Chapter 1
Plumbing. Thatâs what the future had in store for me. From as early as I can remember, and even before that, I knew I was destined to spend my life with my arm stuck down someone elseâs toilet. And to be totally honest, I wasnât very happy about it.
âHappy Birthday, Billy.â
Thatâs me, age three, with a plunger on my head and a set of plastic plumbing tools on my lap. See how cheesed-off I look. Thatâs because what I really wanted was a bright-yellow, shiny digger, like my best friend Barryâs.
âHappy Birthday, Billy.â
There I am again. Iâm the small boy standing in front of 2,000 new toilets. Yes,
2,000 toilets
. Iâm six and itâs my birthday treat â a visit to the toilet factory. I look ecstatic, donât I?
Oh, and thatâs me again. Itâs Christmas and Iâm the one holding the giant book that doesnât quite fit on my lap. Iâm eight and the book is
The A to Z of Practical Plumbing Problems
. Donât laugh. Thatâs really what I got for Christmas that year. It may look like Iâm smiling, but inside Iâm seething.
You see my dad, William Box, is a plumber, just like his father before him and his father before him and his father before him. In fact, if you could be bothered going right back to the beginning of time, youâd probably find a William Box in a loin cloth up to his arm in dinosaur doo-doo sorting out someoneâs cesspit problems.
Iâm called William Box, too. But despite the name and millions of years of tradition, Iâve always known plumbing wasnât for me. I have absolutely no interest in pipes. Or poo. Or blocked sinks. Or smelly drains. Or leaky radiators. Or bothersome ball cocks. The onlytrouble is, I havenât quite worked out how to tell my dad. Or my mum, for that matter.
You see, Mumâs almost as potty about plumbing as Dad. She says sheâs a social historian, but all sheâs really interested in is how Joe Bloggs back in eighteen-something or other washed his shorts or took a whiz.
Sheâs currently building a matchstick-model replica of the original London sewer system. Itâs got flushing lavs and everything. Itâs enough to make you weep.
My parents talk endlessly about plumbing. They dream about plumbing. They watch plumbing programmes on TV. They read plumbing magazines. They go on holiday with other plumbers. They even crack plumbing jokes, which are not funny.
âWhat do you call a highly skilled plumber?â
âA drain surgeon.â
No, I didnât laugh, either.
And thatâs what I thought my destiny was. A lifetime of dreadful jokes and endless blocked loos. But I was wrong. Fate had something
far
stranger in store for me.
Chapter 2
It was the eve of my eleventh birthday and life was about to go down the pan. Completely!
As usual, I was looking forward to a pile of pointless plumbing presents (PPPs), which Iâd stuff under the bed along with all the others.
If you ever find yourself desperately searching for a pair of polyester pyjamas with purple pliers on them, I can help you out.
Maybe youâre itching to read about the history of the automatic washing machine, with extra diagrams and full-colour photos. If so, give me a call.
But crap presents were the least of my worries this year. Because I was about to turn eleven. That might not sound like a big deal to you. But to a Box itâs a big occasion. You see, destiny calls us Boxes on the eve of our eleventh birthdays. And that destiny is always plumbing.
It happened to my dad, his brothers, and Grandad, too.
Theyâll all tell you the same story: the night before they turned eleven, just as they were drifting off to the land of nod, they had the weirdest dream. A shaft of golden light appeared from the ceiling, there was a faint pong of plumber putty, and suddenly a life of smelly sinks and dirty drains beckoned to them.
That was all it
Lawrence Hill
Rick Bundschuh, Cheri Hamilton
Patricia Corbett Bowman
Neil Davies
M. S. Willis
Charles E. Waugh
Felicity Pulman
Tish Domenick
Aliyah Burke
Regina Scott