‘The DREAD SHED is a school???? The Uncle Gobb School???!!!’ Malcolm asked everyone in the room. ‘This is huge! This is massive!’
But, Malcolm thought to himself, not so massive that Crackersnacker and I can’t handle it.
Uncle Gobb tried to stop the conversation getting any worse for him. He was going red and getting sweaty. He lifted both hands in the air and his voice was getting squeaky.
‘Tess, look … erm … you see … It’s not exactly like that –’
‘Actually, it is like that,’ said Fred Shed, trying to be helpful. ‘You see, Derek came to us at with the idea of setting up a school, and hey, here we are and we’re up and running. BOM, BOM, TISH!’
Note on BOM, BOM, TISH!
‘Bom, bom, tish!’ comes from a book called ‘Great Things to Say When You Want to Sound as If The Thing You’re Going to Do Next Is Really Easy’.
‘A school?’ said Mum. ‘A school? Oh I see what’s going on here ... it was all going fine but then you discovered that you didn’t have any chairs for your little school????’ she continued, piecing it all together and starting to laugh. ‘So you thought you would take Malcolm’s chair … and … and …’ She ran out of steam, thinking of how crazy the whole thing was, but Malcolm was piecing it all together too.
‘You can’t have a school in the DREAD SHED, Uncle Gobb,’ he said. ‘It smells of wee.’
‘Look, Tess, I was going to tell you …’ said Uncle Gobb.
‘Hang on,’ said Malcolm, feeling good about sorting this out, ‘if it was my chair you were taking, then you should have asked me.’
Uncle Gobb carried on talking (and going red). ‘… but the point is, I know lots of important things. I’ve been to China. It’s not easy finding a place to make a school. By no means. Then I remembered my DREAD SHED. Well remembered, Derek, I said to myself. Perfect. I’ve been talking to people. Friends. People people. My ge–’
Then he stopped. Right in the middle of talking. As if he had got something stuck in his throat. Like a baked bean.
Malcolm noticed that Uncle Gobb had stopped himself saying something there ... something that began with ‘gee’.
Then Uncle Gobb cleared the baked bean (or whatever it was) and, with a fiery gleam in his eyes, started up again. ‘And it’s going really well. I know that not everything I do goes well. Once, back in the good days, I created .
But then, an evil man took it away from me. But I, Derek Gobb, can never be knocked down. That’s why I’m starting a school. It’s going to be a school where we do all the important facts. Any fact that isn’t important is going to be thrown out. Or given a detention. It’s true we haven’t got any chairs … but we’re putting my school in a school car park. That way my DREAD SHED pupils can use the toilets of the school.’
‘What school?’ said Malcolm.
‘Your school,’ said Uncle Gobb.
‘My school!’ said Malcolm. It was all getting seriously more crazy. Malcolm loved his school. He loved his teacher Mr Keenly, and he loved his assistant teacher Janet, and he loved it that Janet loved Mr Keenly. What was this about some Uncle Gobb school using his school? It all sounded nasty. Even nastier than a ghost-cucumber.
‘Look here, you lot,’ said Fred Shed, interrupting them and stepping further inside. ‘I want to get this thing done and dusted. Can we stop faffing about? Let’s bung the silly chair in the DREAD SHED and get the whole shebang up to the car park. C’mon, chop chop!’
‘It’s not a silly chair,’ Malcolm said defiantly.
He looked at Mum. Surely she wasn’t going to let this happen?
She wasn’t going to let this happen.
‘Stop right there, Fred Shed,’ she said. ‘The chair is staying right where it is. You are going to leave this house, right now. And don’t come back. Ever. You, Derek, are going to go back to your nice, warm bed with your favourite teddy. Shoo!’
Fred Shed walked out.
‘And move the DREAD SHED back to where it was, on your way out,’ she called after him.
Mum closed the door. Uncle Gobb went back to bed, where his favourite teddy was waiting for him. Mum put her arm round Malcolm and walked him back to his bed too, as the sound of the DREAD SHED being moved back into place came through the windows.
