caused the Vice-President to barf).
I’d have to make a full and frank apology. The thing about a full and frank apology is…Wait a minute—how the heck do you make a full and frank apology?
Okay. Hold those thoughts. For the time being, let’s start with a Popularity Score: 0.
Zero. Nada.
Squat.
Aim: To raise that dismal Popularity Score.
We landed. We disembarked our puke-smelling plane. That’s what you do, by the way. You don’t “get off” a plane. You disembark it. We assembled. There was a roll-call.
“Here!”
Not as good as my Oscar-winning “Here,” but nowhere near the calamity of my disastrous first attempt.
After roll-call we marched through Heathrow Airport and trooped onto a coach. The coach was big enough for a whole two seats each. Which was good, because it meant I definitely didn’t have to sit next to Miller. But it was also bad, because it meant I didn’t have an excuse to sit next to Jeanne Galletta. And I needed an excuse to sit next to her.
Instead, I settled into the seat behind her. There was a roll-call. I was about to open my mouth for my latest rendition when I heard Miller pipe up instead.
“Here,” he said, his lame impression rearing its ugly head again.
There were titters from around the bus.
Great , I thought. This is a joke that travels . And now Miller’s got his feet back on the ground—now he’s stopped either puking or worrying about puking — he’s decided to resurrect it. That’s just PEACHY .
Still, I was thankful for small mercies. At least he wasn’t sitting nearby. He’d elbowed his way on and claimed the whole of the backseat as his own. From there he could launch attacks on the earlobes of anyone unlucky enough to be sitting nearby.
For a while, all we heard as the coach moved out of the Heathrow parking lot was the sound of ears being flicked.
I looked out of the window. Hey! We’re driving on the wrong side of the road. HEY, MR. DRIVER! Patrick (that was his name)— we’re driving on the…
“They drive on a different side of the road in England, doofus,” whispered Leo the Silent, sparing me any new embarrassment.
Popularity Score: (still) 0.
HERE’S A BUNCH of stuff I noticed is different in England:
1 People drive on the wrong side of the road. (Thanks to Leo for pointing that one out.)
2 The light switches: English light switches are kind of little and weird.
3 The toilets: If you lift the lid of a toilet in England there’s hardly any water in it. (Go figure.)
4 When they boil water, they don’t use a stove like at home. They do it in a “kettle.”
5 They use the kettle to make a drink called tea, which they drink a lot. And they make a dumb face when they drink the tea, like “Aaahhh…” Like this drink that actually looks like puddle-water is the most delicious thing in the world.
6 They don’t have drive-through ATMs. (I know!)
7 It’s kind of crowded everywhere, and they have queues and stuff.
8 They have this spread called Marmite. It’s disgusting . It looks like tar and smells like meat. They spread it on their toast to eat with their tea.
9 They have weird numbering systems for the floors in their hotels. So when you get into the elevator—which in England is called a “lift”—and you try to get to your floor…Chaos.
10 Pants in England are what you wear under your pants. What we call shorts, they call pants. Oh, and they call closets “cupboards.” They call trucks “lorries.” They call flashlights “torches.” They call diapers “nappies.”
11 When they need to call the emergency services they don’t call 911—they call 999.
And that last one. Number 11. That’s an important one. You’ll be hearing more about that later. Oh, and number 9? More about that is coming right about…
…now.
ANYWAY. LIKE I said, Miller was on the backseat, master of his domain—an evil king ruling over the rear of the bus, as far away from the teachers as he could manage. And there he
I’d have to make a full and frank apology. The thing about a full and frank apology is…Wait a minute—how the heck do you make a full and frank apology?
Okay. Hold those thoughts. For the time being, let’s start with a Popularity Score: 0.
Zero. Nada.
Squat.
Aim: To raise that dismal Popularity Score.
We landed. We disembarked our puke-smelling plane. That’s what you do, by the way. You don’t “get off” a plane. You disembark it. We assembled. There was a roll-call.
“Here!”
Not as good as my Oscar-winning “Here,” but nowhere near the calamity of my disastrous first attempt.
After roll-call we marched through Heathrow Airport and trooped onto a coach. The coach was big enough for a whole two seats each. Which was good, because it meant I definitely didn’t have to sit next to Miller. But it was also bad, because it meant I didn’t have an excuse to sit next to Jeanne Galletta. And I needed an excuse to sit next to her.
Instead, I settled into the seat behind her. There was a roll-call. I was about to open my mouth for my latest rendition when I heard Miller pipe up instead.
“Here,” he said, his lame impression rearing its ugly head again.
There were titters from around the bus.
Great , I thought. This is a joke that travels . And now Miller’s got his feet back on the ground—now he’s stopped either puking or worrying about puking — he’s decided to resurrect it. That’s just PEACHY .
Still, I was thankful for small mercies. At least he wasn’t sitting nearby. He’d elbowed his way on and claimed the whole of the backseat as his own. From there he could launch attacks on the earlobes of anyone unlucky enough to be sitting nearby.
For a while, all we heard as the coach moved out of the Heathrow parking lot was the sound of ears being flicked.
I looked out of the window. Hey! We’re driving on the wrong side of the road. HEY, MR. DRIVER! Patrick (that was his name)— we’re driving on the…
“They drive on a different side of the road in England, doofus,” whispered Leo the Silent, sparing me any new embarrassment.
Popularity Score: (still) 0.
HERE’S A BUNCH of stuff I noticed is different in England:
1 People drive on the wrong side of the road. (Thanks to Leo for pointing that one out.)
2 The light switches: English light switches are kind of little and weird.
3 The toilets: If you lift the lid of a toilet in England there’s hardly any water in it. (Go figure.)
4 When they boil water, they don’t use a stove like at home. They do it in a “kettle.”
5 They use the kettle to make a drink called tea, which they drink a lot. And they make a dumb face when they drink the tea, like “Aaahhh…” Like this drink that actually looks like puddle-water is the most delicious thing in the world.
6 They don’t have drive-through ATMs. (I know!)
7 It’s kind of crowded everywhere, and they have queues and stuff.
8 They have this spread called Marmite. It’s disgusting . It looks like tar and smells like meat. They spread it on their toast to eat with their tea.
9 They have weird numbering systems for the floors in their hotels. So when you get into the elevator—which in England is called a “lift”—and you try to get to your floor…Chaos.
10 Pants in England are what you wear under your pants. What we call shorts, they call pants. Oh, and they call closets “cupboards.” They call trucks “lorries.” They call flashlights “torches.” They call diapers “nappies.”
11 When they need to call the emergency services they don’t call 911—they call 999.
And that last one. Number 11. That’s an important one. You’ll be hearing more about that later. Oh, and number 9? More about that is coming right about…
…now.
ANYWAY. LIKE I said, Miller was on the backseat, master of his domain—an evil king ruling over the rear of the bus, as far away from the teachers as he could manage. And there he
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