The Stinky Street Stories: 2 Stinky

by Alex Ratt

‘Do you suppose it’s Miggles?’ Nerf asked.

  We both called: ‘MIGGLES!’

  On hearing his name, the monkey stopped and looked around, then raised the kazoo to his lips.

  ‘Stop that monkey!’ I cried.

  We ran down the path after him.

  ‘He’s getting away,’ I said as the monkey rounded a corner.

  ‘There’s no sign of him,’ Nerf said as we ran past the koalas.

  ‘He’s somewhere nearby,’ I said.

  We looked around and saw that we were standing at the back of an enclosure surrounded by a high wall with a door in it.

  ‘Oh no,’ Nerf moaned. ‘He must have climbed over the wall. We’ve lost him.’

  ‘No we haven’t,’ I said. I held up Kylie’s keys. ‘We can go through the door.’

  I had to try several keys, but I finally found one that worked. We slipped inside.

  Immediately, we both began to shiver.

  ‘Where are we?’ said Nerf. ‘This isn’t an enclosure. It’s more like a big fridge.’

  ‘And someone’s sprayed white paint all over the floor,’ I said. I peered closer. ‘Wait a minute, that’s not paint—that’s guano.’

  Nerf began to moan. ‘No more guano. Please. No more guano.’

  ‘My kazoo!’ I looked around but there was no sign of Miggles.

  ‘There’s another door over there,’ said Nerf, pointing.

  Using the same key as before, I unlocked the door and stepped outside.

  I took another step, then a

  As my eyes adjusted, I realised I was standing on a gently sloping expanse of smooth wet concrete. Except that I wasn’t standing, I was lying on my back—and I was still sliding.

  ‘Nerf,’ I called. ‘Be careful! It’s like a water slide!’

  But it was too late. Nerf was sliding too.

  And sliding . . .

  And sliding . . .

  Straight into a colony of penguins!

  ‘Penguins have very fishy breath,’ I observed.

  ‘That’s not all,’ said Nerf. ‘Um, Brian, I think some of these penguins are guanoing on me.’

  I heard a chattering noise that sounded a lot like laughter. Lifting my head, I saw Miggles at the far side of the enclosure. He was waving my kazoo.

  ‘There’s Miggles!’ I shouted.

  The monkey put my kazoo to his lips.

  The penguins were very excited by the sound. They all began sliding across the ice towards the monkey.

  ‘Let’s go, Nerf.’

  I stood up.

  And fell down.

  Nerf stood up.

  And fell down.

  Hanging on to each other for balance, we stood up together.

  And fell down.

  ‘How are we going to cross the enclosure?’ Nerf asked.

  I looked at the penguins. They were sliding along on their bellies.

  ‘Like that!’ I said.

  Using our hands like flippers, we propelled ourselves along the smooth wet concrete.

  ‘This is fun,’ said Nerf.

  ‘And we’ve almost caught up to Miggles,’ I added.

  I put on a burst of speed and reached out a hand . . . but Miggles jumped to the top of the wall surrounding the enclosure. With a TOOT! TOOT! he was gone.

  Nerf shook his head. ‘We’ve lost him,’ he said. ‘We’d better go back and find Kylie.’

  ‘Not so fast, Nerf,’ I replied. ‘Miggles is a menace. We have to catch him!’

  ‘But how?’ Nerf asked. ‘He went over that wall.’

  I considered the wall the monkey had escaped over. ‘You know, it’s not that high,’ I said. ‘I’ll bet we can climb it.’

  I was right. After a bit of scrambling, we made it to the top of the wall and dropped down to the other side.

  We found ourselves standing by the edge of a large pool.

  I peered into it. ‘What do you think is in—’

  Before I could finish, I was startled by a loud bark behind us.

  I turned, expecting to see a big dog. Instead, there was a seal. It held out a flipper.

  ‘Look, Nerf,’ I said. ‘The seal wants to shake hands.’

  Nerf didn’t reply.

  ‘Nerf?’ I looked around. Nerf had disappeared!

  Then I heard a voice call, ‘Down here— in the pool.’

