Cartoon Kid Strikes Back!

by Jeremy Strong

I looked at my best friend. ‘Pete,’ I said very seriously. ‘Did you know that you are Mr Pudding-For-Brain?’

  ‘No,’ Pete answered. ‘I didn’t.’ And he tried to clump me over the head with my pillow. So I grabbed his legs and we both fell over, crashed into the wardrobe and everything that had been piled on top – empty boxes, old toys, spare cushions, football boots, a potty I’d had when I was two and half a dozen old games and puzzles that all had bits missing – came thundering down on top of us.

  The next moment we had Mum, Dad and Abbie rushing into my bedroom to see what all the noise was about.

  Dad glared at Pete and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Home!’ he ordered. ‘And Casper –’

  ‘– tidy my room?’ I finished off for him as Pete slunk off downstairs.

  Dad nodded. ‘Exactly!’ And he shut the door on me.

  Huh! That’s parents for you. It wasn’t my fault everything fell off the wardrobe. What was all that stuff doing up there in the first place?

  Wardrobes are for putting clothes IN, not for putting rubbish ON TOP OF. And who put it there in the first place? Me? Oh no. Mum and Dad. So it was all THEIR fault.

  Typical. They cause the problem and I get the blame. Those parents of mine had a lot to answer for, if you ask me. Trouble is, nobody ever did.

  I did some tidying. Well, it was more like shoving things under my bed where I hoped nobody would notice. I was still thinking about Betty and what I was thinking was – Who’s the father? Who could possibly be the dad?

  And then –

  KER-CHING! DING-A-LING!

  I knew who it was.

  GERONIMO! Our class hamster. I couldn’t wait to tell everyone at school!

  Mr Butternut was very surprised to hear that Geronimo was the father of Betty’s babies.

  ‘When did they get married?’ he asked and we all exploded.

  I laughed so much I fell off my chair. That teacher of ours can be pretty daft, if you ask me. Mind you, I do fall off my chair quite a lot. In fact Mr Butternut once told me I should make sure that when I grow up I don’t become a mountaineer.

  ‘Because you are always falling off things, Casper.’

  ‘That’s because he’s Number One Twit-Person,’ Pete called out.

  ‘I thought you two were best friends?’ said Mr Butternut.

  ‘Exactly,’ I grinned. ‘I’m Number One Twit-Person, and he’s Number One Biggest-Feet-in-The-History-Of-The-World Person.’

  ‘Ah,’ nodded Mr Butternut. ‘I guess that makes sense.’

  See? My teacher was very clever to understand all that. When I say things like that to my parents they just roll their eyes as if I really am Number One Twit-Person, which, of course, I am not. Definitely! YOU understand, don’t you? Of course you do.

  I should tell you that our teacher likes to sit in the old chair in the corner of our classroom. It’s so old it’s got stuffing coming out of it. I think Geronimo escaped one day, got hungry and started eating the chair.

  Mr Butternut sat down and we all gathered at his feet wondering what he wanted to tell us. It’s usually something exciting, so we were getting jumpy.

  ‘At the end of this week,’ he began, ‘our class is going to give an assembly to the whole school.’

  That was Hartley Tartly-Green, who has a brain about the size of a raisin that’s been nibbled by ear wigs.

  Mr Butternut continued: ‘I have been wondering what we could do for assembly and I have come up with a great idea. Hamsters.’

  WHAT????!!!

  We looked at each other in despair. Hamsters? That would be about as exciting as watching snails go to sleep.

  Liam was waving his arm in the air. ‘Hamsters don’t do anything,’ he said. ‘All they do is twiddle their wheels and do teeny-weeny poos that other people have to clear up.’

  We all nodded in agreement. This was Mr Horrible Hairy Face’s most boring idea ever, but he was still smiling at us and flashing his teeth.

  ‘They do other things too,’ he went on. ‘For instance, we can talk about how to make sure your hamster doesn’t get pregnant and leave babies in your bed.’

  And then we all looked at Pete and rolled about laughing again – all except for Pete.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ he said.

  Well! Mr Butternut looked at him, showed two top teeth and slowly began to wiggle his nose like a hamster.

  We just HOWLED! He looked so silly! We clutched our sides and this time even Pete fell over. He banged the floor with his fist! That teacher of ours is the BEST teacher EVER!

