PREVIOUSLY BY DAVID WALLIAMS:
The Boy in the Dress
Mr Stink
Billionaire Boy
Gangsta Granny
Ratburger
Demon Dentist
Awful Auntie
Grandpa’s Great Escape
ALSO AVAILABLE IN PICTURE BOOK:
The Slightly Annoying Elephant
The First Hippo on the Moon
The Bear Who Went Boo!
The Queen’s Orang-utan
DAVID WALLIAMS
For
Tom & George,
two of the World’s
Best Children
D.W.
TONY ROSS
For
Wendy,
& the Savannahs
T.R.
First published in paperback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016
This electronic edition published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016
Text © David Walliams 2016
Illustrations © Tony Ross 2016
Cover lettering of author’s name © Quentin Blake 2016
SOURCE EDITION ISBN: 978-0-00-819703-2
EPub Edition © David Walliams and Tony Ross 2016 ISBN: 9780008197087
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THANK YOUS
I would like to thank…
Tony Ross, illustrator – who, aged 6, filled a tin with tadpoles, left it in his grandmother’s bedroom and forgot about it… until, several weeks later, his grandmother’s screams reminded him as dozens of frogs hopped across her bed!
Ann-Janine Murtagh, my publisher – who as a little girl refused to go to sleep each night until every one of her 6 big sisters and brothers had told her a story – often making bedtime well past midnight!
Charlie Redmayne, CEO – who let his little sister take the blame for stealing a packet of jelly from the kitchen when in fact it was him – he never admitted the truth. Until now.
Paul Stevens, my literary agent – who as a little boy cut a hole in his dad’s best suit jacket.
Ruth Alltimes, my editor – who, aged 5, poured a jug of orange squash over her little sister’s head.
Rachel Denwood, Publishing and Creative Director – who, aged 6, decided to see how many peas she could put up her nose.
Sally Griffin, Designer – who, aged 7, picked ALL her mum’s daffodils to sell in her ‘flower shop’.
Anna Lubecka, Designer – who as a young girl cut off all of her hair with nail scissors.
Nia Roberts, Art Director – who, aged 6, painted over her parents’ wedding photos with red nail varnish.
Kate Clarke, my cover designer – who as a young child cut up her mum’s favourite – and very expensive – scarf, to use in a collage she was working on.
Geraldine Stroud, PR Director – who as a toddler mixed the contents of her mum’s dressing table into a cake-shaped, perfumed mulch and spread it all over the house.
Sam White, my publicist – who as a small child did a wee in her mum’s bed and didn’t tell her.
Nicola Way, Marketing Director – who, aged 5, kidnapped her little brother and the dog and went on the run for a whole hour!
Alison Ruane, Brand Director – who, aged 10, would bake chilli powder scones and make her little brothers eat them.
Georgia Monroe, Desk Editor – who as a toddler splattered nappy cream all over her bedroom when she was meant to be having a nap!
Tanya Brennand-Roper, my audio editor – who as a young child collected worms from the garden and put them in the kitchen so her mum would scream!
INTRODUCTION
by Raj, a newsagent.
Please, please, please, a thousand pleases, and yet one more please
DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!
If you have already bought it, destroy it. If you are browsing through it in your local librarium, take it outside, tear it up, stamp on it, tear it up again just to be sure and then bury the pieces DEEP underground. To be totally safe.
This AWFUL book, and it is awful, especially the speling, will have a very bad influence on young minds. It will give children lots and lots of ideas about how to be even naughtier than they already are, and some of them are already EXTREMELY naughty. It is an outrage and I for one will be calling for this book to be banned. Mr Wallybottom (or whatever his stupid made-up name is) should be ashamed of himself.
Why can’t the oversized BUFFOON who looks like a cupboard in a suit write a nice book about nice children who do nice things? Why not write a story about a little girl who is kind to a kitten? Or a tale about a nice boy who helps an injured butterfly cross a busy road? Or a story about two children who go to a meadow and pick wild flowers for their mummy who is very ill with a slight headache?
