Here is an excerpt from Worried Mum, Volume 2 of a new series, Pesky Parents and Ridiculous Relatives. It is only available online. Hope you like it!
WORRIED MUM
by
DOMINIC BARKER
CHAPTER 1
“Hold
my hand, Oliver!”
“Mum!”
“I
said hold my hand, Oliver!”
“But
muuuuum!”
“Oliver
this is not up for discussion. We are crossing a road.”
“But
there’s nothing coming!”
“Not
at the moment.”
“But
we can see for almost a mile in both directions. There’s nothing coming for
like twenty minutes.”
“Oliver.
Give me your hand. Right, now!”
There’s
nothing to be done. I hand my hand over. My mum takes it firmly in hers and
leads me across the completely empty road.
“Phew!”
she says. “We’re safe across!”
I take my hand back and watch a toddler and
his mum walk across the road the other way. The toddler is allowed to do it on
his own.
That’s
the thing with my mum. She’s a good mum in lots of ways. But she is way, way
too worried. She worries about everything. And I can just about take it when
she does it in private. But private isn’t the only place where she does it…
CHAPTER 2
My
mum takes me to school. My teacher is waiting outside the classroom.
“I
just want to have a word with Mrs Murphy.”
Uh
Oh!
“Mum,”
I say. “She’s probably very busy and…”
“Nonsense,
Oliver,” my mum tells me. “She’s all by herself and not doing anything.”
“But…”
It’s
too late.
“Hello,
Mrs Murphy. I was just wondering if I could have a quick word about Oliver.”
Mrs
Murphy smiles.
“Is
there something about his school work that is concerning you?”
My
mum shakes her head.
“Then
what…?”
“I’m
very worried about his vests.”
Oh
no!
Mrs
Murphy looks puzzled
“His
vests?”
“Yes,”
my mum says. “I’ve noticed that when he leaves home in the morning his vest is
always tucked securely into his pants. However, very often when he returns
after a day at school his vest is loose.”
“Is
it?”
“Yes,”
says my mum. “And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you Mrs Murphy that when there
is a gap between vest and pants there is a risk of chilled kidneys.”
“Chilled
kidneys?” echoes Mrs Murphy faintly.
“I
worry about the temperature of Oliver’s kidneys.”
Mrs
Murphy doesn’t know what to say. No mother has ever worried about the
temperature of their child’s kidneys before.
“So
if you could keep an eye on Oliver’s vest for me I’d be very grateful.”
“You
mean as well as his progress in literacy and numeracy,” says Mrs Murphy.
I
think she’s being sarcastic but my mum doesn’t get it.
“Exactly,”
she says. “Goodbye, Oliver.”
My
mum heads back to the car. Mrs Murphy sighs.
CHAPTER 3
Worrying
too much in front of your teachers is bad enough. But it’s not the worst. Not
by a long way.
The
door bell rings.
I
open it. It’s Josh and Dan.
“Coming
down the park to play football,” says Josh.
“Yeah,”
I say. “Just let me get my…”
“Oliver!”
It’s
my mum.
“Who
are you talking to?”
“It’s
Josh and Dan. We’re going out to play football.”
My
mum comes out of the kitchen.
“Hello
Joshua. Hello Daniel.”
“Hello
Mrs Bettany.”
She
always calls them by their full names. Nobody else does. It’s so embarrassing.
“What
is this crazy talk about going to play football?”
Josh and Dan exchange glances.
“It’s
just football,” they tell her. “Down the park.”
“Yes,
mum,” I say. “It’s just football.”
“But
look at the sky!” says my mum.
We
look up. The sky is clear and blue.
“Er…what
are we looking for, mum?”
My
mum tuts.
“It’s
right in front of your face,” she says. And she points.
We
all look again. There’s one black cloud.
“There’s
a storm coming,” says my mum. “You’ll get to the park and there’ll be a
downpour. You’ll be soaking wet. Then you’ll catch a chill and then…”
“We’ll
just stand under a tree until it passes Mrs Bettany,” Josh promises.
“A
tree!” my mum repeats. “And what happens when the tree is struck by lightning,
its trunk splinters and it falls on your heads.”
“Er…”
says Josh.
“Hmmm…”
says Dan.
“Exactly,”
says my mother. “You hadn’t thought this through at all, had you?”
Josh
and Dan exchange glances.
“I
suppose we hadn’t Mrs Bettany.”
“So
Oliver will be staying inside with me until the storm has passed.”
“But
mum it’s boring inside.”
“Nonsense,
Oliver, I have some flowers that need pressing. Perhaps your friends would like
to join us.”
“No!”
says Josh quickly.
“We
should be getting back home,” agrees Dan.
“That
storm could hit at any minute.”
“That
cloud is really black.”
“Bye,
Oliver!”
“Bye,
Mrs Bettany.”
And
they both run off down the road..
“That’s
funny,” says my mum “I thought they both lived the other way. Isn’t that they
way to…”
“The
park,” I say glumly.
CHAPTER
4
It’s the next day at school. We’re
supposed to be doing numeracy.
“How was pressing flowers?” says
Dan.
“Shut up,” I tell him.
“I hope you got them really flat,”
adds Josh.
“Not funny.”
“We had a really boring time playing
football in the sunshine. And then we climbed some really boring trees. And
then we went…”
“I’m not listening.”
“Good because I don’t believe you
really want to hear about the fantastic thing….”
