by Adam Wallace
Well, with a , you never get sore. You just relax into it and your arms are free and there are no pins and needles and it’s JUST THE BEST!
Now it turned out someone in my family had invented it! AWESOME!!!
‘The thing is,’ Mum said. ‘After he invented it he got really rich, and things went kind of weird. He changed his name and he disappeared. Gone, in a puff of smoke.’
‘Just like one of my magic tricks,’ Dad said.
‘No, Dad,’ I said. ‘He’s actually gone.’
‘He didn’t even say goodbye to me,’ Mum said. She looked really sad, but then she remembered the letter. She smiled and waved it in the air.
‘Open it!’ Dad yelled.
‘Open it!’ I yelled.
‘Burp!’ Katie burped.
My mind was racing. What was in the envelope?
TOP FIVE GUESSES
1. Blueprints for a new invention.
2. A cheque for a whole truckload of cash.
3. A mini for a mouse.
4. A spy bug from the North Western shores of the Amazon.
5. A blank sheet of paper … okay, that would suck and I don’t know why it popped into my head, but it did!
Mum moved in slow motion.
I was going crazy!
Finally, it was open.
Mum pulled out what was inside.
It wasn’t a mini for a mouse.
It wasn’t a blank sheet of paper.
It was a letter.
We all held our breath as we read it.
Dear Tracey, Marcus, Jamie, and the baby whose name I don’t know.
Firstly, Tracey, I must apologise for the way I left. You are my favourite great-great-niece twice removed, and I wanted to say goodbye, but no one, not even you, could know where I was going.
People changed. Our family became money-grabbing vultures who would have stepped over their own grandmother to get their hands on my Hand Pillow™ money.
They don’t realise, money can’t buy happiness … JUST KIDDING! Of course it can, if you are wise, and that is why I’m writing!
The time has come for me to re-enter your life, although sadly we cannot meet again just yet. You were always going to inherit my money, but as I plan on living a good while longer, I want to give a portion of it to you now.
I want you to be able to enjoy it.
The cheque in this envelope is for a billion, trillion dollars! Not quite, but it does have a LOT of zeroes. Spend it wisely, and choose who you tell about it wisely (by that, I mean don’t tell anyone, the money-grabbing vultures!).
Oh, and you should move from the Hovel. I have purchased and furnished a house for you in Snootyville, and enrolled Jamie in Snootyville Grammar. It’s a nice little house, and the address and security codes are on the back of this letter.
Yours,
Barnaby Von Barnabus
Everyone breathed out except for me.
I breathed in and copped all their smelly breath at once, which almost knocked me out. We couldn’t afford a lot of toothpaste.
Mum looked in the envelope and pulled out the cheque. It WAS a lot of zeroes. It didn’t look exactly like this, but it was close!
We all read the letter again. Snootyville. I’d never even heard of it, but it sure sounded, well, kind of snooty. Snootyville Grammar did too, certainly way snootier than good old Hovel Central, the school I went to now.
But this was it. I’d seen the light, and now this was my chance, our chance, to live a new life, a better life than Mum and Dad had now.
Dad was dead against it though.
‘I don’t know. Money can bring a lot of trouble.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Trouble like a mansion!’
‘True, but can it really buy happiness?’
‘Maybe not, but it can buy you a foot massager.’
Dad rubbed his chin.
‘Hmmm, that would make me happy,’ he said.
Mum joined in.
‘We can’t rush this, Jamie. We’ll be like fish out of water in Snootyville.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘A fish out of water would be like this …’
‘Even if we don’t use the money now, it will be there when we need it,’ Mum said.
I couldn’t be argued against though.
‘Or,’ I said quickly, ‘we could all fall down a Hovel Street pothole tomorrow and never be seen again! Soooooo, maybe we can move to the house my favourite Uncle Barney bought us. You know, the one with the pool and the games room and the personal mini-golf course and the carpet softer than a thousand clouds of marshmallows?’
Dad’s eyes widened.
‘A huuuuge shed,’ I said, ‘with every tool you need and brand new shiny parts!’
Mum was getting excited now, too.
‘A HUUUUGE kitchen, and a massive pantry for all the food we can get!’
‘YAAAAAAAAAAY!’cheered Mum and Dad.
‘Buuuurp!’ burped Katie.
‘YAAAAAAAAAAAY!’ we all cheered. Her burps were getting better. She’d be talking soon.
‘Hang on a minute,’ Dad said. ‘How do you know the house has all that stuff?’
‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘But there’s only one way to find out. Huh? HUH? We have to move there!’
We all cheered again and Katie burped and it was official. The Browns were moving uptown!
CHAPTER 4
SO LONG,
FAREWELL
We held a huge street party to say goodbye to Hovel Street. We didn’t tell anyone where we were going, or that we had HEAPS of money now. We just said we were moving in with a relative to help them out.
