My Brother's Famous Bottom

by Jeremy Strong

  This is my mum.

  This is my dad.

  And this is my brother, Cheese. He’s the one with the famous bottom.

  Why is it famous? Well, it all started when…

  Jeremy Strong once worked in a bakery, putting the jam into three thousand doughnuts every night. Now he puts the jam in stories instead, which he finds much more exciting. At the age of three, he fell out of a first-floor bedroom window and landed on his head. His mother says that this damaged him for the rest of his life and refuses to take any responsibility. He loves writing stories because he says it is ‘the only time you alone have complete control and can make anything happen’. His ambition is to make you laugh (or at least snuffle). Jeremy Strong lives in Somerset with a flying cow and a cat.

  Read more about Nicholas’s daft family

  MY DAD’S GOT AN ALLIGATOR!

  MY GRANNY’S GREAT ESCAPE

  MY MUM’S GOING TO EXPLODE!

  MY BROTHER’S FAMOUS BOTTOM

  Are you feeling silly enough to read more?

  THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  RETURN OF THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  WANTED! THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  BEWARE! KILLER TOMATOES

  CHICKEN SCHOOL

  KRAZY KOW SAVES THE WORLD – WELL, ALMOST

  My Brother’s Famous Bottom

  Illustrated by

  Rowan Clifford

  PUFFIN

  To Susan, with love and thanks for all our time together

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  puffinbooks.com

  First published by Puffin Books 2006

  This edition published exclusively for Nestlé breakfast cereals 2007

  1

  Text copyright © Jeremy Strong, 2006

  Illustrations copyright © Rowan Clifford, 2006

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  EISBN: 978–0–141–32312–1

  Contents

  1 The Big Plan

  2 What Do Cows Lay?

  3 Twins in a Spin

  4 A New Kind of Wellington Boot

  5 Nuisance Neighbours

  6 Disaster!

  7 Some Gorgeous Bottoms

  8 Lights, Camera, Action!

  9 What Happened Next

  10 Mrs Wobbly Green Jelly to the Rescue

  11 Cheese Does the Business

  1 The Big Plan

  My dad’s got a Big Plan. He told us all about it at a special family meeting. All of us were there – Mum, Dad, Granny and her husband, Lancelot, me and the twins, even though they’re only one and a bit.

  Dad banged a big spoon on the table to get our attention and made his announcement. ‘We need a Big Plan,’ he told us.

  ‘A big flan, dear?’ said Granny. She’s a bit deaf and gets the wrong idea sometimes. ‘What kind of flan? Strawberry? I like strawberry flan. As long as it’s not gooseberry, or Marmite.’ Granny pulled a face. ‘Marmite flan is horrible.’

  I stared at Granny. What was she going on about?

  ‘It’s nothing to do with flans,’ shouted Dad. ‘I said we need a Big Plan.’

  ‘Oh,’ smiled Granny. ‘I thought a big flan seemed silly, but then so many of your ideas are silly, aren’t they, Ron?’

  ‘You’re so kind, Mother dear,’ Dad said icily.

  Mum sighed. Dad frowned and pulled at his beard. ‘We have money problems. And the money problem is – we don’t have any. We’ve nothing in the bank. In fact we have less than nothing in the bank.’

  ‘Dad, how can you have less than nothing?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s called an overdraft, Nicholas,’ Lancelot explained. ‘It means your mum and dad owe the bank money.’

  ‘Exactly,’ grunted Dad. ‘It’s because Cheese and Tomato cost so much.’

  Mum glared at Dad. ‘How many times do I have to remind you that the twins are called James and Rebecca, not Cheese and Tomato?’

  Granny shook her head. ‘I don’t know what the fuss is about. After all, they were born in the back of a pizza delivery van. You should see the faces my friends pull when I tell them my two newest grandchildren are called Cheese and Tomato.’

  ‘I don’t want your friends pulling faces,’ snapped Mum. ‘Grannies are supposed to say things like “cootchy cootchy coo” to babies, not “ooh, cheese and tomato, my favourite, yummy yum”!’

