So Festy! Read online

  For Sarah, Alex and Kate.

  With love to Shevaughn, Hugh, Tullia and David.

  Special thanks to Sue Murray.

  J.A.MAWTER

  To Jeni. I wish all books were this much fun.

  GUS GORDON

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Grotty Chops and Melon Butt Get a Life

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  The Fantastic Fart Factory: A Fabulous Tale

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Tales from the Freezer

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  A Real Dog’s Dinner

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Grotty Chops and Melon Butt Get a Life

  Chapter One

  Garbage-guts,

  Greedy-guts,

  STUFF IT DOWN!

  Guzzle-guts,

  Greasy-guts,

  DOWN, DOWN, DOWN!

  I have no choice. I grab the sausage roll and take a bite. I owe it to the other eleven.

  Garbage-guts, Greedy-guts! Up they start again—the pack of them—watching, waiting, salivating. The sausage roll forms a wad in the roof of my mouth. I swallow. The wad becomes a plug. I can feel it, wedged in my throat, high enough up so that if I stick my finger in I could shove it down.

  I look at Mitch and double blink. It’s our signal. Like a good mate he hands me some water. I take a mouthful, hoping to wash the sausage roll down. ‘You all right?’ he asks.

  The sausage roll doesn’t budge. My poor throat! It feels like I’m swallowing a box. I try another swill of water.

  Garbage-guts, Greedy-guts.

  Gimme a break! Can’t you see I’m choking here?

  Slowly, slowly I feel the food sink down. Well, as far down as it can go. There’s a boulder in my gut, a river of rocks in my oesophagus and pebbles threatening to spill out the top. But I won’t let them. I clam my lips shut and hold up my hand.

  ‘Eleven and a half,’ announces Mitch. ‘A new record.’

  ‘Not good enough!’ It’s Harley, the Pretty Boy of our year. He goes on. ‘Half doesn’t count. It’s eleven or it’s twelve. None of this half stuff.’

  ‘They count microseconds in the Olympics,’ says Mitch. ‘So they can count half a sausage roll.’

  Harley scowls. ‘What would you know?’ He pauses, then bleats, ‘Lard Arse!’

  Poor Mitch. Red spurts across his face.

  Some of the girls start to giggle.

  Mitch tugs at his belt.

  I want to yell, Don’t! It draws attention to your belly. But I stay silent.

  Mitch’s belly is a gravity-defier. His belt buckle is the only thing between him and a major belly-slide. Mitch mumbles something but I can’t get it.

  ‘Yeah, Big Bum!’ It’s Craig’s turn. ‘What would you know?’

  Most of the girls are laughing, now.

  Poor Mitch. Mitch with the child-bearing hips. I look at him and shudder. He is standing there, eyes shut, arms wrapped around his tummy, squeezing his bum cheeks together, like he’s trying to reduce in size by some sort of internal combustion. It’s gone deathly quiet. I go to say something but Mitch jumps in first. He puffs up his chest. He does that when he’s real angry. He puffs up his chest, takes a deep breath and says to Harley, ‘Don’t call me Lard Arse.’

  Go Mitch!

  Mitch turns to Craig and in the same barking voice says, ‘And don’t call me Big Bum.’

  Harley and Craig and a few of the others take a few steps in towards Mitch, yapping like a pack of poodles.

  ‘I’ll go the full twelve,’ I say pushing between Mitch and Harley and Craig. I hold up the other half of the sausage roll, rip off another chunk and shove it in my mouth.

  Harley and Craig and the boys take no notice. Bypassing me, they surround Mitch.

  Lard Arse. Big Butt. Lard Arse. Big Butt.

  Harley gives Mitch a push, followed by a shove. Shaped like a bowling pin Mitch topples to the ground. Craig starts to laugh.

  I race to Mitch, grab both hands and yank as hard as I can. But as soon as he totters to his feet up goes a mighty roar. Kids are laughing and pointing, pointing and laughing.

  ‘What the…’ I say. I walk behind Mitch to look. And then I see it. A huge rind of watermelon has stuck to his bum. I go to brush it off but Harley glances my hand away yelling, ‘‘Ava go at Melon Butt!’

  Mitch deflates worse than a chewie bubble.

  ‘Only one chunk of sausage roll left,’ I yell, holding it up as I desperately try to distract them.

