Three Hoodies Save The World

By Roger Lawrence

After David's mum buys him a star from one of those strange magazines with photos of aliens and what you look like after your fiftieth face lift, he thinks nothing more of it.
That's when strange things begin to happen. Not least of which is being forced to go, along with two friends, to an alien planet; only to be told that an army of mutant lizoids is going to kill them, then destroy that world and finally the Earth. Nothing too serious, there.
Only when they find out that the girl who is helping them, isn't a girl, and that man who took them there isn't a man, or even human for that matter, do things begin to get a little fuzzy.
With less than one week to go they have to save three worlds from destruction, remain cool and have a good time. But worst of all - they have to be home in time for school on Monday.

Part one in a series of four.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger Lawrence
• Release date: Sep 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452363271

Roger Lawrence

With eight books already on sale I have three more to be published this year. Old Geezers 3 (undecided subtitle as yet), Progeny of Kongomato, the final in my monster trilogy and Three Hoodies Save the World 3. I've also begun my newest project: an end-of-the-world novel with a topical twist. No details or spoilers since so far, I'm the only writer to have done it.

Book preview

Chapter One

Interstellar war was not at the top of David’s schedule as he jumped excitedly out of bed. At nine o’clock on Saturday morning such absurdities even plummeted below the trivial status of maths homework.

Today, on his actual birthday, all that mattered were the tangible demands on a fourteen year old boy’s life. In strict order these were: looking cool, finding a girlfriend, not getting into trouble and of course, looking cool. A little shallow perhaps, but to a teenager the only realities worth considering.

First his white tee shirt, washed and bleached to the point of disintegration, slipped tightly over soon-to-be-buff shoulders. After a week crammed tightly into the bottom of his wardrobe, his new jeans had attained just the correct number of creases, and subservient to the dictates of style were several sizes too large. They sagged precariously low over his hips, forcing him to waddle like a penguin but such was the price of fashion. A week of dragging mum’s razor over his chin had left it red and painful but Sad-case, his friend, assured him of his eventual reward in the form of an imminent growth of bristles.

Finally there was his new hoodie. A vast improvement on the last one which he'd 'accidentally' lost before burying deep under the rose bushes. God only knew where his mum had bought it. With enough material to make a sizeable tent, the thing had hung half way down his legs making him look like a total plonker. In fact he didn’t like wearing them at all, but his friends said it was like a uniform and not having one would automatically include him with the nerds, and a righteous victim of the school seniors. The idea of extracting his head from a filthy school toilet held little appeal; and what it would do to what passed for his credibility didn’t bear thinking about.

His one insistence at individualism which made the ‘uniform’ bearable were the half dozen badges of imaginary US fighter squadrons he’d found at a boot-sale and laboriously sewn all over it. All in all, just the biz. His mum had finally got it right. Normally the stuff she got for him was about eight eons out of date. Last Christmas she’d actually bought him a pair of flairs!

Now almost ready, it was time for the all-important mirror shot. Blue eyes gazed with well practised indifference just like he’d seen Vin Diesel do so many times. Admittedly Vin’s biceps were a bit bigger than his, but not for long. Last night he’d managed twenty five press-ups without stopping, and even though he hadn’t been able to move his arms for fifteen minutes afterwards, the effort would be worth it in the end.

A quick pump of his new air-trainers, a careless hand through his unruly blond hair and the effect was complete.

Saturday awaited.

Two whole days until school began again so there was a lot to do. Two days could last forever when you were inventive and the whole world awaited your pleasure. And if nothing else, he was inventive. Aunty Joan had murmured that to his mum a few weeks ago. As usual adopting that deliberately vague tone adults always used in the presence of children when they didn’t really want you to know what they were talking about. And although he’d never been entirely sure there hadn’t some kind of slur lurking within the remark, it sounded good provided you didn’t actually think about it too much. Anyway, who cared?

But this star thing his mum had given him for his birthday present. He knew they weren’t exactly rolling in cash but surely a star must have cost quite a lot? Certainly more than a new skateboard, which was what he’d really wanted.

It was just a dot in an endless sea of other white dots. Even his mum hadn’t been entirely sure which one was his. And why it had it required a clump of his hair to pay for it? Sometimes his mum confused him as much as all the other adults who crossed his path with annoying regularity. Take last year’s birthday present: a walkie-talkie. Great; except there’d only been one in the box. Just like then, this had probably been a last minute panic buy.

