My Brother's Famous Bottom Takes Off!

by Jeremy Strong

‘Cassie! My mum – she’s in a spot of bother. She’s got a bit tied up.’

  Cassie looked over at the Gravity Swing. A frown crinkled her brow before sliding down her nose and settling on her mouth. ‘Nicky,’ she said, ‘you poor boy. How do you cope?’

  ‘Sorry?’ I had no idea what she meant.

  ‘How do you manage with parents like yours? First it was your father and now it’s your mother.’

  I shrugged and then remembered something I’d read somewhere.

  ‘You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your parents, can you? Besides, I wouldn’t swap them for anything. My mum and dad are the best in the world.’

  Cassie gave a funny kind of grunt. ‘Sure. Of course they are, kid. OK, let’s go rescue your mom.’

  So Cassie went off to help Mum while I rescued the security guard from the twins.

  ‘You’re a bad man!’ shouted Tomato as I took her hand. The guard scowled in silence.

  It took ten minutes to untangle Mum. Once she had both feet back on the ground she looked at Cassie and pulled an embarrassed face. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured.

  Cassie shook her head and laughed. ‘It’s no wonder you Brits never managed to conquer space.’

  Dad tapped Cassie on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me? Correction: at least two Britons have been into space and the United Kingdom Space Agency is helping develop the Skylon spaceplane, a plane actually invented by a British company. We might be a small country, but we have DREAMS.’ Dad thumped his chest with his fist.

  ‘Bravo!’ Mum cried, clapping her hands.

  ‘I didn’t know that, Dad. Is it true?’

  ‘Yes, Nicky. It’s quite true.’

  I thought, Wow! We’re developing a spaceplane! I wonder where it is.

  Cassie took a step back and looked at us with pride. She was actually proud of us for once!

  ‘Hey, that’s so cool. I didn’t know that. Thank you for telling me.’ She put a hand on Dad’s shoulder. ‘And you know, sir, dreams are very important. It’s dreams that made me become an astronaut.’

  Dad nodded. ‘Yep. And it’s dreams that made me a … a dreamer!’

  Cassie laughed. ‘OK, now that we have your wife out of the Gravity Swing I guess it’s your turn. Try not to knock anything over, sir.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Dad.

  ‘That’s what we’re afraid of,’ warned Mum.

  As Dad went across to the Gravity Swing, one of the guards stopped him.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he began. ‘Are you over eighteen?’

  ‘That depends,’ answered Dad.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It depends what the eighteen applies to. Am I over eighteen years of age or over eighteen metres tall?’

  ‘Well, sir, I can see you’re not over eighteen metres tall.’

  ‘But you can’t see that I’m over eighteen years of age? That’s strange, but I have to say I’m quite pleased as I’m actually forty-two.’

  ‘OK, sir, you can carry on.’

  Dad glanced back at us, pointed at his brain, pulled a face and nodded towards the guard while rolling his eyes.

  ‘Actually, sir, I’m not mad. Just doing my job,’ the guard responded.

  Dad let himself be strapped in. It was like watching a child in a playground. Actually, it had been much the same for Mum. She’d been like a child too, but at least Dad managed to have fun without tying himself and the harness into knots.

  We were pretty tired by the time we’d done all that. Cassie showed us the rockets they used to fly people to the moon and the spacesuits they wore. It was interesting, but Cheese and Tomato had already fallen asleep so we carefully put them into the SUV and Cassie drove us back to the hotel.

  ‘You all get some sleep now,’ she suggested. ‘Big day tomorrow. You’ve got a TV interview in the morning and in the afternoon is the rocket launch. You’ll be on the grandstand with all the bigwigs. The president will be there.’

  ‘The President of the United States?’ gasped Mum.

  ‘You bet,’ grinned Cassie. ‘Sleep well!’

  Before we went to bed we wrote some postcards home.

  Dad sent a postcard to Mr Tugg. Mum sent one to Mrs Tugg. I wrote to Granny and Lancelot, and the twins wrote to nobody in particular.

  10. The Very Famous Bottom Family

  It was weird being interviewed. Commander Cassie collected us from the hotel after breakfast. She had brought with her some T-shirts from the Space Center and notebooks and pens and stuff.

