Middle School: How I Got Lost in London Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by James Patterson

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 Checklist

  Chapter 2 Pre-Trip Nerves

  Chapter 3 Lots of Amphibious Creatures in this Bit

  Chapter 4 A Roll-Call of Roll-Calls

  Chapter 5 The Bolognese Bit—Part 1

  Chapter 6 The Bolognese it—Part 2

  Chapter 7 “Nurse, the Screens. We’re Going to have to Operate”

  Chapter 8 Smelly Nappies vs Dirty Diapers

  Chapter 9 The Bit With Number 9 In It

  Chapter 10 Dear Earlobes, Really Sorry About this Chapter. Love, Rafe Xox

  Chapter 11 Going Soft in My Young Age

  Chapter 12 Giraffes, famous People—it’s all Going on in Chapter 12

  Chapter 13 Down into the Depths

  Chapter 14 A Nineteenth Century Tale of Derring-Do

  Chapter 15 The Terrible Return of William’s Wager…

  Chapter 16 Do these Britches Come in Another Color?

  Chapter 17 I’m not alone…

  Chapter 18 Mission Accomplished!

  Chapter 19 In Which I Become Rich and Almost Famous

  Chapter 20 Megan Fox: Figment of My Imagination

  Chapter 21 P.S.

  Extract from Middle School: The Worst Years of my Life

  Copyright

  About the Book

  As school trips go, this one is pretty awesome . . .

  When I was told we were going to London to study Living History, I thought they were joking. But here I am! Rafe Khatchadorian – global jetsetter!

  Now all I need to do is find a way of avoiding the school bully, getting Jeanne Galletta to talk to me, and try not to get lost in London.

  But things are never that simple. So fasten your seatbelts and hold on tight, because this could be a very bumpy flight . . .

  This book has been specially written and published for World Book Day 2014. For further information, visit www.worldbookday.com

  World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is made possible by generous sponsorship from National Book Tokens, participating publishers, authors and booksellers.

  Booksellers who accept the £1 World Book Day Book Token bear the full cost of redeeming it.

  World Book Day, World Book Night and Quick Reads are annual initiatives designed to encourage everyone in the UK and Ireland – whatever your age – to read more and discover the joy of books.

  World Book Night is a celebration of books and reading for adults and teens on 23 April, which sees book gifting and celebrations in thousands of communities around the country: www.worldbooknight.org

  Quick Reads provides brilliant short new books by bestselling authors to engage adults in reading: www.quickreads.org.uk

  About the Author

  JAMES PATTERSON is one of the best-known and biggest-selling writers of all time. He is the internationally bestselling author of the highly praised Middle School books, Treasure Hunters, and the I Funny, Confessions, Maximum Ride, Witch & Wizard and Daniel X series. In 2010, James Patterson was voted Author of the Year at the Children’s Choice Book Awards in New York. He lives in Florida.

  Also by James Patterson

  Middle School series

  Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (with Chris Tebbetts) • Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! (with Chris Tebbetts) • Middle School: My Brother Is a Big, Fat Liar (with Lisa Papademetriou) • Middle School: How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli, and Snake Hill (with Chris Tebbetts) • Middle School: Ultimate Showdown (with Julia Bergen, to be published March 2014) • Middle School: Save Rafe! (with Chris Tebbetts, to be published June 2014)

  I Funny series

  I Funny (with Chris Grabenstein) • I Even Funnier (with Chris Grabenstein)

  Treasure Hunters

  Treasure Hunters (with Chris Grabenstein)

  Maximum Ride series

  The Angel Experiment • School’s Out Forever • Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports • The Final Warning • Max • Fang • Angel • Nevermore

  Daniel X series

  The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (with Michael Ledwidge) • Watch the Skies (with Ned Rust) • Demons and Druids (with Adam Sadler) • Game Over (with Ned Rust) • Armageddon (with Chris Grabenstein)

