Cover

A MESSAGE FROM CHICKEN HOUSE

Make a wish! And another! And another! And another! What could go wrong? Well, maybe getting what you wish for doesn’t always turn out to be what you really want. Brandon Robshaw tries it all out in his funny and rather revealing story of the boy who has it all.

Here I go, I wish for . . . Oh, no, I didn’t mean it! Urghh!

BARRY CUNNINGHAM

Publisher

Chicken House

Title Page

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

People often talk about having butterflies in their stomachs. Butterflies? With me it was . . . bees! Bats! Birds! Lobsters, snapping their claws!

It was a bright morning in early September and I was all kitted out in my brand-new school uniform: dark-grey trousers and blazer, white shirt, tie with diagonal red, black and white stripes. New black shoes without a scuff on them. Two-day-old haircut. My Adidas shoulder bag had a new calculator in it, along with a collection of pens, a geometry set and my packed lunch, which consisted of a cheese-and-coleslaw sandwich, an orange and a fruit-and-nut cereal bar.

I was sitting in the kitchen, trying to eat my toast. The sun was streaming through the window, the radio was on and the DJ sounded insanely cheerful. ‘Happy Monday, everyone!’ and all that. It was all right for him. All he had to do was lounge about in a studio, play records, burble on and get paid shed-loads of money for it. He didn’t have to go to a great big massive new school with a thousand kids in it.

All bigger than him.

‘Are you all right?’ my mum said. She always knows when I’ve got something on my mind. It’s like she’s telepathic. ‘Not too worried?’

‘He should be!’ said Maeve. ‘They’ll eat him alive!’

Ben was so shocked he stopped scratching his head. ‘Eat him alive? They’ll go to prison if they eat him alive!’

‘It’s just an expression,’ Mum said. ‘Don’t worry, Sam. They won’t eat you alive.’

‘You don’t know the place like I do, Mum,’ said Maeve. She finished there last year and she’s about to start sixth-form college. ‘There are some real psychos.’

‘Be quiet!’ said Mum. ‘Don’t be so mean! Don’t you worry about those psychos, Sam. Just keep out of their way.’

‘Oh, yeah, that’s a really good idea, Mum,’ I said. Touch of sarcasm there, you know.

‘Oh, come here!’ Mum said, and she got up and hugged me, pressing me to her like I was a really little kid again. Only in those days my head only came up to her waist and now it was almost level with hers. And for a moment I wished I was a little boy again, with nothing to do except swing on swings and dig in sandpits and play with my toys and eat sweets and watch CBeebies . . .