The Stinky Street Stories: 2 Stinky

by Alex Ratt

  ‘There’s some kind of abominable bog monster stinking up Stinky’s Patented Stench-Proof Sewers!’ I said.

  ‘A bog monster?’ said Nerf weakly.

  ‘That’s right. But other people won’t realise that. They’ll still think the problem is with the sewers and change all the Stinky street names to Sweet.’

  Nerf groaned. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ I said. ‘We’re going to stop the bog monster!’

  ‘How?’

  It was a good question. I lay back with my head in the flowers and thought, but my mind must still have been a bit clouded by the abominable odour, because I couldn’t come up with an answer.

  I sighed. ‘We’re going to have to ask for help, Nerf,’ I told him. ‘And I hate to admit it, but there’s only one person who’s up to the job.’

  Nerf looked frightened. ‘Not Brain! I don’t know if we should, Brian. She’s kind of scary.’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you? Her name is Brenda. I’m Brain.’

  ‘But everyone calls her—’

  ‘Come on, Nerf. We’ve got street names to save.’

  We skated back to my place as fast as we could and ran up the stairs.

  On my sister’s door was a sign:

  ONLY OPEN IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.

  THIS MEANS YOU, BRIAN.

  I pounded on the door.

  ‘Open up, Brenda!’ I called. ‘It’s an emergency!’

  The door swung open.

  ‘It had better be,’ my sister said.

  I explained everything: how the odour had moved; how there was a bog monster; how, if we didn’t stop it, all the Stinky street names would be changed to Sweet.

  ‘Sweet Street 2,’ my sister murmured when I’d finished. It wasn’t often that Brenda looked shaken, but she did now.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you.’

  She sat at her desk, took a pad of paper and a pen, and began to fire questions at us.

  ‘How fast were you travelling down Stinky Street?’

  ‘At what time did you reach the second drain?’

  ‘How steep was the gradient between the second drain and the third?’

  Nerf and I answered as best we could, then waited in silence as she scribbled on the paper, muttering under her breath: ‘Blah blah blah velocity, blah blah blah nautical miles . . . ’

  Finally, she held up the piece of paper and showed us her calculations.

  ‘There’s your answer,’ she said.

  ‘Huh?’ we said.

  She sighed. ‘Duh.’ Opening her desk drawer, she took out a map of the town. She pointed to it with her pen. ‘The bog monster is going to end up here.’

  She was pointing to the lake in the East Stinky Botanic Gardens.

  ‘Brian?’ Nerf said as we hurried through the lounge room to the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think we’re going to need more of those.’ Nerf was pointing to the jar of pickles I’d left on the coffee table.

  ‘Good thinking, Nerf.’

  With pickles lodged firmly in our nostrils, we got on our skateboards and set off.

  We reached the East Stinky Botanic Gardens just in time.

  As we jumped off our skateboards and ran to the edge of the lake, a hideous shape emerged, dripping with lake weed.

  ‘It’s the bog monster!’ I cried.

  Its enormous bulk was covered in black oil and plastered with rotten leaf mulch and grass clippings, overripe bananas and chicken bones, eggshells and curdled milk and snotty tissues and all kinds of other disgusting things. The smell-odorous stench coming off it was so powerful that the pickles in our noses were pushed to the limit.

  When the bog monster saw us, its beady eyes flashed and it began to grunt.

  ‘It’s coming this way!’ I shouted. ‘Run, Nerf!’

  But it was too late.

  Ooph! It sideswiped Nerf, who toppled to the ground.

  ‘I’m down,’ he called. ‘Go, Brian—get help!’

  He didn’t need to tell me twice. I took off, but the monster was too fast for me. It charged into me from behind, sending me flying.

  I tried to scramble to my feet but I couldn’t; the monster was too quick.

  When I rolled over, it was looming above me, its shining eyes and horrible, snuffling snout only inches from my face.

  ‘OINK!’ it said.

  Oink? Hang on . . .

  Nerf sat up.

  ‘Did the bog monster just oink?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Doesn’t that mean . . . ?’

  ‘It’s a pig,’ I confirmed as the bog monster pressed his horrid, slimy body against me and then trotted over to rub his sloppy wet nose across Nerf’s face. He was obviously happy to have found some friends. ‘And it’s not just any pig—it’s Porkules!’

