by Jim Smith
‘Off to Baby Camp, eh, Loser?’ said Darren from my class at school, his mean little piggy face appearing from behind a Darren-Darrenofski’s-head-shaped car. He was wearing earphones and carrying a can of root beer flavour Fronkle.
‘BUUURRRPPP!!!’ he burped, and an invisible little cloud of stink floated out of his mouth, towards my baby brother’s nostrils.
‘WAHHH!!!’ screamed Desmond, waggling his little hands in the air like a bonsai tree.
My dad passed Desmond over to Nancy and whipped a scratched-up pink plastic rectangle out of his pocket. ‘Here’s your mum’s old phone, Barry - in case you need to get in touch. I don’t want you using up all the battery watching your Future Ratman episodes though,’ he said.
‘Ooh, nice pink phone, Mrs Loser!’ snortled Darren, rummaging around in HIS pocket and pulling out a crumpled-up rectangle of card, pretending he was a businessman like Donald Cox or something. ‘Here’s my number - let’s do lunch sometime.’
I looked down at the smelly bit of paper. ‘Darren Darrenofski - number one fan of Fronkle in the world,’ it said. Underneath the writing was a Darrenish-looking phone number.
I Future-Ratboy-speed-dialled the number and Darren’s pocket started to ring. ‘Darrenofski residence,’ he said, clicking a button halfway up his earphone wire.
‘Er . . . what in the unkeelness are you doing here, Dazzoid?’ I said into my phone.
Darren took a slurp on his Fronkle and burped again. ‘Oh nothing, I was just passing . . .’ he said, looking a teeny weeny bit shifty-wifty, and I wondered if he’d been wandering around Mogden all on his own, hoping to bump into someone to play it keel with.
You know how Desmond had been screaming from Darren’s burp going up his nostrils? Well that was still happening.
‘Don’t cry, Dezzy,’ said Nancy, reaching into Desmond’s car seat and pulling out his cuddly toy clown.
Desmond stopped screaming and reached out for his clown. ‘Cwowny!’ he gurgled, trying to say its name, which is ‘Clowny Wowny’, the loserest name ever.
‘Hewwo, my name is Clowny Wowny!’ said Nancy to Desmond, doing her Clowny Wowny impression, and I rolled the two eyeball-shaped gobstoppers in my pocket, which I’d brought along to keep me company on Mogden Island.
Clowny Wowny is the loserish clown character that all the kiddywinkles watch on TV these days. All that happens in a whole episode is that Clowny Wowny wobbles around in his stupid giant clown shoes, falling over stuff and doing blowoffs.
‘I can’t believe the rubbish they put on TV these days, Donald,’ I said to Bunky.
‘I know, Donald, it’s not like when we were kids,’ Bunky said, doing a back-to-front-reverse-upside-down-salute, which is what Future Ratboy does when he’s agreeing with someone.
I looked at my two best friends and waggled my favourite eyebrow, and my least favourite one too. ‘Come with me, PLEEEASE?’ I whimpered, missing them both already, even though they were standing in front of my eyebrows.
‘I’m sorry, Barry, we’re just too old for Pirate Camp . . .’ said Nancy, peering down at the floor.
‘Plus we’re going on a Poo Tour with Nancy’s dad today!’ said Bunky. ‘We were just about to come round yours and tell you when you drove past!’
I rewound my brain to them standing outside their houses, talking to Mr Verkenwerken. ‘A Poo Tour?’ I cried. ‘What in the unkeelness is that?’
‘It’s where Mr Verkenwerken walks us round the countryside, pointing out all the different animals’ poos!’ sniggled Bunky, as Nancy took her glasses off.
‘It’s more of a NATURE tour really,’ she said, cleaning them on her skirt. ‘My dad just calls it a Poo Tour to get people like you and Bunky interested. We mostly walk around looking at flowers and insects and stuff . . .’
‘AND POO!’ shouted Bunky, and I fast-forwarded my brain to how keel the Poo Tour was going to be. Not that I was going to be on it.
Darren put his hand on my shoulder and took another slurp of Fronkle. ‘Don’t worry, Loser, I’ll take your place!’ he burped, and I shrugged his hand off and turned to face the pier, where the captain was waiting.
