London
Dear Danny
I’m delighted to tell you that the girls have broken the world record for Mudslide Lexicography (Mud Writing!) with their fifty-eight-letter attempt.
‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’ smashed the previous record by twenty letters! This was held by thirty-one members of the obscure Docduc tribe on one of the smaller islands in Papua New Guinea. In 1988 they formed their own Mary Poppins Appreciation Society, in the belief that this magical lady was a goddess who would one day fly in to their village holding an umbrella, teach them to sing nice songs, and keep their bedrooms tidy.
Inspired by the song with a similar title, they created a mudslide of the word ‘soppycollyfroggylickytickyolliedocious’. Sadly they didn’t know how to spell the original word, and it lost something in translation. However, it gained something too: four extra letters!
I’m glad to hear you are attempting a record, Danny. I seem to be sending certificates to everyone else in your Adventure Camp except you! The Ant-filled Underwear Endurance world record is one of the hardest to break. By an extraordinary coincidence, this record is also held by someone from a tribe in Papua New Guinea. When the time comes to choose a new leader, the men of the tribe fill their loincloths with ferocious Melanesian Mango-muncher Ants and see who can keep his loincloth on for the longest. In 1957 Zun Bako gritted his teeth and kept his composure for six hours, fourteen minutes and forty-seven seconds, but because of the numerous bites to his behind was unable to sit down ever again.
My advice would be to choose a species of vegetarian ant that won’t want to bite your bottom! Good luck!
Best wishes
Eric Bibby
Keeper of the Records
The quarantine was at an end and it was the final day at camp. The Gobsmacking Girls had won the Cool Competition hands down, and Danny still hadn’t broken a record. It was now or never: Danny had to put his plan into action. For the last three days he had been secretly collecting the leftover slops from people’s breakfast plates in a plastic carrier bag.
It was the Going Home fancy-dress tea-party and disco. Danny stood inside the Wygol-y-wigwam in his Roman gladiator costume, staring out at the crowd of fairies, pirates, hedgehogs, sheep, carrots and other assorted animals and vegetables boogieing to the music.
He spotted Sally Butterworth, dressed as the Celtic warrior Queen Boudicca, her face smeared with blue warpaint, glaring at him from the far side of the room. Clearly the War was not over.
Danny sidled up to a pair of calculators standing together by the pop-bottle table. Matthew and Vicky’s faces grinned at him from the place where the screens would be.
‘Silly-billy-dillydally-bing-bang-bong, Vicky,’ he said.
‘Silly-billy-dillydally-bing-bang-bong, Danny,’ replied Vicky.
‘I’m just going outside,’ he whispered to Matthew. ‘I may be some time. If anyone asks where I am, say I’ve gone to the Pee-pee Teepees.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Matt.
‘To get ants in my pants,’ replied Danny.
He sneaked out of the wigwam and hurried over to the boys’ hut to collect his slop bag of ant bait from under the bunk bed.
It was still daylight, and he made his way quickly through the trees towards the ants’ nest. When he got there, he lifted his short leather gladiator skirt and began to stuff the leftover food into his underpants. In no time, the pants bulged with:
four half-eaten strawberry-jam sandwiches
one green, mouldy cheese-and-pickle sandwich
three splattered egg-and-ketchup sandwiches
two squashed Welsh cakes
a squishy, black, rotten banana
a greasy lamb chop
six slices of limp, wet tomato
three chicken drumsticks in sticky barbecue sauce
four green-pepper-and-onion pizza slices
nine spat-out pieces of Welsh spicy sausage
fifteen cold chips
a slice of slimy laver bread
a splodge of gooseberry yogurt
a blob of rhubarb crumble (with custard)
and
a couple of cockles.
Danny stared at the seething mass of insects swarming around the rotten log and asked himself, ‘Do I really want to put my bottom in that lot?’
He thought about it for a moment. ‘Yeah, I do!’
He sat down with a squelch in the middle of the ants’ nest. ‘Grub’s up! Come and get it!’
The smell wafting from Danny’s pants was irresistible to the tiny creatures. They instantly swarmed up his legs and into his underpants. It felt as though his bottom was being tickled by a trillion tiny feet which, Danny realized, it was.
Danny wiggled slowly back to the camp. The itching on his bottom was agonizing as the ants went into a feeding frenzy on the food plastered in his pants. He crept back into the wigwam and stood by the door with Matthew, twitching and wriggling.
Bunny Grylls danced over to the boys. ‘What’s the matter, Danny?’ she asked. ‘Have you got ants in your pants?’
‘Yeah! I have!’ replied Danny through gritted teeth.
‘Ripper!’ laughed Bunny. ‘I once camped in the rainforests on the Zamboanga Peninsula and got bats in my hats!’ she told him. ‘And when I was trying to save a pond near Grimsby I got coots in my boots!’
‘And her brain down the drain!’ whispered Danny as Bunny boogied away.
Matthew coughed as he tried not to laugh.
The intense prickling on Danny’s bottom and legs was unbearable. The ants were really on the move.
