Joy Wodhams

Cabbage Boy Joy Wodhams

YOU MAY NEVER EAT CABBAGE AGAIN!
It all started with the large farmed field behind my home, and the switch to a certain new type of manure.

Ideas for novels come from a multitude of sources, but (although I haven't checked) I think I might be the only author to be inspired by the evil-smelling stuff that seems to be the latest thing in local authority by-products. So CABBAGE BOY, my novel for 13-18 year olds, was born. I don't want to give the game away, but there are two main characters. One is a teenage boy, a worrier with a touch of OCD, who longs to be taller, braver, more popular with the girls, more one of the guys. The other? Well, you'll have to read the book to find out. Here's an excerpt that might help:

"Why were women so unreasonable? I hadn't DONE anything. I'd just stood there in the bus station and let Sandy stroke my hair and kiss my neck and put her arms round me. I hadn't even enjoyed it. Not much anyway.
After the stress of the day I was ravenous but there was no evidence back home that dinner was coming any time soon. I could hear Mum upstairs, practising to the tune of 'Achy Breaky Heart', although she'd sworn she wouldn't go back to the line dance classes without her precious wig.

I went into the kitchen. Three pork chops, only part defrosted, sat on a plate. On another plate a sausage-shaped sludgy grey thing for my sister Becca. In the sink a Savoy cabbage sat and waited. I had to check it out. I picked it up gingerly. 'Hello?' I whispered. It didn't answer. I turned it round and round. I couldn't see any protruberances that might be sprouting into arms and legs. I sniffed but it just smelled of cabbage. I hoped it wasn't preparing to mutate. Any time now Mum would be attacking it with a sharp knife. I winced."

CABBAGE BOY may be wacky, but it will have you laughing or crying, or maybe both at the same time.