Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Illustrator
It was a hot and windy Bilby Creek day. The kind of day where both your hands are in constant use, one to wipe the sweat off your forehead and the other to pull your school dress down so it doesn’t fly up in your face. That is if you are wearing the school dress, which Elizabella definitely wasn’t. Because she hated the school dress. And also because it was Sunday.
But it hadn’t always been Sunday that day.
That morning Elizabella had woken up tired, her eyes stuck together with sticky, yellow sleep. She’d prised them open with her fingers and gone to look in the mirror.
Elizabella had brown eyes and brown freckles on her face and in her brown hair she had a giant knot that she teased every day to make it a little bit bigger. She was ten and a half and in Year Four at Bilby Creek Primary School.
Bleuueueueueuegh, she thought. I don’t want to go to school today.
This was unusual for Elizabella who actually liked school, even though she often found herself in the Think About What You’ve Done Corner. Elizabella huffed and sighed as she pulled off her pyjamas, got herself dressed in her school shorts and T-shirt and packed all her things in her backpack. Then she lumbered out to the kitchen with all the enthusiasm of a slug. She expected to find her dad out there packing her lunch, but the lights were off.
Weird . . .
She went to her dad’s bedroom and knocked on the door.
“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!” she said, knocking over and over with increasing volume.
He threw off the sheet and jumped out of bed, suspecting there might be a burglar. Elizabella’s dad’s name was Martin. He had dark, knotty hair, much like Elizabella’s.
“What is it? Are you okay?” he asked.
“No!” cried Elizabella, petulantly. “I don’t want to go to school today.”
“Well, that’s good,” said Martin, a smile coming over his face as his heart stopped racing. “It’s Sunday.”
These were the two sweetest words Elizabella had ever heard in her whole life. And suddenly, like a blossom in the springtime, she started to fill with life.
“It’s Sunday!” she yelled as she ripped off her school uniform so quickly it may as well have been on fire.
“It’s Sunday!” she shouted to Minnie down the phone.
“It’s not just Sunday,” Minnie replied. “It’s also the last day of the school holidays!”
“Aaaahhhhhh!” Elizabella screamed at this second revelation. “We can’t waste it!”
Minnie had moved all the way from Beijing and had enrolled in Bilby Creek Primary School last term. Minnie was as tall as a tall teacher and her hair was as long as a whole Kindy kid. Elizabella and Minnie were very ambitious and they were always plotting and scheming. But they were both natural-born leaders and, unfortunately, most situations only require one of those. After a rocky start, Elizabella and Minnie had ultimately decided that they were better as a team and they had been inseparable for the whole holidays. They’d climbed trees in the park, gone tenpin bowling at the Bilby Creek Bananas Bowling Bonanza and watched new couples on dates through the window of L’Escargots Bilby, inventing the conversations they were having.
Elizabella had invited Minnie over to her house. She’d shown her all the half-finished projects on the front porch like the toilet roll telescope-to-be and the old TV fish-tank-in-progress and she’d introduced her to all the worms in Squiggly Manor and Larry the Frillneck Lizard. Minnie even helped her build a cage on the roof for Larry to escape to when he needed some Me-Time. Elizabella hadn’t been able to introduce Minnie to her big brother Toddberry, because he was always at the Bilby Creek Swimming Pool where he had recently got a job.
That summer their dad had noticed that Toddberry spent so little time outside he was actually turning see-through, so Martin organised for him to start working at the pool. Toddberry wasn’t thrilled about having to spend his summer in the sunshine when he’d much rather have been in a dark room finishing his favourite video game, Fierce Frogs IV, but he did like the idea of earning his own money so he could buy Fierce Frogs V when it was released. Part of his job was to help shut the pool down at the end of the day. Elizabella had watched him do it once and as he pulled the huge silvery foil cover over the pool, and turned out the big fluorescent lights, Elizabella thought it looked like Toddberry was tucking the pool into bed for the night, like a giant, wet baby.
Now, in the park on this hot and windy last day of the school holidays, Elizabella and Minnie were having a competition to see who could launch themselves the furthest from the swings. Minnie had gone first and was now sitting on the ground, marking the spot where she had landed, an impressive distance away. Now it was Elizabella’s turn. She lurched forwards, making the swing fly onwards and upwards, then when she was basically parallel to the ground, high in the air, she kicked until she swung all the way back. When she came forwards again even higher than before, she let go of the swing’s chains and flew through the air.
“I’m the best penguin!” Elizabella cried as she sailed through the sky. She landed on the ground, quite short of where Minnie was sitting. Minnie had just jumped off the swing herself, and remained on the ground where she landed, so that they could tell who went the furthest.
“Penguins can’t fly, Elizabella,” said Minnie.
“I know, silly!” said Elizabella. “Not normally, that’s why I’m the best penguin. Duh!”
“Hmmph,” said Minnie, folding her arms. “I won by at least a metre.”
Elizabella looked at the gap between where she’d landed and where Minnie was. She couldn’t argue with that.
“Of course you won by a metre,” Elizabella said. “Your legs are about a metre longer than mine.”