The indecipherable photo now lay in the wardrobe with all the rest of his treasures that really should have been dumped years ago, especially the stuffed frog. A bit smelly now, even one of its eyes had fallen out. If the lads ever found out they’d never let him live it down. But it was also the one thing he couldn’t throw away because he’d given it to him.

‘What, an actual star? What a load of old wobblers! I got a mountain bike and it’s the best one you can buy.’ The phone call and Sad’s reaction still rang in his ears as he closed the front door. Even before he’d told him, David would confidently have staked a year’s pocket money on his friend's reaction to it.

First stop, Edna’s Caff, the closest thing they had to a fast food joint in this small town he now called home. Derrick and Sad-case would both be waiting, eager to know what his birthday had brought in the way of stuff. And Sad-case, well he’d be just like he always was when someone got something new. Nothing could ever impress him since he both owned and knew absolutely everything, or claimed to, anyway. He’d seen the film and bought the tee-shirt; although he hadn’t read the book. In fact any book unless it contained large colour pictures.

Not that he was thick or anything but Sad had a fundamental philosophy: if he had time to do anything even remotely constructive, like homework, then why not use it to antagonise a girl, or better still, annoy a grown up. And with his unusually large and heavily muscled body he usually got away with it. David remembered the science teacher mutter to the janitor that he was either a mutant or a throw-back. He had no idea what either meant but guessed they probably weren’t compliments

Sad-case wasn’t his actual name of course – even his parents didn’t hate him that much. But such was utter loathing of his given name and his subsequent refusal to respond to it, regardless of the hideous punishments meted out to him by teachers, that David had finally pronounced him a terminally Sad-case. His strange new friend had seized the tribute with a strange pride and thus he had become.

David’s recent introduction to his new school had been at exactly the wrong time, which is to say half way through term long after all the other kids' friendships and alliances had already been formed. After wandering into his new classroom to find him scrawling something obscene on the blackboard, youthful intuition told him that this enormous boy would either become his greatest friend or his worst enemy. And as if hearing his thoughts, the stranger had considerately offered to beat him senseless. Knowing there would be but one chance, David in return, had promised him a Vulcan nerve probe effective enough to make his eyes squirt out of his ears. A grudging respect had quickly grown into a firm friendship. Still, his middle name should have been piles because sometimes he could be a complete pain up the bum and absolutely no way would the throw-back spoil David’s big day. It only happened once a year and he was going to enjoy every moment.

‘Yeah, my own star. Beats a train set.’ This was true. The others nodded begrudgingly. A star of one’s own shouldn’t be sniffed at – metaphorically speaking.

Sad-case rubbed his slightly swollen jaw and frowned while staring hungrily at a couple of girls. His eyes were normally brown but today completely bloodshot. He hadn’t yet told them what he’d done to earn such a severe beating, but he would in his own time.

His hoodie, made of actual leather, looked like it had been run over by one of those machines the council used to tear up old roads, and bore some strange scorch marks on the back. All of which, David assumed, were the resultant effects of the rasp he’d borrowed from school. And he’d torn his new jeans on the lathe, much to the consternation of their metalwork teacher who'd been forced to repair the bearings, again. As one of the few teachers actually larger than Sad; if he ever put two and two together, his friend wouldn’t be alive for his own birthday.

The third member of their gang burped loudly. Derrick’s mouth and chin, liberally coated with the triple cheese-burger he now savaged with zeal, dripped half chewed meat into an already stained lap. He might have been wearing his obligatory hoodie but neither of them felt brave enough to check. As usual it looked like a mobile version of what they often saw on the road outside pubs and curry shops on Saturday mornings.

‘What...oops.’ Thrusting a meaty arm carelessly towards his milk shake Derrick missed, spattering David's cola messily over his carefully prepared jeans. ‘Soz.’ Although much brighter than David or Sad-case - not that they would ever admit it to his face, he was also the clumsiest noid either had ever met. Though the word, little, hardly did him justice. Bright brown eyes gazed from a moonlike face, while numerous green-headed zits adorned a chin which wobbled obligingly every time he moved. He claimed to have an under active thyroid and apparently this intangible medical condition bore no relation to the approximately half ton of food he forced down his neck everyday. A bit of a lard bucket perhaps; but their lard bucket and nobody would dare mess with him when they were together.

That such disparate characters had found friendship might have surprised others but they had never considered the ambiguity. Good friends were hard enough to find when the streets, and the schools, were just teeming with people ready and willing to do you harm. And that was just the teachers.

