by Jan Burchett
But Ira’s beak drooped. “Now everyone’s gone home I’ve got no one to rain on.” He waddled off miserably. “We can’t let him get gloomy again,” said Theo, frowning. “We’ll be flooded.”
“I’ve had an idea about that,” said Ben. “I’ve made up a game. It’s called Stalking Ira.” Theo looked puzzled. “You see, you’re a sort of cat – I mean tiger,” Ben went on, “and Ira is a bird. And everybody knows that tigers stalk birds . . .”
A huge smile spread over Theo’s stripy face. “I can stalk!” he said brightly. “Watch.”
Max grinned. “Go, Theo!”
Ira was slumped on a gravestone. Theo crept up on him . . . and pounced!
“Enemy astern!” squawked Ira, jumping into the air, flapping his wings and landing on his bottom.
Toby and the boys burst out laughing.
“I bet he wishes his special power was flying now,” chuckled Toby.
Ira gave them a grumpy look. “Avast there,” he screeched. “What do you scurvy dogz find so funny?”
“Ben’s invented a new game for Theo,” called Max. “Why don’t you join in?”
“Theo tries to catch you,” Ben explained. “And you have to escape before he does.”
Ira opened his beak and let out a happy chirp. “Just let him try,” he said. “This shipmate’s too fast for him.”
“Oh, no you’re not,” yelled Theo, bounding at him across the churchyard.
Ira scrambled up one of the drainpipes and onto the roof, with Theo close behind. Theo pounced and Ira dodged out of his way. Theo slid across the wet tiles and got his head caught in a downspout. He pulled himself free and set off after Ira again.
Toby, Max and Ben laughed at their antics.
“Let’s hope Theo keeps Ira busy for a long time,” said Ben.
“Agreed,” said Max. “Rain showers can be very useful, but we’ve had enough of that trick for today.”
2. Science Project Panic
IT WAS THE last lesson on Tuesday, and Max and Ben were supposed to be doing science. But they were too excited. Year Four were going on a school outing on Friday and the boys couldn’t think about anything else. In fact they’d been so busy talking about it, they’d only played one trick all day.
“I can’t believe we’re off to the beach!” exclaimed Max. “It’s going to be the best school trip in the history of best school trips.”
“A whole day of fossil hunting,” said Ben. “I’m going to find a T-Rex tooth.”
“I’m going to dig up a whole T-Rex!” laughed Max.
“Max and Ben!”
Max’s spy radar whirred into action. Small, twitchy, with sharp eyes that didn’t miss a thing. Max knew what that meant. It was Enemy Agent Mrs Stearn, codename: Strict Supply Teacher, who came in to take them every time Miss Bleet was away.
Miss Bleet had gone home sick at lunch time and was having the rest of the week off. For some reason she’d taken her chair with her. Max and Ben were sure it had nothing to do with them covering the seat with glue just before she sat on it!
The boys hated it when Mrs Stearn took the class. She made them work really hard.
The supply teacher loomed over them. “I hope you’re discussing the project you’ve been doing this term on earthquakes and volcanoes. What presentation are you going to make to the class tomorrow?”
“Presentation?” said Ben, aghast. “We were talking about the school trip.”
“At this rate you two won’t be going!” Mrs Stearn snapped.
“What do you mean?” gasped Max.
“You have to work hard to earn a treat like that,” said Mrs Stearn, “and you clearly haven’t been listening to me at all this afternoon. The whole class is to work in pairs and prepare a Show and Tell for tomorrow. You and Ben Neal will explain exactly how a volcano works.” She frowned at them. “I’m giving you fair warning. You’d better come up with an extra-special project or you’ll both be staying here with me on Friday.”
Ben flashed his blue eyes at Mrs Stearn and put on his innocent look. It always worked on the dinner ladies, who gave him extra pizza. It never worked on Mrs Stearn. The strict supply teacher simply raised an eyebrow and walked away.
The bell for the end of school rang loudly but Max and Ben hardly heard it. They were gawping at each other in disbelief.
