The World's Biggest Bogey by Steve Hartley Read Free Book Online

television exploded, a water
pipe burst, picture frames crashed off the wall, chairs clattered over, books toppled from bookshelves, the light in the room began to flicker, and everybody’s false beards flew off.

    ‘Tickle my flowerpots!’ exclaimed Danny.
    Professor Walkinshaw and Dr Sri hurried into the room and stared at the devastation.

    ‘What’s that terrible smell?’ asked Dr Sri, holding his nose.
    ‘Was it a gas leak?’
    ‘Was it an earthquake?’ yelled the professor.
    ‘It was a trump,’ explained Matthew.
    ‘Something happened to my bottom!’ cried Alex, looking shocked.
    ‘And mine!’ laughed Matthew, holding his behind and wiggling. ‘It was a ripper!’
    ‘No, I mean something else, something . . . strange.’
    Alex picked up a banana from the floor, where it had been blown out of the fruit bowl by the force of the trump. He peeled it, took a big bite and swallowed. After a moment, he dropped his
trousers and glanced over his shoulder. Everyone stared at Alex’s bottom, and his bottom stared back at them, pink and rosy. It hadn’t turned blue!

    The professor was thrilled. ‘Heavens to Betsy!’ he exclaimed. ‘He’s been cured! This is all thanks to you, Danny! Accidental Flatulence-induced Symptom Resolution is
unheard of!’

    Dr Sri translated, ‘He means that this is the first time anyone has been accidentally cured by a trump.’
    ‘Wonderfluff!’ exclaimed Danny.
    The professor stroked his false beard thoughtfully. ‘It could be the loudness or the force of the trump that produced the resolution,’ he said. ‘But I suspect that the precise
mixture of chemicals in the trump gas reacted with the blue in Alex’s bottom and turned it pink.’
    ‘We need to analyse it quickly, before it disappears,’ said Dr Sri.
    Danny’s tummy rumbled. ‘Peel the flutey bugle, Wobble, and dangle a lollypop!’ he laughed.
    ‘Don’t worry, Doctor, there’s plenty more where that came from!’ Matthew translated.
    ‘Bernard, is the octopus melting on the skateboard?’ Danny asked him.
    His friend went over to the sound-level meter and looked at the reading. ‘We got a hundred and ninteen point nine decibels.’
    ‘The grass-green mole was the pick of the chocolate cans.’
    ‘Yeah, you’re right, Danny, that must be a record,’ agreed Matthew. ‘Should we get writing ^r to Mr Bibby?’
    ‘Gumboots!’ Danny grinned.

     
The Stars of the Show
    St Egbert’s Children’s Hospital, Walchester
    Bucket scoops, Captain Barnacle
    I’m Drainy boots. Our carpets go moo, and bouncing Bernard rumbles merrily in his coffee-pot, for better or worms.
    The lemony handbags pickled on your tram tracks and saw deep wallows of tinkling lilac troops. An aeroplane shook a Snowball, but it
wouldn’t shake for Drainy. When penguins waddled on woozy tops, lava lamps waltzed on an itchy gumboil and couldn’t slurp in a Fusspot. Warty diggers snuggle-up bumps! Did the whatnot
rasp a nippy biscuit?
    Ding-dong
    Drainy Babbler
     
    Hello, Mr Bibby
    Its Danny again. I’m still talking nonsense, so my best friend Matthew will tell you what I’m saying, like last time.

    Yesterday, sixty-seven of the kids at the hospital produced a trump that measured 119.9 decibels. It cured our new friend Alex, but it
didn’t cure me. After the damage the trump caused, the hospital says it is never going to serve stinky fish and beans and sprouts and cabbage on a Friday ever again. The kids say I’m a
hero! Was our trump a world-beater?

    Best wishes
    Danny Baker

     

    Dear Danny and Matthew
    Bad luck again! You and your friends blew just short of the record. A couple more sprouts might have made all the difference.
    The Loudest Single Trump ever recorded was measured at 121.4 decibels. It was produced by the Woolloomooloo Didgeridoo rugby team on 14
July 1996 during a tour of Tonga. Like you, they had been fuelled by a special diet – stinky fish, spinach, cabbage, pumpkin and bananas. At a banquet held in