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

second I thought I was going to cry like a baby all over again, and then I thought, well, how would that look? Not like someone who was pure Barry, that’s for sure. I didn’t cry. But that was mainly because me and James were too busy running down the hallway towards the fire stairs at a zillion miles an hour with a huge, ugly-looking, most definitely dodgy geezer right behind us shouting, oi! Stop! Get back here, yous!

James reckoned later it was stonking bad luck that bouncer just happened to be going on his dinner break at the exact minute we were getting out of Slim’s office or we would probably have made a clean getaway. It was even worse luck that he was one of the goons that had actually put James in the tumble dryer in the first place, so there was no way no how we were going to stop, even if he’d asked nicely. Which he didn’t. But he yelled a lot.

He was still yelling at us as we charged out the fire door and into the alley behind the club then up to behind the bins where James’s moped was parked. And even though he sounded a lot more puffed out, he was still shouting at us to bloody well stop as James shoved a helmet on my head and picked me up and plonked me right on the back of the bike. Me, Norman Foreman, who can’t even ride a pushbike that good, on an actual moped!

Hold on tight, Norman, this could get rough, he goes. And it did too. Because James took off at top speed down the alley right back towards where Slim’s goon was standing with his arms out. Still yelling at us to stop. But James didn’t stop, no way no how. He just kept right on going until we got to the top of the alley. Even though the moped was bouncing all over the place, I held on tight to James and dared to turn around for a look. The last thing I saw was Slim’s goon lying face down in a big pile of black bin bags with his arms in the air and his big old bum poking out a split in his pants for all the world to see.

James took the corner at a million miles an hour and we jumped the gutter and landed on to Lothian Road with a massive skid. It was just like a movie, and that was how I came to make up the first real joke I ever made by myself without Jax, about James and the Giant Screech. And it’s a pretty good one too.

47Sadie

Apparently, some people do die from a small-bowel obstruction, but it turned out I wasn’t quite that interesting. I was the type of person who carried the remnants of a dodgy surgery around for thirty-two years without even considering that all that recent pushing and shoving behind my scar might have been something I should sit up and take notice of. The type that puts a steadily worsening pain down to stress, constipation or the past trying to make a break for it. And hoping, as per usual, that if I ignored it, it would disappear. Which, just by the by, sometimes really does work.

There are probably three things worth mentioning about my trip to Wishaw Hospital in the back of Dicky’s taxi. The first is that I actually got there in the same number of pieces as I started, because while Dicky’s sense of urgency was admirable under the circumstances, collapsed out-of-towner and all that, I do recall thinking the possibility of him killing me before I had a chance to die of my own accord seemed fairly reasonable at the time.

The second thing is that the reason we were even on our way to Wishaw Hospital was because Plan A had gone to porridge due to the fact that the emergency department of the local hospital, which was less than five minutes away, was closed. Don’t ask. All I can say is that if you’re planning on visiting that part of the world, don’t have a medical emergency on the same day as the annual cider-and-scone hospital fundraiser. Unless, of course, you want to run the risk of having to make use of Dicky’s services to get you to the next-closest hospital. That’s not meant to sound tempting. Refer back to the first point, if you’re feeling tempted.

The third thing (which if you believe in fate is exactly what was meant to happen in the giant pre-ordained plan of the universe) is that the fastest route to Wishaw Hospital just happened to be along the same road a dapper old gentleman in his Austin had been on when said vehicle had given up the ghost.

Now, even though it’s all a bit of a blur, I wasn’t quite so out of it that I don’t remember that the overwhelming feeling that en veloped me when I tipped over on that bench and lay there drifting in and out of consciousness while Mrs Dicky and the Goth girl fussed around me was relief. Relief that, finally, here was something that really and truly was out of my hands. There was nothing I could do, so I could do nothing. And just for that magnificent blurry crease in time, I could let all my problems become somebody else’s. For as long as it lasted, anyhow.

So even when I opened my eyes just in time to see the Austin as we whizzed past, once I’d mustered the strength to convey politely to Dicky that I needed him to stop (Dickyyyyyyyyyy! Bloody stopppppppppp!), and we’d reversed back along the verge to stop in front of a very startled Leonard, I’m a little bit ashamed to say that I decided I was going to make my moment last. Leaving Dicky and Leonard to work it out for themselves, I simply closed