  Witch & Wizard series

  Witch & Wizard (with Gabrielle Charbonnet) • The Gift (with Ned Rust) • The Fire (with Jill Dembowski) • The Kiss (with Jill Dembowski)

  Confessions series

  Confessions of a Murder Suspect (with Maxine Paetro) • Confessions: The Private School Murders (with Maxine Paetro)

  Graphic novels

  Daniel X: Alien Hunter (with Leopoldo Gout) • Maximum Ride: Manga Volumes 1–7 (with NaRae Lee)

  For more information about James Patterson’s novels, visit www.jamespatterson.co.uk

  Or become a fan on Facebook

  To Philip Yanakov and his mother Victoria who, through their generosity, help get kids reading.

  CHECKLIST OF THINGS you should bring for a transatlantic flight to London:

  1 Yourself. Which in my case, is me. More about me in Chapter 2. I mean, there’s more about me in the whole book, obviously— I’m the guy on the cover— but Chapter 2 is where we get the introductions out of the way. Anyway, back to the checklist. On to item two…

  2 Er…what else? Oh yes, almost forgot: your clothes, toothpaste, and stuff like that. In other words, the kind of stuff your mom packs for you.

  3 But as this is a checklist, I guess you should really check your mom has packed your stuff. Otherwise it wouldn’t be much of a checklist.

  4 On second thoughts, let’s live dangerously.

  5 And…that’s it, really.

  Checklist of things you probably don’t need on a transatlantic flight to London—but which come in handy anyway:

  1 Spaghetti Bolognese.

  Yeah? you’re thinking.

  And? you’re thinking.

  Spaghetti Bolognese?! you’re thinking. What’s that got to do with anything? Well, as my homeroom teacher Mr. Rourke would say, “read on Macduff,” which is something to do with Shakespeare. See? You’ve learned something already!

  SO, SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE. Hold that thought. We’ll come back to it. For the time being, all you really need to know is that the transatlantic flight in question involved me—me as in Rafe Khatchadorian, your friendly neighborhood narrator. And if you know me from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life and/or Middle School: Get Me Out of Here! then hi, grab a seat, it’s good to see you again. I hope you enjoyed the other books, especially the bits about me.

  And if you liked the bits with Jeanne “love-of-my-life, but-why-oh-why-won’t-she-love-me-back” Galletta, well, the good news is, she’s in this story too. Matter of fact, she was also on the transatlantic flight to London.

  And if you really hated the bits with Miller the Killer in, ’cause he’s such a bully…well, the bad news is he’s in this tale too. He was on the transatlantic flight to London as well.

  Why? Well, because this story is something that happened during my time at Hills Village Middle School, when I went on a Living History trip to London.

  But wait—we’re not in London yet. We’re not even on the flight yet. Our tale begins one Saturday morning in the deserted parking lot of Hills Village school. Deserted apart from a coach about to take us to the airport, and ten kids with backpacks on, moms and dads fussing round them. And teachers saying things like, “Don’t worry, Mrs. Abbott, everything is taken care of. Jason will be fine.” And, “Yes, Mr. Swann. Our insurance is fully up to date
—there’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”

  That was Ms. Donatello, who despite having the name of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle isn’t green, definitely isn’t a teenager, and no way is a ninja (although she may well be a mutant. Who knows?). She teaches English and was along for the ride because she’d always wanted to visit England.

  Mr. Rourke was there too, and Mr. Dwight the principal. They all had this weird out-of-school look about them. At first I couldn’t work out what it was, but then it clicked: They were all smiling. They all looked happy.

  Mom couldn’t stay, not like the other parents. No fussing for me. My sister Georgia had a piano lesson. So Mom dropped me off, straightened my collar, gave me a kiss on the forehead, and told me to be good. And that was it. Off she went. I watched the family SUV turn out of the lot and head back into town. The last thing I saw was Georgia. Or, to be precise, the back of Georgia’s head.

