Uncle Gobb and the Dread Shed

by Michael Rosen

Then he wrote a note:

  Dear Father,

  When you get up and come downstairs, you will see a large shed-like building in our back yard. It is a Dread Shed, which I have captured, for, Father, I have listened to your words of wisdom and acted upon them. This Dread Shed will keep alive forever the glory that is the Dread Shed and when the time comes, just as one day King Arthur will rise from the cave wherein he sleeps to save our kingdom, so our Dread Shed will arise and save our kingdom too.

  Love,

  (or something like it, in case that sounds too soppy)

  Derek.

  And little Derek Gobb dropped this note on the pillow beside Father Gobb’s head even as he lay sleeping.

  That’s why in the morning, Father Gobb did NOT wake up, go downstairs and say, ‘What the blooming hell is that shed doing in our back yard?’

  Instead, he looked longingly and lovingly at the DREAD SHED and slapped Derek round the top of his head because that was the only way Father Gobb knew how to say thank you to his children.

  And now, little Derek Gobb had grown up. He had become Uncle Gobb, and the DREAD SHED had stayed with him in his life. It didn’t blow up in the

  It lurked in a corner of the back yard.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Next Day: Something Strange At School

  Malcolm and his great, greatest, best, bestest, most wonderfullest best-best-best friend Crackersnacker were sitting in class doing a worksheet.

  In case you don’t know what a worksheet is, it’s one of those sheets of paper where there are bits of writing followed by gaps. You read the bits of writing and then you write something in the gaps.

  This is why you go to school. You go to school to fill in the gaps.

  In recent years, worksheets have been made much more exciting by moving them on to computers, tablets, iPhones and iScreams. They’re exactly the same questions, exactly the same answers, but instead of writing them, you tap in the numbers or the letters of the words from a keypad.

  HURRAH!!!

  So, Malcolm and his great friend Crackersnacker were doing a worksheet.

  A word or two about Crackersnacker, who I think you’ll quite like:

  Crackersnacker was one of those boys they used to describe as ‘peaky’. Do you know what ‘peaky’ means? Well, a long time ago, there used to be factories, mills and chimneys where boys and girls had to go and work. All boys and girls who worked in factories, mills and chimneys were peaky.

  Crackersnacker didn’t work in a factory, mill or chimney but somehow or another, he still managed to look peaky.

  CHAPTER 11

  A Quick But Important Scene With Malcolm And Crackersnacker In Which They Discuss Uncle Gobb

  Crackersnacker: You know that geezer who lives with you and your mum?

  Malcolm: Yep.

  Crackersnacker: Is he your mum’s boyfriend?

  Malcolm: Nope.

  Crackersnacker: Who is he then?

  Malcolm: He’s my uncle.

  Crackersnacker: What’s he like?

  Malcolm: He always wants me to do more homework and I end up being bamboozled and confuzled. I can’t stand it.

  Crackersnacker: Oh yeah?

  Malcolm: Yeah, and if I don’t do the homework, he says he’ll put me in the DREAD SHED.

  Crackersnacker: What’s a DREAD SHED?

  Malcolm: Well, a long time ago, when streets were lit by gas…

  Crackersnacker: What?

  Malcolm: Oh, never mind. I’ll tell you another time. What’s important is that I must get him to move out.

  Crackersnacker: Right. Do you like dark chocolate or milk chocolate?

  Malcolm: Milk chocolate.

  Crackersnacker: Me too.

  CHAPTER 12

  The Worksheet - Continued

  The worksheet said:

  ‘Billy was wearing a blue hat.’

  Then it said:

  ‘What colour was Billy’s hat?’

  Malcolm stared at the piece of writing. He looked for a clue to the answer. Was there anything to help him answer the question? Nope.

  This sort of thing made Malcolm worried and sad.

  ‘Psst, Crackersnacker. What’s the answer?’ Malcolm said in a pssst sort of a voice.

  ‘Blue,’ said Crackersnacker.

  ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ said Malcolm.

