Barry Loser: I am Not a Loser. Jim Smith

      I’m Future Ratboy and Bunky is his annoying sidekick, Not Bird, except Bunky’s not a bird and he doesn’t say ‘NOT’ after everything.

      One of the other things the Keel Gang does is annoy people down my street by knocking on their doors and running off, then phoning them up asking to speak to Poopoo.

      Bunky’s favourite person to annoy is Mrs Trumpet Face, who lives in the block of flats at the end of the road with her twin kids and no husband.

      In the summer we play wall tennis against her wall until she yells out of the window for us to stop, which is when we run off shouting ‘Trumpet Faccccceeeee!’, giggling and blowing off with fear.

      Once when it snowed we painted ourselves blue and pretended we’d frozen to death outside her flat. When she saw us she screamed and started giving Bunky the kiss of life until we got up and ran off shouting ‘Trumpet Faccccceeeee!’

      ‘Ha ha, she kissed you! You’re married to Mrs Trumpet Face now!’ I said to Bunky after that to annoy him.

      I think he secretly liked it though, because for about a year every time I called him Bunky he said, ‘Er, my name’s Mr Trumpet Face now?’ which ended up really annoying me instead.

      At lunchtimes the Keel Gang does TV shows in the playground for the other kids.

      Our favourite is Vending Machine Mum, which is where I play my mum (who’s turned into a vending machine) and Bunky plays me.

      It’s based on how my mum says she feels like a vending machine, always giving me food and ironed clothes and packed lunches without me ever saying thanks.

      I made the vending machine costume out of the box the new washing machine came in after our old one exploded foam everywhere.

      The costume’s so brilliant and amazing that the first time I wore it Jocelyn Twiggs thought it was real and followed me around all lunch trying to get a can of Diet Fronkle out of it.

      We were in the playground acting out Vending Machine Mum the other day and just getting to the bit where she’s making my bed while I’m completely not helping at all, when Darren Darrenofski’s crocodile face snuffled into the front row and started burping Fronkle gas into the scene.

      ‘Poo, what’s that smell?’ I said, which wasn’t in the script.

      ‘Maybe your loser son weed the bed,’ said Darren and he threw a ringpull at me, which annoyamazingly went into the coin slot of my costume and everyone laughed.

      ‘Nice shot, Darren!’ said Tracy Pilchard, who was in the audience with her stupid gang, which is her, Donnatella and Sharonella. They call themselves ‘The Cool Girlz’, which is a completely unkeel name in my opinion.

      ‘Yeah,’ said Donnatella. ‘Nice shotingtons.’ They put ‘ingtons’ on the ends of their words as well, which is also unkeel.

      ‘Er, Darren, we’re trying to do our TV show?’ I said, all shaking out of anger.

      ‘What’s it called? Loseroid City?’ he said, and everyone laughed again including Bunky, which I couldn’t believe because it was so unfunny.

      ‘No, it’s called Darren’s Face is All Crocodiley and He’s Fat from Too Many Fronkles,’ I shouted back.

      ‘No need to be so horrible, Barry Loser,’ said Sharonella, and everyone in the crowd said ‘yea-eahh!’ even though it was Darren who’d started it, not me.

      ‘I’ve had enough of this!’ I shouted and ripped myself out of my costume, storming off with everyone watching and saying how much of a loser I was, Bunky included.

      Ever since the whole Vending Machine Mum thing I’d been trying to work out how to get back to being one of the keelest people in school.

      I’d had a think for about three-quarters of a minute and used my child geniusness to its full extent and come up with a brilliant and amazing plan. There was only one person that could help me with it and that was Granny Harumpadunk.

      Mum’s always saying that Granny has lots of ‘issues’. At first I thought she was saying ‘tissues’ and couldn’t work out what the big problem was.

      Then I realised it was ‘issues’, and even though I don’t know what it means I kind of get that Granny is a bit weird.

      Ever since Grandad died she’s been funny. If you go near his old chair she gets all angry. Not that you would go near it, because Invisigrandad is sitting there.

      Invisigrandad was my idea for making her feel better. It’s his hat and glasses and clothes and stuff all puffed out with newspaper. It’s pretty lifelike, apart from it doesn’t snore and do massive burps.

      For someone who misses someone so much she’s still pretty grumpy with him.

      ‘Oh Wilf, will you please stop doing those invisible blowoffs,’ she said the other day, knitting a trunk warmer for an elephant she’s adopted by post, while me and Bunky were watching Future Ratboy on her really old TV.

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