  The pack start laughing like hyenas, poodle-yapping hyenas chanting, ‘Melon Butt! Melon Butt!’ The sausage roll record is forgotten.

  Just then Mr Wick, the sports teacher, rocks up. He looks around the group, at least twenty of us. ‘What’s happening, fellas?’ he asks. His voice is low, conspiratorial, like he’s our best bud.

  I look at Mitch, my eyes questioning. We have a school policy on bullying and I reckon this fits. Mitch shakes his head. His lips purse, his brow droops, and he gets this caved-in sort of face.

  My heart starts to pound like a fist on a door. I clench my teeth so hard I’ve got jaw-ache. Everyone’s looking at me, daring me, like. Mr Wick smells trouble. ‘So, Duncan,’ he says to me. ‘What’s going on?’ His lips stay curled up after the on. He turns to Mitch.

  Mitch says nothing but looks at me, his eyes pleading for me to keep quiet. They seem to say, Or else…

  ‘N-nothing,’ I stumble, then find my voice. ‘Nothing, Mr Wick.’ Closing my fist over the last bit of sausage roll I hide it behind my back.

  Mr Wick takes his cue from the group. They are all looking at me. ‘Got a problem?’ asks Mr Wick, with a voice so kind it could saw your legs off.

  I take a step back. I can feel the sweat on my lip, down my back. Mitch ’n I can get bashed for this.

  ‘We’re just mucking about, Mr Wick.’ Go Mitch! ‘Nothing’s going on.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agrees Harley, then adds with a dead-pan delivery, ‘We’re discussing the price of melons.’

  The group erupts with laughter. I glare at them.

  ‘The price of melons,’ says Mr Wick in full teacher mode, ‘is weather-dependent. When the heat’s up, melon prices fall.’

  When the heat’s up, melon everything falls, I think to myself as I look at the melon rind back on the ground. From the corner of my eye I notice Bonnie rock up.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asks. Not many kids could interrupt a teacher but Bonnie Pirecki can.

  ‘Stock market chat,’ answers Mr Wick, smiling with his eyes at Bonnie. ‘We’re discussing the price of melons.’ And with that Mr Wick starts to walk away.

  Phew! I think, but too soon.

  Mr Wicks stops, turns, then marches back to me. He reaches for my face. I duck, as though he’s about to punch me. But he doesn’t. He wipes my chin.

  ‘Pastry crumbs!’ says Mr Wick. ‘Can’t have you looking like old Grotty Chops, can we?’ And with that he walks away.

  ‘Whoah!’ says Harley. ‘That was close.’ He gets a look of triumph in his eyes as he adds to me, ‘Hey, Grotty Chops!’

  Grotty Chops. Grotty Chops. Not again!

  ‘Hey!’ interrupts Bonnie, now bore
d. She’s waving a fistful of envelopes in the air. ‘Invites to my party.’

  Kids flock around—Mitch, the sausage roll record, both forgotten. All the girls get an invitation, then Bonnie starts on the boys. Last two go to Craig and Harley. They giggle like big girls.

  I look at Mitch. He and I are the only two who have been barred. I smile at him and shrug. ‘It’s no big deal,’ I whisper under my breath.

  Mitch does not answer.

  ‘Oh, look!’ squeals one girl. ‘It’s a Come-As-a-Pop-Star!’

  ‘Finishes at ten thirty!’ cries another.

  ‘I’m having a jukebox and a DJ,’ crows Bonnie.

  ‘What’s the date?’ asks another girl. She crosses herself. ‘Please, God, don’t let it be this weekend!’ Desperate eyes scan the page. She looks up beaming. ‘Sunday week! Thank God!’

  The boys aren’t saying much. They’ve knuckled in for a ruck, laughing and kerthumping each other on the back, gripping their invites like tickets to a grand final.

  ‘Mum’s out on Saturday. That’s why the party’s on Sunday. But she says I can have as many kids as I like.’ It’s Bonnie again. ‘So I’m asking nearly the whole year.’

  If things were bad, that made them worse. What if Mitch and I are the only two who don’t score invites? ‘I don’t want to go to some dumb party, anyway,’ I whisper to Mitch, but too loud and Bonnie hears.