  So he wrote underneath

  Now just at that moment, his teacher, Mr Keenly, was walking past.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Mr Keenly in a kind voice, ‘let’s see if I can help: Billy was wearing a BLUE hat. What colour was his hat?’

  When Mr Keenly said the word ‘blue’ he opened his eyes wide, pushed his mouth forwards in a keenly sort of a way, and made his finger draw a wiggly underliney sort of a line.

  Malcolm had often noticed that Mr Keenly had this interesting way of explaining things. If you didn’t get what he was telling you, or if you didn’t understand what was on a worksheet, he would just say it again but with loads of eye-opening, mouth-moving, finger-wiggling things.

  This meant that Malcolm just said what he had said again too.

  ‘I don’t know, sir.’

  Mr Keenly frowned. ‘Billy’s hat is blue, Malcolm.’

  Malcolm looked at Mr Keenly.

  ‘Er, Mr Keenly, I can’t write that in the gap, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Mr Keenly.

  ‘Because I don’t know for certain that the hat Billy is wearing is his hat. It doesn’t say that it’s his hat. So I can’t write down, “His hat was blue” when I don’t know if it was his hat.’

  Mr Keenly frowned even more frownily, which meant that the small piece of skin between his two eyebrows made a kind of fold which Malcolm stared at and wondered, if he planted a sunflower seed in it, would it grow into a sunflower?

  ‘Let’s just say that it IS Billy’s hat,’ said Mr Keenly, and when he said ‘IS’ he did all the eye-opening, mouth-pushing, wiggly-finger things again.

  Malcolm felt sweaty and uncomfortable.

  And sad.

  Crackersnacker looked at Malcolm and tried to help by beaming helpful feelings at him through his fingertips:

  It didn’t work.

  ‘No, sir. I can’t do that,’ said Malcolm. ‘That would be wrong. That’s how you get questions wrong, sir. I don’t want to get any of my questions wrong. My Uncle Gobb says that I must get all my questions right or I will end up as a good-for-nothing, standing about on street corners, expecting a free ride.’

  ‘Well, Malcolm,’ said Mr Keenly in his most-kindly-as-possible voice, ‘I can tell you that the answer to the question is “blue”. Billy’s hat was blue. I’ve got the answers here and if you put “blue” in the gap, you’ll get ... let me see ... one mark. Yes. One mark. How about that? One mark. Not bad, eh? Better than a kick up the bum.’

  Malcolm could feel his eyes getting fizzy.

  That’s what happened when people said stuff to him that didn’t fit with what he could see. Things got fizzy.

  And sad.

  ‘But, sir,’ he said, ‘the answer you’ve got on your piece of paper could be wrong.’

  Crackersnacker said, ‘Don’t worry about it, Malc. It probably isn’t wrong, you know. Just put “blue”.’

  And he tried to beam some more helpful feelings at Malc through his fingertips.

  Just then two children on another table started practising licking each other’s noses. They were called Ulla and Spaghetti.

  Mr Keenly saw them with the eyes he had in the back of his head and said, ‘Ulla, Spaghetti, could you do that nose-licking thing later, please. We’re doing the Billy Worksheet thing now.’

  He turned back to Malcolm.

  ‘The answers I have on my piece of paper may be right, they may be wrong, Malcolm me old matey, but they are always THE answers. It doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong, they are just the answers that you have to put. Billy’s hat was blue. That’s THE answer.’

  (I think you can gu
ess what he did with his eyes, mouth and finger when he said the word ‘THE’.)

  Then Mr Keenly walked on to help the next child.

  Malcolm looked again at the worksheet.

  Suddenly, to his amazement, he saw something else. At the very bottom in tiny, tiny writing, it said

  Gobb? Could it just possibly be something to do with ... Uncle Gobb?

  ‘Hey Crackersnacker,’ Malcolm whispered, ‘look at that.’

  Crackersnacker looked and saw the ‘Gobb Education’ writing too.

  Crackersnacker put his finger on to his face so as to look like a serious person on TV and said, ‘Could this be something to do with the person who wants you to do more homework and who you would like out of your house? The one who bamboozles and confuzles you, mm?’

  Malcolm nodded.