  So that’s how we ended up practising for our hamster assembly. Almost everyone in class had looked after Geronimo at one time or another, so basically we were a class full of experts. We all had something to say about hamster care. Our first effort seemed to go on and on AND ON until I thought that if anyone said the word ‘hamster’ one more time I’d scream.

  I think Noella Niblet was as fed up as I was because she stuck up her hand and told Mr Butternut that if we went on like that during assembly the rest of the school would die of boredom. Noella’s always complaining about something, but just for once I agreed with her, and so did Mr Horrible Hairy Face.

  ‘You’re right, Noella. We need action and drama. Why don’t we turn all this information into a short play, a story – the story of Betty and Geronimo.’

  ‘Stupendo!’ we shouted and instantly set to. It didn’t take us long to work out a cast list:

  GERONIMO – played by Pete. (We wanted Mr Butternut to do this because he wiggled his nose so well, but he said he was playing himself.)

  BETTY – played by Mia. (Ha ha! Nice one! That’s because Pete likes Mia and she’s his girlfriend, even when he says ‘No, she isn’t at all.’)

  THE BABY HAMSTERS – played by me, Tyson, Cameron, Hartley Tartly-Green, Noella, Lucy, Liam and Madison.

  I wasn’t too happy about Madison being a hamster because she’s always sneezing and snorting. She does it so much that Pete and I call her Exploding Girl! But Mr Butternut said everyone should have a chance to take part. He smiled at Madison – she sneezed back at him.

  Sarah Sitterbout did most of the writing. She is so clever. Sometimes I think her head must be about to burst. I bet there’s so much stuff in her brain that bits of information are falling out of her ears like little wriggly things. Anyhow, Sarah can write faster than anyone else in class.

  After that we had to think about hamster costumes. We cut out masks, painted them and tried them on.

  ‘Bring some pyjamas from home,’ said Mr Butternut. ‘Try to make sure they are white, black or brown.’

  ‘That’s not much fun,’ moaned Noella. ‘Can’t I wear my new pyjamas?’

  ‘What colour are they?’ asked Mr Butternut.

  ‘Bright green and they’ve got big red strawberries all over them.’

  Mr Butternut sighed. ‘Noella, there’s no such thing as a bright green hamster, let alone one that has pictures of strawberries all over it.’

  ‘But they’re my favourite, best ever ones,’ Noella complained.

  ‘Haven’t you got some others?’ asked Mr Butternut.

  UH-OH! BIG MISTAKE!!

  OH YES? A LIKELY STORY, I DON’T THINK!

  That teacher of ours gave an even bigger sigh. ‘Oh well …’ he began, but he didn’t bother to finish.

  So on assembly day we brought our hamster pyjamas to school and we all showed off to each other. There were brown hamsters, and black ones and white ones. Tyson and Liam swapped tops and made themselves black AND white hamsters. And then there was a bright green hamster with bright red strawberries.

  We spent all of the first part of the morning rehearsing our play, especially the best bit, which came at the end, but I shall tell you about that later.

  When we went out at breaktime, we were really excited and we kept our hamster pyjamas and masks on. Most of the other classes laughed and wished they were hamsters and doing assembly. But the older classes just sneered and ma
de fun of us and said we were babies. I think they were jealous because when they did their assemblies they were just BORING BORING, LIKE MR McSNORING.

  Meanwhile, we didn’t realize that there were REALLY BIG PROBLEMOS going on, namely –

  They went flapping across the playground and surrounded Hartley Tartly-Green.

  I know I get fed up with Hartley sometimes, but nobody deserves to suffer from the Vampire Twins.

  ‘Hello, Hartley,’ crooned Gory.

  ‘We’ve got some chocolate biscuits,’ Tory said.

  ‘I bet you like chocolate biscuits, don’t you? Yummy yum!’

  Well, of course Hartley likes chocolate biscuits. EVERYONE likes chocolate biscuits. So the next thing is, Gory and Tory are slowly helping Hartley across the playground.

  ‘Don’t worry, little flower,’ says Gory. ‘Just pop in there and you’ll find Stacey. She’s got a WHOLE BAG of choccy biscuits and she’s giving them away FREE!’

  Now then, either Hartley Tartly-Green is an idiot, or he’s plain greedy. (Or he’s a greedy idiot!) He only goes and walks straight into THE GIRLS’ TOILETS! Is he Mr Stupido, or what? And as soon as he gets in there the Vampire Twins push him into a cubicle and lock him in. Then they run off, laughing.

