by Anh Do
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Copyright
CHAPTER 1
My best friend Henry always makes me
In fact, Henry makes everyone
laugh out loud!
He’s always really
Henry was pecking at Bella’s pencil case when the new kid arrived.
‘Settle down, everyone,’ said Miss Franklin.
Come on in,’ she said,
looking at the doorway.
Wow, I thought to myself.
The new kid was
Hans Some?
That was his name?
I couldn’t believe this guy’s actual name was
‘Hans, why don’t you take a seat next to Weir Do?’ said Miss Franklin.
Hans Some sat down beside me.
‘So you’re a weirdo?’ he asked.
‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘It’s my name.
Weir. Do.’
‘WeirDo,’ Hans repeated. ‘Lol.’
‘Lol?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, lol,’ he said.
‘You want a lolly?’
‘No, LOL. Don’t you know?
Like,
Hans explained s l o w l y.
‘Oh, right. Lol,’ I replied. ‘Haha. I mean, lol.’
I wondered whether Bella knew what it meant.
I looked over at Bella and realised that
in my class was staring at Hans.
And what a cool name! It was so much better than Weir Do! If only I was Hans Some!
They could use him in an ad for toothpaste.
While my teeth are …
well …
His hair is so and smooth.
While mine almost always looks like I just crawled out of bed.
His shoes look really cool and
While mine used to belong to my big sister, Sally.
And even his handwriting is super neat!
It’s like a computer did it!
While mine looks like my little brother Roger did it!
Oh man, this guy has everything! Including
I wouldn’t be surprised if his nickname was Awe, as in AWE-SOME!
When the recess bell rang, Henry waddled over to us. He was still in .
It made me laugh!
I looked at Hans. He didn’t even lol!
But Henry was
‘Is this guy your B.F.F.?’ Hans asked me.
‘Oh no, he’s my best friend,’ I said.
Oh man, I don’t get this new guy at all!
CHAPTER 2
Hans Some is so cool.
I thought maybe I could be cool, too.
I found my sister Sally in her room, playing with Blockhead and FiDo.
‘Lol?’ Sally repeated.
‘It means Laugh Out Loud,’ I said. ‘Don’t you know?’
‘I know what LOL means,’ said Sally. ‘I’ve just never heard it said out loud before.’
Was I the last person on earth to find out what lol meant?
I bet there were cavemen who knew what it meant.
‘Do you know what means?’ I asked Sally.
‘Of course. Best Friends Forever,’ she replied. ‘Like these two!’
Even Blockhead knew what it meant! And now he was laughing at me!
Something needed to be done …
Before dinner, I decided to go through my clothes to try and find myself a
Maybe a makeover was what I needed.
Hmm,
I don’t think so …
Umm, not sure.
I decided to try out New Look #2 with my family.
My pants were I couldn’t even bend my knees. Sitting down wasn’t easy!
‘Hi Weir,’ said Mum. ‘You look different.’
‘I thought it was about time I … um … changed my look a bit,’ I explained.
‘I can help you with that!’ said Dad.
‘That’s true,’ Mum agreed.
‘Okaaaaay,’ I said. I’d seen photos of Dad when he was younger.
This could get really bad! But I figured it was
After we’d eaten, Dad went
He picked out a brand new outfit for me.
When I was ready, I strutted out …
But no-one liked my outfit!
Not even Blockhead or FiDo
I guess I did look!
Everyone started laughing … except me.
I said something else.
‘Lol?’ asked Mum.
‘Lol?’ asked Dad.
‘Lol?’ asked Granddad.
‘Yep, LOL,’ I said. ‘The first letters of “Laugh Out loud.” It’s the way all the cool kids talk.’
‘Is that so?’ said Dad.
I realised then that it was much more fun to just laugh than to say ‘lol’.
CHAPTER 3
Everyone in class liked Hans Some. They liked him a lot.
