‘Er, yes,’ I muttered. Had he forgotten about the time Gee-Gee came to school, thrashed Masher McNee at football and almost caused a riot? I examined my teacher’s face. He was giving nothing away. He was Mr Butternut, Man of Mystery. Definitely.
When I got home there was more news, from Mum this time.
‘Gee-Gee rang and told me about your assembly. How exciting! She wants you to take some African things for her from the care home to school.’
‘Right. Pete can come with me. I’ll go and get him.’ I opened the door to let myself out and there was Pete, about to come in. He looked pretty grim too.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘Uncle Boring. That’s the matter. He’s brought a huge cheese for us to eat after supper tonight and it stinks like a volcano erupting old socks.’
‘Molto terriblo! Stinky cheese is yuck! Is he crazy or what?’
‘I think he’s crazy AND what,’ Pete answered, with bulging eyes. His eyes often go like that, especially when he’s staggered by some problem or other. ‘I mean, WHAT is he? That is the question. He’s not human. THAT is the answer. But I think I have a good way to get rid of him AND his stinky cheese.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I’m going to send him to Malawi. I’m sure the children there will have lots of fun playing with him. They could poke him with sticks.’
‘Why would they want to poke him with sticks?’ I asked, rather confused.
‘BECAUSE I WANT TO POKE HIM WITH A STICK EVERY TIME I SEE HIM!’ Pete cried. ‘Especially when he’s got a big stinky cheese.’
‘But how will you get him all the way to Africa, O Giant-Footed One?’ I asked.
‘I shall put a stamp on his head and shove him in the postbox, my Little Ginger Insect.’
‘It will be very expensive to send Uncle Boring all the way to Africa,’ I declared.
‘In that case I shall put him in my giant catapult and launch him through hyperspace. He will reach Africa in a millisecond.’
SARAH SITTERBOUT’S BIT ABOUT STINKY CHEESE
Most cheeses are made from milk. The milk usually comes from cows, goats or sheep.
It’s the mould that makes some cheeses smell. (It’s quite OK to eat the mould in stinky cheese!) It won’t make YOU stinky (but you might be stinky already)! Cheese has been found in Ancient Egyptian tombs – I bet that’s really REALLY stinky!
We reached the care home and went in. It’s easy to know which is Gee-Gee’s room because she has a large, scary African mask hanging on the door. It’s made of painted wood, has bits of grass for hair and real crocodile teeth in the mouth. SCARY, eh?!
Gee-Gee waved her hands at us as if she was shooing us away.
‘Stay there and don’t interrupt!’ she snapped. ‘I’m packing this trunk for your assembly.’
‘There!’ said Gee-Gee, shutting the lid with a bang. ‘It’s all yours. Take it away, boys!’
Phew! Did we struggle with Gee-Gee’s trunk? Yes, we did. It was about the size of a small car.
‘Good grief !’ cried Pete. ‘What’s in it?’
‘The whole of Africa,’ I gasped. ‘Come on!’
I don’t know how we managed, but we got the trunk home. Then, the very next morning, we struggled into school with it and dumped it in the corner of the hall. All day long people wandered past and gazed at it, wondering what was inside.
Friday arrived. Every class was in the hall for assembly, plus every teacher and every assistant. We all wanted to know what was in the trunk.
Gee-Gee was late. I was getting worried. I stared and stared at the door, wondering what had happened to her.
The double doors sprang back and in came Gee-Gee. She was nervous and kept looking guiltily behind her as if she was expecting to be arrested at any moment. That great-gran of mine is very peculiar sometimes!
Miss Scratchitt greeted Gee-Gee and led her to the front of the hall. The head teacher introduced her to everyone and explained that Gee-Gee used to live in Africa when she was growing up. Now she was going to tell us what it was like.
‘I lived in Zambia,’ Gee-Gee began. ‘My parents had a farm there. We grew coffee and avocados.’
‘Were there lots of wild animals?’ asked another little one.
‘Yes, lots. There were lions, zebras, elephants, ostriches, baboons, snakes, monkeys, giant ants, crocodiles, er –’
‘Whales?’ shouted one of the four-year-olds.
‘Yes, of course, huge herds of whales. Whole junglefuls of them!’ cried Gee-Gee, waving her arms violently to show how many whales there were. ‘Whales living all over the farm!’
Gee-Gee turned to Miss Scratchitt. ‘What on earth are you teaching these nincompoops?’
Miss Scratchitt pulled a face. ‘They’re very small children,’ she murmured.
‘And they’ve got very small brains, if you ask me,’ huffed Gee-Gee. ‘Now then, there were lots of dangerous animals. I was camping one night and there were lions growling around my tent. I went out and told them to stop because I was trying to sleep. They took no notice of me at all! So I biffed one on the nose. BOFF! Like that! Then they all ran away!
‘Another time, I had a fight with a snake. It was a big fat python. It reared up in front of me and opened its mouth to eat me. Do you know what I did? I gave it a HUGE uppercut! SWOOSH-BANG! Like that! Knocked the snake out completely. So I took it home and we ate it for supper.’
‘URRRRGGHHH!’ howled half the school. ‘That is so YUCK!’
Gee-Gee was really getting into her stride now and went sailing on. ‘Another time, I found a tiger in our kitchen and –’
Miss Scratchitt tapped Gee-Gee on her arm. ‘I didn’t think there were any tigers in Africa,’ she said.
Gee-Gee took a step back and stared at Miss Scratchitt from top to toe and back again. ‘IT WAS A TIGER!’ Gee-Gee repeated. ‘A TIGER IN MY KITCHEN AND IT WAS ARGUING WITH A KANGAROO OVER WHO WAS GOING TO EAT THE CHOCOLATE CAKE!’