Their usual eatery seemed particularly dreary today cowering beneath low, rain filled clouds hovering mere feet above their heads. Edna's Caff wasn’t one of those bright flashy burger bars adorned with enough mirrors to make it seem as if there were twenty thousand people in there like on those telly adverts. Built about the time of the Second World War, or the Boer War, Sad-case had once sagely observed, it was small and gloomy with a low cobweb-covered ceiling and badly cracked support beams. The whole rotting edifice cowered beneath the side of an old slag heap the size of a moderate mountain and sometimes juddered alarmingly, promising to come down on their heads should there ever be a really serious rainstorm. No pretty girls with bright uniforms and even brighter smiles here. Just six cramped tables covered by garish and grimy plastic tablecloths huddled into an area about the size of David’s bedroom.

Admittedly Edna’s did have one mirror. It hung from three rotting screws above the grotty orange box which served as the counter. A large jagged crack running from one corner to the other oozed grease so old it had grown hair and upon which were scrawled in red crayon several lists of burgers and varying species of fried food. It had obviously been there for some years if one were to believe that a sausage sandwich had once cost ten shillings, whatever that meant.

Maybe Edna might know, however the small balding man of indeterminate age and possessed of an infinite collection of cardigans who ran this micro empire was clearly not Edna. Unless this long-suffering person had an even greater abhorrence for his name than Sad-case. He ran the café with such benign dignity that by unspoken agreement none of his patrons, usually the kids from the local school, could find it in their hearts to misbehave. Even Sad-case didn’t want to see a grown man cry.

After taking a long breath Derrick’s eyes sparkled mischievously.

David and Sad-case cringed, both shielding their faces in a vain attempt at protection. For moments later a staccato torrent of words roared over them, followed simultaneously by hurtling shards of masticated cheese burger. They both knew what he’d said of course, but they always made him say it again on principle.

‘What’, he reddened, carefully eyeing Sad-case’s fist, and spraying both of them anew, ‘is it called? How far away is it? What’s its classification?’

‘How much did it cost?’ Sad-case’s usual question.

‘Dunno’ David absently extracted particles of mincemeat from his hair. ‘It’s written on the back of the photo. It’s all just foreign words to me.’

‘You got a photo of it?’

They both ducked as a solid tidal wave of whatever Edna called the dog meat this week splattered them and the neighbouring tables. Much to the disgust of three girls sitting nearby and previously being far too cool to acknowledge the existence of mere boys. This was especially annoying since one of the girls naturally had to be that fifth former David had been surreptitiously eying for the past three weeks.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ He dismissed the subject, tiring of it already. There were things to do - important things. ‘So are we going to the pool or what?’

‘You betcha.’ As always Sad-case seemed willing, eager in fact, to peer through the hole in the girls’ changing room at the local swimming pool. Ever denying the coincidence of the aperture being almost exactly the same diameter as the now mangled blade of a chisel that had briefly gone missing from their woodwork class. His eyes gleamed redly as he envisaged the delights to come.

‘Not me. Howard’s got some new beta software.’ Surprisingly Derrick demurred. Normally he would have fought Sad-case for the chance to gaze upon girly flesh.

‘Better? What’s better than looking through the hole and seeing girls with no...’

‘Not better, beta,’ Derrick said slowly, enunciating both syllables carefully. ‘Bait...er. Bait, like what you use when you go fishing. Gerrit? It’s the final version of a computer game before it hits the street.’ He offered a superior smirk to David. ‘He wants me to test it. They don’t call me Fastest-Fingers-In-The-West for nothing.’ Actually nobody called him that, but he could always dream.

Sad’s eyes narrowed. Derrick was straying perilously close to painsville and Sad-case probably did have the strongest fingers in the west, which he would happily demonstrate if Derrick got too gobby.

‘Never been fishing, have I.’ he muttered quietly, his neck surprisingly wide for one of his youth and beginning to glow red – never a good sign.

Chapter Two

‘Oh, wow.’

Derrick sighed in rapture. Confronting them were about thirty computers. Some seemed intact while others lay scattered about the floor like the after effects of some localised explosion. The functioning machines all whirred excitedly while others simply flashed morosely in the discordant melody that characterised this strange place. About a dozen monitors, most of which were cracked or patched with gaffer tape cast flickering images or just electronic snow, although one had apparently met with an accident leaving tiny shards of smelly grey glass over every horizontal surface.

At their feet, coiled like multicoloured electronic snakes, hundreds of wires seemed designed to trap any unwary foot foolish enough to enter. All this crammed into a rank double garage in the garden of a dilapidated house and for Howard and Derrick at least, computer heaven.