  ‘Whatever they’re called, they cost too much,’ grumbled Dad. ‘They eat too much. They need too many clothes and they get through far too many nappies. They are costing us a fortune.’

  ‘They can’t go round without clothes or nappies, Ron,’ Mum pointed out.

  ‘I know that. I’m simply saying that we need to do something.’

  ‘So, have you got an idea for a Big Plan?’ asked Mum.

  Dad smiled triumphantly. ‘I have. In fact I have thought of several ways we can either make money, or save money.’ No wonder Mum looked worried. Dad’s plans for anything usually lead to trouble.

  ‘OK,’ he announced. ‘Here is my first idea for making money: we sell the twins.’

  ‘You can’t sell Cheese and To– I mean, James and Rebecca!’ protested Mum.

  ‘It’s only a suggestion,’ said Dad hastily. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist. I can see you don’t like that plan and I’m not very fond of it either, so here is my second idea: we sell Nicholas.’

  ‘Dad!’ I yelled.

  ‘You don’t like that either? OK, quieten down. You’ll love this next one, I promise. Idea number three: we sell Granny.’

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Ron, will you stop trying to sell off the entire family and come up with some halfway decent suggestion? And you can stop looking at me like that. I am not up for sale.’

  Dad glanced round the table. He flashed his eyebrows up and down.

  ‘Do stop grinning like that,’ said Granny. ‘You look like a cannibal wondering how tasty we might be to eat.’

  ‘What an excellent idea,’ said Dad. ‘That would save us buying food for ages. We could eat each other. Who shall we start with?’

  ‘YOU!’ everyone shouted in chorus.

  ‘Aagh!’ Dad gave a startled jump back. ‘All right, I get the message. Quieten down and listen because I do actually have a Big Plan. We’re going to start a farm.’

  2 What Do Cows Lay?

  My dad’s always thinking up fantastic ideas and I thought this was one of his best. The others didn’t seem nearly as excited as I was though. They just stared at him in stunned silence.

  ‘Phew! You’ll need more than a bit of dosh to start a farm,’ Lancelot pointed out.

&n
bsp; ‘And I don’t want to move house,’ said Mum. ‘I like this house.’

  ‘Me too,’ I murmured. Under the table I crossed my fingers. I didn’t want to move.

  ‘No, no,’ protested Dad. ‘We’re staying here. This place will be the farm.’

  ‘That’s the most stupid idea you’ve ever come up with,’ declared Mum.

  ‘We could have a mini farm,’ Dad pressed on, ‘with just a few animals, and we could grow our own vegetables.’

  ‘That’s what we did in the war,’ said Granny. ‘We had such fun. I was only a little girl, of course, but we had vegetables and chickens and rabbits.’

  ‘That’s it,’ nodded Dad. ‘We are going to grow as much of our own food as possible. In fact I shall grow some chickens too.’

  Mum rolled her eyes. ‘You can’t grow chickens.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ said Dad. ‘You plant eggs and they grow into chickens, and you have to pick them before their legs get too long and they run away.’

  See? I said Dad has fantastic ideas. He’s great! ‘Anyhow,’ Dad went on, ‘the chickens will lay lots of eggs. And we could have a cow. What do cows lay, Brenda?’

  ‘Cowpats,’ said Mum, ‘and you’retalking nonsense. The garden is too small for a cow.’

  ‘How about a goat then? We could get a small goat and every morning you could go out and shake it and get butter from it and cheese and milk and cream.’

  ‘You have some very strange ideas about farming,’ said Mum. ‘Come to think of it, you have some very strange ideas about everything.’

  ‘All part of my charm,’ smiled Dad.

  ‘I know how to milk a cow,’ announced Lancelot.

  Granny patted his arm. ‘Lancelot is very clever with his hands,’ she said.

  ‘We’re not having a cow,’ repeated Mum.

