1993 · not illustrated yet
Barry Moves In
Illustration in the queue. New spreads are drawn every week — join the list and you’ll see this one the day it’s inked.
“The day Barry arrived, the tennis court became a swear jar with no jar.”
The new boy, Barry, has a face like a slapped satsuma and a treasure trove of words we’ve only ever heard adults mutter. We gather by the abandoned tennis court, a hallowed classroom for essential life skills. For eleven glorious minutes, we exchange the finest swear words known to childhood. But what happens when Barry’s mum calls him in for tea, right in the middle of a four-letter masterpiece?
“He took a deep breath, and said the word we were all thinking.”
From the back cover
When Barry moves to the village, he brings with him a truly spectacular vocabulary. We meet him by the old tennis court, where a competition begins: who knows the most colourful insults? Who can string together the longest, rudest sentence? It’s a masterclass in bad language. Luckily for everyone involved, the grown-ups are all inside, watching television and thinking what a polite young man that Barry is.
- Where
- The tennis court, Bramblewick
- When
- The day the removal van came, 1993
- Who
- Barry, Me
- Props
- A tennis ball, A wire fence, Every swear word we knew
- The oblivious grown-up
- Both mums were unpacking boxes indoors
- Got away with
- Eleven minutes that shaped seven years