  I looked down and saw a seal swimming towards me—and it was talking in Nerf’s voice. Oh no! The seal must have swallowed him!

  Then the seal dived underwater and swam off and I saw that Nerf had been swimming behind it.

  ‘What are you doing in there?’ I asked.

  ‘I slipped.’

  As I helped him out I said, ‘At least your swim will have washed off some of the guano and rhino poo.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nerf. ‘There’s just one problem.’

  ‘What?’

  He pointed at his brown T-shirt which used to be white. ‘Seals poo while they swim.’

  We heard a familiar chattering sound.

  Miggles!

  ‘Where is he?’ I cried, looking around.

  ‘There!’ said Nerf. ‘On top of the wall.’

  The monkey ran to the far side of the seal enclosure and leapt over the wall.

  ‘After him!’ I said.

  We used the keys to let ourselves out of the seal enclosure and found ourselves back on a path.

  We followed the sound of tooting and chattering up one path and down another, until at last we caught sight of Miggles clambering into another enclosure.

  I unlocked the door and we ran inside— and almost crashed into a huge grey bottom.

  ‘Hippo!’ Nerf hissed in a whisper.

  ‘Careful,’ I said. ‘Hippos aren’t very friendly. Just creep behind it very slowly and quietly so it doesn’t see us.’

  The hippo was so surprised by the sound of the kazoo it let loose a huge spray from its huge grey bottom.

  Ugh! We were drenched in horrible hippo liquid.

  Nerf began to whimper. ‘I can’t go on,’ he moaned. ‘It’s too horrid, too hideous.’

  ‘We must go on, Nerf,’ I urged, though the reek was so repulsive I thought I might faint. ‘We have to catch that monkey.’ Then, noticing that the hippo’s bottom was starting to quiver, I added: ‘And we have to get out of here—fast!’

  Though my eyes were watering from the foul stench, I could just make out another door a few metres away.

  ‘Quick, Nerf,’ I said. ‘Through there!’

  We yanked open the door and dived through, and found ourselves standing on the edge of a large grassy area surrounded by trees.

  ‘That’s weird,’ said Nerf, looking around. ‘I can’t see any animals.’

  ‘Maybe it’s an empty enclosure,’ I said.

  Then something hit me on the head.

  ‘Hey, what was that?’ I demanded.

  Nerf was rubbing the top of his own head.

  ‘I think someone’s throwing rocks at us,’ he said.

  Suddenly a shower of stones hailed down on us.

  ‘I bet it’s Miggles!’ I said.

  I looked up.

  ‘Um, that’s not a monkey,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Nerf.

  ‘And those aren’t rocks,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Nerf.

  ‘Kylie was right about cheetahs. They are very smelly.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nerf, looking pale. ‘Stomach-churning.’ He clutched his stomach then yelped as his hand touched a mix of sickening seal splat and horrendous hippo spray.

  ‘Brian,’ he said, ‘we have to face the facts; that monkey has us beat. It’s time to give up.’

  ‘I’m afraid you’re right, Nerf,’ I said. ‘Miggles is—’

  I was interrupted by a chattering laugh.

  ‘No!’ I said. I was getting angry now. ‘We can’t give up, Nerf!’ I looked around wildly. ‘I can hear him, but I can’t see him. Where is he?!’

  ‘The sound is coming from over there!’ said
Nerf, pointing across the enclosure. We sprinted over the grass towards a door in the wall, and opened it. Now we were on the edge of a dusty plain dotted with anthills. There was a pool to one side. ‘Look at those hills,’ I said. ‘This must be the ant enclosure.’

  ‘Good,’ said Nerf.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘Have you ever seen ant poo?’

  ‘Um . . . no,’ I said.

  ‘Neither have I,’ said Nerf. ‘So we’ve got nothing to worry about.’

  Chatter, chatter!

  It was Miggles, tooting on my kazoo and laughing at us from the top of a wall.

  ‘Aha—now we’ve got him,’ I said. ‘If I climb to the top of that anthill I can grab him. Then we’ll see who’s laughing!’

  We ran over to the hill—but as soon as I stepped onto it, the hill collapsed beneath me and I began to sink.

  It was the softest, stinkiest hill I’d ever encountered.

