5thCLASS_1_96_jg:Layout 1 5/3/12 17:36 Page 35


1. Look at the chapter title: ‘Licked’. What does it make you think of? 2. Read the first two lines. What might the character have done to upset his Dad? Make a prediction.


Unbearable! PaulJennings Chapter one: Licked


1 Tomorrow when Dad calms down I’ll own up. Tell him the truth. He might laugh. He might cry. He might strangle me. But I have to put him out of his misery. I like my dad. He takes me fishing. He gives me arm wrestles in front of the fire on cold nights. He plays Scrabble instead of watching the news. He tries practical jokes on me. And he keeps his promises. Always. But he has two faults. Bad faults. One is to do with flies. He can’t stand them. If there’s a fly in the room he has to kill it. He won’t use fly spray because of the ozone layer so he chases them with a fly swat. He races around the house swiping and swatting like a mad thing. He won’t stop until the fly is flat. Squashed. Squished – sometimes still squirming on the end of the fly swat. He’s a dead-eye shot. He hardly ever misses. When his old fly swat was almost worn out I bought him a nice new yellow one for his birthday. It wasn’t yellow for long. It soon had bits of fly smeared all over it. It’s funny the different colours that squashed flies have inside them. Mostly it is black or brown. But often there are streaks of runny red stuff and sometimes bits of blue. The wings flash like diamonds if you hold them up to the light. But mostly the wings fall off unless they are stuck to the swat with a bit of squashed innards.


2 Chasing flies is Dad’s first fault. His second one is table manners. He is mad about manners.


What kind of relationship does the boy have with his Dad? 35


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