that moment. When she saw the crying girls and the dolly carnage she dropped the ketchup bottle on the floor. She was not happy. BRAD was sent home and suddenly I was being accused of dolly murder.

  Chloe and Porsche wanted to go home too, so Mum had to drive them. As she slammed the car door, sleepover ruined, she sent me to my room. The concert was off again.

  It’s so unfair. Why do parents always remember the one thing you did wrong instead of all the amazing things you did right? It wasn’t my fault the ramp broke. I should never have tried to jump over the dollies in the first place. Everything was fine up until then. If I hadn’t tried to jump over the dollies then I’d still be going to see X-WING on Saturday, wouldn’t I? Luckily I know a way to fix
it …

  Diary, I shouldn’t have tried to jump over the dollies on my bicycle. IF YOU CAN CHANGE THAT I’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER.

  When I went into the kitchen this morning, Mum, Dad and ELLIE were smiling at me. Chloe and Porsche were there and they were smiling too. At first I was worried. Everybody smiling at me like that must mean I’d done something mega bad, right? But no! They were smiling because they were pleased with me! Apparently that can happen too – who knew? Yesterday FIN SPENCER was apparently a model son and brother and best-friends-of-little-sister entertainer.

  The only person around that table not smiling was Penelope Fuzzyface. But then she never smiles. I realised that the fact that Chloe and Porsche were still there meant they didn’t go home last night and the sleepover had happened. THANK YOU, DIARY!

  Mum thought my change of behaviour was down to the Keep Fit breakfast cereal she’s been making me eat. Parents really know nothing, do they? My good behaviour was down to two very simple things – bribery and a magic diary!

  As I was leaving for school I couldn’t resist asking Dad how his mates were last night. Without thinking he just said, ‘Fine, thanks!’

  BUSTED! He wasn’t ‘held up at work’ at all. Bet Dad wished he had a magic diary too when he saw Mum’s face! She asked everyone but Dad to ‘Leave the room for a minute’. Which was mum-speak for ‘Stand back, Dad’s gonna die’!

  I felt a bit bad for him, but then I remembered that he hadn’t had to sing into a hairbrush three times and be covered in make-up – he deserved everything that was coming to him.

  I arrived at school with a smile on my face. Tomorrow BRAD and I would win the talent show and I’d have a phone and on Saturday I would go to see X-WING. All I had to do was keep a low profile until then and the perfect weekend would be coming my way.

  But as I walked down the corridor people started to laugh at me. I checked I hadn’t accidentally tucked my trousers into my socks – that’s happened before. But not this time. It had to be something else. I saw BRAD RADLEY by my locker – maybe he knew why people were laughing.

  BRAD smiled at me. It wasn’t a nice smile, it was the smile a shark gives you just before it bites your legs off.

  It turned out BRAD knew exactly why everybody was laughing at me. He pushed a button on his phone and a video began to play on the screen. When I realised what I was seeing I wanted to crawl into my locker and shut the door forever.

  It was a video of me, in full make-up, singing at the top of my voice. What was BRAD playing at? I thought we were friends! He’d sworn that he hadn’t taken any photos.

  When I asked him about it he said, ‘I didn’t take any photos, but nobody said anything about videos.’

  I needed to get his phone and smash it to pieces. I tried to grab it but BRAD held it high above my head so I couldn’t reach. As I was standing there, hopping up and down like an ant in a tap-dancing contest, JOSH came over, waving his phone at me. He’d got the video too.

  he said.

  Now I really wanted to live in my locker forever. I didn’t understand. How had JOSH got the video? BRAD grinned as he told me that EVERYONE in my class had the video. If you pushed the buttons on his phone in the right way you could send videos to everyone in the contacts list. And that was just what BRAD had done.

  Why did BRAD do it? I thought we were fincredible best mates.

  BRAD shook his head at me, when I asked him. He told me he’d never be best mates with a loser like me. Apparently he’d only ever pretended to be my friend so that he’d be close by when I did something embarrassing. Then he’d used it to get his own back for making him look stupid last week. He said he knew it would only be a matter of time, but he’d never imagined I’d do anything quite so ridiculous! Everyone had seen me singing and dancing to or if they hadn’t yet they soon would. I should never have trusted BRAD RADLEY.

  School couldn’t end soon enough. I spent break time and lunchtime hiding in the toilets. I thought I’d dodged everybody but I bumped into CLAUDIA RONSON on my way home. She gave me a smile and then turned to her friends and giggled.

  PERFECT! She thinks I’m a loser too.

  I know exactly what I have to do. I have to leave my school forever and run away to Pluto.

  I’m back at home now and I’ve locked myself in my room to write in this diary. I couldn’t face Mum and Dad and ELLIE after the day I’ve had. I guess I just have to hope that people will forget about the video when they see my cool stunt at the talent show tomorrow…

  But as I’ve been writing I’ve realised something else. Brad won’t be in my stunt now – not that I’d want him there anyway. I could ask JOSH back, but I know exactly what he’d say.

