Too Small to Fail

by Morris Gleitzman

  Oliver decided not to bring that up now. He had something more important to talk about.

  ‘Dad,’ he said quietly. ‘When an investment turns into poo, why can’t you give the person their money back if they really need it?’

  Dad sighed.

  ‘That’s what I’m talking about, son,’ he said. ‘If we start giving money back, word will get out. Gossip and rumours will start. Look what they’re doing, people will say. Something dodgy must be going on at that bank.’

  ‘Being kind isn’t dodgy,’ said Oliver.

  Dad took a deep breath.

  ‘In the banking business,’ he said, ‘rumours are like tumours. Once they start they’re very hard to stop. You have to trust me, Ollie, and not worry your head about it. This is complicated stuff. You need a PhD in maths to really understand it.’

  Oliver closed his eyes and wondered if there was a brain operation that would turn you into a maths genius. It must be possible. Medical science could do incredible things if you had the money.

  Maybe he could get one for his birthday instead of a hang-glider.

  ‘In a couple of years,’ said Dad, ‘things are going to be very different for this family. It’ll be great. We’ll be ready to move the bank to New York. Up there with the big boys.’

  Oliver didn’t say anything.

  Mum must have forgotten about that plan.

  ‘Exciting, eh?’ said Dad. ‘Sweet dreams, son.’

  ‘Night,’ said Oliver as Dad went out.

  Dad was wrong. Oliver wasn’t feeling even a tiny bit excited. And he knew he wouldn’t be having sweet dreams.

  Later, after Mum and Dad had gone to bed, Oliver gave up trying to go to sleep. He crept out into the living room, opened the blinds and stood in the moonlight, staring at the dining table.

  Maybe things would be different in New York.

  Maybe a New York school would be better at teaching maths and he’d learn lots of it.

  And then he’d be able to talk about it with Mum and Dad, while they had breakfast and dinner with him every day.

  At this table.

  Oliver ran his hand over the smooth wood glowing gold in the moonlight.

  Did he really want to be a burglar in his own home? The son of two brilliant high-finance maths geniuses, and all he could do was steal from his own parents?

  No he didn’t.

  But how else could he get Nancy’s money?

  If only he had relatives who could help. Other ones, not Granny and Grandpop, who lived on a cruise boat and never called, or Uncle Roy who was a monk in New Zealand, or Dad’s parents who were killed in a train crash when Dad was two.

  Oliver sighed.

  His body sagged with tiredness.

  Then, as he turned to go back to bed, something caught his eye.

  On the grand piano (never used) was a silver picture frame.

  Oliver went over and picked it up.

  It was worth a few hundred dollars, but that wasn’t what interested him.

  In the frame was a photo of Dad at university, grinning, both thumbs up, a man with a big future.

  Except back then, Oliver thought, Dad didn’t look much like a maths genius.

  He looked like a bit of a nerd.

  Suddenly Oliver felt a stab of excitement as he stared at the photo.

  Maybe Dad started making big bikkies before he got to be a maths genius. Maybe Mum did too. Maybe making big bikkies was something that some people could just naturally do.

  If Dad did it, thought Oliver, and if Mum did …

  I’m their son.

  Maybe I can too.

  5

  ‘What do you mean, buy shares in you?’ said Freddie MacLaren, staring at Oliver doubtfully.

  Oliver led Freddie to a quieter part of the playground, away from the other boys. He didn’t want anyone else hearing about his idea just yet. Not till he had a chance to test it out on someone who wouldn’t mock. Who he hoped was Freddie, based on the sympathetic looks Freddie sometimes gave him in class when the results of maths tests were read out.

  ‘Shares,’ said Oliver. ‘It’s when you buy part of a company or business, and instead of taking your part home, you let them still use it, and to say thank you they give you some of their profits.’

  He was pretty sure that was right.

  ‘I know what shares are,’ said Freddie. ‘My dad owns three per cent of Pizza Hut. But you’re not Pizza Hut. You’re not even a business. How can you sell shares in yourself?’

  Oliver took a deep breath. Dad reckoned you could make anybody invest in anything if you explained it to them properly.

