The Accidental Adventures of Jack Potts

Chapter One

I’m Jack Potts. Ten years old with hair the colour of muddy puddles and trousers that always seem to have a hole in the knee, no matter how careful I am. Mum’s fed up with trying to patch them up and says she can’t afford to buy me any new ones because ‘Moving house and getting a divorce is very expensive.’

Which, in my defence, were never things I’d ask for.

AND honestly, the holey trousers aren’t really my fault. I get into a lot of scrapes, and I can’t always be worrying about trousers. They CAN be replaced but new limbs are MUCH harder to find. So actually, Mum should be pleased that I would always rather save arms and legs than clothes.

Today is Saturday, which is usually the best day of the week. There’s no school and MACHINE WARS is on the TV. It’s my favourite programme. I love seeing all the machines bash each other.

But THIS Saturday is a Miles Saturday. As if it isn’t bad enough I have to see him at school, now he can follow me home and bug me there as well.

Smiley Miley with his hair all tidy and clothes which NEVER have any holes, has suddenly become my new shadow.

He’s in Jupiter class, same as me, but unlike me, his hand shoots up straight away whenever our teacher, Miss Isle asks a question. His homework folder is always handed in on time and never has any stains on it. His PE kit hangs on his peg and not kicked under the bench gathering dust missed by the cleaners, and he never forgets to get his reading diary signed.

He just doesn’t seem normal to me.

But I COULD ignore all those things if he hadn’t once called me dumb in front of the whole class when I accidentally fell over my shoelace and knocked the painting table over. Miles said it looked like a rainbow unicorn had thrown up all over the floor and everyone laughed. The red paint stain never came out of my shirt and there is still a discoloured blob on the floor where the caretaker tried to scrub it with industrial strength cleaner.

Then, HORROR ALERT, his dad became my mum’s boyfriend and hey presto, without any warning, he became my ‘almost’ stepbrother!

Can you believe it?

I can’t.

At first, I kept thinking I was going to wake up and this whole Mum and Dad splitting up thing would be a dream. I MIGHT even have laughed at the ridiculousness of Miles becoming my stepbrother.

Except I didn’t wake up.

Well, obviously I did, but not to find any of it had been a dream. Worst luck.

‘Morning, Jack.’ Mum interrupts my thoughts as I shuffle into the kitchen on the hunt for breakfast.

‘You haven’t forgotten Miles is stopping over tonight have you? He’ll be here this afternoon.’ Mum clicks the door shut on the washing machine and presses a few buttons.

If only I could forget.

‘So, you boys can have a nice play later.’ She turns back from the washer and gives me a huge grin. ‘Isn’t it great you already know each other?’

The sound of water gurgles and shudders through the pipes. My stomach grumbles along.

No, actually it’s a MEGA DISASTER.

If it was up to me, Miles would be on a one-way spaceship to Mars NOT making himself comfortable in my bottom bunk!

Over a bowl of supermarket brand Choco Flakes, I wonder how to fill my hours of freedom until Miles arrives.

I can’t ride my bike because it’s got a twisted wheel from where I fell off it a few days ago. Dad said he’d fix it, but I won’t see him till next weekend.

I dump my empty cereal bowl by the sink, and even though it’s a bit drizzly, I wander outside to have a kick about. I find my football rolling around under the patio table along with a sad looking frisbee that our dog, Barkley had obviously found quite tasty judging by the teeth marks.

Miles doesn’t like playing football. He’ll probably want to watch some boring cartoon or worse still, BAKE! Last time he came he brought homemade biscuits. He’d taken the lid off the box and waved it under my nose. ‘Want one, Jack?’ I’d mumbled something about not liking chocolate chip cookies, which was a total LIE and the cookies had smelled yummy . . . but my tummy was way too knotted up to eat.

He’d looked confused and I did feel a TINY bit bad about it, but I couldn’t suddenly change my mind, could I?

The football feels a bit flat so I decide to have a look in the shed to see if I can find a pump. The old guy who’d lived in this house before us left loads of junk in there.

Wrinkling my nose at the musty smell that hits me, I blink my eyes and peer into the dim space. I spot some cans of paint, with dried drips in odd shades of yellow and brown down the side.

On the shelf by the doorway there’s a plastic sweet tub. I pick it up and give it a shake. It rattles interestingly, but when I ease the lid off all it contains is an odd selection of nails, cogs, hooks, and half-used rolls of tape.

Next, I investigate a battered biscuit tin which is full of keys of all shapes and sizes. I rummage around and find a massive one, that has gone all rusty and is as heavy as a full can of pop. It must open a castle or something! But it won’t blow up my football, so I throw it back in the tin.

Maybe there’s a pump lurking at the back.

I step over an old-fashioned lawn mower which makes me think about MACHINE WARS. In the last programme, a machine called CLEANUP won so easily it was almost embarrassing to watch. CLEANUP was a mixture of one of those upright vacuum cleaners with a front like a mower. The cutting blades like spinning saws, moved up and down. If another machine came anywhere near, it just smashed it to pieces!

A hairy black spider scuttles back to its web in the corner. The web is thick and sticky, it must have been undisturbed for ages, like most things in this shed.

I yelp, ducking in case it suddenly gets the urge to leap at me. Spiders, especially big hairy ones, give me the creeps.

I peer towards the back of the shed, but it’s too dark and dusty to see much. I need to get a torch from the house.

Mum’s not in the kitchen to ask where it is, but her phone is lying on the table. I’ll just borrow it for a couple of minutes and use the torch app.

I hurry back to the shed and step over the mower, narrowly dodging a rake clonking me on the head as it falls.

The torch app reveals another, slightly wonky, shelf filled with all sorts of stuff. I reach out and slide a rusty can of motor oil along a bit.

My heart bangs against my chest as if I’ve just run around the school field and a strange squeak like a strangled mouse pushes its way past my tonsils.

It’s not a pump.

It’s something far more EXCITING!