“This is serious, Agent Neal,” muttered Max. “Our whole happiness depends on this presentation.”
“We’ve only got one evening,” Ben muttered back. “And we don’t know anything about volcanoes.”
They mooched out gloomily after the rest of the class and trailed across the playground.
“Psssst!”
Max looked over at the churchyard wall. Two pairs of eyes and four pointy ears were peeping over the top. “It’s Toby and Barney,” he said. “Maybe they can cheer us up.”
They walked slowly over towards their gargoyle friends.
“Greetingz!” Toby beamed and swished his dragony tail. “Why are you looking so miserable?”
Barney’s soppy dog face looked anxious and the spikes on his back quivered. “Has something terrible happened?” he asked.
“Not yet!” said Max. “But Friday looks doomed. Anyway, you’re not to worry, Barney. We don’t want you doing one of your pongs!”
Barney’s secret gargoyle power was making revolting smells. When he was worried, he sometimes did them by accident.
The boys told Toby and Barney about the project and how they might miss their day out.
“I’ve got an idea!” Toby grinned. “Barney and I will help you. Four heads are better than two.”
“And two tails,” added Barney. “And eight paws.”
“Great idea!” Max pulled open his backpack. “Hop in,” he said. “We’ll go to my house. It’s nearer than Ben’s.”
Toby jumped in, then Barney climbed into Ben’s bag and the boys set off for Max’s house.
“Can Ben stay for tea, Mum?” asked Max as soon as they got through the front door. “We’ve got a project to do.”
“Of course he can,” said Max’s mum. “I’ll let your mother know, Ben.”
“Tea!” came Toby’s muffled voice from Ben’s backpack. “Spluttering gutterz! I hope there are cookiez.”
Max’s mum stared in astonishment at Ben, who quickly licked his lips and rubbed his tummy.
“Of course there are,” she said. “As long as you don’t eat too many.”
“Ten for me!” came the voice.
“Only joking!” said Ben hurriedly.
The boys grabbed some cookies and escaped upstairs. The moment Max’s bedroom door was shut, Toby and Barney scrambled out, snatched a cookie each and started bouncing on the bed.
“You’re here to help us with our project,” Max reminded them. “So no messing about. Let’s see if I’ve got any books about volcanoes . . .”
Barney scampered up Max’s shelves and pulled down a book. “Never mind volcanoes,” he said, holding up a picture of a huge dragon. “Tell the class that gargoylz have got better tailz than these silly-looking creaturez.”
“But that’s not what the project’s about,” protested Ben.
“Read them this joke . . .” chortled Toby, peering at a comic he’d found under Max’s bed. “What’s brown and sticky?”
“I don’t know,” said Barney. “What is brown and sticky?”
“A stick!” shrieked Toby.
The two gargoylz rolled around on their backs, helpless with laughter.
“Must tell Bart,” spluttered Barney. “He loves a good joke.”
“And that was a good joke!” agreed Toby.
“You’re meant to be looking up volcanoes,” sighed Max.
Toby and Barney found a book on worms, turned it upside down and stuck their noses in it.
“Wow!” whispered Ben in admiration. “They’re even worse than we are at homework – and that’s saying something!”
Max pulled a book called Deadly Mountains down from his s
helf and opened it. “I can’t understand these long words,” he complained, staring at a complicated diagram of the inside of a volcano. “I thought it would just be boom and bang!”
“My head hurts,” groaned Ben. “Homework isn’t good for you.”
“Teachers are cruel to even think of it. We need a rest.” Max switched on his television and flicked through the channels. “Hey, this is lucky. Here’s a programme all about volcanoes! Awesome.”
The boys threw themselves onto the bed and the gargoylz squeezed in between. Together they watched the mountain on the screen erupt in an explosion of lava.
“Dangling drainpipes!” said Toby when the programme ended. “That was fun.”
“Volcanoes are amazing!” gasped Max. “We must be able to impress the class tomorrow.”
“But Mrs Stearn wants us to tell them all the boring details,” sighed Ben. “If only we could just show them that programme.”