  ‘When I leave school,’ said Oliver, ‘I’m going to have a pet shop. A really successful one with happy animals and room for browsing. I’m going to work really hard and make lots of money. Each year I’ll give some of the money to the people who own a share in me.’

  Oliver hoped he’d said it right. Mum and Dad talked about this stuff a lot, but Oliver didn’t always catch the details. Often he was in bed, or watching them through binoculars.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ said Freddie. ‘Have your parents stopped your pocket money?’

  Oliver decided to risk telling Freddie. It might encourage him to be sympathetic and buy the first share.

  ‘I need eleven thousand dollars by next week,’ said Oliver.

  Freddie looked stunned.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s personal,’ said Oliver.

  ‘What’s personal?’ said a loud voice.

  Oliver turned. And sagged. Standing there were three boys he was pretty sure wouldn’t be sympathetic. Nathan Fisher, Cam Paulson and Lachlan Bernanke.

  ‘Newton’s selling shares in himself,’ said Freddie.

  Oliver tried to look relaxed.

  The three boys stared at Oliver, then fell about laughing.

  Oliver waited for them to finish so he could explain. But as soon as they stopped laughing, they started jeering.

  ‘An investment in no-hoper Newton,’ said Nathan Fisher. ‘That’d be worth about four cents.’

  Oliver could feel his face getting hot. He reminded himself that insults weren’t as bad as what Barclay was facing.

  ‘Two cents a share,’ said Cam Paulson. ‘That’s my final offer.’

  Oliver looked at the boys with what he hoped was the quiet dignity of an investment banker.

  ‘They’re fifty dollars each,’ he said.

  The boys howled even louder than before.

  Freddie MacLaren joined in.

  Oliver wondered if he’d set his Initial Public Offer price a bit too high. Fifty dollars had felt right. Google reckoned it was the average weekly year-five pocket money in Australian boys schools with very high fees.

  Maybe I should have deducted an amount for lollies, thought Oliver.

  The laughter was slowly dying down. Oliver hoped the boys were starting to see the Blue Sky Upside Benefits of the proposed investment.

  They weren’t.

  ‘Here’s your problem, dumbo,’ said Lachlan Bernanke, poking Oliver in the chest. ‘You’re a dumbo. Your parents have spent thousands on maths tutors and you’re still bottom of the class. Who’d want a part of you?’

  Oliver didn’t reply. He knew if he tried to, his voice would go wobbly. Because nobody had ever tried harder at maths than him. Not Mum, not Dad, not Bill Gates, not that kid on TV who could do really big sums in his head.

  The boys were wandering off.

  ‘The only investment I’d be interested in,’ said Nathan Fisher to the other boys, ‘is if I could double my money by lunchtime.’

  The other boys laughed.

  ‘OK,’ called Oliver. ‘You’re on.’

  The boys slowed down.

  ‘I mean it,’ said Oliver.

  The boys turned and looked at Oliver. They walked slowly back to him.

  ‘Invest fifty dollars in me now,’ said Oliver, ‘and I’ll give you a hundred at lunchtime.’

&nbs
p; The boys looked at each other.

  Oliver hoped Dad was right when he said that sometimes you had to lose money to make money. And that deep down, everybody was greedy.

  Nathan was looking uncertain.

  ‘Newton’s parents are investment bankers,’ said Freddie MacLaren. ‘Maybe he knows how to do this stuff.’

  ‘Call his bluff, Nate,’ said Lachlan Bernanke. ‘If he doesn’t pay up, we’ll help you do him.’

  ‘OK,’ said Nathan to Oliver. ‘A hundred at lunchtime. And if you don’t pay up, you have to give me your phone.’

  Oliver nodded.

  Nathan hesitated for a moment, then pulled out his wallet.

  At lunchtime, Oliver gave Nathan a hundred dollars.

  Nathan looked a bit stunned.

  So did Lachlan and Cam and Freddie, who’d been getting ready to do some debt collecting of the physical kind.

  ‘Nice to do business with you,’ said Oliver to Nathan.

