First published in Great Britain 2015 by Jelly Pie an imprint of Egmont UK Ltd The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text and illustration copyright © Jim Smith 2015 The moral rights of the author-illustrator have been asserted.

ISBN 978 1 4052 6803 5

eISBN 978 1 7803 1377 1

barryloser.com www.jellypiecentral.co.uk www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Group

55384/1

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My mum and dad are so busy looking after my brand new baby brother, Desmond Loser the Second, I sometimes wonder if they know I even exist.

Like the other day, when my Granny Harumpadunk and her boyfriend Mr Hodgepodge came round to visit. My mum’s favourite show, Detective Manksniff, was on TV, and I’d snuggled up to her on the comfy sofa, using her belly as a pillow.

Granny Harumpadunk and Mr Hodgepodge were squidged on the uncomfy sofa, squinting through their matching glasses at the TV.

‘Ooh, now there’s a good-looking man,’ warbled my granny as Detective Manksniff stirred his cocktail with a straw, and Mr Hodgepodge rolled his eyes.

‘SHHH!’ shushed my mum. ‘I’m trying to enjoy my show,’ she said, and I sniggled at her loserness, even though I was secretly quite enjoying it too.

‘WAAAHHH!!!’ screamed my dad from the downstairs bathroom, where he was changing Desmond Loser the Second’s nappy for the nineteenth time that morning. ‘DESMOND’S WEED IN MY FACE AGAIN!’

I heard my mum’s belly do a gurgle and imagined myself curled up inside it, the same size as my annoying little brother.

‘What was I like when I was a baby, Mum?’ I said.

‘I’m coming, Desmond!’ cried my mum, comperleeterly ignoring my question, and she leaped off the sofa, wobbling down the hallway to help.

‘Des-mond,’ murmured Mr Hodgepodge, as if he’d only just heard it for the first time. ‘What a terrific name for a little boy!’ he smiled, and I wondered why everyone in my whole entire life had to have such loserish names, me included.

‘Desmond Loser the First would’ve been proud!’ beamed Granny Harumpadunk, heaving herself off the uncomfy sofa and doddering over to the mantelpiece, and she lifted up a photo of my Great Uncle Desmond, who was the biggest Loser that ever lived.

She put the picture back on the mantelpiece and picked up a little pig made out of china.

‘Do you think your mum wants this, Barry?’ she said, and I shrugged, not listening at all, because Detective Manksniff had finished and MY favourite TV show, Future Ratboy, was on next.

‘MAUREEN, DO YOU WANT THIS PIG OR CAN I SELL IT AT THE JUMBLE SALE?’ screeched Granny Harumpadunk down the hallway to my mum, and I blew off into my sofa cushion out of shock.

That’s all Granny Harumpadunk’s been doing recently, collecting stuff for her boring old jumble sale, which is in Mogden Hall on Saturday from 10am till 3pm with a live magic show by The Great Hodgepodge and his glamorous assistant, Madame Harumpadunk, at 1pm sharp.

‘Sell it. She’s got millions of them,’ whispered my dad, tiptoeing into the lounge with Desmond Loser the Second asleep on his shoulder.

‘Barry, turn that TV down,’ he mouthed, and I was just about to press the mute button on the remote control, seeing as it was only the adverts, when I saw a carton of Tears of Granny Laughter pop up on the screen.

‘Salute the keelness!’ I shouted, leaping off the sofa and doing a quadruple- reverse-salute, which is what I do when my favourite advert comes on TV.

Tears of Granny Laughter is this keel new drink they’ve started selling at Feeko’s Supermarkets.

It comes in three granny flavours, Beryl, Irene and Gertrude, and the advert is all about how they make it.

It starts with Beryl, Irene and Gertrude queuing up to go into a cinema.

Then you see them laughing at a man in an old black-and-white film who’s hanging off a building with his legs waggling everywhere.

The three grannies are all wearing massive 3D glasses that have been specially made to catch the tears of laughter zigzagging out of their eyes, and at the end of the film all the tear-juice is poured into cartons of Tears of Granny Laughter.

