When I heard someone yell out, oi! you two! really loud, I swear my heart fell right down through my clothes and into my trainers and started squishing around in my socks. Then the voice shouted, didn’t I bloody well tell you to get those bloody desserts out to the buffet ten minutes ago and bloody MOOOVE IT! I took a quick sideways look over to where it was coming from, hoping that it wasn’t for us and that me and James could just keep walking right out through those doors, because they were only a couple of steps away. But it was for us.

The guy with the voice was dressed exactly the same as me and James, but I tell you what, I know for sure they weren’t his uniforms we’d borrowed out of the dryer because he was a real-life ginormous giant. It looked like someone had stood one person on top of another for a joke and just added one angry head on top. And that big angry head was eyeballing us down the barrel, and even though James was still holding on to my jacket and pushing, my legs just stopped moving and he ran right into the back of me. I thought right there and then that the piggin’ jig was up and that Slim’s guys were going to come and put me and James both back in the tumble dryer and I was never going to see my mum again.

But just when I thought the guy’s eyes were about to pop right out of his giant head and fall into the frying pan he had in his hand he swiveled around in the other direction and started yelling even louder at someone else. I didn’t get it all, but it was something about julienning someone’s bollocks and kicking their arse into a month of Sundays with his bare feet.

All of a sudden James yelled right into my ear, aye, boss, we’re on it! Then he pulled me over to a big silver bench full of trays with rows and rows of what looked like thousands of little bird’s nests filled with fruit and cream. He let go of me and whispered, quick, grab one, Norman. I didn’t think we really had time to be snacking, even though they did look pretty good, but just as I was about to reach for one I saw James picking up a whole tray and I realized that’s what he meant. Grab a whole tray, not just one. And all I could think was that those trays looked pretty heavy.

My hat had fallen down a bit over one of my eyes so I had to turn my head right around to see James, and he was just looking back down at me and waiting. He wasn’t asking if I could manage it or was it too much or was I okay to balance it or anything. Just, like, grab one, Norman. Waiting for me to pick up one of those huge trays, like it wasn’t the biggest and heaviest thing I’d actually ever lifted up in my life. Like I could do it. No question about it. Come on you, teeny tiny flucker! Just try. And like a perfect secret agent, I winked (I actually winked!) at him and nodded my head just enough so he could see it and then I grabbed one of those trays with both hands.