Before he could ring the bell, Granny opened the door. A huge gust of cabbage blasted in Ben’s face. It was like a great big slap of smell.

She was very much your textbook granny:

“Are Mummy and Daddy not coming in?” she asked, a little crestfallen. This was one of the things Ben couldn’t stand about her: she was always talking to him like he was a baby.

Broom-broom-brroooooooooommm.

Together Granny and Ben watched the little brown car race off, leaping over the speed bumps. Mum and Dad didn’t like spending time with her any more than Ben did. It was just a convenient place to dump him on a Friday night.

“No, erm… Sorry, Granny…” spluttered Ben.

“Oh, well, come in then,” she muttered. “Now, I’ve set up the Scrabble board and for your tea, I’ve got your favourite… cabbage soup!”

Ben’s face dropped even further. Nooooooooooooooooo! he thought.

2 A Duck Quacking

Before long, granny and grandson were sitting opposite each other in deadly silence at the dining-room table. Just like every single Friday night.

When his parents weren’t watching Strictly on TV, they were eating curry or going to the movies. Friday night was their ‘date night’, and ever since Ben could remember, they had been dropping him off with his granny when they went out. If they weren’t going to see Strictly Stars Dancing Live On Stage Live!, they would normally go to the Taj Mahal (the curry house on the high street, not the ancient white marble monument in India) and eat their own bodyweight in poppadums.

All that could be heard in the bungalow was the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantelpiece, the clinking of metal spoons against porcelain bowls, and the occasional high-pitched whistle of Granny’s faulty hearing aid. It was a device whose purpose seemed to be not so much to aid Granny’s deafness, but to cause deafness in others.

It was one of the main things that Ben hated about his granny. The others were:

1) Granny would always spit in the used tissue she kept up the sleeve of her cardigan and wipe her grandson’s face with it.

2) Her TV had been broken since 1992. And now it was covered in dust so thick it was like fur.

3) Her house was stuffed full of books and she was always trying to get Ben to read them even though he loathed reading.

4) Granny insisted you wore a heavy winter coat all year round even on a boiling hot day, otherwise you wouldn’t “feel the benefit”.

5) She reeked of cabbage. (Anyone with a cabbage allergy would not be able to come within ten miles of her.)

6) Granny’s idea of an exciting day out was feeding mouldy crusts of bread to some ducks in a pond.

7) She constantly blew off without even acknowledging it.

8) Those blow-offs didn’t just smell of cabbage. They smelled of rotten cabbage.

9) Granny made you go to bed so early it seemed hardly worthwhile getting up in the first place.

10) She knitted her only grandson jumpers for Christmas with puppies or kittens on them, which he was forced to wear during the whole festive period by his parents.

“How’s your soup?” enquired the old lady.

Ben had been stirring the pale green liquid around the chipped bowl for the last ten minutes hoping it would somehow disappear.

It wouldn’t.

And now it was getting cold.

Cold bits of cabbage, floating around in some cold cabbagy water.

“Erm, it’s delicious, thank you,” replied Ben.

“Good.”

Tick tock tick tock.

“Good,” said the old lady again.

Clink. Clink.

“Good.” Granny seemed to find it as hard to speak to Ben as he did to her.

Clink clank. Whistle.

“How’s school?” she asked.

“Boring,” muttered Ben. Adults always ask kids how they are doing at school. The one subject kids absolutely hate talking about. You don’t even want to talk about school when you are at school.

“Oh,” said Granny.

Tick tock clink clank whistle tick tock.

“Well, I must check on the oven,” said Granny after the long pause stretched out into an even longer pause. “I’ve got your favourite cabbage pie on the go.”

She rose slowly from her seat and made her way to the kitchen. As she took each step a little bubble of wind puffed out of her saggy bottom. It sounded like a duck quacking. Either she didn’t realise or was extremely good at pretending she didn’t realise.

Ben watched her go, and then crept silently across the room. This was difficult because of the piles of books everywhere. Ben’s granny LOVED books, and always seemed to have her nose in one. They were stacked on shelves, lined up on windowsills, piled up in corners.

Crime novels were her favourite. Books about gangstas, bank robbers, the mafia and the like. Ben wasn’t sure what the difference between a gangsta and a gangster was, but a gangsta seemed much worse.

Although Ben hated reading, he loved looking at all the covers of Granny’s books. They had fast cars and guns and glamorous ladies luridly painted on them, and Ben found it hard to believe this boring old Granny of his liked reading stories that looked so thrilling.

Why is she obsessed with gangstas? thought Ben. Gangstas don’t live in bungalows. Gangstas don’t play Scrabble. Gangstas probably don’t smell of cabbage.

Ben was a very slow reader, and the teachers at school made him feel stupid because he couldn’t keep up. The headmistress had even put him down a year in the hope that he would catch up on his reading. As a result, all his friends were in a different class, and he felt nearly as lonely at school as he did at home, with his parents who only cared about ballroom dancing.

Eventually, after a hairy moment where he nearly knocked over a stack of real-life crime books, Ben made it to the pot plant in the corner.

He quickly tipped the remainder of his soup into it. The plant looked as if it was already dying, and if it wasn’t dead yet, Granny’s cold cabbage soup was sure to kill it off.

Suddenly, Ben heard Granny’s bum squeaking again as she made her way into the dining room, so he sped back to the table. He sat there trying to look as innocent as possible, with his empty bowl in front of him and his spoon in hand. “I’ve finished my soup, thank you, Granny. It was yummy!”

“That’s good,” said the old lady as she trundled back to the table carrying a saucepan on a tray. “I’ve got plenty more here for you, boy!” Smiling, she served him up another bowl.

Ben gulped in terror.

3 Plumbing Weekly

“I can’t find Plumbing Weekly, Raj,” said Ben.

It was the next Friday, and the boy had been scouring the magazine shelves of the local newsagent’s shop. He couldn’t find his favourite publication anywhere. The magazine was aimed at professional plumbers, and Ben was beguiled by pages and pages of pipes, taps, cisterns, ballcocks, boilers, tanks and drains. Plumbing Weekly was the only thing he enjoyed reading – mainly because it was crammed full of pictures and diagrams.

Ever since he had been old enough to hold things, Ben had loved plumbing. When other children were playing with ducks in the bath, Ben had asked his parents for bits of pipe, and made complicated water channelling systems. If a tap broke in the house, he fixed it. If a toilet was blocked, Ben wasn’t disgusted, he was ecstatic!