Ways to Live Forever Read Free Page A

lights . . . and a smoke machine. . .” I read.
    Felix waved his hand dismissively. “You don’t need all that. Let’s just put a CD player in your wardrobe.”
    “That’s not a record!”
    “Why not?”
    “Lots of reasons!” I never win arguments with Felix. “Clubs are open to the public.”
    “So are we. We’re just a bit rubbish at advertising.” He grinned. “Go on – fetch a CD player. Don’t you want the record?”
    I pulled a face at him. But I went and got the CD player from the kitchen anyway. When I got back, Felix was in my room, peering into my wardrobe. My room used to be the garage, so it’s on the ground floor. It’s pretty big. It’s got chunky blue furniture that all matches and lots of posters: a Spiderman one, one of the solar system, one of Lord of the Rings and one of a wolf that my uncle got me from Canada.
    “Is there a plug?” said Felix, as I came in. He’d got my Maglite torch and was shining it into the wardrobe.
    “It’s got batteries.” I dumped the CD player in the wardrobe and turned it on. “Don’t Stop Me Now” started playing. Felix groaned. I laughed.
    “No wonder we don’t have any customers!”
    “Who cares?” said Felix. “Look. We’ve got music. We’ve got lighting.” He turned on the torch and swirled it vaguely into the wardrobe. “Hey – we’ve even got a moving dance floor.” He spotlighted my old skateboard, propped up against the back of the wardrobe. “World record. What more do you want?”
    I laughed. Felix always makes me laugh. “Look,” he said, “if you still think it doesn’t count, we’ll start our own record. Smallest occasional wardrobe nightclub. I bet no one’s broken that one.”
    “Only because no one would! Who’d set a record like that?”
    “Who’d pogo stick up the CN building?” said Felix. He was laughing too. “Who cares if it’s stupid? It’s still a record, isn’t it?”
    “It really isn’t. A record is more impressive than that!”
    Felix looked up at me. You could see he was plotting something.
    “Not a problem,” he said.
     
    These are the new (unofficial) records Felix and I set before Felix’s mum came.
    1. Sam McQueen and Felix Stranger: smallest occasional wardrobe nightclub: The Coathanger Club.
    2. Felix Stranger: most cornflakes eaten in fifteen seconds: five handfuls.
    3. Sam McQueen: shortest time to hop up a flight of stairs (holding on to the banister): forty-three seconds.
    4. Felix Stranger: most times to recite the alphabet all the way through, without mistakes, in thirty seconds: nine.
    5. Banned (Mum): shortest time to hop up a flight of stairs (not holding on to the banister).

 
     
     
     
     
     
     

     
     
     
     

 
     
A BLOODY BATTLE
13th January
     
     
     
     
    I spent all day today writing about Felix and the lesson and the record. Sometimes, since I got ill this last time, I just get tired. All I want to do is curl up and watch films, or look at a book, or write and write and not have to think. Today was like that. Dad came home early from work, so Mum could take Ella off to buy shoes. It was nice having Dad to myself. Even if all he did was read his book. And then Mum and Ella came back.
    “Home at last!” said Mum. Mum hates buying things with Ella. They always fight. She dumped her bags on the floor and looked at us. “Haven’t you two moved since we left? Sam, whatever are you doing? Writing a novel?”
    I closed my pad. I didn’t want her to see what I was doing. She gets upset, Mum. I knew how upset she’d get by some of what I’ve written. Like the questions. Dad just ignores things like that, but Mum cries.
    “It’s for school.”
    “You’re doing an awful lot of school work all of a sudden, aren’t you?”
    Dad looked up. “He’s done nothing but write all afternoon,” he said. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “If you’re putting that much effort into your homework, don’t you think it’s time you went back to school? That poor