My Dad is a Loser (The Barry Loser Series) Read online

  First published in Great Britain 2012

  by Jelly Pie an imprint of Egmont UK Ltd

  239 Kensington High Street London W8 6SA

  Text and illustration copyright © Jim Smith 2012

  The moral rights of the author-illustrator have been asserted.

  eISBN 978 1 7803 1268 2

  www.egmont.co.uk

  barryloser.com Jellypiebooks.co.uk

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

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title page

  Copyright

  In my room

  In the loft

  After that

  Back in my room

  Ever since I started collecting Future Ratboy action figures, my dad keeps coming into my room and looking at them, then doing a little laugh to himself and shaking his head and walking out again.

  ‘Who’s this Future Ratman character?’ he asked one Saturday when he was in my room, and I rolled my eyes to myself because it’s Future Rat-BOY, not MAN.

  ‘Future Ratboy is the keelest TV show in the whole wide world amen!’ I said.

  ‘What does ‘keelest’ mean?’ asked my dad, because he’s always trying to be up to date with things like that.

  I explained that ‘keel’ is how Future Ratboy says ‘cool’.

  ‘Do you want to see something even keeler than Future Ratboy?’ he asked, and I nodded, but only to keep him happy.

  My dad got the ladder out and clambered up into the loft, blowing off and panting, with me behind him holding my breath and wishing I’d stayed in my room with my Future Ratboy collection.

  The loft floor is made up of really long planks of wood with massive strips of foamy stuff in between them.

  ‘DO NOT tread on the foamy stuff,’ said my dad. ‘You’ll go straight through the floor. KEEP. TO. THE. PLANKS.’

  We tip-toed along a plank to where my mum makes him store all his things that she doesn’t want cluttering up the house.

  ‘Behold, the keelest action figure in the whole wide world amen!’ he said, blowing the dust off an old shoebox and into my face.

  He lifted the lid and a golden glow lit up his sweaty face, but only because I was shining a torch right in it.

  ‘Arrghh, I’m blind!’ he screamed, waving his arms around, and he began to tip over very slowly, like an old building being knocked down.

  He grabbed at my jumper and I quickly unzipped it and took it off so I wouldn’t be dragged with him. Then there was a massive thump.

  ‘For crying out loud, what’s going on up there!’ my mum screamed up the stairs.

  ‘Nothing!’ shouted my dad, who was now lying on the foamy stuff. ‘Quite cozy, actually!’ he whispered to me, putting his arms behind his head as if he was on a lilo in a swimming pool on holiday.

  ‘I thought you were supposed to fall straight through it?’ I said, poking the foam with my foot. It felt like treading on a dog poo, and I secretly quite liked it.

  ‘Must be that diet your mum’s got me on!’ he laughed, and then he did a weird creaking noise that I’ve never heard him make before. Then I realised the creaking noise was the floor breaking in half.

  ‘HEELLLPPP MEEE, BAARRRYYYY . . .’ he screamed as he was sucked into the foamy stuff like Future Ratboy in the episode where his sofa turns into a man-eating sofa.

  Once all the dust had settled I looked through the hole in the floor and saw my dad lying in the bath with bits of broken wood and ceiling all over him.

  ‘Pass me the soap would you, Barry?’ he said, trying to get up. Then he said, ‘Aaaarrgghh,’ but really loudly and in capital letters.

  The next day my dad hobbled into my room with the shoebox from the loft. (He had a black eye and his arm was in a sling, by the way.)

  ‘Still want to see the keelest thing ever in the whole wide world amen?’ he whispered, opening the box.

  ‘Say hello to Mike Muscle!’ he said, holding up a faded plastic action figure of a man with a moustache and sunglasses.

  The figure’s arm had been chewed off by a dog or something and he reminded me of my dad, who was standing there with a massive grin on his face.

  ‘You can play with him if you want!’ he said, so I pretended to play with Mike Muscle for about three seconds until my dad took him back off me and put him in the shoebox and hobbled off downstairs, singing the theme-tune to the Mike Muscle TV show.

  ‘How unkeel is my dad!’ I said to my Future Ratboy action figure, but he just stared at me because I haven’t got the talking one yet.

 

 

  Jim Smith, My Dad is a Loser (The Barry Loser Series)

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