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This exciting series is about a boy just like you! What makes Sam just a little bit different sometimes, is that he escapes his mum and baby sister on the sort of escapades you have only dreamt of! Don’t you wish you could escape too at times? Well, when you join Sam on his amazing adventures, you’ll be there right alongside him. What are you waiting for? Join Sam on the adventure of a lifetime! Just make sure that you’re as brave and daring as he is, before you turn the first page…
Toe Jamm’d
Published by Susan Berran
First published 2010 by JoJo Publishing
This edition published 2017
Text Copyright © Susan Berran 2010, 2017
Illustrations Copyright © Susan Berran 2010, 2017
No part of this printed or video publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data
Berran, Susan, 1962-
Toe jamm’d / author and illustrator Susan Berran.
Edition: ePub
ISBN: 978-0-9872959-2-7 (ePub.)
For primary school age.
A823.4
Designer: Adam Laszczuk - Madacin Creative
Editor: Susan Cutsforth
Love you …
I love you mama.
(Mel typed this here when I started this book.)
To Marie
who read my 1st book, SPLINTERZ ,
& laughed at just the right time.
Thank you
Toe-jam … yum …
Damn, I can’t reach it!
Don’t you just hate that?
You’re sitting on the edge of your bed in nothing but your undies. And all you want to do is use your finger to dig between your toes and drag out the FLUFF, sweat and SLUG-SLIME that’s all chunked together like a huge blob of festering, mouldy, smelly mud. Be careful though; remove it from its home and it just might not be too happy about the move …
Don’t believe me?
Fine, don’t read another page . . . go on, nick off!
Changed your mind?!
Then read on!
Me and my best mate, Jared, had been hanging out all summer. We did everything together, we always had, right from the time he’d moved here with his family. We’d both come from the city where there was always heaps to do. So it took a lot of getting used to, doing a whole lot of nothing, being stuck way out here in the sticks.
For ages Mum had tried to tell me how great the countryside would be.
“You can go on picnics, hikes,” blah blah blah … “All that clean fresh air.” Yeah right! It was all she ever talked about.
‘Oh yes please Mummy,’ I thought. ‘Oh do give us a cheese and vegemite sandwich wrapped in a pretty pink chequered napkin. And we shall skip along the road holding hands and singing Twinkle Twinkle as we blow kisses to each other.’
I think I’m now going to throw up from just thinking about it!
If Jared hadn’t turned up when he did, I think I would have gone completely and utterly CRAZY.
The only other kids around here have lived in this dust bowl all their lives. So they’re always out cow riding, shearing horses and milking sheep or whatever it is they do around here. But me and Jared do our own thing. We usually go skateboarding or work on our totally awesome and cool gadgets. And all last summer we did just that.
We made this wicked skateboard park that had everything. It started at the old hay shed out in the back paddock of Jared’s place. There were old tractors and machines from the days of cavemen. I reckon they’re even older than my Gran; and she’s really old, almost turning to dust old. If she took off her clothes with a fan on, she’d almost certainly just disappear into thin air.
Oh great, I wish I hadn’t thought of that. Now I can’t get that picture of Gran out of my head … oohh, yuk!
Anyway, the shed had all this old stuff in it when a huge storm hit a couple of years ago. The walls stayed standing but just about all the roof collapsed onto the junk. Luckily one edge of the roof was still attached along the top of a wall. So now we had this massively awesome skate ramp. It was brilliant,
… it was incredible,
… it was AWESOME,
… it was REALLY DANGEROUS!
So of course we just had to do it!
We tossed one end of a rope up and over the top beam where the wall met the roof. When it dropped back down, we tied a plank to it to sit on; easy. Then we just had to pull the rope and we’d be able to haul ourselves up. Once that was sorted, we got a few twisted roof sheets that had blown off and a couple of hay bales to form another smaller ramp at the