  Noella Niblet goes in to see what all the fuss is about and then comes racing over to find us.

  ‘Emergency! Hartley Tartly-Green is locked in the girls’ loo! We’ve got to get him out! We’ve got assembly in ten minutes!’

  Pete and I raced across the playground. Cameron and Tyson came with us. We screeched to a halt outside the toilets. It was like Hamster Rescue Team are GO!

  ‘We can’t go there!’ cried Pete.

  ‘We’ve got to,’ I insisted. ‘We’re doing assembly in a few minutes!’

  We dashed in and hurled ourselves at the locked door. We banged it and kicked it and pulled at it. We even called it names, but it wouldn’t budge.

  ‘We’ll have to get in there and help him,’ I told the others.

  ‘OK, but how do we do that with the door locked?’ Pete demanded. ‘Have you got a tank?’

  ‘Just help me up,’ I said. So Pete bent down and I stood on his back. I clambered over the top of the door, dropped down and – SPLASSHH! – my left foot went straight into the toilet bowl. Yuck!

  I rattled the door furiously, but just like Hartley I couldn’t find a way to unlock it. Then Pete got fed up with shouting instructions at me and he climbed over the door too. He was closely followed by Cameron, who managed to fall into the cubicle upside down. So now Scaredy-Pants Tyson was the only one on the outside, complaining that he couldn’t climb over the door because he was frightened of heights.

  That was when the Vampire Twins came swooping back. They crept up behind Tyson and –

  You should have seen him jump!

  Now FIVE boys were jammed inside a cubicle in the girls’ toilets AND we had the Vampire Twins waiting for us outside. There was only one thing for it. It was time for –

  If only we really did have a rocket-powered toilet. What actually happened was that Mr Horrible Hairy Face turned up.

  ‘Just WHAT is going on here?’ he boomed.

  ‘We’re stuck,’ I explained. ‘The door’s locked.’

  ‘Just a moment. The caretaker is on her way.’

  We heard the caretaker, Mrs Moppnot, arrive with her box of tools. She and Mr Butternut examined the door from the outside.

  ‘It’s simple, innit?’ said Mrs Moppnot.

  ‘Really?’ asked Mr Butternut.

  ‘Oooh yersss. Look at that there screw there.’

  ‘Is it important?’ asked Mr Butternut.

  ‘Oooh yersss. Shouldn’t not be there, should it? No. Not never.’

  ‘Shouldn’t it? Where should it be?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be not nowhere,’ squawked Mrs Moppnot. ‘Someone has put that screw in there and jammed the bolt on the other side so not nobody nor no one can open it. All I have to do is unscrew it like that and –’

  BANG! The door flew open and out of the toilet tumbled five hamsters.

  ‘What’s all them giant hamsters doin’ in my toilets?’ cried Mrs Moppnot.

  But there was no time to explain. We had an assembly to give to the whole school. Mr Butternut sent us scurrying back to class while he explained things to Mrs Moppnot. Then he came racing after us.

  ‘I’ll find out what really happened later,’ promised Mr Horrible Hairy Face. ‘Now get on to that stage and do your best.’

  So we did. The play went really well, apart from my left foot making squelching noises all the time from having got stuck in the toilet. Everyone learned loads and loads about hamsters and how to look after them, especially about not leaving male hamsters in the same cage as female hamsters, otherwise you will probably end up with far more hamsters than you could ever want. The other classes fell over laughing when we got to the best bit right at the end. (I said I’d tell you about this later, and now it’s time.) Guess what? Pete and Mia GOT MARRIED!

  It was a pretend marriage of course. All the little baby hamsters threw confetti over them. It was really funny. And Mia smiled at Pete and he went so red I thought he’d burst into flames. It was absolutely MARVELLISSIMO and the best assembly ever!

  As for the Vampire Twins, they had to go and see the head teacher and were they in BIG TROUBLE? They most certainly were.

  And that was the end of another brilliant day. The superheroes had triumphed AGAIN. I never know what’s going to happen next when I’m in Mr Butternut’s class!

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  First published 2012

  Text copyright © Jeremy Strong, 2012

  Illustrations copyright © Steve May, 2012

  Cover Illustration by Steve May

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-197141-4