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Dedication

Voor Lara, Ik hou meer van je, dan ik met woorden kan zeggen

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1 - Meet Joe Spud

Chapter 2 - Bum Boy

Chapter 3 - Who’s the Fattiest?

Chapter 4 - “Loo Rolls?”

Chapter 5 - Out of Date Easter Eggs

Chapter 6 - The Grubbs

Chapter 7 - Gerbils on Toast

Chapter 8 - The Witch

Chapter 9 - “Finger?”

Chapter 10 - Dog Spit

Chapter 11 - Camping Holiday

Chapter 12 - Page 3 Stunna

Chapter 13 - New Girl

Chapter 14 - The Shape of a Kiss

Chapter 15 - Nip and Tuck

Chapter 16 - Peter Bread

Chapter 17 - A Knock on the Toilet Door

Chapter 18 - The Vortex 3000

Chapter 19 - A Baboon’s Bottom

Chapter 20 - A Beach Ball Rolled in Hair

Chapter 21 - A GCSE in Make-Up

Chapter 22 - A New Chapter

Chapter 23 - Canal Boat Weekly

Chapter 24 - The Rajmobile

Chapter 25 - Broken

Chapter 26 - A Blizzard of Banknotes

Postscript

Thank yous

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chapter 1 Meet Joe Spud

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a million pounds?

Or a billion?

How about a trillion?

Or even a gazillion?

Meet Joe Spud.

Joe didn’t have to imagine what it would be like to have loads and loads and loads of money. He was only twelve, but he was ridiculously, preposterously rich.

Joe had everything he could ever want.

 100-inch plasma widescreen flat-screen high-definition TV in every room in the house

 500 pairs of Nike trainers

 A grand-prix racetrack in the back garden

 A robot dog from Japan

 A golf buggy with the number plate ‘SPUD 2’ to drive around the grounds of his house

 A waterslide which went from his bedroom into an indoor Olympic-sized swimming pool

 Every computer game in the world

 3-D IMAX cinema in the basement

 A crocodile

 24-hour personal masseuse

 Underground 10-lane bowling alley

 Snooker table

 Popcorn dispenser

 Skateboard park

 Another crocodile

 £100,000 a week pocket money

 A rollercoaster in the back garden

 A professional recording studio in the attic

 Personalised football coaching from the England team

 A real-life shark in a tank

In short, Joe was one horribly spoilt kid. He went to a ridiculously posh school. He flew on private planes whenever he went on holiday. Once, he even had Disneyworld closed for the day, just so he wouldn’t have to queue for any rides.

Here’s Joe. Speeding around his own private racetrack in his own Formula One racing car.

Some very rich children have miniature versions of cars specially built for them. Joe wasn’t one of those children. Joe needed his Formula One car made a bit bigger. He was quite fat, you see. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? If you could buy all the chocolate in the world.

You will have noticed that Joe is on his own in that picture. To tell the truth, speeding around a racetrack isn’t that much fun when you are on your own, even if you do have a squillion pounds. You really need someone to race against. The problem was Joe didn’t have any friends. Not one.

 Friends

Now, driving a Formula One car and unwrapping a king-size Mars Bar are two things you shouldn’t try and do at the same time. But it had been a few moments since Joe had last eaten and he was hungry. As he entered the chicane, he tore open the wrapper with his teeth and took a bite of the delicious chocolate-coated nougat and caramel. Unfortunately, Joe only had one hand on the steering wheel, and as the wheels of the car hit the verge, he lost control.

The multi-million-pound Formula One car careered off the track, span around, and hit a tree.

The tree was unharmed. But the car was a write-off. Joe squeezed himself out of the cockpit. Luckily Joe wasn’t hurt, but he was a little dazed, and he tottered back to the house.

“Dad, I crashed the car,” said Joe as he entered the palatial living room.

Mr Spud was short and fat, just like his son. Hairier in a lot of places too, apart from his head – which was bald and shiny. Joe’s dad was sitting on a hundred-seater crocodile skin sofa and didn’t look up from reading that day’s copy of the Sun.

“Don’t worry Joe,” he said. “I’ll buy you another one.”

Joe slumped down on the sofa next to his dad.

“Oh, happy birthday, by the way, Joe.” Mr Spud handed an envelope to his son, without taking his eyes off the girl on Page 3.

Joe opened the envelope eagerly. How much money was he going to receive this year? The card, which read ‘Happy 12^th Birthday Son’, was quickly discarded in favour of the cheque inside.

Joe could barely disguise his disappointment. “One million pounds?” he scoffed. “Is that all?”