  He turned away with what he hoped was the confident expression of a successful investment banker.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Nathan. ‘Can I invest some more?’

  Oliver turned back.

  ‘Alright,’ he said to Nathan. ‘Same deal. Pay fifty now, you get a hundred tomorrow morning.’

  Nathan nodded eagerly.

  ‘I’ll have one too,’ said Lachlan.

  ‘And me,’ said Cam.

  ‘And me,’ said Freddie.

  Oliver pulled some investment certificates from his blazer pocket. They were actually used detention forms he’d found in the school recycling bin, but he’d crossed out all the detention stuff and written the investment stuff next to it.

  The boys handed him fifty-dollar notes.

  Oliver gave them an investment certificate each. He tried not to show them how excited he was.

  His plan was working.

  That evening Oliver had a look at his assets and liabilities. He spread them out on his bed.

  He had one thousand and sixty-one dollars in cash, which included all the money from his savings account, plus the fifty dollar notes he’d got from Nathan, Lachlan, Cam and Freddie, minus the hundred dollars he’d paid to Nathan.

  He was pretty sure that added up to one thousand and sixty-one dollars, because he’d done the sums on the calculator three times and counted the cash eleven times.

  So, said Oliver to himself, that’s my assets.

  He knew they were called assets because Mum and Dad were always using the word to describe things they had, like buildings and housekeepers.

  Oliver picked up his iPad and looked at the list he’d made of his liabilities.

  Nathan Fisher $100

  Cam Paulson $100

  Lachlan Bernanke $100

  Freddie MacLaren $100

  Oliver knew the money you had to pay out was called liabilities because he’d heard Mum use the expression when housekeepers got parking tickets.

  This is good, thought Oliver. My assets are more than my liabilities.

  He’d checked, and Google reckoned that when your assets were more than your liabilities, your business was in a healthy state. Which, Google also said, was the way to attract more investors.

  Excellent.

  Oliver sometimes wondered how kids whose parents worked sixteen-hour days got information before Google was invented.

  He heard Vickey calling him for dinner.

  Before he went to the dining table, Oliver popped out onto his balcony and held his thumbs up. He knew Barclay probably couldn’t see him, but dogs had a sixth sense and he wanted Barclay to know that things were going really well.

  6

  Next morning things started going wrong.

  Oliver knew he had a problem as soon as he reached the playground and saw the crowd of boys running towards him waving fifty-dollar notes.

  Word had obviously spread to year six as well. The excited crowd clamouring around him was huge. Which was good, in a way.

  Oliver’s calculator had told him that to pay Nancy her eleven thousand dollars he needed to sell two hundred and twenty shares at fifty dollars each.

  What wasn’t so good were the things the crowd was yelling at him.

  ‘Double it.’

  ‘Double my money.’

  ‘Double mine too.’

  Oliver glanced over his shoulder to make sure Vickey had driven off. He looked around the playground to make sure all the teachers were either in the staffroom having coffee or in the car park comparing cars.

  Then he held up his hands for silence.

  Which, to his amazement, he got. The crowd gazed at him, waiting for him to speak. Oliver started to understand why investment bankers on TV always looked so full of themselves.

  ‘Yesterday, he said to the crowd, ‘was a special offer.’

  He hoped that was the right expression. Google had been a bit vague on the subject of doubling money by lunchtime.

  ‘From today,’ continued Oliver, ‘shares in me will still double your money, but you won’t get it for a while.’

  Oliver looked around nervously at the crowd. He hoped they wouldn’t mind that last bit. They shouldn’t if they were genuine long-term investors, which Dad always said were the best kind.

  The crowd was scowling and glaring at him.

  They did seem to mind.

  ‘Oliver Newton shares are an investment for the future,’ explained Oliver. ‘You buy them now and they pay you lots in the future. That’s why they’re called futures.’

  He hoped that was right. He’d heard Mum and Dad use the word, but maybe they were just talking about future housekeepers.

  ‘Cheat,’ somebody yelled. ‘You said you’d double our money today.’

