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

a good grip with him all higgledy-piggedly in the dryer like that, but he kept really still and said good lad, and ye havnae to worry about hurting me, just go for it. Pull away. So I just went for it and when I took out the phone, after a couple of tries of pulling really hard I got the first knot loose, and then the second one just came undone and the tea towel slipped right off his hands.

When James climbed out of the dryer I knew I was right about the rock-star thing. He was wearing a long black coat, tight black jeans and a skinny silver scarf around his neck. His hair was dead black and stuck out in every direction, and I didn’t know if it was because he’d been through a few cycles of the tumble dryer or if he did it like that on purpose. In the end I decided it was probably a bit of both. And when James the rock star stuck out his hand and goes, you’re a wee lifesaver, Norman, and no mistake, I was so proud I thought I might pee.

Straight away I realized that getting out of the Whisky-a-Go-Go Gentlemen’s Club with James was going to be a whole lot harder than getting in, even though you’d think it’d be just a matter of going out the laundry door, back up the hallway, out into the alley and off to start looking for Mum. But James said that if I didn’t mind we needed to take a little detour first.

I know that some paedos and axe murderers only pretend to be good people to get your trust so they can trick you and all that, but I just had a feeling that anyone who looked and sounded as cool as James couldn’t be a bad guy. Also when the thought of paedos and axe murderers came into my head I remembered that I’d actually called him. So, like, if he was one, he’d have to be the luckiest bad guy in the world, wouldn’t he?

Anyhow, it turned out the reason James was in that tumble dryer was because he was having a wee spot of bother with a guy called Slim McGinty the Robbing Bastard. Slim’s shonky blackjack dealers at the Whisky-a-Go-Go had been swindling James’s dad’s pension money out of him every week for three months because he had a liking for cheap whisky, which then made him get a liking for gambling. Which made him lose all reason, James said, which made him gamble his pension money, which meant he couldn’t pay his mooring fees because of money troubles, which meant he was in danger of losing his houseboat. Which actually was his house and not just some old boat.

Every time James said Slim McGinty’s name he shook his head and then he’d say the robbing you-know-what. And he definitely did sound like one, because James had heard from a guy who knew a guy who talked to a guy that worked at the Whisky-a-Go-Go that Slim’s dealers were paid to cheat at blackjack. So I reckon it was totally unfair that James’s dad had lost all his money to a bunch of cheats, and one never knows, maybe if the dealers hadn’t been shonky he could have been a millionaire and looking to upgrade to a yacht instead of wondering how he was going to pay for his moorings after losing all his pension to Slim McGinty. The Robbing Bastard.

Anyhow, James reckoned he just did what any good son would do, which was to come to the gentlemen’s club to politely ask Slim for some of his dad’s money back. Not even all of it, just the last two hundred pounds that he’d lost the night before. Just the last straw is what he called it. But when James showed up at the club pretending to be a customer and then snuck upstairs to the office to have a wee chat to Slim, he reckons he didnae get a very nice welcome.

Slim didn’t just threaten to beat James up for even asking, when James said he was going to the police if he didn’t at least give some of the money back, he called two massive bouncers into his office and they took the keys to James’s moped and tied him up and put him in the tumble dryer. Because Slim didn’t have time to deal with him due to the fact that he was running late to get to his mum’s ninetieth birthday party.

Now can ye imagine that, Norman? he goes. Stick a bloke in a tumble dryer just because you’re away to get minced? Nae bloody manners at all. James sounded just like Frankie Boyle and I really wished Jax could have been there to hear him. And then when James said about needing to detour to get the keys to his moped and maybe even his dad’s money and was that OK with me, I really, really wished Jax could have been there. To hear me say yes.

James said that a twelve-year-old kid wasn’t exactly the regular kind of punter they got at the Whisky-a-Go-Go so it might be best if I wore a disguise just in case anyone asked questions. But even though you’d think a laundry would be a pretty good place to find a disguise because of being full of clothes, everything we pulled out of the dryers looked the same. Out of three giant big tumble dryers the only things in there were a load of black and white checked trousers and a mountain of white jackets. So, James reckoned, kitchen staff it was.

James held up all the trousers against me until he found the smallest ones, which were still about a million times too big for me. But when I put them on over the top of my jeans and turned them up a few times he reckoned I looked the business. I didn’t let on they