One Big Wacky Family

by Jackie French

  ‘The first rule when swapping brains from one animal to another is to make sure they are the same size!’ shrieked Dr Maniac happily. ‘Now your homework tonight is to find out what sort of brain we can put into a mouse’s head, without getting bits of brain and clots of blood all over the place! Class dismissed!’

  With a final shriek of laughter, Dr Maniac charged out of the classroom, his blood-stained white coat flapping at his heels.

  Free! thought Tom happily. He stuffed his books into his school bag and headed out with the other kids. Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Hello, Tom,’ she cooed.

  Tom gritted his teeth. Grizella! He wished Grizella wouldn’t flutter her eyelashes at him like that. Life would be just about perfect if it wasn’t for Grizella. Okay, she was the cleverest girl in the class and the richest, and he had to admit she was okay looking too, with her blonde hair and big blue eyes. But…Grizella’s mum was The Most Powerful Witch in the World. The Most Powerful Witch in the World didn’t need a good fairy to appear at her kid’s christening to ensure her baby was beautiful. The Most Powerful Witch in the World could give her kid anything! Including great looks.

  But why did Grizella have to be so keen on him!

  Grizella gave Tom one of her red-lipped, pearly-teethed smiles. Even her breath smelt like strawberries and chocolate. ‘I’m just making sure,’ she said sweetly. ‘You are taking me to the dance on Friday, aren’t you Tom?’

  ‘I…er…um…’ said Tom.

  Grizella’s big blue eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve asked around,’ she added, not quite so sweetly, ‘and you haven’t asked any other girl to the dance.’

  ‘I, er…um…no,’ admitted Tom.

  ‘Then you must be going to ask me!’ concluded Grizella confidently.

  ‘I…er…um…n–no,’ stammered Tom.

  Grizella stared. ‘What do you mean, no? Don’t you think I’m pretty?’

  ‘Er…yes,’ said Tom.

  ‘Of course I’m pretty! I’m the most beautiful girl in the school! So my genie will be round at six o’clock to pick you up on my magic carpet.’

  ‘Er…No!’ said Tom, hauling his courage up from his ankles. This was really embarrassing! ‘I’m not taking you to the dance!’

  ‘What!’ Grizella glanced around to see if anyone else was listening, then lowered her voice. ‘Why not?’ she hissed.

  ‘Because…just because!’ said Tom. How would Uncle Gus cope with this, he thought desperately.

  ‘Look, you miserable worm,’ muttered Grizella, ‘I’ve told everyone you are taking me to the dance! I’m going to look like dragon droppings if you don’t!’

  Tom bit his lip. ‘I just can’t!’

  A couple of girls giggled behind them. Tom shut his eyes. It looked like everyone already knew that he’d turned Grizella down.

  ‘You horrible blob of slug vomit!’ Tom opened his eyes at the hate in Grizella’s voice. ‘I’m never going to forgive you for this, Tom Goodle! I’m going to make you pay, you see if I don’t!’

  ‘H—how?’ whimpered Tom.

  Grizella glared at the eavesdropping girls, then looked back at Tom consideringly. ‘I’m going to get Mum to put a spell on you! Now what shall it be? Will I get Mum to turn your snot into runny green jelly? No, too obvious. Turn your dinner into puke?’ She brightened, ‘I know what!’

  ‘What?’ asked Tom weakly.

  ‘I’ll get her to put a bad luck spell on you!’ Grizella threw him an evil grin. ‘Everything is going to go wrong for you, Tom Goodle, until you work out that you’d really love to take me to the dance.’

  Tom watched her flounce off across the netball court, her blonde curls bouncing on her shoulders, and sit herself defiantly on the magic carpet. He felt the carpet’s breeze as it whizzed past him, but Grizella didn’t even look his way.

  Did Grizella mean it? wondered Tom desperately as he picked up his school bag. Surely even Grizella wouldn’t get her mum to put a bad luck spell on someone…

  Plunk! His school bag fell off its handle, right into a steaming pile of dragon droppings.

  CHAPTER 2

  A Mate Named Mog

  ‘Grizella mum, going put spell on you?’ someone grunted. Tom looked up. It was Mog, his best friend. Mog was two metres high and covered in fur.

  Tom wasn’t sure what Mog was. But he was a good mate to have and he was the best football player in the whole school. The other teams just ran away when they saw Mog.