  The bog monster was Great-Uncle McStinky’s pig. He must have gone down the drain at Old McStinky’s farm and been swept through the sewers, collecting every disgusting thing down there as he went.

  We should have been celebrating. We had found a lost pig, stopped a bog monster and saved the honour of the Stinky name. There was just one problem: the pickles had been dislodged from our noses when we fell.

  ‘There is a petrifyingly pewtid smell,’ I gasped.

  ‘It’s terrifyingly toxious,’ Nerf agreed miserably.

  ‘And it isn’t only Porkules,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Nerf. ‘It’s not.’

  Because now Porkules’ stinky slime was all over us—and we were awfully abominably smell-odorous.

  I was watching the clock on the wall tick down the minutes to the end of the school day when our teacher, Mr Yorke, said, ‘As you know, the school fete is coming up next Sunday, and I’m looking for volunteers.’

  Nerf nudged me. ‘Hey, Brian,’ he said. ‘That could be fun. We should volunteer.’

  I groaned. ‘No way, Nerf. He probably wants people to pick up litter and help out at the white elephant stall and paint butterflies on little kids’ faces.’

  Mr Yorke looked down at the clipboard in his hand. ‘I need people to pick up litter and help out at the white elephant stall and paint butterflies on little kids’ faces.’

  ‘You see?’ I said to Nerf. ‘I knew it. That’s why they call me Brain.’

  ‘Who calls you—’

  ‘Quiet, Nerf,’ I said, because the teacher was still talking.

  ‘And I’m also looking for people to hold their own stalls,’ Mr Yorke finished. ‘The school will provide the stall; it will be up to you to decorate it. So if you have any brilliant ideas . . . ’

  Holding our own stall? That sounded more interesting.

  Clearly I wasn’t the only person who thought so. Hearing a buzz of voices, I glanced to my left and saw Little Ellie talking excitedly with some of her friends. I frowned. Little Ellie lived on Sweet Street, and she and her friends thought they were better than us boys who lived on streets with Stinky names. We’d been at war all year, and they’d played some pretty mean tricks on us.

  Well, Nerf and I could hold a stall a frillion times better than they could. And it wouldn’t be something lame like butterfly-painting, either. It would be something cool, like . . .

  Something cool, like . . .

  Hmm. Something cool, like . . .

  And then I was struck by an idea of blinding brilliance. Flinging my hand into the air, I called, ‘Mr Yorke! Nerf and I would like to volunteer.’

  ‘We would?’ said Nerf.

  ‘Excellent, Brian,’ said the teacher. ‘What were you thinking? Litter? White elephants?’

  ‘No thank you, Mr Yorke,’ I said. ‘We want to hold our own stall. It’s called . . . ’

  I paused. Everyone leaned forwards.

  ‘It’s called . . . The House of Horrors!’

  Everyone in the class gasped— especially Nerf.

  Mr Yorke made a note on his clipboard. ‘Thank you, Brian a
nd Nerf. Anyone else?’

  Little Ellie raised her hand. ‘My friends and I would like to hold a stall too, Mr Yorke,’ she said. ‘It’s called The House of Beauty. We’re going to paint butterflies on little kids’ faces.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ said Mr Yorke as the bell rang. ‘Everyone loves butterflies.’

  As we walked home down Stinky Road, Nerf asked, ‘Why did you volunteer us? I thought you said we shouldn’t volunteer.’

  ‘Oh, Nerf,’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’ said Nerf.

  ‘Oh, Nerf,’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’ said Nerf.

  ‘Oh, Nerf . . . we are going to get those Sweet Street girls.’

  ‘YES!’ said Nerf.

  I explained my blindingly brilliant plan. ‘For most people, it’s going to be a regular House of Horrors: they’ll come into our stall and we’ll scare them to jelly. But when the Sweet Street girls come in, it’ll turn into a House of Stinky Horrors. There’ll be nothing sweet about Little Ellie and her gang by the time we’ve finished with them.’

  Nerf smiled.

  ‘It’s just like the old saying, Nerf,’ I told him.

  ‘What saying?’

