← Back to the stories

Book one

Never Got Caught

Thirty-two pages, one 1990s Essex garden, and a tower of milk crates that was only ever going to end one way. There is a bungee cord. There is a launch. And there is a mum four feet away, hanging washing, who never finds out.

Pages
32
Ages
5–8 (and their parents)
Print
Riso, four inks
Status
In illustration

The story

It starts with a stack of milk crates nobody was supposed to touch and a bungee cord off the back of a bike. Somebody says the word "further". By page twelve the tower is taller than the fence. By page eighteen it is swaying. By page twenty-two a boy in a striped t-shirt is properly airborne over an Essex garden with his arms out like he means it.

Then comes the bit the book is actually named after: the crates go back in a neat, innocent, suspiciously tidy pile, the cord goes up a sleeve, and three kids stand there with grass on their knees saying nothing at all while the tea gets poured six feet away.

Kids read it as an adventure where they win. Adults read the background: the washing line, the newspaper, the barbecue nobody checks, the parents in every single spread looking calmly in the wrong direction. Nobody is ever told off, because nobody ever finds out.

Sketched 1990s childhood objects: a milk crate, a coiled bungee cord, a scuffed trainer, a cassette, a bottle of pop, a plaster, a bike bell, a bread bag and a football
The entire cast of props, in order of danger.

Cover gallery

Three covers in the running. Tap one to see it big — the list gets to vote on the winner.

Cover direction one: a boy crouched grinning on top of a swaying tower of milk crates while two friends hold it steady and the grown-ups have tea facing the wrong way

Direction 01 — The build-up

Front cover, portrait. The tower of milk crates dead centre, taller than the fence, one boy on top and two holding it steady, the bungee cord already stretched between the fence posts. Parents small and calm at a garden table, teapot out, facing entirely the wrong direction. Title sits in the cream sky above the tower; the top crate can crop into the letterforms. Tension, not disaster — the reader is one page early.

Excerpts

Four bits from the book. Read them out loud — that's what they're built for.

Browse every spread full size →

Pen-and-wash illustration of nineteen milk crates stacked behind a garden shed with nettles and a bike

Pages 4–5

Behind the shed there were nineteen milk crates. Nobody knew whose they were. Nobody had ever asked. And nineteen, if you think about it, is quite a lot of crates.

Nineteen milk crates nobody could explain, stacked where no adult ever looked. Every single one of them was about to leave the ground.
See this spread full size →
Boy at the top of a swaying tower of milk crates while a friend shouts from the grass and a mum pegs washing, oblivious

Pages 12–13

“Higher,” said Barry. So we went higher. “Higher,” said Barry again, from the ground, where it was safe.

Barry only ever said one word, and he always said it from the grass. Two feet out of frame, Mum was pegging out a duvet cover.
See this spread full size →
Boy flying sideways high above an English back garden, one trainer coming off, adults below not looking up

Pages 22–23

For about one and a half seconds I was the tallest boy in Essex. Then I was a boy in a hedge.

One and a half seconds of being the tallest boy in Essex, one trainer already gone, and not one adult in the garden looking up.
See this spread full size →
Three grubby children standing innocently in a kitchen doorway while a dad holds a mug and looks puzzled

Pages 30–31

We put every crate back. We brushed the grass off our knees. Dad said, “You lot have been quiet.” And we said, “Have we?”

Every crate back. Every knee brushed. And then Dad, with his mug, saying the one sentence that could have ended everything.
See this spread full size →

Sample spread

One double-page spread from the middle of the book — the hedge on the left, the barbecue that never notices on the right. Free to download and print.

Double-page spread: kids sneaking through a hedge while parents have a barbecue
Download the sample spreadOpen full size

Get told when it's out

One email when book one is printed. Nothing else.

11 / For readers

One story a week

Every Sunday morning: one new story or spread, a line about what’s being drawn, and the odd free printable. One email. No spam.

Free, no email needed

Download the first four stories (PDF)

The first four stories as a printable PDF — milk crates, the bike, the nettles and the bread bag.

One story a week — that is the whole deal. No marketing emails, no ads, no sponsored rubbish, no other companies, and your address is never sold, shared or handed on. One-click unsubscribe in every email.