Excerpt from The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson , plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Mum says there isn't anyone else on the planet whose brain works the way that Jaxy's does, and I'm pretty sure she's right. I reckon it's because he's the coolest guy on this or any other planet, but he says it's because the inside of his head is just like a big old ideas factory and he wouldn't be able to stop them coming out even if he tried. Which, luckily, he never has, or else we wouldn't have had some of the most excellent fun ever.

Like when I suggested we should have a comedy DVD marathon so we could work out once and for all who our favorites were. Jax said that if we were going to do it, then we had to make a plan and do it right, and that's how he invented DVD Dynamite Saturday Night. We made a proper folded-up paper program with a list of the DVDs we were going to watch and in what exact order we'd play them, and even the times for when it was intermission so we could go for a wee and make cheese on toast and hot chocolates and stuff. Then we got dressed up in our comedy outfits, because Jax said that was called getting into character, and we even made a ticket with Admit One: DVD Dynamite Saturday Night on it so we could invite Mum to come, as well. And she did, and it was the best Saturday night ever, even though we had so much fun we totally forgot to decide who we liked the best and now I'm never going to know who would have got Jaxy's vote.

Another time we were just sitting in my room talking about what cheese we reckoned was the best for melting and kapow! Jax came up with the Ultimate Cheese-Off Experiment plan. We made a banner out of an old pillowcase with UCOE 2018 on it because the whole name didn't fit, and Mum took us to Tesco's and we bought loads of different kinds of cheese. Even the expensive ones. Then Jax made a list with the names of them and five columns labeled "gooey," "gooier," "gooiest," "rubbish" and "totally rubbish" to put our ticks and crosses in. It turned out he needn't have bothered with the last two, because they stayed totally empty, but then we ended up writing a really cool joke about never meeting a cheese we didn't like. So that was, like, two ideas out of the factory for the price of one.

A lot Jax's best ideas pop into his head when he's supposed to be doing other things, like homework or sleeping or taking out the bins for his mum. Or watching the One Show Children in Need special, which is when out of nowhere he goes, Norman, I reckon we need to make a mega-genius-super-supreme comedy plan so we know where we're going. And all I knew was that if Jax was going somewhere, I wanted to be with him when he got there.

When we finished Jax and Norman's Five-Year Plan, Jax goes, Norman Foreman, you are the bee's knees and I am the dog's bollocks and there's nothing in the world that can stop us now. And I knew straightaway that he was right, because not only did we know for absolute sure where we were going, we also knew exactly when we were going to get there. Which was 7:15 p.m. on the first Friday in August after two changes on National Rail.

6

Sadie

NORMAN'S BEEN DIFFERENT right from the start. It's like he was born already knowing everything he needed to know and all the rest is just going to be gravy. He's also got more guts than anyone I've ever met, and I'm not just saying that because I'm his mum. I mean, who's braver than a shorter-than-average kid who's spent the better part of his life covered in a solid scale of psoriasis that hurts like hell and looks like shit, and who still keeps smiling? A kid who stands up beside his naughty best mate and tries to get people to see the good in him, and keeps on trying, even when it's pretty hard to see. A kid whose only parent can barely rustle up the enthusiasm to walk out into the world every day, even when the world's just a half-pint town at the bum's end of Britain. And he still manages to love her. You tell me who's braver than that guy.

Excerpted from The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman by Julietta Henderson . Copyright © 2021 by Julietta Henderson . Excerpted by permission of Mira. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.