  As I fought my way back to the surface I heard a sound coming from the pool.

  ‘What was that?’ I said. ‘It wasn’t a toot, it was more like a troot.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Nerf agreed. ‘It sounded more like a trumpet than a kazoo.’

  ‘I don’t think this is an ant enclosure after all,’ I said as we looked towards the trumpeting sound. A long grey trunk was emerging from the pool. ‘And if this isn’t an ant enclosure . . . ’

  Uh-oh. I looked down. It wasn’t an anthill I was standing in. It was a big pile of elephant poo! And the smell was so overpowering it was like being trampled by a herd of stampeding elephants.

  ‘That’s it,’ I said in disgust. ‘I’m covered in six kinds of poo, I’ve lost my kazoo—I give up. Miggles has won.’

  We let ourselves out of the elephant enclosure and started along the path back to the bat cave.

  We hadn’t gone very far when something grabbed me around the leg.

  ‘What—?’

  I looked down. It was Miggles.

  He climbed up me as if I were a tree until he was sitting on my shoulders.

  Before I could react, a voice said, ‘You found Miggles!’

  Turning, we saw Kylie walking towards us.

  Miggles jumped from my shoulders and scampered over to the keeper.

  ‘Is that your kazoo?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was a birthday present from my sister.’

  ‘Miggles,’ said Kylie sternly, ‘give Brian his kazoo.’

  Miggles held tight to the kazoo and shook his head.

  Kylie sighed. ‘Sorry, but I don’t think he’s going to give it back. Miggles loves kazoos. Thanks for finding him, though!’ She stepped forwards as if she were going to congratulate us, then she wrinkled her nose and quickly stepped back again.

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘You two really have been all over the zoo,’ she said, waving a hand in front of her nose. ‘And you smell like one too.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said sadly as she walked ahead of us up the path, holding Miggles with one hand and her nose with the other.

  I was waiting out the front of my house when Nerf pulled up on his bike.

  ‘Ready to go, Brian?’ he said.

  ‘Sure am,’ I said, picking up my backpack. ‘Have you got everything Great-Uncle McStinky asked for?’

  ‘Sure do,’ said Nerf, pointing over his shoulder at his own backpack. ‘But why does your uncle need—’

  ‘He’s my great-uncle,’ I corrected him as we set off.

  ‘I know,’ said Nerf. ‘He’s fantastic. But why does your uncle need—’

  ‘He’s my great-uncle,’ I interrupted.

  ‘I know,’ said Nerf. ‘He’s the most brilliant uncle ever. But why did he ask us to bring odd socks and pickles?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘He just said he needed our help.’

  When Great-Uncle McStinky had phoned asking if Nerf and I would help him with a special project, of course I said yes, because he is a really great great-uncle. You see, Old McStinky has a farm. And on that farm he has really cool animals, like ducks and cows and chickens and a horse and Porkules the Wonder Pig. Plus he has a shiny red tractor. But the best thing about him is that he loves celebrating occasions like Christmas and Easter and other special days. All the other special days. Including ones most people don’t even know about.

  For Penguin Awareness Day he knitted penguin suits for all his chickens.

  On International Bee Day he coated his house in honey.

  And on Backwards Day he wore all his clothes back to front and upside down, and when he called to wish me a Happy Backwards Day he said, ‘Olleh Nairb. M’I gnillac ot hsiw uoy a Yppah Sdrawkcab Yad.’ (And I said, ‘Sknaht, Taerg-elcnu YknitsCm.)

  When we arrived at the farm, Great-Uncle McStinky was sitting on the porch playing the ukulele. ‘Hello, Nairb. Hello, Fren. Good to see you.’

  ‘I’m Brian,’ I reminded him. ‘And this is Nerf.’

  Old McStinky chuckled. ‘I know that,’ he said. ‘But it’ll be Backwards Day again before you know it so I like to get a little practice in. And that’s not the only thing I’m practising.’ He held up the ukulele. ‘Play Your Ukulele Day is just around the corner. How do you like the song I composed for it?’

  He strummed a few chords and then began to sing:

  ‘I like to play it daily

  This little ukulele,

  ’Cause it’s really fun to playly

  This little ukulele.’

