How to Survive Without Grown-Ups

Larry Hayes, Katie Abey

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's UK
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781471198342
• eBook ISBN: 9781471198359

Get set for the new hilarious out-of-this-world adventure series for readers aged 8+ – this is the perfect new series for fans of Tom Gates, David Solomons and Star Wars! Highly illustrated throughout by the brilliantly funny Katie Abey.

Mum and Dad have left – gone to Mars, and they’re never coming back . . .
 
FREEDOM AT LAST!
 
But this isn’t one of Dad’s weird jokes; it’s REAL. It’s up to ten-year-old Eliza and her genius little brother, Johnnie, to find out what’s going on, and launch a rescue . . .
 
Can they handle vampire squids, a suspicious villain, a secret island full of traps and a trip into space? And – more importantly – will they ever get their parents back?
 
The funniest, zaniest, most out-of-this-world adventure you’ll read all year! Look out for Eliza and Johnnie's second adventure,  How to Survive Time Travel. Out now!

THE YEAR 2053 FIVE DAYS AFTER OUR WORLD ENDED

It’s Day 5 and things are bad.

You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here.

My name is Eliza; I’m the one stuck in the car.

The car is floating in space, a million miles from Earth. It’s weird, but the radio’s still working and I can hear ‘Life on Mars?’ singing out from one of the speakers.

My baby brother, Johnnie, has got it worse – he’s trapped in the boot with our dog and a bomb. And from his high-pitched shriek I can tell he’s just spilled his milk on a dehydrated vampire squid that’s about to rehydrate and suck away their faces.

You’re probably worried about us. You’re probably holding your breath, thinking, What happens when the air runs out?

But don’t worry – never worry, ever. There’s no point. I learned this the hard way five days ago.

HOW NOT TO WORRY (THE HARD WAY)

I used to worry all the time. About everything.

Life for a kid in the year 2053 is tough. We’ve got all the old problems that kids have always had to worry about, and then a whole load more NEW problems. In 2053 there’s absolutely nowhere to hide.

Teachers can even see what you’re thinking.

Bullies can bully you anytime, anywhere.

Then there’s all the normal stuff that kids have always worried about.

Like, will I die in PE?

And: is my little brother cleverer than me?

It all adds up to a big fat worry nightmare.

Mum says I’ve just got a big imagination. You’d think that was a good thing, but I’m a bit too good at imagining a catastrophe. She also says I need to think less. Which is, like, the worst advice anyone has ever given anyone.¹

It never used to be like this. Everything used to be perfect. So I know exactly how bad things have got now.

We live in an old windmill on a cliff that is being eaten by the sea. It makes us the Weird Family but kind of cool at the same time. We have a slide into the sea (which is pretty impressive, but Mum’s the only one brave enough to use it) and we have our own beach with a coral reef (Dad built it when our swing fell over the cliff²).

And, once upon a time, my parents were the best parents in the world.

My dad’s an inventor; he’s got a workshop and everything. He works for a massive company called No Ahhh Technology^© who do lots of high-tech, ground-breaking, science-y things. And when he was still just a schoolkid, he invented the BIN.

No, not a rubbish bin. A BIN. A Brain Interface Node.

An amazing bin.

An amazing BIN that’s basically a thing you stick in the back of your head that allows your brain to connect to a computer.

Genius, right? Maybe even billion-dollar genius?

It could have been, except everyone got terrified we’d turn into cyborgs, so BINs were banned all over the world back in 2029. My dad made precisely £zero.

You’d think he’d be gutted, but Dad never seems upset about anything. He’s always too busy inventing stuff. And, besides, he’s also invented the world’s funniest joke.³

And when I was small Dad used to invent the best games ever, mainly using our old brown sofa as a pirate ship.

Then there’s Mum. Mum’s an astronaut who hasn’t been into space yet. Which doesn’t make sense, but she calls herself an astronaut and nobody says ‘Aren’t you a trainee astronaut until you actually go up?’ because that might hurt her feelings.

I mean, she finished the astronaut-training programme and everything. And she got a job on the space programme, at the company where Dad works, so she’s on a waiting list for her first space flight.

When I was small there were never any rules (apart from one) and Mum and Dad always wanted to play with me. Always.

They were great, and they thought I was great.

I wasn’t afraid of anything back then. I had no idea that I had everything to lose. Then my brother was born. And I lost everything.

That was five years ago. An...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• 1. The Year 2053: Five Days After Our World Ended
• 2. How Not to Worry: (The Hard Way)
• 3. Day Zero: The Day My World Ended
• 4. How To Survive Without Parents
• 5. The News Was Bad
• 6. How to Sail a Pretend Pirate Ship
• 7. How to Survive a Narwhal Attack
• 8. How to Make It Up to Someone for Letting them Down/Drown
• 9. How to Save a Narwhal from Vampire Squid
• 10. How to Overcome Odds of Fifty Trillion to One
• 11. How to Talk Dolphin
• 12. How to Conquer Clashing Rocks
• 13. How to Survive the End of the World
• 14. How to Get Over It Being All Over
• 15. How to Escape from an Ice-Cream Paradise Trap
• 16. How to Survive in a Rainforest
• 17. How to Talk Your Way Out of Trouble
• 18. How to Trust Someone You Don’t Trust
• 19. How to Get Your Parents to do What You Want
• 20. How to Wait
• 21. How to Stop a Centipede Biobot Burrowing into Your Baby Brother’s Head
• 22. How to ask for Help
• 23. How to Eat Pancakes with Exploded Eyeball Goo
• 24. How to Survive a Chokey Full of Centibots
• 25. How to Fly
• 26. The News was Hopeful and Amazing
• 27. How to Escape from a Centibot Beach Ball
• 28. How to Ride a Giraffe
• 29. How to Trust Someone
• 30. How to Escape from an Alpha Vampire Squid and a Maniac Billionaire Armageddonist: (At the Same Time)
• 31. How to Steal a Rocket
• 32. How to Steer a Rocket
• 33. The News wasss Very Bad
• 34. How to Win a Space Race
• 35. How to Escape from a Maniac Billionaire Armageddonist: When He’s Holding the Alpha Vampire Squid
• 36. How to Escape from a Maniac Billionaire Armageddonist and His Biobot Zoo of Zombie Doom
• 37. How Not to Cry Over Spilled Milk
• 38. How to Survive a Bomb in Space
• 39. How to Make Your Parents Want You Again
• 40. Six Weeks Later
• Editor’s Note
• Appendix 1
• Acknowledgements
• Copyright