Barry Loser and the Birthday Billions

by Jim Smith

  ‘An inventor? What for?’ said Bunky, already beginning to look bored. That’s the thing with people like Bunky who’ve got tiny brains – they can’t concentrate on things for more than three sentences.

  ‘Let me fill you in while we take a stroll,’ I said, tucking my book under one arm and my bright pink piggy bank under the other.

  ‘Coo-wee, Bar-ry!’ cried my mum, running out of the house after us. ‘Don’t forget I’ve got your favourite dinner for tonight – fish fingers, chips and peas!’

  I gave my mum a thumbs-up, not wanting to tell her that that hasn’t been my favourite for about three years. ‘Brillikeels!’ I shouted over my shoulder, just to keep her happy.

  ‘Nice piggy bank, Barry!’ laughed Bunky as we strolled up the street. ‘It goes with your girl’s phone!’

  I pulled my phone, which is pink and used to be my mum’s, out of my pocket.

  ‘Why does everyone think pink is for girls?’ I said. ‘Some of the keelest things in the whole wide world are pink!’

  ‘Like what?’ said Bunky.

  ‘Erm . . . bubble gum, strawberry milkshakes . . . the insides of eyelids?’ I said, running out of keel pink things pret-ter-ly quick-er-ly.

  ‘Ooh, the insides of eyelids, they are SOOOO keel!’ laughed Bunky.

  I pressed a button on my phone. ‘PLEUUURRRFFf !’ it rumbled, doing a blowoff right into his face.

  ‘POOWEE!’ sniggled Bunky, even though the noise hadn’t smelled of anything. It was just this keel little app I’d downloaded that’s got millions of different blowoff noises on it.

  ‘Er, I don’t want to interrupt your important discussion about eyelids and blowoffs, but what exactly are we doing?’ said Nancy.

  ‘Yeah Barry,’ said Bunky. ‘Since when do you take STROLLS?’

  ‘It’s something Wolf Tizzler does,’ I said, tapping my book. ‘It helps him think clearly!’

  ‘Ugh, Wolf Tizzler . . .’ sighed Bunky. ‘My mum thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread!’

  I chuckled to myself, wondering who invented sliced bread, then remembered I’d forgotten to mention something important.

  ‘Let’s clear one thing up before we go any further,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah yeah, we know!’ smiled Nancy, nudging Bunky, and he pretended to fall off the kerb into the road and down a drain.

  I said.

  ‘Today’s your birthday, which means you’re “Bday Barry”, which means you can do whatever you like and we can’t say anything about it!’ said Nancy.

  ‘How did you know that?’ I grinned.

  ‘Because you say it EVERY birthday!’ laughed Bunky.

  I did a bday sniggle and we all strolled along for about seven and a half footsteps. ‘What I don’t get,’ said Nancy, ‘is why aren’t you more upset about your SHNOZINATOR 9000 being weed into?’

  I smiled to myself all mysteriously, mostly because that’s what Wolf Tizzler says you should do on page seventeen of his book. It makes people think you’ve got something interestikeels to say.

  ‘The reason is this,’ I said, stopping still suddenly and shooting my hands up in the air. ‘I’m gonna become a billionaire and buy myself a new one!’

  A bird cheeped in a tree, sounding a bit like it was doing a ‘TA-DA!’

  ‘Barry Loser, a billionaire?’ laughed Bunky. ‘How in the name of unkeelness is that ever gonna happen?’

  ‘Easy! I just have to come up with an invention like the ZOOM-E-BROOM!’ I said. ‘How hard can it be?’

  ‘Very?’ said Nancy.

  I put my hands on Nancy’s shoulders and stared into her eyes, which is something Wolf Tizzler says you should do to make people concentrate on what you’re saying. ‘Nancy, Nancy, Nancy,’ I smiled. ‘How long have we known each other?’

  ‘Too long,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Exactly!’ I said. ‘And you still don’t realise? I’m a child genius, Nancy - just like Wolf Tizzler! Do you know how many brilliant and amazekeel ideas I’ve had?!’

  Bunky started counting on his fingers. ‘He’s right, Nancy. Barry’s had a LOT of brilliant and amazekeel ideas.’

  ‘There’s a difference between CALLING your ideas “brilliant and amazekeel” and them actually BEING brilliant and amazekeel,’ said Nancy.

  Bunky did his confused face, which is just his normal face.

