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Facts and fiction
8 © Now that's what I call living! The following text is from a British novel about a boy who is trying to discover what kind of person he is. ‘Now that’s what I call living!’ is the title of a little story told by the boy in the novel. 1 Before you read
What do people mean when they say someone is weird? What does the word mean to you?
Here’s a little story. This guy, let’s call him Jimmy, he lives with his family in an old school bus in New Mexico. There’s him, his mom and dad and his five brothers and sisters, all in this old bus. They’re driving it all around New Mexico and up into California, staying in different places, just bumming around. Only one day the poor old bus dies. “Dag nabbit,” it says, at the end of too many hot and hard days, T ve had enough of ol’ Route 66, or wherever we are. I’m off to meet the great bus-builder in the sky.” So when they get to the next corner, Dad turns the wheel and the hippy bus, for the first time in its life, doesn’t follow. Yes, for the first time in its long life, it does what it damn well wants. Goes straight on and off the road, down a slope and finally stops upside-down on its roof. And would you believe it! Mom and Dad and Jimmy and the other five little Brokers all climb out of the doors and windows, every one of them just fine. And Dad says, after he’s counted them all quickly, “OK. That’s the last time I live in a bus.” And off he goes and buys a tent. A big old army tent. And they’re off again, stopping here and there, and life’s not so bad until one day the poor old tent is grabbed by a tornado, up into the air and away. And Dad says, “OK. That’s the last time I live in a tent.” So they go to the coast, where he buys an old boat. One that’s seen better days, of course. And they’re planning to live off what they can get from the sea, only none of them has any idea about fishing. Two fishes they catch that first day, two fishes between the seven of them, and Jesus might have been able to feed the five thousand like that, but Mom and Dad, no way. A storm starts and they can’t get back into the harbour. So they’re out all night, thrown around by the waves at their most extreme. And Dad doesn’t know much about sailing a boat, I’m afraid, not having had much experience because he grew up as far from the sea as anybody can get, but he manages. Just about, he manages. And when they finally get back to dry land, Mom and Jimmy and the five brothers and sisters all say, like they’ve been rehearsing it for days, although they haven’t actually, “Listen, Dad,” they say. “That’s the last time we live in a boat. It’s time to get you act together, start living in the real world, find yourself a job and us a home!” And he does, in a way. He gets them a big trailer to live in and he turns himself into a taxi-driving part-time gardener (although he doesn’t know a lot about gardens,
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