Max jumped to his feet. “I’ve got it, Agent Neal,” he cried. “We won’t talk. We’ll make a model and demonstrate how a volcano erupts!”
“Brilliant plan, Agent Black,” said Ben. “That should be easy-peasy. We’ve seen how they spout lava.”
“We’ll help,” said Toby, waddling to the edge of the bed. “Gargoylz are experts on spouting – well, with water anyway.”
“We just need the things to make the model.” Max looked around his room, thinking furiously. “I know what to use for the volcano shape – my sister’s witch hat. Urgent mission, Agent Neal: go into the dangerous territory of Jessica’s bedroom and grab the hat.”
“It will smell clean and flowery and horrible,” said Ben, looking grave. “But I’ll do it!”
“Hold your nose and you’ll be all right,” said Max. “I’m going to the kitchen. I’ve got a mission of my own – fetching the perfect ingredient for our volcano lava. Gargoylz, stay here.”
Max crept down the stairs and into the kitchen. He grabbed the tomato ketchup bottle, stuffed it up his jumper and then dashed back upstairs to his room.
A small figure stood in the middle of the bedroom, wrapped in toilet paper. Toby’s eyes peered out. “I got this from the bathroom,” he explained in a muffled voice. “But I had trouble getting it off the wall. I thought we could use it to make the ash that’s blasted out of the top of the volcano.”
“Good thinking!” said Max. “But I told you to stay here, Toby. What if someone had seen you running about looking like an Egyptian mummy?”
Ben burst in, wearing the witch’s hat. “I found it at the bottom of Jessica’s wardrobe,” he complained as he plonked it down on the floor, “behind her fluffy pink slippers.”
“Yuck!” said Max. He looked around in a sudden panic. “Where’s Barney?”
A pile of clothes in the corner of the room wriggled, and Barney’s head popped out. He waved a green jumper at the boys. “Let’s put this around the bottom of the volcano,” he said. “It’ll look like a forest.”
“Brilliant idea.” Max grinned. “I’ve never liked that jumper and Mum can’t complain if I’m using it for science.” He pulled a large framed picture of a waterfall from under his bed. “My great-aunt sent me this at Christmas,” he explained. “It’s as bad as the jumper. We can use it as the base.” He rummaged on his shelf and threw Barney a tube of glue.
They set to work. When the hat was stuck firmly to the base, Max got out a pot and a brush and slapped brown paint over the hat’s shiny surface. The paint didn’t stick very well so it was a bit patchy, but Toby stuck blobs of toilet paper onto it to look like ash. Meanwhile Barney pulled some woollen threads out of the green jumper and arranged them around the bottom of the volcano, then Ben splattered ketchup over the top.
“Mmm . . . this lava tastes good,” murmured Toby, sticking a paw in and licking it.
At last the model was finished. Max, Ben and the gargoylz sat down on the messy carpet to survey their work. The volcano looked quite good until, under the weight of wet paint, ketchup and toilet paper, the hat slowly sank into a soggy heap.
“It’s not quite like the volcano on the telly,” sighed Max. “What’s Mrs Stearn going to say?”
“Perhaps it needs more paint—” Ben began, then stopped in horror because they could all hear footsteps on the stairs.
“Tea’s ready,” came Mum’s voice.
“She mustn’t see the state of my room!” hissed Max, trying to wipe ketchup smears off his wardrobe. “I’ll be grounded for life.”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Ben. “Quick, Barney, make one of your pongs!”
Barney chuckled, and a stench like rotting socks rose up into the air – just as Max’s mum opened the door.
“Euuwww! Did you have to, boys?” she gasped, staggering back out of the room. “Come down for tea – and no more smells.”
They heard her coughing all the way downstairs.
“That was awesome, Barney,” said Max, throwing open the window. “You saved us from a fate worse than death!”
“It was your worst— I mean, best pong yet,” spluttered Ben, wafting the smell out with a pillow.
“We’d better go down for tea.” Max turned to Toby and Barney. “You two try to be good while we’re gone.” “Of course,” said Toby. “We’ll tidy up for you.”
