The Luckiest Kid in the World, page 1
For my dad, who made me the luckiest kid in the world.
This is the first time I have ever told anyone the WHOLE story, so I hope I’m doing it right.
I bet you already know who I am because I became very famous this year. Maybe even the most famous boy in town.
And, if you’ve heard all about me and the strangest two weeks ever, you’ll probably be wondering why I did what I did.
I mean – what kid would DO that?
A kid who’s OUT OF HIS MIND?!
* * *
So, anyway, it’s this completely normal Thursday evening and Mum’s already walked into my room like three times to make sure I’m working on my school project. I’ve been researching it all week, and it’s all about what makes THE MODERN FAMILY.
We have to compare our family to families of the past, when everyone had a horse and cart or lived in a chimney or whatnot.
In the past, everybody was much smaller, like the size of a rabbit, I think, and they had names like ‘Forsooth!’ and ‘Hamlet’.
My name is Joe and I am not the size of a rabbit – I am average ten-year-old-kid size.
As I’m sure you know, I live in Didcot, which used to have a big power station, but now doesn’t, and also has a lot of people who used to work at the power station, but now don’t.
Didcot is famous because in the 1800s William Bradbery was the first person in Britain to sell watercress.
But enough of the important stuff; let’s get back to my family.
* * *
So my dad is five foot nine inches (175.259 cm!) tall, which is the size of seven and a half rabbits.
He is thirty-nine and has size nine feet and works in an office. Once a day he will remind us he used to be in a rock band called Samurai!, who played two gigs in 1996. One was at his school, and the other was in the local old people’s home, where they were immediately told to leave because no one had asked them to be there.
So Dad gave up being a rock star so he could follow his dream of working in an office all day every day. He sold his guitar and Mum says he’s never been the same since. He is a great dad who never puts any pressure on me to be the best at anything. ‘That’s good enough for me, Joe!’ he says sometimes. Though secretly I think that kind of attitude is why Samurai! never played a third gig.
My mum? She is five foot seven inches tall (170.18 cm!) and she drives a grey Ford Fiesta, which she bought when she turned forty and sold her old camper van.
Mum is like a lot of mums or dads in that when anyone asks if she’s a good cook, she always says: ‘I make a mean Bolognese!’
Mum’s trick is that she adds three dots of chilli sauce, and she once had this crazy idea that she could sell her spaghetti Bolognese from her camper van. But, after talking a lot with Dad, I think she realised that people in Didcot could make spaghetti on their own at home and add three dots of chilli sauce with very little bother, and also they would prefer not buying it out of a van. So now Mum works in an office like Dad. Working in an office is very much the family trade and I expect one day I will work in an office too.
Hundreds of years ago, families would be made up of one or two parents and around 350 children, who would all live in a small house with one bedroom next to a factory. They would all have to share one telly, I think, and very often lots of them would die from not having any windows or because the bed was too small or from soot or something.
I am lucky because I have my own bedroom and, thank goodness, my little sister, Mickey, has her own bedroom too, but poor Mum and Dad have to share one.
Sometimes, after school, I get to go to Nico’s Café on the high street, where Nico makes me two boiled eggs on toast while Mum takes Mickey to Robo Dance or Boogie Ballet. Mum says two boiled eggs are cheaper than a childminder. Don’t get me wrong, I also like burgers and hot dogs, but somehow Nico makes the best two boiled eggs on toast in Didcot. And, on his seventieth birthday last year, he made me a cake to celebrate!
I am usually the only person in there, and definitely the only one who orders two boiled eggs on toast, so Nico has time to tell me stories about Italy. Famous Italians include the Mario Brothers and a boxer called Rocky.
I am trying to grow a moustache like Nico, but I am ten and it is slow-going. Knowing my luck, Mickey will grow one before me, even though she is six and a girl and totally obsessed with pandas. Mum and Mickey’s teachers think everything Mickey does is amazing and they keep telling her she is ‘so advanced’. She could throw a pencil against the wall and everybody would applaud – seriously! But I can come top twenty in whatever video game I’m playing and level up with a ton of XP, and everybody just tells me that’s ‘nice’ and could I please not call them at work about this stuff.
So, anyway, I was trying to think of what to write about my family and I was starting to realise there wasn’t much to write about, apart from my sister always asking me to play and following me about all the time. But who wants to read that? That’s why I put in the watercress thing I told you, and the bit about Nico’s moustache.
But then just before bed I look out of my window, and I see this van parked outside. And it’s got these three people in the front with clipboards. And they’re all looking up at my window.
So, obviously, I think it must be the gas board or something. It doesn’t even occur to me that my life is just twelve hours away from completely changing for ever.
My dad sets his alarm for 6.47 a.m. every day so that he can hit the snooze button for twenty-five minutes. That means that every five minutes from 6.47 a.m. to 7.12 a.m. the whole house has to hear BAAAAH! BAAAAH! BAAAAH! from the really aggressive alarm clock he bought at the market because it was cheap.
