Barry Loser Hates Half Term

by Jim Smith

  ‘Wooden? Yes, they’ll be wooden lodges - the finest in Mogden!’ said Donald Cox, getting ready to start signing again.

  ‘Which brings me to Mr Verkenwerken here,’ I said, pointing at Nancy’s dad.

  ‘Me?’ warbled Nancy’s dad, looking nervous. ‘What’ve I got to do with this?’

  ‘Nothing to worry about, Mr Verkenwerken,’ I said, patting him on the arm and leading him over to Stump Leg’s woodchips, where the giant woodlouse was still chomping. ‘I just thought you might be interested in THIS . . .’

  You know how there are good gasps and bad gasps? Well I’m not sure which sort of gasp Mr Verkenwerken did when he saw the giant woodlouse, but it was a BIG one.

  ‘GIANT SABRE-TOOTHED WOODLOUSE!’ cried Mr Verkenwerken, pointing at the woodlouse. ‘IT’S A GIANT SABRE-TOOTHED WOODLOUSE!’ he shouted, and Donald Cox clicked his pen shut.

  ‘Say that again?’ said Donald Cox, even though he’d comperleeterly heard it the first time - plus Mr Verkenwerken had shouted it again after that.

  ‘It’s a Giant Sabre-toothed Woodlouse!’ beamed Mr Verkenwerken. ‘They’re extremely rare!’

  ‘I KNEW your dad’d know what it was called!’ I said to Nancy, giving myself a quadruple-reverse-salute.

  Bunky wrinkled his forehead up, looking like he didn’t understand. ‘I don’t get it!’ he said, and all the kiddywinkles nodded.

  ‘Well,’ I smiled, starting to explain my brilliant and amazekeel idea. ‘You know how this woodlouse has been eating all the woodchips?’ I said, and Bunky blinked. ‘And you know how Donald Cox’s wooden lodges are gonna be made out of WOOD?’

  ‘Ye-ah . . . ?’ said Bunky, and I rolled my gobstoppers, because he STILL didn’t get it.

  ‘Well, WHO would want to build a load of luxury wooden lodges on an island that’s covered in GIANT-LUXURY-WOODEN-LODGE-EATING WOODLICE?’ I cried, and everyone went quiet.

  For about seventeen and three quarter milliseconds, the only noise on Mogden Island was the chomping of woodchips coming out of the Giant Sabre-toothed Woodlouse’s mouth. And then Donald Cox started to clap.

  ‘Verrrry clever, little boy,’ he said, smiling to himself, and I wondered why he was smiling when I’d just comperleeterly ruined his dream of an island full of luxury wooden lodges.

  ‘Why are you smiling, Donald Cox?’ said Sally Bottom, copying what I was thinking, and Donald Cox stopped clapping.

  ‘I’m afraid your pal’s little idea has one BIG problem,’ he grinned, looking over at Nancy’s dad. ‘Mr Verkenwerken, do you want to tell the kiddywinkles or shall I?’

  Mr Verkenwerken looked at me all sadly and scratched his bum.

  ‘These giant woodlice things eat WOOD, right?’ I said, and Nancy’s dad sighed.

  ‘They DOOO . . .’ he said, ‘. . . but Giant Sabre-toothed Woodlice only eat ROTTEN wood, Barry.’

  Donald Cox whipped the brochure out of my hand and held it up. ‘Donald Cox did his research, little boy . . . and there’s not going to be ANYTHING rotten about his Luxury Wooden Lodges!’ he beamed. And I felt my nose droop so much it was almost touching the ground.

  ‘That’s that then!’ beamed Morag, unfolding her arms and coming back to life like a robot whose rusty old batteries had just been replaced.

  Donald Cox clicked his pen and hovered it above the dotted line, just below Morag’s scribbly signature. ‘All we need now is an autograph from yours truly and we’ve got a deal!’ he said, sneering at me.

  ‘Not so fast, Mr Cox,’ said Nancy’s voice all of a sudden, and Donald Cox froze.

  ‘Wot’s up NOW, fer cryin’ out loud?’ warbled Morag, who’d pulled her hanky out and was giving her armpits another wipe.

  Nancy had sneaked Darren’s phone out of his pocket and was staring at its screen. ‘Oh nothing, I’ve just been looking up a few facts about the Giant Sabre-toothed Woodlouse,’ she smiled, handing the phone over to her dad, and his eyebrows shot up his forehead.

  ‘Oi, that’s MY phone!’ snarfled Darren, but Nancy’s dad just ignored him and carried on staring at the screen.

  ‘WHAT’S it say, Mr Verkenwerken?’ asked Sally Bottom.

  ‘Apparently the Giant Sabre-toothed Woodlouse is a protected species,’ said Mr Verkenwerken, a smile appearing on his face. ‘Who knew!’ he chuckled, and I scratched my still-drooping nose, thinking maybe HE should’ve known, seeing as HE’S the expert on things like this.

  ‘Ooh la la, un protected speesheez!’ whistled Renard. ‘What does zees mean, Monsieur Verkeenwerkeen?’

  ‘It means Mr Cox here won’t be able to build his luxury wooden lodges after all,’ said Nancy’s dad. ‘Mogden Island’s pristine environment must stay exactly as it is, so as not to interfere with the Giant Sabre-toothed Woodlouse’s natural habitat,’ he grinned.