Sally ‘Boudicca’ Butterworth stormed up to him and pointed her floppy cardboard spear at his chest. Danny pulled out his plastic sword and batted it away.
‘Where’ve you been?’ she demanded. ‘What’ve you been up to?’
Danny couldn’t stand still so he pretended to dance. ‘Just been for a stroll,’ he replied.
The music finished and DJ Bush Tucker announced that supper was served: ‘Grub’s up, cobbers!’
Sally thrust her spear into the air, put back her head and let out a loud wailing battle cry.
‘Ee-yiy-yay-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Gobsmacking Girls to the buffet! Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarge!’
At Sally’s signal the girls stormed the buffet table, attacking the platters of food, stuffing handfuls of sandwiches, cakes and sausage rolls into pockets and pants. Before the boys knew what was happening, the table was empty and the girls’ costumes swelled with piles of pillaged food.
Boudicca Butterworth stood in front of the girl army and let out her triumphant battle cry once more.
‘Ee-yiy-yay-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Victory! The Gobsmacking Girls win again!’
Danny stomped up to her, and the boys closed ranks behind him, lining up against the girls. The two groups stood glaring at each other.
‘That’s not fair!’ he snapped.
‘All’s fair in love and war, my mum says,’ replied Sally.
‘This battle isn’t over yet,’ said Danny, standing eye to eye with Sally.
Suddenly, he felt the ants leaving his pants and spreading down his legs. He realized at once where they were going. Danny continued to glare at Sally until she began to twitch. He grinned as a wave of wiggling, squiggling and jiggling spread through the crowd of like ripples across a pond, as the ants swarmed into their pockets and pants in search of more food to eat.
‘What’s the matter with you girls?’ asked Bush. ‘Have you all got ants in your pants?’
‘Yes!’ they cried. ‘Argggghhhhhhh! Get them out! Get them out!’
Danny turned to Matthew. ‘My record attempt finished as soon as it started,’ he said. ‘But I don’t care! The Bonzer Boys have won the war!’
Bush Tucker scooped up a handful of the tiny creatures scurrying across the floor.
‘These are Rotty-log Restless Roaming Ants,’ he announced. ‘They’re always on the hunt for bonzer tucke
r. By tomorrow the whole camp could be infested.’
Sally waved her floppy spear at Danny once again. ‘Get these ants out of our pants!’
He shrugged. ‘It’s your own fault,’ he reminded her. ‘You pinched all the food.’
Bunny laughed. ‘Fair dinkum, girls,’ she said. ‘You’re getting your comeuppance.’
Danny grabbed the tablecloth and dropped it on the floor. ‘The ants are after the food,’ he said to the girls. ‘Chuck it all on to there.’
They did as Danny asked, and immediately long lines of ants began to stream down legs, heading straight for their supper. Danny folded over the four corners of the tablecloth, and slung it over his shoulder.
‘Good on ya, Danny!’ cried Bush. ‘That’s gotta be the world’s biggest tucker bag!’
‘Take the little bities back where they came from,’ said Bunny.
‘We’ll come with you,’ said Matthew.
Danny strolled out of the wigwam and through the woods, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, leading the long string of ants out of the camp. Matthew, Sally and Vicky walked by his side, singing the camp song, including Danny’s naughty version.
When they reached the nest, he dropped the sack of food on to the ground next to the log and stood back, waiting for the insects to catch up.
‘What’s that noise?’ asked Vicky.
HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK! HONK!
‘It’s Llewellyn and Gwyneth!’ replied Matthew.
The security guard and his goose crashed out of the forest. Gwyneth hissed angrily at the children.
‘Silly-billy-dillydally-bing-bang-bong,’ said Llewellyn, laughing at the strange group in front of him. ‘Now, I ask myself, what would a Roman gladiator, a Celtic warrior and two calculators be doing out in the forest alone?’
‘Picnic,’ said Danny, opening the tablecloth to show him the food.
The goose lunged towards it.
‘Gwyneth!’ roared Llewellyn, but the big bird yanked hard on her lead, and tugged him over into the pile of food, gobbling greedily at a cheese-and-tomato sandwich.
At that moment, the ants arrived.
Gwyneth gave a short, loud ‘HONK!’ and began to wiggle.
Llewellyn gasped and began to squiggle.
Then they both began to jiggle.
‘What’s going on?’ asked the security guard.
‘You’ve got ants in your pants!’ chorused Danny Matthew, Sally and Vicky.
Gruesome guard-goose Gwyneth charged off down the valley, honking loudly and dragging Llewellyn after her. She skidded on to the girls’ mudslide and the pair of them slid off along Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. A shower of rain that morning had freshened up the slimy slope and they zoomed along the muddy word, swirling and twirling gracefully towards the stream at the bottom.
‘GWYNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETH! STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!’
SPLASH!
The kids high-fived.
‘Mission accomplished!’ laughed Danny. He held out his hand towards Sally. ‘Truce?’ he asked.
‘Truce,’ agreed Sally, shaking his hand. ‘Let’s go home.’
