My Life and Other Stuff That Went Wrong Read online

  I looked at my recorder. I rewound and pressed ‘Play’.

  ‘No. Whales! The fish, you nincompoop,’ said Pop’s voice on the recording.

  I hit ‘Stop’ and looked at Miss Norrish. ‘I guess there is no-one else who sounds quite like my pop.’

  She smiled.

  I stopped searching for the ‘Delete’ button.

  Jack slept over again last night. We stayed up till midnight playing ‘What Would You Rather Do?’. Here are a few of our best …

  What would you rather do …?

  - Be sent on a mission to the moon or to the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean?

  - Eat a TV or a door?

  - Be stung on the tongue by a bee or have a llama spit in your mouth?

  - Tell your worst enemy that you love them or your best friend that you hate them?

  - Have a grand piano dropped on your head or be buried up to your neck in a nest of bull ants?

  - Fly on a broomstick or a jet pack?

  - Flush all of your money down the toilet or give it to your brother or sister?

  - Eat a raw frog or sniff a farting skunk’s bottom?

  - Have a whole jar of peanut butter massaged into your hair or a jar of Vegemite rubbed between your toes?

  - Get shipwrecked on an island made of chocolate or marshmallow?

  - Get shipwrecked on an island where the only food source is brussels sprouts or an island where the only food source is cauliflower?

  - Live among the giants from Roald Dahl’s The BFG or in a house with Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge from James and the Giant Peach?

  - Have tongue sandwich for lunch tomorrow or snake head soup?

  - Kiss twelve grandmothers at the local nursing home on the lips or skydive nude into the middle of a football ground at half-time on grand final day?

  * * *

  My friend Raph, he’s pretty awesome at drawing and making up stories. He asked me if I’d include one of his stories in my book, so I thought I’d cut the kid a break. If you want to see one of your stories in my next book or on the My Life web page, send it to [email protected], and maybe I’ll include it!

  * * *

  It is now official. I AM DOOMED. Very doomed. As doomed as doomed can get. And it’s all the fault of my pet sausage dog, Morris.

  All.

  His.

  Fault.

  I stood at the front of the class holding Morris for show-and-tell. His shiny collar glinted in the annoying, blinking fluorescent light. A silver triangle with his name engraved on it in fancy writing dangled from his collar.

  All eyes were on me. Even the class pet Psycho, the evil goldfish that swims around in a bowl drinking his own wee, was watching me. I tried looking into his eyes to intimidate him. But it’s hard to look into both of his eyes at the same time, because a goldfish has eyes on both sides of its head. So I ended up looking like a fruitcake, holding a fat, brown sausage dog, trying to intimidate a fish.

  ‘Raph would like to show you Snot Bags, his rotten little dog,’ Miss Brandy said to the class.

  ‘Actually, his name is –’

  ‘So you’d better listen!’

  Miss Brandy is, unfortunately, our teacher. She is a rude, short, angry, annoying, lazy, green-haired woman of colossal size. At the end of my presentation I asked the class, ‘Any questions?’ A few hands darted up. ‘Theo,’ I said, pointing to my buck-toothed best friend, who was going to blow his sphincter if I didn’t pick him soon. ‘What’s your question?’

  ‘What does his poo look like?’

  ‘Um …’ I muttered.

  ‘Does he smell other dogs’ butts?’ Theo asked. ‘Does he roll in dead cane toads? Does he drink out of the toilet? Because I do!’

  I looked away and decided to give someone else a chance. Before I could, Miss Brandy looked at her watch and snapped, ‘Everyone outside! We’re going to the hall for a special assembly.’

  We walked out obediently. Morris struggled in my arms. I tried to hold him still, but he slipped free and ran across the playground. I started to run after him. Miss Brandy grabbed me by the collar and yanked me back into line.

  ‘And where do you think you’re going, Raph?’ she asked with an evil grin.

  ‘To go ge–’ I began.

  ‘RHETORICAL QUESTION!’ she screeched, her face centimetres from mine, spit projectiles pelting my face.

  Morris continued running across the field and disappeared into the Wetlands Nature Reserve, a big muddy forest that grew next to the school. We walked silently in two straight lines. But we weren’t the only ones. Everyone in school seemed to be filing out of their classrooms and heading to the hall.