‘All aboard for Mogden Island!’ he boomed.
‘All aboard for Mogden Island!’ boomed the captain again, and I wondered if he just liked saying it, seeing as it was only me and the little girl from my school getting on, and we’d both comperleeterly heard him the first time.
I jumped into his ferry, which was actually just a little wooden boat with a tiny motor hanging off the back of it, and sat down next to the girl. She was looking a teeny weeny bit nervous, and I guessed it must be her first time at Pirate Camp.
‘It’s that boy who was crying!’ she giggled up at her mum, who was standing on the pier, but I just ignored them both, because I was too busy looking at the captain’s hand.
The captain’s hand was at the end of his arm, which is where hands usually are. What wasn’t usual about this hand, howeverypoos, was that it only had two fingers.
‘See you’ve seen me fingas!’ said the captain, and I immedi-swivelled my eyes a millimetre to the right, so they didn’t look like they were looking at his fingers any more. ‘Fishies got ‘em!’ he cackled, nodding out towards the lake, and I wondered if Mogden Lake had sharks in it or something.
‘R-r-really?’ stuttered the little girl, suddenly not giggling any more, and she stuffed her hands into her pockets for safekeeping.
‘Nah, jus’ pulling ya legs!’ chuckled the captain, and the little girl glanced down at her legs, looking like she wished she had somewhere to hide them too.
The captain undid the rope that was keeping the boat tied to Mogden Pier and started fiddling with the motor. He grabbed a handle with his two fingers and gave it a tug, and the ferry started blowing off, little clouds of smoke floating out of its bum.
‘Off we go!’ he shouted, sticking his hand in the water, right next to the propeller bit, and pulling up the anchor, which is exackerly the sort of thing that gets your fingers chopped off.
‘Erm, how long is it to Mogden Island?’ asked the little girl, waving goodbye to her mum.
‘Two minutes!’ said the captain, holding up his two fingers.
‘Aren’t you a bit old to be going to Pirate Camp?’ said the little girl, shuffling up to sit next to me.
‘My dad thinks I need to grow up,’ I grumbled, waving goodbye to Bunky and Nancy and Desmond, but not my dad or Darren.
One of my eyeball gobstoppers dropped out of my pocket and rolled across the ferry floor.
I reached over and grabbed it, plopping it in my mouth, then made an eyehole-shaped hole in the middle of my lips. I twizzled the eyeball round so the little black eye-dot faced the little girl.
‘Urgghh! Your mouth’s got an eye!’ she giggled, and I spat it out and stuffed it back in my pocket.
All of a non-sudden my mum-phone fell out of my other pocket and clunked on to the ferry floor. The little girl looked at it and giggled again.
‘What’s so funny, little girl?’ I said, because I didn’t know her name.
‘Your phone’s pink!’ giggled the girl. ‘My name’s Sally Bottom, by the way. Very nice to meet you!’
I picked up my mum-phone, wondering why my pockets were being so useless all of a sudden, and then I realised something. ‘Hang on a millikeels, did you just say your name was Sally BOTTOM?’ I said, and the little girl nodded. ‘But that’s like having a BUM for your second name!’ I sniggled.
The little girl peered back at Mogden Pier, where her mum was still standing, and her bottom lip started to wobble. Then she looked at me the way I look at people when they make fun of MY second name, and I suddenly felt a teeny weeny bit bad.
‘Sorry, Sally Bottom,’ I said, staring out at Mogden Lake, and I thought how much Bunky would wee his pants when I told him about Sally Bottom’s name. Then I clicked my fingers. ‘Wait a billisecond, I can call him NOW!’ I said, and I pressed the ‘redial’ button on my phone.
‘Darrenofski residence,’ crackled Darren’s voice after only half a ring.
‘Put Bunky on, would you, Dazza,’ I said.
‘Who’s this?’ said Darren.
‘It’s Barry,’ I said.
‘Barry who?’ said Darren, like we were doing a knock knock joke.
‘Barry Loser,’ I said, and Sally Bottom giggled.
‘You’ve got ten seconds, Loserface,’ said Darren, and I heard him pass the phone to Bunky.
‘Hello?’ said Bunky.
