Cabbage Boy — Joy Wodhams

Nick is an unlikely hero. Almost sixteen, he longs to be taller, braver, more athletic, more popular with the girls, more one of the guys. He also suspects that he's the only one in the class who's still a virgin.Let's face it, he's a worrier, with more than a dash of OCD. At home he cleans up his messy sister's bedroom, colour codes his Mum's spice jars and his Dad's garden equipment, measures various parts of his anatomy every Sunday morning and has to have his Full English Breakfast arranged in the same order each week.Life brightens when he finds a girlfriend and falls in love with her. They've been together for four weeks and he's kissed her eighteen times, according to his notebook. But when Nick meets a strange and scary mutant and is forced to protect and hide him, his life becomes unbearable. Who can he turn to for help?Mum and Dad are busy line dancing, big sister Becca has lost interest and his girlfriend Chloe has moved on to a handsome six-footer who's captain of the school football team. As for friends, Nick does n't 'do' friends. Or rather, they don't do him.This is astory full of humour, warmth and tragedy.It's about beauty and ugliness, about kindnness and cruelty, and about prejudice and understanding.