The man in the smelly fur coat.

I got on to the 24 bus at South End Green and climbed up the stairs hoping to find the front seat empty. I like the front seat, it is the best seat on the bus, it makes you duck when you come to bridges and low trees and the corner of the bus above your head is crumpled like an old coke tin from hitting things.
Dad says that you know when you've grown up when you no longer want to sit at the front of the bus. Dad still sits in the front seat... Mum doesn't anymore!

The bus was completely full except for one seat next to a funny little man in an enormous brown fur coat. I sat down beside him and assumed the position; the position is how us teenagers have to sit, grown ups call it slouching but it is not slouching.. A lot of research and hard work goes into assuming the position. The key point is that one leg must be stuck out into the aisle threatening to trip other passengers. You could spend a lifetime tweaking the assumed position and never get bored.

I soon found out why no-one else was sitting next to the funny little man... He stank!

The smell was horrible, it reminded me of the time Zippy Gazelle our kitten pood in a gumboot one summer and no-one found it until bonfire night. We still don't know how he got his bum up onto the gumboot without it falling over; Fizz, my brother, said he pood in the boot when it was lying down and then pushed it upright. Cats are clever like that, he said.

Dad found the cat poo in the gumboot with his foot.

I looked at the smelly old man and said: 'It's not very politically correct to wear animal skins, is it?'

He looked at me with one eye. The other eye looked at something else. 'It's OK when the bear has given you the coat himself'. He said in a not very good American accent like an English actor pretending to be a cowboy in a rubbish film.

'It stinks'. I said.

'So would you if you'd been wrapped round a bear all your life'.

I asked him how he got it and he told me this weird story without his cowboy accent.

He said: 'I test out stories for childrens comic books. The government says that all the things that comic characters do must be possible in real life, otherwise children would end up with unrealistic expectations when they grow up. So anyway I try out the things they do. I got this coat when I was testing a fight between a grizzly bear and Desperate Dan for the Beano comic; I went to America and looked for the biggest meanest grizzly I could find, there were lots of small ones but not very many the size I wanted.
One day I went out looking and forgot to take my coat and as expected, because it was in the story, a blizzard arrived with a grizzly inside it. The grizzly was also inside a lovely warm fur coat.
I looked at that fur coat and the bear looked at me looking at that coat and we both knew what we were going to fight about.

We wrestled and we wrastled, we pooh poohed the rules, we clinched and he clawed, we snarled and we growled. The fight lasted all afternoon til finally I did a brilliant body slam on him and then got him in a full nelson. "I submit, I submit". The bear said so I let him up and he got to his feet, eyed me admiringly then took off his fur coat and handed it to me... He went off into the woods shivering and what I thought was a woodpecker was the sound of his knees knocking together.

So thats how I got this fur coat and that's why it is ok for me to wear it'.

I was laughing like mad by the time he finished his story, if fizz had been there he would have wet himself like he does when dad tells his funny stories.

I didn't call the smelly old man a liar because his story had been so good. I asked him if he was working on something and where was he going?... He said he was doing a story about a Zebra that has escaped from the zoo and is rampaging through Camden market right now and he has to get off the bus, grab a purple scarf from a man in a pale coat then leap on the zebra using the scarf as reins and gallop off back to the zoo.

I smiled as he reached over and pressed the red dinger that told the driver you wanted to get off, then he squeezed smellily past me, said 'good afternoon' and walked down the steps as the bus stopped at Camden market.

As the bus stopped at Camden market there was a yell from the crowds and a panicking zebra ran from between some stalls. I watched the old man leap from the bus, grab a purple scarf from around the neck of a man in a pale coat, jump onto the zebra, and using the scarf as reins, gallop off down the canal tow path towards the zoo.

One eyed Jake.

1. How Jake got his name.

Jake wasn't always called Jake. When he was born his mother named him Ishmail.

Jake decided to change his name when he was eight years old.

When he was eight years old his father, who was a sailor, didn't come home so his mother set out to find him. She left Ishmail with his uncle and aunt and set out around the world.

As you would expect Ishmails uncle and aunt turned out to be very wicked people who made the boy work long hours in their fish and chip shop in Torquay. He was frequently battered!

One day when Ishmail was reading a book called Moby Dick; a very good book about a whale (except for the boring bits) his aunt said: 'Ishmail. Put that stupid book down and come and clean the fryer'.

'Stop calling me Ishmail'. He replied. These were the last words He ever spoke for many years.

He decided there and then to change his name to Jake and to become a pirate. As luck would have it that very night a pirate Ship called the Gimlet anchored off the coast very close to Torquay. Jake put some clothes and a letter in a pigs bladder to keep them dry and swam out to the ship, he climbed up the anchor rope and onto the deck where he greatly surprised the lookout, Blind Pugh.
When Pugh had got over his surprise he rang the brass bell to summon the captain and the rest of the pirates.

The captain, who was called Big Pat because he was big and his name was Pat, arrived on deck rubbing the sleep from his eyes and straightening his pyjamas which had pink skulls and crossbones on them ( a present from the crew on his last birthday). He was followed by a raggle-taggle collection of yawning seamen.

'What's this then?' He said when he caught sight of Jake. Jake said nothing but undid the pigs bladder and passed a letter to the captain. The letter said:

Dear Pirates, My name is Jake and I don't talk. I'd like to run away to sea and become a pirate so that I can search for my mum and my dad who seem to have got lost. I am a hard worker and know how to cook fish and chips.

'Well boy'. Said Big Pat. 'We would love to have you join us aboard the gimlet but the only problem is that you need to be able to say AYE AYE when I gives you an order, if you don't say aye aye how will I know that you heard me.'

Jake said nothing for a while, and then said nothing for a while more after that. Finally he took a deep breath and said 'AYE'.

From that moment on Jake became a member of the politically correct crew of the good ship Gimlet and Acquired the name 'One Eyed Jake'.

One eyed Jake aged 16 (life at sea was tough back then) Attempting to scare the owner of a basket shop in Cleethorpes. He failed and was made to pay full price for a set of panniers for his burro!

How to write a story...

Imagine. Imagine like crazy and then imagine some more. Imagine all the exciting things you'd like to do and then imagine them happening in your town or village. Then imagine them happening to you which is much more likely now that they are happening near by. In fact it would be hard to avoid them happening to you... You'd have to stay indoors, under the kitchen table (stroking the cat, if you have got one handy) with the table-cloth pulled down low making a tent to keep you hidden from your stories!
Then when the stories start happening write them down in a book (any colour book will do) with a noisy pen. As a beginner you will find it helpful to stick your tongue out the side of your mouth a little way. this also convinces your mum and dad that you are deep in creative thought and not available to give advice on the complicated things that they don't understand but you do!
When you have finished writing your story read it aloud to see how it feels. You might want to read it very quietly at first until it gets used to the outside. then you can read it louder and to real people.
Try not to laugh too much at the funny bits.
It helps to dress up when reading your story; this is called being in character. Every-body dresses up in this way, even city bankers when they want to tell bank stories (these stories are rarely funny which is why bankers don't laugh much, except on their way to the bank). Soldiers dress up a lot, so do nurses and traffic wardens. Burlesque dancers are the exception to the rule; they undress to tell their stories.
At the end of your story put a very loud full stop.