  Roars of excitement came in waves from the kids inside. The teachers were running around, trying to shut them up, but it was no use. When we reached the hall I realised why.

  Cameras clicked and flashed. News reporters scribbled notes. Others were having their make-up done. There were cameramen wearing big headphones, carrying massive, furry microphones, pushing each other to get the best position. Even the Prime Minister was there, smiling and patting kids on the head.

  ‘What is this?’ I asked Theo.

  We sat on the cold, wooden floorboards, waiting for something to happen. Our principal, Mr Bernard, walked onto the stage and stood next to a large bedsheet that was hanging from the ceiling. He held up his hand for silence. You could have heard a pin drop.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘Prime Minister, esteemed guests, teachers –’

  Then Theo farted. BLAARB!

  ‘THEO!’ screeched Miss Brandy. ‘DETENTION!’

  ‘Kids,’ Mr Bernard said. ‘We have some very special guests here today. They come from the local birdwatching team. I know you have all been busy studying about the Jagrofest in class, and how the last two of their kind are living in OUR Wetlands Nature Reserve. Well, now you – and the rest of the world – will witness, for the very first time, a live feed from the cameras that have just been installed in their nest.’

  The birdwatchers stood at the side of the stage, grinning like madmen. Cameras pointed at them, clicking and whirring, as a massive round of applause rose from the audience.

  ‘IT’S A WORLD PREMIERE!’ Mr Bernard declared.

  Grinning from ear to ear, our principal galloped down the steps and turned on the data projector balanced on a table in front of the stage. He typed into his laptop. Suddenly his desktop flashed onto the bedsheet, and the entire school started giggling. It had the usual icons running down the side – but his wallpaper wasn’t what any of us had expected. I thought it would be something boring, like a times-tables chart. I was wrong. It was a picture of Mr Bernard and his wife at the beach, she in a red bikini and he in nothing but a hot-pink G-string. The colour drained from his face as his big, hairy bottom was beamed on live television around the globe. He muttered a few bad words and scrambled like a maniac to get his desktop off the screen. He clicked the mouse crazily, but that only made the computer freeze.

  ‘AAAAAARGH!’ he yelled. The image of the hot-pink G-string refused to come down. The Prime Minister tried not to laugh. Mr Bernard fumbled with the projector and wound up knocking it off the table. It fell towards the floor. He dived and caught it, crashing onto the floorboards himself. He rose to his feet, holding the projector in his quivering hands, and carefully placed it on the table. He clicked an icon that looked like a camera and the desktop disappeared. Live images from the nest beamed onto the bedsheet.

  Everyone craned their necks to see two very ordinary-looking brown-and-white striped birds sitting in a nest of sticks and feathers, doing nothing but peck each other in the backside. The teachers went, ‘oooh’ and ‘aaah’. The chief birdwatcher walked onto the stage, hands behind his back, and stood next to the bedsheet.

  ‘These birds are the last remaining male and female Jagrofests on earth,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve been tracking Jagrofests for twenty years now. It’s my life’s work. I lived around t
hese parts before I left on my lifelong journey, travelling the world in search of these wonderful creatures. Who would have known that I was going to be led all the way back to my home town?’

  He looked as if he was about to cry.

  And then he did.

  He blabbered like a baby.

  ‘FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS, KIDS! WAAAAAAAH! I DID AND I REACHED THEM! NOTHING CAN STOP YOU!’

  A lady from the birdwatching team walked him calmly down from the stage. He was a sobbing mess.

  The little brown birds on the bedsheet let out a good squawk and everyone sighed, ‘awwww’. Then the nest started to shake. The birds squawked louder. Branches were cracking and leaves ruffled wildly.

  And then it happened.

  The end of my life as I knew it.

  A brown, sausage-shaped dog jumped onto the nest and started snapping at the last two Jagrofests on the planet. The birdwatching chief screamed, got down on his knees and pounded the floor with his fists.

  ‘MY LIFE’S WORK! NOOOOOO!’ he wailed.

  The audience gasped and my entire school turned to me. Four hundred kids. Eight hundred eyes. Glaring.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘That could be anyone’s sausage dog …’

  The dog barked at the camera, a feather dangling from its mouth. A silver triangular name tag hung from its neck. Engraved on its surface in fancy writing was ‘Morris’.