  I smiled too. ‘Revenge is STINKY!’

  And then we both laughed wicked House of Stinky Horrors laughs.

  On Saturday morning, Nerf came to my house so we could create our House of Horrors.

  ‘Before we STINK the Sweet Street girls, we want to SCARE them,’ I said. ‘So we need to fill the House of Horrors with frightening stuff.’

  ‘That should be easy,’ said Nerf. ‘Girls are afraid of everything!’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Like . . . I know: blood!’

  ‘My sister Petal isn’t afraid of blood,’ Nerf said. ‘She wants to be a doctor when she grows up. What’s something else?’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Spiders!’

  Nerf shook his head. ‘My sister Leaf wants to be an arachnologist when she grows up.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. But it means she’s not afraid of spiders. What’s something else?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘How about zombies?’ I suggested.

  Nerf thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That should be okay. I don’t think either of my sisters want to work with zombies when they grow up. What about your sister—what’s she afraid of?’

  ‘Let’s see,’ I said. ‘Global warming. Nuclear war.’

  ‘I don’t think we have room for those things in our stall,’ said Nerf.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘Our sisters aren’t real girls. Real girls are afraid of blood and spiders.’

  ‘And zombies,’ Nerf added.

  ‘We can make blood and spiders,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know how to make zombies.’

  Nerf’s face lit up. ‘We don’t have to make zombies,’ he said. ‘We can be zombies! Let’s go to Masks R Us.’

  I was impressed. Usually it’s me who has all the brilliant ideas, but even I had to admit Nerf’s idea was a good one.

  We got on our bikes and rode down to Masks R Us.

  We tried on all kinds of masks . . .

  . . . except clown masks.

  Nerf shivered. ‘I hate clowns.’

  ‘Clowns are evil,’ I agreed.

  Finally, we chose two exceptionally terrifying zombie masks.

  As we rode home, I said to Nerf, ‘How about this? When the victims enter the stall, it will be dark. Then they’ll hear a spooky noise.’

  ‘What kind of spooky noise?’ Nerf asked.

  ‘Wooooooo . . . ’ I moaned.

  ‘WOOOOOOOOO . . . ’ Nerf moaned.

  ‘WOOOOOOOOO . . . ’ we moaned together.

  ‘That sounds great!’ I said. ‘Then let’s do mad cackling.’

  ‘Bwahahaha . . . ’

  ‘BWAHAHAHA . . . ’

  ‘BWAHAHAHA . . . ’

  ‘And we’ll finish it off with screaming.’

  ‘Aaaaaagh!’

  ‘AAAAAGH!’

  ‘AAAAAAAAAGH!’

  ‘Okay, Nerf,’ I said, when we’d moaned, cackled and screamed all the way back to my place and were sitting at the dining room table. ‘We need to make a sign for our stall.’

  I went and found a piece of cardboard in the recycling bin, then fetched all the black textas from my room.

  First we wrote THE HOUSE OF HORRORS in big letters across the cardboard, then we drew pictures of scary things, like ghosts and skulls and slugs.

  ‘That looks awesome,’ said Nerf, when we were done. ‘Really scary. But what if the Sweet Street girls are too scared to come into The House of Horrors?’

  I considered the sign. Those slugs did look frightening.

  ‘Hmm. That’s a good point, Nerf. We need to make our stall look scary, but not too scary. We’d better make a few changes.’

  We stood back and looked.

  ‘I think it’s still too scary,’ said Nerf. ‘Maybe if we put butterfly wings on the slugs?’

  ‘Wait!’ I said. ‘I know what we need.’

  I ran upstairs and marched to the end of the hall. There was a sign on the door:

  Ignoring it, I knocked.

  Immediately it was flung open. ‘Can’t you read?’ said my sister Brenda, pointing to the sign.

  ‘I need glitter and sparkles and shiny things,’ I said.

  ‘What for?’ asked my sister suspiciously.

  ‘To get the Sweet Street girls,’ I told her. Brenda, who was proud to live on Stinky Street, hated the Sweet Street girls as much as I did.

  ‘Okay, wait here.’

  The door closed. When it opened again, Brenda was holding a shoebox filled with craft materials. ‘Here,’ she said, handing it to me. ‘This should have what you need.’