  Tom stared at his school bag lying open in the dragon droppings. His books were already turning yellow. ‘She might,’ said Tom. ‘Her mum’s The Most Powerful Witch in the World. She gives Grizella everything she wants.’

  ‘Except you, huh?’ Mog pointed out.

  ‘Yeah, except me.’ Tom bent down and began to pick up his soggy books. ‘It looks like my bad luck’s already started.’

  ‘Hmmm! No spell on you yet!’ Mog bent down to help him.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. Grizella hasn’t even had time to get home. It must be just coincidence.’ Tom stood up, his smelly school bag cradled in his arms. ‘Maybe Grizella will forget all about it by the time she gets home.’

  ‘Hhmmmm!’ boomed Mog. ‘Grizella never forget nothing!’

  The two boys—well, one boy and whatever Mog was—began to walk down the road to home.

  ‘I just don’t understand why Grizella has a crush on me!’ said Tom, puzzled.

  ‘Yeah,’ grunted Mog. ‘You not handsome. You not clever. You got piddling little muscles. You not even play football good.’

  ‘Thanks,’ muttered Tom. ‘I’m not that bad.’

  ‘Thing me don’t understand,’ boomed Mog, showing his fangs at a pet gryphon who’d dared to growl at them as they passed. ‘Why you not take Grizella to dance? Grizella pretty! And then you safe!’

  Tom flushed. ‘I want to take Fra,’ he said quietly.

  Mog’s mouth fell open, showing all his big teeth. No one in the school had as many teeth as Mog, or such big ones either. ‘You can’t take Fra to dance!’ Mog boomed. ‘Fra not even go to school! Fra a…’

  ‘I don’t care what Fra is!’ interrupted Tom. ‘If I can’t take Fra to the dance I’m not taking anyone!’

  Mog was silent for a moment. ‘Fra nice,’ he admitted at last.

  ‘She’s really nice,’ said Tom. ‘And she loves dancing more than anything in the world.’

  ‘Yes, but…’ boomed Mog. He stopped, and shook his furry head. ‘You know what Fra is! No way Fra can go to dance!’

  ‘I know,’ said Tom sadly. He stuck his chin out. ‘But if I can’t take Fra there’s no way I’m going to take Grizella!’

  ‘Hmmm! Then you get heap bad luck,’ growled Mog.

  CHAPTER 3

  Tom’s Uncle Gus

  The boys—well, one boy and Mog—walked along silently.

  ‘Hey,’ boomed Mog suddenly. ‘There your Uncle Gus!’

  Tom nodded. ‘Uncle Gus always works in the Henderson’s garden on Tuesdays. Hi ya, Uncle Gus!’

  Uncle Gus put down his fishing rod, straightened his little peaked cap and grinned. ‘Hi, Tom! Hi, Mog!’ he called.

  Uncle Gus always wore the traditional garden gnome costume of little red jacket, baggy blue trousers and long yellow slippers. It might have looked odd on some people, thought Tom. But the costume suited Uncle Gus’s chubby knees and cheery smile.

  Sometimes Tom thought it would be great to be a garden gnome too when he left school, with nothing to do except sit in people’s gardens with your fishing rod and use a little trickle of magic to keep away the slugs or blowflies. But Mum and Dad were more ambitious for him. They wanted him to go to uni to study warlocking or magic engineering or at least become a headless horseman with his own TV show.

  ‘How was school?’ asked Uncle Gus, waving politely to a butterfly who was fluttering through the roses.

  ‘Terrible!’ groaned Tom.

  Uncle Gus raised a shaggy eyebrow. ‘Did Dr Maniac have you
making zombie frogs in biology again?’

  ‘Worse!’ said Tom. There’d been bits of zombie frog turning up all over the classroom for weeks after that experiment. But Tom would rather have zombie frogs than Grizella.

  ‘Vampire watermelons? Flesh-eating snails?’ asked Uncle Gus.

  ‘This real bad,’ said Mog. ‘Grizella getting her mum put bad luck spell on Tom!’

  Tom expected Uncle Gus to look horrified. But he just shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about it Tom,’ he advised.

  ‘Don’t worry about it!’ cried Tom. ‘Why shouldn’t I worry about it?’