‘Can I have some money for a Tears of Granny Laughter, Dad? Can I, Daddypoos? Can I? Can I Can I?’ I said, running over and tugging my dad on his elbow, and Desmond Loser the Second opened his eyes and started screaming.

My mum wobbled back into the room, swinging a see-through plastic bag full of Desmond’s poo. ‘SHUSH, BARRY!’ she whisper-shouted, stroking Desmond Loser the Second’s cheek. ‘You’re upsetting Baby Des!’

Granny Harumpadunk slipped the china pig into her handbag and shuffled over to look at the baby.

‘Ooh, you’re the loveliest thing since sliced bread, aren’t you!’ she cooed, and I wondered what was so amazing about sliced bread.

‘Mu-um,’ I squeaked in my babiest voice ever, seeing as that’s what she seems to like so much these days, ‘Dad said I could have some money for a Tears of Granny Laughter.’

‘Tears of Granny Laughter,’ murmured my mum, as if she’d heard the name somewhere before. ‘Isn’t that that terrible new drink Feeko’s have been making out of little old ladies?’

‘It’s not real, that’s just the advert!’ I groaned, because everyone knows Feeko’s doesn’t use ACTUAL granny tears to make Tears of Granny Laughter. But my mum wasn’t listening.

‘I’m not having you drinking that stuff, Barry,’ she said, taking Desmond off my dad and peering into his eyes the way I peer into my cuddly Future Ratboy’s.

I clenched my fists and felt a Tear of Barry Annoyance start to work its way out of my eyehole.

‘But Mu-um, everyone at school drinks it!’ I wailed, which wasn’t comperleeterly true. Only Anton Mildew in my class had tried Tears of Granny Laughter so far.

Anton Mildew is the editor of our school newspaper, The Daily Poo. Ever since he said that Tears of Granny Laughter was even tastier than Fronkle, all I’ve wanted to do is drink a carton.

‘PLEE-EEASE!’ I whined, but not in an annoying, whiney way.

‘QUIET, BARRY!’ said my mum, without even looking at me.

I stuck my tongue out at Desmond and was just about to storm up to my bedroom, when Mr Hodgepodge heaved himself off the sofa and plodded over to where I was standing.

He was wearing his sparkly bow tie, which he thinks makes him look like a magician.

‘What’s that in your ear, Barry?’ he grinned, reaching out his shaky hand, and a 50p coin appeared between his fingers.

‘You go enjoy your bottle of Grandma Pop!’ he winked, dropping the 50p in my palm, and I slid it into my pocket before my mum and dad could see. Not that they were looking. Because they were too busy staring at Desmond Loser the Second.

It was the next day and I was skateboarding down the road to catch up with my best friends, Bunky and Nancy.

‘Mornkeels, Barry!’ said Bunky, as I skidded to a stop, trying to work out why he reminded me of Detective Manksniff all of a sudden. I looked him up and down and scratched my bum.

‘Hmmm, it’s not your voice,’ I said, thinking back to when Bunky had just said good morning to me. ‘Detective Manksniff’s voice is all deep and drawly. Yours sounds like a little old granny-dog’s yap,’ I smiled.

Bunky scrunched his face up, not really knowing what in the keelness I was going on about.

‘It’s not your hat either,’ I mumbled. ‘Detective Manksniff wears a keel detective hat, and you don’t wear a hat at all,’ I said, flicking Bunky’s hair at the front, where it sticks up like a hand.

Nancy sighed, half bored, half wondering if I’d gone stark raving bonkers.

‘It definitely isn’t your smile,’ I frowned, poking my nose right up to Bunky’s face. ‘When Detective Manksniff smiles, you know he knows something you don’t know,’ I said. ‘When YOU smile, you know you don’t know anything AT ALL.’

Bunky bonked me on the nose and I made a noise like a car horn. ‘Thanks a lot, Barry!’ he said, chewing on a straw.

