The 104-Storey Treehouse
Page 4
A ‘Hi, Buster!’
‘I think we may have to put off the tooth-hunt for the moment,’ says Jill. ‘Here comes the mother bird!’
‘Eeek!’ I say. ‘Its beak looks even sharper and pointier than the baby birds’ beaks. And much bigger!’
‘Can you talk to it, Jill?’ says Terry.
‘Not while we’re in her nest,’ says Jill. ‘If she sees us, she’s going to peck first and ask questions later. Worm-snatchers are very protective of their young. We have to hide!’
‘But there’s nowhere to hide!’ I say.
‘In that case,’ says Jill, ‘we’ll just have to pretend to be baby birds and hope she doesn’t notice.’
We crouch down, put our hands on our hips and move our elbows back and forth.
‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’ says Terry.
Q If a rooster laid a brown egg and a white egg, what kind of chicks would hatch?
A None, roosters can’t lay eggs.
‘You’re supposed to be pretending to be a baby worm-snatcher, Terry,’ says Jill. ‘Not a rooster!’
‘Oops,’ says Terry. ‘How about this: Peep! Peep! Peep!’
‘Much better!’ says Jill. ‘I mean, Peep! Peep! Peep!’
The mother worm-snatcher lands, gripping the side of the nest with her enormous talons. Her beak is full of wriggling, writhing worms.
The peep-peep-peeping of the baby worm-snatchers is deafening. They all crane their necks to the sky and open their beaks wide. We do the same (except we have mouths, not beaks).
The mother worm-snatcher opens her beak and fresh, wriggling worms come raining down into our open mouths.
Q What do you get if you cross a worm and an elephant?
A Very big wormholes in your garden.
Erk! My mouth is full of cold, dirty, wriggling worms! Yuck! I’m trying not to chew or swallow them but it’s not easy. It’s like they want to wriggle down my throat.
But, weirdly, Terry doesn’t seem to mind them at all. He’s slurping them up like he’s eating spaghetti!
At last, the mother bird runs out of worms, flaps her enormous wings and flies away.
‘Yuck!’ I say, spitting out the worms as fast as I can.
Q What did the worm say to the other worm when he was late home?
A ‘Where in earth have you been?’
‘Double yuck!’ says Jill, spitting hers out too. ‘No offence to worms.’
Terry doesn’t spit his out, though. His mouth is still full—so full, in fact, that there’s a worm hanging out of it.
One of the baby worm-snatchers snatches the end of the worm and starts pulling on it.
Terry pulls back.
The bird pulls harder.
Terry pulls harder.
Q What is the laziest mountain in the world?
A Mount Ever-rest.
‘Look at this, Jill,’ I say. ‘Terry is having a tug of worm with a baby bird.’
‘Oh, come on, Terry,’ says Jill. ‘Let the baby bird have the worm.’
‘But it’s my worm,’ Terry mumbles through a mouthful of worms. ‘Mother gave it to me!’
While Terry is talking, the baby bird seizes its chance and snatches the worm and swallows it in one greedy gulp.
‘Hey!’ says Terry. ‘That’s not fair!’
‘Yes, it is,’ says Jill, ‘because you’re not really a baby bird and that mother bird was not really your mother.’
‘I know,’ sighs Terry. ‘But I am really hungry.’
‘So am I!’ I say. ‘But it doesn’t change the fact that worms taste awful. I mean, that baby worm-snatcher over there is being sick. Not even worm-snatchers like worms!’
Q How do you tell which end of a worm is which?
A Tickle it in the middle and see which end laughs.
‘It’s not being sick,’ says Jill. ‘It’s choking! It must have tried to eat too many worms at once. Stand back, I’m going to perform the Wormlich manoeuvre!’
Jill picks up the bird, holds it upside down and squeezes it gently.
The bird coughs up a bunch of worms, including one with a really big white head and an extremely thin body. In fact, it doesn’t look so much like a worm as a piece of string. A piece of string that is attached to ...
MY TOOTH!
‘I found my tooth!’ I say.
‘That must be what it was choking on,’ says Jill.
Q What do you give a sick bird?
A Tweetment.
‘Yay!’ says Terry. ‘Now all our problems are solved.’
‘Well, not all of them,’ I say. ‘We’re still stuck in a nest on the top of Mount Everest with no way of getting down.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ says Terry. ‘But hang on ... worms are really stretchy. When the mother bird comes back with another load of worms, we could tie them all together and make a worm-bungee to lower us safely back down to the ground.’
‘We can’t do that!’ says Jill. ‘That’s cruelty to worms!’