‘Donald? It’s Donald Cox - long time no speak!’ I said, and Bunky did a sniggle. ‘Donald, you’ll never believe what the girl on this ferry is called. Her name’s Sally Bottom!’ I whispered, so Sally wouldn’t hear.
‘Sally Bottom? But that’s like having a bum for your second name!’ giggled Bunky.
‘EXACKERLY! So, erm . . . what’s going on?’ I said, because I’d already comperleeterly run out of things to say.
‘Not much . . .’ said Bunky.
‘Go on,’ I said, trying to get my ten seconds’ worth out of Darren’s phone.
‘Well . . . I’m still on Mogden Pier,’ mumbled Bunky. ‘I can see you - you’re about three metres away,’ he said, and I looked up and spotted him, Nancy and Darren, standing exackerly where I’d just left them. My dad was driving off in his car, and I imagined him chuckling to Desmond, all happy that he’d got rid of me.
‘What’s the weather like over there?’ I said, as Captain Two Fingers sped the engine up and the boat started to judder. I did a little leg-waggle dance to stop myself falling over like a comperleet loseroid and spotted Darren, grabbing his phone back off Bunky.
‘Bye bye, Bazza,’ crackled Darren’s horrible little voice, and the phone went dead.
‘OK, well, great to catch up, Donald, let’s do lunch sometime!’ I shouted, pretending to Sally it was me who was ending the phone call, not Darren. Which was perfect timing, because we’d just arrived at Mogden Island.
‘Ahoy, me hearties! Let’s get ye landlubbers ashore!’ roared a voice, and I jumped on to the beach and looked around, trying to spot Burt Barnacle, the unbelievakeely old owner of Pirate Camp.
‘Shiver me whatsitcalleds, there’s pieces of eight all over the crow’s nest!’ roared the voice again, except this time I noticed something weird about it. It was higher than Burt’s voice, plus Burt never said ‘Shiver me WHATSITCALLEDS’. He always said ‘Shiver me TIMBERS’.
I Future-Ratboy-darted my eyes around the beach and spotted a plastic coconut, sellotaped to the top of a half-deflated blow-up palm tree. ‘Burt?’ I said, wondering if he’d got so old his head had turned into a coconut.
‘Down ’ere!’ drawled the voice again, and I tilted my head down until I was face to face with a great big fat ugly-looking lady version of Burt, standing underneath the blow-up palm tree.
‘M-M-Morag!’ I stuttered, because I’d only ever seen a great big fat lady version of Burt as ugly-looking as this one once before, and it’d been Burt’s unbelievakeely lazy and horrible daughter, Morag Barnacle.
‘That’s me name, don’t wear it out!’ chuckled Morag, who looked like she’d squeezed herself into a pirate costume when she was eight years old, then left it on for the next fifty years.
Her arms were covered in tattoos of her favourite junk food, and her fake eyelashes dangled off her eyelids like shrivelled-up tarantulas. Sitting on the end of her hooter was a mosquito, its nose-spike sucking bogie-infested blood out of a hairy nose wart.
‘Come on you two ’orrible kids, get ya stuff off the ferry an’ follow me. You’re late already!’ she boomed, turning round, and me and Sally Bottom grabbed our bags and waved goodbye to Captain Two Fingers.
‘Where’s Burt?’ I said, trudging after Morag through the forest of nettles behind the beach, towards the campsite. I’d pulled my socks up over my ankles so they wouldn’t get stung and was doing my hand-waggle tree impression to stop the mosquitoes from biting me on MY hooter.
‘Who’s Burt?’ asked Sally Bottom, trying to keep up with me on her little legs.
‘Burt Barnacle is the owner of Mogden Island,’ I said, turning round to Sally. ‘He’s really nice. He looks like a REAL pirate, with a beard and everything - not like HER,’ I whispered, pointing at Morag’s big bum.
‘Argggh!!!’ screamed Sally, scraping her ankle against a nettle leaf, and I remembered MY first time on Mogden Island, before I learned my amazekeel socks-pulling-up trick.
I plucked a ginormous leaf out of the ground and passed it to her. ‘Here, put this dock leaf on your ankle - it’ll take away the sting,’ I said. ‘Burt taught me that - it’s an ancient pirate trick!’
