by Alex Ratt
‘Like what?’ said Nerf.
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘I don’t really know any girls.’
‘What about Brain?’ said Nerf.
‘I’m Brain,’ I said.
‘I mean your sister,’ said Nerf. ‘Everyone calls her—’
I raised a pink hand to stop him. ‘You’ve got it wrong, Nerf,’ I said. ‘Everyone calls me Brain. Anyway, my sister isn’t a real girl. She likes science and soccer and stuff like that. What about your sisters?’
Nerf shrugged. ‘They’re not real girls either. They’re into stuff like fencing and maths and they like soccer too.’
‘So how do we find out what girls like?’ I said.
We thought and thought as we stirred and stirred the stink.
I was about to give up when Nerf said, ‘When we were little, my sisters liked playing tea parties.’
‘That’s it!’ I said. ‘That’s what girls like! We’ll invite Little Ellie to a tea party!’
At recess on Monday morning, Nerf and I found Little Ellie in the part of the playground where she and her gang hung out.
‘What do you want?’ she said.
I held up my pink hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘Nerf and I, we know when we’re beat,’ I said. ‘We’re tired of this war. Can’t we just be friends?’
‘Friends?’ she said. ‘Do you really mean that?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And to prove it, we want to invite you to a party—a tea party—after school in the vacant lot on Stinky Avenue.’
‘A tea party?’ said one of the gang scornfully. ‘I hate tea parties.’
Little Ellie silenced her friend with a look. ‘I love tea parties!’ she declared. ‘Can I bring some of the other Sweet Street girls?’
I smiled. ‘Bring as many as you like.’
That afternoon, Nerf and I rode our bikes to the vacant lot. Then, being careful to walk around it, we headed for the far side of the pit.
We didn’t have long to wait till the Sweet Street girls arrived on their scooters and skateboards.
‘This is going to be great, Nerf,’ I said.
‘I can’t wait to hear the splash as they fall into the stinky soup,’ he said.
‘I don’t know, Nerf,’ I said. ‘I think it’s more of a stinky stew than a stinky soup. I’d say it’s more likely to be a squelch than a splash.’
The girls were still standing over near the footpath, and it occurred to me that they might not be able to see us through the tall weeds.
‘Hey, Little Ellie,’ I called. ‘We’ve set up the tea party over here.’
‘We’ll be there in a minute,’ she called back. ‘We’re just preparing a special surprise of our own.’
Nerf and I looked at each other.
‘What sort of surprise?’ I shouted.
We walked a few steps closer so we had a better view over the weeds.
‘We’re decorating your bikes,’ said Little Ellie. ‘As a favour. Now that we’re friends.’
‘What do you mean you’re decorating our bikes?’ I said in alarm. ‘My bike is fine the way it is.’
‘Mine too,’ said Nerf.
I watched in horror as one of the Sweet Street girls pulled a pair of long pink streamers from a shopping bag and began tying them to my handlebars.
‘Wait—no!’ I said.
Another held up a bell with a cupcake on it and started to screw it on Nerf’s bike.
‘Please don’t,’ Nerf cried.
And then Little Ellie held up the grossest thing I had ever seen in my life. It was a white woven basket dotted with yellow daisies . . . And she was attaching it to the front of my bike!
‘NoOoOoOo!’ I shouted.
We had to stop them.
I took off across the lot at a run, Nerf close behind.
We pushed our way through the tall weeds, nearly stumbling over the uneven ground, until all of a sudden we were
We landed in the pit with a SQUELCH.
Just as I had thought, the mess in the pit was a stinky stew.
It was SQUISHY and SLIMY and very, very SMELLY.
‘Nerf?’ I croaked.
Nerf just moaned.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said a voice from above. ‘He’s not all right. And neither are you.’
Standing on the edge of the pit gazing down at us were Little Ellie and her friends.
‘It looks to me like you boys are in a bit of trouble there,’ said Little Ellie.
‘A lot of trouble,’ said the friend who didn’t like tea parties.
‘It looks to me like you are stuck in a deep dark pit full of STINK.’
The other girls in her gang laughed.
‘You girls aren’t sweet at all,’ I said bitterly.
‘That’s right,’ said Little Ellie. ‘We’re smart, not sweet. And you’re not smart—but you are STINKY!’
And they ran off cheering.
Nerf and I sat in silence for a few minutes.
At last, Nerf plucked a piece of curried chicken from his ear and said, ‘Do you know what, Brian?’
‘What?’ I said as I picked a baked bean out of my left nostril.
‘The stink pit was still an epically good trick.’
I nodded. It was an epically good trick.
‘And do you know what, Brian?’ Nerf said as he brushed a blob of yoghurt from his shoulder.
‘What?’ I said as I picked a chunk of pineapple out of my right nostril.
‘I don’t care that it didn’t work,’ he said. ‘I’m proud to be stinky.’
I shook the dog food off the top of my head and said, ‘Me too, Nerf. Me too.’
Then we climbed out of the pit and, with the stinky stew still clinging to us, got on our decorated bikes and rode home.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Making this book was just as much fun as you would expect, thanks to the talent and skill of Jules Faber, Claire Craig, Alex Lloyd, Sally Devenish, Evi O and Tegan Morrison. The book is stinky, but these people are very sweet. Except Jules. Jules is a STINKY LEGEND!