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

if to say ‘Don’t worry, he’s harmless.’ At least, I hoped that’s what the wink said. It could well have been ‘Quick, you call the police while I padlock the Guinness tap and hide the axe.’ I had no way of knowing.

So there it was, and even though the crowd at Norman’s first solo public debut was record-smashingly small, the show did indeed go on. He delivered the jokes, his parts and Jax’s, too. Shovelling through the words like he was open-cut mining. Too fast, too slow, and sometimes skipping ahead before his brain could catch up with his mouth. But pressing on, hoping nobody would notice.

All the way through it, Leonard held on to a handful of fanned-out Post-it notes, shuffling through them, mouthing along. Occasionally looking confused when Norman jumped ahead, doing some more shuffling, and then looking relieved when he found one to match. But as Norman spilled his heart out on an upturned milk crate, I was thinking about something else altogether.

Because about two minutes into his routine, right after the joke about a London black-cab driver on a Boris Bike, I’d felt my bag vibrating. I snuck a look at my phone to see a barely familiar name illuminated in green and I covered up the muffled noise with a sudden round of applause, much to the surprise of the others. The phone let out a final shiver as the voicemail message sign lit up, and the ceasefire in my stomach was over. Dan McLachlan. Back in the game.

23NORMAN

First rule of comedy: Three is the funniest number.

I don’t even know who John Keats is, but I bet he’d be really happy that Big Al recited his poem at the Noble Goat. And I know he should have won the open mic really, but Lou was the judge and she said that I won by a tit’s whisker. Which doesn’t sound like much, but Big Al said she had him there, so it was official.

The prize was ten pounds and two packets of pork scratchings, which Big Al ate most of anyhow, so I figured that was fair. He also seemed to be saving quite a few in his beard for later, and when I saw that I made a quick note in my head to try to remember to write it down on an actual Post-it note so I could maybe use it in a joke. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew that if I thought hard enough and tried to imagine Jax there helping me, I could most probably think of something pretty funny about that.

After we’d finished the pork scratchings Lou said it was closing time, but then she brought us over another tray of drinks and sat down with us at the table. Big Al even gave me a sip of his pint. To celebrate the win he said, but he checked with Mum first. When she said it was OK I felt a little bit bad because everyone thought it was my first time. But it wasn’t, and not even Mum knew that I’d actually drunk beer before. A lot of it.

Last year four cans of lager fell out of Jax’s stepdad’s fridge in the garage and right into the bottom of his school bag. Well, anyhow, that’s his story and I’m sticking to it. They sat in his bag all day, but I knew it wouldn’t be long before Jax’s ideas factory came up with a plan. And I was right because after school Jax goes, let’s go over to Mrs Ackerman’s cow paddock and drink them. As an experiment to see if lager makes you any funnier. Well, I drank one and Jax drank two and we were supposed to share the last one, but I couldn’t drink any more because the paddock was spinning and the cows were going all blurry and Jax couldn’t stop laughing at me hiccupping and trying to make up jokes in case lager actually did make you funnier. Then Mrs Sorrenson from the Post Office walked past with her dog and said what did we think we were doing and if we weren’t careful she was going to tell our mothers. And then I fell asleep.

When I woke up I was hugging my one empty can and there were three empty cans beside Jax and he looked so green I almost couldn’t see him in the cow paddock. Although that could also have been my fuzzy lager eyes, I suppose. Then Jax threw up, which made me throw up, and after that we felt a bit better and did a pinkie swear that we’d never tell anyone about that day if by chance Mrs Sorrenson didn’t. Even though it was a bit of a shame, because we were pretty sure we’d thought up some really funny material while we were drunk and we didn’t have any Post-its with us. I mean, I suppose we were drunk. I don’t really know how you’re supposed to feel when you’re drunk, but whatever we were felt pretty good until it felt really awful.

We spent the whole next afternoon in my room trying to remember those jokes we’d found so funny out there in Mrs Ackerman’s cow paddock. Jax called it the Lost Lager Sessions and even though he said it was going to be just down to science and persistence, because they had to be in our brains somewhere, we never did remember them. But I’ll tell you something. One day I will, because I’m not ever going to stop trying.

When Lou said, OK, it really was closing time now, Leonard said that we’d better be getting back to Toad Hall before Bill locks us out anyhow. Big Al and Mum gave each other their mobile numbers, although Mum didn’t seem too keen at first. But I said, please, please, please, and she did, because I really liked Big Al and I think maybe she did too. I felt