Jamie Brown Is NOT Rich (6 page)

Read Jamie Brown Is NOT Rich Online

Authors: Adam Wallace

Tags: #Children's Books, #humor, #Children's eBooks, #Literature & Fiction

‘A
HUUUUGE
kitchen, and a massive pantry for all the food we can get!’

‘
YAAAAAAAAAAY!
’cheered Mum and Dad.

‘Buuuurp!’ burped Katie.

‘
YAAAAAAAAAAAY!
’ we all cheered. Her burps were getting better. She’d be talking soon.

‘Hang on a minute,’ Dad said. ‘How do you know the house has all that stuff?’

‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘But there’s only one way to find out. Huh?
HUH?
We have to move there!’

We all cheered again and Katie burped and it was official. The Browns were moving uptown!

CHAPTER 4

SO LONG,
FAREWELL

We held a huge street party to say goodbye to Hovel Street. We didn’t tell anyone where we were going, or that we had
HEAPS
of money now. We just said we were moving in with a relative to help them out.

Everyone was sad to see us go. Mum and Dad were really popular. Mum would help anyone cook a meal, Dad would help fix anything, and they were both so friendly. And whenever people were really low on food, no matter how short we were, there was always a plate of dinner for them at our place.

Everyone brought what little food they could for the party, and Mum turned it into the tastiest meal ever. The only bad bit was the Hovel Street custom where anyone leaving had to make a speech. I get
REALLY
nervous speaking in front of a crowd. I sweat, and the only words that pop into my mind are toilet and words that mean toilet, like john or loo or lavatory.

So that’s all I can say.

Mum spoke.

For assistance, please dial 1800-PAGE-NO and press # when prompted.

Dad spoke.

Then I spoke. I hoped things would be different, but …

DAMMIT!

Everyone laughed, I was embarrassed, and the party continued.

I played one last game of mini-golf with the triplets. It was the most competitive game ever, except Trav didn’t play. He was so upset at me leaving he headbutted a wall and knocked himself out.

But I played a great game with Johnny and Maxy. My last shot was the toughest of the day. It had to go around the broken bottle, off the pothole, over the kerb, through the pipe and into the mousehole in the wall.

And of course I was being put off!

I laughed, swung my putter around my head, yelled ‘
BUCKITY BUCKITY!
’ and smashed my ball. It flicked the pothole, missed the broken bottle, hit the kerb, flew over the pipe and hit Trav in the head just as he was waking up.

Whoops!

We helped him up and said our last goodbyes. Then I went to sit on the steps

where I had spent so much time with Mr Kravoski.

He was already there.

‘I miss you, Jamie Brown. I sad,’ he said in his accent. ‘You good boy. Not to forget tricks, okay?’

‘I not to forget,’ I said sadly.

‘Most special,’ he said, ‘not to forget card in pocket trick. That important. You remember?’

I remembered. I still couldn’t get it right though. Whenever I snuck the card into someone’s pocket they thought I was squeezing their butt!

‘You practise, Jamie Brown. You practise like the wind and always beware the monkeys in the hats.’

I nodded and then it was time to go.

We didn’t need a moving truck … we didn’t have enough stuff anyway. Dad started up the car. It coughed and spluttered and blew black smoke and then conked out. I knew Dad would be dreaming of being able to buy brand new parts or even a brand new car!

He tried again, more coughing, more black smoke, and we were off.

CHAPTER 5

SNOOTYVILLE

We drove over the tracks to the wrong side of the tracks. It was beautiful! I mean, it was still pretty average, but it was prettier than Hovel Street!

Then we crossed more tracks to the right side of the tracks. Holy cow horns, it was even prettier!

And then we arrived in Snootyville, and it was a whole other world.

It was like we’d crossed another set of tracks, only these ones were made of gold and diamonds.

TOP FIVE THINGS
I NOTICED

1. There
was so much grass! In front of the houses, on the ovals, it was everywhere.

2. One
house for one family was bigger than the Grand Hotel, and there’d been 20 families living there!

3. The
houses had tennis courts and swimming pools!

4. The
cars were as fancy as the one that had driven through Hovel Street.

5. We
ran out of petrol.

I noticed the last thing because the car stopped and Dad said we were out of petrol. I know, I’m like Sherlock Holmes, right?

Dad walked off with a petrol can and I sat on some grass by the side of the road with Mum and Katie. It was
SOOOOOOOO
soft. There’s no grass in Hovel Street.

Dad got all the petrol that would fit into the can and put it in the car. We drove a little further and came to a bank. Even it was a fancy building.

Dad stopped the car. He looked at us. We looked at him. We all looked at the bank.

It was time to get our money.

We went into the Snootyville Permanent Incredibly Trustworthy Bank.

People looked at us funny as we walked in. It was like they’d never seen people in dirty clothes before … which was probably true. The way the lady at the counter looked at us, I think she thought we were there to rob the bank or something.

Mum said we would like to open an account and handed over the cheque. The lady looked at it then called over the Manager. The Manager looked at the cheque then phoned the bank’s owner. The bank’s owner drove to the bank, looked at the cheque, then made another phone call.

We could only hear one side of the conversation.

‘Excuse me, Sir, but we have a cheque made out by you to the tune of what looks like a bajillion dollars … no, sorry Sir, I know that’s not a real number, I was just … no Sir, please don’t crush me like a bug … yes Sir, it’s made out to Tracey Brown … yes … no … I think so … she’s here now … very good, Sir … no, I apologise … yes Sir … no Sir, please don’t flush everything I own down a golden toilet … no Sir, especially not my family … thank you … yes … goodbye.’

He hung up, turned to the Manager and nodded. The Manager turned to the teller and nodded. It seemed as though money and fear could change people, because now that the lady knew we were rich she suddenly went all nice.

She took a whole load of details from Mum, then handed over a card she said we could use until the cheque cleared. Once the cheque was in, she would give us another special card which we could use to access our money.

We thanked her and left.

It was time to go and check out our new home.

First we went to the real estate agent and got the house keys and a certificate saying we owned the house.

We got back into the car, started it up, scared all the people on the footpath with the noise, blew black smoke over the
VERY
expensive car behind us, drove for five minutes, and ran out of petrol again.

Dad groaned, wrote something on a piece of paper, put it on the back windscreen, and we started walking.

Mum asked someone how to get to our house. They stared at us and sniffed, then they told us where to go … as in how to get to the house, although they said it in a really snooty voice.

We walked for half an hour and reached our address.

We walked for another ten minutes … that was the driveway to the front gates, which were
OOh la la
fancy!