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THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
The headmistress raced towards the Bouncing BOOM-BOOM Ball, this time with her arms and legs outstretched to stop it. But as it bounced off the wall, it sent the lady flying backwards through the air once more.
The first thing she hit was a PORCELAIN statue of a swan.
THWACK!
The second thing was a life-sized PORCELAIN statue of a ballerina.
SMASH!
BANG!
The third thing she hit was a PORCELAIN statue of a clown.
WALLOP!
MISS PETULA PERPETUAL-MOTION
It wasn’t one of those happy clowns. It was one of those sad clowns. Sadly there isn’t time to fully explore the clown’s emotional state. That’s because said clown, along with those other objects flying through the air, was soon nothing more than a shower of PORCELAIN scattering across the floor.
SHATTER!
At this very moment, hearing all the commotion, the elderly museum director came dashing out of his office. He popped his monocle into place to survey the damage. Every single one of the museum’s most priceless pieces of PORCELAIN was in pieces.
“What is the meaning of this?!” he bellowed, waving one of his walking sticks aloft in fury. The headmistress wobbled to her feet, crunching PORCELAIN gravel underfoot as she did so.
CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
“I can explain!” pleaded the lady.
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THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
“Who touched the precious, priceless, pleasing PORCELAIN pieces?” demanded the museum director.
“Well…” The headmistress glanced over at Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion who, to her surprise, was now bouncing only very gently in her plastic ball.
“Well, technically it was ME, but—”
“No buts!” shouted the museum director. “Lady! You will pay for every last piece!”
“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!”
screamed the headmistress. The girl who couldn’t keep still smirked.
* * *
The museum’s bill came to many millions. On a headmistress’s salary, even at the most expensive school in the country, it would have taken a thousand years for Miss Prigg to pay everything back. So she had to take on lots of other jobs at Modesty Place
Despite being a very grand woman, the headmistress now had to be up at dawn every morning with a mop and bucket, cleaning the school corridors.
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MISS PETULA PERPETUAL-MOTION
At lunchtime she would be dishing out soup in the dining hall.
And after school most days, Miss Prigg could be seen up a ladder, clearing wet leaves and dead pigeons from the guttering.
And if there was one person guaranteed to KICK over the
headmistress’s bucket,
send the soup
FLYING
through the air,
or TRIP over
her ladder,
it was of course…
Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion!
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THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
* * *
Some years later it was Petula’s very last day at . She was eighteen years old now, and Modesty Place ready to somersault off into the world.
That morning the headmistress had been up at dawn unblocking the toilets and she had been called to the library to clear up some vomit after the librarian had come down with food poisoning.
As Miss Prigg angrily plonked down her mop and bucket, she spotted her nemesis, Petula, sitting in a corner of the library reading a book.
The strange thing was that the girl was sitting perfectly motionless.
Miss Prigg hid behind some shelves of books, and spied on her most-hated pupil. Apart from turning a page every couple of minutes, Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion did not move a muscle.
After an hour of snooping the headmistress leaped out from behind the shelves.
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MISS PETULA PERPETUAL-MOTION
“AHA!” exclaimed the lady. “GOTCHA!”
“Shush!” shushed Petula, her eyes indicating a sign on the wall of the library that said SILENCE!
“But, but, but…!” The headmistress couldn’t contain herself. “You can sit still if you want to!”
“Yes, I can!” replied the girl. “And I have ALWAYS been able to!”
“But what about that letter from your mother?”
“Oh, that silly old thing? I wrote that myself!”
“ONE HUNDRED
YEARS
OF
DETENTION!”
bellowed
Miss Prigg.
“I’d love to, I really would, but today is my very last day at Modesty Place. And for old times’ sake I am going to…
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THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
…cartwheel out.
Farewell, Headmistress!”
With that Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion leaped on to her hands and spun out of the library, sending every single book flying through the air.
MISS PETULA PERPETUAL-MOTION
THUD!
THUD!
THUD!
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THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
The headmistress was in the library until midnight, picking up all the books and putting them back on the shelves. Then she still had to mop up the vomit.
So now you know, Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion really was one of the world’s worst children.
WONDERFULLY so.
THESE CHILDREN GET WORSER AND WORSERER!