  Just then two children on another table started doing an experiment on how hard they could bite each other’s fingers before the other one said, ‘STOPPPPP!’

  Malcolm looked at the next bit of writing on the worksheet.

  It said: ‘It was raining.’

  And underneath that, it said:

  ‘Why was Billy wearing a hat?’

  Then there was a gap.

  Malcolm started to think of all the reasons why Billy could be wearing a hat.

  He turned to Crackersnacker.

  ‘I’ve got several answers to why Billy is wearing a hat.’

  He showed Crackersnacker his list.

  ‘He liked wearing the hat because once a bully-kid had stolen it from him, and now wearing it showed the bully-kid that he wasn’t afraid of him any more, yeah…’

  Crackersnacker looked at Malcolm in a wondering sort of a way. ‘Or you could just write, “He was wearing the hat because it was raining”.’

  Malcolm looked back at Crackersnacker.

  Crackersnacker breathed in, nodded, looked again at Malcolm in an admiring sort of a way, and said, ‘But, yeah, I get you, Malc, saying that it was because it was raining might be boring.’

  Malcolm thought he had better choose one of his answers pretty quick. Uncle Gobb once told him that the thing about exams is that it’s all a matter of ‘getting on well’. So here he was – OK, it wasn’t an exam – but he had to ‘get on well’. Not like Ulla and Spaghetti licking noses. They weren’t ‘getting on well’. Not like Singalong and Freddy biting each other’s fingers. They weren’t ‘getting on well’.

  In fact, up on the wall was the

  Every day Mr Keenly had to decide who was Getting On Well. AND who was Not Getting On Well.

  Malcolm felt worried. He was near the bottom of the Getting On Well chart. He wasn’t Getting On Well at all.

  And this surprised him and made him sad.

  He felt like he was Getting On Well all the time. Like right now, as he figured out all these interesting reasons about why Billy was wearing that hat, the hat which may or may not have been his.

  So he Got On Well with it. He wrote down, ‘Billy is wearing the hat because blue is the colour of his favourite football team.’

  At the end of the lesson, everyone, even Ulla, Spaghetti, Singalong and Freddy, handed in their worksheets.

  Malcolm looked up at the Worksheet Chart. This was another chart and it was next to the . After the worksheets were marked by Janet, everyone’s name was put at the right place on the Worksheet Chart. If you got a good Worksheet mark, you were out in front. If you got a bad Worksheet mark, you were behind. ‘Who is Janet?’ you say. Janet helps. She is not called a helper though. She is called an ‘Assistant’. And a very nice Assistant she is too. Janet likes Mr Keenly. Oh yes.

  Uncle Gobb often said to Malcolm that he mustn’t Be Behind.

  Malcolm thought about that as he looked at the Worksheet chart.

  In fact, thinking about Uncle Gobb telling him that he mustn’t Be Behind made him upset. And angry. He was upset-angry. He was upsengry. And angrupset.

  I must do something about Uncle Gobb, he thought…

  He imagined that Uncle Gobb was standing in front of him.

  Look here, Uncle Gobb, he said in his mind, if I wasn’t behind, someone else would be behind. That’s the whole point about ‘in front’ and ‘behind’. As long as there’s an ‘in front’ there has to be a ‘behind’. Like me. Here’s my front and here’s my behind. ‘We can’t all be “in front”, can we?’

  (He said that last bit out loud, and Crackersnacker heard him.)

  ‘No, Malc, we can’t,’ said Crackersnacker in his most helpful-hopeful voice.

  Still, that answer about blue being the colour of Billy’s favourite football team was a

  surely. Maybe he might be ‘in front’ this time.

  ‘Playtime,’ called out Mr Keenly. ‘Janet will be with you for playtime today,’ he said, ‘and I’m asking her to make sure you’re all very sensible – that includes you, Ulla, Spaghetti, Singalong and Freddy, and when she comes back with you, the head teacher has asked her to put all your names in the right place on the Behaving Sensibly at Playtime Chart.’

  Janet nodded in a very serious way.