Hmmm, Malcolm thought, as he snuggled down in bed, that Fred Shed man … he looked like ... he looked like … He looked a bit like someone I’ve seen before … but which someone … and which bit … ?
The dog barked, then remembered what Malcolm had said about not barking, thought about saying sorry, but fell asleep instead. On the chair.
Weasel 2: Are we important facts?
Weasel 1: No.
Weasel 2: Does that mean we’ll be thrown out or put in detention?
Weasel 1: We’re not in the DREAD SHED. We’re not at Uncle Gobb’s DREAD SHED SCHOOL. We can’t be thrown out of a place we’re not in. You have to be in a place first if you’re going to get thrown out of that place.
Weasel 2: Oh yes, I didn’t think of that.
As Malcolm dozed off, he thought, Well, Mum’s sorted it all out. That’s good.
But then bit by bit, a strange, unsettled, scary feeling came over him. In his mind’s eye, he could see Uncle Gobb right there, all day, every day, with his DREAD SHED SCHOOL in the school car park … as well as him already being there every morning, and every evening, and weekends.
Uncle Gobb and his weird helper, Fred Shed, would probably try to take other stuff for the DREAD SHED SCHOOL. Not just the chair. Maybe the table. The baked beans. Maybe the whole house! Uncle Gobb was just … too close … too much right there … too much everywhere … too much in MY HEAD!
Malcolm thought he would have to talk to Crackersnacker about how to stop all this stuff happening. If Dad was here, he wouldn’t let it happen, but Dad – huh! – Dad was up a tree somewhere in America.
CHAPTER 6
A Floor
‘Hi, guys!’ said Dad.
It was six thirty in the morning and Dad was on the doorstep with a girl who was a bit younger than Malcolm. Malcolm knew she was called Lizard because he had met her when he met up with Dad in America.
Malcolm thought she was called Lizard because she collected lizards and could wiggle in the mud like a lizard. She also liked reading books called ‘Great Lizards of the World’.
‘Aren’t you in America?’ said Malcolm.
‘No, buddy,’ said Dad, scooping up Malcolm and giving him a big bear-hug, ‘I’m here. Are you going to let us in?’
‘Hi, Malc,’ said Lizard and stepped forward to kiss him on the cheek.
Malcolm waited until that was over and said, ‘Uncle Gobb tried to steal my chair.’
‘Is Tess up yet?’ Dad said, as he put Malcolm down and walked in.
Before Malcolm could answer or think, Dad was rushing about, opening and closing cupboards, opening and closing the fridge, making himself coffee, pouring out cornflakes, making toast and heating up baked beans.
The whole point, Malcolm thought, of going to America was to get rid of Uncle Gobb and bring back Dad … That was ‘The Swap’. But then the swap didn’t happen. It had all been very, very disappointing. So what’s all this? What’s going on? Why is Dad here now? And are Dad and Lizard going to eat five tins of baked beans? Really?????!!!!
Weasel 1: That’s a lot of beans.
Weasel 2: I love baked beans.
Weasel 1: No, you don’t. You like eating flies.
Weasel 2: Oh yes.
Just then, Mum walked in.
‘So what’s all this?’ she said.
‘We’re not staying, Tess,’ Dad said. ‘Don’t worry. It’s just that I thought we should stop by, say hi, and, hey, did you get my message?’
‘What message?’ said Mum.
‘The message you didn’t get,’ said Dad. ‘Look, it’s like this …’
And he went off on a long tale about the summer camps for kids he was setting up – Malcolm had seen one of them in A
merica in the summer – and how he’d just been asked to set up one or two in England as well, so he’d be over for a while, which was great, wasn’t it, because he would get to see Malcolm, and hang out, and chill and … and … and … eh, Tess, hmmm?
Malcolm watched while Dad ate the last of the cornflakes and Lizard ate the last of the Crumbles bars, and he wondered why things never happened in quite the way he thought they should happen. It was great to see Dad, but then how long was he going to stay, and would Dad be around, nearby, while he was here in England? Or wandering all over England, looking for places to start up his camps?
Then Uncle Gobb walked in.
