The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman, Julietta Henderson [best novels to read for students .TXT] 📗

to get back to look after me in time because Mum had to stay the night in hospital. But I was just thinking how I couldn’t wait to see him so I could tell him that he didn’t have anything to be sorry for. Because if he hadn’t gone off like that I wouldn’t have had the absolute, definite, without-a-doubt best night of my life. Which is what I decided it was.

Of course, I was pretty sad that I’d gone and had the best night of my life without Jax, but I also felt quite a lot proud of myself. Because if you’d asked me even two days ago I would have said for sure that I couldn’t have done any of that stuff, like going out at night in a city on my own and being chased by a bouncer and ending up on a houseboat drinking Guinness with a bunch of guys, one who might be my grandad, by the way. And being funny. No way no how. But I did. I did all of that on my own and I reckon Jaxy would have been proud of me too.

I don’t think anyone could have stopped Leonard from getting in a taxi and coming straight over to Lucy’s houseboat in the middle of the night, even if they tried. He said, don’t go anywhere, Norman, and I’ll be there in a jiffy. And promise me you won’t move. Which I did and he was. And when he arrived it was like when me and James got there all over again, with Lucy and the guys trying to give him Guinness and reheated chicken pie and all talking over the top of each other and making room at the table for him.

But before he sat down Leonard put his hand up to shush everyone and goes, one moment, please, friends, and Norman, could you please stand up? And when I did he put both arms around me and gave me a massive big hug, which he said was from my mum but also from him. And even though I reckon I left the tops of about a hundred scabs on that window ledge in Slim’s office, and even though Leonard hugged me really, really hard because it was from two people, it didn’t even hurt.

Then Leonard said he wanted to hear all about why I was wearing a chef’s outfit and it looked like maybe I would have as much of a story to tell Mum as she had to tell me. So I told him how I’d gone from practising my show in the Caramel Suite and being really scared on my own to having an amazing adventure with James and finding out I was a bit like Dave Allen. And then Beano and Gray and Lucy all started talking again and lots more Guinness got drunk, but not by me and Leonard. Because Leonard wanted to keep a clear head and I had a show the next day. Plus after that day in Mrs Ackerman’s cow paddock I reckon two finger-fulls at a time is enough until I’m at least eighteen.

Lucy said because it was late we should all just kip on the boat and he’d do us a full English in the morning, and Leonard said it seemed like a good way to finish an adventure and that it was fine by him. So we did. And kipping the night on a houseboat with Leonard and James and the guys was the coolest thing ever.

Even though it was nearly two o’clock in the morning by the time Lucy had finally said it was time to stop blethering and get ye all to bed or what’ll pass as one, I woke up earlier than everyone else. When I opened my eyes I knew where I was straight away, though. Because the first person I saw was James, stretched out on one of the bench seats with a tea towel rolled up under his head and his legs sticking way out past the edge. Then the second person I saw was Leonard, curled up on his side on the other seat with his two hands under his head like he was saying a prayer and nothing sticking out off the edge anywhere.

Beano and Gray were top and tailing it at the bottom of the stairs and I could hear Lucy snoring in his little bedroom up the end of the boat. It didn’t look like any of them were going to be getting up any time soon, but I was wide awake, so I wrapped my blanket around me and carefully stepped over Beano and Gray and went up on to the deck.

It was totally quiet up there and it kind of felt like the houseboat was floating out in space. Even though it was still pretty dark the sun was starting to come up behind the trees on the other side of the canal, and I thought how weird it was to only find out what a place looked like when you’d already been there a whole night. It felt like nobody else in the whole world was awake except for me, and for all I know maybe it was true.

I should have been really tired, but I wasn’t. I actually felt like I’d just had the best sleep of my life and everything inside my head and my tummy felt kind of different. Like maybe all that stuff that happened to me on the best night of my life had actually made me into a different person. Like one who breaks into nightclubs and dresses in disguise and goes on high-speed rides on the back of a moped. One who hangs out with a bunch of guys on a houseboat and stays up all night blethering. The kind of person like Little Big Man who’s actually going to be brave enough to get up in front of a bunch of strangers and try to make them