‘Maybe,’ says Terry, ‘but we’d be saving them from being eaten by birds, so we’d sort of be doing them a favour.’
‘No, we wouldn’t,’ says Jill. ‘Birds eating worms is nature’s way; tying worms together to make a worm-bungee is not.’
Q What reads and lives in an apple?
A A bookworm.
At that moment we hear the sound of flapping wings and a mighty RAWK. We all turn around. The mother worm-snatcher is back—and she’s seen us!
She dips her head down and swoops towards us.
‘So long, Andy and Jill!’ says Terry. ‘It’s been nice knowing you.’
‘You too,’ says Jill. ‘And you too, Andy.’
But before I can reply, the baby bird that Jill saved flutters in between us and the mother bird. It peep-peep-peeps loudly and quickly.
Q What bird movie won an Oscar?
A Lord of the Wings.
‘What’s happening, Jill?’ says Terry. ‘What’s the baby bird saying?’
‘It’s telling its mother how we saved it from choking,’ says Jill.
The mother bird turns to us. ‘RAWK! RAWK! RAWK!’ she rawks.
‘What does that mean, Jill?’ I say. ‘Is it good or bad?’
‘It’s good,’ says Jill. ‘Very good. She says she is extremely grateful and that if there’s ever anything she can do to repay us for our quick thinking and kindness, we only have to ask.’
Q What do you get if you cross a parrot with a shark?
A A bird that will talk your ear off.
‘Do you think she could give us a lift back down to the treehouse?’ I say.
‘I’ll ask her,’ says Jill. She turns to the mother bird. ‘Rawk rawk rawk?’
The mother bird rawks back at her.
‘She says yes, she’d be happy to,’ says Jill.
We climb up onto the mother bird’s back. The feathers are hard and slippery and very difficult to hold on to.
‘We can use the string as a set of reins,’ says Jill, throwing it around the bird’s neck. ‘Everybody ready? Let’s fly!’
The worm-snatcher flaps her wings, alights from the nest and begins a rapid descent.
Q What language do birds speak?
A Pigeon English.
Down and down and down we fly.
Q What is the most uncomfortable of all birds?
A A wedgie-tailed eagle.
Q Which bird is always out of breath?
A A puffin.
Q What is a bird’s favourite part of the TV news?
A The feather forecast.
and down until we reach the ground. We climb off the bird and Jill thanks her.
They have a long rawking conversation and then the bird rawks gratefully at us one last time and takes off again.
‘What were you and the bird rawking about?’ I say.
‘She said that if we ever needed her help again, all we have to do is rawk,’ says Jill. ‘What a big adventure we’ve had! I’m going to go straight home and tell my animals all about it.’
&nbs
p; Q Why did the bird bring toilet paper to the party?
A Because it was a party-pooper.
CHAPTER 9
TERRY, WILL YOU PLEASE BE QUIET, PLEASE?
‘Well, I sure am glad that’s over,’ I say. ‘Now I’ve got my tooth back I’m going to go to bed right away so the tooth fairy can come and give me two dollars!’
‘But it’s way too early to go to bed,’ says Terry. ‘It’s still daytime.’
‘I know,’ I say, ‘but I can’t wait until tonight—we have to get our book done before then. So can you please be really quiet so I can get to sleep?’
Q Why does a dragon sleep all day?
A So it can hunt knights.
‘Sure thing, Andy,’ says Terry. ‘You can count on me! Goodnight!’
‘Goodnight, Terry,’ I say.
I climb the ladder to my bedroom, put on my pyjamas and get into bed.
I am actually feeling quite tired after climbing the never-ending staircase so I don’t think it’s going to be too difficult to fall asleep. In fact, I’m falling asleep right now.
I’m falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
Q What question can you never answer yes to?
A ‘Are you asleep?’
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
I’m almost asleep when I hear really loud clomping. It’s so loud my bed is shaking.
Q Where do books sleep?
A Between their covers.
I get out of bed, look over the edge and see Terry clomping around in a gigantic pair of clomping boots!
‘Hey, Terry,’ I yell. ‘Quit clomping, will you? I’m trying to get to sleep!’
‘Sorry, Andy!’ he says. ‘I was just testing these new, extra-loud clomping boots I invented. Turns out they’re even louder than I expected. But I’ll take them off now. I won’t disturb you again, I promise.’
‘You’d better not!’ I say. ‘GOODNIGHT!’
‘Goodnight, Andy,’ says Terry.
I go back to bed and try to fall asleep again.
I’m falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
Q What’s the biggest problem with snow boots?
A They melt.
falling ...
falling ...
I’m almost asleep when I hear some of the loudest—and most ridiculous—noises I’ve ever heard.