PETER
Picker
WET FINGERS
STRETCHED NOSTRILS
EVER GROWING PILE OF SNOT
PETER
Picker
SOME CHILDREN LIKE to blow their nose; some like to pick. Peter was a picker. The boy always had a finger up his nose. Sometimes two. One in each nostril.
The buried treasure he was searching for was of purest green:
SNOT.
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PETER PICKER
Although he was short for his age, Peter Picker could pick an extensive and seemingly endless supply of it.
Runny snot. Gloopy snot. Hard snot. Snot balls. Snot icicles. Snot stalactites. Snot stalagmites. He was the lord of all that was green and slimy.
After picking, the boy would give his latest morsel of snot a quick inspection, and then add it to his BALL of BOGEYS.
He had read in a book of world records that the biggest ever bogey recorded was produced by a rather hefty German girl named Fräulein Schleim. Hers was the size of a cannonball, and weighed as much as a medium-sized pig.*
*Although only twelve, Fräulein Schleim already had a number of unsavoury world records to her name. The girl had produced the world’s biggest block of EARWAX, which was the size of a tub of ice cream.
Next she was responsible for the world’s largest shower of DANDRUFF, managing to completely cover a football pitch just by untying her pigtails. The world record Fräulein Schleim was proudest of, however, was the one for the smelliest FOOT CHEESE. When she took off her steel-toe-capped boots, the stench flattened every tree within a ten-mile radius.
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THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
Propelled by the idea that he too could earn a place in The Book of World Records, Peter Picker set about attempting to smash his rival’s effort. He was determined to produce the bogey to end all bogeys – a GARGANTUAN ball of snot. He had started with just one ordinary, medium-sized bogey.
However, once he had stuck bogey after bogey to it, it became a super-bogey. Then a MEGA-BOGEY. Finally it progressed to being an ULTRA-BOGEY.
Now, every time the boy picked his nose (which was at least once every few seconds), he added to it. When Peter started, it was just the size of a pea. But with each new green globule it grew. Soon it was the size of a conker, then a melon, then a football, then a snowman. The boy became so focused on entering the record books that he often bunk
ed off school so he could spend all day picking his nose.
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PETER PICKER
At first Peter was able to carry this ball of snot around with him. When it became too big and heavy, the boy simply rolled it along the street.
However, one morning on the way to school, Peter had accidentally run over his neighbour’s cat, Ginger, and the poor creature had become embedded in the snot ball.
“MEOW!!!”
The bogey was so sticky Peter had to shave the cat’s hair off to remove it.
“MMMEEEOOOWWW!!!”
Now the boy kept the sphere of snot safe in his bedroom. By the time of this story, the sphere of snot (or SNOT-SPHERE for short) was the size of an asteroid. It looked like it had come from outer space too.
A kaleidoscope of greens Light green. Dark green Green green. Not-so-green green.
THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
But, with new bogeys being picked, licked and flicked on to it by the minute, Peter’s SNOT-SPHERE was becoming too big even for his bedroom. The boy’s bed and wardrobe were crushed by the size and weight of this truly evil-looking ULTRA-BOGEY.
One morning, while rooting around in his nostril, Peter found a particularly large booger. Without a second thought he wiped it on the SNOT-SPHERE, but this was one final piece too many, and the boy heard a buckling sound. TWANG!
It was the floorboards creaking under the enormous weight of the ULTRA-BOGEY.
Peter raced out of his room and downstairs to the kitchen. Looking up at the ceiling, he saw cracks shooting across it.
CRACK!
Then, before Peter could pick his nose again, the SNOT-SPHERE crashed down through the ceiling and landed next to him. BOOM!
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PETER PICKER
“Argh!” screamed the boy as dust and debris covered him. Peter had very nearly been killed by his own mucus.
And it was on a roll now, literally, and heading straight for the boy. Peter dashed out of his house, but the SNOT-SPHERE smashed through the front wall…
CRASH!
…and chased its creator down the street.
Peter’s parents stared down from their bedroom window. Their mouths were wide open, but no sound came out, such was their shock at the scene.
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THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
Being made of compacted bogeys, the SNOT-SPHERE was incredibly STICKY. As a result, it picked up everything in its path as it rolled:
A little dog, an old lady who was walking said little dog,
a bicycle, a boy riding said bicycle, a lawnmower, a gardener using said lawnmower.