“What’s the matter, son?” Mr Spud put down his newspaper for a moment.

“You gave me a million last year,” whined Joe. “When I turned eleven. Surely I should get more now I’m twelve?”

Mr Spud reached into the pocket of his shiny grey designer suit and pulled out his chequebook. His suit was horrible, and horribly expensive. “I’m so sorry son,” he said. “Let’s make it two million.”

Now, it’s important you realise that Mr Spud had not always been this rich.

Not so long ago the Spud family had lived a very humble life. From the age of sixteen, Mr Spud worked in a vast loo-roll factory on the outskirts of town. Mr Spud’s job at the factory was sooooo boring. He had to roll the paper around the cardboard inner tube.

Roll after roll.

Day after day.

Year after year.

Decade after decade.

This he did, over and over again, until nearly all his hope had gone. He would stand all day by the conveyor belt with hundreds of other bored workers, repeating the same mind-numbing task. Every time the paper was rolled onto one cardboard tube, the whole thing started again. And every loo roll was the same. Because the family was so poor, Mr Spud used to make birthday and Christmas presents for his son from the loo-roll inner tubes. Mr Spud never had enough money to buy Joe all the latest toys, but would make him something like a loo-roll racing car, or a loo-roll fort complete with dozens of loo-roll soldiers. Most of them got broken and ended up in the bin. Joe did manage to save a sad looking little loo-roll space rocket, though he wasn’t sure why.

The only good thing about working in a factory was that Mr Spud had lots of time to daydream. One day he had a daydream that was to revolutionise bottom wiping forever.

Why not invent a loo roll that is moist on one side and dry on the other? he thought, as he rolled paper around his thousandth roll of the day. Mr Spud kept his idea top-secret and toiled for hours locked in the bathroom of their little council flat getting his new double-sided loo roll exactly right.

When Mr Spud finally launched ‘Freshbum’, it was an instant phenomenon. Mr Spud sold a billion rolls around the world every day. And every time a roll was sold, he made 10p. It all added up to an awful lot of money, as this simple maths equation shows.

Joe Spud was only eight at the time ‘Freshbum’ was launched, and his life was turned upside down in a heartbeat. First, Joe’s mum and dad split up. It turned out that for many years Joe’s mum Carol had been having a torrid affair with Joe’s Cub Scout leader, Alan. She took a ten-billion-pound divorce settlement; Alan swapped his canoe for a gigantic yacht. Last anyone had heard, Carol and Alan were sailing off the coast of Dubai, pouring vintage champagne on their Crunchy Nut Cornflakes every morning. Joe’s dad seemed to get over the split quickly and began going on dates with an endless parade of Page 3 girls.

Soon father and son moved out of their poky council flat and into an enormous stately home. Mr Spud named it ‘Freshbum Towers’.

The house was so large it was visible from outer space. It took five minutes just to motor up the drive. Hundreds of newly-planted, hopeful little trees lined the mile-long gravel track. The house had seven kitchens, twelve sitting rooms, forty-seven bedrooms and eighty-nine bathrooms.

Even the bathrooms had en-suite bathrooms. And some of those en-suite bathrooms had en-en-suite bathrooms.

Despite living there for a few years, Joe had probably only ever explored around a quarter of the main house. In the endless grounds were tennis courts, a boating lake, a helipad and even a 100m ski-slope complete with mountains of fake snow. All the taps, door handles and even toilet seats were solid gold. The carpets were made from mink fur, he and his dad drank orange squash from priceless antique medieval goblets, and for a while they had a butler called Otis who was also an orangutan. But he had to be given the sack.

“Can I have a proper present as well, Dad?” said Joe, as he put the cheque in his trouser pocket. “I mean, I’ve got loads of money already.”

“Tell me what you want, son, and I’ll get one of my assistants to buy it,” said Mr Spud. “Some solid gold sunglasses? I’ve got a pair. You can’t see out of ’em but they are very expensive.”

Joe yawned.

“Your own speedboat?” ventured Mr Spud.

Joe rolled his eyes. “I’ve got two of those. Remember?”

“Sorry, son. How about a quarter of a million pounds worth of WH Smith vouchers?”

“Boring! Boring! Boring!” Joe stamped his feet in frustration. Here was a boy with high-class problems.

Mr Spud looked forlorn. He wasn’t sure there was anything left in the world that he could buy his only child. “Then what, son?”

Joe suddenly had a thought. He pictured himself going round the racetrack all on his own, racing against himself. “Well, there is something I really want…” he said, tentatively.

“Name it, son,” said Mr Spud.

“A friend.”