Stuff Read online

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  The winner of the first Manchester Book Award was chosen by reading-group members in schools, libraries and homework centres across the city. Here’s what some of them said about Stuff.

  ‘I love this book and I don’t mind reading it a billion times’ – Whitney

  ‘I was laughing so hard that I had to close the book to make me stop’ – Brayden

  ‘Stuff is the best, funniest life story I have ever read’ – Mehtab

  ‘It’s laughter-packed. Kids need this book’ – Michael

  Jeremy Strong spent most of his childhood getting told off for making things up. Nowadays he still makes things up but gets paid for it instead. Result! He has written well over sixty books but this is his first one for teenagers. He might write another – you have been warned.

  When he’s not writing, Jeremy spends much of his time pursuing his favourite hobby, extreme sleeping, at which he has now reached Blue Duvet Level. He also enjoys eating crusty bread. Obviously he’s easily pleased.

  www.jeremystrong.co.uk

  Books by Jeremy Strong

  STUFF

  For younger readers

  THE BEAK SPEAKS

  CHICKEN SCHOOL

  THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  I’M TELLING YOU, THEY’RE ALIENS

  KRAZY KOW SAVES THE WORLD – WELL, ALMOST

  RETURN OF THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  Illustrated by Seb Burnett

  PUFFIN

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  Published 2005

  6

  Text ctext © Jeremy Strong, 2005

  Illustrations ctext © Seb Burnett, 2005

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  This is for my son, Daniel. I know you’re thirty now, and Sam is only one, but it won’t be long before he’s a teenager. I hope this might remind you. And by the way, you weren’t a bit like Stuff, so you can’t sue.

  This book was a new venture for me and I could not have written it without advice and/or encouragement from my wife, Susan, and daughter, Jessica; and from Patric Netscher and Debbie Moody – massive thanks. The book also required tender administrations and suggestive remarks from Yvonne Hooker at the Puffin Mother Ship, and several other crew members – big thanks for your patience and tolerance and for letting me get away with it.

  I am also hugely indebted to the following younger readers: Will Mulder, Dru Shearn, Alex, Ashley and Joe. Finally my thanks to the teenage reader I met in Lancashire who told me I should write something funny for teenage boys, and to Louise Rennison, whose Georgia Nicolson stories got me thinking, gave my wife and myself a lot of laughs, and encouraged lip-nibbling. Don’t try this at home. (Unless your parents are out.)

  Contents

  1. About Tasha’s Knickers

  2. Frogs and Trifles

  3. Hugging Aliens

  4. How My Universe Was Changed

  5. Behold – Skysurfer!

  6. Radical Rabbit

  Punykid’s Battle with the Drooling Dorkoids! I

  7. Two Dead Famous People

  8. Running Away – First Attempt

  9. Refuting Mr Teddy

  10. Running Away – Second Attempt

  11. Shock! Horror!

  12. Very Useful Lists

  13. How to Embarrass Yourself

  Punykid’s Battle with the Drooling Dorkoids! II

  14. Darcy

  15. The Grange (creepy stuff)

  16. Darcy Again

  17. Decision Time

  Punykid’s Battle with the Drooling Dorkoids! III

  18. Egg Whisks vs Burglars

  19. Running Away – Third Attempt

  20. My Best Friend?

  21. Time to Come Clean

  Punykid’s Battle with the Drooling Dorkoids! IV

  22. Happy Home

  23. Running Away – Fourth Attempt

  24. More Revelations

  25. Toilet Trouble

  26. Chugga-chugga!

  Punykid’s Battle with the Drooling Dorkoids! V

  27. Holy Sock!

  28. Destiny Makes a Move

  29. Toothbrushes and Other WMDs

  30. Stuff I Didn’t Know

  Punykid’s Battle with the Drooling Dorkoids! VI

  1

  About Tasha’s Knickers

  ‘You’ve been going through my knicker drawer, Simon.’

  ‘No, I haven’t!’

  ‘So, how come this happened?’ Natasha waved her undies at me.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ I lied.

  ‘Oh yeah, like who else would? You’ve been in my room rifling through my knickers.’

  ‘I did not go rifling through your stinky knickers.’ And, believe me, I was telling the truth. Natasha’s room was, after all, way beyond the Pit of Despair. In fact, it was probably the Garbage Can of Crudgirl. ‘They were in my room. Your mum put my clean clothes in my room on my bed and in among them was a pair of your undies. Right?’

  That shut her up for five seconds, but only five and then she was off again.

  ‘Yeah? And then this magic writing just appeared on them, did it?’ Natasha waved the little white panties at me. I tried not to smile. They were dinky pants and I’d been astonished – not to mention embarrassed – to discover them among my pile of laundry in the first place, but there they were, and while they were there I thought I might as well examine them. As you do. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? Go on, be honest, you would. I hooked a finger at each end of the waistband and looked at them. Very dinky.