  And all of a sudden I felt real lonely. Even though I was surrounded by other kids—kids I went to school with, whose fart smells and body odor I knew as well as my own. Even with Jeanne Galletta there, and Miller the Killer there, and Dylan Stephenson, and Sasha Smallbones and all the rest…

  …even with all those guys there, what I felt as I watched Mom and Georgia drive away was lonely. Like I was already miles away from home.

  Lucky I had Leonardo the Silent with me.

  LEONARDO THE SILENT. It’s him who draws the pictures. And he’s my best friend. See, I’m not exactly what you’d call popular at school. There’s a reason I stood at the assembly point feeling lonely. It wasn’t just because I was staring at the exhaust pipe of Mom’s SUV. It’s because, well…I don’t have many friends. Or really, to be precise again, any friends.

  But here’s a secret.

  Ready?

  [Clears throat. Looks left and right. Leans in close to whisper.]

  Leonardo the Silent isn’t real.

  Well, I mean, he’s real—in the sense that he’s a real imaginary friend. And he’s a real good imaginary friend too. (See what I did there?) Just that he’s not “real.” He doesn’t have skin and blood and arms and a backside.

  He’s my twin brother who died, when I was so young I never even got to be sad about it, and now I keep him around as what you might call a “special friend.” He’s a good special friend. Never lets me down.

  Okay, rarely lets me down.

  And he always tells it like it is. What’s more, he’s the other person in my life with a name like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. He’s not green, he’s not yet a teenager, and he’s not a mutant…

  …but when it comes to drawing, he’s a ninja.

  And if it wasn’t for art, and for Leo… well, things would be different for me, I guess. I’d find it hard: the problems I have with my classmates, with my teachers, with rules, with reality. I’d find it even harder than I already do.

  Anyway, back to the parking lot, back to that assembly. Here’s where the story really began, and in the most innocent and unexpected of ways. A way you could never predict in a million years. It began with a roll-call.

  Trust me on this: If you go on a school trip—and especially if you go on a school trip to a foreign country—you have to put up with a lot of roll-calls. You get to say “Here” a lot. Just one word. “Here.” Hardly the Gettysburg Address. Not exactly a Shakespearean speech. And in the privacy of my bedroom I could say the word “here” a thousand times in a row and nothing untoward would happen.

  But the one time I had to say it in front of the rest of the trip. The one time. Oh, and the first time as well.

  It sounded like a frog burping. No. A frog with hiccups burping. A frog with hiccups burping while it’s being strangled by another frog fed up with the first frog’s endless hiccupping.

  That, really, was the beginning of all my problems. Like if I’d managed to say “Here” right that first time, then maybe none of what happened would have happened.

  ROLL-CALL AT THE airport.

  Miller the Killer got a big laugh with his impression of my “Here.” His sounded like a witch. Mine had sounded like a hiccupping, burping strangled frog but his sounded like a witch. What I’m trying to say is that even though his didn’t even sound like mine, he still got a laugh.

  I actually broke out in a sweat when it came to my turn to say “Here” for the second time that day. But I struggled through with no major limbs lost. It wasn’t great but at least it only got suppressed giggles—rather than the unrestrained guffawing that had accompanied my first one.

  Roll-call on the plane.

  Miller the Killer was doing his bit for the environment by recycling the same joke.

  My own “Here”? A masterclass in the art. An Oscar-worthy “Here.” But it was too late: The damage had been done at first assembly.

  Why, oh why couldn’t someone invent a time machine, so I could go back and do it again?

  The next disaster came when we took our seats on the plane and Miller the Killer ended up next to Jeanne Galletta. Not only that, but he was completely wasting the opportunity.

  He wasn’t even talking to her!

  I mean, if I’d been sitting next to her…

  …well, I probably wouldn’t have been talking to her either. But that’s not the point. The point was, he was sitting next to Jeanne and I was sitting next to Ms. Donatello. Meaning any chance of a sneaky peak at an R-rated movie was dashed for the whole of the nine-hour flight. Great.

