How to Write Really Badly (6 page)

He looked up, interested.

‘Till when?’

‘Till you can switch to doing what you’re good at.’

Wistfully, he stared at the photos spread across the desk.

‘One thousand, six hundred and forty-six days . . .’

I glanced at my watch.

‘And this one’s slipping away pretty sharpish,’ I warned. ‘So pick up your pen and get your own personal little Knuckle-head Show back on the road.’

‘I’m stuck.’

‘Just have a go. No one’s expecting you to win any prizes.’

‘I won one once,’ he said proudly.

‘Really?’

I wasn’t really listening. For suddenly, right then and there, I’d worked out exactly what to do with my own empty How-to book, down to the very last page.

But he was determined to tell me.

‘Yes. I won a prize. Two years ago at the Summer Fair.’

He looked so proud that, even though I was desperate to get on with my idea,
I couldn’t help asking him:

‘Which prize?’

‘The prize for the boy who could keep his head in a hole longest while people threw wet sponges at him.’

Okay, then. I admit it. I’m not a
stone
. I have a heart. And I have heart-strings, too. And my little underachieving deskmate had just twanged them so hard they almost bust.

‘Right-ho,’ I said, picking up my pen. ‘I’ll help you.’

And pushing my own How-to book aside, I started off on his.

To write really badly (in Joe’s chicken-scratching style) you’ll need some paper – any grubby old scrap will do – and a pen that makes terrible blotches. Look for a lumpy place to work. (Rocks and laps
are good, but runaway buses are better.)

Sit exactly right. Slouch to one side, and stick out your legs on both sides. Make sure you’re in poor light, or can’t see what you’re doing over a pile of books
.

Grip the pen so hard your knuckles go all white, and make sure you’ve twisted your hand round till you’re almost writing upside down
.

‘I don’t do that, do I?’

‘Yes. Yes, you do.’

It’s very important not to write any letter of the alphabet the same way twice. A really bad writer can make the same letter look completely different twice in the same word.

Example:

I handed him the pen.

‘Go on, then. Do the example.’

‘Me? I’m rotten at examples. You know that. I
always
get them wrong.’

‘You’re the only one who can get this one right.’

‘Really?’ His eyes lit up. ‘What shall I write?’

‘Write “pancake”,’ I told him. ‘That has two letters the same in it. If you spell it right.’

He spelled it right because I told him how.

Example:

‘Beautiful!’ I said. ‘Perfect! See what I mean? Always trade on your strengths. You’d never think those two “a”s were the same letter.’

‘So can I do
all
the examples?’

‘No one else but you.’

The next day, we did capitals.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M

N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Guess which of us wrote the examples on the top?

Right.

You
can
use capital letters to start people’s names, and new sentences. But if you’re trying to write really badly, you won’t bother. (And try making some of your capitals smaller than little letters. That’ll fool people.)

Example:

The day after that, we did small letters.

Guess which of us wrote the bottom ones? Right again!

To save time and effort, the end of one letter can be used as the start of the next.

Example:

Don’t worry, you’ll soon learn which letters don’t matter at all, and can be left out completely
.

The next day, we did special exercises.

Don’t ever try to write two letters together the very same height
.

Example:

And always make sure your tall letters slope in funny directions
.

Example:

Try not to use lined paper because, if you’re trying to write really badly, the last thing you want is everything neatly on one level
.

Example:

And we did numbers, too.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

How about making your 5 look like a letter S? Or your 6 like an 0? Remember that really important numbers should be
smudged.
And, for a nice change, why not write half the number as a word, and the rest as a number?