  The front panel was dotted with little printed hearts. Above them was the word HEARTS, printed in red. I had an idea. Oh yes, it was a good one. All I did was, I got a dark-green felt tip and turned the pants over. Then on the back I drew puffs of cloud and above them I carefully printed the word FARTS.

  Neat pics, eh? I drew those. I’m going to be Damien Hirst when I get older. Well, obviously not the Damien Hirst because Damien Hirst is already Damien Hirst, if you get my drift. I’m going to be like him. Famous artist. (But better at drawing.)

  Anyhow, I thought it was funny. It was funny. Hearts and Farts. It wasn’t my fau
lt if Natasha hadn’t brought her sense of humour with her when she came to live in our house. It wasn’t even as if I’d asked her to come and live with us. Nobody had even thought to ask me, yet here she was, prancing about the place as if she owned it. She’s only been here a month. I’ve been here fourteen and a half years! She’s lived here twenty-seven days, nine hours and forty-five minutes – approximately. Not very long, is it?

  Proper house squatters have to live in the same place for years before they can claim it’s theirs and that’s all Tasha is – a squatter. She already thinks the place is hers. Even trans-universal invaders would have to stay longer than her before they could claim Earth. I can’t see them arriving in our front room and saying, ‘Earthlings, we come to live in your house and we have been here five minutes, so it is legally now ours. Please take your tatty sofa, your vegetable rack full of mouldy broccoli and your smelly bathroom towels and GO. But leave us the PlayStation and your computer games. We like those.’

  If aliens tried to pull that one, they’d be thrown out on their ears (assuming they had ears) by the International Court of Human Rights. And bear in mind that space invaders might come and live in your house. It could happen. Statistically speaking, there is a fifty per cent chance of finding life on other planets out there in the universe. What I advise is: be prepared, and know your legal rights. Also, hide the PlayStation before they arrive.

  So, Tasha shouldn’t be here. She wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my mum going off with the Frog, and Dad bringing back Sherry Trifle. More of the Frog later – let’s start with the Trifle.

  Obviously Sherry Trifle is not my stepmother’s real name, but that’s what I call her and now you want to know why, so I shall tell you. The first time I ever saw her was when Dad brought her to the house a few months after Mum left. He had warned me first. That was kind.

  ‘Simon, I’m going out and when I come back I shall have a lady friend with me.’

  Honest to God! That’s exactly what he said. Was I surprised? Yes. Why? Because my dad can hardly manage to go out and buy a pair of socks for himself, let alone find what he so politely called ‘a lady friend’. So, how did he find her? I will tell you. He didn’t. She found him and chatted him up, in the supermarket. She hypnotized him with her stunning blue eyes and stiletto heels. Not to mention the push-up bra.

  ‘She dropped her bananas in front of me,’ Dad explained. ‘And when she bent down to pick them up I realized how lovely she was.’ He reddened. ‘We’ve been seeing a lot of each other. We like each other, Simon. When I bring her back I want you to be nice to her.’

  So off he goes and, of course, I’m hanging around by my bedroom window, peering out from behind the curtains like some curtain-twitching voyeur. I see Dad’s car coming down the road. My heart’s speeding up and my head’s spinning. I don’t know what’s happening in my life and it’s worrying. This woman could be my second mum – and I had enough trouble with the first.

  The car stops outside and Dad’s in such a hurry he almost falls out, stumbles, rushes round to the passenger door, opens it and out comes …

  2

  Frogs and Trifles

  … a leg. A long, slim leg. Hmmm, this is different, if not interesting.

  Two long, slim legs, with those hypnotic stiletto heels, and Dad’s grinning from ear to ear and no wonder. Hell’s bells! Mum never had legs like that. Mum got her legs from a furniture catalogue.

  Then out she comes and … hell’s bells with added gongs and stuff – it’s a sherry trifle!

  Honest, she was really just like a sherry trifle. She was wearing a red miniskirt, with a cream jumper, and perched on top of her head was a red beret, just like a cherry And she was carrying a rabbit, a big rabbit – not a cooking one – a pet. More on that later.

  I don’t call her Trifle to her face. I usually say, oh so politely, ‘dear stepmother’. Which she hates. Dad hates it too.

  ‘It’s so …’ he struggled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It doesn’t sound right,’ he complained.

  I can’t see the problem but apparently there is one. It’s not my fault if she doesn’t like it.

  ‘Can’t you call her Tracey?’ suggested Dad.

  ‘Dad, you’ve always told me to show respect to old people. You said I shouldn’t get personal with the older generations, such as yourself and my dear stepmother. So what’s her proper name – Mrs …?’

  ‘You can’t call her Mrs Overdown!’

  I opened my mouth, but Dad got in first.

  ‘And you can’t call her Ms, either!’ he interrupted. I could see murder creeping into his eyes at that point, so I let the subject drop. Anyhow, to me she’ll always be Sherry Trifle.