Everyone was sad to see us go. Mum and Dad were really popular. Mum would help anyone cook a meal, Dad would help fix anything, and they were both so friendly. And whenever people were really low on food, no matter how short we were, there was always a plate of dinner for them at our place.
Everyone brought what little food they could for the party, and Mum turned it into the tastiest meal ever. The only bad bit was the Hovel Street custom where anyone leaving had to make a speech. I get REALLY nervous speaking in front of a crowd. I sweat, and the only words that pop into my mind are toilet and words that mean toilet, like john or loo or lavatory.
So that’s all I can say.
Mum spoke.
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Dad spoke.
Then I spoke. I hoped things would be different, but …
DAMMIT!
Everyone laughed, I was embarrassed, and the party continued.
I played one last game of mini-golf with the triplets. It was the most competitive game ever, except Trav didn’t play. He was so upset at me leaving he headbutted a wall and knocked himself out.
But I played a great game with Johnny and Maxy. My last shot was the toughest of the day. It had to go around the broken bottle, off the pothole, over the kerb, through the pipe and into the mousehole in the wall.
And of course I was being put off!
I laughed, swung my putter around my head, yelled ‘BUCKITY BUCKITY!’ and smashed my ball. It flicked the pothole, missed the broken bottle, hit the kerb, flew over the pipe and hit Trav in the head just as he was waking up.
Whoops!
We helped him up and said our last goodbyes. Then I went to sit on the steps
where I had spent so much time with Mr Kravoski.
He was already there.
‘I miss you, Jamie Brown. I sad,’ he said in his accent. ‘You good boy. Not to forget tricks, okay?’
‘I not to forget,’ I said sadly.
‘Most special,’ he said, ‘not to forget card in pocket trick. That important. You remember?’
I remembered. I still couldn’t get it right though. Whenever I snuck the card into someone’s pocket they thought I was squeezing their butt!
‘You practise, Jamie Brown. You practise like the wind and always beware the monkeys in the hats.’
I nodded and then
it was time to go.
We didn’t need a moving truck … we didn’t have enough stuff anyway. Dad started up the car. It coughed and spluttered and blew black smoke and then conked out. I knew Dad would be dreaming of being able to buy brand new parts or even a brand new car!
He tried again, more coughing, more black smoke, and we were off.
CHAPTER 5
SNOOTYVILLE
We drove over the tracks to the wrong side of the tracks. It was beautiful! I mean, it was still pretty average, but it was prettier than Hovel Street!
Then we crossed more tracks to the right side of the tracks. Holy cow horns, it was even prettier!
And then we arrived in Snootyville, and it was a whole other world.
It was like we’d crossed another set of tracks, only these ones were made of gold and diamonds.
TOP FIVE THINGS
I NOTICED
1. There was so much grass! In front of the houses, on the ovals, it was everywhere.
2. One house for one family was bigger than the Grand Hotel, and there’d been 20 families living there!
3. The houses had tennis courts and swimming pools!
4. The cars were as fancy as the one that had driven through Hovel Street.
5. We ran out of petrol.
I noticed the last thing because the car stopped and Dad said we were out of petrol. I know, I’m like Sherlock Holmes, right?
Dad walked off with a petrol can and I sat on some grass by the side of the road with Mum and Katie. It was SOOOOOOOO soft. There’s no grass in Hovel Street.
Dad got all the petrol that would fit into the can and put it in the car. We drove a little further and came to a bank. Even it was a fancy building.
Dad stopped the car. He looked at us. We looked at him. We all looked at the bank.
It was time to get our money.
We went into the Snootyville Permanent Incredibly Trustworthy Bank.
People looked at us funny as we walked in. It was like they’d never seen people in dirty clothes before … which was probably true. The way the lady at the counter looked at us, I think she thought we were there to rob the bank or something.
Mum said we would like to open an account and handed over the cheque. The lady looked at it then called over the Manager. The Manager looked at the cheque then phoned the bank’s owner. The bank’s owner drove to the bank, looked at the cheque, then made another phone call.
We could only hear one side of the conversation.
‘Excuse me, Sir, but we have a cheque made out by you to the tune of what looks like a bajillion dollars … no, sorry Sir, I know that’s not a real number, I was just … no Sir, please don’t crush me like a bug … yes Sir, it’s made out to Tracey Brown … yes … no … I think so … she’s here now … very good, Sir … no, I apologise … yes Sir … no Sir, please don’t flush everything I own down a golden toilet … no Sir, especially not my family … thank you … yes … goodbye.’
He hung up, turned to the Manager and nodded. The Manager turned to the teller and nodded. It seemed as though money and fear could change people, because now that the lady knew we were rich she suddenly went all nice.
She took a whole load of details from Mum, then handed over a card she said we could use until the cheque cleared. Once the cheque was in, she would give us another special card which we could use to access our money.