  Lancelot nodded. ‘I know. But it works on goats too. I could teach Nicholas how to milk the goat.’

  ‘Urgh! I don’t want to milk goats.’

  ‘Lancelot and I could take the milk to our house and make it into yoghurt and cheese,’ suggested Granny.

  ‘You should have some sheep,’ said Lancelot. ‘You could knit things then.’

  ‘I think chickens and a goat will be quite enough to start with,’ Mum murmured.

  ‘Are we really going to get chickens and goats and everything?’ I asked, getting quite excited.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Dad. ‘And a rhinoceros.’

  Mum sighed. ‘Just ignore him, Nicholas.’

  ‘Yes, ignore me, Nicholas,’ said Dad. ‘Go and dig the vegetable patch instead.’

  Did I say my dad’s great? I’ve changed my mind. Sometimes he can be very ungreat.

  ‘And before you do any digging you can change the babies’ nappies,’ smiled Mum.

  ‘Thank you,’ I scowled. ‘I’m just your slave really, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ they answered.

  I turned round to find the twins and of course they’d vanished, hadn’t they? They’re always disappearing. I think they do it deliberately. I tracked Cheese down eventually in Mum and Dad’s bed. He was pulling Dad’s pyjama trousers over his head, saying, ‘Big dark! Nighty nighty!’

  And what about Tomato? She was sitting in Mum and Dad’s wardrobe, on the second shelf. The second shelf! How on earth did she get up there? She was pulling out Mum’s T-shirts and throwing them all over the floor. So not only did I end up changing their nappies, I had to tidy the bedroom too and put everything back. Like I said, I’m just a slave really.

  Anyhow, I’m really excited about the farm. It’s going to be brilliant!

  3 Twins in a Spin

  I can milk a goat! I can! It’s totally squirty! Lancelot taught me. I didn’t want to at first. It felt so kind of icky and I got goosebumps just thinking about it. Then I watched Lancelot do it and it looked quite easy, and I thought if Lancelot can do it then I can too. I mean, he’s sixty-six and he used to be a Hell’s Angel and he still has a ponytail and a leather jacket with fringes and studs and he’s got a monster motorbike.

  I sat down on a chair and Lancelot showed me how to hold the goat’s teat and squeeze the milk out and I squeezed – and it worked! Wow! I almost fell off my chair. I’ve got quite used to it now and I think Rubbish likes it when I milk her because she’s always pleased to see me. We call her Rubbish because she’ll eat anything. She ate my shoelaces this morning.

  When the bucket is full Granny and Lancelot take it to their house and put it in a big plastic tub. They’re making it into yoghurt.

  And you should see our garden too. Dad’s planted vegetable seedlings all over the place – potatoes, tomatoes, beans, spinach, lettuce, marrows – all sorts. And we’ve got ten chickens and a cockerel, not to mention Rubbish and a tortoise.

  ‘Why do we have a tortoise?’ I asked Dad.

  ‘Couldn’t get a rhinoceros,’ said Dad.

  ‘And he’s our Chief Security Officer. He’ll make sure the chickens stay in at night and he’ll scare away any foxes. His name is Schumacher.’

  Anyhow, we’ve had big excitement today, what with the twins vanishing (again), and our next-door neighbour, Mr Tugg. (More of the Terrible Tugg later.)

  So, first of all Cheese and Tomato disappeared. We couldn’t find them anywhere. Mum was going bananas. ‘Why didn’t you keep an eye on them, Ron?’

  ‘I was trying to stop the goat eating the washing.’

  ‘Why didn’t you keep an eye on them, Nicholas?’

  ‘I was upstairs on the computer. Besides, I’m not their bodyguard.’

  Then Dad made a big mistake. He asked Mum why she hadn’t noticed the twins disappearing.

