50g sugar175g plain flour
1Put the oven on at 160°C/gas mark 3.
2Grease two baking trays.
3Put the sugar and butter or margarine into a mixing bowl. Squoosh and beat them together until fluffyish.
4Add the flour and mix it in.
5Using clean hands, press the mixture into one big ball.
6Break off a piece of dough the size of a ping-pong ball and roll it into a ball.
7Put the ball on to the baking tray and press it down (but not too hard) so it makes a rough biscuit shape.
8Repeat until nearly all the dough is used up, then make a silly shape with the last piece.
9Make sure your biscuits have a little bit of space between
them.
10Put the trays of biscuits in the oven and set the timer for twenty minutes.
11Have a drink and a runaround.
12When the timer goes off check your biscuits. If they are pale golden brown they are cooked. Take them out of the oven and leave them to cool. Keep them in the oven for a few minutes longer if they need more cooking time.
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THINGS I LIKE DOING
I like cycling, swimming, playing Lego and playing building games on the computer. I like making dens, camping and lighting fires. Dad says I am good at lighting fires but I must only do the lighting when Dad is with me, or Mum is with me. This I find annoying.
I like going to the CINEMA and going out for PIZZA. I like BUBBLE GUM, CHEWING GUM, energy drinks and STICK ON TATTOOS. Mum doesn’t like any of these things, which is the main reason I like them.
I would like real Facebook, not the chicken version. I would like an X-Box. I would like an iPod Touch. Every single person I know has these. Except me. My life would be a million times better if I had these. I would have a hundred friends and be popular.
‘Hi there Billy, what you doin’, fancy hanging out?’ they would say and I would reply, ‘Yeah, sure, after I’ve hung out with these friends I’ll Facebook
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you and we can hook up,’ and they’d go, ‘What you listenin’ to?’ and I’d say, ‘Oh, just some new sounds on my iPod Touch,’ and they’d go, ‘Cool, catch you later,’ and I’d go, ‘Sure.’
I like jokes.
I like watching cookery programs but I don’t tell anyone at school this.
I have also recently discovered I like cooking. I keep that a secret at school because it is way up there on the not very manly and not very cool scale of dorkishness.
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Here is a picture of a super car, which is super manly and ice cool.
At school I pretend I’m interested in cars so I don’t seem like an odd bod.
An odd bod is someone like me. Someone who doesn’t fit in. Someone who is an odd number not an even number. Someone who is followed by a raging grey dog. Someone who is prickly. Someone who is mucked up.
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MY BEDROOM
My bedroom has walls the colour of the sky in the summer and a carpet the colour of the deep sea. It has a wooden bed with a red checked quilt and a red checked pillow and three big cushions on. I use my cushions and my panda who is called ‘Panda’ to block the gap between my bed and the wall.
I D O N ’ T L I K E G A P S .
I can’t explain why I don’t like gaps, or the dark. I just don’t.
I have a cupboard for books and stuff that is currently tipped over and partly in pieces. What can I say about that? Gobber was active today. He was
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snapping at my ankles all day at school and then when I got home I just couldn’t control him any more and he just went all out of control and jumped and barked and barked and barked and my cupboard got knocked over and I can’t remember anything else.
Mum will bring the vacuum cleaner upstairs later and we will clear up the mess together.
When I’m older I’m going to have a widescreen television and an X-Box in my bedroom. I absolutely know that Gobber the dog won’t damage them, but Mum wants to be sure they will not be knocked about before I am allowed. She also wants me to be near her a lot which I get very fed up with. She says that I am like a flimsy tent on a windy day. I blow about easily and for that reason she has to support me through the storms. One day I hope I will be pegged much more firmly into the ground and Gobber will be old and feeble and will have given up trying to bring the whole thing down.
When the whole thing comes down, when Gobber has done his worst and scared me half to death I curl into a tiny ball and wrap myself in my red duvet. I hide.
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I want to disappear. After a while Mum will come in and sit on my bed right by me. She might just sit or she might rub my bent over back. Sometimes I let her. Sometimes a swear word shoots out of my mouth and she leaves and comes back later. Or sometimes she shouts back and Gobber goes wild and all hell breaks loose again.
I AM NOW VERY TIRED.
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HUNGRY BUNGRY (THE CAT)
Hungry Bungry is the Bramble family cat and is like the total opposite of Gobber. For a start Hungry Bungry is real. Hungry Bungry is also soft and quiet and likes to sit peacefully. I like it best when Hungry Bungry sleeps in a curl at the bottom of my bed. She makes me feel safe in the dark night.
We got Hungry Bungry from the animal rescue centre. She is black and used to be skinny but now she is a chubster. She was very timid when she first moved in with us but now she is braver and getting used to sitting on laps and sometimes being stroked. I think she trusts us now, but she is still nervous with strangers.
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