Billionaire Boy (3 page)

The only good thing about working in a factory was that Mr Spud had lots of time to daydream. One day he had a daydream that was to revolutionise bottom wiping forever.

Why not invent a loo roll that is moist on one side and dry on the other?
he thought, as he rolled paper around his thousandth roll of the day. Mr Spud kept his idea top-secret and toiled for hours locked in the bathroom of their little council flat getting his new double-sided loo roll exactly right.

When Mr Spud finally launched ‘Freshbum’, it was an instant phenomenon. Mr Spud sold a billion rolls around the world every day. And every time a roll was sold, he made 10p. It all added up to an awful lot of money, as this simple maths equation shows.

Joe Spud was only eight at the time ‘Freshbum’ was launched, and his life was turned upside down in a heartbeat. First, Joe’s mum and dad split up. It turned out that for many years Joe’s mum Carol had been having a torrid affair with Joe’s Cub Scout leader, Alan. She took a ten-billion-pound divorce settlement; Alan swapped his canoe for a gigantic yacht. Last anyone had heard, Carol and Alan were sailing off the coast of Dubai, pouring vintage champagne on their Crunchy Nut Cornflakes every morning. Joe’s dad seemed to get over the split quickly and began going on dates with an endless parade of Page 3 girls.

Soon father and son moved out of their poky council flat and into an enormous stately home. Mr Spud named it ‘Freshbum Towers’.

The house was so large it was visible from outer space. It took five minutes just to motor up the drive. Hundreds of newly-planted, hopeful little trees lined the mile-long gravel track. The house had seven kitchens, twelve sitting rooms, forty-seven bedrooms and eighty-nine bathrooms.

Even the bathrooms had en-suite bathrooms. And some of those en-suite bathrooms had en-en-suite bathrooms.

Despite living there for a few years, Joe had probably only ever explored around a quarter of the main house. In the endless grounds were tennis courts, a boating lake, a helipad and even a 100m ski-slope complete with mountains of fake snow. All the taps, door handles and even toilet seats were solid gold. The carpets were made from mink fur, he and his dad drank orange squash from priceless antique medieval goblets, and for a while they had a butler called Otis who was also an orang-utan. But he had to be given the sack.

“Can I have a
proper
present as well, Dad?” said Joe, as he put the cheque in his trouser pocket. “I mean, I’ve got loads of money already.”

“Tell me what you want, son, and I’ll get one of my assistants to buy it,” said Mr Spud. “Some solid gold sunglasses? I’ve got a pair. You can’t see out of ’em but they are very expensive.”

Joe yawned.

“Your own speedboat?” ventured Mr Spud.

Joe rolled his eyes. “I’ve got two of those. Remember?”

“Sorry, son. How about a quarter of a million pounds worth of WHSmith vouchers?”

“Boring! Boring! Boring!” Joe stamped his feet in frustration. Here was a boy with high-class problems.

Mr Spud looked forlorn. He wasn’t sure there was anything left in the world that he could buy his only child. “Then what, son?”

Joe suddenly had a thought. He pictured himself going round the racetrack all on his own, racing against himself. “Well, there is something I really want…” he said, tentatively.

“Name it, son,” said Mr Spud.

“A friend.”

Chapter 2
Bum Boy

“Bum boy,” said Joe.

“
Bum Boy
?” spluttered Mr Spud. “What else do they call you at school, son?”

“The Bog Roll Kid...”

Mr Spud shook his head in disbelief. He had sent his son to the most expensive school in England: St Cuthbert’s School for Boys. The fees were £200,000 a term and all the boys had to wear Elizabethan ruffs and tights. Here is a picture of Joe in his school uniform. He looks a bit silly, doesn’t he?

So the last thing that Mr Spud expected was that his son would get bullied. Bullying was something that happened to poor people. But the truth was that Joe had been picked on ever since he started at the school. The posh kids hated him, because his dad had made his money out of loo rolls. They said that was ‘awfully vulgar’.

“Bottom Billionaire, The Bum-Wipe Heir, Master Plop-Paper,” continued Joe. “And that’s just the teachers.”

Most of the boys at Joe’s school were Princes, or at least Dukes or Earls. Their families had made their fortunes from owning lots of land. That made them ‘old money’. Joe had quickly come to learn that money was only worth having if it was old. New money from selling loo rolls didn’t count.

The posh boys at St Cuthbert’s had names like Nathaniel Septimus Ernest Bertram Lysander Tybalt Zacharias Edmund Alexander Humphrey Percy Quentin Tristan Augustus Bartholomew Tarquin Imogen Sebastian Theodore Clarence Smythe.

That was just one boy.

The subjects were all ridiculously posh too. This was Joe’s school timetable:

Lessons

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Monday

Latin
Straw-Hat wearing
Royal studies
The study of etiquette
Show-jumping
Ballroom dancing
Debating Society (‘This house believes that it is vulgar to do up the bottom button on your waistcoat’)
Scone eating
Bow-tie tying
Punting
Polo (the sport with horses and sticks, not the mint)

Tuesday

Ancient Greek
Croquet
Pheasant shooting
Being beastly to servants class
Mandolin level 3
History of Tweed
Nose in the air hour

Learning to step over the homeless person as you leave the opera

Finding your way out of a maze

Wednesday

Fox-hunting
Flower arranging
Conversing about the weather
History of cricket
History of the brogue
Playing Stately Home Top Trumps
Reading
Harper’s Bazaar
Ballet appreciation class
Top-hat polishing
Fencing (the one with swords, not selling stolen goods)

Thursday

Antique furniture appreciation hour
Range Rover tyre changing class
Discussion of whose daddy is the richest
Competition to see who is best friends with Prince Harry
Learning to talk posh
Rowing club
Debating Society (‘This house believes that muffins are best toasted’)
Chess
The study of coats of arms
A lecture on how to talk loudly in restaurants

Friday

Poetry reading (Medieval English)
History of wearing corduroy
Topiary class
Classical sculpture appreciation class
Spotting yourself in the party pages of
Tatler
hour
Duck hunting
Billiards
Classical music appreciation afternoon
Dinner party discussion topic class (e.g. how the working classes smell)

However, the main reason why Joe hated going to St Cuthbert’s wasn’t the silly subjects. It was the fact that everyone at the school looked down on him. They thought that someone whose papa made their money from bog rolls was just too, too frightfully common.

“I want to go to a different school, Dad,” said Joe.

“No problem. I can afford to send you to the poshest schools in the world. I heard about this place in Switzerland. You ski in the morning and then—”

“No,” said Joe. “How about I go to the local comp?”

“
What
?” said Mr Spud.

“I might make a friend there,” said Joe. He’d seen the kids milling around the school gates when he was being chauffeured to St Cuthbert’s. They all looked like they were having such a great time – chatting, playing games, swapping cards. To Joe, it all looked so fabulously
normal
.