Jamie Brown Is NOT Rich (3 page)

CHAPTER 2

THERE’S
CHANGE
A-COMIN’

So we live on Hovel Street and we barely get by and we’re always hungry, but we always have heaps of laughs and like I said, it’s all I’ve ever known.

Except then it wasn’t.

I was playing mini-golf with the triplets on the course Dad made for us.

We never play quietly. We yell and make animal noises and put each other off and we swing our putters in the air and yell
‘BUCKITY BUCKITY!’
We don’t even know what that means. Trav just made it up one day and we’ve said it ever since.

It’s a tough course. Only the skilful get through it …

Suddenly, a car beeped its horn. We all spun round. We always hear cars coming, but usually because they’re so old and dodgy – the muffler’ll be busted and the tyres will have no rubber on them and the bumper will be dragging on the ground. Even our car, which Dad has worked on, is super loud because he can’t get good parts. And when I say super loud, I mean if a rocket blasting off met a sonic boom and they got married and had a baby, and that baby grew up and married nails scraping on a blackboard, and they had a baby … that baby screaming would be how loud our car was.

But this car? It was
SO
quiet! You couldn’t even hear the motor running.

It was shiny, too. Everything in Hovel Street is grey and dirty and dusty. This car made the sun look dull!

We had no idea why it was in Hovel Street, so we ran up to it. It was almost as long as the Grand Hotel, and it glided over the potholes like they weren’t there. We couldn’t see inside because the windows were all dark … but then one slid open.

‘Hello, boys,’ a man said from inside. ‘We’re here to look at your street.’

‘Why?’ asked Trav. ‘It’s like the worst street ever.’

A kid we couldn’t see yelled from in the car. ‘So we can buy the whole street, knock these awful buildings down, build luxury hotels and apartments and shops, and send you rats back to the sewer.’

The man shushed him, the window slid up, and the car drove off … straight over our mini-golf course, smashing the flags.

‘Hey!’ Maxy yelled. ‘Watch it!’

We heard the kid laughing and then the car turned a corner and was gone.

Trav wasn’t happy. He started dancing around.

‘Oooooh, look at me. I’m a dumb rich dorkhead. I’m in a giant car and I can do whatever I want. Watch me headbutt this building. I’m so rich it won’t even hurt.’

He headbutted the building.

He’s not rich.

It hurt.

He knocked himself out.

The others kept talking about the richies, but I was quiet. I know the kid had been mean, but I’d seen the car. I’d seen
inside
the car. I’d seen the comfy seats without holes and the fridge and the TV and suddenly I didn’t want to be in Hovel Street anymore. I’d seen the light, and the light was fancy and sparkly and rich.

The next day we were throwing sultanas in the air and catching them on our tongues.

It’s not easy.

Only the skilful can do it …

‘JAAAAAAAMMMMMMMIIIIIIEEE!!!’

That was Mum. The triplets oooooooooooooooohed and laughed at me. All that meant was that they spat out sultana bits.

They thought I was in trouble, but I wasn’t worried. Mum hardly ever gets angry, but when she does she has three yelling voices.

There’s the ‘You are in trouble’ voice. Then there’s the ‘You are in
BIG
trouble, Mister!’ voice. And then, scariest of all, there’s the ‘YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE THAT IF YOU DON’T COME HERE THIS INSTANT MY HEAD WILL EXPLODE AND IF THAT HAPPENS YOU HAD BETTER CLEAN ALL MY BRAINS AND HEAD GUTS OFF THE FLOOR BEFORE YOUR FATHER GETS HOME!!!’ voice.

If my nice, gentle mum uses
that
voice? I’m in a spot of bother, as rich people might say.

I threw another sultana in the air.

‘JAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMIIIIEEEEE BROWN!’

Uh oh. She used my last name. That was getting close to the ‘YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE THAT IF YOU DON’T COME HERE THIS INSTANT MY HEAD WILL EXPLODE AND IF THAT HAPPENS YOU HAD BETTER CLEAN ALL MY BRAINS AND HEAD GUTS OFF THE FLOOR BEFORE YOUR FATHER GETS HOME!!!’ voice.

I bolted and was home before the sultana hit the ground.