Walker Books , 1993

Cover by Mick Brownfield

     "I was out on the balcony eating a cheese and jam sandwich. Red Leicester and Gooseberry. I took a mouthful and chewed it a bit. It was OK but it wasn't great, and nowhere near as good as straberry and Cheddar. That was my best recipe yet.
      I spent a lot of time out on the balcony. the flat was so small it felt like you were living in a submarine. But the balcony was fab. Out there you could see for miles...
     You could see the jumbos circling slowly in the sky waiting for a space on the runway. You could watch the police cars ten storeys down, weaving their way round the tiny streets, their sirens screaming.
     You could see the park, too, and sure enough, in the middle of the huge expanse of grass, there was the figure of a solitary man holding a metal box in his hands. Buzzing high above his head was a tiny model helicopter, banking and swerving like a dragonfly.
      It was Dad..."

     No internal illustrations, sadly.
     Oh, and a hot tip for writers: never call a book Gridzbi Spudvetch. Call a book Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone or The Da Vinci Code. We sold about 17 copies of Gridzbi and I'm fairly certain this had something to do with the fact that no-one had a clue how to pronounce the title.