  ‘You should have been given these mementoes yesterday at the Center, but there was so much going on they forgot.’

  I noticed Cassie giving Mum a wink.

  ‘You mean they were too busy stopping the other visitors from tearing each other apart over the rocket fiasco,’ chuckled Mum, and Cassie nodded.

  ‘But here they are. One T-shirt for each of you. Even Mom and Dad get one.’

  ‘Cool!’ I said, pulling mine on at once.

  Dad held his up. ‘Tip-top. Tickety-boo. Top-hole, what!’

  ‘You British!’ cried Cassie, wide-eyed.

  ‘We don’t really talk like my husband,’ Mum explained. ‘He’s just being silly. Again.’

  ‘And it’s only half past nine,’ added Cassie with a shake of her head. They both burst out laughing. It took Cassie a few moments to recover and then she said, ‘We’d best get going. Can’t keep the president waiting.’

  I gulped. We really were going to meet the President of the United States. What would I say? How do you talk to a President? What do you call a President? My heart was already in my mouth and we were only in the car on the way to the TV station.

  I thought we’d go straight to some studio for the interview, but first we had to go to make-up where we sat in chairs while people got all fussy about our hair and stuff. Then someone put powder on my face and brushed it all over my skin because they thought I looked too pale! They tried to do the same with Dad as well, but he pushed them away.

  ‘Geroff! I don’t need any of that ladies’ stuff!’

  ‘It’s just to give you a bit of colour, sir,’ the make-up girl told him.

  ‘I don’t need any colour, thank you. Just because all you lot have suntans doesn’t mean I need an instant one.’

  ‘Don’t be so grumpy,’ Mum told him, but the make-up staff had already given up on Dad and left him alone.

  Once we had been made presentable we went to the waiting area next door. We sat and twiddled our thumbs for ten minutes. There was a big TV screen in the room broadcasting what was happening in the studio at that very moment, so we could see and hear who was being interviewed by the host, Mike Plank. I had butterflies in my stomach, my chest, my brain and my socks. A girl came backstage and beckoned to us. She held a finger to her lips and the next thing we heard was the introduction.

  ‘And now, all the way from Britain, we have – from the top of the WhoTube viewing table – the Very Famous Bottom Family!’

  There was applause and the girl pushed us onstage. The glare of the lights hit us. It was dazzling and all I could hear was Mike Plank.

  ‘Here they are – the Famous Bottom Family! We have Mom and Dad there, and Nicholas, he’s twelve, and finally the twins, Cheese and Tomato, just three years old, folks.’

  Mike said ‘tomato’ as if it rhymed with ‘potato’.

  ‘It’s Cheese, of course, who has the famous bottom. That’s right, guys, you sit yourselves down there. OK, so before we start there’s one burning question in many people’s minds, not just here in the studio this morning, but right across America. No doubt many viewers sitting at home are wondering just why you decided to call your twins here Cheese and Tomato.’

  ‘Tomah-to,’ corrected Dad.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the host, ‘tomato.’

  ‘No,’ said Dad, shaking his head. ‘You say tomato but I say tomahto.’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ argued Mike. ‘You say tomahto but I say tomato.’

  ‘All right!�
�� shouted Dad and he started singing! ‘You say tomato and I’ll say tomahto, I’ll say potato and you’ll say potahto, tomato, tomahto, potato, potahto …’

  The audience were clapping and laughing at the same time. Some of them seemed to be in hysterics.

  ‘Ain’t these guys just great!’ shouted Mike. ‘Now then, you still haven’t told us how the twins got those crazy names.’

  Mum and Dad told the story of the pizza van between them and once again the audience began to snort. Then Mike turned to me and asked what it was like having loopy parents.

  ‘They’re not loopy,’ I said. ‘They’re fun. There’s always something going on in our house. Dad brought home a sheep last week.’

  ‘A sheep? Now why would your father do that?’

  ‘That’s a good question,’ I said, hastily trying to think of an answer. ‘It’s just something my dad does. He brought home an alligator once. Now we only have a sheep and a goat, five chickens, two rabbits and a tortoise. The sheep’s called Elvis.’