Twenty minutes later Max flung open the door of his bedroom and stared in horror.
The carpet had disappeared under a pile of shredded toilet paper, there were tomato ketchup paw prints all over his duvet, and someone had painted a splodgy picture of a brown gargoyle on his rucksack. Barney and Toby sat in the middle of the chaos, happily watching cartoons.
“We told you we’d tidy up.” Toby pointed proudly towards the bin, where the remains of the green jumper had been stuffed.
“It looks worse than ever!” wailed Max.
DER-RING! The front doorbell sounded.
They heard running footsteps on the stairs and the bedroom door swung open. Ben just had time to throw the duvet over the gargoylz before Max’s dad came in.
“Ben, your mum’s—” Max’s dad stopped. He gawped speechlessly at Max’s room.
Then he spotted the collapsed volcano. “What have you done to Jessica’s hat?” he demanded angrily.
“We’ve got a science project,” Max tried to explain, “and we thought it would be great to make a model for the whole class to see, but it didn’t quite work. It’s meant to be a volcano . . .” He tailed off miserably. It had all gone wrong. Their hopes of going on the school trip had gone down the drain and now they were in big trouble.
Dad looked serious. “I see,” he said, solemnly examining the soggy mess. “It’s a bit flat for a volcano – and it looks as if someone’s eaten most of the lava.” He scratched his head. “Look, I’m really pleased to see you’ve been working so hard for a school project so I’ll help you out. I’ve got a sheet of thin metal in the garage. I can make that into a cone shape for you. It’ll be much stronger than a cardboard hat. You can slap papier-mâché on it and then paint it to look like a real volcano – but only if you clean up this mess first. Deal?”
“Deal!” cried the boys happily.
“And I’ll make Ben’s mum a cuppa while she waits,” added Dad as he went out.
“That was a lucky escape,” said Max. “If it had been Mum she’d be telling us off for about a million years. Good thing Dad’s mad about science.”
“Let’s get cleaning,” said Ben.
Toby and Barney popped up from under the duvet.
“We’ll help,” said Toby. “We’ll do the best job since we put soap powder in the font and the vicar got covered in bubblez!”
“Thanks, gargoylz.” Max grinned. “But first you need a wipe. You’re both covered in ketchup.”
3. Fire! Fire!
MAX AND BEN shuffled slowly along to school in their imaginary spy hovercraft, carefully carrying their science project between them. They had to get the precious model to the classroom in one piece or they’d miss the
school trip to the beach on Friday.
“Looks awesome, doesn’t it, Agent Neal?” Max grinned over the red-painted peak of their volcano.
“You bet, Agent Black,” said Ben.
With the help of Max’s dad they’d made a magnificent fiery-topped mountain with papier-mâché sides and realistic-looking lava oozing down its slopes.
The boys sidled through the school gates.
“We’re early,” said Ben. “Let’s show this to the gargoylz. They’ll be really impressed.”
They wobbled over to the wall between the school and the churchyard and balanced their volcano carefully on the top.
“I can’t see anyone,” said Max, disappointed.
“I can hear something,” said Ben. “They must be behind that gravestone.”
“What do you call a greedy ant?” came a deep gurgly voice.
“That’s Bart,” whispered Max. “He’s telling jokes as usual.”
“An anteater!” Gales of gargoyle giggles echoed around the churchyard.
“Gargoylz . . .” Ben called softly.
Five beaming faces peeped over the tombstone.
“Greetingz,” said Toby, flying over to them. Barney, Theo and Azzan scampered after him, and Bart waddled along behind, straightening his gladiator skirt.
“What do you call that mountain thingy?” asked Theo, jumping up onto the wall like a cat and peering at the volcano.
“I don’t know, Theo,” said Bart. “What do you call that mountain thingy? I haven’t heard that joke before.”
“It’s not a joke this time,” giggled Theo, pointing at the model. “I want to know what the boyz have got there.”
Bart stared at it, puzzled. “It looks like one of the vicar’s dinnerz.”
“It’s not for eating,” said Ben. “It’s a volcano.”