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

wake up a bit more I started thinking about if that’s what Jax felt like the last time he was awake. Before he wasn’t. Like he was in a speeding rocket heading for space and looking back and seeing the Earth spiralling below him. I hope so, because he would have loved that, no matter how scared he was.

Even though I still looked pretty bad I actually felt pretty good when I woke up after our Chinese tea party, which is what Leonard called it. Of course I knew it wasn’t really like some miracle cure or anything, because I reckon my psoriasis is always going to come back. What I mean is, and it’s not like I’ve ever said this to Mum or anything, but I know pretty much for sure that it’s an actual proper supposed-to-be-there part of me. Like an arm or a leg or an ear. And sometimes I don’t even mind.

Anyhow, all I knew for sure was that my outsides hadn’t felt that good since before Jax went. Loads of bits of my skin had fallen off while I was asleep and it was all lying around me on the bed, and even though that was kind of gross it was also a bit cool. But the absolute best thing was that nothing seemed to hurt like it did before. Not even the scabs that were still attached to me. And it was weird, but it seemed like maybe my insides felt a little bit better too.

I knew it was going to be one of the good ones as soon as Leonard put that Chinese tea stuff on my skin, because it was like my whole entire body stopped itching straight away and everything just kind of relaxed. I reckon it was probably the best and most amazing thing I’ve ever used, and it didn’t even smell bad. Because by the way that’s usually how it works, that the worse the smell is, the better the ointment does its job.

It was also the first time I’ve ever put something on my skin and then got to drink the rest, and if you smelled some of the other stuff I’ve used, that would probably make you feel quite happy for me. Jax once said that the one I got Mum to put on me before Leonard’s tea smelled like the wee of a thousand Egyptian camels. Which he would know, because he went to Egypt in the school holidays a few years ago with his mum and step dad and actually got to ride one, which is the coolest thing ever. But even that cream doesn’t really work that well, to be honest.

After she woke up, once Mum got over how happy she was that the Chinese tea had actually done something she told me about meeting Adam Linley, who could be my dad. She said she’d found out loads of things about him and that none of them were too good, except then she said he wanted to meet me. Just in case, he reckoned. Mum said it was up to me because she’d already seen quite enough of Adam Linley, thank you very much. But she smiled when she said it so I knew she really did mean that it was up to me and that maybe he wasn’t that bad.

I was trying to take some thinking time so I would be able to make the right decision, but all I kept thinking about was how good it felt that the itching had stopped. Usually I itch in at least a few places almost all of the time, and it’s really just a matter of how much. So in the end I felt so happy about the absolutely no itching situation I said that I would go and meet Adam.

I decided I didn’t really mind if I had to sit and listen to his entire life story like Mum had to, because me and Jax reckon that even the worst episode of EastEnders (which is what Mum said Adam’s life reminded her of) is still pretty good. And because so what if Adam didn’t want to know me and Mum, like Dan McStinky didn’t? Who cares? But mainly I decided that I should go and meet him because one never knows and because I reckon Jax would definitely have told me, don’t be a pussy, Normie.

Mum texted Adam and told him we’d meet him at a Costa that wasn’t too far from our hotel, because of neutral territory and safety in numbers. That last bit is what she said to me, not him, by the way. Plus, she said, we could use the excuse of having to get back to the hotel to pack if we wanted to ditch him, which seemed like a pretty smart idea, considering everything she’d said about him being a bit rude and such a Negative Neville and all that.

Mum told me that when I met Adam I wasn’t to take a bit of notice of anything he said, because he was full of himself and he had no filter and she was really sorry she’d put me in the position of him possibly being my dad. She said that, in her defence, she didn’t actually remember him being quite that bad when she first met him, but that was a story for another time and she was sorry about that too.

It was probably due to not being itchy for the first time in forever but for some reason I didn’t even feel nervous about meeting Adam. While Mum was in the shower I even made up a funny rhyme, which used to mainly be Jax’s job, so I was quite surprised when it just popped into my head. When she got out of the bathroom I asked if she wanted to hear it and when I stood up and said, ‘Who cares about Adam’s bitching, because I ain’t itching,’ she laughed and laughed. Actually, she laughed so much