I am Still Not a Loser

by Jim Smith

  We’d trick-or-treated nine billion roads and collected six trillion sweets each when we turned a corner and I realised we were on Granny’s street.

  ‘Let’s trick-or-treat Granny Harumpadunk!’ I said, and we ran up to her house and rang the bell. It’s a musical doorbell, and she’d set it to Spooky, so it was a bit scary, standing there waiting for her to answer with it going ‘woooooooooooh’ like the ghost of a dead doorbell.

  We stood there for the length of the Future Ratboy Halloween Special, but nobody answered the door.

  ‘Maybe she’s dead?’ said Anton, shrugging his arms as if he thought she probably was and we should move on to another house for more sweets.

  A rocket screeched out of the little park at the end of Granny’s road and exploded in the sky like an enormous glow-in-the-dark blowoff. ‘Fireworks!’ I shouted, and we ran towards them.

  Peering through the bushes, you could just make out a group of people standing around a big fire, nattering. One of them was lighting the rockets, and the whole crowd ooohed every time there was a bang.

  I used my Future Ratboy super-rat-vision eyes and zoomed in on the rocket-lighterer and did a massive gasp.

  I was gasping because it was Benjamin Bottle, and the crowd were Mr Hodgepodge, Granny Harumpadunk, her friends Ethel and Doreen, and Three Thumb Rita.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ said a voice that sounded like Gordon’s, and a hand that looked like Gordon’s reached over my shoulder and grabbed about thirteen of my sweets. I turned round and it was Gordon, not that I was surprised, because the voice and hand had sounded and looked exactly like his.

  ‘What in the name of playing-it-unkeel-times-ten is going on here?’ he said, chomping on my sweets. He was dressed as Future Ratboy and Bunky was behind him in a rubbish homemade Not Bird costume.

  ‘Nobody steals mine and Invis’s new best friend’s sweets,’ said Anton, holding Invis back from punching Gordon in the face, and Gordon’s face lit up like a glowing Cola Flavour Not Bird.

  ‘Firework!’ shouted Bunky, and I turned and saw a rocket coming right for us.

  The crowd’s ‘Ooooohs!’ turned into ‘Arrrgghhs!’ as the rocket burst through the bushes and zoomed past us, exploding on the other side of the street.

  ‘ARRRGGGHHHHH, IT GOT MEEEEE!!!’ screamed Gordon, and for a second I forgot I hated him. Then I remembered that I hated him again, because the rocket hadn’t got him at all. It hadn’t even touched him. ‘MY FACE!!!’ he screamed, kicking Anton’s sweets on to the pavement and running off, giggling.

  ‘MY SWEETS!’ shouted Anton, scrabbling around to pick them up. I stared at Bunky, and for a billisecond he smiled at me like when we were friends, then he turned and ran after Gordon.

  ‘Forget the sweets!’ I whisper-shouted to Anton, but only because they were his, and we zigzagged off like runaway shopping trolleys.

  ‘You’re back early!’ said my mum when we got home, sweating and panting and giggling because it’d actually been quite exciting, running home like we were being chased by Mogden Man.

  Mrs Mildew was still there, nattering to my mum about the Voice of Feeko’s Self-Checkout Machine competition, but after that they completely ran out of things to say so her, Anton and Invis left and I went upstairs to eat my sweets.

  I was looking in the mirror, holding a marshmallow ear up in front of my real one, when the doorbell rang all normally, because we don’t have a musical doorbell.

  ‘BAAARRR-RRYYYY!’ shouted my mum up the stairs.

  ‘WHHHHAAAATTT?’ I shouted back, but it came out as ‘WOHHHHH?’ because my mouth was full of sweets. I poked my head out of my room and immediately knew something was wrong.

  In the hallway stood Mr Hodgepodge, Benjamin Bottle, Granny Harumpadunk, Ethel, Doreen and Three Thumb Rita. They looked like a group of trick-or-treaters dressed up as a six-headed grandmonster.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness you’re all right,’ said Granny as I walked down the stairs, trying to play it oodle.