  He stopped strumming and said, ‘There aren’t many words that rhyme with “ukulele” though.’

  Putting the ukulele down on the step beside him, he got to his feet and said, ‘Anyway, I’m glad you boys are here, because there are two special days coming up and I intend to celebrate them in style.’

  ‘What days are those, Great-Uncle McStinky?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll tell you, Nairb—we’ve got Pickle Day and Lost Sock Memorial Day.’

  ‘That explains the pickles and odd socks,’ said Fren. I mean Nerf.

  ‘You can add yours to what I’ve collected so far,’ said Old McStinky. He gestured to the front lawn, where there were a dozen huge plastic buckets labelled PICKLES and a big pile of odd socks.

  ‘Let’s start with the pickles,’ said Great-Uncle McStinky. ‘I’ve had a vision: I want you boys to build a giant statue of a pickle—all made of pickles.’

  ‘That’s a great idea!’ I said. ‘How will we stick the pickles together?’

  ‘Hmm, good question, Nairb.’ Old McStinky picked up the ukulele and strummed thoughtfully for a few seconds. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘We’ll use the leftover honey from International Bee Day.’

  So Nerf and I got started. It was hard work, and messy—the pickles were slippery from the pickle juice and it took quite a lot of honey to make them stick.

  While we built the statue, Great-Uncle McStinky played the ukulele and sang us a song he’d composed to celebrate pickles.

  ‘When the moon is shaped like a sickle

  How I love to eat a big pickle

  Stay away from people who are fickle

  They won’t help you when you’re in a big pickle

  When the tears are starting to trickle

  Cheer yourself up with a great big pickle.’

  ‘I think he might have had trouble finding words to rhyme with “pickle” too,’ Nerf whispered.

  By the time we were done, we smelled like giant pickles from having plunged our arms into the giant pickle buckets so many times.

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ said Nerf. ‘At least we’ll be ready for Pickle Day.’

  ‘That pickle statue is a triumph, boys!’ said Great-Uncle McStinky. ‘Now let’s get started on our tribute to Lost Sock Memorial Day.’

  First we stretched a washing line between two trees in the front yard, then Nerf and I started to peg the hundreds of odd socks Great-Uncle McStinky had collected. While we pegged, Old McStinky played the ukulele and sang us a sad song he’d composed in honour of all the world�
�s lost socks and those poor odd socks that had been left behind.

  ‘Oh, poor single socks

  Without a pair

  The lonely ones

  Nobody will wear.

  All alone

  You weep and wait,

  Hoping someone

  Will find your mate,

  Who was misplaced,

  Forgotten or tossed—

  But today we remember

  Those who were lost.’

  ‘Are you all right, Nerf?’ I asked when Great-Uncle McStinky had finished.

  ‘I—I think I’ve got something in my eye,’ said Nerf.

  ‘You should cheer yourself up with a great big pickle,’ I suggested.

  ‘Excellent pegging, boys,’ said Great-Uncle McStinky when we were done. ‘You two deserve a good lunch after all your hard work. Let’s go inside and see what we’ve got.’

  In the kitchen, he rummaged through the fridge and cupboards and found all kinds of things which he laid out on a big platter.

  There were some big bread rolls. (‘Great-Uncle McStinky made them himself for Bread Day,’ I told Nerf.

  ‘That must have been quite a while ago,’ Nerf said, rapping on one with his knuckles. ‘They’re as hard as rocks.’)

  Hard-boiled eggs. (‘Are you sure these are chicken eggs?’ Nerf asked. ‘I thought I saw some penguins out there.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I told him. ‘They were just chickens dressed up.’)

  A very stinky cheese.

  (‘Your fantastic uncle’s cheese is pretty whiffy,’ said Nerf, fanning the air in front of his nose.)

  And some leftover pickles.

  (‘I don’t think I can face another pickle,’ said Nerf, looking as green as one.)

  ‘And what treasure will I find if I go exploring in here?’ Great-Uncle McStinky asked, sticking his head into the cupboard beneath the sink. ‘Ah! A tin of cocktail frankfurts!’