It could be called
THE WORLD’S NICEST, KINDEST, BESTEST, MOST
LOVELIEST CHILDREN IN THE WHOLE WORLD.
But no.
Instead we get a BUCKETLOAD of stories about children with bottoms that don’t stop blowing off, children who teach their nits to do terrible things and children who won’t stop picking their noses until they create the world’s largest booger.
These are children who I would NEVER ever allow in my newsagent’s shop, which I am extremely proud to say was recently voted best newsagent in the parade.*
* RAJ’S NEWSAGENT IS CURRENTLY THE ONLY NEWSAGENT IN THE PARADE. SAYING THAT, MY SHOP DID COME SECOND LAST YEAR IN A POLL OF BEST NEWSAGENTS. THE LAUNDERETTE CAME FIRST.
I would never let the frankly APPALLING children featured in this book take advantage of the very special offers in my shop, such as my 103 sherbert fountains for the price of 102, or buy your own bodyweight in mints, get one mint free. Hurry while stocks last!**
** ACTUALLY I HAVE PLENTY OF STOCK, AND IT IS ALREADY OUT OF DATE, SO THERE IS NO NEED TO HURRY. MAYBE A BRISK WALK WOULD DO IT.
What’s worst of all is that I am hardly in this book. It’s an insult! I am by far the most cleverest and handsomest character that ever came out of Mr Wallywilly’s dark and troubled mind! Yet I was only asked to contribute an introduction, and was under strict instructions that said introduction be no longer than two pages. Two pages!
How dare Mr Willywillybumbum? Surely I, the
CONTENTS
Dribbling
DREW
p.11
BERTHA
Blubberer
the
p.29
NIGEL
Nit-Boy
p.49
Miss PETULA
Perpetual-Motion
p.76
PETER
Picker
p.110
Grubby
GERTRUDE
p.130
BRIAN WONG,
WHO WAS NEVER,
Ever Wrong
p.154
Windy
MINDY
p.174
Earnest
ERNEST
p.203
SOFIA
Sofa
p.235
Dribbling
DREW
DRIBBLE OF DROOL
POOL OF DROOL
DAMP SHOES AND SOCKS
FROM THE POOL OF DROOL
Dribbling
DREW
ONCE UPON A TIME there was a boy named Drew. Drew dribbled a lot. This wasn’t just normal everyday dribbling, the odd globule of gob gloop running down your chin. Oh no, this was dribbling on an INDUSTRIAL SCALE. Here was a boy who could dribble litre upon litre of dribble a day.
12
DRIBBLING DREW
Now you may wonder why Dribbling Drew dribbled so much. Well, it was because he was an incredibly lazy individual. If he could, he would sleep 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. And, as Drew snoozed, he drooled.
“ZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
“ZZZZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
went the drool as it landed on the floor.
On school mornings, the boy would have to be dragged out of bed by his feet. If he had his way, Drew would be wheeled to school every morning in his bed. And, as soon as he arrived at school, he would go straight back to sleep.
“ZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
Drew liked nothing more than having a nice long snooze during his lessons. He had even been known to take a sleeping bag into school. That way he could doze through every single subject.
13
THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
PE was a hard one to sleep through, but Drew found a way. For example, during football matches he would ask to be in goal and then climb up on to the net and have a nap. If any of the kids scored a goal, he would moan if they celebrated too loudly and woke him up.
Because Drew slept through every lesson, he always found himself bottom of the class.
14
DRIBBLING DREW
When Drew SNOOZED in lessons, he would dribble all over his desk.
“ZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
The dribble would trickle down to the floor, where a large puddle of drool would collect. If the lesson was DREADED double history, the dribble would end up as something of a pool.
No one knew quite what was in Drew’s dribble. It was transparent like water, but thick and sticky like glue.
15
THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
One time his history teacher, Miss Past, ran over to Drew’s desk to shout at him for falling asleep in class again.
