The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson (e book reader online txt) 📕

were looking for in the first place. A bit like Mum’s cooking. Jax says that’s called synchronicity, and I don’t even have to google that because unless he’s telling proper on purpose lies for a good reason, Jax is always right.

Anyhow, one never knows means that no matter how much you think you know, even if you go to university and get honours in astrophysics and make a moped that can get you to Venus, which by the way was one of Jax’s actual ideas minus the honours degree, the one thing you’ll never be able to know is the future. Not even what’s going to happen in the very next second. No matter how many guesses or phone-a-friends you had.

I know gazillions of people probably would have said one never knows before the Pearly Kings and Queens, but they helped loads and loads of poor people by turning it into their Pearly Motto. They believe you should always try to help those that aren’t as lucky as you and maybe don’t have stuff, like food, or their own room, or even a mum. Because you just never know what could happen tomorrow or next week or next year, and maybe one day it could be you that needs the help.

Jax reckons he might start the Pearly Kings of Penzance one day and that if you keep those three words in the back of your head that’s pretty much all you’ll ever need to be a good person. And I reckon he’s right. Except I don’t think most people have those words in the back of their head when they think of Jax. Because most people only see the side that gets him into trouble, and even though I know he does actually do a fair bit of naughty stuff, it’s a pretty big shame nobody ever really notices the good stuff.

Like here’s a for instance. Instead of eating the mini Crunchie bar his mum puts in his lunch box every day, he walks for an extra ten minutes in the morning to give it to this old lady who sits at the bus stop out the front of her bedsit on Bay Terrace and talks to herself. And every day, even though he’s been doing it for absolute ages, when he hands her the mini Crunchie bar she always looks at it like he’s just handed her an alien light saber and goes, what’s this? It cracks him up.

One day when Jax was home sick with a bad asthma attack he made me do a Crunchie Run after school because he said the old lady would have been waiting for her treat all day. When I got to the bus stop she was still sitting there just like he said she would be, and when I handed her the mini Crunchie she looked at it and then looked at me and goes, what’s this? Geez, it cracked me up.

Mum notices the good stuff about Jax though, and she reckons he’s the equal best kid in the world. I know she means it too, because she lets him come over every day whenever he likes and never sends him home until he wants to go. And I know I’m talking about Jax like he’s still here but I’m probably going to stop doing that one day.

8

First rule of comedy: Always have a plan.

When me and Jax made our Five Year Plan we figured that by the time we were fifteen we’d have hopefully saved enough money for a hotel and the train from Penzance to Edinburgh. Which takes eleven hours and costs ninety-five pounds on a cheap ticket. Even if the prices went up we reckoned with another few years of birthday and Christmas money it was doable.

The plan was to stay in the Premier Inn in Edinburgh, because that’s where Lenny Henry said he stays all over Britain, although Mum reckons it’s possible he doesn’t actually stay there and he’s just getting paid to say he does. I really hope Lenny’s not a liar though, even if most people say he must be because of when he did the dirty on Dawn.

Mum promised she’d come with us too, which was good because a couple of kids probably shouldn’t be going all the way from Penzance to Scotland on their own even when they’re fifteen. Also, Edinburgh is where she used to go to university before I was born so she thought maybe she’d like to see it again by then. Also, I don’t think I’d want to go a whole few days without seeing my mum. Not even when I’m fifteen.

Me and Jax know everything about the Edinburgh Fringe. Well, all the important stuff anyhow, like who’s been the headline acts ever since it started in 1947 and who was the comedy dark horse for each year and who the Guardian said came up with the best joke of the festival.

Mum says the Fringe is almost as big an event in our house as the actual festival, which is pretty funny and also probably true, I reckon. She lets me stay up really late to watch as many of the comedy shows as possible on telly and Jax is allowed to sleep over even on school nights. On the Friday and Saturday we stay up all night and take loads of notes about who we liked and what they wore and what people said in the after-show interviews. So we’ll be ready for when it’s our turn. And then Mum lets us sleep all day and makes us cheesy toast when we wake up.

When we made the Five Year Plan we made sure we thought of everything, because Jax reckons having a plan is the first rule of comedy. He’s got loads of those by the way. Last year he even made a book of all the first rules of comedy and gave it to me for my eleventh birthday. It’s not really