  ‘Maybe it was because your lovely new cockerel came into the house and tried to roost halfway up the chimney,’ she said. ‘And after that your lovely cockerel tumbled back down the chimney, bringing half a ton of soot with him, and flew about the room merrily throwing it into every possible corner. And after that I spent the next hour cleaning up – all because of your stupid, brain-dead cockerel! You go and check the coal shed. Nicholas, you search upstairs.’

  We raced round for a bit, calling out and bumping into each other, but we couldn’t find them anywhere.

  ‘We’ll have to call the police,’ said Mum at last, ashen-faced.

  ‘Not again,’ muttered Dad. ‘We only rang them last week about the twins vanishing. They’ll start thinking we’re useless parents.’

  Mum fixed Dad with a steely glare. ‘Some of us here are useless parents,’ she said. Ouch!

  ‘What about asking Granny and Lancelot if they’ve seen them?’ I suggested.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Nick. I know they can toddle quickly, but they don’t even know the way to Granny’s house.’

  ‘Maybe they’ve learnt to map read,’ Dad muttered, and I hid a smile.

  At that moment there was a loud roar from outside, and a screech of tyres on the gravel. Talk of the devil! It was Granny and Lancelot, out on their monster bike. They had the sidecar with them – and strapped in were Cheese and Tomato, wearing mini crash hats and sunglasses!

  ‘My babies!’ cried Mum, scooping them into her arms.

  ‘Wheeeee,’ laughed Tomato.

  ‘Wee wee!’ echoed Cheese, and he did. Mum hastily put him down.

  ‘Took them for a spin,’ said Lancelot, with a big, crinkly grin. ‘They gurgled all the way – loved it. I reckon they’re going to be biker babes.’

  ‘They are not going to be biker babes,’ declared Mum.

  ‘Oh, they’d look lovely in leather jackets and shades,’ said Lancelot. ‘Go on! They could have tattoos and everything.’

  Mum gave a horrified shriek. ‘Tattoos! Don’t you even dare suggest such a thing! Rebecca is going to be a ballet dancer, not a biker. The Sugar Plum Fairy does not have tattoos! And Cheese – I mean James – he’s going to be a doctor. Why didn’t you tell us you were taking them? We’ve been going mad!’

  ‘Well, dear,’ said Granny, ‘we just happened to be passin
g, and we’d bought these little helmets, and we were only going to be a jiffy, just once round the block…’

  ‘…except we went round ten times because the babes liked it so much and your gran was in the driving seat and she went a bit mad,’ grinned Lancelot. He whispered in my ear. ‘She did a wheelie – with the sidecar and everything. What a woman!’

  ‘I heard that!’ snapped Mum. ‘Doing wheelies with babies on board! How could you?’

  ‘Oh it’s quite easy, dear,’ began Granny. ‘You go into third gear and you have to twist the throttle really…’

  ‘I’m not asking how to do a wheelie, you… oh!’

  So we got the twins back. Sometimes I think it would be better if they disappeared for much longer. I mean, who looks after them most of the time? Me! I give them their food. I bath them and change their nappies. I do everything. I think I might go on strike.

  4 A New Kind of Wellington Boot

  I don’t think our next-door neighbour is very happy about our mini farm. Mr Tugg is always complaining. Dad and Mr Tugg don’t get on very well, especially since Granny ran off with Mr Tugg’s dad. She did and, yes, Lancelot is Mr Tugg’s dad. They eloped in a hot-air balloon and got married. I mean – she’s sixty-five, and Lancelot is even older!

  Mr Tugg is quite short and he’s almost bald except for a little bristly moustache that wriggles like a caterpillar when he’s cross. He has a kind of warning system for when he’s angry (which is often). First he goes red, then deep red, then purple and finally he turns white-hot. It’s very impressive, as long as you’re not standing too close. That’s dangerous, because sometimes he explodes.

  Anyhow Mr Tugg came banging on our door today. He never rings the doorbell. He prefers banging.

  ‘The Martians are coming!’ yelled Dad. ‘Quick, everyone take cover. Oh hello, Mr Tugg, fancy seeing you standing there. I thought that noise was a Martian invasion.’