“Yeah, but this bag comes in eight colours,” she complained. “One for each day of the week. I thought you were gonna buy me all eight.”
“I will, my sweet princess…” spluttered Mr Spud.
Joe stared at his dad. He couldn’t believe he had fallen for such a wrong’un.
“Dinner is served,” announced the butler.
“Here, my beautiful angel of love, take a seat,” said Mr Spud, as the butler pulled out a chair for her.
Three waiters entered the room carrying silver trays. They carefully placed the plates down on the table. The butler nodded and the waiters lifted the silver covers to reveal three packets of Salt n’ Vinegar crisps. The trio started eating. Mr Spud initially attempted to eat his crisps with his knife and fork to appear posh, but soon gave up.
“Now me birfday’s only eleven months away,” said Sapphire. “So I’ve made a little wish-list of presents you are going to buy me…”
Her fingernails were so long and fake she could barely fish the piece of paper from her pink handbag. It was like watching one of those grabber machines at the fair where you never win anything. Eventually she grasped it and passed it over to Mr Spud. Joe looked over his dad’s shoulder and read what she had scribbled.
There is video content at this location that is not currently supported for your device. Caption for this video is diplayed below.
Sapphire's Birfday Wish-list
Sapphire’s Birfday Wish-list
A solid gold Rolls Royce convertible
A million pounds in cash
500 pairs of Versace sunglasses
A holiday home in Marbella (large)
A bucket of diamonds
A unicorn
A box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates (large)
A great big massive like really big yacht
A large tank of topical fish*
‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua’ on DVD
* I think she must mean tropical fish, rather than fish that are up on the news and current affairs.
5000 bottles of Chanel perfume
Another million pounds in cash
Some gold
Lifetime subscription to OK magazine
A private jet (new please, not second-hand)
A talking dog
General expensive stuff
100 designer dresses (I don’t mind which ones as long as they are expensive. Any ones I don’t like me mum can flog down the market)
A pint of semi-skimmed milk
Belgium
“Of course I will get all these things for you, my angel sent from heaven,” slobbered Mr Spud.
“Thanks, Ken,” said Sapphire, her mouth full of crisps.
“It’s Len,” corrected Dad.
“Oh, sorry, yeah! LOL! Len! Silly me!” she said.
“You can’t be serious!” said Joe. “You’re not really going to buy her all that stuff are you?”
Mr Spud gave Joe an angry look. “Why not, son?” he said, trying to control his temper.
“Yeah, why not, you little git?” said Sapphire. Definitely not controlling her temper.
Joe hesitated for a moment. “It’s plain to see you’re only with my dad for the money.”
“Don’t talk to your mother like that!” shouted Mr Spud.
Joe’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “She’s not my mother, she’s your stupid girlfriend and she’s only seven years older than me!”
“How dare you!” fumed Mr Spud. “Say sorry.”
Joe defiantly remained silent.
“I said, ‘say sorry’!” shouted Mr Spud.
“No!” shouted Joe.
“Go to your rooms!”
Joe pushed back his chair, making as much of a clatter as possible, and stomped upstairs, as the staff pretended not to see.
He sat on the edge of his bed and cradled himself in his arms. It was a long, long time since anyone had hugged him, so he hugged himself. He squeezed his own sobbing plumpness. He was beginning to wish that Dad had never invented ‘Bumfresh’ and they were all still living in the council flat with Mum. After a few moments, there was a knock on the door. Joe sat in defiant silence.
“It’s your dad.”
“Go away!” shouted Joe.
Mr Spud opened the door and sat down next to his son on the bed. He nearly slid off the bedspread onto the floor. Silk sheets may look nice, but they aren’t very practical.
Mr Spud bumjumped a little nearer to his son.
“I don’t like to see my little Spud like this. I know you don’t like Sapphire, but she makes me happy. Can you understand that?”
“Not really,” said Joe.
“And I know you had a tough day at school too. With that teacher, The Witch, and with that ungrateful boy, Bob. I’m sorry. I know how much you wanted a friend, and I know I didn’t make it any easier. I will have a quiet word with the headmaster. Try and sort things out for you if I can.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Joe sniffed. “I’m sorry I was crying.” He hesitated for a moment. “I do love you, Dad.”
“Ditto, son, ditto,” replied Mr Spud.
Chapter 13
New Girl
The half-term holidays came and went, and when Joe returned to school on the Monday morning he found he wasn’t the centre of attention any more. There was a new girl at school, and because she was soooooooo pretty everyone was talking about her. When Joe walked into his classroom there she was, like a giant unexpected present.
“So what’s the first lesson today?” she asked as they walked across the playground.
“Sorry?” spluttered Joe.
“I said, ‘what’s the first lesson today?’” the new girl repeated.
“I know, it’s just… you’re really talking to me?” Joe couldn’t believe it.
“Yes, I am talking to you,” she laughed. “I’m Lauren.”
“I know.” Joe wasn’t sure if the fact that he had remembered her name made him sound suave or like a stalker.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
Joe smiled. At last there was someone at the school who knew nothing about him.
