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curled out like candle smoke and the smell of cooked cheese and damp bread filled the room.
    ‘Nice. That is very, very nice of you.’ Dad just stared at the pizza for the longest time, saying nothing.
    ‘Is it the wrong kind?’ I asked.
    He suddenly marched into the kitchen, blew his nose and came back saying, ‘ It’s the right kind. It’s just the right kind. It’s very much the right kind.’
    I said, ‘Cardboard boxes are definitely better than the polystyrene ones. The polystyrene ones make them go rubbery, I think.’
    ‘Yes, they do,’ said Dad. His eyes were so shiny that I thought for a minute he was going to cry. Obviously people don’t cry about pizza. ‘You’re very good lads,’ he said. And then he picked up the biggest slice of pizza I’d ever seen, folded it over and put the end in his mouth. He looked like a gorilla gargoyle and we all laughed.
    I said, ‘Who invented pizza?’ I didn’t really want to know. I just thought Dad might like to talk about general knowledge, the way he used to. I remember him reading a whole book on the history of the potato.
    ‘Pizza,’ he said, ‘was invented in Naples. It was originally just a herby bread which market traders used to sell to poor people. When Queen Margherita came to visit Naples in 1889 , she really took to it, so she got the most famous pizza maker – Rafaelle Esposito – to make one specially for her. It was his idea to put basil, tomato and mozzarella on top. Green basil, red tomatoes and white cheese, you see, colours of the Italian flag. And that’s why it’s called Pizza Margherita.’
    We all cleared up and that was a great day.

8
     
    Anthony says I need to get more financial about the story. So, financially, we had 229,370 pounds sterling. On the morning of 1 December this was worth 323,056 euros. It’s true that you can’t buy love or happiness with money, but it is interesting to see what you can buy.
    For instance, you could buy 15,390 pairs of Micro Turbo racers at €20.99 a pair. Or 3,756 Sky Patrol quick-charge, easy-to-fly remote-control helicopters at €85.99 each. Or 22,937 Airzookas (they fire balls of air at people). Or 43,159 kite-in-a-keyring sets. Or 5,736 table-top candyfloss makers. Or 1,434 Shogun Nude BMXs. Or 2,699 Gameboy Advance Sps.
    On 1 December we had seventeen days left to spend it.
    On the same morning, we opened the front door to find six lads and two girls waiting on their bikes. As soon as Anthony looked out, they all started shouting, ‘Want a bike? Anthony, want a bike? Anthony? Anthony, have a bike!’
    Anthony took a good look at each bike. ‘I think what we’d really like is a lift,’ he said. ‘Kaloo and Tricia.’
    Kaloo McLoughlin and Tricia Springer had BMXs – the kind with the little pommels sticking out of the back axle for you to stand on. Anthony went on Kaloo’s bike and I went on Tricia’s. We cruised to school with all the other bikes trailing along after us like a motorcade. Everyone was looking at us. It was the best thing. At the gates, Anthony gave Kaloo and Tricia a tenner each.
    Tricia didn’t seem that happy about it. ‘It’s a kilometre. A tenner’s too much. I just want enough to buy a set of glitter pens.’
    The truth is, we didn’t have anything smaller than a tenner. If you asked our Anthony now, he’d say this was where everything started to go wrong. According to him, the problem with the money supply created an inflationary environment in the playground. We didn’t even know we had a problem then, though. We just thought we had over 229,000 pounds to spend.
    It seemed like it would be easy. At lunch, for instance, we had Hot Dinners instead of sandwiches and we didn’t have to queue. Peter Ahenacho queued for us and brought it over to the table, like a waiter. Tracey Edwards went and got our cutlery and drinks and cleared up after us. We gave them ten pounds each. Afterwards, we had extra helpings of pudding (chocolate flan) for ten pounds each.