Especially the girls …
We were all really excited about class CAMP, which was coming up in just a few days.
Hans was telling everyone about the camp he went on with his old school, and how he rescued five kids from the river after their canoe turned over.
Our whole class thought it was
He also told us how he rescued a whole family of possums from a falling tree after a lightning strike.
And then he told us about how he stopped an angry big brown bear …
by singing him a lullaby.
Miss Franklin asked the class for volunteer team leaders. ‘We’ll need four people
who know a lot
about camping,’ she said.
‘They’ll lead the two teams in the
CAMP KANGAROO
CHALLENGE!’
I’d never been camping before …
but I didn’t want to
Especially if Bella was going to be a leader!
Miss Franklin made Bella and Hans the leaders of one group …
and me and Wendy the leaders of the other group.
Oh, man! What had I got myself into? I knew nothing about camping! I hoped Wendy knew more than I did!
CHAPTER 4
We were all pretty when we pulled up at
CAMP
KANGAROO!
After we met Ranger Jack, our CAMP CAPTAIN, we split up into our teams and prepared for the challenges!
Bella and Hans were the leaders of
Wendy and I were the leaders of
Everyone wore coloured bandanas to show which team they belonged to.
When Hans tied his bandana
around his neck …
everyone copied him …
There were going to be
over two days.
The first challenge was tent building!
I’d never put up a tent before … but I told my team to trust me.
But that wasn’t true. In fact, I got myself completely tangled up …
I have no idea what went wrong!
Luckily, Wendy and Henry were able to free me …
And with me out of the way, they were able to get the tent up properly …
… a second after Hans and Bella’s team.
‘We have our first challenge winner,’ announced Ranger Jack. ‘Team Blue!’
Bella and Hans turned to each other
and
The second challenge was hole digging.
Two against two—it was
I’d only ever dug a hole at the beach with a plastic spade, and I never even finished it because a Crab
>
Did you know that crabs are fast?
But I told Wendy and my team to trust me.
I grabbed one of the shovels and started digging madly.
Thing is, Wendy and I were both
we weren’t watching where the dirt was going!
All the dirt I was digging was flying over my head and into the hole Wendy was digging …
and all the dirt she was digging was going over her head and landing back in my hole …
I think I heard a couple of wombats laughing at how badly I was digging.
It wasn’t until I heard Bella call out ‘Done!’ that I stopped what I was doing and looked up.
called Ranger Jack. He held up Bella’s hand and Team Blue cheered.
Oops.
Bella and Hans were making a
really good team …
‘Sorry, guys,’ I told them. ‘I guess I don’t know as much about camping as I thought I did. In fact, I don’t really know anything at all …’
‘That’s okay, Weir,’ said Wendy.
‘Let’s all work really hard together and try to win the next challenge,’ added Henry.
‘Deal,’ I said.
There were three parts to the obstacle course—the tyres, the balance beam and the mud pit.
A whole team had to make it over the finish line to win the race.
‘We can do this,’ Henry urged Team Red.
‘We sure can,’ agreed Wendy. ‘We can make a comeback. We just need to work together.’
Team Red and Team Blue gathered at the starting line. You could tell we both really wanted to win this one.
Wendy is the class hopscotch champ. So to get over the tyres, all we had to do was follow her moves.
She was The rest of us followed fast behind her.
I spotted Hans darting out as well. In fact, he was so fast that he overtook Wendy and was already starting to make his way over the balance beam!
Man, this guy had
plus he was so good-looking,
plus he was REALLY, REALLY FAST!
And it looked like Bella really liked him …
Team Red was over the tyres and we were all slowly making our way over the balance beam …
… when I noticed that Hans was far ahead, he was almost through the mud pit!
Really?
And he even looked cool covered in mud!
Hans was already over the finish line …
but his teammates were all the way back at the
Bella, who’d almost caught up to Hans, ran back to help Toby Hogan. Toby had
and fallen face-first
into the middle of a tyre.
