Barry Loser: I am Not a Loser. Jim Smith

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      Being a Loser

      I've never minded that my name's Barry Loser because my coolness has always cancelled it out, but ever since Darren Darrenofski joined school with his horrible little crocodile face he's been completely ruining my life about it.

      He's always slurping on cans of Fronkle then burping in my ear.

      When I complain that the burp is really loud and stinks of Fronkle he does this annoying little dance and sings 'Barry Loser's a Loser' to the tune of 'Happy Birthday to You', which doesn't work because it's got too many syllables.

      I was in the playground the other day when a ringpull hit me on the back of my neck and went down my jumper and into my pants. I turned round and it was Darren Darrenofski again.

      'Nice really long shoelaces, Barry Loser,' he said, then he did a burp that went on for about an hour.

      'That's how long they are,' he said when it was finished.

      'At least I don't look like a poo bum crocodile,' I said back, which sounded a bit loserish when it came out of my mouth but it confused him enough so that I could run off before he threw his whole can of Fronkle at me.

      Darren had got me worried that my laces were too long though and I spent the whole of Maths measuring shoelace lengths and came to the conclusion that he was right, so when I got home I cut a bit off each one.

      By the way I'm a child genius so I didn't just throw the leftovers away, I came up with an amazing use for them.

      I planted them in the back garden like they were worms and watched from my window with my dad's binocs as the little birds tried to eat them.

      'Do you want me to grab the end of Darren's nose and stick it in a letter box?' asked my friend Bunky as we walked home from school the next day. Bunky isn't his real name by the way, it's what his mum calls him.

      Luckily he hasn't heard my mum calling me 'Snookyflumps', although come to think of it, nothing could be worse than being called Barry Loser.

      I'm gonna do something about my loserish name before Darren completely ruins my life about it even more.

      The Keel Gang

      Before Darren I was always one of the cool people at school. Not that I ever say the word 'cool', I say 'keel'. It's something me and Bunky came up with because in our favourite TV show, Future Ratboy, he says it that way.

      The Keel Gang is mostly just me and Bunky hanging out together, watching Future Ratboy and playing it keel.

      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