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

café where we’d met Kathy and Tony two days before. And even though I never thought you’d catch me saying this, the goodbye felt like it was going to be a lot harder than the hello.

Norman chased his toast and jam around the plate and I could tell he was trying very hard not to stare at Kathy and Tony too much, but he was also really concentrating on what they were saying. Kathy talked earnestly about Swansea’s homeless problem and how important it was to keep the issues in front of the local politicians, and I wondered what it was like to be so passionate about something that you were willing to stand up and do something about it. Your fierceness and your fearlessness.

I looked over at Norman in his stretched and faded T-shirt and his pink, splotchy face, then down at my bitten nails, unravelling jumper and saggy-kneed jeans and wondered if perhaps we weren’t just one step away from the homeless folk of Wales ourselves. And that maybe they were actually better off than us, because at least they had Kathy and Tony.

Had that really been me Tony had been talking about, that fierce and fearless girl? A girl who could have a conversation about the Brontë sisters and Liam Gallagher and the bigness and wonderfulness of the world? The same girl who stood in the kitchen where her father killed himself and told kindly people with triangles of ham sandwiches in their hands to fuck right off. The girl who walked out of that house the very next day with just a box full of old DVDs, some photo albums and a purple velvet suit jacket. The girl who had nobody left to disappoint.

I only realized I’d been asked a question when the silence around the table alerted me to the fact that everyone was looking at me. Unless it was about last year’s Come Dine with Me Champion of Champions, there was no way I was going to be able to fake my way into making them believe I’d been listening, but then, as was quite conveniently becoming something I could rely on, Leonard arrived to my rescue.

A whoosh of wind blew back the hair and scrambled eggs of everyone in the café as Leonard most uncharacteristically flung open the door, laptop in his hands and his glasses balanced wonkily on top of his head. He practically skidded across the greasy café floor in his gleaming Nikes and came to an elegant halt at our table.

Everyone stopped looking expectantly at me and, instead, all expectant glances were directed towards Leonard, whose mouth was wide open and gasping as he tried to catch a breath. The waitress paused at the next table with two cappuccinos in her hands, the guy out the back in the kitchen poised his spatula mid egg flip, and even the traffic outside ground to a halt at a red light. The whole world was looking at Leonard, but Leonard was looking only at Norman.

‘Hold on to your hat, Norman old man! You’re going to the Fringe, baby!’

29

Of course, I know what you’re thinking. That the news a venue had given Little Big Man a slot on its Fringe schedule shouldn’t have come as quite such a shock to me. That I should have known there was a reasonable chance it would happen, because, after all, it was one of the crucial points on which Norman’s whole plan hung. But now that it had become a reality, all I could think was, holy, holy, holy shit.

In between their excited chattering and congratulating of Norman, Kathy and Tony both gave my arms a squeeze from either side, in tandem of course. Leonard plonked the laptop down on the table and started picking lint out of his jacket pockets with a beatific smile, like he’d known all along. And Norman, well, he just sat there with an expression I couldn’t quite read, because, to be honest, I wasn’t quite sure I’d ever seen it before.

When everyone calmed down Leonard pulled over a chair from a nearby table, sat down next to Norman and adjusted the screen on his laptop. There was no sign of his previous odd mood and he seemed totally back to his charming self.

‘Right then. Listen to this. Oh . . . err, just a moment, I seem to have . . .’ There was a delay while he fumbled around with the keys and brought up a few windows on the screen.

‘Umm . . . I’m terribly sorry, I . . . oh! Right, here it is.’

He cleared his throat and began reading out loud from an email.

Dear Little Big Man. Thank you very much for requesting to be part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe event scheduled at the Duke Supper Club downstairs at O’Shaughnessy’s Real Ale House.

It seemed they had been impressed by the tenacity of his daily and sometimes twice daily follow-ups (Leonard clearly hadn’t made it through three wars and a stint at Pearl’s by giving up when the going got tough), so after due consideration and a very last-minute cancellation (and possibly a healthy dose of exasperation, I was willing to bet), they were delighted to offer Little Big Man a fifteen-minute slot at their establishment on the outskirts of Edinburgh. But easily accessible by public transport. Good to know.

‘Oh my god, Norman! You did it, you got a venue!’

Kathy was positively beaming as she reached over the table to give Norman’s hand an encouraging pat. I knew I needed to say something, too, but when I tried my mouth just did some kind of weird yawning thing as a bunch of words began lining up to commit suicide over my tongue. Jostling around next to the shit it alls were a couple of what the fucks and a few token hell’s bells thrown in for good measure, and it took everything I had to stop them from spewing out all at once in an almighty