The Girl Who Blew Up Her Brother
and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls
published in 2010 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
85 High Street
Prahran, Victoria 3181, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means
without the prior permission of the publishers and copyright owner.
A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.
Text copyright © 2010 Christopher Milne
Illustration and design copyright © 2010 Hardie Grant Egmont
Illustration and design by Simon Swingler
Typesetting by Ektavo
Printed in Australia
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Other books by Christopher Milne
The Day Our Teacher Went Mad and Other Naughty Stories
The Bravest Kid I’ve Ever Known and Other Naughty Stories
An Upside-Down Boy and Other Naughty Stories
Also available from www.christophermilne.com.au
The Western Sydney Kid
Little Johnnie and the Naughty Boat People
TO PETE AND ROB
Peter and Robert are my two sons and they
provided the inspiration for most of my stories.
They have always been a bit naughty in
real life, but also brave, clever, decent
and funny – and much-loved.
Pete and Rob went to Nayook Primary School
and many of these stories are loosely
based on those wonderful years.
Christopher Milne
Contents
The Girl Who Blew Up Her Brother
The Brothers’ Fantastic Flying Machine
John the Joker
The Worst Holidays Ever
The Girl Who Had a Go
Beach Boy Bernie
The Kindly Kid From Hell
the girl who
blew up her
brother
What would you think of a girl who didn’t like TV, hated lollies, wasn’t very keen on sport, loved school, thought all teachers were nice people and hated holidays?
Crazy? Off the planet?
Well, Janet Collins was all of those things, and more. She had no friends. None. But it didn’t worry her. She couldn’t have cared less if she never had to speak to anyone for the rest of her life.
So what did she do? She read. Book after book after book. There was only one thing that excited Janet. Knowledge. Learning stuff.
Well, that’s not quite true. There was one other thing that excited her but I’m not supposed to say. It’s not very nice.
All right, I will – Janet had this secret wish to blow up her brother.
It all began one day when Janet was reading a book about bombs. Her brother, Adam, had just sneaked up from behind and dipped her ponytail in the cat’s toilet tray. Poor Janet – as she turned to grab Adam, her wet ponytail flicked around and slapped her in the face.
Adam was always teasing Janet. It was his favourite sport. Another time he put a dead rat in her bed, and once, just to really upset her, he dropped a brick on her toe.
Janet was never quite sure why Adam teased her all the time, but in Adam’s mind the answer was simple. ‘Because it’s fun. And she’s such a loony. All she does is read all the time.’
As I said, Janet was reading a book about bombs. And suddenly it came to her. Wouldn’t it be good to use all the stuff she’d learnt to get her stupid brother back? Once and for all? Wouldn’t it be great to blow him up?
First, Janet asked for a chemistry set for her birthday, and then she went to the library. Unfortunately, books on how to blow up your brother were hard to find.
OK, thought Janet, I’ll just have to invent something myself.
Janet did get a chemistry set for her birthday. So every night after school for the next three weeks, Janet got out her chemistry set and made mixtures.
A little bit of this plus a little bit of that equals… nothing. Maybe two bits of this plus one bit of that equals… not very much.
In fact, it was more than a week before Janet worked out how to make bubbles. From there, however, things started to move quickly. Next she made some stuff that fizzed, and finally a mixture that sparked and flashed. With black smoke.
Ooooh! thought Janet.
Adam would sometimes watch Janet playing with her chemistry set, and of course he would tease her.
‘Hope you blow your head off,’ he said one day.
If only you knew, thought Janet.
At last Janet was getting very close to making a bomb. One teaspoon of this plus five teaspoons of that added to one teaspoon of water makes a big flash. A very big flash.
What would happen if she made it ten times as strong?
Time to find out.
When Janet’s neighbour heard a huge boom and then saw Janet’s cat come flying through her window, her neighbour was more than a little surprised.
Janet was so excited she could hardly sit still. Now, to get her brother. Not to hurt him, just to scare him. A lot.
Adam had always thought he was cool with girls. So cool, in fact, that he always reckoned it was best to have two girlfriends at once. That way he could have extra fun watching them fight over him.
So Janet said one day that Adam must be a liar. She’d never seen him with one girlfriend, let alone two at once!
‘Yeah,’ said Adam, ‘well, I have.’
‘Prove it then,’ said Janet. ‘Ask them around after school.’
‘All right, I will,’ said Adam.
Stupid Adam.
Sure enough, that afternoon, two girls came to their house and sat in the lounge room. Adam didn’t quite know what to do with them, but at least he’d proven Janet wrong.
In the kitchen, so the girls couldn’t hear, Janet said to Adam, ‘I don’t hear them fighting over you.’
‘Oh yeah?’ said Adam. ‘Watch this.’
He strolled back into the lounge room and said, ‘Only a week to go to the year six dance and I still haven’t decided who to ask.’
