My Life and Other Massive Mistakes Read online

  About the Book

  Have you ever helped your pop escape from a nursing home? Does your teacher have a problem with his bowels? Is your sister an evil genius and criminal mastermind? Have you ever mined your teeth for cash? Is there a girl or boy at school who’s desperate to kiss you? And do you know someone with the worst case of nits in world history?

  I’m Tom Weekly and this is the third book in my weird, funny, sometimes gross life story.

  ‘These books are 100% gluten free, 100% fat free, 100% organic and 35% fact free. They have no added sugar and contain absolutely NO NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS! May contain traces of NUTS!’

  Raph Atkins, kid author/llama enthusiast

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  NitPlan

  What Would You Rather Do?

  Despicable Her

  Take Out Your Brain

  Stella Holling: Sugar Rush

  Nine Reasons Why Sloppy Food Should Be Banned

  Mad Cat

  CDS

  25 Ways to Test Your Dad for Cranky Dad Syndrome

  The Great Escape

  Best Slime Recipe

  Mr Schmittz

  Ten Reasons to Never EVER Sneak a Peek into The School Staffroom at Lunchtime

  Tooth Mine

  15 Things You Won’t Hear Your Mother Say Anytime Soon

  Sore

  Story Starters

  I Remember…

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Also by Tristan Bancks

  My Life and Other Stuff I Made Up

  My Life and Other Stuff That Went Wrong

  Mac Slater, Coolhunter 1: The Rules of Cool

  Mac Slater, Coolhunter 2: I Ny

  Two Wolves

  Copyright Notice

  Loved the book?

  Hey,

  I’m Tom Weekly and this is my life. Every single word in this book is true. Except the stuff I made up.

  See, I have trouble working out where reality stops and fantasy begins. Tanya, my evil-genius criminal-mastermind sister, says that makes me a liar. But that’s not true. Stella Holling really did try to trick me into kissing her on her chocolate-smothered lips. I actually did help my pop attempt a breakout from Kings Bay Nursing Home. And, yes, I did try to use Lewis Snow’s nits as a biological weapon to shut down my school.

  If you have any weird, funny or gross stories, jokes or drawings you’d like me to put into my next book or on my website, I’m at:

  [email protected]

  Be kind to your nits. (And Lewis says try feeding them small dollops of tomato sauce. It’s their second favourite food, after blood.)

  Tom

  I plunge my arm deep into the forest of Lewis Snow’s hair and scrape my fingernails across his scalp. When I withdraw my hand it is crawling, teeming, seething with head lice.

  ‘I dunno if this is the epic-est thing I’ve ever seen or if I’m going to vomit,’ I whisper to Lewis and Jack.

  ‘Maybe both,’ Lewis replies with a smile.

  There aren’t just dozens of nits on Lewis’s scalp. Or hundreds. There are thousands. Tens of thousands, maybe. It doesn’t even seem possible that this many nits exist in the world, let alone on one very small head.

  ‘Just don’t hurt them,’ Lewis says. ‘Nits are people, too.’

  Lewis has had nits since he was three years old. He reckons he can’t remember not having an itchy head. He’s had nits for so long he sees them as pets. He reckons they speak to him, that all his best ideas come from his nits. Lewis was expelled from his last school for having too many nits, but our school will take anybody.

  I proceed to release the minibeasts into the wild, depositing 50 to 100 extra-large nits into each blue hat on each peg outside each classroom in the main school corridor. We even get the teachers’ hats. All the other kids are in assembly so the place is deserted, apart from me, Jack and Lewis. And the nits.

  ‘Pace yourselves,’ Jack whispers, delving his own hand into Lewis’s wild blond afro. ‘We’ve still got a bunch of classes to do.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Lewis replies. ‘Plenty to go round.’

  Jack and I continue to spread the nit love until we make it to the end of the very long corridor. We look back. Hundreds of blue school hats are wriggling with lice.

  ‘Good job, men,’ Jack whispers. ‘Only our class left to do.’

