Charlie and the War Against the Grannies by Alan Brough Read Free Book Online

children.
    She has pets.
    The problem is that her pets are always dying. In really strange and horrible ways.
    The double-problem with her pets dying is that she always tells us how they died and then starts crying. Sometimes she’ll cry for the whole period.
    Today she told us that her guinea pig, Sir Flop-A-Lot, was chopped to death when the next-door neighbour’s model helicopter crashed into him.
    She cried for the whole period.
    I wonder if Ms Best-Wurst’s eyeballs are going to get so slippery from all her crying that they fall right out of her eye sockets onto the floor where Junior Silesi (who has the biggest feet in the class) will step on one and get eye-slime all over his shoes.

    What if we fought a war against the the grannies and lost?
    I hadn’t thought of that.
    Moral dilemmas are always full of things that you never think of.

    My final class was Art with Mr Peters-Piper.
    Once, he put his hand in his pants pocket and found a piece of broccoli. Instead of throwing it away . . . he ate it.
    Right in front of us.
    Who keeps broccoli in their pants pocket?

    I really want a paper round.
    Other kids really want paper rounds.
    No one can have a paper round until we have fought and won a war against the grannies who control all the paper rounds.
ALL MY OTHER TEACHERS ARE STRANGE TOO
TEACHER
REASON THEY ARE STRANGE TOO
Mrs Bigge-Crabbe
Slaps herself on the forehead whenever a student answers a question incorrectly. This will certainly give her long-term brain damage.
Miss Knott-Welles
Farts when she gets angry. She gets angry a lot. Her classroom always smells.
Mr Stop-Sine
Is completely bald but has really, very, super thick bushy hair growing out of his ears. He has ear-beards.

18
THE DECISION
    â€˜Hils,’ I said. ‘I think we have to go to war with the grannies.’
    â€˜Affirmative.’
    I hoped she would say that.
    To be honest I wasn’t totally sure that going to war with some grannies was the right thing to do, but since Hils thought it was right I felt a lot better.

    It was after school and I was walking with Hils to her taekwondo class.
    â€˜We have to stop calling them grannies,’ said Hils.
    â€˜Why?’ I said.
    â€˜Calling them grannies makes them sound too nice. If you’re going to wage war against someone you need to make them sound bad. Not nice.’
    â€˜Why do you need to make someone sound bad if you’re going to have a war with them?’
    â€˜So no one cares that you’re having a war them,’ said Hils.
    â€˜I don’t understand,’ I said.
    Hils took a deep breath. I knew that deep breath. It was her let-me-explain-it-to-you breath.
    â€˜Let me explain it to you,’ said Hils.
    I took a deep breath. It was my okay-you-explain-it-to-me breath.
    â€˜Okay, you explain it to me,’ I said.
    â€˜Imagine,’ said Hils, ‘that you want to have a war against cupcakes.’
    â€˜Cupcakes? That’s ridiculous. Cupcakes are so nice. They’re small. They’re tasty. They don’t even have arms. Why would you have a war with cupcakes?’
    â€˜But what if they weren’t called cupcakes? What if they were called “sugar grenades”? Do you think it’d be easier to have a war against “sugar grenades”?’
    This sounded very much like a trick question. I don’t like trick questions. Most questions are tricky enough as it is without anyone adding extra trick to them.
    â€˜Sugar grenades don’t sound as nice as cupcakes,’ I said.
    â€˜Exactly,’ said Hils. ‘That’s why we have to stop calling them grannies.’
    I didn’t really know what Hils meant. I kind of did. But not really. I could have asked her to explain more but I thought that no matter how much she explained I was only ever going to kind-of-know what she was talking about.
    â€˜I completely understand everything you said,’ I said.
    â€˜So what shall we call them