We thanked her and left.
It was time to go and check out our new home.
First we went to the real estate agent and got the house keys and a certificate saying we owned the house.
We got back into the car, started it up, scared all the people on the footpath with the noise, blew black smoke over the VERY expensive car behind us, drove for five minutes, and ran out of petrol again.
Dad groaned, wrote something on a piece of paper, put it on the back windscreen, and we started walking.
Mum asked someone how to get to our house. They stared at us and sniffed, then they told us where to go … as in how to get to the house, although they said it in a really snooty voice.
We walked for half an hour and reached our address.
We walked for another ten minutes … that was the driveway to the front gates, which were OOh la la fancy!
Mum keyed in the security code, the gates opened and we saw our new house for the first time. These were my reactions.
Half an hour later, we hadn’t moved. Dad finally took a step, slipped on my dribble, got up, and we were moving in.
CHAPTER 6
MEETING THE
LOCALS
We had trouble at the front door. Dad opened it and we were all oooohing and aaaahing at the inside of the house, but he forgot to key in the security code again and suddenly there were alarms going and lights and sirens and Security was there and we were all on the ground.
‘Don’t say a word!’ the guy holding me down yelled. ‘You robbers can’t get away with this sort of thing in Snootyville. We’re the law, and if you break the law you break us, and we are like beautiful vases that shouldn’t be broken.’
‘We … live … here,’ Dad managed to say, even though he was being held in a JAMAICAN DEATH LOCK.
‘Haha, sure you do,’ said the head security guy, ‘and I’m the North Western Hot Dog Eating Champion.’
‘You are the North Western Hot Dog Eating Champion,’ one of the other security guys said. ‘Remember? You ate 45 hot dogs in half an hour? And then you spewed on the judge which made him spew on your wife?’
‘Oh yeah, that was a great day. Anyway, as if you lot live here. Look at you, all dirty and poor. Rich, clean people live in Snootyville.
And if you live here, why did the alarm go off?’
‘We were too amazed by the house,’ Dad said. ‘Tracey, show him the certificate.’
‘I … can’t,’ Mum said. ‘I’m in a … NORWEGIAN … HAMMER … HOLD.’
The guy holding Mum let her go, and she showed the certificate. The security guys mumbled and grumbled, but they let us go.
‘Okay,’ said the main guy, glaring at us. ‘You can stay, but I do not like it and I do not like you. I will be watching you like a hawk watches a mouse, and if I see you scurrying I will swoop down and eat you like a dog’s breakfast.’
‘You eat a dog’s breakfast?’ I asked, wiggling my eyebrows at him. ‘Dude, that’s weird!’
He huffed and puffed and glared some more, and then walked off, yelling over his shoulder that he’d be watching us like a hawk.
We brushed ourselves off and looked around. The house was AMAZING!
There Was a games room! And a pool, and a spa, and a gym, and a real bath and a shower and a huge kitchen and a huuuge shed and a photo of Barnaby with Mum when she was little.
There was even a huge TV. We’d never had a TV before, and this one was as big as the wall. Dad picked up the remote control and smiled at me.
‘Ready to watch your first TV show, son?’ he asked.
I nodded. I so was. He looked at the remote, ummmed and ahhhhed, then pressed a button.
Dad may be the best at fixing things, but this new technology beat him. The TV stayed off … the alarm and the sprinklers in the roof didn’t!
We laughed and danced around under the water until the security guys came back and held us in TRANSYLVANIAN FINGER GRIPS.
TOP FIVE TRICKY THINGS
ABOUT A MANSION
1. They’re big and confusing. I spent half an hour looking for a toilet and eventually just peed in a pot plant.
2. All the buttons! The security guys came and gave us BRAZILLIAN NOSE JABS, and all we had tried to do was open the garage door!
3. Having a gardener. We saw some guy in our garden, so Dad tackled him instead of calling security again. Turns out it was a little old guy who had worked on the property for 74 years! Dad apologised, gave him back his false teeth, and we went inside.
4. Hotplates that work! In Hovel Street, water took half an hour to boil. Here, apparently, it only tak
es two minutes, so when we got back from our walk the water had boiled away, the saucepan had caught fire, the smoke alarm and sprinklers had gone off again and Security came and held us in MONGOLIAN EAR PULLS and told us to use the kettle next time!
5. All the buttons AGAIN! I went to take a shower, because I’d never had a shower before. In Hovel Street, a shower was when you got the bucket everyone else had washed in, the dishes had been done in, and you tipped it over your head. In Snootyville, a shower was as big as a room and had a gazillion buttons.
I pressed one button and soap squirted into my eyes. I pressed another one and a burst of hot water shot out of the wall onto my butt! I yelled out, pressed another button, and soap went in my mouth! I blew bubbles, leant over, headbutted another button, and music started playing.