  ‘Look, we can all stand here wasting our time talking about whether I’m a child genius or not,’ I said, pulling at the neck of my polo neck3. ‘Or we can just agree that I AM one and get on with making a billion pounds!’

  Nancy chuckled to herself. ‘Come on then, Bday Barry,’ she said. ‘I’m in!’

  I opened HOW TO BE A GENIUS LIKE ME to page twelve and started reading out loud. ‘The first job of being an inventor is to find a problem to solve,’ I said.

  Nancy took her glasses off and cleaned them on her jumper. ‘Hmmm, we need a problem to solve . . . WAAAHHH!!! SLUG!!!’

  ‘Hey, don’t call me Waaahhh Slug!’ I said. Then I looked down at Nancy’s shoe and saw a slug slithering across it like a slimy zombie eyebrow.

  ‘There’s another one!’ cried Bunky, pointing at another slug, sitting on a leaf that was sticking out of a tree next to my head.

  ‘IT’S AN INVASION!’ I screamed, pretending to run off like Future Ratboy in my favourite Future Ratboy episode, ‘Future Ratboy and the invasion of the Nom Noms’.

  Nancy plucked the slug off her shoe and plopped it down in the front garden we were standing next to.

  The lawn was covered in millions of big fat slugs, chomping on the grass.

  ‘I’ve heard about this - it’s something to do with the unseasonably warm winter we just had,’ said Nancy, peering through her glasses at the lawn. ‘The slugs didn’t hibernate - they just kept eating and getting fatter and having more babies!’

  ‘How do you know all this stuff ?’ said Bunky, peeking into Nancy’s earhole to get a look at her brain.

  ‘The Mogden Gazette!’ said Nancy. ‘Don’t you read newspapers?’

  Me and Bunky laughed. ‘Er, no, Nancy, I don’t read newspapers!’ he said.

  ‘Anyway, back to me becoming a billionaire,’ I said, walking in the direction of Mogden High Street. ‘We need to find a problem to solve!’

  Two old grannies were walking towards us at minus seven millimetres per hour. ‘Ooh, these slugs are a menace, Ermentrude!’ warbled the one on the right, who had moles dotted all over her face like squidgy brown full stops.

  ‘Tell me about it, Gladys,’ said Ermentrude. She was bent over in half so that her face faced the floor, which must’ve made it easier for her to spot slugs. ‘They’re ’aving a field day wiv me Begonias!’

  ‘Ooh, me begonias!’ warbled Bunky, doing an impression of Ermentrude, and we all sniggled.

  ‘Ooh, me Begonias!’ I warbled as well, and Bunky and Nancy stopped sniggling. ‘Oi, why aren’t you laughing?’ I said, pulling at the neck of my polo neck again.

  ‘Sorry Barry, your voices just aren’t as funny as Bunky’s,’ said Nancy, and Bunky nodded, looking all pleased with himself.

  The old grannies waddled off round the corner and Nancy blinked. Not that she hadn’t been blinking anyway. ‘Hang on a millikeels, I think I’ve got it!’ she said.

  ‘Got what, slug-shoe-itis?!’ sniggled Bunky, putting his hand up for me to high five, but I just ignored him.

  ‘What is it, Nancy?’ I said, even though I really should’ve been in a mood with her for saying my voices weren’t as funny as Bunky’s.

  ‘The slugs - if we could come up with an invention that got rid of all the slugs in everyone’s gardens we’d be billionaires!’

  ‘I don’t want to ruin your bday party or anything, but you have heard of slug pellets, right?’ said Bunky, and Nancy and me stopped doing the little dance we’d been doing.

  ‘ARGH! Slug pellets!’ I cried, dropping to my knees. ‘Why did someone have to invent slug pellets?!’

  Nancy smiled down at me, whic
h was a funny thing to do seeing as her brilliant and amazekeel idea had just been comperleeterly ruined.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I said, getting up and dusting off my trousypoos.

  ‘Oh, just that there aren’t any slug pellets left in the whole of Mogden!’ grinned Nancy.

  ‘No slug pellets? In the whole of Mogden?’ I said.

  ‘They’ve all sold out!’ said Nancy.

  ‘Sold out? I gasped.

  ‘Oh my keelness Barry, could you stop repeating everything Nancy says?’ said Bunky.

