Bob glanced at the picture of his supposed lookalike, the blobfish. Then he screwed up his face to look as much like the world’s ugliest animal as possible. He even pretended to blow a bubble of air from his mouth, like the real one had the day before in the zoo.

The two henchmen laughed.

“HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!”

“Now that is funny!” said Gaz.

“Can he be in our gang, Boss?” asked Baz.

Stubbs was not amused. He hated that Bob was making his henchmen laugh. It took away his power. And bullies love power.

“Blob! Stop being funny!” ordered Stubbs.

This made Bob want to be funnier and funnier and funnier. The boy opened his eyes as wide as they would go, picked up the book and put it on his back as if it was a fin.

thundered Stubbs.

But there was no stopping Bob. He brushed past the bullies and pretended to swim around the room, weaving in and out of the bookcases. Soon the other children in the library were laughing too.

“HA! HA! HA!”

Even the rather proper librarian Miss Browse couldn’t help but snort. Stubbs looked on with fury as Bob “swam” out of the library, and out of the clutches of the bullies.

As he turned a corner and got his breath back, Bob realised something.

Something important.

He had made something bad into something good.

Stubbs had said he looked like this fish. And maybe he did a little. But by playing up to it, he’d beaten the bullies at their own game.

As the school bell rang at the end of the day, Bob made his way to Sir Basil’s Zoo. Today he skipped all the way there. A brilliant thought had crossed his mind.

He could try to teach the blobfish the same trick.