Running With The Reservoir Pups

Eddie's father was killed by dragons. No, actually, that's a lie. He was killed when his submarine exploded. No, actually, that's a lie as well. The absolute truth is that he was killed by aliens and his death was covered up by the government because it didn't want to frighten everyone. Sorrybut that's not true either. The absolute, absolute, hand on heart, swear to God truth is that he was murdered by terrorists. Well, no, that's not it either. The simple fact of the matter is that Eddie's dad wasn't dead at all. He wasn't dragon food, and he wasn't undergoing hideous experiments on one of Jupiter's moons. Eddie didn't even wish his dad was dead. It just sometimes felt like he was. They had lived, quite happily, or so he had thought, in a small village on the coast of Ireland called Groomsport. It was a quaint little village, with just a couple of shops, a picturesque harbor and a creaky old church, and it was surrounded by lots of fields and woods, perfect for a boy to play in. His father worked as an engineer in the Belfast shipyard, and his mother as a nurse in the local health center. Eddie went to the village school, he did reasonably well, he was happy. HAPPY. And then one day his mother came home from work and offered him a Jaffa cake. Now, his mother never, ever, offered him a Jaffa cake, or indeed any sort of biscuit, because she was thinking of his teeth. She liked watching American television programs where everyone had clean white teeth, and she wanted Eddie to have teeth like that when he grew up. She said it was too late for her own teeth, the damage was done, and so kept several packets of biscuits and numerous bars of chocolate hidden around the house for her to chew on after he had gone to bed, but there were none for himthere was still time to save Eddie's teeth, she maintained. So Eddie knew something was up when she sat him down and offered him the Jaffa cake, and then when he had swallowed that first one, almost whole, in case she tried to take it back, she shook the packet at him and said, "Have another." He took it, and blinked at her with his wide brown eyes and said, "What's wrong?" before taking a bite. Her face was pale and her eyes were red-rimmed, as if she'd been crying. He wouldn't normally have been concerned by this, because his mother always criedat a dead cat on the road, at a baby bird falling out of its nest, at somebody getting terminally ill on Coronation Street, at somebody discovering a dusty old painting was worth thousands on the Antiques Roadshow, and sometimes when she ran out of cigarettes and the village shop was closedbut tears and Jaffa cakes togetherwell, it wasn't a good sign at all. "I have good news and bad news, Eddie." Eddie took another bite of his Jaffa cake. "Which do you want to hear first?" Without thinking much about it, Eddie said, "The good." Part of him was still hopeful that this would be something along the lines of she'd bought him a Walkman to listen to his CDs on, and the bad news was he'd have to spend his own pocket money to buy batteries. But most of him knew it wasn't going to be that straightforward. "Okaythe good news is . . ." She took a deep breath. "The good news isI've got a new job, and we're moving to the city, and you'll have a wonderful new school and make lots of new friends." Eddie almost choked. "What?" was the best he could manage. "Yes," she replied, blinking at him uncertainly. "Isn&Bateman, Colin is the author of 'Running With The Reservoir Pups', published 2005 under ISBN 9780385732444 and ISBN 0385732449.