Barry Loser and the Holiday of Doom. Jim Smith

      ‘Psst, Bunky! My mum and dad said you and Nancy could come to our caravan in Plonkton this weekend!’ I blurted as fast as possible so Miss Spivak wouldn’t hear.

      Bunky turned his head round all slowly, so Miss Spivak wouldn’t see. ‘Shhh!’ he whispered, then he smiled at Nancy, who was too busy reading her kitten book to take any notice.

      ‘But . . .’ I whispered, and my but floated round the classroom like a butterfly chopped in half.

      I knew Bunky wanted a scratch- and-sniff sticker, but this was ridiculoserous.

      ‘Did you hear what I just said?’ I said, which is what I say when I can’t believe someone hasn’t heard what I’ve just said.

      ‘I heard you loud and clear, Bazza!’ whisper-squawked an annoying noise from the table next to me. I swivelled my eyeballs to the left and saw Sharonella batting her eyelids at me.

      ‘You can take me to Plonkton any time!’ she grinned, looking at my nose, which was sticking out of my face, trying not to smell her perfume.

      ‘IT’S JUST A NORMAL NOSE!’ I shouted, an excitement blowoff from earlier popping out as an extra-loud annoyance fart, and I turned back to Bunky. ‘HELLO-O?’ I boomed, knocking on his head like it was a front door. ‘ANY-BODY HO-OME?’

      Miss Spivak stopped calling out the register and pointed her pointiest finger at me. ‘That’s it Loser, outside NOW!’ she screeched.

      I stood up and looked at Bunky sitting there all goody-goodily, trying to impress Nancy.

      ‘BAD DOGGY!’ I said, wagging my finger at him, and I stormed out of the classroom.

      I was in the corridor, scratching-and- sniffing a light switch, when the bell went and the door swung open and everybody started running out.

      ‘Thanks a LOT for getting me in trouble!’ I said, smelling Bunky’s cheesy feet standing behind me. ‘I’m never gonna get a scratch-and-sniff sticker now,’ I moaned, turning round and doing a surprise blowoff.

      It wasn’t Bunky, it was Darren Darrenofski, wearing a brand-new sticker with a triangle of cheese doing a thumbs up on it.

      ‘How in the name of loserness did you get that?’ I said, snuffling my nostrils all around it like a dog.

      ‘I peeled it off Anton Mildew’s jumper when he wasn’t looking!’ burped Darren, the smell of his Fronkle burp mixing in with the cheese sticker and Gordon’s kangaroo one from earlier.

      As if there weren’t enough bad smells already, Sharonella floated up. ‘Poor old Anton. You’re a bad boy, Dazzer!’ she chuckled, high fiving Darren, and the noise of their palms slapping together made me blink.

      When I opened my eyes again twelve billiseconds later, Bunky was walking out of the classroom behind Nancy Verkenwerken.

      I turned round to tell him off for getting me in trouble and gasped.

      Stuck on to his jumper was a scratch-and-sniff sticker of a Diplodocus doing a thumbs up.

      ‘WHAT IN THE NAME OF UNKEELNESS?!’ I shouted, even though there wasn’t a plane flying over.

      ‘Miss Spivak gave it to him for being a good little doggy!’ cackled Darren, and Sharonella giggled.

      I looked at Bunky, standing next to Nancy like he was her dog instead of mine, and comperleeterly lost my rag.

      ‘What HAS got into you, Bunky?’ I shouted, sounding exackerly like my mum.

      Bunky looked down at me and smiled, but not the way he would have if I’d been Nancy.

      ‘Oh yeah, sorry about in there, Barry,’ he said. ‘What were you saying about Plankton?’

      ‘Plonkton! It’s Plonkton!’ I shouted, my voice bouncing off his belly because of how short I am. ‘My mum and dad said you and Nancy could come on our caravan holiday to Plonkton this weekend!’

      Bunky looked at Nancy, then at me, like a dog trying to decide which one of us was its real owner.

      ‘Thing is . . .’ he said, fiddling with a drawing pin sticking out of the wall.

      I peered into his face, which he was wrinkling up like a piece of bubblegum, and wished I’d told him about Plonkton over the phone after all.

      ‘You see . . . me and Nancy and her mum and dad and baby brother Keith were sort of gonna go and buy a kitten this weekend . . .’ he said, scratching his Diplodocus sticker so he didn’t have to look at me.

      The words swam down my earholes into my legs, making them go wobbly.

      ‘Wait a millisecond, let me get this straight,’ I said, sounding like the detective in my mum’s favourite TV show. ‘You were gonna buy a kitten without telling ME . . . and now you’re saying NO to the holiday of a lifetime?!’

      I couldn’t believe my ears, eyes, nose, legs and arms all put together.