My eyebrows did a waggle. ‘AH-HA, it’s that straw!’ I said, pointing at the straw, which was white with keel little pink tear shapes dotted all over it.

‘Whenever Detective Manksniff’s trying to solve one of his really hard mysteries, he pulls the straw out of his cocktail and starts chewing on it,’ I warbled. ‘That’s what’s making you look like him!’

Bunky smiled his smile he smiles when he doesn’t really care about what I’m saying. Then he pointed the straw at me and blew.

‘OW-AH!’ I screamed, as the tiniest rolled-up ball of paper in the whole wide world amen shot out of the straw and hit me on the ear lobe.

I snatched the straw off Bunky and snapped it in half, which isn’t easy, seeing as straws are bendy, not snappy.

Bunky smiled, not in the keelest bit bothered about me snapping his straw. ‘Plenty more where that came from!’ he said, pointing at a poster for Tears of Granny Laughter right next to where we’d stopped.

‘You-you’ve tried it?’ I gasped, suddenly realising where he’d got the straw from.

‘Eeve keelse!’ smiled Bunky, which is how we’ve started saying ‘of course’, by the way. ‘My sister bought me a carton of Gertrude flavour last night,’ he said, and I wished I had an older sister who bought me cartons of Tears of Granny Laughter like Bunky, instead of a baby brother who stole my mum and dad.

‘Wh-what’s it taste like, Bunky?’ I warbled, leaning against Nancy so I didn’t fall over out of jealousy.

‘Alright I spose . . . Not as nice as Fronkle,’ he said, and he started waggling his legs around like the man in the Tears of Granny Laughter advert. ‘That reminds me, I haven’t weed it out yet . . .’ he giggled.

My ears couldn’t believe themselves. How could a drink made out of old grannies’ tears not be the tastiest thing in the whole wide world amen?

‘What are you, NUTS?’ I said, which is what Detective Manksniff says when his ears can’t believe THEMselves. ‘Tears of Granny Laughter is the keelest thing since Future Ratboy!’

Nancy rolled her eyes, picking up Bunky’s snapped-in-half straw and putting it in a bin.

‘A lot of people don’t like those adverts, you know,’ she said, as three real-life grannies doddered past just like Beryl, Irene and Gertrude, except without the special glasses.

‘Boo, naughty drink!’ shouted the first granny, waggling her walking stick at the poster, and the second one shook her fist in the air.

‘Ban Tears of Granny Laughter!’ croaked granny number three as they wobbled off at two centimetres per hour.

‘See!’ smiled Nancy, and a shiver went down my spine. What if they DID ban my favourite drink before I even got to taste it? Since Desmond Loser the Second had come along and stolen my mum and dad off me, slurping on a carton of Tears of Granny Laughter was the only thing I had to live for.

‘As if they’d ban the keelest drink since sliced keelness!’ I said, not realising what was about to happen next.

‘OUT OF THE WAY LOSEROIDS, THIS IS AN EMERGENCE-WEE!’ screamed Bunky as we got to the school gates, and he zoomed across the playground towards the toilets.

Nancy chuckled to herself and picked up a copy of The Daily Poo from the stack next to the gates. ‘Er, you might want to read this, Barry,’ she said, suddenly not chuckling at all, so I picked one up too.

‘TEARS OF GRANNY LAUGHTER BANNED!’ read my eyeballs, not believing themselves. ‘Th-this must be a joke . . .’ I stuttered, and I went to lean on Nancy, but she’d walked off so I fell on the floor instead.

‘Enjoy your trip, Barold?’ sneered Gordon Smugly from my class, who’s the sort of smug, ugly Gordon who’s only happy when someone else like me is UNhappy.

‘It wasn’t a trip, Gordon, it was a FALL,’ I cried, and he chuckled to himself like one of the baddies in an episode of Detective Manksniff, except less scary.