  ‘Stop repeating everything Nancy says?’ I said, and Bunky sniggled.

  ‘It was on the front page of the Mogden Gazette!’ said Nancy.

  Bunky pretended to stroke an invisible beard. ‘Well, I MUST read the Mogden Gazette more often, it sounds absokeely FASCINATING!’ he said, doing an old grandad voice.

  And that’s when I heard a non-old grandad voice.

  ‘Ooh la la, if eet eesn’t my leetle friend Barry Loser!’ it said, and I looked around.

  ‘Renard!’ I smiled, spotting my French friend Renard Dupont lying on a sun lounger in his front garden. At least I think it was his front garden.

  ‘What crazee plan eez eet you are up to zees time, Barry?’ chuckled Renard, walking up to us and leaning over his fence.

  ‘It’s my birthday!’ I said, high-fiving Renard. ‘I’m gonna become a billionaire and buy a SHNOZINATOR 9000!’

  Bunky looked at my hand and stomped his foot. ‘Hey, you just IGNORED my high five!’ he said.

  ‘’Appy birfday, Barry!’ said Renard, ruffling my hair. ‘And ’ow are you planning to make all zees money?’

  I pointed behind him at his lawn, which was crawling with slugs just like the garden before. ‘By inventing something that gets rid of THOSE!’

  Just then, Renard’s front door opened and his mum walked out. ‘Mama, zees eez my leetle friend Barry Loser,’ said Renard.

  ‘Bonjour, Madame Dupont!’ I said, showing off that I knew how to say ‘hello’ in French.

  ‘’Allo, Barry!’ said Madame Dupont, and I introduced her to Bunky and Nancy.

  ‘Bunkee?’ said Madame Dupont, kissing him on both cheeks, which is how French people shake hands. ‘Zees eez une unusual name, non?’

  ‘Funny you should say that, Madame Dupont,’ I smiled, because I happen to know for a fact that ‘Bunky’ isn’t Bunky’s REAL name, it’s just his nickname.

  Bunky gave me a nudge. ‘Did you know we were inventors, Madame Dupont?’ he said, comperleeterly changing the subject, because he HATES people knowing his real name.

  Renard pointed at the slugs. ‘Zey are getting rid of ze slugs for money, Mama!’ he grinned.

  ‘Ooh la la! Zees eez ze answer to my prayers!’ cried Madame Dupont. ‘I ’ave been down to Feeko’s, but zey ’ad none of ze pellets left!

  ‘That’s why I’ve invented the SLUG-ZAPPER 5000!’ I said, making up what I was saying on the spot.

  Nancy leaned over to me and whispered. ‘What in the name of keelness is the SLUG-ZAPPER 5000?’

  ‘Just go with it,’ I whispered, remembering what it said on page fifteen of Wolf Tizzler’s book:

  Madame Dupont pushed her glasses on to her forehead and looked me in the eyes. ‘’Ow much eez zees SLUG-ZAPPER fingy goin’ to cost me?’ she said.

  ‘1p per slug!’ barked Bunky before I could even open my mouth.

  ‘Eet eez une deal!’ said Madame Dupont, walking back into her house. ‘Just do not ’urt my precious snails!’

  ‘1p per slug?!’ I cried, turning round to Bunky. ‘Let Bday Barry do the talking next time, “Bunky”.’

  Bunky ignored me and turned to Renard. ‘What’s your mum talking about, “don’t hurt my snails”?’ he said.

  Renard bent down, scrabbled around in the grass and popped back up holding a snail between two of his French fingers. ‘Yum yum!’ he said. ‘In France we are eating ze snails!’

  ‘Yum yum?!’ said Bunky. ‘Are you comperleeterly crazy?’

  ‘Absokeely non, Bunkee,’ said Renard. ‘Ze snail eez une delicious fing!’ He rubbed his tummy, plopping the snail back on the ground.

  I watched the snail slither underneath a leaf and thought back to when I had a pet snail once called Snailypoos.

  But that’s another story.

  ‘So, the SLUG-ZAPPER 5000 eh, Barry?’ said Nancy, and I shrugged.

  ‘It got us the job, didn’t it?’ I smiled, leaning against a tree. ‘Now all we have to do is come up with a brilliant and amazekeel invention that’ll get rid of all these slugs!’