  Uncle Gus smiled. Uncle Gus had the nicest smile in the world, Tom thought. Things always seemed better when Uncle Gus smiled. ‘Because it hasn’t happened yet! If you kept worrying about everything that might happen you’d never have time for happiness at all! Maybe by the time Grizella gets home she’ll have changed her mind. Or maybe her mum will say no. Why is Grizella angry with you, anyway?’

  ‘Because I won’t take her to the dance,’ said Tom. He hesitated. ‘I want to take Fra,’ he added.

  ‘But Tom…’ began Uncle Gus.

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Tom. ‘I can’t take Fra to the dance. But…’

  ‘I understand,’ said Uncle Gus softly. He grinned suddenly. ‘You go home and have a really good afternoon tea and enjoy yourself, you hear? And stop worrying about something that might not happen!’

  ‘Thanks Uncle Gus,’ said Tom gratefully.

  ‘Hmmmmm, thanks Uncle Gus,’ boomed Mog.

  ‘See you tonight, Tom!’ added Uncle Gus.

  ‘Yeah, see ya,’ said Tom. Uncle Gus had lived with them since Tom was a baby, to help look after Tom because his parents worked at night.

  Tom suddenly felt lighter. Somehow things always looked better when Uncle Gus was around. Surely Grizella would change her mind about the spell. And maybe…somehow…Fra could come to the dance.

  Tom and Mog continued walking along the footpath.

  ‘Me like your Uncle Gus,’ said Mog at last. ‘You lucky.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tom thoughtfully. He was lucky. He had a great family and Mog and Fra. What was a bad luck spell compared to that? And there might not even be a spell.

  Mog’s house was on the corner before Tom’s place, next to the gingerbread garage belonging to two old witch mechanics—broomsticks serviced while you wait. Mog’s place wasn’t exactly a house though, Tom conceded. It was more like a cave, tunnelled into the rock. The garden looked pretty savage as well.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ said Tom, keeping well out of reach of the hungriest looking flower.

  Mog punched the flower with his hairy fist before it got too close to Tom. ‘Hope so,’ he grunted. ‘You watch out!’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Tom reassured him. ‘I’m sure Grizella’s mum won’t really put a…’ he stopped and grabbed his waist.

  ‘What wrong?’ demanded Mog, concerned.

  ‘The elastic in my tracksuit pants just snapped!’ whispered Tom. ‘My pants are about to fall down around my ankles!’

  ‘Hmmm,’ muttered Mog. ‘Bad luck spell started! You wait, me get you belt!’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Hmmm! Your underpants have big hole in them! Me can see your…’

  ‘Just get the belt, Mog!’ urged Tom. ‘Please?’

  CHAPTER 4

  Bad Luck Begins

  No other bad luck happened before Tom got home—apart from tripping over the gutter and getting gutter slime down one knee, but that could happen to anyone, Tom told himself. And being stung by a bee, and having Kitty-Kat, the sabre-toothed tiger from next door, growling at him as though she’d been dreaming of Tom steaks.

  But Kitty-Kat growled at him every afternoon. Kitty-Kat didn’t need a bad luck spell to growl at anyone!

  Home looked reassuringly normal as Tom turned in the gate. Its four storeys of small windows glinted in the afternoon sun, and above them Fra’s high wooden tower reached upwards to the clouds, with bats squeaking round it happily.

  Mum had installed the bats last Christmas. She said bats gave the tower a lived-in look.

  Tom looked up and gave the tower a wave, just in case Fra was watching (Fra spent a lot of time looking out the window), then climbed the front steps. The door creaked as he opened it.

  Mum was in her study checking her lists for that night’s work on her laptop. Mum was First Assistant Tooth Fairy. She loved her job, but she found it really difficult keeping track of so many teeth.

  ‘Let’s see,’ she muttered. ‘Fifty-seven teeth, plus little Vampira’s front fang and Boo Boo the elephant’s left tusk…Hello, Tom darling. Did you have a good day at school?’

  ‘It was okay,’ said Tom. How could he explain Grizella and her spell to Mum? She never understood about him and Fra.

  ‘Much homework?’

  ‘Just a bit about mouse brains. Fra’ll help me do it.’

  Mum frowned. ‘Why not ask Uncle Gus instead? Maybe you’re seeing too much of Fra,’ she added worriedly. ‘I mean, I do like Fra, it’s just that…’ her voice trailed off.

  ‘Mum!’ exclaimed Tom.