  ‘I stand corrected,’ I said.

  Morris bolted at the camera lens.

  The chief birdwatcher bolted for me.

  I bolted towards the door.

  I love funny books, but it’s super-hard to find a book that makes you laugh out loud.

  Here’s my top ten, featuring bums, billionaires and the world’s most annoying baby brother.

  * * *

  Funniest Stories, Paul Jennings

  The Bugalugs Bum Thief, Tim Winton

  James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl

  Nicholas, René Goscinny

  Eric Vale Epic Fail, Michael Gerard Bauer

  SuperFudge, Judy Blume

  Con-nerd, Oliver Phommavanh

  The Really, Really High Diving Tower, David Metzenthen

  Billionaire Boy, David Walliams

  The ‘Just …’ series, Andy Griffiths

  * * *

  ‘This’ll be awesemic,’ Jack says.

  He is standing on the road outside my house searching for customers. I’m kneeling on the front lawn, writing the words ‘Tom’s FunLand’ on a big piece of cardboard.

  ‘Tom’s FunLand?’ Jack spits.

  ‘I thought of it.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. We both did. It should be Jack and Tom’s FunLand.’

  ‘Jack and Tom’s FunLand?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But that sounds dumb.’

  ‘Only because it’s got the word “Tom” in it.’

  I add Jack’s stupid name to the sign. It messes up the whole look of it. Now we probably won’t get any customers and it will be all his fault.

  ‘How much should we charge for admission?’ I ask.

  ‘Ten bucks.’

  ‘Ten bucks?’

  ‘Do you think that’s too cheap?’ Jack asks.

  I look down the side of my house to the backyard theme park we have built this morning. In among the rides there are broken bikes, a rusty totem tennis pole, a dog-mauled soccer ball and an above-ground swimming pool that has not been used in five years.

  ‘Fair enough,’ I say.

  I write ‘$10’ on the sign. As I sticky-tape it to a tree I notice Mr Skroop, the world’s scariest relief teacher, pruning his hedge next door. Mr Fatterkins, his enormous orange cat, sits on his shoulder. Skroop hasn’t been getting much teaching work at school lately, not since he threw the whiteboard marker at Sam Stubbs and knocked out Sam’s left-front tooth. But, then, a month ago, Skroop moved in next door, which proves my theory that I am cursed.

  ‘Hey, remember when he chopped your football up and posted it into your letterbox?’ Jack whispers.

  ‘Yeah. I remember.’

  ‘And when he ate my scab.’

  ‘Yes, Jack. I remember that, too. I watched him do it.’

  Mr Skroop catches me staring. ‘What are you up to, Weekly?’ he rasps in a voice like twisted metal.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say, blocking his view of the sign.

  He slithers towards me, trying to read the sign over my shoulder. He clutches the pruning shears. He has blood from a cut running down the fluorescent-white skin of his arm. Mr Fatterkins licks his ear.

  ‘FunLand,’ he says. ‘Another harebrained scheme with that idiot friend of yours? Well, Mr Fatterkins is about to have his morning nap, and if I hear anything – anything – from this “FunLand”, I’ll call the cops. And then it won’t be so “fun”, will it?’

  Skroop’s favourite pastime is calling the cops. Last week he called the cops on the postman for not delivering his mail, but it turned out that no-one had sent him anything. Mr Fatterkins hisses at me and claws at the shredded wool of his master’s maroon jumper. Skroop waves a gnarled dinosaur finger. ‘The cops, you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Skroop.’

  He flashes his brown, gappy teeth and heads off, stopping at his front gate to glare at me. I’m pretty sure I see a forked tongue slip out of his mouth and back in before he slides up his white-painted front path.

  ‘Nice guy,’ Jack says. ‘Wonder if he’d be interested in some work on our Haunted House attraction.’

  ‘Two hours till Mum gets home. We better get some customers.’

  We stand together on the kerb, searching, waiting. It’s not long before Nick Crabtree and his little sister, Elsie, come by.

  ‘You guys want to do something super-fun?’ Jack asks.

  ‘What?’ Nick is a tall kid who always seems to have a large Slurpee in his hand.

