First published in Great Britain 2012
by Jelly Pie an imprint of Egmont UK Ltd
239 Kensington High Street London W8 6SA
Text and illustration copyright © Jim Smith 2012
The moral rights of the author-illustrator have been asserted.
ISBN 978 1 4052 6031 2
eISBN 978 1 7803 1122 7
barryloser.com Jellypiebooks.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
CONTENTS
Even stiller the talent contest
Still even stiller the talent contest
I’ve never minded that my name’s Barry Loser because my coolness has always cancelled it out, but ever since Darren Darrenofski joined school with his horrible little crocodile face he’s been completely ruining my life about it.
He’s always slurping on cans of Fronkle then burping in my ear.
When I complain that the burp is really loud and stinks of Fronkle he does this annoying little dance and sings ‘Barry Loser’s a Loser’ to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday to You’, which doesn’t work because it’s got too many syllables.
I was in the playground the other day when a ringpull hit me on the back of my neck and went down my jumper and into my pants. I turned round and it was Darren Darrenofski again.
‘Nice really long shoelaces, Barry Loser,’ he said, then he did a burp that went on for about an hour.
‘That’s how long they are,’ he said when it was finished.
‘At least I don’t look like a poo bum crocodile,’ I said back, which sounded a bit loserish when it came out of my mouth but it confused him enough so that I could run off before he threw his whole can of Fronkle at me.
Darren had got me worried that my laces were too long though and I spent the whole of Maths measuring shoelace lengths and came to the conclusion that he was right, so when I got home I cut a bit off each one.
By the way I’m a child genius so I didn’t just throw the leftovers away, I came up with an amazing use for them.
I planted them in the back garden like they were worms and watched from my window with my dad’s binocs as the little birds tried to eat them.
‘Do you want me to grab the end of Darren’s nose and stick it in a letter box?’ asked my friend Bunky as we walked home from school the next day. Bunky isn’t his real name by the way, it’s what his mum calls him.
Luckily he hasn’t heard my mum calling