Sally wrapped the leaf round her leg and pulled her sock up over it. ‘Thanks, Barry Loser,’ she said, and Morag did a sniggle at my name.
‘WHERE’S BURT?’ I said again, because Morag had comperleeterly ignored me the first time.
Morag stopped trudging and turned round, sweat waterfalling down her face. ‘Me old dad’s gone up to the great big pirate ship in the sky, gawd bless ’im,’ she warbled, one of her tarantula eyelashes half-hanging off its eyelid.
I rewound my brain back to when my grandad died a few years before, and remembered my mum saying he’d gone up to the great big SOFA in the sky.
‘Oh, Burt,’ I whispered, looking up at the sky, trying to spot a pirate-ship-shaped cloud. But they all looked more like sofas.
‘What does Morag mean, Barry?’ asked Sally Bottom, and I shrugged. ‘Dunno,’ I said, not wanting to explain it to her, seeing as she was only a little kiddywinkle. And then I realised something.
‘Hang on a millikeels,’ I said. ‘If Burt’s floating around up there, who’s gonna take over Pirate Camp?’
Morag pointed one of her fat fingers at her face and whipped a smelly-looking hanky out of her pocket.
‘Meet the new owner of Mogden Island!’ she said, wiping her armpits with the hanky then blowing her nose on it, and I tried to picture her looking after a camp-full of little kids, but couldn’t imagine it at all.
Morag turned back round and carried on trudging, with me and Sally Bottom following behind her, until we got to a clearing. ‘’Ere we are!’ she panted, and we stepped out of the trees into a ginormous circle of hardly any trees. I looked around at Pirate Camp, even though I knew what it was like from all the times I’d been there before.
The ground was covered in woodchips, and about eight million kid-sized tents had been put up round the edge of the circle, all facing into the middle. A rickety old building, exackerly like a pirate ship except more of a hut, sat on the outside of the circle, and I remembered how Burt used to stand on the porch bit of it, making up his ghost stories.
Sticking out of the hut’s roof was a flagpole, and I tilted my head up to look at the skull-and-crossbones flag Burt used to fly off the top of it. ‘It’s gone all tattered and saggy,’ I mumbled, sounding like my mum talking about one of her tops when she’s put it in the washing machine on the wrong setting.
Bundled up next to the hut was the parachute we used to sit under while Burt whooshed it up and down. Shiny black slugs slithered over the creases of the parachute, and empty face-painting pots were dotted around on the hut’s window ledge, dried-up brushes poking out of them like half-dead blow-up palm trees.
‘Where are all the kiddywinkles?’ I said, because I couldn’t see any kiddywinkles, which was weird, seeing as this was a kiddywinkles’ camp.
‘Let’s ’ave a look-see, shall we?’ said Morag, and she took a big, crackly breath.
‘Yo ho ho! Batten down the thingamajigs, ye bilge-sucking scurvy dogs!’ boomed Morag, and twenty-six-and-three-quarter bored-looking kiddywinkles appeared out of the forest and started heading towards us.
‘Waaaahhh!!! Twenty-six-and-three-quarter kiddywinkles!’ I screamed, mostly because one of them had a quarter of themselves missing. Then I realised it was just a kid wearing a fake wooden stump leg, which had blended in with the trees behind her.
‘Arrr! Shiver me whatsitcalleds!’ shouted the stumpy-legged kid, who was a scruffy-looking little girl with a patch over one eye. She hobbled up to me and trod on my toe with her stump.
‘OWWWWAH!’ I little-girl-screamed, because it really, really, really, really hurt.
‘Ain’t you a bit old for Pirate Camp?’ said Stump Leg, but I just ignored her and looked at all the other kiddywinkles, wondering who’d been looking after them if Morag had been with us, and Burt was up in the sky.
Morag pointed at a space between a couple of the tents. ‘Room for one more over there,’ she grunted. ‘’Cept of course there’s two of you!’ she chuckled, and I wondered where the leftover person’s tent would go.
‘Where will the other person’s tent go?’ asked Sally Bottom, copying what I was thinking, and Morag pointed into the middle of the circle, where all the tents were facing.