  Oliver tried to explain he’d only promised that to four shareholders. The crowd didn’t seem to understand. Everybody started yelling and demanding to have their money doubled right now.

  Luckily the bell went.

  But the crowd didn’t go. They rushed at Oliver, trying to stuff fifty-dollar notes into his hands and pockets.

  Oliver was jostled and pummelled to the ground. He peered anxiously through the scrum of legs. Any minute now, teachers would round everyone up for assembly. And selling shares in the playground was almost certainly against school rules.

  Boldly and decisively, Oliver did what he was pretty sure any investment banker would do to break up a crowd and not get into trouble with teachers.

  He took all the money and agreed to double it by tomorrow.

  That night Oliver lay in bed, staring at his iPad, worrying about his assets and liabilities.

  His assets were quite a lot.

  He had six hundred and sixty-one dollars of yesterday’s assets left after paying Nathan, Cam, Lachlan and Freddie their one hundred dollars each. He also had two thousand three hundred dollars of new assets, which is what all the fifty-dollar investments added up to after he’d pulled them out of his pockets and school bag and socks.

  Total assets, two thousand nine hundred and sixty-one dollars.

  Not enough to save Barclay’s life, but not bad for a start.

  What was worrying Oliver were his liabilities. At lunchtime tomorrow in the playground, forty-six investors were expecting to get double their money back. And some of them did karate.

  Total liabilities, four thousand six hundred dollars.

  And possibly a few broken bones.

  Oliver tried to imagine what Mum and Dad would do in this situation.

  Dad was always saying the secret of successful investment banking was trust. You couldn’t make big bikkies if your clients didn’t trust you.

  What I need, thought Oliver, is a way of making the other kids trust me. So they won’t mind if I don’t pay them back just yet.

  ‘Mr Langrish, sir, can I ask you something please? ‘

  Oliver hurried across the staff car park to where Mr Langrish was climbing out of his old sports car.

  ‘What is it?’ said Mr Langrish suspiciously.

&nbs
p; Oliver knew why his class teacher wasn’t pleased to see him. The last time Oliver had asked Mr Langrish a question before school, it hadn’t worked out well. Mr Langrish had explained long division to Oliver yet again, but Oliver still hadn’t understood and Mr Langrish had missed his morning coffee.

  ‘It’s not about long division,’ said Oliver.

  ‘Good,’ said Mr Langrish.

  ‘It’s about the maths project,’ said Oliver. ‘You know, sir, the one where we have to choose an example of maths in society and write four hundred words about it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Langrish. ‘I do know. I set it.’

  ‘Well,’ said Oliver, ‘I’ve finished mine.’

  ‘Really,’ said Mr Langrish, not looking very impressed. ‘That’s probably just as well as it was due in yesterday.’

  He looked even less impressed when Oliver handed him a slightly crumpled sheet of paper.

  Mr Langrish glanced at his watch.

  ‘It’s about credit default swaps, sir,’ said Oliver. ‘Credit default swaps are a type of insurance that investors buy in case their investments go bung. Going bung means not getting your money back. With insurance you do get it back.’

  Oliver paused for breath.

  Mr Langrish looked at Oliver, then at the project, then at Oliver again.

  ‘Did your parents do this for you?’ he asked.

  Oliver was shocked that Mr Langrish would even think such a thing.

  ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘I did it all myself. And I changed the Google sentences around like you told us to.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Mr Langrish, glancing at his watch again.

  ‘Can you mark it now, please, sir?’ said Oliver.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Langrish. ‘I haven’t had my coffee yet. You’ll get it back in class with everyone else.’

  As Mr Langrish walked away, Oliver remembered the other thing he’d meant to say.

  ‘Please, sir,’ he called. ‘I need a good mark. By lunchtime.’

  Just before the lunch bell went, Oliver’s insides gave a little leap. Mr Langrish was putting down his marking pen and picking up the bundle of projects from his desk.

  ‘Paulson,’ he said. ‘Footy scores. Not the most riveting example of maths in society, but not bad. Bernanke, kill totals in Warcraft, predictable. Ling, lolly prices, your work’s improving. Newton, credit default swaps …’