‘Yes, well, dreadful news about Tears of Granny Laughter, isn’t it?’ he drawled, and I squinted my eyes, wondering what he was up to. ‘Hope you get yourself a carton before they all sell out . . .’ he smiled, jangling a handful of coins inside his pocket.

From the sound of Gordon’s jangle, he could afford to buy every carton in Mogden. And that’s exackerly the sort of thing he’d do, just to ruin my life.

‘Better get down to Feeko’s sharpish after school, Barold!’ he snortled, gliding off on his tiptoes, and I looked around for someone a bit less Gordonish to talk to.

Anton Mildew was slumped on a bench, Tears of Anton Sadness zigzagging down his cheeks. ‘IT’S THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!’ he wailed, and I crawled towards him, seeing as I was still lying on the floor from my fall-over from before, and getting up is BORING.

‘It’s all Mayor Plunkett’s fault!’ snuffled Anton, blowing his nose on his Daily Poo. ‘She said the Tears of Granny Laughter adverts were cruel to grannies and ordered Feeko’s to stop selling it immedikeely.’

‘Good riddance to it, that’s what I say!’ burped Darren Darrenofski, slurping on a can of Fronkle, which is his favourite drink since sliced Darren. ‘Tears of Granny Laughter is for losers!’ he chuckled.

Anton crumpled his Daily Poo into a ball and threw it at Darren’s head, just as Sharonella from our class stomped over, doing her angry face.

Sharonella’s been in a bad mood with Anton ever since he did a front page exclusive in The Daily Poo saying she might be the Phantom Air-Freshener Thief.

The Phantom Air-Freshener Thief is this mysterious person who’s been going round all the toilets in Mogden School stealing the plug-in air-fresheners.

‘Fanks a lot for saying I was the Phantom Air-Freshener Thief, Anton,’ screeched Sharonella. ‘As if I’d want to steal a stupid air-freshener!’ she scoffed, her perfume wafting up my nostrils. ‘I’ll get you back for this, Mildew!’ she screeched, stomping off again just as Bunky bounded over, zipping up his flies.

‘What in the unkeelness is going on here?’ he yapped, and I realised he hadn’t heard the news.

‘Get ready to not believe your ears,’ I said, and I started to tell him everything that had just happened, which was pret-ty boring for everyone else, seeing as they already knew.

After that I had to sit through a whole day at school, while all the Feeko’s in Mogden were selling out of Tears of Granny Laughter. Then it was home time, apart from the fact I wasn’t going home.

‘Where in the unkeelness are we going?’ shouted Bunky, speed-walking behind me as I skateboarded through the gates, towards Mogden High Street. Nancy was running behind him, her hair swishing like a cat’s tail.

‘Feeko’s, of course!’ I panted. ‘To get some Tears of Granny Laughter before Gordon buys them all!’

I carried on skateboarding for another three and three-thirds of a minute, until we got to Feeko’s. The doors whooshed open and I zigzagged down the aisles, straight to the Soft Drinks section. I skidded to a stop next to a cardboard cut-out of Irene from the Tears of Granny Laughter advert and grinned my grin I grin when I’m about to buy a carton of the keelest drink ever. Then I spotted Gordon Smugly.

‘Afternoon, Barold,’ drawled Gordon, reaching out to grab a Tears of Granny Laughter, and I gasped. I was gasping because the shelf was COMPERLEETERLY EMPTY apart from that carton.

‘Oh dear, what a shame. None for little Barold!’ he smiled, grabbing the carton and holding it up like he was in an advert for Tears of Granny Laughter.

The carton was Beryl flavour, which everyone knows is the tastiest Tears of Granny Laughter flavour, seeing as Beryl is the least ugly out of the three grannies in the advert.

‘NOOOOO!’ I wailed, just as a skinny man in a Feeko’s uniform popped his head around the aisle.

‘Hello, my name’s Mike. Let me see if I can find you another carton of Tears of Granny Laughter today!’ chuckled the man, whose name tag said Mike, plus he’d just said his name was Mike, so I spose his name was Mike.

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