MY NAME IS
BILLY BRAMBLE
Let me introduce myself.
My name is Billy Bramble and I should know because I hear it fifty thousand million times a day.
Billy Bramble be quiet.
Billy Bramble sit down.
Billy Bramble sit still.
Billy Bramble FOCUS.
Billy Bramble STOP THAT RIGHT THIS MINUTE.
Slow down Billy Bramble.
Get on with it Billy Bramble.
WALK Billy Bramble.
STOP RUNNING Billy Bramble.
Put that down Billy Bramble.
That’s not nice Billy Bramble.
Stop swinging on your chair Billy Bramble.
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Billy Bramble.
Billy Bramble.
BILLY BRAMBLE.
BILLY BRAMBLE.
BILLY BRAMBLE.
BILLY BRAMBLE IS MY NAME.
DON’T WEAR IT OUT.
Everyone. And I mean everyone, knows my name. I am famous in a way. It’s partly because my name is used a lot and partly because my last name isn’t Smith or Evans or Fraser, it’s Bramble.
‘Bramble,’ people say, ‘what an unusual name.’
Or sometimes people say, ‘No, what’s your real name?’ and I say, ‘That is my real name,’ and they look at me as if I am trying to trick them.
I can confirm that Billy Bramble is my real
name, whatever ‘real’ means.
Sometimes when I write my name I draw a
bramble around it, like this.
Brambles are very interesting things. They
will grow anywhere. The bramble is a survivor.
I have a chicken called Facebook and a cat called Hungry Bungry and a dog called Gobber, who only I can see. Gobber is the bringer of bad luck, my bad luck, and the main reason that I am very unlucky.
I am the King, the President and the Emperor of Bad Lucksville. I am the Bad Luck Champion of the World, the Gold Medal Winner of the Bad Luck Olympics, the Guinness World Record
holder for the most bad luck a
boy can have. If there was a
competition called Bad Luck
Factor I’d win it. And it’s
all thanks to Gobber.
But more about him later.
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I am nearly twelve, I am puny and I am not on Facebook. I live with my mum and dad (who are the reason I am not on Facebook) and my little sister Lucy, who is almost as big as me. Lucy is totally annoying because she is the good one and I am not. Like I told you, I’m the King of Bad Luck.
My house is at the end of a dead end road called a cul-de-sac. I like my house. It is number thirteen, which is lucky for some. Thirteen is a prime number. I am a prime number. I am eleven and I can’t be divided by any number except myself and one. Soon I will be twelve, which will be a whole different story. My dad is interested in prime numbers and even watched a whole programme on the television about them.
A whole programme.
QUESTION: HOW LAME IS THAT?
ANSWER: VERY.
I have an alright face but my nose turns up at the end and for that reason I get called ‘ski slope’, ‘Pinocchio’ and other charming names like ‘trunky’. My mum says that I am very handsome but I know
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that’s what mums say to try to make you feel better. It’s like when they praise things you’ve done that aren’t all that good, like a rubbish drawing or a wonky model.
QUESTION: HOW ANNOYING IS THAT?
ANSWER: VERY.
Me and Carter are best friends except when we’re not which is sometimes. We’ve been best friends since I started at primary school in Year 3. Carter makes unexpected movements and noises, some of them are rude noises. He can’t help it. He has something called Tourettes, which I am very interested in. I’ve watched all the documentaries about Tourettes, which Mum lets me do as long as I don’t repeat any of the rude words. I am mostly quite successful at this.
Sometimes I think that Carter is luckier than me because everyone knows he has Tourettes, which means he doesn’t get blamed for it. If I swear at school I get sent to the room with the drugs posters in and then Mum gets a snotty green letter home,
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which she tries to hide from me. She is not very successful at hiding things from me. If there’s one thing I’m good at it’s finding things. It’s one of my special talents.The snotty green letter says something like this:
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MY EPIC BAD LUCK
Like I said, Gobber is a dog. My dog. My bringer of bad luck. My bad luck charm. Unfortunately Gobber follows me everywhere. He is a big, solid, dirty grey, hungry animal with yellow eyes that flash red when he’s angry. He gets angry a lot. He has sharp teeth with strings of drool hanging off them and a ferocious bark that shakes the ground under me. He is so real to me I often wonder why no one else can see him, or hear him, or feel him.
Sometimes Gobber sits at my feet, sometimes he growls, sometimes he yaps and sometimes he jumps up on me in a fit of raging and barks in my face. He spits in my eyes and leaves them running wet like I’ve been crying (which I haven’t). He digs his
