Chris Pascoe’s Fun Tales

Chris’s mum is having an awful to-do trying to find a copy of his book

C Ahris, I’ve been in Waterstones and WH Smith’s, and I can’t find The World’sThickestRabbit anywhere.”

Knowing Ted to be at home in his hutch, no doubt wrestling with some anomalies in Einstein’s General Theory, or eating carrots, one of the two, I realised my mum must be referring to my My Weekly book. Feeling doomed before even opening my mouth, I replied, “No, Mum, like I told you before, it’s not in the shops. You order it direct from My Weekly. And it’s TheWorld’sDaftestRabbit, not thickest. And why were you looking for it? You’ve already got it?”

“It’s for Shirley!” my mum shouted in exasperation. Of course, I should have known that. I found myself instantly apologising without being in any way sure why, or indeed, who Shirley was.

“No problem, Mum,” I replied, “Just tell her the details are in the magazine.”

Mum, however, wouldn’t be beaten so easily. “You can’t get it anywhere!”

“You can. From the magazine, like I just said?”

“I’m talking about the magazine now.”

“What?” I replied, exasperated, “You can’t get My Weekly anywhere? It’s absolutely everywhere, in every supermarket in the country. It’s in WH Smith, it’s everywhere!”

“Well,” said Mum, folding her arms and pursing her lips – always worrying signals, “It’s not in the garage round the corner, and Mr Johnson never has it.”

As so often happens during these conversations with my mother, I felt my eyes begin to swivel in my head. Taking a deep breath, I asked, “Mr Johnson from two doors down? Why would he have it?” “He runs the corner shop.” “Oh right, I’m with you. But they hardly do any magazines. Just ask him to order a copy.”

“I wouldn’t want to put him through the bother,” she erupted, so loudly and so suddenly that I spilt my coffee over a magazine on the table… My Weekly, as it so happened. I wanted to mention the irony, but thought it best to keep it to myself.

I suddenly launched into a minor eruption of my own.

“Mum!” I cried (very nearly literally). “It’s in every supermarket – you can’t look at a magazine rack without seeing it!” Then, seeing my mum’s expression and knowing what was coming, I quickly added, “My Weekly… not the book.”

Mum looked at me in astonishment – I’d raised my voice. She’d finally broken me, but then, completely unexpectedly because I had no idea she’d ever seen the sitcom TheInbetweeners, she quoted a line from it in the style of Star War’s Yoda: “Ooo, feisty one, you are!” There’s a life lesson to be learned here. You thought I was going to say your mother’s always right, didn’t you? No, the lesson is, if you want a copy of My Weekly, don’t go to Mr Johnson’s. He doesn’t stock it.

Out now! Our first ever Fun Tales Collection! The World’sDaftest Rabbit&Other Stories is available exclusively from WWW DCT C K for just £7.99.