The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman Julietta Henderson (short books for teens .TXT) 📖

a little bit guilty that I’d won the open mic by a tit’s whisker when really he should have, but he shook my hand and said he was going to be watching my career with interest and that the Edinburgh Fringe better watch out.

Even though I knew we hadn’t found anywhere that would give me a place for a show at the Fringe yet, what Big Al said about watching my career with interest made me feel like maybe we actually would. Also, because look at what Leonard had already made happen. We were loads of miles from Penzance, I was staying in my first B&B ever and I’d met my first fellow performer and heard my first John Keats poem as a bonus. And I’d done my first real-life show without Jax.

If you looked at it like that it would look like everything was working out perfectly, wouldn’t it? Except that in the car on the way back to Toad Hall, even though I had some leftover bits of pork scratchings in my teeth and ten pounds in my pocket that said different, I knew I still wasn’t really any good. I know how I sound and I just don’t know how to make myself sound any better. Because that was Jax’s job.

I don’t think people should be allowed to promise you something if they’re not really going to be able to give it to you. But it turned out not only was Gloria not in the kitchen making our crispy bacon and the rest of our full English when we got up the next morning, well, she wasn’t even there at all. When Bill finally came downstairs, looking like he’d just spent the night parachuting out of a rocket at warp speed with no goggles, he said it was going to be at least twenty minutes before breakfast was ready. He went into the kitchen and started banging some pans around for a bit and then he came back out and said he had to go to the shops for bacon.

I think maybe Mum was waiting until we’d had our full English before she told me about Dan McLachlan ringing back, but then she must have realized it was probably going to take ages so she just blurted it out in the middle of Leonard telling us how long it takes to cook the perfect fried egg. Which is three and a half minutes by the way.

‘So, everybody, I got a message back from Dan McLachlan last night. Errr, number one.’ When she said it Leonard didn’t even care about the fried egg information any more and did one of his fist pump thingys and goes, aha, do tell! But I didn’t really know what to say or do. I mean, I sort of wanted to try a fist pump too and I guess if I was ever going to do it that was the time. But I didn’t have a proper technique ready and Mum was looking at me a bit funny so I knew I had to come up with something quick or she’d start getting worried she’d done the wrong thing. Which is how she thinks. So I just said the very first thing that came into my head, which was I’m starving.

It’s not that I didn’t want to hear about what Dan said in his message and when we’d be meeting him and all that. It’s just that I really and truly was starving, which was quite weird for me, and there was no sign of Bill coming back with our bacon. I guess maybe I was a little bit scared of what Dan McWhatsy might have to say as well. Because the thing is, like I said, I’m not even a hundred per cent sure wanting to find my dad was actually my idea. I’m not saying it was definitely Jax that changed the Five Year Plan on the wall or anything, but you know, one never knows and all that.

Anyway, once everyone had agreed that they were all starving too, Mum asked me if I wanted to listen to the message, and as soon as she said that I knew it wasn’t going to be great. Because Mum always says that bad news is better coming straight from the horse’s mouth and not second-hand. Which made me think straight away that it was probably going to sound better coming from Dan McThingy himself that he was busy or out of town, or that we’d made a big mistake and he wasn’t who we thought he was. Only it was worse than that.

Mum put her phone on speaker and we all leaned forward and, right at the minute when I heard Dan go, ‘Hello? Look, hello, ummm . . .’ Bill came back and slammed the front door so loud we couldn’t hear and Mum had to start the message again. But straight after I did hear it I really wished that instead of Bill coming through that door it had been some robbers who stole Mum’s phone and then made us all lie face down on the floor while they burgled Toad Hall. Because Dan McNasty was a lot worse than a whole gang of robbers.

What he said was that he wasn’t interested and he didn’t want to know anything about me and Mum. Nothing, nada, nyet. Which I think is even meaner than if he’d said all those other things like being away or pretending he was someone else. Because by just saying he’s not interested what he’s really saying is, well, lady, maybe I am your kid’s father and maybe I’m not. Who knows. But whatever. I don’t care and I don’t want to meet you or your son. Ever. Sorry. I have a very important job and a wife and I already have a family, and actually you can scratch the sorry because he didn’t say sorry.

But he did say what did Mum think she was playing at anyhow and yes