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  My mum got mad at me for getting paint all over my school trousers. Richard and I got into a fight over which of us owned a blue biro. I know it was my biro. But Richard won. So I couldn’t do my homework as I didn’t have anything to write with. Then Dad came home and Richard and I played catch with him in the garden. Well, Dad and Richard played catch. I played drop.

  Then we had spag bol for tea (I’m not even going to try to spell it all out). It was hotter than I thought so I had to spit my first mouthful out. Mum thumped me and Dad shouted at me for crying and Richard laughed at me for being a baby.

  I went to bed. And don’t tell anyone but I wet myself because I forgot to take my special medicine.

  Things haven’t looked up yet.

  When I got to school I looked at the Worry Website to see if I’d got any comments.

  I’m sure you’re not useless at everything.

  Don’t worry, I’m pretty useless at everything too.

  I bet you’re useFUL, not useLESS.

  Things started to look up quite a bit. I felt so pleased that people didn’t seem to think I was useless after all. Though of course they didn’t know it was me. Perhaps if I’d put my name they’d have said I was ultra-ultra-ultra-useless. Especially as I can’t always spell my name right.

  We had another spelling test which was a bit of a nasty surprise as we only usually have one a week.

  ‘Don’t look so down-hearted, children. There are going to be two special prizes to spur you on. Two of my very special pens, no less.’

  Mr Speed produced a pen from each pocket like a cowboy whipping out two guns. Mr Speed’s pens are special. They are black and they write with a very fine line. They make the worst handwriting in the world look much neater. Mr Speed goes crazy if any of us borrow his special pens. But now he was giving away two as prizes – and it wasn’t even the end of term.

  I wished I was good at spelling. But I am such rubbish at spelling I knew it was absolutely no use hoping to win a pen.

  ‘I want you all to try very hard,’ said Mr Speed, and then he started saying all these words.

  There was a lot of sighing and muttering and nibbling of pens. Some of the class whispered.

  ‘I want absolutely no conferring,’ said Mr Speed.

  Nobody tried to confer with me anyway. Which is not surprising. I can’t even spell surprising.

  Mr Speed told us to have a go at spelling everything, so I did. Even the very, very hard words. I’m not going to write them here – I’ll never get them right.

  I did lots and lots of crossings out. So many that my paper tore. But it didn’t really matter. I knew I wasn’t going to do well in the spelling test. I knew I was going to do really, really badly.

  I was right. We had to swap papers. Lisa marked mine and I marked hers. Lisa is clever. She got fourteen out of twenty. She is also kind. I didn’t get any of my spellings right. She put up her hand to talk to Mr Speed.

  ‘William’s very nearly spelt “naughty” right, Mr Speed. And his “because” has only got one mistake. So could he have a half each for those?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Mr Speed. ‘A word is either spelt correctly or it isn’t. And William’s isn’t.’

  ‘But that’s not very fair, Mr Speed,’ said Lisa.

  ‘Life isn’t fair, Lisa,’ said Mr Speed gently.

  I hoped Lisa might win one of Mr Speed’s pens but Holly got eighteen spellings completely correct. She was dead chuffed to win the pen, especially as her little sister Hannah had leant too hard on Holly’s old pen and made it go all splodgy.

  ‘Maybe you’ll win the second pen, Lisa,’ I said hopefully.

  But Samantha got sixteen spellings absolutely ace-standard correct. She batted her big blue eyes, looking very, very hopeful.

  ‘Now we have the second prizewinner,’ said Mr Speed. Strangely, he wasn’t looking at Samantha. He was looking at me!

  ‘This goes to the child who has had the sheer dogged temerity to resist all my persuasive teaching skills and persists in being a truly inventively gargantuan appalling speller.’

  I gaped at Mr Speed. I hadn’t understood a word he was saying. But I understood the next bit.

  ‘The second pen is awarded to the child who has the most spelling mistakes. Step forward, William!’

  So I got the second prize pen. Some of the children groaned and said it wasn’t fair – but most of them clapped. Greg even cheered!

  I felt very, very, very pleased.

  I didn’t feel exactly proud though. I am a bit thick but I’m not completely stupid. I knew it was just a booby prize. It’s not the same getting a prize for being the worst at something. I still wished I could be the best at something so I wouldn’t feel quite so useless.

  Mr Speed always makes up a story for us after spelling. He uses every single spelling word within the story. It was one of his When I was a little boy stories. He told us his accommodation was a miniature but pleasant house and his parents paid him every attention even though it was occasionally necessary to discipline him because he was so naughty. He enjoyed eating delicious breakfasts, especially sausages. He ate his substantial sausages with such determined commitment that he invariably made himself physically sick but this was a penalty he bore with relative indifference. His sausage consumption was brilliant training for the daily Enormous Mouthful contest that took place at lunchtime.

  Mr Speed wanted to stop his story then and there because he’d used up all the hard spelling words but we all complained and said, ‘No, Mr Speed, go on, tell us more,’ because we all wanted to hear about the Enormous Mouthful contest.

  ‘You mean I’ve never told you about the Enormous Mouthful contest?’ said Mr Speed, looking astonished. ‘Well, maybe it’s just as well. If I tell you about it you’ll only start up something similar yourselves.’

  ‘No we won’t, Mr Speed,’ we all chorused.

  ‘Oh yes you will!’

  ‘Oh no we won’t!’

  We went on like this, getting louder, Mr Speed conducting us with his arms. Then he quickly put his finger to his lips and we all whispered – even me. This is a game we play when Mr Speed is in a good mood.

  Then he told us all about the food they had for school dinners when he was a little boy. You couldn’t choose in those long ago days. You never ever had chips (my favourites). You had disgusting things like smelly stew all glistening with fat and grey mince that looked as if someone had chewed it all up. You had cabbage like old seaweed and lumpy mashed potato and tinned peas that smelt like feet.

  ‘But we ate it all up because if you didn’t you weren’t allowed to have pudding. Puddings were the whole point of school dinners. We had jam roly-poly and bread-and-butter pudding and chocolate sponge with chocolate sauce and apple pie and custard and absolute best of all, trifle. There were also a lot of boring puddings like rice and semolina and something particularly revolting called tapioca that looked like frog spawn – but even these were palatable because we were given spoonfuls of jam or brown sugar or raisins. Those of us who were particularly greedy wangled two spoonfuls. These were to be savoured. However, the milk puddings needed to be golloped down as quickly as possible because they were so horrible. That was the start of the Enormous Mouthful club. Someone got hold of a big serving spoon and we had this ridiculous contest to see who could swallow the largest mouthful.’

  ‘Did you win, Mr Speed?’

  ‘Do you think I would have been such a rude and ill-mannered and mischievous child as to take part in such an indigestion-inducing eating contest?’ said Mr Speed.

  ‘YES!’ we yelled.

  Mr Speed grinned and bowed. ‘You know me well, my children. Yes, I took part. Yes, I choked and spluttered and snorted and got violent hiccups. And yes, I won the Enormous Mouthful contest.’ Mr Speed paused. ‘But you children are strictly forbidden to take part in any similar contest. Do you all hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Speed,’ we said.

  ‘And to hear . . .?’