Billy Bramble and The Great Big Cook Off. Sally Donovan

      At school I pretend I’m interested in cars so I don’t seem like an odd bod.

      An odd bod is someone like me. Someone who doesn’t fit in. Someone who is an odd number not an even number. Someone who is followed by a raging grey dog. Someone who is prickly. Someone who is mucked up.

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      MY BEDROOM

      My bedroom has walls the colour of the sky in the summer and a carpet the colour of the deep sea. It has a wooden bed with a red checked quilt and a red checked pillow and three big cushions on. I use my cushions and my panda who is called ‘Panda’ to block the gap between my bed and the wall.

      I D O N ’ T L I K E G A P S .

      I can’t explain why I don’t like gaps, or the dark. I just don’t.

      I have a cupboard for books and stuff that is currently tipped over and partly in pieces. What can I say about that? Gobber was active today. He was

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      snapping at my ankles all day at school and then when I got home I just couldn’t control him any more and he just went all out of control and jumped and barked and barked and barked and my cupboard got knocked over and I can’t remember anything else.

      Mum will bring the vacuum cleaner upstairs later and we will clear up the mess together.

      When I’m older I’m going to have a widescreen television and an X-Box in my bedroom. I absolutely know that Gobber the dog won’t damage them, but Mum wants to be sure they will not be knocked about before I am allowed. She also wants me to be near her a lot which I get very fed up with. She says that I am like a flimsy tent on a windy day. I blow about easily and for that reason she has to support me through the storms. One day I hope I will be pegged much more firmly into the ground and Gobber will be old and feeble and will have given up trying to bring the whole thing down.

      When the whole thing comes down, when Gobber has done his worst and scared me half to death I curl into a tiny ball and wrap myself in my red duvet. I hide.

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      I want to disappear. After a while Mum will come in and sit on my bed right by me. She might just sit or she might rub my bent over back. Sometimes I let her. Sometimes a swear word shoots out of my mouth and she leaves and comes back later. Or sometimes she shouts back and Gobber goes wild and all hell breaks loose again.

      I AM NOW VERY TIRED.

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      HUNGRY BUNGRY (THE CAT)

      Hungry Bungry is the Bramble family cat and is like the total opposite of Gobber. For a start Hungry Bungry is real. Hungry Bungry is also soft and quiet and likes to sit peacefully. I like it best when Hungry Bungry sleeps in a curl at the bottom of my bed. She makes me feel safe in the dark night.

      We got Hungry Bungry from the animal rescue centre. She is black and used to be skinny but now she is a chubster. She was very timid when she first moved in with us but now she is braver and getting used to sitting on laps and sometimes being stroked. I think she trusts us now, but she is still nervous with strangers.

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      At the rescue centre they called her Doris. We tried calling her Doris but it didn’t fit her. You see Hungry Bungry was always

      hungry and when she was bothering us for more

      food we were saying to her, ‘Are you hungry bungry?’ and then we just started calling her that because it stuck.

      My little sister Lucy is a bit like Hungry Bungry. She is always hungry and eats very quickly too.

      I love Hungry Bungry. Hungry Bungry greets me when I get home from school, no matter what has happened in the day and even if the postman has delivered a snotty green letter. Hungry Bungry doesn’t care about snotty green letters.

      After Hungry Bungry has said ‘Hello’ and wandered off for some more food I look in on Facebook my chicken. Facebook doesn’t care about snotty green letters either. She’s my friend and easier to get along with than some of my human friends. And she lays eggs, which none of my human friends can do (as far as I know).

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      THE BRAIN MASH

      Sometimes Gobber barks so loudly and so non-stop that I literally can’t hear anything else and I can’t remember what I’m meant to be doing or saying.

      It is like a hailstorm in my brain. Hailstones smash around, breaking my brain to pieces. And then my brain stops working. I call it the Brain Mash.

      When I’ve got the Brain Mash I don’t know what day of the week it is, what the time is, how old I am, how to get to school, whether I need my football kit or my gym kit. Brain Mash is rubbish and on Brain Mash days Gobber doesn’t leave me alone for a second.

      When I’ve got the Brain Mash, if Mrs Penfolder our English teacher says, ‘Sit down, be quiet, get your book out and open it on page 56,’ I don’t get much further than ‘Sit down.’ Then Mrs Penfolder adds to the noise Gobber is making by barking herself, ‘Be quiet Billy, Billy be quiet, Billy get your book out, what page did I say, Billy you weren’t even listening, Billy, Billy, BILLY, BILLY!’

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      Gobber gets louder and louder and louder and Mrs Penfolder gets louder and louder and it’s off to the Naughty Room. And Gobber runs around like crazy and laughs his big, fat head off.

      No one else has a big and disgusting dog like I have, and that’s awesomely bad luck for me.

      Except Starsky. He’s a boy in my class. I think he might have a big dog that follows him. In fact he might even have a tiger.

      When I have the Brain Mash at home I say to Mum, ‘Mum, I’ve got the Brain Mash,’ and she says, ‘OK thanks for telling me,’ and does things for me like puts my clothes away and helps me clean my teeth and sits near me while I watch cooking programs on the television.

      I haven’t told her the truth about Gobber. I’m worried she will either think I am making it all up or I am crazy and then the dog will well and truly be out of the bag.

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      STARSKY

      Starsky is small and fast and has tangled hair. He is sometimes my friend and sometimes my enemy. People call him Nasty Starsky, which is easy for them to say. He has a big anger problem, which is why I think he might have a tiger roaring at his ears. When he’s angry he is kind of scary and you never know what he is going to do or say next. When Starsky is my friend he wants me to come to his house for a sleepover and play Call of Duty 3 all night and Mum says, ‘No’ and I say, ‘Why?’ and she says, ‘Because it’s my job to keep you safe.’ When I ask her to explain she gets a bit of the Brain Mash herself and can’t answer my question to my full satisfaction.

      Starsky sometimes has a wee problem and that’s why he also gets called Stinksky and Pissky. That’s when he gets the big anger and violence and gets excluded from school.

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