The Parent Agency. David Baddiel

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      “An Aston Martin! Write that down, Ginny!”

      “I’m writing it down, Kay!”

      Barry carried on looking at his dad. He had chosen not to recognise his younger twin sisters. Barry often snuck a glance at his dad’s Daily or Sunday Express, as he knew that James Bond would have to be aware of when dangerous stuff was happening in the world, and he had read that some countries did this to other ones. He had read that Iran, for example, did not recognise Israel, calling it instead – his dad had read this phrase out for him – the Zionist entity. Which made it sound all villainous, like Spectre (the secret world-controlling gang in James Bond). So, similarly, he did not call his eight-year-old twin sisters Ginny and Kay, but The Sisterly Entity. Or TSE for short.

      He did, however, out of the corner of his eye, catch them doing that sarcastic thing they did, where one of them – Barry didn’t like separating TSE into two, as that was kind of recognising that they existed, but if he had to, he would refer to them as Sisterly Entities One and Two – would pretend to write down something he said, as if it was really important. Which of course was their way of saying that it wasn’t important at all. Barry really hated it when they did that.

      “…so, Dad, on our birthday can you take us somewhere in a Rolls-Royce? Which you can keep in the garage next to the Aston Martin!” said Sisterly Entity One.

      “Ha ha ha!” laughed Sisterly Entity Two, who was still running her index finger across her palm as part of the pretending-to-write-down-stupid-stuff-Barry-says mime.

      “Yes, well, they’re not that expensive to hire. I checked online,” said Barry, trying as much as possible not to look at them. “And then maybe you can have, like, a tuxedo ready for me to wear and a cake with 007 on it, and all my friends can come dressed as Bond villains, and maybe you can have the film soundtrack playing, and you, Dad, can be Q, showing me gadgets, like a jet pack and a pen that’s actually a gun, and—”

      “Sorry, Barry, what?” His dad put down his Sunday Express.

      “Weren’t you listening? Da-ad!”

      “Barry, please don’t say Dad like that.”

      “Like what?”

      “Like when you give it two syllables. And go right down on the second one. On the -ad.” This was Barry’s mum speaking.

      Barry looked over, but couldn’t see her because, as usual, she was speaking from behind the dishwasher. As far as Barry could tell, Susan Bennett spent her whole non-working life either loading or unloading the dishwasher. Days would go by when he never saw her, but only heard her voice, in between the clanking of plates and saucepans.

      “I don’t do that!” said Barry.

      “Yeah, Mu-um!” chorused The Sisterly Entity.

      Barry’s mum and dad both laughed at that. His dad did that laugh which was also half a cough, and Barry could hear his mum’s high-pitched giggle in between the clanking of plates and saucepans.

      “Don’t laugh at that!” said Barry, annoyed at having to acknowledge something said by The Sisterly Entity. “It’s not even funny!”

      “It was quite funny,” said his mum, still not coming up from behind the dishwasher. All Barry could see, in fact, was her collection of egg timers – she had them in every colour of the rainbow – sitting above the dishwasher on the kitchen counter. “You do make me laugh, you two girls…”

      “Excuse me!” said Barry, feeling like he wanted to stamp his foot, but couldn’t because his feet still didn’t quite stretch to the floor from his chair. “Did anyone hear what I was saying at all?”

      “Write that down, Ginny!”

      “Well, I would, Kay, but I couldn’t actually hear anything…”

      “Oh yes, you’re right. I thought I heard someone say something, but it must just have been the dustbin men shouting in the street!”

      Barry pulled a face at The Sisterly Entity. Then felt annoyed at himself as he realised that this meant that he was, in effect, recognising them. But it still made him feel better. Until Sisterly Entity One said:

      “Write that face down, Ginny!”

      “I’m… a… really… stupid… looking… boy…” said Sisterly Entity Two, moving her finger slowly across her palm.

       CHAPTER THREE

      Having broken his resolution never to recognise The Sisterly Entity, Barry thought he might as well kick them under the table (his feet, being free-floating, were well placed for this).

      The last time Barry had kicked his sisters he had lost his pocket money for the week. But, seeing as that was only 75p, he reckoned it was just about worth it, and he had actually swung his feet back, in readiness to swing them forward towards their dainty little shins, when his dad said:

      “Were you talking about your birthday party again?”

      Barry let his feet swing back to their midway point. “Yes!”

      “Oh, OK. Well, it’s all sorted.”

      Barry’s heart lifted at this. His dad was really going to organise the car and the casino and the gadgets and everything?

      Geoff smiled at him, revealing his yellow bottom teeth, and bent down to rummage in his IKEA bag (one of those enormous blue ones made out of, as far as Barry could make out, a tent: his dad always had one to hand). “I was going to save this as a surprise for the day, but you’ve forced it out of me…”

      He sat up again, holding a DVD with the title: CASINO ROYALE.

      “What’s that?” said Barry.

      “What do you mean what’s that? It’s a James Bond film. One of the most famous. Come on, Barry, I thought you of all people would know that.”

      His dad handed it over. On the front cover was a man with a pencil-thin moustache who sort of looked like James Bond, but not one Barry had ever seen before. It wasn’t Sean Connery, or Roger Moore, or George Lazenby, or Timothy Dalton, or Pierce Brosnan. And it especially wasn’t Daniel Craig. Who Barry knew was in Casino Royale.

      “And I’m not just going to put it in the DVD player. We’ve got a projector at work that I can borrow and we can project it on to the living-room wall. That’s probably white enough if we shut the curtains really tight – although they never close completely in that room, do they, Susan? Oh well, it’ll probably be all right. Anyway, I thought that would be a great thing to do at your party…”

      Barry looked up. “What? That’s it?”

      “Huh?”

      “No casino? Or car? Or tuxedo? Or gadgets?”

      “Susan, what’s he on about?”

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