Ian Baggot: Be Careful What You Wish For

By Michael J. Mckenna

‘School’ evokes a spectrum of feelings, and for Ian Baggot, it’s a mix of mild disdain and disinterest, especially when it comes to math, P.E., and homework. But an unexpected discovery presents Ian with a miraculous solution. Seizing this chance, Ian’s life is transformed in ways beyond his wildest dreams, turning his school days from mundane to extraordinary. This tale follows an ordinary boy on an incredible journey, where one golden opportunity alters his world irrevocably.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035825844

Michael J. Mckenna

Originally from London, England, Michael Mckenna now resides in Japan. A gap year in Japan after university became a gap life after an innocent ski trip sparked a passion for snowboarding he still has to this day. In addition to, of course, books and snowboarding, music and motorbikes also figure very importantly in his daily life, being voted the number one house music DJ in Japan for three consecutive years in Loud music magazine, Japan, and having gained notoriety for having smashed the speed limit on every major Japanese road without getting caught. After hanging up his headphones to start a family, his ability to spin tall tales led him to dabble in short story writing, finally taking the plunge three years ago to write something longer. He writes every day, always in the morning, before unleashing more mayhem on the unsuspecting world.

Book preview

About the Author

Originally from London, England, Michael Mckenna now resides in Japan. A gap year in Japan after university became a gap life after an innocent ski trip sparked a passion for snowboarding he still has to this day. In addition to, of course, books and snowboarding, music and motorbikes also figure very importantly in his daily life, being voted the number one house music DJ in Japan for three consecutive years in Loud music magazine, Japan, and having gained notoriety for having smashed the speed limit on every major Japanese road without getting caught.

After hanging up his headphones to start a family, his ability to spin tall tales led him to dabble in short story writing, finally taking the plunge three years ago to write something longer. He writes every day, always in the morning, before unleashing more mayhem on the unsuspecting world.

Dedication

To Mr Young, the deputy headmaster at Richard Hale Grammar School when I was there. The scariest teacher I have ever encountered, yet at the same time, one of the most engaging teachers from whom I have had the fortune to learn. A man who could make Oscar Wilde interesting to 15-year-old boys. Bravo Sir! And to Ewan, my son. Never forget what Einstein said: Logic will get you from A to Z. Imagination will take you everywhere. This book is also dedicated to my dad, my mum, who asked me What do you get out of it? when I told her I was writing this novel, my pet cat whose relevance will be revealed later, and the superhero rock group ‘Black Sabbath’, gods from another world sent here to enlighten the human race through power chords!

Copyright Information ©

Michael J. Mckenna 2024

The right of Michael J. Mckenna to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035825837 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035825844 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

22012024

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Austin Macauley for giving me the chance to publish this. The publishing world is in a state of turmoil now, much like the industrial revolution. AM are the new boys and girls in town, revolutionising publishing, giving the proletariat a chance to unleash their musings on the world. No longer can aspiring writers be told Let them eat cake! by callous editors who cannot even be bothered to read their proposals.

Chapter 1

We Are Family

Ian Baggot was a very nice boy. Friendly, kind, quite clever, ever so mannerly and had lots and lots of friends. He was the kind of boy who was often invited to his friends’ homes because of his good manners and exemplary behaviour, not to mention his extensive video game collection, rumoured to be the biggest in his entire school!

He was quite tall for his age, fourth tallest in his year actually, not bad considering there were over one hundred and twenty students in year four. He had short straight dark brown hair, brown eyes and wore glasses. He was very picky about the kind of glasses he wore because if they were too round, everyone said he looked like a very famous wizard they all knew. He loved watching anime, reading comics, playing video games and collecting things. He was a true collectaholic; comics, erasers, pencil cases, stickers, action figures, trump cards, video games and more. You name it, whatever he was into at any particular time, he would collect with a vengeance.