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Mum gave in. ‘Your dad made chocolate chip muffins,’ she added. ‘He’s in the kitchen putting dinner on. Now, do I take two teeth from Susie Chang or three?’ she sighed and peered down at her laptop again. ‘Why do people have to get so upset when I get it wrong?’

  Tom wandered down the hall. Suddenly in the security of home all his worries seemed silly. Surely Grizella’s mum would be too sensible to put a spell on someone, just because he wouldn’t take her daughter to the dance, he thought as he opened the kitchen door and…

  ‘Hoooooarrrrrowwwwwwwwwwwlll!’

  Something large and black leapt out from behind the door.

  ‘Hoooooarrrrrowwwwwwwwwwwlll!’ It grabbed Tom around the shoulders and hugged him hard.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ said Tom.

  Dad grinned at him. ‘What do you think of my new howl?’

  ‘Cool!’ said Tom. ‘I bet you get the kids really wetting themselves with that one.’

  Dad’s grin grew even wider. Dad was Chief Bogeyman for the whole east coast—no one was as terrifying as Dad, thought Tom proudly.

  He was also the best cook in the universe.

  ‘I made some chocolate chip muffins,’ said Dad. ‘And it’s spaghetti bolognese for dinner.’

  ‘Cool,’ said Tom. He loved spaghetti bolognese. ‘Look, Dad, there’s something I’m a bit worried about.’

  ‘Mm?’ said Dad. He peered into the pot of bolognese sauce. ‘I wonder if I should add some more basil?’

  ‘It’s this girl at school,’ said Tom, taking one of the muffins. ‘She said she’d get her mum to put this bad luck spell on me. I don’t suppose she will really but if she does, we can get someone to take it off, can’t we?’

  Dad nodded. ‘Don’t worry kid. If you think she’s really done it we can pop down to Dr Whiteskull’s surgery before you go to school. Who’s been talking about putting a spell on you, anyway? I have a good mind to report them to the principal.’

  ‘It’s this girl, Grizella,’ said Tom. ‘You know, the one who’s mum is The Most Powerful Witch in the World.’

  Dad stared at him in horror. ‘The Most Powerful Witch in the World! Son, there’s no way a magic GP can take off The Most Powerful Witch in the World’s spell.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tom. ‘Who can then?’

  ‘No one,’ said Dad flatly. ‘Only The Most Powerful Witch in the World can remove a spell once she’s put it on you.’ He looked at Tom with concern. ‘You don’t really think she has, do you?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Tom dubiously. ‘The elastic went in my pants and I tripped over the gutter and a bee stung me and my school bag fell into a pile of dragon droppings. But any of those things could have happened to anyone. Right?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Dad reassuringly, as Tom bit into his chocolate chip muffin.

  ‘Aarrrrrrgh!!!!’ shrieked Tom.
/>   Dad stared. ‘Are you practising to be a bogeyman, son? Because I have to tell you, if you’re planning to be a bogeyman when you leave school you’ll have to howl better than that!’

  Tom spat out the piece of muffin. ‘Errk,’ he groaned. ‘Dad, those aren’t choc chips in the muffins!’

  ‘They’re not?’ Dad bent down and picked up the spat out muffin. He looked at it closely. ‘Oh, my word!’ he whispered.

  ‘What is it?’ begged Tom. ‘What have I eaten?’

  ‘Bat droppings!’ cried Dad. ‘I was just sweeping up the bat droppings into a neat pile and I must have mistaken them for the choc chips! I’m so sorry, son!’

  That’s when the sauce bubbled over.

  CHAPTER 5

  Mutant Spaghetti

  It took half an hour to clean up the burnt bolognese sauce.

  Dad peered into the saucepan. ‘I think there’s enough sauce left for dinner,’ he muttered.

  ‘You don’t think it was the bad luck spell, do you, Dad?’ asked Tom quaveringly.

  ‘No. No no, of course not, son,’ said Dad unconvincingly. ‘l’ll just heat up the spaghetti in the microwave. You go and set the table.’

  Tom had just finished setting out the glasses of moonbeam dew—it was one of the perks of Mum’s job—as Dad carried in the big bowl of spaghetti, with almost enough sauce on top of it.

  ‘Grooowllll!’ shrieked Dad. (Dad found it difficult to enter a room nowadays without a good bogeyman yell.) ‘Dinner’s ready!’

  ‘Great,’ said Tom. What with everything that had

  happened—and the bat-dropping muffins—he was starved. He stared at the dish in front of him.