  She whirls on me, and stamps her foot. ‘My party is not dumb!’ she yells, so loud that everyone stops to listen. ‘You take that back…’ She pauses. Her face contorts as she hisses, ‘Grotty Chops!’

  The boys break out of their ruck. They turn to glare at me.

  Mitch fidgets with his belt and stares at the ground. The hunk of sausage roll squishes through my fingers.

  It’s Harley who cottons on. ‘Guess who doesn’t have invitations?’ He turns to the gang and in a sing-song sort of voice says, ‘Gu-e-e-ess who’s je-a-lous?’

  ‘No, I’m not!’ I say, but my voice is smaller than I’d like.

  ‘Poor Grotty Chops!’ taunts Craig.

  ‘Poor Melon Butt!’ taunts Harley.

  ‘Get a life!’ snaps Bonnie, and she’s off.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Thanks for not telling Mr Wick,’ says Mitch as we walk home from school.

  ‘S’okay,’ I mumble. Mitch tries to give me a friendly pat but I pull away.

  ‘Still cut about Bonnie’s party?’ asks Mitch.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Me either,’ says Mitch. We walk about twenty steps when he starts up again. ‘But I am cut about being called Melon Butt.’

  ‘Think on the bright side,’ I say, trying to cheer him up. ‘At least they’ve stopped calling you Lard Arse and Big Bum.’

  ‘But they’re calling me Melon Butt instead!’ Mitch stops walking.

  ‘It’s just a name,’ I say. ‘Doesn’t mean much.’ I bung on this high-pitched voice. ‘Melon Butt. Melon Butt!’

  Mitch grins. ‘It does sound kinda stupid!’ He breaks into a smile and thwacks his rear end. ‘Hey, I even kinda like it.’

  We keep walking when I confess to Mitch, ‘I really am cut about not getting an invite to Bonnie’s party.’

  ‘Me, too,’ he says.

  We continue to trudge home.

  ‘Bummer you missed the sausage roll record,’ adds Mitch.

  ‘Yeah.’

  We keep walking when all of a sudden Mitch stops. ‘Maybe we can still go!’

  I stop, too. ‘Go where?’

  ‘To Bonnie’s party.’ Mitch hooks his thumbs in his belt and hitches it up.

  ‘How?’ I ask. ‘Gatecrash?’

  Mitch laughs. ‘Too obvious. We’d be chucked out.’

  ‘How, then?’

  Mitch’s eyes light up. He tugs at my arm. ‘Maybe Debbie could scrounge us an invite?’ Debbie is Mitch’s sister.

  I nod. If anyone could wangle us an invite Debbie could. Hell, she could scrounge us an invite to the ARIAs!

  I nod, again. Mitch’s eyes are belly-dancing with laughter. I think about it. Not much love between those two. ‘Would she do it for us, but?’ I ask.

  Mitch’s eyes stop dancing before he finally admits, ‘Nah.’

  ‘Maybe we should ask Bonnie outright?’ I say. ‘You know. Can we come to your party?’

  Mitch looks at me. He feels my forehead. ‘You must have sunstroke,’ he says. We start walking again. ‘What about making a fake invite?’ I say. ‘You know, photocopy one?’

  It’s Mitch’s turn to put a dumper on things. ‘Didn’t you see those invitations? They’re on special paper with gold thread through. We could never match it.’

  I can feel my face fall. ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘Trust Bonnie to have invitations made for a queen.’

  We trudge on, lost in our own thoughts. ‘Maybe we can climb through the window into Bonnie’s room, steal two sheets of gold paper, then fill them in,’ suggests Mitch.

  ‘Maybe you haven’t been to Bonnie’s place,’ I say. ‘She lives in a two-storey house and her bedroom’s up top.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asks Mitch, dropping his bottom lip. ‘I wasn’t aware that you’ve been visiting lately.’

  ‘Haven’t’, I answer. ‘But Sian has. She and Bonnie’s sister are great mates.’ Although, how my little sister, Sian, could like someone from the Pirecki family is beyond me.

  Mitch takes a while to digest this. He starts to get all excited, bouncing up and down on his toes. Not a good look. Mitch grabs my arm. ‘Can’t Sian steal two for us?’ he asks. ‘Next time she’s there?’

  I shake my head. ‘You want me to force a minor to commit a crime?’

  Mitch growls. ‘What then?’