  ‘Elvis? Good name. OK, so you live on a farm?’ Mike suggested.

  ‘No. We live in a town. The animals are in our back garden.’

  ‘Does everyone in Britain have their backyards stuffed with farm animals called Elvis?’ Mike glanced at the audience and raised his eyebrows suggestively.

  ‘No, no. It’s just that Dad is different from other people. He’s full of ideas. He’s an ideas man. At the moment he’s aiming to get himself into the Big Book of World Records.’

  ‘Really?’ said Mike. ‘How’s he gonna do that?’

  ‘Oh, he’s been making the longest piece of spaghetti in the world.’

  Some people in the audience began to snigger. Dad had one hand to his forehead. I think he could see where this conversation was going. Mike was grinning at me.

  ‘And how’s that been going then? I mean, it must be difficult to make a really long piece of spaghetti. How’s Pop here doing so far?’

  ‘Well, his first attempt wasn’t so successful,’ I admitted.

  ‘Yeah, we heard something about that from Alisha, the lady from WhoTube who came to your house. I believe she got a bit of a shock? Tell us what happened.’

  Dad’s face was now completely buried in his hands and he’d stuck his fingers in his ears. I took a deep breath.

  ‘Dad was trying to stick spaghetti strands together end to end, using superglue, and Elvis and the goat came into the house. Dad tried to shoo them away and he stood on the superglue without realizing. When he went back to working with the spaghetti the whole packet got stuck to his hands. He looked like some weird monster with bits of pasta poking out all over the place and in every direction. That’s when the doorbell rang. Dad went to the door like that and almost gave Alisha a heart attack.’

  I hadn’t realized that I’d been so taken up with telling the story that I’d got up from my seat and was acting it all out. By the time I sat down again the audience were just about wetting themselves with laughter and Dad had been cringing with embarrassment more and more. Now he was curled up on the floor in a little ball with his jacket pulled over his head, hoping that nobody could see him.

  Mike Plank was wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.

  ‘You guys are just hysterical,’ he said. ‘Is the whole family like this? We haven’t even spoken to Cheese yet, the guy with the famous bottom.’ He turned to my little brother.

  ‘Now then, you were in an advert for diapers, is that right?’

  ‘No,’ said Cheese, looking puzzled.

  ‘Diapers?’ Mum repeated quickly. ‘Isn’t that what you call nappies in America?’

  ‘That’s right, ma’am,’ said Mike.

  ‘In that case, yes, Cheese was in a nappy advert,’ Mum agreed.

  ‘OK, I’ll call them nappies. So, Cheese, you wanted to take a break, eh? I know it’s hard work doing these adverts. So you went crawling off without your nappy, with your little bare butt on show, and somehow you managed to get on the desk top of the news broadcast in the studio next door?’

  ‘Yes!’ shouted Cheese. ‘And everyone saw my botty. POO!’

  Squeals of laughter erupted, which only encouraged Cheese to say it again. ‘POO!’ he shouted, even louder. And then he machine-gunned, ‘POO-POO-POO-POO!’

  Mike leaned back in his chair. ‘There we have it, ladies and gentlemen, a true professional, someone who knows how to work his audience – and he’s only three years old!’

  The crowd whooped and hollered. By this time Dad had quietly gone back to sitting on the sofa.

  Mike now turned his chair towards Tomato. ‘OK, young lady, you’ve been a very quiet, good little girl. But I want to know what it’s like to be a member of this family. Your twin brother seems to be well on the way to being a superstar, but you’re sitting here all quiet and innocent. Don’t you get miffed by all the attention he gets?’

  Tomato looked back at Mike with a very serious expression and slowly shook her head.

  Mike seemed a bit fazed by Tomato not actually saying anything, so he went on. ‘Tell me, what do you do? Cheese has his famous bottom. Is there anything special you can do?’

  Tomato still didn’t speak. She just nodded rather solemnly. Then she did something that none of us had ever seen before. She tucked her knees up under her T-shirt and pulled it right down so her feet vanished from view. She pulled her arms back inside the sleeves until they had completely disappeared. Finally, she managed to withdraw her head into the neck of her T-shirt until you couldn’t see her at all. Then she spoke for the first time, from beneath the shirt.