  ‘Just give her a chance,’ Dad called after me. ‘That’s all I ask.’

  And now you’re probably wondering if I am ever going to get round to explaining about the Frog, and I’m going to tell you now because I am a fund of information, which is why everyone at school calls me Stuff. I’m full of it. (At least that’s what my French teacher thinks.)

  Mum and Dad split up about a year ago. Mum left and went off with this bloke I call the Frog – and no, he’s not French. He wears glasses that magnify his eyes. I don’t know what Mum sees in him. Big eyes, I suppose. They remind me of frog eyes, if you see them close up. Of course, you don’t often get the chance to see a frog close up, so maybe you have no idea what I’m talking about, but I had a frog experience when I was eight and I have never forgotten it.

  My Frog Experience

  We’ve got a pond in the back garden and one summer I was lying on my stomach next to the pond and suddenly this monster frog came shlooping out from beneath the surface – and it was like it was in slo-mo, you know? It was like everything had slowed right down and I could see this huge frog zooming towards me from out of nowhere, with no warning, like some Giant Stealth Frog, its whole head getting bigger and bigger as it came straight at me. I could see a huge mouth and the eyes! As big as footballs. I thought the monster would swallow my head. Bat’s buttocks!

  Of course, the frog didn’t. It just crashed into my face. SHPLAPP! Then its flappy feet went shlipp-plipp all over my head as it tried to get a grip and scrabble off me. I was struggling to get up and clawing at my face and eventually the frog leaped off and disappeared back into the pond. I’ve not seen it since, but I guess it’s still waiting down there somewhere – Giant Stealth Frog, waiting to swallow my head.

  End of Frog Experience

  His real name’s Martin. Not the frog’s; Mum’s boyfriend. Sorry man-friend. That’s what Mum said, the only time I’ve visited them so far. I am going to see them again, but they’re up in Scotland, and that’s not just round the corner, is it? Not from where I am, it isn’t. It’s round about 5,638 corners, not to mention the straight bits. Mum does ring every so often.

  ‘Martin’s a man, Simon,’ Mum said. ‘Not like your father.’

  Is that weird? What did she mean? Not like your father. Was she trying to tell me something? Was my dad a secret transvestite? That could be very interesting. Maybe she had some Polaroids I could sell at school.

  ‘Mum, I thought Dad was a man.’

  ‘Simon, he reads comics.’

  ‘Mum, they’re not comics. They’re classics.’

  ‘Simon, Great Expectations is a classic. Treasure Island is a classic. Silver Surfer and Batman are comics.’

  ‘They’re classic comics.’

  Mum gave me a withering look. ‘Comics,’ she repeated. ‘Picture stories. He’s still a little boy.’

  ‘Why did you marry him in the first place, then?’

  That made her think. ‘Because when we got married I was a little girl,’ Mum said eventually. ‘I grew up. He didn’t.’

  And there you have it. The difference between Mum and Dad. I didn’t argue any further. I knew what she meant, but she was only half right. Maybe it is odd that Dad collects comics, but they are valuable and some are brilliant. Dad’s go
t piles of them. He buys them at boot sales and auctions and grotty antiquey-typey shoppeys. He’s got fantastic early editions of Superman and Batman, really old comics from the 1930s and 1940s.

  He lets me look at them as long as I handle them carefully. Silver Surfer is my favourite. He’s a superdepressed superhero – well, he would have to be superdepressed, wouldn’t he, being a superhero? Don’t know what he was so depressed about. Maybe it was his diet. Broccoli depresses me. Maybe he was eating too much Really Big Broccoli for Superheroes – the broccoli that makes you GO!

  Anyhow, Silver Surfer surfs the galaxies on his silver board. The artwork is terrific. I think maybe that’s what I want to do – story pictures. I don’t mean, like illustrating; I mean, telling the whole story through pictures. That’s how I see things sometimes. I think it’s got to do with Giant Stealth Frog when I was eight. It was seeing that frog coming at me in slo-mo, bit by bit, like each frame of a film, building up, building the whole story until SPLAPP! It was all over my face.

  Anyhow, I like drawing. My friend Pete thinks I’m really good. What do you reckon? My art teacher reckons I could make it. Which is nice, because my maths teacher says I’m crap (his word, not mine), and Baguette, the French teacher (he’s tall, thin and crusty – ha ha), just growls ‘quel horreur’ into his beard every time he sees me. But I am good at art and I reckon it’s because I spent so much time when I was younger trying to copy Silver Surfer. Now I make up my own things.

  But I still haven’t told you about Tasha, so here goes.

  You can see what’s coming, I expect. Dad and Sherry Trifle hit it off with one another and, lo and behold, one day Dad tells me that Sherry Trifle is going to move in.

  ‘So, what’s the good news?’ I asked, and he scowled.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Simon. Tracey is lovely and very kind. I’m sure you’ll get to like her too. The extra-good news is that you’ll have a friend. Someone to talk to.’