  It was quite a big nod. Bigger than a quick nod. It was an I’m-taking-this-very-seriously-and-I-hope-you-are-too nod.

  Malcolm sat trying to do a big nod too.

  He thought, I’m taking this very seriously and I hope you are too, as he sat there nodding.

  ‘I saw that, Malcolm,’ said Mr Keenly. ‘Janet, make sure that Malcolm starts playtime very, very behind on the Behaving Sensibly at Playtime Chart. Off you go.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Crackersnacker to Mr Keenly, ‘Malcolm wasn’t not Behaving Sensibly at Playtime. He was just practising his nodding. I know he was. He’s like that. Really.’

  ‘All right,’ said Mr Keenly, ‘I take your point.’

  Why’s he taking away my point? thought Malcolm. I thought I just got a point for writing ‘blue’ in the question about the hat.

  All the children filed out and just as Malcolm walked past Mr Keenly and Janet, he discovered two incredible, amazing and stunning things.

  CHAPTER 13

  PART 1

  The First Strange Thing

  The first strange thing was that as he walked past Mr Keenly and Janet he heard Mr Keenly say to Janet, ‘I can’t stand these horrible charts. If I had my way, I’d pile them up in the playground and burn the diddly lot.’

  CHAPTER 13

  PART 2

  The Second Strange Thing

  The second strange thing that Malcolm discovered as he walked past the charts was some very small writing at the bottom of one of them. You can guess what it said, can’t you? I mean, if this was a piece of writing on a Worksheet and it said, ‘What was written on the bottom of the chart?’ and then there was a gap, you would be able to write something in the gap, wouldn’t you?

  Do you think the writing on the charts would say,

  Do you think it would say,

  Or do you think it would say,

  I’m going to leave you with that little problem until tomorrow.

  I can’t be sure it will be tomorrow, because I don’t know how you’re reading this book. You might be reading it yesterday.

  Or on a bus.

  Or on a bus yesterday.

  Only YOU know.

  And that is something you should treasure like you treasure the love of a good person.

  PS – Malcolm did point it out to Crackersnacker though, so Crackersnacker is probably one other person who knows. I hope you don’t mind about that. Crackersnacker seems like a mostly OK sort of a guy, don’t you think?

  CHAPTER 14

  That Night

  Malcolm, Tess and Uncle Gobb were having baked beans on toast.

  ‘Tess,’ said Uncle Gobb, ‘the boy is having toast on beans. The beans are on the bottom. The toast is on top of the beans. You said quite clearly, we are having beans on toast and the boy is disobeying you. He is not doing as he’s told. He is behaving in a rude, insolent and disrespectful way towards you. What
are you going to do about it?’

  Mum looked at Malcolm’s plate.

  ‘Oh come off it, Derek,’ she said, ‘it’s still beans AND toast, isn’t it? It’s no big deal which way up it is, is it?’

  ‘And that’s it,’ said Uncle Gobb, ‘that’s where we’re going wrong. Years ago, if a parent said, “We’re having beans on toast”, we just got on with it, and we had our beans ON our toast. You know something, Tess? You know why we’re falling behind? Because young people today think they can run before they can walk. I’m not against people having beans UNDER their toast but only after they’ve learned how to do beans ON toast first. First things first, Tess. Remember, the DREAD SHED is always with me. And when I say “DREAD SHED”, Malcolm, I mean a whole lot of DREAD for you.’ And he pointed fiercely at Malcolm’s nose.

  Malcolm munched his beans. And his toast. He thought, I don’t want Uncle Gobb to bamboozle and confuzle me. If this goes on any longer I will have to think of a way to bamboozle and confuzle him. Then he’ll leave, go, whoosh! I wonder if I will be able to bring about Uncle Gobb’s downfall and humiliate him without destroying him? he thought. I’m just eating beans. And toast. It’s no big deal which way I eat them, is it? But before he could say that to Uncle Gobb, his mum had something to say.

  ‘Oh, come off it, Derek,’ said Tess, ‘the main reason why we’re falling behind is because the fat cats have made off with the cream and there are no dairies left making milk.’

  Uncle Gobb shook his head.