means and yes can we change the subject because just thinking about that is enough to make a girl puke Dad didn’t wait for me to speak I have spoken to Mrs Froggatt who tells me that you weren’t in IT class today In fact she said that you weren’t in IT class last week either he said I bet Clark Kent never had to put up with these kinds of problems Oh yeah About that I said I was feeling ill this afternoon and I had to go to the chemist to buy some cough medicine and by the time I Look Blue I don’t like to start the week on a bad note but well I just know what’s good for you How are you going to become a mega success like your old Dad Or a slightly-less-mega-but-still-re spectable success like your Mum You know a lot of kids would kill to have a dad who looks out for them this much and gets them all the latest cool gadgets Look at the Broccoli Q500 all-in-one coleslaw slic er-mixer-grater I got you for Christmas You haven’t even used it once I bet I have I ate coleslaw just the other day I stammered Dad wasn’t buying it He just stood there shaking his big beardy head 6
He’s right not to buy it I’ve never touched the thing If I had to choose between eating cat sick or coleslaw I’d probably have to think about it I couldn’t give a monkey’s wotsit about Broccoli Inc either Dad works at Broccoli and so he assumes that everyone thinks it is as great as he thinks it is They make gadgets like the BackScratcher 5000 and the Fizzy Drink Debubbler Broccoli is run by this mysterious genius called Uncle Bee He’s never seen in public but the way Dad talks about him you’d think he was Einstein Elvis and Nelson Mandela rolled into one I had also missed IT class that day but there was a good reason Sam Swift was coming to Grimesville ComicFest in seven days time and tickets had gone on sale that morning He’s the man who wrote loads of my all-time favourite comics such as Katie the Koolest Koala from Kookaburra and Apocalypse Owl If you bought a tinned spam kidney pudding at Grimesville General Foods you got a free ComicFest ticket with it I was the first in line In fact I was the only one in line but I’m presuming that was just because not many people like spam 7
kidney pudding Certainly not tinned spam kidney pudding In some ways Dad’s all right but he sure has a talent for embarrassing me I mean he tries his hard est to be cool which means getting sailor tattoos and riding a longboard which is nothing short of a cringe-a-thon for me Thing is everyone at school actually seems to think he’s pretty rad Cooler than me in fact Same goes for Mum Mum is a beauty vlogger Her videos get over a hun dred thousand views and her photos get ten times as many likes as mine It’s all mega-awkward Leah’s mum is the geography teacher at school who everyone’s scared of and talks about her moustache behind her back and Ruby’s mum is a prison warden but sometimes I think 9