Just then Adam was suddenly caught short. Without warning, he desperately needed to go to the toilet. He didn’t know it, but Janet had put a very special mixture in the sandwich he’d had after school.
Adam went red in the face, said, ‘Excuse me,’ and rushed out of the room.
Yes! thought Janet.
You see, Janet had been a very naughty girl. Secretly, she had hidden a bomb just under the lip of the toilet bowl. All that was needed to set it off was water.
The girls argued and argued, and Janet waited. And waited.
Adam flushed and BOOM!
He shot off the toilet, flew through the door and landed in the lounge room. Right at the girls’ feet. With the toilet seat stuck to his bottom, the dunny brush melted into his hair and toilet paper around his neck. And his pants still down around his ankles.
‘How embarrassing,’ said Adam’s two girlfriends. ‘What a loser.’
At least Adam didn’t have to worry anymore about who to ask to the dance.
the brothers’
fantastic
flying machine
There were lots of good things about living in Neerim West. In fact, Brett Porter and his brother Dave thought it was probably the best place to live in t
he whole world.
They could easily ride their bikes to the lolly shop, there was a really excellent creek running right through their farm and best of all, the Neerim West Tip was right next door.
Not only was the Neerim West Tip good for normal rubbish, but everybody dumped their old cars there as well. And sometimes, if the boy scouts didn’t get there first, there were full bags of bottles to smash.
Dave and Brett liked the smell best. Somehow, the mixture of rotting food, old tyres and dead cats made a smell which said excitement. You never knew what you’d find. Maybe an old radio with lots of wires and stuff, or kids’ toys, or comics. Even a half-eaten toffee apple once. Dave had a lick but he reckoned it tasted a bit like fish guts.
The best fun of all was checking out the old cars. Brett and Dave always started by smashing out the windows. Brett really liked front windscreens because sometimes he’d get two shots. First a small rock to make a hole. And then a brick to finish it off.
Once inside the cars, they’d muck around for hours. Dad was always yelling at them for being late home for tea.
One day, Brett was fooling around in the back seat of an old Ford when he got this really dreamy look on his face.
‘Wouldn’t it be excellent,’ said Brett, ‘if we could get one of these cars going one day?’
‘You serious?’ asked Dave. ‘Dad would kill us.’
‘Not to drive, stupid, just to rev the guts out of it,’ said Brett. ‘And maybe make a pretend machine or something.’
But Dave could tell Brett wasn’t thinking ‘pretend’ anything. You see, sometimes, Brett could be very, very naughty.
And from that day on, Brett started to really check the cars out. And Dave helped him.
Poor Dave. He knew Brett was planning something naughty, but what could he do? Brett was his brother! His older brother. The best brother a kid could ever have.
Brett knew heaps about engines from helping his dad fix the tractor all the time. Well, sort of helping. His dad would have called it getting in the way. Brett reckoned that if some of the cars only had little things wrong with them, then maybe he could take the best bits from lots of cars and build a new one. A car that actually went.
It made him excited just to think about it. So, for the next four weeks, every night after school, Dave and Brett went through every old car they could find. It wasn’t too hard getting the good bits out because they borrowed Dad’s best tools. They didn’t tell him but it wouldn’t have mattered because he had boxes of them.
You should have seen all the bits that Brett and Dave found. Enough to build six engines.
‘Well,’ said Brett, ‘I say we connect it all together and just see what happens.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Dave.
So, they bent and screwed and lifted and twisted and if something didn’t fit, they hit it until it did. Softly at first and then really hard with a lump of steel. A couple of things smashed into a thousand bits but that was OK. They were having terrific fun and it had been really hot so the tip smelt great.
Finally, there it stood. The… Well, what could you call it? The thing.
There were bits of pipe and wires and batteries and pieces of engine all over the place. And two huge pieces of pipe tied together on top like a helicopter’s propeller.
‘You ready?’ said Brett.
‘What for?’ asked Dave.
‘To hop in and see if it starts,’ said Brett.
‘Hop in?’ said Dave. ‘It might explode!’
‘No way,’ said Brett. ‘Trust me.’
Dave always knew whenever Brett said ‘trust me’ something bad was going to happen.
The two brothers got inside. Brett took a deep breath, leant forward and pressed the starter button. Nothing.
Dave felt like shouting, he was so relieved.
But Brett pressed the button again.
‘Oh, cool!’ said Brett. ‘I think I heard something.’
Although Brett wanted it to start, he sort of didn’t at the same time. He was excited but secretly scared as well. He pressed the button again.
This time there was a louder sound. A much louder sound. The sound of an engine starting. And the sound of helicopter blades going around.
‘Oh no!’ said Brett again. But this time he really meant it.
Dave’s eyes were almost popping out.
‘Brett!’ he screamed. ‘I think we’re moving. I think we’re moving up!’
And they were. This was no pretend helicopter.
Brett and Dave Porter were flying.
‘Don’t panic,’ said Brett. ‘Dad always says not to panic.’