My street is a friendly street where the people all do what I call ‘street humour’.
This is when people make a joke about something not very funny.
So, if you see someone washing their car, you have to say, ‘You can do mine next!’ and then you both do a big laugh.
Or, if you see someone cutting their grass, you have to say, ‘You can do mine next!’ and then you both do a big laugh.
It means someone on our street is always laughing, which I suppose is better than screaming.
Anyway, as I’m lying in bed, I can hear a few people laughing outside. Maybe someone tripped over and someone else said, ‘Enjoy your trip!’
‘Another day, another dollar!’ shouts Mickey, bursting into my room.
She’s shouting this because when Dad gets up every day he usually says, ‘Another day, another dollar!’ even though he is paid in pounds and has never even been to America.
But today we hear him say, ‘Who are all those people outside our house?’
* * *
Mum is peeking out of the front-door window when we get downstairs. Mum is someone who doesn’t like a lot of fuss, and she senses that soon there might be a lot of fuss.
That van is still outside and now there are even more people. Some of them are wearing headsets like Beyoncé and someone must have called the news because there’s a TV camera. The mechanic at number fourteen is pretending to work on his car, but really he’s staring at our house. The artist at number twenty-two is poking her face through the curtains. In fact, all the neighbours are watching our house in case there’s been a scandal or something and now we’re all going to jail.
‘Did you pay that parking ticket?’ asks Mum, and Dad says, ‘Of course I did!’
We are generally a very law-abiding family.
Then we watch as a man with a microphone opens our front gate and starts to walk down the path, followed by the TV camera.
‘Oh no,’ says Mum. ‘What do we do?’
The doorbell rings and then the man knocks twice on the door, really loudly.
‘What do we do?’ asks Mum again, taking a step back.
Dad takes a deep breath and says, ‘I’ll handle this!’ and he puffs out his chest and opens the door.
The man outside suddenly says, ‘I’m Tony Dawson from Good Morning and Wake Up!’
He looks at us like we’re supposed to know who he is, but we don’t watch Good Morning and Wake Up! – we watch the other one.
‘I’m looking for one Joe Smith!’ says Tony Dawson.
Well, that’s lucky because we’ve only got one. It’s me.
We all stand there, stunned. Why are they looking for me?
Dad steps to one side and Mum shoves me forward, like a human sacrifice. I stand there, blinking, as the camera moves closer.
‘Are you Joe Smith of Didcot?’
Well, we’re in Didcot, aren’t we? It’s not like I sleep here and then go to my real home 200 miles away.
‘Yes?’ I say.
‘Ten years old? Average height?’
‘That’s right,’ I say.
‘In a family of four?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘And is that your mum’s grey Ford Fiesta?’
‘It is,’ I say.
‘Can I have a look in your fridge?’
* * *
Tony Dawson opened our fridge and kept holding up various items to the camera and saying, ‘Yes!’
We all stayed out of his way because he seemed very determined and we still didn’t know if we were in some kind of trouble or something.
But he’d hold up some ham and say, ‘Sliced ham – yes!’ Or, ‘Cheese dunkers – yes!’
Then he ran up to my room and had a look at my stuff. He seemed delighted. Next he led me back out to
‘How many really close friends do you have?’
I count in my head. It doesn’t take long. It’s basically one – Joe 2.
‘Are you ever picked first or last at football?’
I don’t think either has ever happened.
‘What do you have for your breakfast?’
‘Cereal,’ I say.
‘What did you have for your tea last night?’
‘I had meaty pasta.’ We eat a lot of meaty pasta.
And then, when I’d said that, he turns to the camera.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, after a month of travelling up and down the country, we have finally done it. We have found the average town, and we are on an average street, outside an average house, with a very average family.’
I notice Mum frown at that bit.
‘From secretly studying them, I can tell you they go to bed at the average time, they get up at the average time, they eat the average things, they drive the most average car in the most average colour, and they have two children – one of whom is an averagely tall ten-year-old that I can absolutely assure you seems wonderfully average in every way.’
Oh!
‘His average-height parents married at the average age, work in the average jobs, earn the average amount of money and live a very, very average life.’
Dad puts his hands on his hips like he’s cross, but he doesn’t know what he wants to say or how to say it.
‘Joe Smith,’ says Tony Dawson, putting his hand on my shoulder, ‘you are very special indeed.’
‘Am I?’ I say.
‘You are very special,’ he goes, ‘because you are not special at all.’
He gives me a big smile, like that’s brilliant, then turns to face the camera.
‘Meet the country’s Most Average Child!’
It was certainly a very unusual start to the day.
As Dad drives me and Mickey to school, he doesn’t even put the radio on. Usually, we listen to that show everyone listens to, but now he’s lost in thought. I can’t work out what he’s thinking. I keep asking him if what happened was good or bad, but it’s like he can’t quite decide.
He keeps muttering things like, ‘There’s nothing wrong with fitting in,’ or, ‘It’s good to keep your head down,’ or, ‘It’s not a crime to not stand out,’ but it’s as if he’s telling himself all this stuff, not me.
