The World of David Walliams: 7 Book Collection. David Walliams

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       9 A Little Bit of Drool

      Chloe looked at her alarm-clock radio when she finally dropped into bed. 6:44am. She had never been to bed that late, ever. Adults didn’t even go to bed that late. Maybe very naughty rock-star ones, but not many. She closed her eyes for a second.

      “Chloe? Chloeee? Wake up! Chloeeeee?” shouted Mother from outside the door. She knocked on the door three times. Then paused and knocked one more time which was especially annoying, as Chloe hadn’t expected her to. She looked at the alarm-clock radio thing again. 6:45am. She had either been asleep for a whole day or a whole minute. As she couldn’t open her eyes, Chloe guessed it must have been a minute.

      “Whaaaat…?” she said, and was shocked by how deep and gravelly she sounded. Telling stories all night had turned Chloe’s voice into that of a sixty-year-old ex-coal miner who smoked a hundred roll-ups a day.

      “Don’t ‘what’ me, young lady! It’s time you stopped lazing in bed. Your sister has already completed a triathlon this morning. Now get up. I need your help today on the campaign trail!”

      Chloe was so tired she felt like she had grown into her bed. In fact, she wasn’t sure where her body ended and the bed began. She slid out from under her duvet and crawled to the bathroom. Blinking in the mirror, Chloe thought for a moment that she was looking at her own nana. Then, sighing, she made her way downstairs and to the kitchen table.

      “We are going campaigning today,” said Mother as she sipped her grapefruit juice and swallowed the motorway tailback of vitamin pills and food supplements she had lined up neatly on the table.

      “It sounds booorrrring,” said Chloe. She made the word ‘boring’ sound even more boring by making it longer than it really needed to be. On Sunday mornings, Mother would allow the television to be switched on so she could watch programmes about politics. Chloe liked watching television. In a house where viewing was rationed, even an advert for a Stannah stair lift was a treat. However, these political discussion shows—which for no apparent reason were broadcast on Sunday mornings—were bum-numbingly boring. They made Chloe think that she wanted to be a kid forever if this was what the grown-up world was like.

      Chloe always suspected that her mother had another motive for watching: she had a crush on the Prime Minister. Chloe couldn’t see it herself, but lots of women her mother’s age seemed to find him dishy. To Dad’s amusement, Mother would always stop whatever she was doing to watch the PM if he came on the news. Once, Chloe had even spotted a little bit of drool ooze out of her mother’s mouth when there was some footage of the Prime Minister in denim shorts playing Frisbee on a beach.

      Of course, even the sight of her mother drooling didn’t make those politics shows any less boring. But Chloe would have watched a hundred of them if it meant not having to spend the day campaigning with Mother. That was how boring it was going to be.

      “Well, you are coming whether you like it or not,” said Mother. “And put on that frilly yellow dress that I bought you for your birthday. You look almost pretty in that.”

      Chloe did not look anywhere near pretty in it. She looked like a Quality Street. If that wasn’t bad enough, she looked like one of the unpopular flavours that get left in the tin until way into the New Year. The only colour she really liked wearing was black. She thought black was cool, and even better it made her look less chubby. Chloe desperately wanted to be a Goth, but she didn’t know where to start. You couldn’t buy Goth clothes in Marks & Spencer’s. And anyway, you also needed the white make-up and the black hair-dye, and most importantly the skill of looking down at your shoes at all times.

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