The book starts off with an introduction to the family and their crazy nick names. " I live in a family where no one is called by their right name." Page 1. The main character is called Gregory but Gugs or Greg for short, Mimi is Greg's sister, Freck is Greg's cousin, Pokey Pauline is their other cousin, Aunty Floss is Pauline's mother, Oma is the mother of Floss and Greg's and Mimi's mother and the grandmother of the rest of them. Change has been identified in the first pages of the book when Oma asks Mimi and Greg to go to Sydney with her and Freck to see Pauline and Aunty Floss. Greg is at the airport looking through motor magazines at a bookstore before his flight until he sees a girl. " There was this really hot girl standing on the other side of the magazine rack, flicking through a Girlfriend magazine. She looked up so I turned away as quick as I could. I wanted to beat her to the ignore in case she didn't like me. But then I thought: this is my big chance. If I smile at her and she smiles back at me, I'll know there is more to life than listening to your parents threatening to kill each other." Page 5. Greg had changed his mind from wanting to ignore the girl to being a bit curious and wanting to know more. When they arrived in Sydney Floss and Pokey Pauline were there to meet them. Greg was amazed at how much Pauline had changed. " Pokey had changed a lot, and I mean, a lot. The last time I saw her, she was seven years old, a beanpole and a wuss who cried everytime I punched her. Now she had boobs and everything." Page 10. Pauline had also changed by the fact that she was temperamental. " ' So, how have you been, Pokey?' I said to break the silence. ' Don't call me that.' 'What do you want me to call you, then?' 'Brace face,' Freck sniggered. She moved so fast Freck didn't even see it coming. She reached over, grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked it out. Just like that. It was Brilliant. 'The name's Pauline,' she said." Page 11. Greg started to feel homesick about all the change in Paulines house. " But it's the things like funny toilet paper and different tasting milk and not having your usual cereal for breakfast or your own seat at the dinner table." Page 13. Greg's best friend Ben had moved to Sydney a few years ago because of his parents splitting and so now Greg was in Sydney he could finally visit him. Greg remembers Ben being cool and wearing billabong tee shirts but when he saw Ben he had totally changed. "There was something different about him. He had bum fluff on his face which meant he was going to need to shave long before I ever would. And he had a few really big bangers that needed a good squeeze. Also he didn't dress like he used to, in really good gear, like those Billabong tee shirts his dad used to buy him. He looked really scruffy." Page 30. Before Greg saw Ben and all his new friends he was really excited to seeing him again but after what he saw and how Ben wasn't at all interested in him, he wasn't anymore.
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