The Birthday Wars
Page 7
How absolutely amazing would that be?
Yours mind-bogglingly,
Captain Jimmy Cook
Dear Jimmy,
Were you even paying attention to my Plimmy story? That’s EXACTLY what I was saying. A combined birthday party is the ONLY way around this. I know it seems impossible, but it’s the only thing we can do to SAVE our parties.
Yours troolie,
Alice Toolie
Dear Alice,
Well, you can think you came up with the idea if you want to, because I’m a captain and I’m used to coming up with amazing ideas and then my crew saying they actually came up with them. The most important thing is not WHO came up with it (me, just read back over the letters), but that we now have a solution! So all we need to do is come up with a theme we can both agree on! I know it seems impossible because we have absolutely nothing in common!
Yours generously,
Captain Jimmy Cook
Dear Jimmy,
Done! Please see the invitation I just made in class!
Yours troolie,
Alice Toolie
Dear Alice,
This is my RSVP.
I am totally coming to our party! That is the best invitation ever and I really like the idea of teacup-sized megafauna—that’s totally rare and totally awesome. Also, I’d be very interested in swimming in a lava cake lake … and I’m pretty sure everyone else will be too.
Yours keenly,
Captain Jimmy Cook
Good morning, Jimmy,
You are totally right about that. I’ve handed out the invites and I got RSVPs straight away from like everyone in the class! And they ALL want to come. Here’s one I just got from Casper N!
Dear Alice and Jimmy,
Flippy Pop Tarts! That’s the coolest invite ever. I can’t wait to come to your party. I’m so glad you’re having a combined party! It’s going to be the best ever. I don’t know what I was going to do if you had separate parties! I thought about cloning myself, but Jimmy broke the 3D printer! See you Saturday!!!!
Casper N
Dear Alice,
Nice one, Casper N. It does look like it’s shaping up to be the birthday extravaganza of the century! I just got this from Jenny Philpot, so she’s in too!
Yours ecstatically,
Captain Jimmy Cook
Dear Alice and Jimmy!
CAN! NOT! WAIT! YAY.
See you Saturday. I’ve got the best outfit.
I’m coming as an atomic seaweed sprinkle princess! Yay!
Jenny!
GOOD NEWS! Our mums have totally agreed to a combined party and everything is all set for this weekend! I think my mum was really relieved the party was going ahead, because otherwise we were going to get stuck with like 300 jelly sparkle oranges! And a disco glitter ball and 200 woodland fairy cakes!
Dear Alice,
My mum started making our awesome combined sparkle husky penguin unicorn cake. I have to say, it’s pretty amazing. This is going to be the best! Two sleeps to go!
Yours festively,
Captain Jimmy Cook
Dear Jimmy,
Don’t forget the snow machine! I’ve got the multi-coloured bubble maker and a rainbow confetti snowman sorted. ONE SLEEP TO GO!
Yours troolie,
Alice Toolie
Dear Alice,
Also, one more thing—don’t forget your birthday manners. My mum always says, birthdays can be a pretty crazy time and it’s pretty easy to lose your head. Someone like you could really let the birthday madness get to their brain. I once knew a girl who got so many presents and ate so much cake that she EXPLODED. It’s not such a problem for me, because as a captain, I’m pretty used to exciting situations. See you tomorrow for the big party!
Yours extraordinarily,
Captain Jimmy Cook
You’ve probably never seen one before. You send them out after you have a birthday if you have amazing birthday manners … LIKE ME! So, thank you for coming to our amazing party that was 95% AWESOME and only 5% DISASTER!
Firstly, THANK YOU for giving me for the Puffy Penguin Do-It-Yourself T-shirt kit. (I’ve already made like 10 T-shirts and I think I might start a T-shirt company and make a trillion dollars.)
I’m so happy that our party turned out to be the best party ever. If it wasn’t for Casper N and Conrad having a cake fight in my parents’ bedroom after eating way too many marshmallow jelly huskies, it would have been totally perfect. But who can blame them—those huskies were delicious! I can now totally see why Mawson ate his dog—if it tasted like that, I would too!
And when Emily Hoskins decided to feed the snow machine pink lemonade to make rainbow snow and we all got really sticky, which attracted lots of ants, it was still amazing. (Actually, ants are wildlife, so I guess they were party-appropriate!)
Even when you told everyone that the entertainer was actually a zombie fire princess who was going to eat our brains and Jenny Philpot got so scared that she hid under the sofa until Sunday … or even when your explorer pass-the-parcel started oozing on everyone because you’d put in sculptures of famous explorers you made out of butter … even then, the party wasn’t ruined.
And when you and Lucas Terrazzo drank two red lemonades and knocked over the 6-metre snowman sculpture and it fell over and rolled down the street … it was still not ruined … Do you know why?
P.S. Hope you like your new paper shredder!
Dear Alice,
When it comes to old-fashioned manners like writing thank-you notes and having sword fights with forks, I’m a bit of an expert. So here’s mine. Thanks for my birthday paper shedder—it’s totally come in handy.
I have to say, at first I wasn’t sure a combined party could ever work. You like unicorns and sparkle slime, and I like mega squids and poisonous dart frogs. You like Princess Snow Cone, and I like snow fleas. But in the end, it didn’t matter. I guess it goes to show that no matter what your differences, there’s always something you can agree on. (Just like that Youtootube video of the cat and the fish playing the piano. It’s cute and it makes total sense.)
No matter what the problem is, there’s always a solution. As a captain of the high seas, I’ve sure had my fair share of trouble, but I’m glad to say we’ve sailed through this storm and we’ve come out safely on the other side. If there wasn’t a national shortage of gold stars, I’d probably give us both 100 class points for that awesome party.
Yours brilliantly,
Captain Jimmy Cook
READ MORE ABOUT ALICE TOOLIE AND JIMMY COOK!
Something very bad has happened to Alice Toolie. Her secret diary has been read by her worst enemy—Jimmy Cook.
It’s war! Until Ms Fennel decides that Alice and Jimmy need to make peace and become pen pals for the term.
And it works. Before long, Alice and Jimmy are planning to make billions of dollars for the school fete—and with a captured ghost and jars full of unicorn vomit, it’s sure to be their time to shine.
HONOUR BOOK: CBCA Book of the Year, Younger Readers, 2017
Jimmy Cook is finding History Week a bit boring until Ms Fennel starts banging on about Captain Cook. Then—bingo! Turns out he and Captain Cook have a lot in common: they are both named James Cook; they are both great explorers; and they both look great in a tricorn hat.
Captain Jimmy Cook has made a Top Secret Important Discovery. Even more important than any discovery that the other Captain Cook from the olden days ever made. A real dinosaur footprint! As everyone knows, underneath a real dinosaur footprint will be a real dinosaur bone.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Kate and Jol are award-winning children’s book authors. Their chapter book series Captain Jimmy Cook Discovers was selected as CBCA Honour Book of the Year in 2017. When they’re not writing letters for Alice and Jimmy, they write picture books. Their titles include Parrot Carrot (2011), Room on Our Rock (2018) and Are You My Bottom? (2018). They live in Sydney with their two sons and dream of one day owning an eggcup schngrooodle-
itzu, just like Alice.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Grace West is a Melbourne-based illustrator and book designer who works under the nom de plume North South Grace West. When at school, Grace’s notebooks were covered in drawings and scribbles very similar to Alice’s! She loves drinking coffee, travelling and, most of all, escaping the computer to sketch in her notebook.