Howard could have been anything between twenty and sixty due to the thick horizontal folds of pink skin obscuring most of his face. Certainly the torn red cardigan he always wore must have been the latter of those two ages seeing as how it had no buttons. While the ragged cuffs and waist band had been trailing strands of wool ever since the three had first become acquainted with him a few months back, blinking mole-like in the glare of a software exchange shop.

This strange man was a computer geek or a major anorak according to Sad-case after their infrequent visits to him. And the only reason they weren’t currently gazing upon scantily clad girls was because of the email he’d apparently sent Derrick. He preferred to email people since he possessed a strange lisping way of speaking which, he’d told them, made him the laughing stock of the local children - and Sad-case who’d nearly laughed himself sick the first time he’d encountered this strange person. It might have helped, he’d stuttered later, trying to keep down his lunch, if he didn’t have seventy five obviously false teeth. The only reason David and Sad-case put up with this always boring interlude was, that as a price for Derrick’s finesse, Howard would usually give them something the three could only dream of: a new and yet-to-be released addition to their games collection.

‘Hi, ladth.’ Howard welcomed them with a wide smile, missing Sad-case’s wince after David’s shoe expertly prodded his shin. ‘Come in and thee what I’ve got.’ He galloped into the gloom of his workshop, expertly manoeuvring around several tottering crates covered with what could have been computer parts or just as easily the innards of some immense washing machine.

‘Just get on with it, Nerdo.’ David muttered tiredly after the necessary oohing and ahhing as Derrick marvelled over a winking, light-bedecked box he assured them was a miracle of the first magnitude. He peered down at his ankles now partially submerged beneath the billowing cables, some twitching malevolently from the lethal current flowing through them. Sad-case cowered in the corner, his feet well away from the floor as he perched on the edge of a desk he’d cleared for himself simply by elbowing it all away; much to Howard’s consternation.

Now safe and keeping his hands carefully to himself, he snorted scornfully as Derrick sat down, his fingers soon flicking nimbly over the keyboard while strange alien monsters died in spectacularly gruesome splendour. In fact he continued for so long that finally David began to swing his feet out of sheer boredom before remembering what perils lurked beneath.

As always and with no warning after a few minutes of Derrick’s frenetic pounding, the computer blew a gasket or whatever computers blew, sending Howard into the onset of an apparent stroke. His red bulbous face creased even more in alarm as he shooed them out, brushing a podgy hand through the six or so strands of hair remaining on his sweaty head while promising to de-bug it. The whole place could do with de-bugging as far as David was concerned. There were a few corners of the garage that looked distinctly sinister.

An hour later and safe David’s fingers cruelly pinched the neck of an imaginary foe. As a Special Forces technique it ranked the number one strategy amongst trained assassins. When he was older and a Sergeant in the SAS he would use that on the first enemy insurgent he came across. He wasn’t entirely sure what an insurgent really was but he’d heard it on the news so it had to be somebody bad.

He stopped reading his Commando magazine for a moment, closing his eyes to enjoy the image of blowing up a streaking Sidewinder missile with a hand held SAM. He could almost smell the cordite and hear the destruction raining down about his head. He didn’t care that they’d been too late for the pool since his sister always left her bedroom door open, so he’d seen it all before. Once you’d seen fifty pairs of tights littering the house what more was there to know about girls, or women, which were exactly the same except bigger.

Their official headquarters were inside a big white van lying in a graveyard for cars in the old council scrap yard. After a few exploratory prods with an iron bar, ready at an instant to flee for their lives, they’d realised that the sign about electrified Dobermans and rabid fences had just been a cheap way of scaring away the local children. They’d found it nearly six months before in one of their usual forays for saleable scrap. In surprisingly good condition, it even seemed to have kept its engine and only partly worn tyres.

In the summer it had been a scorching oven and now, with the oncoming winter, a freezing icebox. But it was theirs and, to their knowledge, known only to themselves. It did have a strange habit of lying in slightly different places on some of their visits. At first they’d found this mildly worrying until Derrick had advised them that seismic anomalies did this kind of thing all the time and should be expected. Despite the fact that all the other desiccated vehicles in the yard always seemed to be in the same place, they simply accepted the theory. Derrick might be as much a nerd as Howard on occasion but unlike David and Sad-case, he actually listened at school and seemed to know stuff. A second curious anomaly about their hideout had also been explained by their constant font of knowledge. It seemed bigger on the inside than from the outside. German engineering, he’d assured them confidently. They were good at stuff like that.