“My name is Joe,” he said to Lauren.
“Joe what?” asked Lauren.
Joe didn’t want her to know that he was the Bumfresh billionaire. “Erm, Joe Potato.”
“Joe Potato?” she asked, more than a little surprised.
“Yes…” stammered Joe. In the moment he had been too overwhelmed by her beauty to be able to come up with a better alternative to ‘Spud’.
“Unusual name, Potato,” said Lauren.
“Yes, I suppose it is. It is actually spelt with an ‘e’ at the end. Joe Potatoe. So it’s not quite the vegetable ‘potato’. That would be ridiculous! Ha ha!”
Lauren tried to laugh too, but she was looking at Joe a little oddly. Oh no, thought Joe. I only met this girl one minute ago and she already thinks I’m nuts. He quickly tried to change the subject. “We’ve got Maths next with Mr Crunch,” he said.
“OK.”
“And then we’ve got History with Miss Spite.”
“I hate History, it’s so boring.”
“You’ll hate it even more with Miss Spite. She’s a good teacher, I suppose, but all us kids hate her. We call her ‘The Witch’!”
“That’s so funny!” said Lauren, giggling.
Joe felt ten feet tall.
Bob bobbed into view. “Er… Hi Joe.”
“Oh, hi Bob,” Joe replied. The two former friends hadn’t seen each other over the half term. Joe had spent his days alone racing around and around his racetrack in a new Formula One car his dad had bought him. And Bob had spent most of the week in a bin. Wherever Bob was the Grubbs seemed to find him, lift him up by his ankles and deposit him in the nearest skip. Well, that was what Bob had said he wanted.
Joe had missed Bob, but this wasn’t good timing. Right now he was talking to the prettiest girl in the school, maybe even the prettiest girl in the whole of the local area!
&n
bsp; “I know we haven’t seen each other in a while. But… well… I’ve been thinking about what we said when you were doing litter duty…” stammered Bob.
“Yeah?”
Bob seemed a little taken aback by Joe’s impatient tone, but pressed on. “Well, I am sorry we fell out, and I would like us to be friends again. You could move your desk back so that—”
“Do you mind if I talk to you later, Bob?” said Joe. “I am quite busy right now.”
“But—” began Bob, a wounded expression on his face.
Joe ignored it. “I’ll see you around,” he said.
Bob marched off ahead.
“Who was that? A friend of yours?” enquired Lauren.
“No no no, he’s not my friend,” replied Joe. “Bob’s his name, but he’s so fat everyone calls him ‘Blob’!”
Lauren laughed again. Joe felt a tiny bit sick, but he was so pleased to be making the pretty new girl laugh that he pushed the feeling all the way down inside him.
For the duration of the maths class Lauren kept on looking over at Joe. It put him right off his algebra. In History she was definitely gazing in his direction too. As Miss Spite droned on and on about the French Revolution, Joe started to daydream about kissing Lauren. She was so very pretty that Joe wanted to kiss her more than anything. However, being only twelve Joe had never kissed a girl before, and had no idea how to make it happen.
“And the name of the king of France in 1789 was…? Spud?”
“Yes, Miss?” Joe stared at Miss Spite, horrified. He hadn’t been listening at all.
“I asked you a question, boy. You haven’t been paying attention, have you? Do you want to pass your exam?”
“Yes, Miss. I was listening…” stammered Joe. “What is the answer then, boy?” demanded Miss Spite. “Who was the king of France in 1789?”
Joe had no idea. He was pretty sure it wasn’t King Kevin II, or King Craig IV, or King Trevor the Great, because kings didn’t tend to have names like that.
“I am waiting,” pronounced Miss Spite. The bell rang. I’m saved! thought Joe.
“The bell is a signal for me, not you!” pronounced Miss Spite. Of course she was going to say that. She lived to say that. It would probably be written on her tombstone. Lauren was sitting behind where Miss Spite was standing, and she suddenly waved at Joe to get his attention. He was confused for a moment, then realised she was trying to help him by miming the answer. First she acted out someone going to the bathroom.
“King Toilet the…?” offered Joe.
The class all burst out laughing. Lauren shook her head. Joe had another try. “King Lavatory?”
They laughed again.
“King Bog?”
They laughed even harder this time.
“King Loo…? Ah, King Louis the…”
“Yes, boy?” Miss Spite continued her interrogation. Behind her Lauren mimed numbers with her fingers.
“King Louis the fifth, the tenth, the fifteenth, sixteen! King Louis the sixteenth!” declared Joe.
Lauren mimed a little clap.
“That’s right, Spud,” said a suspicious Miss Spite, before turning to the board and writing on it. “King Louis the sixteenth.”
Stepping out into the spring sunshine, Joe turned to Lauren. “You totally saved my butt in there.”
“That’s OK. I like you.” She smiled.
“Really…?” asked Joe.
“Yes!”
“Well, then, I wonder if…” Joe stumbled over his words. “If, well…”
“Well, what…?”