  ‘How about if we just pick them up and put them in a box?’ said Bunky, and I de-leaned against the tree and whipped Wolf Tizzler’s book out from under my arm, flipping it open to page twenty-nine. ‘Sometimes the best invention is the most obvious,’ I read out loud.

  ‘What, so your invention is your HAND?’ said Nancy, looking down at my bday hand like it was just an ordinary non-bday one.

  I Future-Ratboy-darted my eyes around Renard’s garden and spotted a scratched-up old ice cream tub with a stack of those sticks you write the name of plants on inside it.

  ‘Let’s just see how many we can collect!’ I said, grabbing the tub and bending over to start making some money.

  It was forty-seven minutes and fifteen seconds later and the ice cream tub was full.

  ‘That’s the garden cleared. How many slugs have we got?’ said Bunky, and I passed the tub to Nancy, who everyone knows is the fastest at counting slugs.

  ‘A hundred and seventy-eight!’ she said a hundred and seventy-nine seconds later, which is actukeely pretty slow for her.

  ‘Wowzers, we’re rich!’ grinned Bunky.

  ‘Woop-de-poo-poos, one pound seventy-eight,’ I said, doing my sarcastic voice. ‘Not exactly gonna buy me a SHNOZINATOR 9000 is it?’

  ‘Let us take a stroll,’ said Renard, who’d been lying on his sun lounger for the most of the slug-picking-up bit, reading Wolf Tizzler’s book.

  ‘Good idea, Renard!’ I said, and we all strolled to Mogden High Street, where we stopped strolling and looked around for somewhere to have a nice sit-down.

  ‘Cafe Cafe?’ said Bunky, pointing to Cafe Cafe which is his favourite place to have a nice sit-down at the moment, mostly because the waiter who works there used to babysit him when he was a little kiddywinkle.

  ‘Bunky my brother!’ grinned Herman the waiter as we walked through the door of Cafe Cafe. It was dark inside and full of grown-ups sitting in front of their laptops drinking coffees.

  Bunky walked up to Herman and gave him a high five, then looked back at me to see if I was jealous. ‘A Fronkle for everyone. We’re rich, Herman!’ he said.

  ‘Er, we’re not rich yet, Bunky,’ said Nancy, pointing at my bright pink piggy bank with the £1.78 Madame Dupont had given us inside it.

  ‘Don’t worry, they’re on the house!’ said Herman. ‘Me and The Bunkmeister go way back!’

  Herman disappeared behind the bar and we sat down at a little table next to a man with a ginormous beard and a comperleeterly bald head.

  ‘Pssstt, Barry!’ whispered Renard. ‘Zees man, ee looks like ’is ’ead eez on upside-down, non?’

  I glanced over at the man and did a sniggle, and the man tutted and carried on tapping away on his laptop.

  ‘So now what, Mr Genius?’ said Nancy, as Herman walked over with a tray of Fronkles. ‘We’ve got £1.78 and a tub full of slugs.’

  She pointed at the ice cream tub, which I’d plonked down on the table. The lid was on and inside squirmed a hundred and seventy-eight juicy fat slugs.

  ‘Well we can’t carry on collecting slugs,’ I said. ‘I mean, what are we sposed to do with THESE?’

  ‘Maybe Renard could eat them?’ said Bunky, and Renard shook his head.

  ‘Do not talk crazee, Bunkee!’ he said. ‘I am only eating zee snails.’

  And that was when I noticed a familikeels-shaped head turning round in the darkness at the back of the coffee s
hop.

  ‘Is that . . .’ I said. ‘It isn’t, is it? It can’t be . . .’

  ‘The one and only,’ burped Darren Darrenofski, the annoying little Fronkle-slurper from my class at school.

  I don’t know why I was so surprised to see him, actukeely. He’s in there all the time.

  ‘Nice piggy bank, Loser - same colour as my mum’s favourite lipstick!’ he cackled.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket, pressed a button and it did a big sloppy blowoff right in the direction of his nostrils.

  Darren pretended to ignore the blowoff. He was sitting at a table by himself with an empty chair in front of him. ‘Take a seat,’ he said, pointing to the chair, and he picked up a tiny coffee cup and took a sip.

  ‘Are you drinking COFFEE?’ I gasped. I was gasping because my mum NEVER lets me drink coffee, even though her and my dad drink about nine hundred cups a day.

  ‘Fronkleccino,’ said Darren, holding up the little cup. ‘Can I buy you one?’