‘Fender!’ said Uncle Gobb in a surprised, annoyed, snobby way.
‘Derek!’ said Dad in a not-surprised, not-annoyed, not-snobby way, and Dad went up to Uncle Gobb and gave him a big hug, which Uncle Gobb hated more than he hated people who didn’t know that William Shakespeare was William Shakespeare’s name.
‘When are you going?’ said Uncle Gobb, having just noticed that Fender and Lizard had finished off his favourite strawberry jam.
When are YOU going? Malcolm thought, as he looked at Uncle Gobb.
‘Come on, man,’ said Dad, ‘we’re birds of passage, we’re flying through. I thought that one of you could help us find a floor to sleep on for a few days while we get ourselves somewhere to stay.’
The moment Dad said ‘floor’, a picture came into Malcolm’s mind. It was the picture of a floor. Not any old floor. Not a floor in the book ‘Great Floors of the World’. It was the floor of the DREAD SHED.
‘Yes,’ said Mum. ‘Give me a few minutes and I might be able to think of something, but I haven’t woken up yet. We were disturbed in the night,’ she added, looking very hard at Uncle Gobb.
The dog looked very hard at Uncle Gobb too.
‘He’s not staying here,’ said Uncle Gobb. ‘Nor is the girl.’
Lizard didn’t seem bothered very much with anything that was going on around her. She was tickling the dog, who thought that being tickled was great.
Malcolm said, ‘If you’re looking for a floor, there’s the floor of the DREAD SHED.’
In the ‘Dictionary of the Very Worst Things to Say’, what Malcolm said just then would have been near the beginning of the dictionary as one of the very, very, very, very worst things to say. The moment Malcolm said it, there was an explosion.
If you have read any other books about Uncle Gobb, you can guess what exploded. Yes, it was Uncle Gobb.
‘How dare you?’ he shouted at Malcolm. ‘How dare you, boy?
That DREAD SHED is mine and mine alone. What’s more, it is about to become more, oh so much more, than the DREAD SHED. As you very well know, it’s about to become The DREAD SHED SCHOOL. Our first pupils are spick and span and ready to start on what will become a great adventure: an adventure with really important facts and really rich knowledge. The DREAD SHED SCHOOL will be rich with knowledge.’
‘But they haven’t got anything to sit on,’ Malcolm said in a giggly, Crackersnackery sort of a way, ‘which is why you were trying to steal my chair, remember?’
Uncle Gobb’s arms started to wave about in several different directions at the same time.
He was furious Malcolm had said the thing about the chair in front of everyone; he was furious Dad had turned up; he was furious Lizard had turned up; he was furious Malcolm had suggested they could sleep in the DREAD SHED.
That was a lot of furiousness to be furious with. Here is a picture of a lot of furiousness:
In the end, after all that furiousness, the only thing that came out of Uncle Gobb’s mouth was, ‘IT’S MY DREAD SHED. IT’S MY DREAD SHED!’
But you haven’t got a genie, Malcolm thought to himself as he remembered that Uncle Gobb’s genie, Doctor Roop the Doop, had got fed up with Uncle Gobb not listening to him and had left. Without his genie, Uncle Gobb was useless and hopeless and would be easier than ever to defeat.
Mum said, ‘Well, it may be yours, Derek, but at the moment, it’s parked in my back yard and you haven’t got anywhere else to put it. So, if I decide that it’s OK for Fender and Lizard to kip in there for a night or two, there’s not much you can do about it.’
Uncle Gobb stood up and shouted very, very loudly, ‘I’ve been to China. In China they know about calculus. Do you know about calculus, Malcolm?’
Malcolm hated Uncle Gobb firing questions at him, but this time he thought Uncle Gobb had got something wrong. Surely he means ‘octopus’. Or ‘calculator’ … But then what if octopuses in China play with calculators and that’s called ‘calculus’?
So Malcolm said, ‘Do octopuses in China play with calculators?’
Uncle Gobb smacked his head and started shouting, ‘No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!!!!!! This is why we’re falling behind, Tessa … but soon, thanks to me, we’re going to CATCH UP!’