Even though Toby was on Team Blue, I just couldn’t leave Bella to pull him out of the tyre by herself.
So I ran back to help her.
Once Toby, Jenny and Mary were okay and back on the balance beam, I rejoined the race and
We all swam through and came out looking like swamp monsters!
Before we knew it, Ranger Jack had blown his whistle.
‘And the first team over the finish line is …’
We’d worked as a team and won the race!
Bella jogged over the line with Toby and the rest of Team Blue.
Toby was so happy, he ran over and did a massive belly flop in the mud pit.
He made such a big splash that mud flew out of the mud pit …
all over Bella …
all over Henry …
all over me …
and hit Ranger Jack right in the face!
It was so funny!
‘Lol!’ I said. ‘I mean, HAHAHAHAHAHAA!’ And my whole team cracked up laughing with me!
CHAPTER 5
Our first night at camp was
We toasted marshmallows by the camp fire and made each other laugh.
Henry told some jokes …
Then Clare got up and wobbled her head, which made her pigtails spin in different directions.
Joey Keenan made his legs wobble really fast.
Everyone in Team Red is really good at something!
Mullet can make his face look like just about any animal.
Even Blake Green has a thumb trick that no-one else can do.
As I watched my team, I realised I had been trying to do everything myself when I had a whole TEAM who could have helped me.
After dinner, we worked on our team song for our final challenge at
The show was on the next afternoon, so we needed all the practise we could get!
Everyone helped come up with a song that we all really liked!
I was pretty sure Team Blue was having heaps of fun, too. Not that I could see them. They were camped with Ranger Jack on the other side of the river.
Hans Some was probably in the middle of telling everyone really cool ghost stories.
I wondered what song they’d come up with for the final challenge.
Hans Some had already told us that he was an amazing singer. His voice would probably lead his team to victory.
Maybe Hans and Bella would do a duet …
We had another big day ahead. There was the canoe race, then the final challenge…
Beating Team Blue was going to be tough!
CHAPTER 6
Team Red was READY for the canoe race.
There were five of us in each canoe. Bella was at the back of Team Blue’s canoe and Hans was up front, like me.
Hans and I looked over at each other.
I waved a little too hard and lost my balance!
Luckily, Henry stopped me from
falling in the river!
We had to row all the way up to the other end of Camp Kangaroo, where Ranger Jack would be waiting for the winner!
Miss Franklin stood by the side of the river, about to start the race.
Team Blue was off to a flying start.
They whizzed ahead like a speedboat!
‘Come on, Red!’ I called.
‘Row, row, row,’ Wendy and I chanted.
Team Red rowed together perfectly.
We darted through the water and started catching up to Team Blue!
‘Row, row, row!’ we chanted. And, in moments, we’d caught up!
Hans looked worried. He was shouting out lots of Orders to his team, but it wasn’t really helping them.
‘Row, row, row!’ we chanted.
I couldn’t believe it—we were out in front and getting a pretty good lead!
Meanwhile, Hans was rowing like crazy. He was paddling like an angry duck!
He was rowing SO hard … and SO much harder than everyone else in his team …
Team Red could see the finish line! There was Ranger Jack!
CHAPTER 7
The scores were even!
It was all going to come down to the final show!
Our families had come to CAMP KANGAROO to watch our performances.
Mum, Dad, Granddad, Sally and Roger waved to me from the audience. Even FiDo and Blockhead were there!
Team Red was up first.
We ran onto the stage and I stood in front of the mic with Wendy. I smiled back at my team.
I looked down at the mic and realised there was something I needed to do.
I untied my bandana from around my neck… and wrapped it around my forehead. It was time to be myself again.
Everyone else in Team Red moved their bandanas, too.
We were ready!
‘Okay, team, let’s do it!’ I called.
Miss Franklin helped us on the guitar and Henry played the bongo drum.
