Blabber Mouth Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’ve been pretty quiet since the race this afternoon because he walked into the room on his hands and he only does that when I’m depressed.
    He flipped over onto his feet, or tried to, but landed on his bottom.
    He didn’t speak for a bit because he was using his hands to rub his buttocks and then to say some rude words. Me and Dad have got an agreement that we’re allowed to swear with our hands as long as we wash them with soap afterwards.
    â€˜That’s life, Tonto,’ he said finally. ‘Sometimes you try to pull one off and you don’t quite make it. Though in my book a dead heat with the school champ’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
    Then he sang me a Carla Tamworth number the way I like best, with him humming the tune and doing the words with his hands. He doesn’t get so many notes wrong that way.
    It was the song about the axe-murderer who’s a failure because his axe is blunt, but his sweetheart still loves him anyway.
    Then Dad gave me a big hug.
    â€˜In my book,’ he said, ‘you’re the champ.’
    How can you be angry with a Dad like that?

‘Today’ll be better than yesterday,’ Dad promised this morning when he dropped me at the gate, ‘partly because fourth days at new schools are always better than third days, and partly because any day’s better than a school sports day where the other parents are cheese-brains and the judges are bent.’
    He was right.
    Completely and totally.
    Today is the best day of my life.
    It started wonderfully and it’s still wonderful.
    Well actually it started strangely.
    I walked through the gate and who should come up to me but Amanda Cosgrove.
    â€˜Nice turtle,’ she said.
    I stared at her, partly because she was the first kid to come up to me at that school, partly because I didn’t have a clue what she was on about, and partly because she was speaking with her hands.
    My heart was thumping and I hoped I wasn’t imagining things.
    Sometimes, when you’re desperate for conversation, you think someone’s speaking to you and they’re just brushing a mozzie away.
    She wasn’t brushing a mozzie away.
    She was frowning, and thinking.
    â€˜Good air-crash,’ she said.
    I still didn’t have a clue what she was on about, and I told her.
    She seemed to understand, because she looked embarrassed and thought some more.
    I wondered if that extra bit of effort to catch up with me yesterday had starved her brain of oxygen and she hadn’t fully recovered yet.
    â€˜Good race,’ she said.
    Her hand movements were a bit sloppy, but I understood.
    I nodded and smiled.
    â€˜You’re a good runner,’ I said.
    She rolled her eyes. ‘I hate it,’ she said with her mouth. ‘Dad makes me do it.’
    Normally I’d have been sympathetic to hear something like that, but I was too busy being excited.
    Here I was having an actual conversation with another kid at school that didn’t involve insults or an amphibian in the kisser.
    Then something totally and completely great happened.
    â€˜Glue,’ she said, with her hands.
    She saw from my expression I didn’t understand.
    She shook her head, cross with herself, ringlets flapping.
    â€˜Twin,’ she said, then waved her hand to cancel it.
    â€˜Friend,’ she said.
    I stared at her, desperately hoping she’d got the right word.
    And that she wasn’t asking if I’d seen her friend or her friend’s twin or her friend’s glue, she was asking if I’d be her friend.
    She said it again, grinning.
    I grinned back and nodded like someone on a TV game show who’s just been asked if they’d like a mansion for $2.99.
    Actually I wanted to do cartwheels across the playground, but I didn’t in case she thought I was trying to tell her something about a cart.
    I asked her where she’d learnt sign language, and she said on the sun.
    I suggested she tell