Jim Smith - I am sort of a Loser

‘Woohoo! Fay is a winner, everyone!’ I shouted, pretending to trip on a piece of gravel and fall towards the pyramid of Whatever Boxes. ‘ARRRGGGHHHH! I’M SOOOOOOOO LOSERKEEEELLLL!!!’ I screamed, crashing into them.

Light-blue boxes flew into the air like rectangle chunks of sky and my nose thudded on to the floor, me following behind it.

‘That is SO you, Barry!’ laughed Sharonella as I lay on the ground covered in Whatever Boxes, and I breathed a sigh of relief, because I was back to being the loserkeelest person in my class.

(Not really.)

It felt good being the most loserkeel person in my class again, and to celebrate I’d come up with ANOTHER one of my brilliant and amazekeel ideas.

It was the next day and we were in the school coach on the way to Mogden Poo.

Mogden Poo is our town’s swimming pool, except the ‘L’ from the sign disappeared one night eight million years ago and no one ever found it.

‘Don’t forget, aim them right for my nose!’ I whispered into Bunky’s ear as we jumped out of the coach and ran into the changing rooms, Darren Darrenofski blowing off with excitement behind us.

One of the keel things about the changing rooms at Mogden Poo is that the girls’ and boys’ are right next to each other with a wall in-between that doesn’t go all the way up to the ceiling, so you can spy on the girls getting changed.

‘I can see Donnatella’s pants!’ screamed Stuart Shmendrix, wobbling on top of Darren and peering over the wall.

‘ARRGGGHHH!’ shrieked the girls from their changing room, and I looked over at Bunky and gave him the signal.

I was on the spying-wall side of the room, doing my Future Ratboy super- high-speed pants-into-swimming-trunks change, and Bunky was by the door.

I counted down from five in my head and got ready to look like the most loserkeel superloser ever.

The elastic strap on Bunky’s swimming goggles twanged as they shot out of his hands towards my face.

As they flew across the room, I went through the plan in my head:

1. Get hit in the nose by Bunky’s goggles

2. Start spinning around, screaming

like a loser

3. Tangle myself up in the towel

hanging on the hook next to me

4. Stumble into the showers like

a blind ghost

5. Accidentally turn on the water and

end up lying in a puddle, groaning

I smiled to myself, imagining everyone laughing at how loserkeel I was.

Then I realised I’d managed to do the whole list inside my head AND a smile to myself, all with the goggles still not hitting my nose.

I looked up and saw them shooting over the wall into the girls’ changing rooms.

‘FAY BABES!!! WATCH OUT!’ screamed Sharonella, then everything went quiet.

I climbed up Darren Darrenofski, then Stuart Shmendrix, and peered over the wall.

Fay was lying in a puddle in the showers, tangled up in a towel like a blind ghost, groaning, with all the girls laughing at how loserkeel she looked.

‘It’s exactly like you planned it, except it all happened to Fay instead!’ whispered a mini Barry in my brain, and I tried to swivel my eyeballs all the way round and give him one of my looks.

‘Get your OWN loserkeelness!’ I shouted, falling off Darren and Stuart and accidentally landing in the towel bin, which normally would’ve been really funny and loserkeel, except everyone was too busy laughing at Fay.

‘Work it, ladies!’ boomed an old wrinkled-up man in shiny shorts as I walked out to the swimming pool. His voice echoed off the water and bounced around the ginormous glass windows.

He was dancing along the side of the pool, kicking his legs out and clapping his hands. The whole of his head was completely bald apart from a little grey beard that went all the way round his mouth, like a hairy donut.

I looked into the water and saw Granny Harumpadunk and her friends Ethel, Doreen and Three Thumb Rita from the sweet shop splashing about like they were being attacked by granny-eating sharks.

‘What in the keelness are THEY doing here?’ whispered a mini Barry inside my brain, then I saw a sign that said ‘AQUA AEROBICS FOR THE ELDERLY’ and I nodded my head, imagining the mini Barrys falling off their brain sofa again.

‘Cooweee, Barrr-rrrry!’ warbled my granny, waggling her arms at me, and I was just about to pretend I didn’t know who she was when I had one of my brilliant and amazekeel ideas.