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

to come with me. That’s if Mum ever agrees to be Big Al’s girlfriend, which Al says she bloody well will if he has anything to do with it. Mum always just says, we’ll see, and I reckon we will see, because slowly, slowly, catchy monkey and all that.

I’m already invited back to the Duke for next year’s Fringe, though, because the manager said it was the best night they’d ever had. And even though the jig was up the minute I got on stage that I wasn’t actually eighteen in a licensed venue, he said he’d think about turning a blind eye again because he had a soft spot for me and he believes in something called nurturing the arts. Mum reckons it’s his bar takings he’s interested in nurturing, but that’s OK by me.

What’s even more OK by me is that Jax’s mum and step dad might come next year, and it was actually their idea. I haven’t seen them much, because Mum reckons we have to tread lightly around their feelings and seeing me without Jax makes them too sad. But she’s gone around there a couple of times for coffee, and last time she took one of her really excellent almond and only-slightly-out-of-date lemon curd cakes. So I reckon by next year and a few more cakes they’ll be able to come and watch my show and think of Jax without feeling like a big hairy yin is eating its way out of their tummies. I’m still always going to tread lightly around their feelings, though, because I know exactly how they feel.

But anyhow, before then I could get run over by a bus, or lose an eye in a freak accident with a piece of cutlery. Or God might come good on one of my deals and Jax could be back in Penzance, looking after his armless, legless, no-eyed, very happy best mate. Or I could even finally get abducted by aliens. I mean, probably not, because nothing like that ever happens down here, but if these last few months proved anything, it’s that one never knows. And that James is probably my dad.

Actually, it was a DNA test that proved that. And the funniest thing is that it wasn’t even me or Mum or James that wanted that test in the end. It was Adam. Can you believe it? He said that as someone with a vested interest he wanted to be absolutely sure where everyone stood. Mum said over her effing dead body was she going to risk him having any kind of vested interest in me, so me, James and Adam did the test. Adam even came down from Bournemouth on the train for the opening of the results, which we decided to do in the pub because it had easy access for his mobility scooter and because that’s where James is staying until he finds a proper flat.

The DNA test said that it was a 99.8 per cent probability James was my dad, which is pretty probable but still not guaranteed. I thought Adam would have been happy he was off the hook except for that 0.2 per cent, but he didn’t seem to be at all really. When Mum opened the envelope and read out the results he stopped talking for about five minutes, which is a LOT for him. Except he did say bollocks quite a few times and that he must have something in his eye.

But even though I really, really like James, and it’s pretty cool that he’s moved all the way from Scotland so I get to see him nearly every day, and it’s kind of nice to have another guy to shoot the breeze with, and even though we know that there’s a 99.8 per cent chance that he actually is my dad, I’d never say it, but I know that really and truly I just belong to mum. And that even if she finally says yes to a date with Big Al before he turns seventy-five, like he’s hoping, she’ll really and truly always just belong to me.

Oh, and by the way, I’ve added another first rule of comedy to Jaxy’s book. I don’t think he’d mind. I mean, I’m not saying I made it up or anything, but I figured after last summer if I hadn’t learned something from what I’d observed, then what kind of observational comedian would I be?

See, when I started thinking about everyone I know, like Tony and Kathy and their baby that hasn’t shown up yet, and Adam and his football career that never got to happen, and Leonard with his wife who doesn’t remember him any more, and Jax’s mum and step dad, who lost their boy, and Mum who finally told me what really happened to Grandad, I realized they’ve all got one thing in common. Which is that even though bad things happened to them they all still kept on going.

So I reckon that’s the last First Rule of Comedy. Never give up. Because no matter if everything goes to hell in a hand basket and you lose your father, your footy career, your baby, your memory, your son, your breath or your best friend, you’ve just got to keep on going.

And even though I really do know he’s gone forever, I’ll never forget how lucky I was to know a guy as cool and as crazy and as wonderful as Jax. A guy who taught me that one really and truly best friend is a hundred times better than a whole bunch who just aren’t quite sure. And that one honestly never knows what’s coming next.

THE END

Signed, Norman Foreman.

Teenage Super Flucking Comedy Genius

Acknowledgements

I feel like the luckiest person in the world because it’s my great good fortune to find myself surrounded by the kindest, most supportive book-loving people I could ever hope to meet.

My deepest thanks go to my beautiful agent Sue Armstrong at C&W Agency