Barry shut his eyes. Then, as they lurched forward, he heard an enormous scrunching clunk.
What was odd about this enormous scrunching clunk was that it didn’t come, as Barry had expected, with terrible pain and broken bones and drowning and death. It just came with a jolt.
On that basis, he opened his eyes to discover that the bus had been stopped by some unseen object about ten metres from the cliff edge.
There was a banging sound to his left. He looked over. It was Mama Cool, looking, it has to be said, not at all cool, pounding on the window. Barry opened the door.
“Our tent!” she cried. “Our beautiful tent!”
“What’s happened to it?” said Barry.
“It’s under the [ ] bus!”
Actually, she said a swear here. A BIG swear. Before the word bus. But Barry decided to tune that out and pretend he hadn’t heard it.
“Oh,” he said. “I’m really sorry…”
“That’s not good enough!”
Barry thought. “I’m really… like, sorry?” he said.
Judging from her expression, that didn’t help, either. He opened the door and came down from the driver’s cab. Elliott followed him, looking more than slightly dazed. Mama Cool started pulling a corner of tent tarpaulin that was sticking out from under the front wheel. She pulled it hard. It broke. She fell over.
Barry was starting to feel really sorry for the Cools by now. He was about to do a truly big apology when he heard a loud voice behind him.
“Mr and Mrs Cool!”
He turned round. It was Lord Rader-Wellorff, with Jeremy, Teremy – oh, you know, all of them – by his side.
Lord Rader-Wellorff was standing over Elliott and Mama Cool. He looked very cross. “You are tenants on my land. And you have put my children at terrible risk! To say nothing of what you’ve done to my Rolls-Royce limousine! What have you got to say for yourselves…?!”
Elliott and Mama Cool looked up, shamefaced. They just held each other’s hands, not saying anything.
“In fact, do you have anything to say before I instruct Peevish to have you thrown orff my land immediately?!”
Barry decided it was time for him to speak. It was time for him to explain that none of this was Elliott and Mama Cool’s fault – well, except in so far as they had told him to do exactly what he liked – but never mind about that. Basically, the point is you should be blaming me, Lord Rader-Wellorff, not them. That was what he needed to say.
Barry stepped forward, in between Lord Rader-Wellorff and Elliott and Mama Cool. He opened his mouth. Unfortunately, just at that point, his stomach started to rumble. Really rumble. Inside his intestine, the A-Bombs had been mixing with the Sugar Sugars and the Banana Balls and the Caramel Hi-Kools and the Toffee Snakes and, perhaps worst of all, the spoonful of Mung Bean Muck-Muck he’d eaten earlier. And then it had all been shaken about in a very bumpy trip across the field in a skidding, out-of-control double-decker bus.
He put his hand on his tummy. He opened his mouth. And from his mouth came not an apology, but the most multicoloured, sparkly stream of sick anyone had ever seen. It was like a beautiful rainbow of sick.
Luckily, Mama Cool had realised what was about to happen as soon as Barry put his hand on his tummy and heard the loud rumble. So, in the nick of time, pulling Elliott with her, she jumped in front of Barry so that she and her husband could act as a human shield for Lord Rader-Wellorff.
Unluckily, this did mean that she and Elliott ended up covered head to foot in Barry’s beautiful rainbow of sick.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” said Lord Rader-Wellorff, backing away.
Jeremy, Teremy, Meremy, Queremy and all the rest of them backed off as well, going, “Urrggh!! Urggh!!!”
The rainbow went on for a long time. Barry made a strange noise throughout, which made the cows, who were still on the bus, look over with interest, thinking that perhaps he too was a cow.
Finally, it stopped. In the Bible, there’s a story about a man called Lot who God turns into a pillar of salt. The final scene here was a bit like that except, instead of Lot, it was Elliott and Mama Cool and, instead of God, it was Barry Bennett and, instead of salt, it was sick.
“Ahem,” said Lord Rader-Wellorff, stepping forward, but not too far forward. “Well. That was unfortunate. But, I have to say, very good of you, Mr and Mrs Cool, to… step into the firing line, as it were. Very good indeed. To get in the way of all that…”
He waved his hand towards what they were covered in.
“Sick!”
“Yaahs, thank you, Jeremy. So, in view of that, let’s just forget all about that business with the bus and the children and the Rolls-Royce limousine and throwing you orff my land. As you were,” he said. “Jolly good! Peevish! Children! Time to go!”
With that, he turned away. Barry looked up at Mama and Elliott Cool. He could just make out their eyes, in between drippy globs of red and green and orange. They were staring at him blankly.
“No, Dave, I know it smells of sweeties, but you can’t go and lick it orff them…” he heard Lord Rader-Wellorff say in the distance. But that didn’t distract Barry. He’d made up his mind.
“Please, Barry…” said Mama Cool.
“Yes, please, Barry…” said Elliott.
Barry knew what they were going to say: Be our son. And he was going to say yes. He was going to say yes.
“…can you go back to the Parent Agency. AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!”
“Oh,” said Barry.