by Gumball
‘But there is NOTHING LEFT FOR YOU TO DO!’ Mr Robinson declared. ‘Please just go away.’
‘We could clean your new car,’ Gumball offered.
‘No way,’ Mr Robinson said. ‘My car is brand new and very expensive.’
‘We could clean Mrs Robinson,’ Gumball suggested.
Mrs Robinson scowled at her husband and the boys.
‘All right, clean the car,’ Mr Robinson finally agreed. ‘But…please, be very, very careful with it.’
‘Yay!’ the boys cheered in unison.
They scooted outside with a bucket of soapy water. Gumball grabbed a big sponge.
‘Easy! Mr Robinson said it’s very expensive,’ Darwin warned, making Gumball a little more nervous.
Gumball touched the car with the sponge. Just then, the car collapsed in a heap and burst into flames.
his is terrible!’ Gumball moaned while watching Mr Robinson’s nice new car burn out of control.
‘We failed him!’ Darwin added.
‘We need to hide away forever,’ Gumball said.
They ran off to find a suitable place. The attic of their house seemed like a good spot.
‘Ooh, dark,’ Gumball said.
‘Filthy,’ Darwin added.
‘Perfect,’ Gumball decided.
Back in the garden, the Robinsons suddenly smelled smoke. They ran to the front yard and saw the car in flames. Mr Robinson went wild.
‘My car!’ he cried. ‘Those kids! I’m gonna get them for this!’ he promised. ‘I’m calling the police.’
Gumball and Darwin watched from the attic.
‘Oh, no! They know we wrecked the car,’ Gumball said.
Suddenly their dad popped up behind them.
‘What do you mean you wrecked the car?’ Richard Watterson asked Gumball and Darwin.
‘We touched it with a sponge and it fell apart,’ Gumball confessed. ‘So we’re hiding here forever.’
‘But it’s not true,’ their dad said. ‘I threw my Electrofat machine out the window and it hit the car. I tried to bang out the dent, but the car fell apart.’
‘So, you see, it was my fault and not yours,’ Richard concluded. He smiled at the boys.
‘I think the responsible thing to do is to hide out here forever and never let your mother find out,’ he added.
Suddenly Mum and Anais were right behind them.
‘I already know,’ Nicole said.
‘Aaaghh!’ the boys and their dad all groaned in unison.
‘But it’s not quite what you think,’ she admitted. ‘This morning, I was reversing our car in front of the house on the way to see Daisy the Donkey on Ice. I just didn’t see their car. I backed right into it.’
‘I was about to tell Mr Robinson,’ she continued, ‘but we were late, so we went to see the show.’
‘It was great!’ Anais chimed in, waving her Daisy the Donkey doll excitedly.
‘So the fire was mostly my fault,’ Nicole confessed.
‘I’m so relieved,’ Dad said. ‘It was a family effort.’
They all watched Mr Robinson yelling at the police officer.
‘I know they’re in there. Get in there and arrest those vandals!’ Mr Robinson insisted, stamping his feet.
‘Calm down, sir,’ the donut-shaped police officer warned.
Mr Robinson did not calm down.
‘All right! I suppose I shall have to take matters into my own hands, huh?’ he bellowed.
Mr Robinson held a golf club high overhead. Mrs Robinson grabbed her feather duster. They headed across the lawn to their neighbours’ house.
‘Well, here come the Robinsons!’ Mr Robinson threatened as he lunged at the door with his golf club.
‘Poor Mr Robinson,’ Gumball said sadly from the attic window. ‘We wrecked his beautiful new car and nobody has the courtesy to apologise.’
‘We should be ashamed of ourselves,’ Darwin agreed.
‘So let’s get out there and apologise,’ Gumball said.
‘As a FAMILY!’ he added.
The Watterson family stepped outside to where Mr Robinson was clobbering their car with the golf club. Mrs Robinson threatened the police officer with her duster.
‘Please, ma’am,’ the police officer urged. ‘Drop the duster.’
Mrs Robinson lunged. Just in time, the police officer zapped her with a taser gun. She fell to the ground.
‘Margaret!’ Mr Robinson yelled.
He, too, rushed at the police officer and was zapped. The couple lay on the footpath, twitching in shock.
‘Maybe we should give them time to calm down,’ Nicole sensibly suggested.
The police officer handcuffed the Robinsons and put them into the back of his patrol car.
‘So, er, do you want to press charges?’ the police officer asked the Wattersons.
‘Noooo!’ Richard said, relieved. ‘I’m sure they’ve learned their lesson.’
‘It’s too bad you have to live next door to such monsters,’ the police officer said sadly. As the lawman climbed into his patrol car, Gumball peered up at the Robinsons in the back seat.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Robinson,’ Gumball assured him. ‘We’ll watch your house while you’re gone.’
‘Aaaghh!’ the Robinsons groaned in frustration as the patrol car sped off down the street.
It was going to be lonely on the block without the Robinsons. But Darwin and his family knew that they’d be back – eventually. They could hardly wait.
‘Such a great guy!’ Gumball said in awe, shaking his head.
‘Such a great guy!’ Darwin repeated.
The Debt and the Car
published in 2015
by Chirpy Bird, an imprint of Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street,
Richmond, VIC 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au
THE AMAZING WORLD OF GUMBALL, CARTOON NETWORK, the logos, and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © Turner Broadcasting System Europe Limited & Cartoon Network, TimeWarner Companies. All Rights Reserved. (s15)
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AS SEEN ON CARTOON NETWORK
This ebook is also available as a print edition in all good bookstores.
A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.
eISBN 9781743583333
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