Billy Angel by Sam Hay

Chapter 1
    Plumbing. That’s 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 else’s toilet. And to be totally honest, I wasn’t very happy about it.
    â€˜Happy Birthday, Billy.’

    That’s 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. That’s because what I really wanted was a bright-yellow, shiny digger, like my best friend Barry’s.
    â€˜Happy Birthday, Billy.’
    There I am again. I’m the small boy standing in front of 2,000 new toilets. Yes,
2,000 toilets
. I’m six and it’s my birthday treat – a visit to the toilet factory. I look ecstatic, don’t I?
    Oh, and that’s me again. It’s Christmas and I’m the one holding the giant book that doesn’t quite fit on my lap. I’m eight and the book is
The A to Z of Practical Plumbing Problems
. Don’t laugh. That’s really what I got for Christmas that year. It may look like I’m smiling, but inside I’m 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, you’d probably find a William Box in a loin cloth up to his arm in dinosaur doo-doo sorting out someone’s cesspit problems.
    I’m called William Box, too. But despite the name and millions of years of tradition, I’ve always known plumbing wasn’t 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 haven’t quite worked out how to tell my dad. Or my mum, for that matter.
    You see, Mum’s almost as potty about plumbing as Dad. She says she’s a social historian, but all she’s really interested in is how Joe Bloggs back in eighteen-something or other washed his shorts or took a whiz.
    She’s currently building a matchstick-model replica of the original London sewer system. It’s got flushing lavs and everything. It’s 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.
    â€˜What do you call a highly skilled plumber?’
    â€˜A drain surgeon.’
    No, I didn’t laugh, either.
    And that’s 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 I’d 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 you’re 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 it’s 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.
    They’ll 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