Comics littered the rusty bottom along with the debris from several dozen meals of chips, burgers and sandwiches, the wrappers of which had been kept to provide insulation. While on the wall, a poster of some unidentifiable alien beast tearing another creature into shreds covered an old patch of oozing rust. Over their heads a small, battered storm lantern strung from the roof with garden twine gave them their only illumination. Their, which is to say Derrick’s constant twitching caused it to sway from side to side flicking shadows about the interior like crazed phantoms. This would have made most people feel sick, but being well used to Derrick’s eating manners and the rank aroma that always seemed to follow Sad-case after he’d eaten curry, they were made of sterner stuff and simply ignored it.

‘Did you see the way that computer exploded? It was great. All those sparks and stuff.’ Derrick settled back, content to memorize the image and file it away for future moments of boredom.

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Sad-case leaned against the dank metal wall, his eyes closing. He’d only had about three hours sleep the night before. It must have been four o’clock before they’d stopped. The arguments between his parents had become a lot more enthusiastic in the last few months. Why they couldn’t just split up like Derrick’s mum and dad he didn’t know. And besides, he’d heard about it at school. Kids always got more presents when one of the parents went on permanent walkabout.

‘So are you going to tell us, then?’ David leaned forward, impatient to learn the cause of his friend’s bloodshot eyes since anyone who could do that sort of damage to him was obviously someone to avoid. Sad-case smiled slyly.

‘El Slobbo, my brother, caught me messing about with a World War Two Luger he won in a poker game last week. But I knew where he had it stashed.’ Derrick paled at the thought of Sad’s monster brother loose with a gun as Sad-case continued. Unfortunately he’d jammed the pointed bit into the barrel at the same moment as El Slobbo staggered in drunk. By the time his huge knuckles slammed into Sad’s face for the second time, their father had appeared, discovered the previously secret gun and quickly administered some punishment of his own before confiscating it.

At least it had meant their mum didn’t get any more grief that night.

‘It was the sear.’ David informed him knowledgeably. He’d never actually seen a real gun, but could strip down (if only in his head) any and every currently used weapon carried by the entire British army. His stock of Guns and War, Soldier of Fortune and Battlefield wounds (special colour edition) were the envy of the school. So much so in fact, that some of the older boys had indicated their intention to tear off some of his more personal bits if he didn’t make them available for their collective perusal

‘Bout time he got a good smack.’ David observed. Where Sad’s extraordinarily large brother was concerned, they were in total agreement. He made the swimming pool’s enormous and vengeful janitor seem like a feeble girl in comparison.

‘Injubily.’ Derrick confirmed.

A companionable silence was broken by Derrick. ‘So are you going to tell us about it then? Your very own, actual star.’

There wasn’t much to tell. David leaned back into the gloom.

‘My mum saw the ad’ on the back page of one of them weird magazines she gets every month. You know, the ones where you can buy ‘X’ ray specs, or shrimps that look like real people, or look at colour photos of film stars after their fiftieth face-lift.’ The others waited, their faces glowing with delight in the dim flame.

‘She filled in the form, bought a postal order, and sent it off. The photo got here a couple of days ago and the certificate thing is coming later.

‘So what’s it called?’ Derrick twitched with excitement. A real star.

‘Anything I want to call it.’

‘So, like, David’s Star? Sad-case suggested helpfully.

Derrick shuddered at the very prospect. As a keen astronomer and used to grand names like Ursa Majoris, or Canis Minoris, a star called David would be an immense intellectual let-down.

‘What about Davidus Majoris?’ That at least came close to satisfying his moral outrage.

‘Or Bigus Plonkus.’ Sad-case added.

‘Or Wettus Beddus.’ Derrick smirked.

‘Or...’

David took the only opportunity available to shut them up; he was embarrassed enough already by the childish present.

BOOM BOOM BOOM

This had been something mutually agreed upon months before. None of them would thump the metal sides of the van because the resulting vibration made it feel as if their fillings were about to jump out. Or make him fill his strides as Sad-case had rather more graphically explained.

‘Just shut up about it okay?’

The others subsided with knowing winks after rolling about the floor screaming, hands clasped theatrically over their heads to prevent their brains spurting out of their ears. There was enough fodder here for at least a week’s annoyance.

‘Come on, let’s go to the slaughter house.’ Derrick grinned. The thought of all that blood sloshing down the drain always made them want to hurl chunks, but was also something they could never stop going to see.