Soon all these things and more were spinning wildly down the road, stuck to the SNOT-SPHERE.
Peter’s bogey was growing bigger and bigger. The bigger the bogey became, the faster it R O L L E D.
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PETER PICKER
As Peter kept running and running and running away from it, the SNOT-SPHERE picked up a postbox and uprooted a tree. Even a car became stuck to it.
When the ever-growing SNOT-SPHERE rolled on top of a bus full of people and managed to glue itself to the roof, Peter really began to panic.
As the people on the bus spun round and round, like visitors to some nightmarish, snot-themed AMUSEMENT PARK, the boy realised he was running for his life.
Now the SNOT-SPHERE was so huge it was picking up houses as it rolled. First a bungalow, then a large family home.
What with the house, the bungalow, the bus, the car, the tree, the postbox, the lawnmower, the gardener using the law the bicycle, the boy riding the bicycle, the little dog and, of course, let’s not forget the old lady who was out walking her little dog, all stuck to it, the SNOT-SPHERE was growing at a truly alarming rate.
119
PETER PICKER
Peter had a plan. The only way he could survive was togo underground. That’s where the SNOT-SPHERE could not reach him. Up ahead the boy spied a drain and dashed towards it. Desperately, he pulled on the grate with all his strength.
“Please, please, please!” he incanted.
His fingers slipped on the metal. They were wet and withered from being up his nose all day.
Just in time Peter managed to pull the grate off and leap down into the murky depths below.
SPLASH!
The SNOT-SPHERE rumbled overhead.
R U M B L E !
Peter breathed a huge sigh of relief, which echoed around the drain
AH!
AH!
AH!
AH!
“AH!”
AH!
AH!
AH!
AH!
THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN
When he felt it was safe again, the boy climbed back up to the surface, covered in grot from the drain. Peter watched as the giant SNOT-SPHERE spun off into the distance, picking up everything in its path.
A fire engine, a parade of shops, even a herd of cows who had been minding their own business, getting on with some quiet MOOING.
“MOO!” “MOO!” “MOO!”
Seeing the mass destruction his creation had caused, Peter Picker decided it was probably best not to mention to anyone that he was the creator of this snot-based ball of TERROR. With all that had happened, he was willing to let Fräulein Schleim retain the title for
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PETER PICKER
the world’s biggest bogey.
So Peter ambled down the road towards school. It was the first time he had attended for weeks. However, when Peter arrived at the school gates, he realised his school was, in fact, no longer there.
There were just dark patches on the playground where the school buildings used to be.
Peter’s spinning ball of DOOM must have rolled ahead of him this way too and sucked all the school buildings up into it.
All that could be seen was a lone pair of Wellington boots, standing where the dining hall used to be. The boots had belonged to the fearsome dinner lady, Mrs Slaughter. No doubt she and all the teachers had been plucked up by the MEGA-BOGEY too.
Peter smirked. “Ha ha!
At least now I don’t have to go to school ever again!” he chuckled, as he stood alone in the playground, feeling like the last man on Earth.
Then, just as he was about to turn round and head home (or at least to what was left of his home), Peter heard a sound behind him…
122
It was getting louder and louder by the moment.
A rumbling sound, a thundering sound, a DEAFENING sound.
The ground was shaking beneath the boy’s feet.
Peter gulped in fear GULP!
He knew full well what it was. He could barely bring himself to turn round to face it. But he had to. Slowly he twisted his neck, and saw that the great SNOT-SPHERE must have rolled all the way round the Earth and was now heading back – straight for him!
123
By now it was the size of a moon, and had picked up various landmarks on its epic journey. The Eiffel Tower, the Roman Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House, the Taj Mahal, St Basil’s Cathedral, an Egyptian pyramid, and the Houses of Parliament – all were sticking out of it like Flakes in a Mr Whippy ice cream.
Buckingham Palace had been pulled out of the ground and rolled away too, exposing Her Majesty the Queen, red-faced and sitting on the loo.
124
“AAARRRGGGHHH!!!”
Peter screamed as the thing sped closer and closer.
The MEGA-BOGEY was by now so MEGATASTICAL that it blocked out the sun. A HUGE dark shadow fell across the boy and he felt cold.
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The World’s Worst Children Page 5