He did not like sports or anything that required excessive moving around. Not one bit. Unfortunately for Ian though, his dad was constantly trying to persuade him to go for a bicycle ride or go hiking or running or do something that required a lot of energy and was usually outdoors, all of which were about as appealing as a maths test. His mum, who like him hated unnecessary movement, was kind and gentle but did have a bad habit of going on and on about something once she had started. She loved gardening even though they lived on the sixth floor of a tall apartment building and didn’t have a garden and so both Ian and his dad thought her passion for gardening was a bit strange.

She had recently tried to turn their small balcony into a ‘sundeck veranda terrace’ but had, by mistake, created an impenetrably vicious thick jungle of overgrown plants, flowers and other things that all looked exactly the same. Very soon, they had taken over the entire balcony making it a space to enter only at your own risk. Often in the morning, when Ian went outside to get a clean T-shirt off the washing line for school, he was attacked by a giant bug or stood on something brown and mushy or got himself snagged on something green and spiky. It was a place that no one, except his mum, ventured into unless absolutely necessary. For her, it was a small patch of heaven and her favourite place, after her bed. For Ian and his dad, it was a green hell.

Ian’s favourite place was his bedroom. He had a nice big bedroom that he didn’t have to share with anyone else, unlike many of his friends. He had heard that one of the students in his class had to share with two brothers, two sisters, a hamster and a ferret! Most of the time it wasn’t that messy though he was constantly reminded to clean it up by his dad who loved everything to be neat and tidy. Tissue on the table? In the bin it went. TV remote control on the floor? On the arm of the sofa it went. Shoes all over the floor of the entrance? Nice and neatly lined up they became, as if by magic. Maybe it was!

Ian’s room had everything he needed for a peaceful, relaxed sports-free life. A very comfortable bed just underneath a long odd-shaped window which was too high to see out of unless you stood on tiptoes, an air conditioner for the blistering hot summers and freezing winters he endured every year, a desk, a bookcase overflowing with comics, lots of posters on the walls, a bean bag chair in the shape of one of his favourite anime characters that was so big you could disappear into if you weren’t careful, a cupboard full of fantastic toys, his very own TV and another very comfy chair with no legs that sat on the floor.

From the window above his bed, he could see two train lines, one going into town and the other going to the airport and in the distance a vast mountain range that reminded him the countryside wasn’t far away. He didn’t spend much time looking out the window however, his gaze usually fixed on comics or on his TV, on which he played video games for hours on end, given the chance.

Together with Ian and his parents, there lived in their nice bright spacious modern apartment a cat called Sid. Their pet cat. Sid’s life had, however, started off quite sadly. One day when Ian’s parents were playing frisbee in a local park on probably the windiest day on record, they came across a woman carrying a box. His mum happened to hear a curious noise coming from the box and enquired as to the box’s contents. Inside was the tiniest of kittens, no bigger than the palm of your hand, its eyes closed, who sadly had been abandoned in the park. Ian’s mum and dad immediately offered to help and took it home.

Very quickly, the aggressive kitten and his dad became as thick as thieves and the kitten was duly named ‘Sid’ in proud honour of Sid Vicious, the lead singer of the bestest ever punk group, and soon became their official pet cat.

He was indeed a beautiful cat, with silky soft brown and white fur and sparkling blue eyes. As much as Sid and Ian’s dad were best buddies, Sid did not like Ian and Ian did not like Sid. Sid was born a few months before Ian and in Sid’s eyes, he was there first and it was his apartment. When Ian was born, Sid viewed him as an annoying intruder to be tolerated, not particularly liked. Their already strained relationship got worse though when Ian learnt to walk as he started pulling Sid’s tail. Ian found this great fun. Sid, on the other hand, did not. The poor cat could only suffer in silence or look to Ian’s parents for help as attacking a baby is not really a thing cats should do, if they wish to remain inside that is. And besides, cats are far too civilised to do that. And so over the years, they came to a gentlemen’s agreement: you keep away from me and I’ll keep away from you.

The four of them lived happily together in a quiet suburb of a big city that was not far away from the beautiful mountainous countryside nor the exciting city centre. Ian went to a local school which he could see from his front door though he often moaned about it being too far and that the road leading to it was too steep. It was smaller than the other schools in the area and even though it was the most recently built, most of the students there, according to Ian, thought it was old and scruffy.