The
unfortunate
lady slipped on the dribble,
shot across
the floor
and flew straight out of the
window.
“AAARRRGGGHH!”
She was found upside down in a nearby hedgerow with her tweed skirt over her head, her BIG frilly knickers flapping in the wind.
16
DRIBBLING DREW
The day our story starts, there was a school trip to the
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
This was a wondrous place, full of all sorts of treasures from Moon rock to dinosaur skeletons. The museum even housed a life-sized cast of a blue whale.
As Drew’s class pulled up outside the museum in the school coach, Mr Numbings, the science teacher, handed out his dreaded worksheets. “Now listen carefully, children. On these worksheets I want you to make a list of all the exhibits you see in the museum today!”
“Do we have to, sir?” moaned Dribbling Drew, stifling a yawn. Dozing on the coach for an hour had tired the boy out and now he was ready for bed. A pool of drool had collected at his feet.
“Yes, Drew, we do have to!” yelled the teacher. “And I want you to stay awake during this visit!” Mr Numbings turned back to the rest of the class. “Now, everyone, the pupil who writes down the most exhibits will come TOP of the class. So keep looking and listening the whole time. Right, out you get!”
17
THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
As they walked in through the museum’s giant wooden doors, all the children marvelled at the huge skeleton of a diplodocus, which took pride of place in the great hall. But Drew simply YAW N E D .
Then he broke away from his teacher and classmates and found a nice quiet place to nap. It was on top of a glass case housing a stuffed dodo, a bird that had become extinct centuries before. No one would disturb him up there.
Drew
ladder.
Climbed
as a
up, using a
stuffed
giraffe
He lay down
and closed his eyes.
Then the boy slept
and slept and slept.
And dribbled
and dribbled
and dribbled.
18
DRIBBLING DREW
The boy could sleep absolutely anywhere. Standing up during a rock concert, hanging UPSIDE DOWN from a tree, even on a rollercoaster as everyone around him screamed.
This particular day, Drew slept for so long that he was still asleep when the NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM was locked up for the night. Without anyone realising, he was still there when all the lights were turned off.
19
THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
All night Drew slept and, as he slept, he dribbled.
“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
“ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.”
PLOP!
Drew dribbled and dribbled and dribbled. Then he dribbled some more. The spot of drool beneath him spread into a puddle. Soon it was a lake of spittle. By dawn, Drew’s sea of dribble had filled the entire NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
20
DRIBBLING DREW
In the morning, Winston, the burly security guard, arrived bright and early to unlock the doors and open the museum as he did every day. However, this was no ordinary day. The first thing Winston noticed was a transparent fluid oozing underneath the doors.
“That’s very strange,” he thought out loud. “Maybe one of the daft old professors has left a tap running.”
Next, the security guard dipped the toe of his boot into the liquid, and realised it couldn’t be water from a leaky pipe. Whatever this was, it was THICK and STICKY.
Worried that the museum might have been flooded, Winston f lung open the giant wooden doors as fast as he could.
Nothing could have prepared Winston for what happened next…
21
WHOOSH!
A TIDAL wave of drool
washed him CLEAN off his feet
and he found himself travelling
at SPEED down the street.
22
“WAAAH!”
the big man screamed like a baby.
Closely behind the security guard floated some of the biggest exhibits from the museum. A stuffed polar bear, the life-sized cast of the blue whale, even the diplodocus skeleton.
They all bobbed along the streets of London on this rushing river of dribble.
23
THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
Atop the glass case that housed the dodo was Drew. In all the commotion, he had finally woken up from his long sleep. As he floated down the road, the flood of his own spittle destroyed everything in its path.
Cars, lorries and even buses
were swept off the ground and
began bobbing
along on the
colossal
ooze of
drool.
24
DRIBBLING DREW
Drew leaped off the on to the roof of a nearby building.
From that safe place he watched more of the exhibits from the museum pass by.
Giant birds’ eggs,
The World’s Worst Children Page 1