‘That’s lovely, Derek,’ said Mum, pretending she hadn’t heard Uncle Gobb ever say this sort of thing before. ‘Now, if you could pop round to the shop and get us a loaf of bread, that would be lovely too.’
While Uncle Gobb went off to buy a loaf of bread, Dad and Lizard said it was very kind of Tess to let them move into the DREAD SHED, and that they had bed rolls and sleeping bags. Malcolm told them they might need to clean it up a bit because someone must have done a wee in there.
Malcolm was wondering if Uncle Gobb might go into the shop and a little hand would come out of the loaf of bread, grab Uncle Gobb and drag him into the bread, and he would never be seen again. Ever.
He also wondered if one playtime would be time enough to tell Crackersnacker about everything that had happened since yesterday. Or if it would need two playtimes or three or four or five. He would just have to get to school and find out.
CHAPTER 7
English
‘Right, class,’ said Mr Keenly, ‘we have a new girl joining us today. She’s come from America and her name is Lizard.’
Ulla and Spaghetti said that they wanted Lizard to come and sit on their table and they could help her learn English.
‘Thanks! Cool!’ said Lizard. ‘And I can tell you about lizards.’
As Lizard sat down with them, Ulla and Spaghetti whispered about how she seemed to speak English really well.
Malcolm looked at Lizard across the room and he had a sudden, amazing thought. It was the biggest amazing thought he had had since – well, since he discovered that by rubbing his nose a genie called the Genie of Malcolm’s Nose could appear.
CHAPTER 8
The Very Big Amazing Thought
Perhaps you’ve had this amazing thought before Malcolm had it. This sometimes happens when we read books or watch movies. I mean, when I read ‘Three Little Pigs’ for the first time, I had the amazing thought that the wolf was going to turn into a pig.
Then I remembered it was called the THREE little pigs, not the FOUR little pigs, so I let that idea drop.
Malcolm’s amazing thought was about Lizard.
Is Lizard my sister? he wondered.
CHAPTER 9
It Doesn’t Belong to Anyone!
When Malcolm had amazing thoughts, he liked to share them with Crackersnacker. So, while Ulla and Spaghetti were discussing whether Lizard spoke English or not, Malcolm turned to Crackersnacker and said, ‘I think she’s my sister.’
Crackersnacker looked at Lizard and looked back at Malcolm. ‘That’s amazing, Ponkyboy,’ he said. ‘That’s really, really amazing. Does anyone else know?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Malcolm. ‘That’s something we’re going to have to find out.’
‘Yes,’ said Crackersnacker.
‘And I’ve got loads and loads and loads more to tell you. Really amazing stuff.’
‘Great,’ said Crackersnacker, nodding some big nods.
Just then, Mr Keenly clapped his hands together three times. And Janet, the assistant teacher, helpfully led everyone into clapping their hands together three times back at Mr Keenly.
Everyone did it, apart from Lizard. Ulla and Spaghetti explained to Lizard that this was how Mr Keenly got everyone to sit still and listen, so she clapped her hands three times too. All on her own. No one minded though. Not even Mr Keenly, who looked at Lizard and smiled at her in a kind way. And Janet smiled at Mr Keenly even though Mr Keenly wasn’t actually smiling at her.
‘Now, class,’ said Mr Keenly, ‘I want to tell you about something very exciting. Hands up who knows the pond behind the fence at the end of the school field?’
Most people put their hands up.
Crackersnacker started giggling. Then he whispered to Malcolm, ‘It’s like he’s saying the pond is a person. Do you know the pond? Sure I know the pond and the pond knows me. We’re old friends. Hi, Pond!’ Then Crackersnacker put on a pond voice and said, ‘Hi, Crackersnacker!’
‘It seems,’ said Mr Keenly very keenly, ‘that the pond doesn’t BELONG to anyone!’
When he said ‘BELONG’, Mr Keenly opened his eyes wide, did a wiggly underliney thing in the air with his finger and pushed his mouth forward.
Uncle Gobb and the Plot Plot Page 2