“A bad worker always blames her tools,” Minnie said.
“My legs are tools?”
“In this situation, yes. Besides, you’re lighter than me, so you should fly through the air like a feather.”
“Think about trying to throw a feather, Minnie.” Elizabella picked up an imaginary feather from the ground. Then she pretended to drop it and as she did she watched the imaginary feather fall to the ground, commentating as she went to make her point. “A feather goes slowly, back and forth, wavy and lazy, until it hits the ground not very far from where it was thrown.”
“Fine,” said Minnie. “You’re more like a galah with feathers attached to it, so you should soar through the air.”
“Hmmm,” said Elizabella. “If that’s the case then you’re an emu with your long legs. And given emus can’t fly at all, considering that, I guess you did a pretty good job.”
“Thank you,” said Minnie, satisfied with this conclusion.
“You’re welcome,” said Elizabella. Even though she’d definitely lost this competition, she was happy to be a galah.
A few minutes later, they were sitting on one of the park benches having a brainstorm. All holidays they’d been thinking about what exciting plan they could execute on the first day back at school.
“We could invent a new language!” Elizabella suggested.
Minnie pondered the notion. “Yes . . . a new language would
be very handy indeed. We could talk freely anywhere about plans and schemes without fear of having them sabotaged or stolen . . .”
“Yes!” said Elizabella. “And then one day we could write an Elizinnie to English dictionary and make a fortune.”
“Hmmmm . . . I think Minbella might be a better name for the language than Elizinnie. And yes, a Minbella to English dictionary is a great idea.”
Elizabella considered her, one eye squinted. “We can decide on the name later,” she said. “Besides, I don’t think we can invent the whole language by tomorrow. We’ll have to think of something else to kick off the term.”
“Well,” said Minnie, “I have been thinking about a dog grooming service. But one where the dogs groom people rather than the other way around.”
“Cool!” said Elizabella. “So all we have to do is to teach the dogs of Bilby Creek how to style hair with their paws, make some business cards and we’re in business!”
“Should be simple enough,” said Minnie. At that moment they saw two German shepherds covered in a sticky, pink mess. It seemed the lucky dogs had stumbled on a family of four’s recent ice cream disaster and were eating the abandoned treats. They licked and slobbered and were most uncoordinated, sometimes missing the ice cream altogether and licking the grass instead.
“On second thought, it might actually be easier to finish Elizinnie by tomorrow than to teach all the dogs in Bilby Creek how to style hair by tomorrow . . .” said Elizabella.
“Minbella . . . but you’re right.”
They watched the dogs and thought.
“How about a puppet show?” Elizabella offered.
“I’m listening,” replied Minnie.
“All you need to make puppets is a mouth and something that looks like eyes. The rest can all be imagination. So we should think of something in the school that could become a mouth.”
They pondered this for a moment.
“The bins,” said Minnie. “We could stand behind two bins and use the handles to lift them up and down like mouths.”
“Yes!” said Elizabella. “And we could wheel them around the playground to make them walk.”
“And for eyes we can use paper plates from the tuckshop.”
“With doughnuts stuck to them for pupils!”
“Perfect.”
“Freddy! Teddy!” The owner of the two German Shepherds ran over. He’d gone to the bubblers and obviously hadn’t realised that his dogs were having dessert.
“What have I told you about eating ice cream?”
The dogs kept licking up the sticky, melting mess.
“You can only have ice cream on your birthdays!”
Elizabella and Minnie laughed.
Regarding the thing I have done
I may have upset someone
I only wanted to have fun
I’m really sorry times a tonne
It was Monday morning, the actual first day of the new term. While eating her cereal, Elizabella was writing a Sorry Poem. Elizabella loved writing more than anything. She especially loved rewriting fairytales to make them better. She even had a book of them she’d been working on with her mum before she died. They called these new and improved fairytales Fixytales and wrote under the pen-name Elizamamabella. She also wrote Sorry Poems to make amends when she accidentally upset someone. She hadn’t done anything to warrant one yet, but she had a bit of spare time having packed her school bag yesterday in the Sunday–Monday confusion.
She had been so busy trying to think of words that rhymed with “done” that she’d only just noticed how gross her cereal was.
It tastes like cardboard, she thought. Cardboard and cat biscuits.
She picked up the box. It was unfamiliar.
“Brown Flakes?” she said, reading the packet. “Dad, what are these?”
Martin was in the kitchen putting lunch boxes together for Elizabella and Toddberry, who was also sitting at the table not enjoying breakfast. Meanwhile, Larry was sitting under the table, not enjoying the scraps of Brown Flakes Toddberry was dropping for him.
“A very nice and handsome man was selling them on the footpath outside the entrance to the Good Time Supermarket,” said Martin.
“Didn’t that annoy the workers at the Good Time Supermarket, having a competitor stealing all their customers?” asked Elizabella.
“Yes, he was such a nice man. Handsome too. Did I mention he was handsome?”
Elizabella considered the label on the cereal box. In big, black lettering it said NUTRIICORP.