“La, la, la, la, la. Can’t
hear you.”
“Who is making all that noise?” It’s Mrs Murphy.
“Oliver Bettany! You are supposed to be doing mental arithmetic. That happens
inside your head, quietly, not while singing ‘La, la, la, la…’”
“Sorry, Miss.”
“Now show me your vest.”
“What, Miss?”
A wicked smile is playing on Mrs
Murphy’s lips. She takes great exception to people who disrupt numeracy.
Reluctantly, I pull up my shirt to
show her my vest is tucked in.
“Well done, Oliver,” she says. “I
may be worried about your sums but at least I can put my mind to rest about
your kidneys.”
The whole class are laughing at me.
CHAPTER 5
By break time in the playground it
seems the whole school is laughing at me.
“Is your vest still tucked in?”
shouts Johnny Horrocks.
“Hope you remembered to put your
underpants on this morning?” yells Lauren Gates.
Dan and Josh look at me and shake
their heads.
“What is going on, Oliver?”
“It’s my mum,” I explain. “She gets
worried. About everything. She worries if I want to go out in the rain in case
I catch a cold. She worries if want to go out in the sun in case I get
sunburnt. She worries if I want to go out when it’s windy unless I get blown
down a disused mineshaft.”
“A disused mineshaft?”
“She grew up in the North,” I
explain. “I suppose children must have been being blown down them all the time
when she was little. At least you’d think they were the way she talks.”
Lola Linctus is coming up to us.
Lola is the star of the drama club. Mr Strasberg who runs it says she is
excellent at accessing the extremes of emotions.
“Oliver,” she says. “I am in dire
need of assistance and only you can help me.”
The trouble with Lola is the
extremes of emotions are the only bits she’s good at accessing. Still at least
she’s not talking about my vest.
“What is it, Lola?”
“You understand that I am about to
ask you to embark on a perilous and dangerous course?”
“Just get to the point, Lola.”
She shakes her head.
“There may be physical danger. There
may be…”
“Lola!”
“Oh alright. I need someone to
practice my stage fighting on.”
“What?”
“I need to practice stage fighting.
And I need someone to pretend to beat up.”
She’s interrupted by three kids
running up to me.
“Is it a bird?” one cries,
“Is it a plane?” the second wonder.
“No!” the third tells them. “It’s
VEST BOY.”
And they all pull up their school
jumpers to reveal their vests.
“He protects his kidneys with only a
flimsy undergarment,” they shout in unison.
And then they run away, shrieking
with laughter. I look at Lola.
“On the day the entire school is
mocking me you think it would help to get beaten up by a girl.”
“We’d only be pretending,” insists
Lola.
“When I’m lying on the ground and
everyone’s laughing at me I’ll be sure to tell them that.”
“Is that a no?” says Lola.
“Yes!”
“I bet Angelina Jolie never had this
trouble,” says Lola stomping off.
A boy I’ve never seen before runs up
to me clutching something.
“Will you sign my vest, Vest Boy?”
she asks.
And then collapses into fits of
giggles.
The bell rings for class.
I’ve got to admit it’s a relief.
CHAPTER 6
“Mum,” I say that evening when we‘re
eating dinner. “Do you think that…”
“Oliver!” she interrupts. “How much
food is that on your fork?”
I look down.
“It’s a normal amount,” I say. “It’s
the amount that…”
“If you don’t choke on it you’ll
give yourself indigestion. How many times have I told you. Little pieces and
chew them carefully. Not half the meal in one mouthful and swallow straight
away.”
“But, mum…”
“Pass over your plate. I’ll cut it
up for you.”
“Mum, I’m eight I can cut up my own
dinner.”
“Not from where I’m looking.”
Reluctantly I pass over my dinner.
“Oliver can’t cut up his own
dinner,” says Grace, my little sister. “I can and I’m six.”
My dad comes in.
“Sorry, I’m late,” he tells my mum.
“How is everybody? What fantastic things have my children been doing?”
My dad has a bit of an overproud
thing going on. I used to worry about it. That was before my mum got this worry
thing going on and made me forget all about that.
I spot my chance.
“I haven’t done anything fantastic,”
I tell him, “because mum won’t let me do anything.”
“That’s nonsense, Oliver,”
interrupts my mum. “Those pressed flowers came out beautifully.”
“Pressed flowers,” repeats my dad.
“Yes. Oliver and I pressed some
flowers yesterday during the storm.”
“I don’t remember a storm
yesterday,” says my dad.
“That’s because there wasn’t one,” I
tell him. “But mum wouldn‘t let…”
“There could have been a deluge at
any moment,” says my mum. “Not a single person in the whole street had their
washing out.”
“That’s because they’ve got driers,”
I tell her.
“Whatever,” says my dad. “I’m very
proud of you, Oliver. It’s not every boy who’d be prepared to help their mum
press flowers instead of going out to the park.”
“But I wanted to go out to the
park,” I tell him.
“Don’t be modest now, Oliver,” says
my dad. “I know you’re just saying that.”
“I’m not,” I tell him. “Remember I’m
as nice as you think I am. I’m the kind of boy who’d happily leave his mother
to press flowers on her own.”
“You’re the kind of boy who needs to
eat his dinner,” says my mum. “You’ve only had four portions of fruit and
vegetables today. I’m worried that you may get scurvy.”
If you want to find out what happens next, please click here..Worried Mum.