Dave had never been really sure what ‘panic’ meant. And right now he didn’t care. He was too busy wishing he’d been to the toilet. Brett pushed and pressed at every lever he could find but they just kept going up.
‘Make it stop!’ screamed Dave.
But Brett didn’t know how.
‘Hang on,’ said Brett.‘I’ve found something!
If I push this lever we go sideways… And if I push this one we go forward.’
‘Just find one to go down! Please!’ yelled Dave.
‘I’m trying,’ said Brett.‘But I can’t. We’re just going to have to stay up here till the petrol runs out.’
Now Dave needed to go to the toilet for two reasons. He was going to be sick.
But someone else was starting to feel better. Much better. Brett Porter, ace helicopter pilot.
Brett leant forward, and with a crazy look in his eyes, pushed a lever that he knew would make the engine go faster.
Much faster.
‘Hang on, Davey-boy,’ said Brett. ‘We’re going for a spin.’
Meanwhile, Mr Porter was having a lovely day. The sun was shining, he was driving his favourite tractor and the birds were singing. And the birds were flying about, too. Big birds. In fact, one very big bird. Make that a huge bird.
Headed straight at him!
‘Oh no!’ shouted Mr Porter. ‘A space ship!’
He flung himself under the tractor, waited till it had whooshed past, then raced inside.
Brett was cacking himself laughing so much he almost crashed into a tree. And then, splutter, cough and the engine stopped. As quickly as the ride had started it was over.
Now, if you’ve ever seen a rock fall from the edge of a cliff you’ll have some idea of how quickly their fantastic flying machine dropped into the middle of Dad’s dam. Never to be seen again.
Luckily, Brett and Dave were to be seen again. Sore, wet and very sorry.
As they walked slowly back to the house, their dad rushed up to tell them the news. He didn’t even notice they were wet.
‘You’ll never guess,’ said Dad. ‘I just saw a flying saucer.’
‘Really?’ said Brett. ‘Who was flying it?’
‘Creatures from outer space,’ said Dad. ‘Ugly-looking things.’
That night, Brett and Dave told their dad the truth. Their dad said that telling the truth was always best because you don’t have to carry the lies around with you forever.
He always punished them. But at least the brothers knew it was over. Then they could start fresh and do something else naughty.
Their punishment was hard, but probably fair. No playing at the tip for a year, and jobs every night after school for six weeks picking up potatoes for no money. And Brett said a big sorry to Dave. It was all his fault, he said. They could have been killed!
Dave said not to worry. They were brothers, weren’t they? Mates.
All the same, Dave wished Brett would stop his latest hobby of reading Do-It-Yourself books. Especially the one called Submarines for Two.
John
the
Joker
John Tait loved playing jokes. Practical jokes, where someone ends up looking like a fool. And the rest of us laugh.
Trouble was, in John’s mind, no joke ever seemed funny enough. No trick ever seemed quite as naughty as it should be. So John’s jokes beca
me worse. And worse.
One time, John’s dad had to do a really important talk at work. When his dad opened his briefcase in front of thirty-seven people, guess what popped out? A pair of his undies. Used ones. With skid-marks.
Another time, John chose a couple of the most interesting-looking bits from a school rubbish bin and stuck them with chewing gum underneath the teacher’s desk. The smell was terrible. Poor Mr Lampard, his teacher. He must have checked his shoes a hundred times that day.
Of course, John got into heaps of trouble for his jokes. But it didn’t stop him. The more trouble, the better the jokes must have worked, thought John.
John used to think up the best jokes for his sister, Jane. He loved teasing Jane, especially if she cried. One day, John was mucking around under the house when he found a nest of baby snakes. Guess what popped out from under Jane’s pillow that night? But Jane was getting smarter. She worked out that every time she cried, John would get a smack, so it didn’t take much to set her off.
As mentioned, John’s jokes became worse. But he just wasn’t having as much fun as he thought he should. So, he wondered, might it be better to forget about lots of little jokes and instead plan one huge one?
One mega-naughty monster?
Here’s what happened. John put his hand up at school one day and said, ‘Excuse me, Mr Lampard, but I just wanted to let you know that I’m not going to do jokes anymore because I’ve realised they’re not funny.’
Mr Lampard almost fell off his chair. ‘I’m pleased to hear that,’ he said. ‘But I’m very interested to know what might have changed your mind.’
‘Well,’ said John, ‘I used to think that scaring people was cool fun, but I got scared myself the other day and realised it’s not cool. Not at all.’
‘Scared of what?’ asked Mr Lampard.
‘The ghost,’ said John. ‘The ghost that lives in this room.’
‘Go on,’ said Mr Lampard.
‘You know how I had to stay back after school the other day,’ said John, ‘for bringing my dog to school and telling it to rip the principal’s arms off? And you know how I had to stay back again the next day for lighting a fire under the school fish tank to see if any of the fish jumped out? Well, on both days, sitting here by myself, I saw a ghost.’
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