  Ethel was crying, and Doreen was licking on a toffee apple. I wasn’t exactly sure why they were in my hallway but I had a pretty good idea.

  ‘What were you thinking, pretending you’d been hit by a rocket like that?’ shouted Mr Hodgepodge. I could see his eyes half looking at the cold burnt sausages on the table.

  ‘We thought it’d killed someone,’ he carried on, but it came out all muffled because he’d reached over and stuffed a sausage in his mouth.

  ‘It wasn’t me!’ I said, but I was giggling because I always giggle when I’m in trouble.

  ‘I’m afraid your shoe says something different, Barry,’ said Benjamin Bottle, sadly. ‘There were scrapes on the pavement all the way from the park to here,’ he said, and I rolled my eyes to myself for not getting rid of the bit of gravel.

  ‘It was Gordon. And I can prove it!’ I shouted, and I came up with one of my brilliant and amazing plans right there on the spot.

  The next Monday morning at school, everyone was called into the assembly hall. Nobody knew what was going on except for me and Anton, and I nudged him and we snortled.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, a very serious incident occurred on Friday night, in which the people gathered on this stage had their evening completely ruined by the thoughtlessness of one of you,’ said Mr Hodgepodge, looking at me.

  Benjamin Bottle, Granny Harumpadunk, Ethel, Doreen and Three Thumb Rita stood in a line behind him like they were about to be awarded medals.

  I glanced over at Gordon and Bunky, and I snortled to myself because they looked like how I felt that night round Gordon’s house when they were being horrible.

  ‘I’d like Barry Loser, Anton Mildew, Gordon Smugly and Bunky to come up here please,’ said Mr Hodgepodge, and we all went up on stage, Anton whispering to Invis to stay in his seat and keep his mouth shut.

  ‘For the purposes of this experiment, I am going to ask each one of you children to scream,’ said Mr Hodgepodge, and he tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Barry, you first.’

  ‘Ooh, Barold first, what a surprise,’ said Tracy Pilchard, and her, Donnatella and Sharonella all started giggling, not that it bothered me, because Gordon was about to be found out.

  ‘AAARRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!!’ I screamed, and everyone in the whole assembly hall cracked up, Mr Hodgepodge not included.

  Anton’s scream was really high pitched, and Doreen winced, turning off her hearing aid so that she didn’t even hear Bunky’s, which was rubbish as per usual. Then it was Gordon’s turn.

  ‘I refuse on the grounds that I have a mild case of Zeditis,’ said Gordon, smugly.

  ‘In that case I have made my decision,’ said Mr Hodgepodge, and the room went silent. ‘The scream that sounded most familiar was Barry Loser’s, which means he must have been the one who pretended to get hit by the firework on Halloween night,’ he shouted, and everyone in the whole assembly hall gasped, me included.

  ‘Make him run around the playground a hundred times in the nude!’ screamed Tracy Pilchard, and everybody in the whole room started laughing and shouting.

  I glanced over at Gordon Smugly, who was snortling and twizzle-hand-saluting himself. And that’s when I came up with my EMERGENCY brilliant and amazing plan.

  There was one old Thumb Sweet left at the bottom of my pocket, along with the blue felt-tip pen I’d used to draw full stops on Anton’s face.

  I balanced the Thumb Sweet in my palm and grabbed the pen between my thumb and finger and started drawing on to the sweet, all while still inside my pocket, by the way.

  Mr Hodgepodge was murmuring with the other oldies, deciding what my punishment should be, as I shuffled my feet sideways so that I could get behind Gordon. I noticed that the bit of gravel had fallen out of my shoe and rolled my eyes to myself and did a mini-reverse-twizzle-salute in my head.

