These are the opening chapters of my children's novel
MONEY MONEY MONEY
Runner up in the www.Youwriteon.com Book of the Year Awards
When DJ is told to look after a parcel, he's also told not to open it. But the dog that lives
next door to his Grandma rips the parcel open, and DJ gets a nasty surprise.
Now he's on the run from some very angry people.
CHAPTER 1
My problems are usually small. They’re sometimes the size of a pea, sometimes the size of a football. But right now, I'm in serious trouble, because I’ve got ten thousand pounds hidden in my mattress. And that’s just for starters.
There's loads more in the lining of my best jacket and in the toes of my old trainers. There’s thousands in the storage box under my bed. The notes are hidden between the pages of my Dad's old comic collection. But there's more money hidden in books and under my bedroom carpet.
I've counted every single note. Try a cool twenty thousand pounds! Actually, it isn't cool. The money is hot, very hot.
Somehow, I've got to keep Dad out of my bedroom. So I've come up with an idea. When I've stopped shaking, I'll make a sign and hang it on my bedroom door.
KEEP OUT - EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS.
Bedroom: Ultra clean. No clothes on the floor. No mugs growing mould. No stinking trainers. I'll even change my own duvet and wipe the dust off my computer screen.
Dad'll think I'm ill. He'll give weird looks and feel my forehead twenty times a day. I can hear him now. ‘Are you seriously ill, DJ?’
I sure am. My hands are clammy, my knees are trembling and my heart is thumping like mad. I'm thirteen in three weeks time. I may not be around to celebrate.
So forget the peas and forget the footballs. This problem is mountain size. Like Mount Everest in a blizzard. I'm in so much trouble and none of this is my fault.
My Grandma believes your future is all mapped out for you. What future? By next week I could playing happy families with my new prison inmates. Or face to face with the fish at the bottom of some murky river. Bet I'll be wearing concrete boots and handcuffs.
Famous last words: "Anyone got a pick axe?"
My future is in the hands of whoever catches up with me first, the police, Jack, who is barking mad, or Spencer the con-artist. I've got dark spikey hair. I'll wake up one morning and find clumps of it on my pillow. That's how worried I am.
This is how it all started.
CHAPTER 2
Sunday morning
The noise was doing my head in. That's why I was under the duvet with a pillow over my head. My fingers were pushed so far inside my ears, they were practically meeting in the middle.
Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!
Someone had been phoning our house every few minutes for the past half hour. No need to ask who. This was our code. Ring four times and cut off. Ring another four times, cut off. If the coast was clear I’d ring back. I didn’t ring back and the telephone didn’t stop ringing.
Mick would be working up a sweat. His podgy face turning bright red. When he's angry, he stamps his feet like a two year old. If his blonde hair wasn't so short, he'd be tearing it out by the handful. He knows my feet don't touch the floor before ten on a Sunday. He also knows that Dad'll be strutting his stuff on the golf course.
'Leave me alone', I shouted. 'You've got me into enough trouble already.'
Wow! Magic. The phone stopped ringing. Five minutes, then ten minutes went by. Silence. My stomach was still performing somersaults. I crawled out from under the duvet. Then the ringing started again and it didn’t stop.
My sixth sense told me to stay put. But what if Mick gave up on the ringing and landed on my doorstep instead? He's banned from my house, but he isn't afraid of my Dad and he doesn't obey the rules.
Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!
It's down to Mick that I'm grounded. We were causing havoc in the supermarket car park. Just trolley racing and having a bit of fun, but a few people got in the way. So the security guards rounded us up like sheep and escorted us off the premises. Mick did a full moonie at them. Benny and I followed suit. Sorted. Except Alice Grayson spotted us and hit the brakes on her BMW. She took a very long look. Alice Grayson is a solicitor. Her office is next door to Dad's second hand book shop and the next morning she snitched on me.
Result: Grounded. I'm walking to school and Dad has whipped the plug off my computer.
'You're well out of order.' he shouted.
Then he dished out a load of jobs and there was no getting out of them. Listen to this: Wash the dishes every evening. Clean the toilet for the next three weeks. Puke!
Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!
I gave in, slid down the stairs on my bum and lifted the receiver.
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s me,’ Mick growled. 'why didn't you answer?'
‘I was in the shower.’
‘Liar. Get yourself round to mine. Spencer wants a word with yer.’
‘Me?’ The back of my neck prickled. ‘What sort of word?’
‘The sort that comes out of his mouth, thicko. Meet me in half an hour at the roundabout.’
‘Can’t. I’m still grounded.’
‘So, you afraid of your old man or what?’
‘No.’
‘Then be there.’ The phone went dead.
Spencer, Mick’s older brother, frightens the life out of me. Actually he frightens the life out of lots of people. Sitting on the bottom stair, I tried to work things out. Why would Spencer want a word with me? It was kind of worrying. Most of the time he ignores me, or just pushes me out of the way.
It was half past nine. Dad gets home from golf by twelve. That'd give me enough time to leg it round to Spencer's and find out what he wants. I'd be back before Dad even shows up. But if Dad finds out I've been within a hundred metres of Mick's place, he'll pack my suitcase and send me round to Mum's house.
I threw some cereal into my Star Wars bowl and splashed in some milk. So who frightened me most, Dad or Spencer? No contest, Spencer got the vote and the bird table got the cereal.
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