“Me? Um … no.”
“Are you all right? You look a bit pale.”
“I’m fine,” said Bertie, who suddenly wasn’t feeling so well. He remembered the pot of old flowers by the front door. He remembered putting it in his rubbish bag. Uh oh – the dustcart must have eaten it. Now he thought about it his mum had been going on about the competition for weeks. First prize always went to Mrs Nicely next door, but this year Bertie’s mum felt she stood a chance. Or she would have done… How was Bertie to know the flowers by the door were hers? They looked practically dead!
He got up from the table and sidled towards the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Mum. “You haven’t finished your breakfast.”
“I just need to do something.”
“And what’s this all over Dad’s overalls?”
“Just ketchup. I had a bit of an accident.”
“Bertie…!”
But Bertie was making for the door. If he was going to get those flowers back he would need to move fast.
CHAPTER 3
Bertie bent over the handlebars of his bike, pedalling at top speed. Whiffer scampered behind, trying to keep up. Maybe he was too late already. Even if he caught up with the dustcart, how was he going to get the flowers back? Ed had told him all the dustcarts took their loads to an enormous dump. Perhaps Ed would let him hunt through the mountains of rubbish there? Bertie loved the idea of that. But at the end of the road there was no sign of either Ed or the truck. By now it might be miles away. He sped on towards the park and slammed on his brakes at the corner. There, parked a hundred metres away, was the dustcart.
“Hey!” called Bertie. “Hey, wait a minute!”
The truck was starting to pull away. It got up speed, turned a corner and vanished out of sight. Bertie looked down at Whiffer whose ears drooped in sympathy.
He was sunk. Mum would scream. Dad would shout. He would be sent to his room for a million years.
“Bertie, is that you?” called Mum as he crept in through the front door.
“No,” answered Bertie.
“I want a word with you. Now.”
Bertie drooped into the kitchen where Mum, Dad and Suzy were waiting for him. He could tell by their faces that he’d been rumbled.
“Where are my slippers?” said Dad.
“Where’s my Pony Weekly?” asked Suzy.
“And what have you done with my flower arrangement?” demanded Mum.
“Me? Why do I always get the blame?” protested Bertie. “It’s not my fault if people keep losing things!”
Mum folded her arms. “Look at me, Bertie. I want the truth. Did you touch those flowers?”
Bertie tried to look at his mum. “I might have um … given them to someone,” he mumbled.
“I told you!” said Suzy.
“Who?” demanded Mum.
Bertie tried to think of an answer. He wanted to tell the truth but the truth was he’d given the flowers to a dustcart. By now they were probably buried under six feet of cabbages and nappies.
“I gave them to … Gran!” he said with sudden inspiration.
“Gran? What on earth for?”
“She likes flowers,” said Bertie. “She likes smelling them and stuff.”
Mum looked unconvinced. “And when did you do this?”
“This morning,” said Bertie. “I saw them by the front door and I thought I’d take them to Gran to cheer her up.”
His family stared at him. Bertie had never given flowers to anyone before. On the other hand, he had been known to do all sorts of weird things. Mum’s expression softened a bit.
“Well it was a nice thought, Bertie, but I need those flowers back. They’ve got to be at the church hall by ten. I’ll give Gran a ring.”
She picked up the phone.
“No!” said Bertie, desperately. “I’ll go round! It’ll be quicker. She’s probably finished smelling them by now.”
Mum replaced the phone. “All right, but you’d better hurry. If I miss this competition you’re in serious trouble.”
Bertie set off with Whiffer padding beside him. At the end of the road he sat down on a wall to think. Now what was he going to do? Bringing Gran into it had only made things worse. Now Mum expected him to come back with her stupid flower arrangement. He stared gloomily at Whiffer who was sniffing around the garden behind him. The house was empty and the front garden overgrown with tall weeds.
Suddenly Bertie had a brilliant idea. What was to stop him making his own flower arrangement? It would be easy! There were hundreds of flowers right here that nobody wanted. All he had to do was pick a handful, stick them in a pot and enter it in the competition. If he took it to the church hall himself, his mum might never find out.
Half an hour later Bertie had put his plan into operation. The new flower arrangement had been safely delivered to the hall. He hurried home to tell his mum the good news.
CHAPTER 4
The summer fair was in full swing when Bertie and his family arrived. He trailed round the stalls with Whiffer on his lead. There were stalls selling plants and home-made jam but nothing to interest Bertie. For some reason, Whiffer kept whining and pulling him back to the table displaying the flower arrangements.
Mrs Nicely was standing by the table, talking to Bertie’s mum. “I don’t know what I’d do if I won again,” she was saying. “It would be too embarrassing.”
“I can imagine,” said Bertie’s mum. “So which one is yours?”
“Oh, that little vase of tiger lilies,” said Mrs Nicely, pointing to a towering display of yellow blooms. She lowered her voice and pointed. “Can you believe someone actually entered that ghastly mess?”
Bertie stared at the “ghastly mess”. It was a cracked pot with dandelions, grass and twigs sticking out in all directions. In the middle was what looked like a dog’s bone.
“Actually,” said Bertie loudly, “I think that’s the best of them all.”
Mum pulled him to one side. “Bertie, where’s my flower arrangement? I thought you said you gave it in.”
“Um … I did,” said Bertie. Luckily, at that moment, he was interrupted by one of the judges.
“Can I have your attention? We’re about to announce the results of the flower arranging competition,” he boomed.
Second prize went to Mrs Nicely who tried hard not to look disappointed. First prize went to Mr Pye’s bowl of roses.
“Finally,” said the judge, “the prize for the most original display. This year we felt one entry beautifully captured our theme of ‘Wild Nature’.”
The judge held up a pot. It was Bertie’s pot. “The winner,” he said, “is Mrs Burns.”
“That’s us!” shouted Bertie, excitedly. Whiffer barked and strained on his lead, trying to reach his bone.
Mum looked at Bertie and then in horror at the scruffy pot of weeds the judge was holding. “Bertie, that is not my flower arrangement,” she hissed.
“No,” admitted Bertie. “I had to make a few um … changes.”
“Go on,” Dad whispered to Mum. “They’re all waiting.”
Mum stepped forward to collect her prize, her face a deep shade of pink.
“Tell me,” said the judge. “I’m curious. What gave you the idea of using a bone? Most original.”
Mum shot a dark look at Bertie. “Oh it was my son’s idea really. He can make a dog’s dinner of anything.”
“I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life,” moaned Mum on the way home. “Mrs Nicely looked as if she was going to explode.”
Bertie couldn’t see what she was complaining about. After all, she wanted to win a prize and she had. You would have thought she’d be grateful! In any case things had worked out pretty well. His mum had won a gardening kit, which included a large pair of green gardening gloves. Bertie was wearing them now. They were the perfect thing for a bin man.
Copyright
STRIPES PUBLISHING
An imprint of Little Tiger Press
1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,
London SW6 6AW
Characters created by David Roberts
Text copyright © Alan MacDonald, 2006
Illustrations copyright © David Roberts, 2006
First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2012.
eISBN: 978–1–84715–394–4
The right of Alan MacDonald and David Roberts to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
www.stripespublishing.co.uk
Worms! Page 3