Danny Baker Record Breaker
Poo-wiggly-wig Adventure Centre
Wales
G’day Mr Bibby (That’s ‘hello’ in Australian)
I couldn’t beat the Ant-filled Underwear Endurance world record, but I did manage to infect fifty-three people and one goose with the ants from my pants. Bunny Grylls, the girls’ leader, says she’s certain this is a world record. I hope this is true, because I feel left out – almost everyone else has broken a record these last three weeks except me!
We’re leaving Poo-wiggly-wig today. It’s been Ace, but I’m looking forward to getting my football boots on again and playing footy.
And I miss my sister Natalie – not!
Best wishes
Danny Baker
‘You stink!’ said Mum, when Danny walked into the house at the end of the trip. ‘Have you had a bath or a shower at all while you’ve been away?’
‘I didn’t need to,’ he replied. ‘I was only away three weeks.’
Danny opened his suitcase and tipped it upside down next to the washing machine. His dirty clothes slid out and landed with a wet splat, spraying mud and dirty water across the floor. A beetle, three woodlice, four centipedes and a spider scuttled from underneath the grubby mound.
‘I hope you haven’t brought any more wildlife home,’ said Mum, shaking her head as she surveyed the muddy mess on the floor.
‘Here’s one,’ said Dad, picking an earwig from Danny’s left ear.
Danny handed Natalie something big and rectangular-shaped wrapped in plain brown paper. ‘I got you a present, Nat.’
His sister narrowed her eyes. ‘Is it poisonous? Will it give me a rash?’
‘It’s educational,’ replied Danny.
Natalie carefully unwrapped the present, revealing a shallow wooden box with a glass front. The inside of the box was divided up into square sections, each containing different-sized brown or black balls. Her face crumpled in disgust.
‘It’s a box of poo!’ she exclaimed.
‘It’s a display box of Welsh Mountain Poo,’ corrected Danny, pointing out some of the sections. ‘That shiny poo’s from a Snowdonian Shuffling Short-haired Sheep. The hairy poo’s from a Bryn Ballybont Burping Badger. The sloppy poo’s from a Wild Woodland Chuckling Chicken. This sausage-y poo’s from a Tallypant Vampire Mole. And that specky poo’s from a …’
‘This is the world’s worst present!’ cried Natalie, thrusting the box back into Danny’s hands.
‘Don’t you like it?’ he asked, trying not to laugh.
‘Keep your smelly present!’ replied his sister, storming out of the room.
‘I knew I should have got her a stick of rock,’ grinned Danny.
The Great Big Book
of World Records
London
Dear Danny
Fantastic! You’ve done it again! You have broken the world record for Single-handed Ant-in-pant Multiple-person (and Animal) Ant Infestation. Coincidentally, Bunny Grylls was the previous record holder. In 2003 she accidentally spread an ant infestation of her pants to thirty-nine archaeologists she was leading through the Mexican jungle to study the lost Aztec city of PLppapoppapeppapootle.
I am delighted to enclose yet another certificate for your collection.
Good on ya, Danny! (That means ‘Well done’ in Australian.)
Best wishes
Eric Bibby
Keeper of the Records
Matthew stood by Danny’s bed and studied the box of animal droppings hanging on the wall next to Danny’s collection of world-record certificates.
‘Didn’t Nat the Brat like her present then?’ he asked.
‘No,’ laughed Danny. ‘She’s weird. Who wouldn’t want a box of poo?’
Danny rummaged under his bed and pulled out a jam-jar containing a slice of slimy Welsh laver bread. A seething mass of Rotty-log Restless Roaming Ants swarmed all over it, nibbling and chewing their seaweed supper.
‘It’s lucky I brought home something else for her,’ he grinned. ‘She might not want poo on her wall, but she’s sure to want ants in her pants!’
Steve Hartley is a sensible man. He has a sensible job, a sensible family, lives in a sensible house and drives a sensible car. But underneath it all, he longs to be silly. There have been occasional forays into silliness: Steve has been a football mascot called Desmond Dragon, and has tasted World Record success himself – taking part in both a mass yodel and a mass yo-yo. But he wanted more, and so his alter ego – Danny Baker Record Breaker – was created. Steve lives in Lancashire with his wife and teenage daughter.
You can find out more about Steve
on his extremely silly website:
www.stevehartley.net
Books by Steve Hartley
DANNY BAKER RECORD BREAKER
The World’s Biggest Bogey
D
ANNY BAKER RECORD BREAKER
The World’s Awesomest Air-Barf
DANNY BAKER RECORD BREAKER
The World’s Loudest Armpit Fart
DANNY BAKER RECORD BREAKER
The World’s Stickiest Earwax
DANNY BAKER RECORD BREAKER
The World’s Itchiest Pants
Look out for
DANNY BAKER RECORD BREAKER
The World’s Windiest Baby
This is entirely a work of fiction and any resemblance to the real world is purely coincidental.
First published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-447-20104-5 PDF
ISBN 978-1-447-20103-8 EPUB
Text copyright © Steve Hartley 2011
Illustrations copyright © Kate Pankhurst 2011
The right of Steve Hartley and Kate Pankhurst to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Danny Baker Record Breaker (5): The World's Itchiest Pants Page 5