  ‘Four minutes,’ Lewis confirms, checking the timer on his watch, which is in sync with the school bell.

  Just enough time to finish sowing the seeds of our terrible plan: complete school shutdown before next week’s dreaded national standardised tests, when we face the hardest exams of our lives.

  Jack, Lewis and I reckon that our talents can’t be measured by a test. So we figure that if there were, say, a plague of head lice and every kid in school had to be sent home…

  Boom.

  No exams.

  We’ve been hatching the plan for three weeks. The idea came to us on the day that Lewis Snow, the kid with the worst case of nits in world history – Jack’s and my new best friend and hero – wandered into our classroom, scratching like mad.

  Lewis, Jack and I slip into three empty seats at the back of assembly next to a sleeping Mr Carter, just as the recess bell sounds.

  ‘STAY in your seats!’ Mr Skroop demands from centre stage. He seems to be staring right through me with those charcoal eyes. Walton Skroop is not my biggest fan, which is unlucky because he recently landed the job of deputy principal. And he’s my next-door neighbour.

  ‘As you know, we have examinations next week and I expect you all to be using your preparation time wisely. The reputation of this school, our funding and even your teachers’ jobs depend on these results. I will be very, very disappointed if we do poorly. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Skroop,’ we all say in unison.

  ‘Now please leave the hall in a calm and orderly fashion, one class at a time, beginning with 6A!’

  We slowly file out of the hall, across the playground and into the main school building, where everyone grabs their food and hats for recess. Jack, Lewis and I stand at the end of the corridor, near the library, watching as our scheme unfolds.

  ‘I love it when a plan comes together,’ I say.

  ‘We are great humanitarians,’ Jack agrees. ‘I love nits,’ Lewis says dreamily.

  By the afternoon everyone is scratching.

  Everyone.

  Kindergarten kids, primary kids, teachers – even Mr Barnes, the maintenance guy.

  ‘Please stop scratching and concentrate on your work,’ Miss Norrish snips. ‘You heard what Mr Skroop said this morning.’

  We are at our desks doing last year’s maths test, preparing for next week’s exam. Apart from Jack, everyone around me is scratching. Miss Norrish is up the front, marking papers. She’s usually calm and fun, but today she’s on edge. I think she’s as scared of Mr Skroop as we are.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Raph Atkins says.

  ‘Yes, Raph.’

  ‘I’m itchy.’

  ‘Just ignore it,’ Miss Norrish snaps.

  ‘But it feels like my head’s about to explode.’

  ‘I will make it explode if you don’t stop scratching.’

  ‘I think I have zombie nits,’ he says.

  SLAM!

  Miss Norrish throws a textbook down on her desk, stands and says, ‘This is ridiculous. I don’t know what’s got into you all this afternoon.’

  ‘I’m itchy,’ a small voice says at the back.

  ‘I know that! So am I!’ Miss Norrish shouts and then scratches her head like a wild
woman, turning her usually dead-straight hair into a haystack. ‘Get out, all of you! Go outside and scratch yourselves silly. Go on, GO!’

  At first we’re not sure if she’s serious, but eventually we head out into the playground.

  ‘This is awesome,’ Jack whispers.

  The next two days whirl by in a storm of school-wide scratching and teacher meltdowns, but it’s Friday before the nits really hit the fan. Jack, Lewis and I skate to school together. As we roll through the top gates, we stop and stare.

  ‘What’s happening?’ I ask.

  ‘I dunno,’ Jack says.

  ‘My nits have a bad feeling about this,’ Lewis mutters.

  There is a queue of about 40 parents on the stairs leading up to the front office. All the kids in the playground are being rounded up by teachers and marched towards the hall.

  ‘The bell hasn’t even gone,’ Jack says.

  We pick up our skateboards and walk down the driveway. Pretty soon, we are swept up in the tidal wave of kids pouring into the hall.

  Inside, everyone is lined around the walls in class groups, scratching. Kindergarten is up near the stage. Years one and two are against the side wall and year three is at the back. The line-up of kids wraps right around to year six at the front of the hall again, under the basketball backboard. Lewis, Jack and I take our places.

