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

Before Mum saw the new plan and decided we were going to make it come true I never had to think about how it would really and truly feel to have to get up and try and do comedy without Jax. But then suddenly it was only a week until we left and I had to think about it pretty much all the time. Even though I’ve got the best mum in the world and she sat there and listened to my jokes every single morning and every single afternoon to try and help me, even when she already knew the punchlines, how much I missed Jax got in the way quite a lot.

Sometimes when it got in the way so much that my skin started itching like it was going to turn itself inside out, I’d go down to the beach and sit there and try to guess the distance between the horizon and infinity, like me and Jax used to, which made me feel a bit better. Also, when I was sitting on the beach it felt like there was still the smallest chance that Jax might creep up behind me and hit me in the head with a massive sand ball, like he used to. And then lie there doing sand angels on the beach, cracking up laughing because he got me again. Gotcha again, Normie-boy! You’ll never learn! Woohoo, I’m the best, sand balls to the rest!

I’ll tell you something though. Most of the time I actually did know when he was coming because I could see his shadow coming out of the corner of my eye way before he got there. But I never said. Because getting hit in the head with a sand ball by Jax is about the best fun you could ever have.

Once when I was on the beach waiting for the sand ball that’s never going to come and trying not to think about how much I missed Jax, I wondered how I’d feel if one of my arms got cut off and whether that’d feel worse. I decided missing Jax still hurt more and then even when I worked my way through all my major body parts it was the same for everything. So then I thought about trying to do a deal with God. Just in case. Because I thought maybe he’d consider swapping one of my eyes, or a couple of arms, or a leg or two in exchange for bringing Jax back. Or both eyes and an ear even. I got the deal right down to me being a blind, deaf, no-talking torso sitting on the beach and I still decided that would be OK if only I could have Jaxy back sitting next to me.

But it didn’t look like God was in the mood for deals that day, or else Mum is right. Because when I went home I still had all my body parts and Jax was still dead. And I still had to finish the plan without him.

I reckon me without Jax is like Morecambe without Wise or Abbott without Costello or, worst of all, Vic without Bob. Me and Jax were perfect together because I was the one that set him up for all the good lines and he was the one who picked them up and ran with them. Sometimes he ran so fast and so far away with them I couldn’t keep up, but he always made it fun to try. And trying is the only way that anyone ever gets anything done, Jax says.

‘Just try, you teeny tiny flucker,’ he always says. Which he reckons doesn’t count as swearing because it isn’t his fault if people can’t listen properly. And the thing is, being with Jax always makes me want to try, even though probably more than half the time the things he makes me try aren’t the best idea. But they’re always the most fun. So even when I was laughing so hard at the teeny tiny flucker thing I thought I’d pee, I’d always try to do whatever it was he was trying to make me do.

If you want a for instance, it’s like the time we were nine and he made me squeeze through the one broken paling gap in our back fence to pick some of Mrs Egerton’s roses for Mum, with him pushing my bum with his foot to get me through and going come on you little flucker, you can do it. I made it too, but then when I had to try to squeeze back through that one paling gap without his foot to help me on the other side Jax said that the sight of half my head, one leg and one arm sticking through the fence holding a rose out in front of me was the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his life.

He also said just try, you teeny tiny flucker, when we were ten and I’d said I couldn’t get up in front of a couple of the bigger kids at school and do our version of a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore ‘Derek and Clive’ sketch. But then I tried and even though he did all the hard work and I just fed him the lines, we did it. And that was the only time we’d ever been able to make those kids really laugh hard and not just because Jax swore a lot.

The teachers didn’t laugh though, when they heard. We got detention for a month, but boy was it worth it. Mum even said she was proud of me because it reminded her of something Grandad would have done. So every day for a month when we were sat there in detention doing extra homework I didn’t even care. Because even though it was really, really hard for me, I’d tried and done it. And because who wouldn’t want to be compared to an almost famous comedian like