  Was there no justice?

  Was Justice having the day off?

  To make matters even worse, I then sat down but forgot to take off my backpack. And to try and save face, I pretended I’d deliberately sat down with my backpack on—even though my nose was virtually touching the seat in front and my spine was about to snap.

  I probably would have stayed that way but a stewardess insisted I remove my backpack. So I curled my lip and sighed like I thought she was denying me my civil rights—when in fact I wanted to hug her for sparing me the torture of wearing my backpack all the way to London.

  And that was it. I sat and fumed. And while everyone else got excited about watching horror movies, I had nine hours of heroic-duck films to look forward to. Gah!

  As we took off, and the journey began, I noticed two things: (a) that Miller the Killer was looking a mite green about the gills and (b) that lunch was being served. And it was spaghetti Bolognese.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” whispered Leo.

  I was.

  JUSTICE MAY WELL have been having the day off, but Luck was by my side, because Donatello had fallen asleep. Her head was back, her mouth slightly open, and she was making a strange humming sound, like a wine taster on TV.

  Across the aisle Miller the Killer sat beside Jeanne. By now he was sitting stock still with his eyes kind of bugging out of his head, and he hadn’t touched his food. The pleasures of vacuum-packed airline spaghetti Bolognese were lost to him.

  In fact, forget about lunch—Miller looked like he was having trouble keeping his breakfast down.

  I’d like to say it was all Leo’s idea, what happened next.

  So I will.

  It was all Leo’s idea what happened next.

  In the pocket of the seat in front of me was a magazine full of fascinating features about beaches and hotel rooms. There was a card showing how to inflate your life jacket and a magazine full of duty-free products.

  These things were of zero interest to me.

  What I wanted was the other thing in the pocket. The bag you’re supposed to grab if you’re feeling like you want to hurl. The sick bag.

  You know that bit in Mission: Impossible, where Tom Cruise kind of abseils into the secure room? Where he needs to steal the data without setting off the alarms? Where he’s sweating and stuff, and he…

  Okay, you know the bit.

  That’s how careful I was as I removed the sick bag from the pocket then turned away slightly so Miller the Killer wouldn’t see me. (Not that he wa
s likely to be watching anyway, because he was still doing the eye-bugging thing and staring at the seat in front of him.) Then I poured my Bolognese into it.

  Correction: I poured Donatello’s Bolognese into it. But she wasn’t going to mind. Judging by the yum-yum sounds she was making, she was enjoying a scrumptious meal in her sleep.

  Then I took a spoon from my lunch plate and called across the aisle: “Hey, Miller!” And when he turned his head to look at me, I dipped the spoon into the sick bag and started to eat the Bolognese.

  THERE’S SOMETHING CALLED a chain reaction. It’s where one action causes a reaction, and that in turn causes another reaction, and so on and so on (and so on). It’s a science thing. And we’re talking about what happened on a Living History trip—which is humanities, but what the heck. It’s all learning, right?

  So LISTEN UP, class! Today we’re going to learn all about chain reactions.

  It begins with Miller the Killer turning his head to see me eating Bolognese from the sick bag. Only he thinks I’m eating…

  Too much information? Too much information. You get the picture.

  …So anyway. I munched.

  I chewed.

  I did a bit of slurping too.

  I even wiped Bolognese from my chin. And—inspired by Ms. Donatello—I made a whole lot of yum-yum noises.

  I mean, I really yummed it up.

  And Miller turned greener and greener. The muscles in his face and neck began to twitch. His chest started to heave like there was an alien creature inside him.

  “Yum-yum!” I said.

  His cheeks bulged.

  His head pecked forward.

  He clamped a hand over his mouth.

  “Delicious!” I said.

  And then Miller heaved and barfed. Puke spurted through his fingers. Beside him Jeanne Galletta shouted, “EWW!” and tried to get away. But it was too late, because Miller the Killer was unleashing a full-on gusher.