That certainly wasn’t a brand she’d heard of. Elizabella forced the bland, soggy pieces down. As much as she didn’t like eating them, she didn’t like feeling hungry even more. She glanced over at her big brother Toddberry, who had pulled a little chocolate bar out of his pocket and was trying to crumble it over the cereal.
“Toddberry,” said Martin, sounding a little defeated. “You shouldn’t have chocolate for breakfast.”
“You shouldn’t have Brown Flakes for anything,” Toddberry replied, swishing the thick curtains of hair that covered his whole face out of the way as he spoke. “They’re a crime against tastebuds.”
Elizabella went to the kitchen bench to grab her lunch box. Through the clear lid, she could see that her muesli bar had the same black lettering: NUTRIICORP.
“What is this ‘Nutriicorp’ and why is it taking over my house?” she asked.
“It’s a brand new brand bringing you delicious, nutritious food at low, low prices!” Martin said.
Elizabella stared at the muesli bar through the lunch box and realised her dad was literally reading their slogan.
“Dad, do you work for Nutriicorp now?” Elizabella joked. Martin didn’t respond. He had a slightly glazed expression on his face like he was in a trance.
“Dad, I said, do you work for Nutriicorp now, or what?” Martin shook his head, snapping out of it.
“No,” he said, smiling. “I could never quit my job at the Shelter for Bilby Creek Citizens in Need.” He suddenly remembered something. “That reminds me, I’ll be home late; I have to go out collecting food again.”
“Dad, you’re always out on food drives.”
“There’s lots of people in need, and it’s my job to make sure they all get fed!”
Elizabella went to the bathroom to check on the giant knot in her hair. It was looking particularly impressive today. She picked up a big green hairclip with a gecko on it from the bathroom sink and stuck it in her hair. Satisfied, Elizabella smiled in the mirror. She went back into the kitchen to get her lunch box and picked it up off the kitchen bench.
“Let me know what you think of the Nutriicorp muesli bar,” Martin said. “Leanne says they’re Nutriicorpalicious.”
“What?”
Martin shook his head.
“Nutritious. Leanne says they’re nutritious.”
“Leanne, Leanne, Leaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanne,” said Toddberry. Martin had now gone on a few dates with Huck’s mum, Leanne, and he’d developed a knack for bringing her up in almost every conversation – whether it was about science, politics or muesli bars.
Before Elizabella had learned that her dad had been going out with Huck’s mum, she had started growing some Little Feelings for Huck. Little Feelings that grew roots in the ground until they sprouted into a Feelings Tree. But it was only a small tree, like a bonsai. So little that she could uproot it and put it in a chest and lock it and throw it in the wardrobe and swallow the key to the chest and pretend the entire Huck Feelings thing didn’t really exist at all.
She was so busy thinking about all the ways she could forget about her Huck Feelings that she barely realised she’d left the house and started walking to school. In her daze, she bumped into Huck and tripped over his shoes. Huck wore glasses and slime green shoes every day even though the right one had a big hole in it, and he was always getting prickles caught between his toes (which made holes in all of his right socks).
Normally Elizabella and Huck would hang ou
t all through the holidays, but this time Huck’s mum had taken him to visit his grandma in Tasmania so they hadn’t seen each other once. While he was away, Huck had gone through a similar Feelings-process about Elizabella, and tried to act very cool when she tripped over him. But coolness wasn’t his strong suit.
“Elizabella!” he said. “Hi, it’s nice to see you! I mean it’s fine, it’s cool. I mean . . . Hi!”
Elizabella looked at Huck. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, dude,” said Huck, a little unnaturally. “I’m feeling amaze . . . dude.”
“Okay . . .”
Elizabella wished they could go back in time to when they were friends and had never liked each other at all. But his awkwardness was kind of adorable.
No, no, no! There’s nothing adorable to see here! Shut up, brain! she thought as she shovelled the notion away.
In the playground before the morning bell, Elizabella was hanging out with her gang: Evie, Ava, Huck and Sandy. Sandy’s real name was Gavin, but everyone called him Sandy because he used to always have sand in his shoes and pockets from hanging out at the old, abandoned sandpit behind the bike sheds. He had sand in his shoes again, but this time it was for a better reason.
“I spent all holidays at the beach! It was the best! I saw three dolphins and five hundred and twenty fish and probably six thousand pieces of seaweed and at least four million shells. What’d you guys do in the holidays?” Sandy asked.
“We did a synchronised diving lesson!” said Ava and Evie in synchronisation. Ava and Evie often said things in synchronisation. They were twins. They were also the shortest two in Miss Carrol’s Year Four class and they had the deepest voices.
“Cool!” said Huck.
“Yeah, it was awesome. We have a bit of an advantage over the other pairs because we already do heaps of stuff at the same time,” said Ava. “But we have a disadvantage in that we don’t know how to dive.”
“We can do really good synchronised belly flops, though,” said Evie. And at that moment they both raised their hands and scratched their matching itchy heads.
“Elizabella!” Minnie was walking towards her. “Frum peer!” she cried out. Everyone looked at her, confused, including Elizabella. Minnie gestured for her to come over.
Elizabella and the Great Tuckshop Takeover Page 1