Barry Loser and the trouble with pets. Jim Smith

there seems to have been some kind of terrible mix up here,’ I said, walking over to my seat, which if you haven’t worked it out yet is where Fay had plonked her bum.

      ‘Hi Barry,’ grinned Fay. ‘Nigel said I could sit next to him today.’

      Nigel Zuckerberg is Bunky’s real-life name, in case you didn’t know.

      I looked at Bunky and he smiled up at me, the way a naughty doggy does to its owner.

      ‘Hmm, yes, well,’ I said all carefully, trying not to get too annoyed. After all, it was just a silly old chair. ‘If you don’t mind, could you pop back over to your own seat please?’

      ‘This area’s reserved for the Shazzonofskis,’ snapped Sharonella, plomping her handbag down in the chair next to her. ‘That’s me and Darren’s names squidged together,’ she said, fluttering her eyelashes at me. ‘Me and you coulda been the Losernellas if you’d played your cards right, Baz.’

      I breathed in through my nostrils all slowly, the way my mum does when I’m badgering her about buying me a sausage dog. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I’ll sit next to Nancy.’

      ‘SEAT. TAKEN.’ bleeped a familikeels voice, and I spotted Anton Mildew perched next to my other best friend.

      ‘So wait a millisecond,’ I said, trying to work out where I was going to sit. Then I realised it was where Anton usually sits, which is right at the front of the classroom, next to his invisible friend, Invis.

      ‘Oh well that’s just blooming brilliant,’ I mumbled, plonking my bum down and getting ready for the worst week ever.

Worst week ever

      The whole rest of the week was just like Monday morning, except dotted around in different bits of school.

      Like lunch on Tuesday in the canteen when Bunky & Fay and Nancy & Anton and the Shazzonofskis all sat together on a six man table (even though none of them are men).

      ‘Come dine with us, Barold,’ said Gordon, who was sitting next to Stuart. So I squidged in with them, feeling like even more of a loser than my surname.

      And in the boys’ changing rooms on Wednesday when we were getting ready for P.E. and Bunky, Darren and Anton spent the whole time shouting over the wall to Nancy, Sharonella and Fay.

      ‘Can you keep the noise down please,’ I grumbled, sounding like an old granny. ‘I’m trying to get changed.’

      ‘Keep your pants on, Loser!’ snarfled Darren, blowing Sharonella a kiss which rebounded off the wall and fell into one of his stinking shoes.

      Then on Thursday at break time when I headed over to the corner of the playground to peer through the fence into the back garden of the old lady me and Bunky spy on while she talks to her plants.

      ‘What in the name of unkeelness is SHE doing here?’ I gasped, spotting Fay Snoggles’s bum next to my best friend’s. Both of them were bent in half, looking through the fence and sniggling.

      Fay turned round and grinned her annoying grin. ‘Hi Barry,’ she said. ‘Afraid there’s only room for two.’

      ‘Yeah I know,’ I said, walking off. ‘Me and Bunky.’

      And don’t even get me started about Friday, when we were walking home from school and I pointed out a ginormous dog poo on the pavement right in front of Bunky’s foot.