  Mr Skroop stands in the centre of the hall with a microphone. Even from this distance his brown, gappy teeth and fluorescent white skin make me shiver.

  ‘This,’ Mr Skroop begins as the last few kids straggle in, ‘is a great inconvenience.’

  He turns slowly to look at each and every child, his eyes boring into us.

  ‘This,’ he goes on, ‘is a source of great antagonism and frustration for me. Someone in this room is responsible for the unprecedented outbreak of Pediculus humanus capitis, commonly known as head lice.’

  How could he know? I wonder. How could he know the nits didn’t just naturally invade the school?

  ‘You,’ he says, ‘know who you are.’

  Lewis’s leg is shaking. I can see it out of the corner of my eye. I don’t look at his face. Jack picks the scab on his nose. He does that when he’s nervous. I remember the time I was in hospital and Mr Skroop ate Jack’s knee-scab. I’m still annoyed with him about that. It was the biggest in my collection.

  ‘I have had some very unhappy parents in my office this morning,’ he says, ‘and when I have unhappy parents in my office, that makes me unhappy and when I am unhappy, that means you should be unhappy, too, because I am the captain of this ship.’

  Lewis’s leg is really jittering now. And Jack’s nose is bleeding. Kids all around whisper nervously to one another.

  ‘SILENCE!’ Mr Skroop howls. Four hundred kids and 12 teachers snap to attention. He slithers towards the kindergarten kids, just to my left. He’s so close that I can smell the stink of his beastly cat, Mr Fatterkins, on his shredded maroon jumper.

  The kindy kids cower before Dark Lord Skroop as he walks by. A blond boy wets himself. Mrs Rodgers lifts him out of the puddle and helps him over to the side doors.

  Mr Skroop continues around the large rectangle of fear, past each and every child. He regards them with deep suspicion before moving on. The only sounds are the ominous clops of Skroop’s footsteps and the constant shooka-shooka-shooka of head scratching. Skroop examines first grade, second grade, third grade.

  ‘The nits think we should confess,’ Lewis says.

  I shush him. ‘Just act normal.’ But it’s hard to act normal when you’re trying to act normal. You keep thinking, Just act normal, just act normal, until you don’t even know what the word ‘normal’ means anymore.

  Mr Skroop stops and stares at a fourth grader until the kid starts bawling. He passes the halfway line on the basketball court, moving towards us. My bladder is bulging at the seams. I hope I don’t end up in a puddle, too.

  Just act normal, just act normal, just act normal.

  Skroop is ten metres away and he still hasn’t bagged the culprit. Why isn’t he stopping? Why doesn’t he suspect any of these kids? What about Jonah Flem? What about Brent Bunder? How suspicious do those guys look? They’re about the most suspicious-looking guys I’ve ever seen. They would steal an old lady’s porridge faster than they’d help her across the street. They rip the wings off flies for fun. They almost have moustaches. They should be in high school already. They –

  He’s here.

  Skroop.

  Walton Skroop.

  He looks deeply into Lewis’s eyes and even more deeply into mine. I can’t look away. His stare is a straw, reaching in through my eyes to suck out my soul. Skroop sniffs. He can smell the lies seeping from my skin, I’m sure of it. I reek of fibs. I am a wanted criminal and this is the end of the line. I’ll be expelled and my mum will send me to Brat Camp, where we’ll be the stars of a reality TV series and people all over the world will know me as the Nit Bandit, the kid who used head lice as a biological weapon to shut down his school. Maybe Lewis’s nits are right – we need to fess up now. Criminals on TV always get off lighter when they admit they’re guilty. I open my mouth, ready to confess…

  He moves on.

  He takes a quick look at Jack and says, ‘Your scab is bleeding. Get yourself a bandaid.’ Then he walks past.

  Gone.

  It’s over.

  We’re off the hook.

  Free as birds.

