Billionaire Boy (18 page)

Dad shook with uncontrollable emotion, and wrapped his short fat hairy arms around his son. Joe put
his
short, fat, less-hairy arms around his dad. He rested his head on his dad’s chest. He felt that it was wet with tears.

“I love you, Dad.”

“Ditto… I mean, I love you too, son.”

“Dad…?” said Joe tentatively.

“Yes?”

“Do you fancy shepherd’s pie for tea?”

“More than anything in the world,” said Dad with a smile.

Father and son held each other tight.

Finally, Joe had everything he could ever need.

Postscript

S
o what happened to all the characters in the story?

Mr Spud liked Bob’s mum’s shepherd’s pie so much that he married her. And now they have it every night for their tea.

Joe and Bob not only stayed best friends – when their parents got married they became stepbrothers too.

Sapphire got engaged to a Premier League football team.

Raj and Mr Spud began working on a number of ideas together that they hoped would make them zillionaires. The five-fingered Kit Kat. The queen-size Mars Bar (in between king and normal size). Vindaloo-flavoured Polo mints. At time of writing none of these ideas have made them a penny.

No one ever worked out which Grubb was a he and which Grubb was a she. Not even their mum or dad. They were sent to a boot camp in America for juvenile delinquents.

The headmaster, Mr Dust, retired from the school on his hundredth birthday. He now races motorbikes full time.

Miss Spite the history teacher got her job back and gave Joe litter duty every day for the rest of his life.

The unfortunately named teacher Peter Bread changed his name. To Susan Jenkins. Which didn’t really help.

Lauren continued her acting career, the only highlight of which was a part in the TV hospital drama
Casualty
. As a dead body.

The headmaster’s secretary, Mrs Chubb, never did get out of her chair.

The Queen’s bum remained purple. She showed it to everyone in the country when she gave her yearly speech to the nation on Christmas Day, calling it her ‘anus horribilis’.

And finally, Mrs Trafe released a bestselling cook book,
101 Recipes with Bat Sick
. Available from HarperCollins.