  ‘Don’t be too hard on the boy,’ I heard Benjamin Bottle whisper over all the shouting, and I could smell his breath as I reached over and placed the Thumb Sweet on to Gordon’s shoulder.
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  I’d drawn little eyes and legs on it so that it now ever-so-slightly looked like one of those things I can never remember the name of.

  ‘Children, children, please can you stop this craziness!’ shouted Mr Hodgepodge to the room, but they didn’t even hear him.

  ‘What’s that on Gordon’s shoulder?’ said Three Thumb Rita suddenly from behind us, and we all looked, Gordon included.

  ‘AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! CATERPILLLLAAARRRR!!!’ he screamed, exactly like he had on Halloween night when the rocket didn’t hit him, and the whole room went silent apart from me because I was doing a little snortle to myself.

  My snortle didn’t last for long though, because after that the most ridiculous thing in the history of the universe happened.

  Mr Hodgepodge decided that my scream was STILL the one that he’d heard on Halloween night, so everyone got out of trouble apart from me.

  And that’s how I came to be walking around the playground every lunchtime for a month with a pokey stick and a massive plastic bag picking up rubbish, which was my punishment from him.

  I couldn’t believe how much rubbish there was actually, once I started looking. Especially since Benjamin Bottle and Three Thumb Rita had gone into business and started selling Caterpillars, which are these new sweets in the shape of those things I can never remember the name of.

  ‘Salute,’ said a voice that sounded like Bunky’s one lunchtime. I turned round and it WAS Bunky, which surprised me, seeing as I didn’t think we were friends any more.

  ‘I’ve got some plastic leaves for your rubbish bag,’ he said, passing me a handful of empty Caterpillars packets.

  ‘What’s all this craziness about?’ I said, looking for Gordon Smugly, and I saw him sitting on his own on the other side of the playground, playing on his stupid phone.

  ‘I got bored of his games,’ said Bunky, smiling. ‘Plus it should be HIM collecting rubbish, not you,’ he said, and he bent over to pick up a half-eaten Cola Flavour Not Bird that was floating in a puddle.

  It’s keel being friends with Bunky again, mostly because I can say ‘keel’, but also because I’d forgotten how much fun we have together. Like yesterday, which was a Sat, which is my new-old favourite day, when we went to Feeko’s supermarket.

  ‘Hi Anton,’ I said, missing off Invis, because he’s started hanging out with Gordon these days. We were in the Ready Meals section, looking for hoverpizza, which still hasn’t come out by the way.

  ‘Can I play it oodle with Barry and Bunky?’ Anton asked his mum, and I rolled my eyes to Bunky about him saying ‘oodle’.

  ‘As long as there’s no screaming,’ said Mrs Mildew, and she rolled her eyes to herself.

  ‘Salute! Salute! Salute! Salute!’ screamed Bunky, and I was just about to see what he was saluting when I heard something familiar behind me.

  ‘That’ll be two forty-nine,’ said my mum’s voice, except ever-so-slightly like a robot, and I glanced over at the self-checkout counter and collapsed to the floor like a deckchair being folded up.

  ‘Let’s go to Three Thumb Rita’s,’ I said, and I zoomed out of Feeko’s at Future Ratboy speed, because there’s no way I’m spending my Sats there now that my mum’s The Voice of Feeko’s.

  ‘Oodle!’ shouted Anton, running after me with Bunky, both of them blowing off with excitement, and I rolled my eyes to myself whilst doing a quadruple-reverse-twizzle-salute, which is what you do when you’re keel like me.

  (short for ‘The End’)

  Jim Smith is the keelest kids’ book comma putter-innerer in the whole wide world amen.

  He graduated from art school with first class honours (the best you can get) and went on to create the branding for a sweet little chain of coffee shops.

  He also designs cards and gifts under the name Waldo Pancake.

  Weirdly, seeing as it’s about a comma putter-innerer, this whole page has only got two commas in it, I mean three.