  I ran back downstairs with the shoebox.

  ‘Oooh,’ said Nerf, looking at all the little containers of glittery, sparkly, shiny stuff. ‘Pretty.’

  ‘Let’s put some glitter on the skulls,’ I suggested.

  ‘And I think the slugs could use some sparkles,’ Nerf added.

  When we’d finished the sign, I started rummaging through the box for pipe cleaners. ‘Now let’s make some spiders to hang from the ceiling of the stall,’ I said.

  We made some very scary spiders, even though some of them weren’t that realistic.

  ‘Um, Nerf, that spider has eleven legs.’

  ‘I thought the more legs the scarier.’

  I nodded. ‘Good thinking. Now, let’s go over what we’ve got so far . . . Our victims enter the dark stall, and we scare them with our spooky noises. Then they’ll have to walk through the spiders hanging from the ceiling.’

  ‘They’ll be quivering like jelly all right,’ Nerf said gleefully. ‘What happens next?’

  ‘Next . . . we’ll shine torches at our terrifying zombie masks and order them to put their hands in a bucket of blood.’

  ‘Cool!’ said Nerf. ‘How do we make blood?’

  ‘Like this!’

  I got two buckets from the laundry, then we went to the kitchen, where I pulled out all the red things in the fridge, like cranberry juice and tomato sauce and strawberry jam. I put them in the blender then poured the mixture into the buckets.

  ‘Wow,’ said Nerf. ‘It looks just like the real thing.’

  I smiled. ‘The first bucket will be just like the real thing— but the second bucket will be our super-secret stinky weapon especially for the Sweet Street girls. We’re going to make them put their hands in a bucket of STINKY BLOOD!’

  ‘Stinky blood?’ said Nerf. ‘AWESOME!’

  I gathered some special ingredients— like the dog’s meaty chunks and the cat’s liver treats, and garlic powder and tuna casserole and blue cheese—and put them in the blender. Then I tipped the mixture into one of the buckets of blood.

  ‘That smells foul!’ said Nerf happily. ‘We’re going to make Little Ellie and her friends so stinky.’

  ‘We’re all set,’ I said.
‘See you tomorrow at the fete!’

  The next morning, Nerf and I met on the school oval, where a row of stalls stood ready to be decorated. Mr Yorke directed us to a stall right opposite Little Ellie and her friends.

  We stuck up our sign, then put a pirate flag with a skull and crossbones over the entrance to the stall. After hanging the spiders from the ceiling and putting the two buckets of blood in the corner, we put on our zombie masks and waited for our first victim.

  Before long, we heard someone step inside.

  ‘Start the ghost noises!’ I said to Nerf.

  ‘Wooooo!’ we moaned.

  ‘WOOOO—’

  ‘Is that supposed to be a ghost?’ the victim interrupted. Her voice was familiar.

  ‘It’s . . . it’s Brain,’ Nerf whispered.

  ‘No it’s not,’ I whispered back. ‘I’m Brain! That’s my sister, Brenda.’

  ‘But everyone calls her Brain,’ Nerf argued.

  ‘Are you two pea-brains going to stand there bickering all day, or are you going to scare me?’ my sister demanded.

  ‘Yeah, stop arguing and start scaring, Nerf,’ I ordered.

  ‘Bwaha—’ Nerf began.

  ‘Let’s move on,’ said my sister, sounding bored.

  ‘Watch out for the spiders!’ I yelled, pushing her forwards into the forest of pipe cleaners.

  Brenda began to giggle. ‘That tickles!’ she said.

  ‘Now the zombies!’

  We switched on our torches and held them beneath our chins.

  Brenda shrugged. ‘Doesn’t look much different to your normal faces,’ she said.

  ‘Put your hand into this bucket of blood . . . ’ I intoned. I picked up the non-stinky bucket and held it out.

  Brenda peered at it. ‘Is that tomato sauce?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ I snapped. ‘It’s blood.’

  Brenda took the torch from Nerf and aimed the beam at the bucket. ‘It looks like tomato sauce mixed with cranberry juice and strawberry jam.’ She looked around the stall. ‘Is that it?’