  Just as we’re coming up to the intersection where we go our separate ways I see Bonnie’s mum pull into a service station. ‘Look!’ I say. Bonnie’s mum drives a red Alpha Spider, with leather seats, grooved sides and more gadgets than James Bond. ‘Bonnie’s in the front. School bag’s on her lap,’ I whisper. We watch as Bonnie’s mother starts to fill the car with petrol. ‘Bet there’s some spare invitations in that bag,’ I say. ‘If only we could get our mitts on them.’

  ‘Maybe she’ll go into the shop?’ says Mitch, wistfully. ‘We could snatch her bag, find the invites and be off.’

  ‘Dream on.’ I can’t stop myself. ‘And maybe Bonnie will ask you to dance at her party?’

  Just then, Bonnie gets out of the car. Mitch and I hold our breaths. She leaves the bag on the ground, the door open. ‘I’m just going to the loo,’ she calls.

  We pinch each other. What luck!

  ‘No time,’ answers Bonnie’s mum. ‘You’ve got gymnastics at four. You’ll have to go when you get there.’

  Damn! I think to myself. Poo, bugger, bum.

  We watch as Bonnie grabs her bag and jumps back in the car.

  ‘Looks like we’re not going to the party,’ says Duncan.

  I give him a greasy and turn away, unable to keep the disappointment from my voice. ‘We never were!’

  Chapter Three

  ‘I’m going as Klone.’

  ‘I’m going as Rip’t a Part.’

  ‘Billy Zee from Graveyard Fifty-Nine.’

  ‘Filth.’

  The boys are bragging about the party.

  ‘I’m wearing make-up.’

  ‘A mini.’

  ‘My mum’s halter-neck.’

  ‘Well, I’m wearing boots!’

  The girls are bragging about the party.

  Mitch and I don’t look up as we walk to our spot in the playground. ‘I’m glad we’re not going, ‘cause I just thought of something,’ I say to Mitch. ‘If we went to Bonnie’s party we’d have to—speak—to girls.’

  ‘If we went to Bonnie’s party we’d have to—dance—with girls,’ adds Mitch.

  We stop in our tracks. ‘Yuck!’ we say together, then keep walking.

  ‘Mitch?’ I say a moment later. ‘I wouldn’t mind speaking to the girls.’

&nb
sp; ‘Me either,’ says Mitch.

  ‘And Mitch. I wouldn’t mind dancing with the girls.’

  Silence.

  ‘Maybe even a kiss would be all right,’ I add.

  ‘Yeah!’ says Mitch with a sigh. I look at his face. Think dog fantasising about a bone. Think slobber. Yuck!

  ‘Don’t worry about our invitations. I’ll work on them,’ I say to Mitch. ‘In the meantime, you and me will plan our attack. We are going to that party!’ I smile at Mitch, then laugh and clap him on the back. ‘And we are going to have fun.’ Mitch grins back while I get serious again. ‘What we need is a GCQ campaign.’

  ‘GCQ?’

  I slam my fist into my palm. ‘Get Cool, Quick!’ My mind goes into overdrive. ‘You’ll need to go on a crash diet.’ I start ticking off points on my fingers.

  ‘Meanie,’ says Mitch, sucking in his gut and pretending to look offended.

  I pat his backside. ‘Just a kilo, or four,’ I say, as kindly as I can. ‘Don’t worry. My Mum’s got tons of diets you can borrow.’

  Mitch smiles then says, ‘I’ve never borrowed a diet before.’

  ‘We’ll also need some pop star costumes,’ I go on.

  ‘Cool stuff so we look cool,’ adds Mitch, real helpful.

  ‘And dancing lessons,’ I say, my plan taking shape before my eyes.

  Mitch scowls. ‘No way!’ he says. ‘You’re not getting me to dance.’

  ‘But there’s a jukebox,’ I say. ‘And a DJ. Everyone’ll be dancing.’ Mitch doesn’t look convinced. ‘It’s easy,’ I say. ‘Think of DVD Hits. Girls really go for those dancing guys.’

  ‘If you think that I’ll ever look like a dancer from DVD Hits, your mind’s dented.’ Mitch looks like he’s enjoying that image. ‘I’m Melon Butt. Remember? Guaranteed to cause an earthquake in Africa if I shake this baby.’ And he slaps himself on the rump.