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

much at what I said because I hadn’t actually been trying to be funny. Well, when Mum found out that for all those other birthdays I thought that the Helluvan Age was something like the Ice Age or the Neolithic Age she thought it was so hilarious that she nearly peed. That’s her words, not mine.

She explained that what she’d meant was that every year was a great time in a boy’s life and that sometimes adults used inappropriate words to describe something when they felt quite strongly about it. When I asked her if that was why she sometimes called Dennis her boss at the car yard where she worked xeno-fucking-phobic I thought she might nearly pee again. Exactly, Norman. Exactly fucking like that, is what she said.

My mum reckons that just because she sets a bad example doesn’t mean I’m going to follow it, because I’m way smarter than her. And by the way, that’s her words again, not mine. Because actually me and Jax reckon that my mum is probably one of the smartest people in the world. She was the first Foreman to go to university and everything, even though she didn’t stay that long because of me coming along. But that wasn’t her fault.

Anyhow, Mum says she knows that even if I hear her use bad language it’s not going to make me do it. And she’s right. I never say the F word, except for repeating if someone else says it, which I don’t think counts. I didn’t even say it when Archie Lowry reefed the collar of my jacket up over my head and pulled so hard the scabs on my underarms bled right through. Not even when I lost a whole pocket full of new jokes when I accidentally went swimming in my school uniform because Jax reckoned surf was up and the last one in was a manky toe. Not even when Mum told me Jax was dead.

Even after Mr Tilley ruined the joke of the Helluvan Age, my mum kept carrying it on, just for fun. And I went along with it because I’ve noticed that she sometimes gets a bit sad over weird things that don’t even matter. Like when she burns the dinner or forgets to do the washing or she’s the only parent that forgot to go to the parent–teacher meeting.

When my twelfth birthday came along, which was two weeks and one day after Jax died, Mum woke me up with two bits of melted cheese on toast with candles stuck in them and a huge card made out of an inside-out cereal box with a drawing of a dog saying Happy Barkday, Norman. Because that’s the Foreman birthday rule. Home-made cards and jokes only. When she asked me how it felt to be twelve, even though it was two weeks and one day after Jax died and what I really wanted to say was that more than anything I wished I could make time go backwards to when I was eleven and eleven months so I could change everything, that the last part of my own body had dirty-double-crossed me again for my birthday and my psoriasis had spread down to my willy, that being twelve and having to go back to school without Jax felt like the scariest, loneliest age I’ve ever been so far, I didn’t. I just blew out the candles, picked the pink and blue wax off my cheesy toast, stuffed a whole piece into my mouth in one go and said I reckon twelve is going to be a helluvan age, Mum.

She hugged me really hard and looked so happy I felt guilty that I’d ever wanted to drop that dumb joke and that I was nearly being sick at the thought of having to swallow that big old mouthful of cheese on toast. And by the way, no matter how much you put in your mouth at one time, the actual amount you have to swallow in the end doesn’t get any smaller. That’s just physics. Also, me and Jax have tested it out.

All I could think about while Mum was hugging me and the toast got to halfway down my throat and stopped there in a globby lump was the weekend that Jax and I ate cheese on toast for breakfast, lunch and dinner both days, even though I knew it was probably going to make my psoriasis worse. And how we didn’t even get sick of it after twelve pieces each, plus a couple of crusts that didn’t count. And how that was never going to happen again. I mean, I suppose the cheese-on-toastathon could if I want to risk it, but not the Jax part.

So anyway, it looks like that joke’s still going to be with me for a helluva long time. Jax reckoned I was probably going to get a note from the Queen or Charles and Camilla or whoever telling me to have a Helluva Fun Time on my hundredth. That’s if I make it that far. And Jax dying like that two weeks and a day before my birthday all on his own on the floor of his bedroom with a brand-new inhaler downstairs in his backpack and his mum and stepdad snoring away just through the wall goes to show that, really and truly, one never knows.

Me and Jax decided ages ago that’s actually the best and cleverest sentence in the world. One. Never. Knows. It’s actually so good that a whole bunch of people even made it into a motto. Which Jax found out when he was googling cockney comedians, which led him to the history of the East End, which led him to the story of the Pearly Kings and Queens of London and their cool outfits and super-genius motto. Which shows you how cool Google is, because you end up finding out stuff you didn’t even know you were looking for and sometimes it’s even more useful than what you