Q How do you get a baby astronaut to sleep?
A You rock-it.
I get out of bed, look over the edge and see Terry wearing an extra-stupid, super-loud hat!
‘Terry!’ I yell, but he can’t hear me over the deafening noise of his stupid hat.
‘TERRY!’ I yell again, even louder.
But he still can’t hear me.
‘TERRY!’ I yell as loud as I can.
Q What did one hat say to another hat?
A ‘You wait here, I’ll go on a head.’
This time he hears me.
‘Sorry, Andy,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t hear you over the noise of this extra-stupid, super-loud hat. What’s the matter?’
‘Your extra-stupid, super-loud hat is the matter!’ I say. ‘I’m trying to get to sleep, remember?’
‘Oh, sorry, Andy,’ says Terry. ‘I forgot. I’ll take it off and be very, very quiet from now on. I promise.’
‘You’d better be,’ I say. ‘OR ELSE!’
I go back to bed and start falling asleep for the third time.
I’m falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
Q Why did the girl tiptoe past the medicine cabinet?
A She didn’t want to wake the sleeping pills.
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
I get out of bed, look over the edge and see Terry playing drums, Superfinger playing guitar, and the Trunkinator dancing in an extra-large pair of extra-loud clomping boots ...
Q What’s the best present you can receive for Christmas?
A A broken drum—you just can’t beat it!
and to make it even worse, they’re all wearing extra-stupid, super-loud hats!
Right! That does it! I take a deep breath and yell...
Q What breaks every time you name it?
A Silence.
‘Sorry, Andy,’ says Terry. ‘We were just practising our act for the Treehouse Talent Quest.’
‘What Treehouse Talent Quest?’ I say.
‘The one I thought we could have after this book is finished.’
‘This book won’t be finished,’ I say, ‘if you don’t let me get to sleep!!!’
Q Did you hear about the soldier who bought a camouflage sleeping bag?
A He can’t find it.
‘I’ll be quiet now,’ says Terry. ‘I promise.’
‘That’s what you said last time!’ I say.
‘I know,’ says Terry, ‘but it won’t happen again, I really promise. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.’
‘All right,’ I say. ‘Goodnight... for the last time!’
I go back to bed and start falling asleep ...
falling ...
falling ...
falling ...
asleep.
Q Why couldn’t Dracula’s wife go to sleep?
A Because of his coffin.
CHAPTER 10
TERRY AND THE TOOTH FAIRY
’Twas the day of the toothache, when all through the tree
Not a creature was stirring–no, not even me.
Andy’s tooth had been placed
In a small glass with care
In the hopes that the tooth fairy soon would be there.
Andy was nestled all snug in his bed,
While visions of gold coins danced in his head.
And me in the bathtub, blowing a bubble.
Trying my hardest to stay out of trouble.*
*And be really, really quiet!
Q What TV program should you watch in the bath?
A A soap opera.
When out in the forest there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bath to see what was the matter.
A towel wrapped around me, I flew like a breeze,
To the edge of the decking and peered through the leaves.
And what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a little steam-powered machine drawing near.
And a tiny toy truck with a miniature crane,
From which dangled a hook on a small golden chain.
Q What has garbage and flies?
A A garbage truck.
All led by a figure, so lively and airy,
I knew in a moment it must be the tooth fairy!
More rapid than eagles to the treehouse she came,
And she whistled, and shouted, and called her helpers by name!
‘Come, Achey! Come, Molar! Come, Driller! Come, Smash!
To the top of the tree! To the bedroom let’s dash!
And we’ll heave away, haul away our pearly prize
For it’s teeth that we gather, no matter the size!’
Q What is the best thing to put into pies?
A Your teeth.
And up through the treehouse the tiny crew flew,
With both their machines and the tooth fairy too.
They parked their small truck on Andy’s sweet head
And lowered the hook to the glass by his bed.
And then with a chant of ‘Tooth-heave’ and ‘Tooth-ho’,
The tooth was brought up from the water below.
It was placed in the truck and tied up very tightly.
With gossamer ropes that glistened quite brightly.
Q What has teeth but cannot eat?
A A comb.
The tooth fairy flittered and fluttered with glee.
‘Pay him,’ she said, ‘his
tooth fairy fee.’
The machine began whirring.
It whistled and blew.
And then out of a slot a two-dollar coin flew.
Up through the air flew the newly made cash,
Then into the glass it fell with a splash.
‘And now,’ said the fairy, ‘it’s home we must dash
To deliver this tooth for the queen’s birthday bash!’
Q What game do cats play at birthday parties?