From the winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, the Best Book for Younger Readers – Red House Children's Book Award, the Waterstones Children's Book Prize 5–12-year-olds and the Blue Peter Best Story Book Award 2013, comes the eighth amazing instalment of the brilliant Tom Gates series!

Tom Gates is the master of excuses for late homework: dog attacks – spilt water – lightning ... Tom's exercise book is full of his doodles, cartoons and thoughts, as well as comments from his long-suffering teacher, Mr Fullerton. After gaining five merits for his CAMPING SUCKS holiday story, Tom's work starts to go downhill – which is a pity, as he's desperate to impress Amy Porter, who sits next to him ...

Seeing Delia without her sunglasses on is a BIG shock for Tom, but that's nothing compared with the surprise that Dad has in store with his new-found fitness regime! He says he's going to compete at the school Sports Day. Can you even imagine the horrendous shame that will bring? Meanwhile Tom, Derek and Norman are also busy with a training regime of their own – practising with Dogzombies to make sure they're ready for the school talent show.

Exciting News! Mr Fullerman announces that class 5F are going on an 'Activity Break'! Which should be fun. As long as I don't get stuck in a group with anyone who snores or worse still with ... Marcus Meldrew. Delia is already threatening to paint my room funny colours while I'm away. Which is annoying. I just hope the only surprise I have when I get home is the new pet that I hear Mum and Dad talking about. Because I've always wanted a pet!

No school for two whole weeks leaves Tom with heaps of time for the important things in life. Yeah! He can forget all about lessons and the irritating Marcus Meldrew, and save his energy for good stuff! Stuff like: inventing new ways to annoy his sister Delia. (So many). Band practice for the Dogzombies – rock stars in the making! Watching TV and eating caramel wafers; eating caramel wafers and watching TV. Excellent! Unfortunately a couple of small problems called the dentist and his big ...

TIPS FOR BEING TOP OF THE CLASS (Sadly ... I did NONE of these things.) 1. Stay awake in lessons (it helps.) 2. Don't draw HILARIOUS pictures of your teachers. 3. AVOID the class bully to stay out of trouble. 4. Don't let Mum and Dad write ANYTHING in your school planner. 5. Don't let your grumpy sister Delia BOSS you around. (Technically not a school issue – but still important.) I'm TRYING to get voted onto the school council as well – but thanks to the ABOVE list it's not exactly going ...

It's really cold outside and we're all hoping it's going to snow. Yeah! Derek and I could make a snow Rooster and have a snowball fight (look out, Delia!). Granny Mavis has started to knit me a new winter jumper, but by the looks of things I'm not sure it's going to fit ...

Back to school, but it's not all bad. Sports Day, the school fair and Tom's birthday are all coming up. And even better, his awful big sister Delia won't be at any of those events! On the downside, Granny Mavis is threatening to make his birthday cake – uh oh! But on the other hand, Mr Keen has asked Dogzombies to perform in front of the whole school! YEAH! Maybe they can even play at the school disco too. How can the term turn out any less than seriously amazing?

Will Tom and his band DOGZOMBIES be LUCKY enough to win the Rockweekly Bandbattle competition? They just might be if they could find time to practice! But with inspectors in the school, an amazing new cartoon on TV, caramel wafers to eat and a stray cat getting in the way, Tom's a bit too busy having FUN!