  ‘I’m a tortoise.’

  Out came a little bit of her head. Out came her hands and feet. The crowd went wild again. They clapped and shouted and stamped.

  Tomato popped out her whole head and grinned at everyone.

  ‘The very talented Famous Bottom Family!’ cried Mike. ‘And we wish you good fortune with the space launch this afternoon and you’re all going to meet the president, I believe. You show the president your tortoise impression, young lady. I’m sure he’ll be pretty amazed.’ Mike turned to the audience. ‘A big hand for the Famous Bottom Family all the way from Britain!’

  11. The President of the United States (and his Wife)

  ‘I have never been so embarrassed in my life,’ Dad told us after the interview.

  Cassie patted his back. ‘It was great TV,’ she said. ‘Everyone loved it and they loved all of you. You’re a hit!’

  ‘I feel as if I’ve been hit,’ Dad moaned.

  ‘There, there. You’ll recover,’ Mum chuckled. ‘I must say it seems odd that we keep getting called the Famous Bottom Family. I think when we get back to Britain we shall have to change our names to Mr and Mrs Famous Bottom.’

  ‘You speak for yourself,’ said Dad.

  Mum chuckled. ‘Come on, let’s get some lunch. That will cheer you up.’

  She was right. By the time we’d eaten a good meal Dad was back to his old self.

  ‘I can’t believe I sang “You say tomato and I’ll say tomahto” on American TV,’ he grinned.

  ‘Neither can we,’ said Mum. ‘You’re a clown, through and through.’

  ‘And Tomato was such a brilliant tortoise,’ Dad added fondly.

  Tomato immediately did her tortoise impression all over again, except when she popped her head out this time she shouted, ‘Daddy stinky-poo!’ which got half the restaurant staring at us. It seemed we couldn’t go anywhere without attracting unwanted attention – mostly because of the twins.

  So the time passed and we began to talk less and less to each other until there was just silence and we were all thinking the same thing. We were about to meet the President of the United States.

  Eventually, Mum whispered, ‘I have no idea what to say. Do you think his wife will be there too?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ muttered Dad.

  ‘I’m going to be a tortoise,’ Tomato told us.

  ‘I’m going to be, to be a … a dipplypokus!’
Cheese suddenly decided.

  ‘That should be interesting,’ Mum remarked and we all fell silent again.

  We were quite glad when Cassie came to get us. At least we were now doing something. We drove, mostly in silence, out to the Space Center. I think we were all staring out of the window, wondering what it would be like.

  Well, I can tell you what it was like. I had never seen so many big black cars and big men in dark suits. They were all milling around the podium where the meeting and the launch were going to take place. As soon as we arrived, we were checked all over by security.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t make any jokes about guns or bombs or anything like that,’ warned Cassie. ‘If you do you’ll find yourself whisked away from here and stuck in jail faster than you can say zip-a-dee-doo-dah.’

  ‘Zip –’ Dad managed before Mum clamped a firm hand over his mouth.

  ‘Not another sound!’ she hissed.

  Dad looked at us and pulled such a funny face that we couldn’t help giggling.

  ‘And don’t you dare laugh at your dad,’ Mum snapped. ‘It only encourages him.’

  We were escorted across to the podium. We climbed up the steps to the top. I was so glad Commander Cassie was still with us. Cheese and Tomato were holding Mum’s hands. Don’t tell anyone, but almost without realizing it I found myself holding Cassie’s. I was embarrassed, but I didn’t want to let go, so I didn’t. In the distance we could see the rocket that was going to carry all the different information about Earth and all the messages from around the world into deepest space, maybe to be picked up by aliens in some distant galaxy. And that included the video of Cheese’s bottom.

  A big, long, black car swept up to the podium. The guard of honour went into full salute mode and snapped into statue formation. Two men ran to the rear doors either side of the limousine.

  The president stepped out from one side and his wife from the other.

  They were both smiling. Mrs President looked rather elegant.

  ‘I wonder who does her hair,’ whispered Mum.