  Gotta go, I need to come up with a way of saving my talent-show act.

  I’m back and feeling much better about things because I’ve realised something – I don’t need any help. My stunt is going to be amazing without BRAD or JOSH. Sure, I might not have a live musical accompaniment, but the stunt-jumping should be enough to win the phone. I could play X-WING as a backing track. So I went to find ELLIE to see if she’d watch me practise jumping for a bit, but she was in the middle of a marathon and wouldn’t budge.

  I watched a bit of until I realised what I was doing and decided to go and do something more interesting instead – like rearrange my pencil-shavings collection.

  When I was getting ready for bed I thought about how I could use this diary to change things. If I could fix it so that BRAD hadn’t come round to my house yesterday then he wouldn’t have got the video footage on his phone … But then I remembered the Fincredible Diary Rules. I can only change things that I do, not what BRAD did. And I can only change things on the day they happen – it’s too late now. But that means I can do something to change what happened today. I should have stood up to BRAD a bit more today. It’s much easier to write that here, in this diary – it’s really hard when he’s standing right in front of you. I should have told him that I was doing something nice for my sister and that there was nothing wrong with that. Quite frankly, he shouldn’t take videos of people without asking anyway – if he’s not careful he’ll go through life with no friends at all. So yes, diary, I wish I’d stood up more to BRAD RADLEY today.

  I hope that works, but I’m beginning to realise that this diary has a nasty habit of backfiring on me.

  Today was talent-show day. The day I was to become a world famous stuntboy—rockstar! The day nothing was allowed to go wrong – right? WRONG! I knew it was going to be a bad day as soon as I’d had my first mouthful of Keep Fit breakfast cereal. Dad slammed the paper down on the table and gave me a really weird look. Did I have a volcano on my chin or something?

  Before I could go and check, he pointed at me and then at the paper and started spluttering. At first I was scared. Had the video of me dancing in the garden gone viral? Had it made the headlines?

  But no, he was pointing to ‘Kids Say the Sweetest Things’ cartoon. I had a closer look. The snot-nosed kid was back again, but this time in the cartoon he was reciting a poem. How sad. But then I realised he was reciting MY POEM! The poem I wrote for Grandma. Well, the poem I wrote in my diary for Grandma!

  Gran loved the poem so much she had sent it into the paper and now they’d published it ALONG WITH MY NAME! Mum was proud, ELLIE was jealous and Dad seemed to understand exactly how I was feeling …

  I knew that when the kids at school saw it I was going to be a laughing stock for the second day running. I tried to look on the bright side – how many kids at school would actually see ‘Kids Say the Sweetest Things’ cartoon anyway?

  Turns out all of them do when your ex-friend BRAD RADLEY cuts out the cartoon and sticks it to your locker. Apparently what I said to him yesterday about ending up with no friends made him hate me more than ever – thanks, diary! I tore the cartoon up and flushed it down the toilet but it was too late. Everywhere I went people kept telling me that they loved my hairy toes. That was NOT what I wrote. Five pounds was not worth
this.

  Luckily, people soon forgot about the cartoon because they were getting excited about the talent show. It couldn’t come soon enough. I needed to win it and restore my reputation. I was so sure I was going to win the phone I spent lunchtime collecting phone numbers to add to my new phone’s contacts list.

  The talent show took place in the hall after school. Mum and Dad came to watch and brought ELLIE too, who’d dressed up in her Princess Jasmine outfit for the occasion. Everyone kept stopping to tell us how cute she looked. I couldn’t believe it! I was about to risk life and limb and all anyone was interested in was my sister’s dress.

  I had brought the old fish tank into school so I went and filled it with water from the art room and wound up my shark to check it was still working. It was going to be amazing. Just before I went backstage, Dad ruffled my hair and said ‘Do your best.’ Which we all know is dad-speak for ‘Win this thing or you’re never coming home.’

  Watching the first few acts I knew I had nothing to worry about. Peter Bishop spun four plates on sticks and smashed three of them, one of them on Mr Finch’s toe. Olivia Sanderson did a ventriloquist act with a dummy, but the head kept popping off and making the little kids in the front row cry. (The dummy’s head that is, not Olivia’s head. If Olivia’s head had popped off that would have been an act.) Then Paddy Horgan came on and armpit-farted the National Anthem. Luckily he got dragged off before he could be beheaded for treason!

  The phone was in the bag. My bag.

  After the interval I took to the stage and positioned my ramps. I was using some of the sports equipment from the gym cupboard. Then I got my bike, stood centre stage and told the audience what I was about to do.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls! Do not try this at home!’ I shouted. ‘I, FINCREDIBLE FIN SPENCER – aka Stuntboy – am going to jump over a shark tank!’