John Larkin – författare

Eric Underwood, also known as Spaghetti Legs and Pizza Features, serves up the final course in the pasta trilogy: Lasagne Brain.Eric would love to be an intellectual and here he unexpectedly takes the journey from boyhood to manhood, and the only question he wants to ask is: can he go back?With his mind-boggling essays driving teachers out of their minds, the love of his life Veronica Roberts dumping him, his best friend hanging round Woolies with a trolley full of bananas hoping to pick up more than potassium poisoning, and his father watching pre-recorded golf, there’s only one thing for Eric to do: retreat to his bedroom in self-imposed exile.Eric’s ambition is to lock himself away for the rest of his teenage years. And if it wasn’t for the Teletubbies and the arrival of Imelda, the Scots girl he French kissed in an English pub, he might just have made it!

Eric Underwood is what some people would call a loser and a westie, but he''s doing the best he can. He didn''t get the looks, he doesn''t get the luck, and even when he does get the girl, it never seems to last for long. So far he''s abandoned Veronica to the sharks (two-legged and otherwise), been told he''ll be travelling to England with his grandma, been caught snogging his pillow, been banished to the shed-and that''s only the beginning! Eric''s story will make you feel good about yourself!

The Western Wildcats might appear to be a bunch of losers, but Paul and Eric Underwood’s father has come up with the formula for making them winners: they’ve got to start acting Brazilian. Everyone should wise up when he takes control of the weekend barbecue and almost burns the house down – but they don’t, and it can only be hoped that he’s a better coach than he is a cook!First it’s out to the sandhills, where champion sprinter and nerdy older brother Eric (Spaghetti Legs) is going to put the Wildcats through their paces up and down the dunes. And if soccer’s not off after a workout like that, it won’t be his fault!

The Western Wildcats are in trouble. About the only good thing you could say for their goalkeeper, Smokin (so called because he’s never without a Chupa Chup in his mouth!), is that he’s got a newish pair of gloves. He keeps taking off for the toilet or he’ll go to the canteen or home—right in the middle of a game! But he’s got a lot on his mind, what with his father building a blue and yellow (Go the Eels!) Chinese junk in their backyard and planning to sail off down the local creek and head for Hawaii. So do they really expect Smokin to keep for the entire game?Of course he’s not the only problem: some of Throw-in’s clearances are adding to the rings around Saturn, and Own-goal keeps scoring hat-tricks for the opposing team. Brazilian methods don’t seem to be working so far, but their coach is still trying. Is it any wonder, though, that people are saying the Western Wildcats suck?

Trying to get enough kids to form a decent football team isn’t easy! It’s not just the playing time involved on the weekends; it’s the training sessions after school and at night too. But when the Wildcats reluctantly take on Peta ‘Gazza” Gascoigne to make up the numbers, they quickly discover that she’s the best player they’ve got. Not only that, she’s got an attractive and apparently unattached—or loosely attached—mum. And Splinters is looking for a new partner for his dad.Everything looks set on and off the field, but Gazza and her mum have been deported back to England for overstaying their visa and suddenly disappeared without a trace.Nothing for it but to fly to England, track them down and persuade them to come back. But where are the Wildcats going to get the money? Nuke gets the bright idea that they can borrow his father’s credit card and book their flights on the internet. And that’s where the real trouble begins!

The Wildcats are in trouble again! Down on the ground, there’s got to be some way of raising funds, and their coach comes up with health food bars. Only trouble is they’re inedible, and whoever sells the most gets an all-expenses-paid trip to Canberra. Up in the air, though, Splinters and Nuke are on their way to London to retrieve their best player, Gazza, who’s been deported back to England with her mum, and the two boys get up to the sort of in-flight antics that have made travelling footballers notorious.Grappling as always with the problem of how to make up the numbers, someone remembers a genius footballer called Armitage Shanks who registered for the Under 6s, but never turned up for training or played a single game. Then the obvious question: how do you know he was a genius? And (to Splinters) the equally obvious answer: he had great boots! But when Armitage Shanks turns up, it’s a bigger surprise than the Wildcats have bargained for.A crazy adventure with an unexpectedly moving conclusion, this is one of John Larkin’s funniest books in the series - but it also offers a little insight into success and fame.

When Tangles doesn’t turn up to training for a couple of weeks, it looks as though the Wildcats will be facing more recruitment problems. Then Splinters spots Tangles up at the shops wearing a bandanna and a Camp Quality T-shirt and he realises the truth: Tangles is seriously ill.Splinters wants the Wildcats to try for the Guinness Book of Records marathon soccer match in order to raise some money and buy Tangles a special machine from the States that will save his life.But when the English FA decide to hold a competition for a couple of junior soccer teams to play a curtain raiser for the grand reopening of Wembley Stadium, Splinters is ready to abandon Tangles to his fate and put all his energy into that instead.

Splinters has somehow managed to scoop the jackpot and score the Wildcats a gig playing at the reopening of Wembley Stadium. The team is excited until they realise that they are scheduled to play the cream of English schoolboys. And it’s the Wildcats who are going to get creamed! After years of being humiliated by Australia at cricket, swimming, equestrian, and beach volleyball, the English FA decides that, with the rest of the world watching, it’s time for a bit of colonial payback. But the authorities haven’t counted on the pride that goes with pulling on the green and gold, or in the Wildcats’ case, the red and blue.