  Total school shutdown before Monday’s exams becomes a real possibility once more. I try not to smile. Lewis’s leg stops shaking so badly. Jack dabs at the blood on his nose with a tissue. I can breathe again. I feel good. Mum always tells me I’m a worrywart, and I guess I am. I really am. I had noth–

  Mr Skroop stops and looks back over his shoulder at us. At me. But I’m not worried because I don’t feel so guilty anymore. I feel relaxed. I give him a pursed-lip smile that tells him just how seriously I’m taking this and that I know how hard it must be for teachers to have scallywags like these nit bandits on the loose.

  Skroop turns, tilts his head to the side slightly and sniffs the air again like a dog considering attack. His dead-black eyes are trained on us. I must admit, I do feel a little nervous again.

  Jack whispers, ‘Oh no,’ in my ear and I whisper, ‘Shhh!’ without moving my lips. I do it pretty well. I decide that if I make it out of this alive I might become a ventriloquist.

  Skroop slides back towards us. The entire school looks on. Fire burns behind his eyes. He stops in front of me. He is the Voldemort to my Harry. I’m pretty sure I can see a drop of unicorn blood at the corner of his mouth.

  Lewis’s leg starts dancing again.

  ‘Look around the hall,’ Skroop says, keeping his eyes locked on me.

  I look around.

  ‘What do you see?’ he asks.

  ‘K-kids,’ I say.

  ‘And what are they doing?’

  This feels like a trick question. They just seem to be standing there but I don’t want to say, ‘Standing there,’ because he’ll think that I’m trying to be smart. See, I know how teachers’ minds work. But the kids really do appear to just be standing there.

  ‘Um … Standing there?’ I offer.

  ‘What else?’ he says, stretching the ‘s’ on ‘else’ as though he might be part snake.

  I look around. I feel like the exams have started early. I wish it were multiple choice. I have no idea what he wants to hear. After a long time he snaps, ‘They are scratching, you imbecile. Don’t you see?’

  I look around. And I do see. They are scratching. All of them.

  ‘But you and your little friend here –’ he looks at Jack ‘– are not. Tell me why.’

  ‘Um.’ I can’t believe we forgot to scratch.

  Just act normal, just act normal.

  ‘Is it because,’ Skroop asks, ‘for some reason, you were not infected with head lice while every other child and teacher in the school was?’ He scratches his head just behind the ear.

/>   ‘I saw the two of you – and the new boy here, with the ridiculous hair – slip into the back of this week’s school assembly late. Is that correct?’ Skroop asks, a hint of a smile crawling across his sickly lips. He looks like the cat that got the cream. And I am the cream.

  ‘Is it or is it not true,’ he snarls, ‘that the three of you infected the entire school with head lice in a feeble attempt to avoid the upcoming examinations?’

  ‘What does “feeble” mean?’ Jack asks.

  ‘ENOUGH! Not only will you be present for next week’s exams, but you will handwash every hat in the school. And –’ he raises his voice so that everybody can hear ‘– you will all spend Saturday at school in the hall at a boot camp in preparation for the national standardised tests, under my supervision, to make up for the disruption of the past few days.’

  Kids gasp and call out ‘Nooooo!’, but Skroop doesn’t mind at all. He’s enjoying it. Jonah Flem says, ‘But I’ve got soccer!’ Miss Norrish shakes her head, disappointed. Jack and I have really done it this time.

  ‘And if this school does below par in the exams, you three will have a one-hour after-school detention every day for the remainder of the year. Do you understand?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, Mr Skroop.’

  ‘Now, as a show of unity with the rest of your schoolmates, I would like you to rub heads with the new boy.’

  I look at Skroop, not believing what I have heard. This is not the way deputy principals are supposed to behave. But Mr Skroop is not your everyday deputy principal. He is a deeply disturbed individual.

  ‘Go on,’ he says. ‘Chop-chop.’

  ‘But…’ I look around to some of the teachers, waiting for them to step in. But none of them does. A few parents have gathered at the side and rear doors. They watch on – teachers, kids, parents – all hungry to see our public downfall.