Dad always tells me that I really remind him of himself at my age. He says, ‘That’s good enough for me, Joe!’, but he also says people shouldn’t tell their kids how amazing they are all the time. Dad says if every kid is told they’re amazing at everything, they’re all going to turn into grown-ups who think they’re exceptional when actually they’re just normal, and this will be the greatest disappointment of their lives. He says, with me and Mickey, he just wants to tell us when we’ve done a good job, rather than tell us we can do anything. He says that way it will be a nice surprise to all of us if we do something cool, like he almost did with Samurai!
After Tony Dawson’s announcement, all the TV people had packed up immediately and driven off. We asked them if they wanted a cup of tea or something, but they all said no. Tony Dawson gave me his autograph – which I did not ask for – and also hung a small silver medal round my neck with AVERAGE written on it.
‘Average,’ muttered Dad for the umpteenth time. He didn’t seem over the moon about it.
I personally think we probably are quite average. After all, literally everything Tony Dawson had said was true, and he kept saying they’d done their research. They’d thought, What if we could find the average kid? and somehow they’d ended up with me. And I saw their point. I mean, if you really thought about it, what did me or my family actually do that stood out?
Dad says he watches all the most popular TV shows because if they’re popular that means they’re good, right?
Mum reads all the books that her websites tell her are the most popular ones.
Apart from Nico’s Café, we go to all the same places all the other families go to eat. Mum and Dad even named me Joe when Joe was the most popular name to give to a boy. Don’t take my word for it – you can ask my best friend, Joe 2. And so what?
‘What did the man mean, saying you were average?’ goes Mickey, from the back seat.
‘Because I think the best way to get through school is just to keep your head down and not cause a fuss, Mickey,’ I say. And I was basically trying to make Dad say, ‘Well done, Joe!’, but he’s still lost in his own thoughts.
* * *
As soon as I get to school, I know something’s up.
Some of the parents stop talking as soon as we pull up and they nudge their kids, who all stare at me.
I don’t know what to do, so I act cool and sling my bag over my shoulder. But the bag swings right round and whacks Mickey in the face.
‘Hi, Jon!’ shouts Jessica Berry, and even though she gets my name wrong I don’t care because that’s Jessica Berry and Jessica Berry never talks to me. I don’t know what to do with my hands so I readjust my bag strap, but somehow I get Mickey caught in it, and now her head is trapped underneath my armpit.
Everyone is still staring at me as I untangle her, then Joe 2 runs up.
(I call Joe ‘Joe 2’ because I’m Joe 1, but Joe 2 calls me Joe 2 because Joe 2 thinks he’s Joe 1. But when we’re together it gets too confusing so we just use words like ‘dude’.)
‘Dude!’ says Joe 2. ‘You’re famous! Look at your medal!’
He reads it out, all proud of me.
‘Average. Wow. You’re special.’
‘No, he’s not, he’s average,’ comes a voice, and I know exactly whose voice it is because it’s Darren Harper’s voice.
‘He’s the most average,’ says Joe 2, trying to defend me, ‘so that makes him special.’
Then Darren Harper goes all smirky and stands really close to me; so close I can smell the cornflakes stuck in his teeth.
‘Look at me,’ he says. ‘I’m taller than you, so that means I’m taller than average. I’m stronger than you, so I’m stronger than average. I’m better looking than you, so I’m better looking than average. I guess now we have proof I’m better than you in every way… Average Joe.’
A load of kids all laugh at that.
Darren Harper is an equal-opportunities bully in that he makes fun of everybody. But there’s never been anything about me that really stuck out, so I’ve never had an actual nickname from him before. Not like Big Feet Freddy or Lazy Susan. And any time I have stuck out – like if I missed a goal at football or if I had new shoes on – Darren’s been there to put me back in my place.
‘Come on, dude,’ says Joe 2. ‘Let’s go and make you some business cards or something! “Joe Smith – Just Yer Average Kid!” ’
I’m grateful to Joe 2, but, as we leave together, I don’t like the fact that the other kids are still laughing at what Darren said. It’s not a nice feeling.
It almost makes me want to take my medal off.
* * *
Our school had an Ofsted report that said it ‘requires improvement’, so Mr Chesil, the head teacher, put a new carpet in the staffroom and now I think we’re all good.
My teacher is Mrs Beatty and when me and Joe 2 want to talk about her in secret we call her ‘B.T.’ because that’s like a code she can’t crack.
She’s obviously seen me on telly this morning because when we sit down she says, ‘I saw you on TV this morning!’
I must blush a bit because then she says, ‘You’re blushing a bit.’
She really seems to want to talk about it though.
‘So you had no idea they were coming?’ she says.
‘No,’ I say, pleased she enjoyed it. ‘They just appeared out of a van!’
‘And so what did you win?’
I tell her I’m not quite sure what she means.
‘Well, they go to all that effort to find you,’ she says, ‘then they call you the country’s most average child… What’s in it for you?’