“If you, well, I mean you probably wouldn’t, in fact you definitely wouldn’t, I mean, why would you? You are so pretty and I am just a big lump, but…” The words were spiralling out of his mouth in all directions now, and Joe was beginning to blush fiercely with embarrassment. “Well, if you wanted to…”
Lauren took over the speaking for a bit. “If I wanted to go for a walk in the park after school and maybe grab an ice lolly? Yes, I would love to.”
“Really?” Joe was incredulous.
“Yes, really.”
“With me?”
“Yes, with you, Joe Potatoe.”
Joe was a hundred times happier than he could ever remember. It didn’t even matter that Lauren thought his last name was Potatoe.
Chapter 14
The Shape of a Kiss
“Oi!”
It had all been going perfectly. Joe and Lauren had been sitting on a park bench eating their lollies from Raj’s shop. Raj could see Joe was trying to impress this girl, and so made a ridiculous fuss of him, giving him a one-penny discount on their lollies, and offering Lauren a free browse of Now magazine.
At last, though, they had escaped the newsagent’s shop and found a quiet corner of the park, where they had been talking and talking as the melted red goo of their lollies dribbled down their fingers. They spoke about everything except Joe’s family life. Joe didn’t want to lie to Lauren. He already liked her too much for that. So when she asked him what his parents did he just told her his dad worked in ‘human waste management’ and unsurprisingly Lauren didn’t enquire any further. Joe desperately didn’t want Lauren to know how ridiculously rich he was. Having observed how Sapphire shamelessly used his dad, he knew only too well how money could ruin things.
Everything was perfect… until the sound of that “Oi!” spoiled everything.
The Grubb twins had been hanging around by the swings aching for someone to tell them off. Unfortunately for them, the police, the park-keeper and the local vicar were all otherwise engaged. So when one of them spotted Joe they bounced over grinning, no doubt hoping to relieve their boredom by making someone else’s life a misery for a bit.
“Oi! Give us some more money or we’ll put you in a bin!”
“Who are they talking to?” whispered Lauren.
“Me,” said Joe reluctantly.
“Money!” said a Grubb. “Now!”
Joe reached into his pocket. Maybe if he gave them each a £20 note they would leave him alone, for today at least.
“What are you doing, Joe?” asked Lauren.
“I just thought…” he stammered.
“What’s it to you, slag?” said Grubb One.
Joe looked down at the grass, but Lauren handed Joe what was left of her lolly and rose from the bench. The Grubbs shifted around uneasily. They weren’t expecting a thirteen-year-old girl to literally stand up to them.
“Sit down!” said Grubb Two, as he or she put his or her hand on Lauren’s shoulder to force her down onto the bench. Lauren, however, grabbed his or her hand and twisted it behind his or her back, and then pushed him or her to the ground. The other Grubb charged her, so Lauren leaped into the air and kung-fu kicked him or her to the ground. Then the other one leaped up and tried to grab her, but she karate-chopped him or her on his or her shoulder and he or she raced off screaming in pain.
It really is quite hard writing this when you don’t know someone’s gender.
Joe felt it was about time he did something so he stood up and, his legs shaking in fear, approached the Grubb. It was only then that Joe realised he was still holding two melting ice lollies. The remaining twin stood its ground for a moment, and then when Lauren stood behind Joe he or she ran off, whimpering like a dog.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” said Joe, astounded.
“Oh, I’ve just done a few martial arts classes, here and there,” replied Lauren, a little unconvincingly.
Joe reckoned he might have found his dream girl. Not only could Lauren be his girlfriend, she could be his bodyguard too!
They walked through the park. Joe had walked through it many times before, but today it seemed more beautiful than ever. As the sunlight danced through the leaves on the trees on this Autumn afternoon, for a moment everything in Joe’s life seemed perfect.
“I’d better head home,” Lauren said, as they neared the gate.
Joe tried to hide his disappointment. He coul
d have strolled round the park with Lauren forever.
“Can I buy you lunch tomorrow?” he asked.
Lauren smiled. “You don’t have to buy me anything. I’d love to have lunch with you, though, but I’m paying, you understand?”
“Well, if you really want to,” said Joe. Wow. This girl was too good to be true.
“What’s the school canteen like?” said Lauren.
How could Joe find the words? “Um, well, it’s… it’s great if you are on a very strict diet.”
“I love healthy food!” said Lauren. That wasn’t quite what Joe meant, but it was the best place at school for a date as it was guaranteed to be quiet.
“See you tomorrow then,” said Joe. He closed his eyes and made his lips the shape of a kiss. And waited.
“See you tomorrow Joe,” said Lauren, before skipping off down the path. Joe opened his eyes and smiled. He couldn’t believe it! He had nearly kissed a girl!
Chapter 15
Nip and Tuck
There was something very peculiar about Mrs Trafe today. She looked the same but different. As Joe and Lauren approached the serving counter, Joe realised what had changed.
The loose skin on her face had been lifted. Her nose was smaller.
Her teeth were capped.
The lines on her forehead had been erased. Her eye bags had disappeared.
Her wrinkles had gone.
Billionaire Boy Page 6