They ran off, Derrick’s earlier digital mastery forgotten, even by him. But it would soon prove useful in ways none of them could ever have imagined.

Chapter Three

By Monday morning the weekend’s adventures were just a hazy but satisfying memory. Of the fifteen newts he’d plucked from the old stream at the back of the slaughter house, all but one had escaped. But that one had been the most rewarding after ‘accidentally’ finding its way into his sister’s make-up bag.

He’d only just managed to rescue the innocent creature, before it and he were skewered on the end of a carving knife by a near hysterical Janet. The telling-off from his mum and loss of pocket money had been well worth the look of utter revulsion on his sister’s face. And the scream, it had nearly blown out every window in the house. Ah, good days.

Old Blakey the maths teacher droned on, his voice just a vague disruption to David’s pleasant reverie. Hardly anyone ever listened to him, anyway since it wasn’t as if a single person in the whole world ever used fractions in their entire life after they’d left school. The rest of the class had done really badly in the last exams while David had received a respectable B plus.

‘David!’

Mr Blake appeared to be glowering at him from the portion still visible over the top of the lectern. It was difficult for David to tell beneath several tons of dandruff cascading from the teacher’s shoulders and the ever gross glob dangling from the tip of his hooked nose, which always seemed to be on the verge of falling off but never actually did. Hours had been spent by he, and the rest of the class just waiting for that incredible event. Now it seemed to be wobbling from the exertion of his cry. Would it hit the floor with an ear splitting boom? Maybe start a chain reaction that would turn the whole town into a huge glistening blob of green gunge? The whole class stopped muttering. Fifty eight eager eyes fastened intently on to the leaking beak. Would it happen right now; mega-tides drowning the whole country in a deluge of snot?

Now that David’s attention had finally been captured he could see that beside Mr Blake stood a man he’d never seen before. In fact he hadn’t even seen or heard him enter the class. At well over six feet the grey-haired, slightly angry looking man towered over the maths teacher, gazing sternly at David from two black eyes huddled below a thick unbroken eyebrow that looked like he’d glued a toilet brush to his face. And his skin seemed a little strange, too. Sallow in places but almost transparent where it stretched tightly over prominent cheek bones and a pointed chin.

‘You are to go with Mr...?’

The stranger didn’t seem inclined to reveal his name so Mr Blake stuttered self-importantly, raising himself another millimetre or so.

‘With this gentleman to the Headmaster’s Office.’ David looked around helplessly feeling an embarrassing glow begin to seep into his face. What had he done? Maybe he was a hit man from Save-The-Newts. Derrick and Sad-case shrugged, not looking too comfortable themselves while unconsciously edging away from him as if the sole perpetrator of some past and forgotten but still heinous crime.

He stood up with a loud juddering scrape of his seat legs which would normally guarantee a loud rebuke from the teacher but today elicited little more than a small frown. He couldn’t remember any other recently done misdeed that could possibly have caused a visit from The Man. The same thought had obviously occurred to their teacher who now wore his best puzzled, if slightly gleeful frown.

The tall man strode ahead without looking back and David’s eyes were drawn to the slight green shimmer from his suit. He seemed to be running with great loping steps as if escaping the, admittedly rancid, air of the classroom. David reluctantly followed looking resolutely forward, seeing but ignoring the amused sniggers from those four ratbags who routinely stole his lunch money or deliberately bumped into him if they saw him carrying something awkward on Sad-case’s ever more frequent exclusions

They rounded the corner to the Head’s office. The man’s eerily echoing footsteps seemed to bode something bad. Never having been in any serious trouble like Sad-case was on a regular basis; David had little experience of this type of thing and quelled a slight trembling in his legs. He’d only been in this part of the school once before and that had been for a real ear-bending along with all the usual suspects about the green slimy stuff from the metalwork shop that everyone used to clean oil off their hands. It hadn’t even been him that had smeared it over every door knob in the building. He’d given Sad-case a real nipple-ripple for that.

That had been bad enough. So what was it this time? His mind began to blur, his subconscious now inventing all manner of things that he might just have done to justify this excursion into the horrible.

But instead of going into Mister Morris’s office the man continued down the ghostly silent corridor and turned into the disused one where the gym had been before the fire last month. He stopped half way down, turning to give David another glare. David kept back, furtively looking for possible escape routes. What if he was a pervy? Mum had told him about those. Not the details of

Reviews for Three Hoodies Save The World

[dmyates-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a very fun book to read. It's about 3 young men who travel to other planets. Their adventures were unique the humor was placed in just the right spots.