THE WEIRD STUFF all began with a handful of change.

I picked it up — a scattering of coins on a wet pavement — and counted it.

George Drake, it's your lucky day! Three strikes at Bumper Bowl with Josh and Matt — and now FREE MONEY! I let the coins trickle out of my hand, into my pocket, and got back on my bike.

What do you do with a handful of change? Easy. If you're me, you buy candy.

I was in the shop for about a minute. When I came out, my bike was gone. I had a paper bag full of gummy caterpillars and strawberry laces and foam bananas — but no bike. And it was raining. And it was a long walk home.

Sorry, George Drake, just kidding. Not your lucky day after all.

Great. Just great. I bit the head off a gummy caterpillar and started walking.

* * *

By the time I got home, I was feeling a bit sick. I'm not totally sure that I like foam bananas. Mum was upside down in the garden. Other people don't do yoga in the garden in the rain, just Mum.

"Electricity bill's come," she said from between her knees. "Even bigger than last time. Huge. Seriously, George — it's monstrous!"

Mum only does yoga when she's worried about something. Bills. The washing machine breaking down. Parent-teacher conferences. Dad leaving. She unfolded herself, balancing on one leg, like a flamingo — except flamingos can do it without wobbling. Then she noticed.

"Where's your bike?"

I told her, then wished I hadn't. A good mother would have agreed that all bike thieves should be nibbled to death by flesh-eating cockroaches, or lowered headfirst into barrels of boiling custard, or shot into space out of giant cannons. But no — apparently, it was all my fault.

"You left your bike outside the shop without locking it? George, that was stupid. What were you thinking?"

Then I had to listen to a whole load of yabber-yabber-blah-blah parenty stuff about Being More Careful. It went on and on for ages, until she lost her balance and fell into a rosebush.

I pulled her out, scratched and bleeding, with petals in her hair.

"You were saying?" I dusted her off. "About being careful?"

"Oh. Yes. Well ..." Mum sucked blood from the scratches on her fingers. "We'll say no more about it. Stuff happens."

* * *

Half an hour later, I was taking my mind off my lost bike with a game of All-Star Zombie Smackdown. I was just about to poke the eyeballs out of a zombie who looked a lot like my teacher, Miss Thripps, when I heard Mum calling my name.

"George? George!"

"Just a minute. Wait —"

Too late. Miss Thripps had chewed my arm off. I called her the rudest name I could think of and pressed Pause.

Mum was outside the back door.

"Look!" she said proudly. "It was right at the back of the shed. A perfectly good bike." She brushed a cobweb off the rusting handlebars. "Nothing wrong with it."

Except it was pink.

Typical Mum. She's famous for forgetting things, but you'd think she'd remember....

"Mum, I'm a boy."

"Oh, that! That's all nonsense." Mum flapped her hands. "Real men aren't afraid of pink."

What does Mum know about Real Men? She married Dad.

Until about a year ago, Dad lived with us. He wore a suit and tie, and went to the office every day. Now he's on a beach in Australia, wearing flowery shorts and flip-flops. He sent an email. It said the weather in Australia was lovely, and he was learning how to surf. Mum emailed him back. She said the weather at home was terrible, and she hoped he got eaten by a shark. They're very mature for their ages, my parents. Not.

I looked at the bike. No gears. No suspension. No anything, unless you counted a rusty Princess PrettyPants bell and a little wicker basket. I tried to imagine riding that around town on a Saturday afternoon. I could picture Josh's and Matt's faces.

"Mum, I can't!"

She looked hurt, which made me feel bad. Why do grown-ups never see things? Things that are perfectly obvious. Is there a part of the brain that stops working when you get to twenty-one or something? That's a bit scary. It means I have ten years left of being normal.

"If you want a new bike, you'll have to save up for it." Now she was in a mood. "I don't know how I'm going to pay that electricity bill as it is."

Mum has a shop. It's called The Mermaid's Cave. She burns incense and plays whale music and never has any customers. I think people already have as many smelly candles and bead curtains and wind chimes as they want.

"You can earn some money," she suggested a bit less grumpily. "You can wash the car. I'll pay you."

"Mum, we don't have a car."

It'd been sold after Dad left. We'd needed the money.

"I forgot." Mum stroked the old bike's saddle. I really, really hoped she wasn't going to cry. "Are you sure this wouldn't do? Harry and Frank both rode it."

"Yes," I agreed. "But Harry and Frank are both girls."

* * *

My sisters are older than me, but not so old that they have Grown-up Brain Rot yet. They can be really annoying, but they did see why I couldn't ride a pink Princess PrettyPants bike.

"Get a paper route," suggested Harry. She was spraying herself silver for an Aliens and Robots party. Harry is in college and goes to some very odd parties. "I had a paper route when I was your age. I needed the cash. Mum didn't understand about my needing hair straighteners."

Harry has tons of hair. When she isn't silver, she looks like Rapunzel, or one of those cartoon princesses. Except she has Super Mario tattooed on her bottom and a tongue piercing, which princesses mostly don't.

"If you promise not to do anything stupid," said Frank, "you can work for me."

Frank looks less like a princess. More like an owl. She's saving up to go to the Antarctic to look after penguins and has her own dog-walking business.

"I've got heaps of work on my science project to finish," she went on. "I could use some help. There'll be terms and conditions, obviously."

The terms and conditions, which Frank printed out and made me sign, meant that:

A. She kept half the money I earned.

B. I had to go to the shop for chocolate and/or sour-cream-and-onion chips whenever she wanted.

C. I had to clean out her gerbil cage once a week.

The gerbil used to be called Gerald. Then we got to know him. Now he's called Dracula. He has very sharp teeth. And he doesn't like his cage being cleaned out. But I needed the money.

* * *

The sign above the Candy Shop door actually says FILLING & DENTCHER'S CORNER EMPORIUM: WHATEVER YOU WANT, WE'VE GOT IT. Inside are shelves of tall glass jars, full of all kinds of sweets, so everyone just calls it the Candy Shop. I was there on a sour-cream-and-onion-chip mission for Frank when I noticed the card in the window. Written in squiggly green writing, it was tucked between an ad for a used toaster (NEARLY WORKS, BARGAIN PRICE) and a blurry photo of a fat tabby with white paws (LOST CAT. HAVE YOU SEEN SNUFFY?).

Help Wanted
Interest In Wildlife Necessary
Must Be The Right Person
Apply To Mrs. Lind, Wormestall Farm
No Squamophobes

I looked at it for quite a long time, until I knew the words by heart.

I had to wait to pay for the chips. Crazy Daisy was buying her lottery tickets. Daisy has bright,...