Book one · gallery
Every spread, full size
Four finished spreads from The Great Milk Crate Prank — tap any one to open it large, with the words that sit on the page. Below them: every story still waiting on ink, with its synopsis. A new spread gets drawn every week.
Pages 4–5
Nineteen crates
Spread one. Establish the garden, the fence, and the number nineteen.
Pages 12–13
Higher
The dare. Mum is at the washing line, two feet out of frame.
Pages 22–23
The launch
The launch. Full-bleed double page, cream sky, one small pair of trainers.
Pages 30–31
The cover-up
The cover-up, and the last line of the book.
Waiting on ink
18 stories are written up but not drawn yet. Each one has a page with the year, the synopsis and the setting notes.
- Not drawn yet1994
Donuts On The Rec
A wet Saturday on the recreation ground, one borrowed car and a set of bald tyres. Four full circles, two flat semicircles of mud, and a park keeper who found it on Monday and blamed the fair.
- Not drawn yet1995
The BYOB Party
The first party with a note on the invite: bring your own. Bottles go over the fence, into the hedge, under the trampoline. Somebody's mum does the pick-up and never once looks in the hedge.
- Not drawn yet1996
The Fire Extinguisher Disco
Borrowed decks, borrowed speakers, borrowed fire extinguisher. The first two made the evening; the third one ended it in a cloud of white powder and a room full of very clean teenagers.
- Not drawn yet1996
Ben's Den In Brightlingsea
Ben's den in Brightlingsea had a sofa, a kettle and a stream of visitors nobody could explain. We thought it was brilliant. Looking back, it was a lot of things, and brilliant was only one of them.
- Not drawn yet1995
The Washing Line Run
Walking home from the 2-4 with chips, past four gardens of washing on the line. We arrive home with somebody else's sheets over our shoulders and put them straight in our own wash basket.
- Not drawn yet1997
The Humpback Bridge Jump
Neil said the car would take the humpback bridge at speed. The car took it. The exhaust did not. Neither did my stomach, or the man walking his dog on the far side.
- Not drawn yet1995
Dale And The BB Gun
A police car slows down on the Bramblewick road. Dale posts the BB gun into a hedge without breaking stride, then stands there whistling like a boy who has never owned anything.
- Not drawn yet1995
Dale Gets Shot
It was only a BB, and it was only Dale's leg, and it was only from about four feet. Dale performed a full opera on the pavement and then swore everybody to secrecy.
- Not drawn yet1996
Dale And The Rubber Ring
Dale, a rubber ring and a river with a current that had plans nobody had discussed with Dale. He came back a mile downstream, calm, still in the ring, pretending it was the plan.
- Not drawn yet1997
The Professional
A grown man chased us across three gardens with the form of somebody who did it professionally. We called him The Professional for the rest of the decade and never learned his name.
- Not drawn yet1994
Seven Day Wonders
Every craze lasted exactly seven days: pogo sticks, diabolos, rollerblades, skimboards. Seven days of obsession, one visit to A&E, then straight on to the next one.
- Not drawn yet1995
The Strawberry Raid
A polytunnel of strawberries, a football, and a very bad idea about what to do with the ones we did not want. Pockets full, faces red, farmer already reaching for the phone.
- Not drawn yet1998
Ben's Escort Van
Ben's Escort van, borrowed without asking and driven without a licence, as far as the gravel yard and back. It returned with one fewer bumper than it left with.
- Not drawn yet1997
The McDonald's Incident
Chubb needed a wee somewhere between the retail park and home. The McDonald's wall was there. So, it turned out, was a security camera and a man with a mop.
- Not drawn yet1996
Basketball Summers
Two summers where nothing happened except basketball: cracked court, bent hoop, jumpers for lines, and an argument about scoring that lasted from June to September.
- Not drawn yet1995
Plums At The Gate
A tree of plums nobody was picking, so we picked them, then sold them at the gate to the same people whose tree it was. Best afternoon's wages of the decade.
- Not drawn yet1997
Gold Balls
Three golf balls found in the long grass, one slingshot, and a greenhouse on the far side of the field that had never done anything to anybody.
- Not drawn yet1993
Barry Moves In
The day Barry moved in next door we met on the tennis court and swapped every swear word we knew. It took eleven minutes and shaped the next seven years.