Barry Loser Hates Half Term. Jim Smith

buried somewhere on the island. Not that we ever found any when we were there.

      ‘I mean, who wants to sit around a campfire singing songs about trees for a whole week?’ said Bunky, waggling his hands in the air, which is how he does his impression of a tree.

      ‘YE-AH! Singing songs about trees is for KIDDYWINKLES!’ I said, remembering sitting round the campfire at Pirate Camp with Bunky and Nancy, singing about trees.

      Sitting round a campfire singing about trees wasn’t the only thing we did at Pirate Camp, by the way. There was also pirate face-painting, pirate raft-making, lying under Burt’s giant skull-and-crossbones parachute while he whooshed it up and down, and listening to him tell super-spookoid ghost stories before we went to sleep in our tents at night.

      I was just realising that I actukeely quite liked some of the stuff we got up to at Pirate Camp when my mum walked into the room carrying a plateful of Feeko’s chocolate digestive biscuits and three cans of Fronkle.

      ‘Here you go, kiddywinkles!’ she said, ruffling my hair.

      ‘MU-UM! We’re not KIDDYWINKLES any more!’ I said, sliding a biscuit off the plate and slotting it into my mouth.

      ‘Apologies for my mother,’ I said to Bunky and Nancy, and they both sniggled.

      ‘MAUREEN?’ cried my dad from upstairs. ‘MAUREEN, DESMOND’S POOED HIS NAPPY AGAIN!’

      My dad was talking about my baby brother, Desmond Loser the Second, in case you didn’t know.

      ‘WELL, CHANGE IT THEN!’ screamed my mum up the stairs, and she turned back to us and started ringing. Which was weird, because she isn’t a phone. She’s my mum.

      ‘My new phone!’ smiled my mum, pulling a huge great big shiny white phone out of her pocket and sliding her finger across the screen. ‘Loser residence!’ she said, holding it up to her ear.

      ‘What’s that I’m looking at?’ crackled a voice out of the phone’s speaker. ‘Is that an ear or something?’

      ‘Ooh, must be a video call!’ said my mum all proudly, and she took the phone away from her ear and looked at the screen. ‘Aunt Mildred!’ she smiled.

      I hopped off the sofa and ran over to my mum, tiptoeing a centimetre higher so I could see the screen too. ‘Hi, Great Aunt Mildred!’ I said, spluttering biscuit crumbs all over Great Aunt Mildred’s face, which was staring back at me.

      It was at about this moment in the history of the universe that I noticed that Great Aunt Mildred’s nose was about three times its usual size.

      ‘Are you OK, Aunt Mildred?’ said my mum. ‘Your nose looks a bit . . . puffy.’

      ‘That’s why I’m calling,’ said Great Aunt Mildred. ‘This little blighter bit me on the end of my hooter just now and the whole thing’s swollen up like an air bag!’

      She held a jam jar up to the screen. Inside was a bright green beetle with six red legs and a humungaloid pair of pincers. ‘I was reaching for a banana when it jumped out of the fruit bowl!’ she warbled.

      Bunky and Nancy slid off their bits of the sofa and ran over to have a look at Great Aunt Mildred’s nose. ‘She’s right - it DOES look like an air bag!’ chuckled Bunky, as Nancy peered into the jam jar on the screen.

      ‘Where are your bananas from?’ asked Nancy.

      ‘Feeko’s Supermarket, of course!’ said Great Aunt Mildred.

      ‘No, I meant what country!’ said Nancy, and Great Aunt Mildred put the jam jar down and wandered off, then reappeared a millisecond later holding a banana.

      ‘Sticker says “Grown in Smeldovia”,’ said Great Aunt Mildred, and Nancy gasped.

      ‘I knew I recognised that insect - it’s a Smeldovian Biting Banana Beetle,’ Nancy said. ‘They’re extremely poisonous!’

      I looked at Bunky and raised my favourite eyebrow.

      ‘Typikeel Nancy!’ I said, seeing as she always knows stuff like that - especially since she’d started going along to her dad’s loserish nature club.

      ‘POISONOUS?’ gasped Great Aunt Mildred, grabbing her nose. ‘What does that mean?’ she whimpered.

      ‘It means I’m coming round right now!’ said my mum.

      ‘Call you when I get there!’ cried my mum, reversing out of the driveway, and we all waved. She’d thrown her travel bag into the back seat of her car, seeing as Great Aunt Mildred lived about eight million miles away and she’d have to stay until she was better, which might be all week.

      ‘B-but, Maureen . . .’ warbled my dad, bending over to pick up Desmond Loser the Second. ‘What about my bad back? I can’t look after Barry and Desmond all on my own!’

      ‘Oh don’t be pathetic, Kenneth!’ said my mum, honking the horn, and she was gone. Which meant . . .

      ‘PARTY TIME!’ I shouted, running back into the sitting room. I forward-rolled on to the sofa and flopped my legs over the back of it, settling down to watch the rest of Future Ratboy, upside-down-stylee. ‘This half term is gonna be AMAZEKEEL!’

      ‘It is NOT party time!’ shouted my dad, marching into the room and plonking Desmond on the carpet. ‘ARGH, MY BACK!’ he cried, taking about three hours to straighten up again.

      Future Ratboy ended and I flipped myself backwards off the sofa, somersaulting through the air and landing bum-first on the coffee table. ‘I know - let’s jump up and down on my mum and dad’s bed!’ I cried, waggling my hands around