  ‘What? Let Donald Cox have a look at that!’ said Donald Cox, snatching the phone out of Mr Verkenwerken’s hand, and as he read what was written on the screen, his small close-together eyes seemed to grow smaller and closer together than ever.

  ‘Donald Cox will NOT forget this!’ he boomed, whipping his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and sliding them back over his eyes.

  He ripped his piece of paper up into a trillion pieces and threw them on the ground next to the Giant Sabre-toothed Woodlouse, which immedikeely turned round from its pile of woodchips and started chomping on THEM instead.

  ‘Looks like we found some treasure after all!’ grinned Stump Leg, pointing at the woodlouse, and my nose de-drooped.

  ‘GAAAHHH!!!’ screamed Donald Cox, throwing Darren’s phone on the ground and slamming his briefcase shut, and he marched across the clearing, towards the forest of nettles.

  ‘Bye bye, Donny-Wonny!’ I sniggled, as he disappeared behind a tree.

  ‘’Ere, Donald! Please come back, Mr Cox!’ grunted Morag, wobbling after Donald Cox, then giving up and plonking her big fat bum down on a log.

  I turned to the kiddywinkles and grinned, the way Future Ratboy does when he’s just got rid of a really bad baddy.

  ‘Three cheers for Barry Loser!’ giggled Seymour, and I did my world famous leg-waggle dance, which is a bit like gasping, seeing as you can do it for good things as well as bad.

  Sally Bottom wandered over, smiling up at me. ‘You make me laugh, Barry Loser!’ she said, and I patted her on the head for being such a good kiddywinkle.

  ‘Bunky, Nancy, this is Sally Bottom,’ I said.

  ‘So YOU’RE the famous Sally Bottom! Keel name!’ smiled Bunky, and Sally gave him a back-to-front-reverse-upside-down-salute.

  I introduced everyone else to Bunky and Nancy, apart from the kiddywinkles whose names I didn’t know, and then we all comperleeterly ran out of things to say.

  ‘So what’s gonna happen to Loser Camp NOW, eh Loser?’ snuffled Darren, cracking open a can of Cherry Fronkle, and I glanced over at Morag, feeling sorry for all the kiddywinkles because she was STILL in charge of Pirate Camp.

  ‘Who knows,’ I grumbled. ‘It’s not like I can be here every half term. If ONLY there was somebody NICE who would buy Mogden Island off of Morag . . .’

  ‘Hmmm . . . funny you should mention that, Barry,’ said Mr Verkenwerken, and he smiled the way someone smiles when they’ve got something keel to say. ‘It just so happens that my nature club, The Mogden Association of Plant, Insect and Animal Poo Enthusiasts, is looking for new headquarters . . .’

  He looked over at Burt’s old hut and stroked his chin. ‘I reckon with a lick of paint that old place might do the trick - as long as Morag’s up for it, of course!’

  Morag grunted and shifted her bum on the log. ‘I’m sure we can come to some kind of money-terry arrangement,’ she said, peering over at her magazine, and I imagined her going off on holiday, except with The Mogden Association of Plant, Insect and Animal Poo Enthusiasts’ money stuffed inside her suitcase instead of Donald Cox’s.

  ‘Er, Mr Verkenwerken?’ I said, wobbling on to my tiptoes to look as grown-up as possible. ‘
This nature club headquarters - do you reckon it’d maybe have space for a teeny weeny little Pirate Camp smack bang in the middle of it?’

  ‘I don’t see why not!’ grinned Nancy’s dad. ‘In fact, I’ve always quite fancied myself as a pirate . . . you wouldn’t by any chance be needing a new leader, would you?’ he asked, and I imagined Burt up on his cloud, giving him a thumbs up.

  ‘Maybe Pirate Camp isn’t so bad after all,’ said Bunky, looking around. ‘As long as there’s no songs about trees!’ he laughed, and I was just about to give him a high five when my mum-phone started to ring.

  I pulled it out of my pocket and pressed the ‘answer’ button. ‘Loser residence?’ I said.

  ‘Barry, is that you?’ asked my dad.

  ‘Speaking,’ I said, seeing as it WAS me, and I was speaking.

  ‘Just checking in - how’s it all going?’ he said, and I explained everything that’d happened, leaving out the bit where I did my scared leg-waggle dance.

  ‘Sounds like you’ve really grown up, Barry!’ chuckled my dad. ‘Which is perfect timing, because your mum’s back tomorrow! Great Aunt Mildred’s nose has shrunk back to normal, so if you fancied coming home . . .’

  I looked over at Bunky and Nancy and Renard and Seymour and Sally Bottom and Stump Leg, but not Darren.

  Mr Verkenwerken was on the phone to Mrs Verkenwerken, telling her he’d be staying on Mogden Island for a few nights, just to get the hang of things. And Morag and Gordon had already started packing.

  ‘Erm . . . I think I might just stay here a couple more days,’ I said, and I was just about to stuff the phone back into my pocket when I remembered something. ‘Oh, but Dad?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, Barry?’ said my dad.

  ‘Tell Desmond his big brother’ll be home soon!’

  Jim Smith is the keelest kids’ book author and drawer in the whole 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.

  Jim has also got three legs.

  Not really, he just needed something to fill this bit with.