Ian often complained about the toilets. Apparently, the toilets on the first floor were the newest and ‘nicest’, followed by those on the third floor which were not as ‘nice’. The toilets on the second floor and the ones near the gym were only to be used in the most serious of emergencies.

Even though there were at most about six hundred students at his school, much less than at some of his friends’ schools, they had an exceptionally large playground with slides, unicycles, climbing frames, hopscotches, goal posts and a sand pit amongst other fun stuff and in summer they swam in their own pool. If you saw the pool at any other time of year however, you definitely wouldn’t want to swim in it or even go anywhere near it as it was a disgusting shade of green, like a giant bogey lying around for something, anything to happen.

And that was the problem. Nothing really happened where Ian lived. Yes, it was very nice and clean and quiet and safe and convenient and the people were friendly but nothing exciting ever happened, ever. In fact, when Ian thought about it, the most exciting thing that had ever happened was when ten fire engines, sirens blazing, arrived noisily one Sunday afternoon in his street. Ian watched excitedly from their weed-infested balcony as the firefighters rushed into the building opposite, hoping to see them battle a huge fire with miles of hoses and dozens of ladders and other cool stuff that firefighters use and then carry everyone to safety outside as the battle against the fire continued, explosions sending black smoke into the air, flames getting bigger and bigger and hotter and hotter before more fire engines arrive, with the army too, just in case.

But that isn’t what happened. After about 10 minutes, they all returned outside, stood around talking for ages while drinking tea, and then left. Ian, disappointedly, returned to his room to continue an online battle with friends.

More than anything else in the world, Ian was happiest when playing video games. At the weekend friends would come round unexpectedly to play them together in his room, shouting strategy, tactics and advice at each other while stuffing their faces full of snacks.

Life, however, is all about balance and you can’t like everything. For something you love, there must be something you hate and there were some things that Ian did not like. Homework. It is a sad fact that there is not one child alive today in the whole world who likes doing homework. Anyone who says they do is telling a huge lie and just trying to look clever in front of everyone. And although he didn’t get that much homework and it really didn’t take that long to do, he still hated doing it. Time doing homework could be spent doing something much more fun, he thought, like playing video games.

On a beautiful warm sunny day, with the sun happily shining through the windows, he would wake up, close the curtains fully to block out anything that could distract him, and fire up his game console. Homework could wait.

And he didn’t like was going to school. It wasn’t that he hated it or even disliked it. He just didn’t like it. There is an importance difference you see between not liking something and disliking it, if that makes sense.

Another thing he didn’t like was getting up early, for any reason. Getting up early was no easier for him than pulling a bus uphill with a rope between his teeth and was something to be avoided at all costs. And finally, he detested sports of any kind, except dodgeball, which really isn’t a sport and more of a fun game. And so when you put those things together you can see why he didn’t like going to school as it involves doing those very things almost every single day he was there.

The law is the law however and children all over the world must attend school, like it or not. For this reason, and this reason only, he went to school, usually grumbling.

Chapter 2

Just Another Manic Monday

It was a dark stormy night.

Rain lashed relentlessly against the windows, trying to break into the peaceful bedroom while the wind tugged violently at anything loose, threatening to take it away as a trophy, a testament to its strength!

Actually, it wasn’t. It was a glorious bright blue-skied Monday morning. The kind of Monday morning that should inspire anyone to jump out of bed and embrace the start of a new week and do things they’ve always wanted to do but have always put off till the next because it was raining, and cold. Or too hot. Or they were just too lazy.

Ian was woken up ungraciously by the sounds of banging, scraping, shuffling and ‘Children of the Grave’. Anyone in the whole wide world would agree it is much more pleasant to be woken up by a gentle voice, a soft tap on the shoulder and an encouraging ‘good morning’. There was absolutely no chance of that ever happening where Ian lived. Blinding sunlight burning his eyes and blaring heavy rock music pounding his ears made any possibility of another five minutes peaceful sleep impossible.

And it was a Monday morning, the start of another week. Five whole days of study. And not much