Poor Miss Scratchitt! She hurriedly sat on the nearest chair. Mr Butternut’s shoulders were heaving up and down. Mysterious, very mysterious.
‘Now I am going to tell you about our neighbours at the farm,’ Gee-Gee declared. ‘They were not like your neighbours. There was a native village near us. Every Saturday they would put on their best costumes and dance. Their dancing was so exciting!’
Gee-Gee threw open her trunk and everyone craned forward. She pulled out a tall drum, gave it a quick bang and handed it to a boy in the front row. Then she pulled out three more drums and handed them round. By this time the children in the front row were crowding round the drums and beginning to beat them.
Gee-Gee dived head first into the trunk, scrabbled around, and this time she brought out some masks. The children at the front, who were the youngest, of course – they always get the best seats, it’s not fair – got even more excited. They held the masks in front of their faces and tried to scare each other. It worked too, because at least six small children burst into tears, while the rest were starting to shout and jump about to the drums.
Finally, Gee-Gee reached into the trunk and suddenly she was brandishing a spear! A REAL ONE!
Miss Scratchitt was getting so worried she was hopping up and down, doing a dance of her own, her eyes glued to the spear. ‘Um, I don’t think … um, could you … um … would you mind? Oh dear, I feel quite faint!’
The drums were banging wildly and Gee-Gee was smiling and jabbing her spear at the ceiling. Half the school were now rising up and the hall floor trembled beneath a hundred pairs of stamping feet. Poor Miss Scratchitt had both hands over her face, watching the chaos through a gap in her fingers with one alarmed eye.
At that moment, Mrs Moppnot, the caretaker, rushed into the hall, screaming at aeroplane volume.
We looked out of the big hall windows. It was true. Several cows were wandering about aimlessly. Everyone looked at Miss Scratchitt. She was the head. What was she going to do about this? But Miss Scratchitt did someth
ing quite useless: she dithered. And in that moment of dithering, my great-gran took charge.
‘Follow me!’ thundered Gee-Gee. ‘I know how to deal with a few cows!’ She fl ung open the doors to the playground and the WHOLE SCHOOL streamed out after her.
The cows took one look at the army of small things with legs hurtling towards them, not to mention the wild monster in black waving a spear – and fled in all directions, as Gee-Gee raced about yelling
The teachers raced about, trying to make sure the cows kept away from their children. Miss Scratchitt raced about after Gee-Gee, asking her to kindly put her spear down before someone got hurt. And the cows raced about because they were cows.
This problem was going to need an army of superheroes. It was definitely time for
I wish that had happened! But it didn’t. A big cattle truck pulled up outside school. Three men jumped out and came hurrying in.
They told everyone to keep well back. They rounded up the cows, then herded them out of the playground and on to the truck.
The excitement was over and we trudged back into the hall. On the way Pete asked me a question.
Pete told me I was an idiot. I told him he was a bigger idiot than me. Mr Horrible Hairy Face told us to stop shouting at each other, so we did. We shouted using sign language instead. Ha ha! Magnifico!
One of the men came back to the hall to tell us how the cows had escaped. They had been on another truck. Ahead of them was an old lady in an electric wheelchair, wobbling along the pavement. (I knew who that was – Gee-Gee!) A dog was running along beside the wheelchair and barking.
‘So it was all started by that old lady,’ said the truck driver. ‘Who would have thought a little old lady could create so many problems?’ he added, scratching his head. Pete and I looked at each other and kept silent. No wonder Gee-Gee had looked so nervous when she came into the hall!
Miss Scratchitt suddenly called out to me. ‘Casper? Where’s your great-gran? She seems to have vanished!’
Was I surprised? NO!
‘I expect she went home. She gets tired easily,’ I said lamely.
‘Well, she’s left ALL her African things behind,’ Miss Scratchitt pointed out. ‘You’ll have to take them home with you.’
Pete and I looked at each other again. That trunk! We were going to have to drag Africa all the way back to Gee-Gee’s care home. If only we really WERE superheroes. Huh!
Jeremy Strong has written 50 many books to make you laugh your socks right off. There are the Streaker books and the Famous Bottom books and the Pyjamas books and … PHEW!
Welcome to the JERMY STRONG FAMILY TREE, which shows you all of Jeremy’s brilliant books in one easy-too-follow-while-laughing-your-socks-off way!
It all started with a Scarecrow
Puffin is well over sixty years old.
Sounds ancient, doesn’t it? But Puffin has never been so lively. We’re always on the lookout for the next big idea, which is how it began all those years ago.
Penguin Books was a big idea from the mind of a man called Allen Lane, who in 1935 invented the quality paperback and changed the world.
And from great Penguins, great Puffins grew, changing the face of children’s books forever.
The first four Puffin Picture Books were hatched in 1940 and the first Puffin story book featured a man with broomstick arms called Worzel Gummidge. In 1967 Kaye Webb, Puffin Editor, started the Puffin Club, promising to ‘make children into readers’. She kept that promise and over 200,000 children became devoted Puffineers through their quarterly installments of Puffin Post, which is now back for a new generation.
Many years from now, we hope you’ll look back and remember Puffin with a smile. No matter what your age or what you’ve into, there’s a Puffin for everyone. The possibilities are endless, but one thing is for sure: whether it’s a picture book or a paperback, a sticker book or a hardback, if it’s got that little Puffin on it – it’s bound to be good.
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
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
puffinbooks.com
First published 2012
Text copyright © Jeremy Strong, 2012
Illustrations copyright © Steve May, 2012
Cover Illustration by Steve May
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-0-14-197143-8
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