  Jack points to the sign.

  Nick reads: ‘Tom and Sack’s FunLand.’

  ‘Not “Sack”. Jack!’ Jack says.

  I laugh. Jack punches me in the arm and tries to scratch the curvy bit off the top of the J.

  ‘What’s a FunLand?’ Nick asks.

  ‘Like a theme park,’ I say. ‘It’s in my backyard.’

  Nick and Elsie look down the side of the house to the yard. Nick takes a long sip on his Slurpee. Elsie picks her nose and eats it.

  ‘Come have a look,’ Jack says. ‘It’s epic.’

  Jack takes them up to the side gate to read the list of attractions sticky-taped to the fence.

  ‘Cool,’ Nick says. ‘Where do we start?’

  ‘You start,’ Jack says, ‘by paying your ten bucks.’

  ‘Ten bucks?’ Nick laughs and a small amount of blue Slurpee shoots out of his right nostril.

  ‘Not per ride,’ Jack says. ‘It’s an All-Day FunPass.’ He smiles, which makes him look like a second-hand car salesman.

  ‘I’m not paying ten bucks to play on a bunch of broken junk in Tom’s backyard.’

  ‘Okay, five,’ Jack says quickly.

  ‘No way.’ Nick grabs Elsie by the shoulder to leave.

  ‘Okay, two,’ Jack begs. ‘Please?’

  Nick fishes around in his pocket and opens his hand. He has a fifty-cent piece with a hunk of green chewing gum stuck to it, coated in sand.

  ‘You can keep the gum,’ he says, taking a long slurp on his drink.

  Jack snatches the fifty cents and gnaws the gum off. ‘You operate the rides,’ he snaps at me. ‘I’ll go and find some proper paying customers.’

  I swing open the gate and lead them into the theme park.

  ‘A world of wonder awaits!’ I announce, sounding a bit too much like Jack.

  Elsie tries the Clothes Line Carousel first. Nick lifts her up and places her inside the springy seat that I’ve fashioned out of two of Mum’s bras. I spin the rusty clothes line around as fast as I can. She squeals with joy, and I ask her to keep it down so she doesn’t wake Mr Fatterkins. One of the bra straps snaps, but
I manage to rig it up again.

  Five minutes later, Jack is back with Mac and Lottie Rowland, two kids from down the street. Nick is on the Jelly Slip ‘n’ Slide. Elsie and Lottie hit the Trampoline of Death with the massive rip in the centre and a pot plant cactus underneath. Mac has a ride on the dog. They’re all starting to have fun, and it’s not long before Jack returns with four girls I have never seen before. They try the Mayo Sponge Throw. One pokes her head through the pool fence while the others chuck a mayonnaise-dipped sponge at her face.

  ‘Is there any food for sale?’ one of the girls asks.

  ‘Um … yes,’ I say. I race up the back steps. As I open the door I turn and look out across the yard to see our theme park in full swing. I can’t believe that one of our crazy ideas is actually working.

  In the fridge I find the meatloaf we’re having for dinner tonight, an old onion, some taco sauce, half a brown lettuce and a withered turnip. In the pantry I find a box of cereal and a rusty can of creamed corn. Then … bingo! Half a packet of broken Scotch Finger biscuits and a Ziploc bag with seven lolly snakes from two Halloweens ago.

  I fill some plastic cups with orange cordial, put them on a tray and head out onto the veranda.

  ‘The restaurant is open for business!’ I announce and kids flock. Nick Crabtree buys all the drinks. Jack helps himself to the largest chunk of Scotch Finger biscuit. I whack him and the biscuit falls to the floor, but he eats it anyway. He tells everyone that the biscuits are a dollar each, fifty cents for one finger, twenty-five for a handful of crumbs. We end up getting ten cents a biscuit, which is close enough.

  The two-year-old snakes are the bestseller. Twenty cents each. Jack auctions the last snake to the highest bidder and gets a dollar for it, then everyone hits the rides again.

  ‘Weekly!’ says a voice.

  The smile fades from my face when I see Skroop and Fatterkins staring over the fence near the Sponge Throw. Skroop must be standing on a ladder. Either that or anger makes him levitate. He has a phone pressed to his ear.