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The Birthday Bash
The Birthday Bash Read online
Patagonia Clatterbottom is the head teacher of Pirate School.
It’s her birthday…
…and Smudge, Flo, Ziggy and Corkella are getting ready for the party!
Jeremy Strong once worked in a bakery, putting the jam into 3,000 doughnuts every night. Now he puts the jam in stories instead, which he finds much more exciting. At the age of three he fell out of a first-floor bedroom window and landed on his head. His mother says that this damaged him for the rest of his life and refuses to take any responsibility. He loves writing stories because he says it is ‘the only time you alone have complete control and can make anything happen’. His ambition is to make you laugh (or at least snuffle).
Some other books by Jeremy Strong
GIANT JIM AND THE HURRICANE
THE INDOOR PIRATES
THE INDOOR PIRATES ON TREASURE ISLAND
THE MONSTER MUGGS
MY DAD’S GOT AN ALLIGATOR!
MY GRANNY’S GREAT ESCAPE
MY MUM’S GOING TO EXPLODE! PANDEMONIUM AT SCHOOL
PIRATE PANDEMONIUM
THERE’S A PHARAOH IN OUR BATH!
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published 2003
7 9 10 8
Text copyright © Jeremy Strong, 2003
Illustrations copyright © Ian Cunliffe, 2003
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Contents
1. Pirate School
2. Dick Lurkin’s School
3. Presents for Patagonia
4. The Ambush
5. Secret Training
6. Battle Stations!
7. More Biffing and Baffing
8. The Birthday Bash
1. Pirate School
Pirate School is run by a nightmare on legs. Her name is Mrs Patagonia Clatterbottom.
What a fright! Her nose is like an ancient potato.
Her hands are like snapping lobsters.
She wears a flaming orange wig. She has a wooden leg and often rides about in a boat-pram.
Most of the children are afraid of her, apart from Ziggy. He’s not scared of anything, except rice pudding.
Even Miss Snitty, the school secretary, is afraid of Mrs Clatterbottom. Patagonia is always shouting at her.
“Push my boat-pram on to the deck, Snitty!”
“Get me a choccy-biccy, Snitty!”
The children are taught all the things that pirates do.
Mrs Muggwump teaches swinging on a rope, helped by her pet toucan. Mad Maggott shows them how to
walk the gangplank and Miss Fishgripp teaches hand-to-hand fighting. Sometimes they have to do all three at once and that makes big problems.
Every so often Patagonia brings a special teacher to the school to teach the children something different. Sometimes the children like this, and sometimes they don’t. This term they had a dancing teacher, Jiggling Jim.
Jiggling Jim taught them disco dancing, which Little Flo and Corkella thought was wonderful, while the two boys thought it was boring.
“I feel stupid,” said Smudge.
“You are stupid, stupid,” sniggered Ziggy, who was wearing a pair of joke vampire teeth so that he could scare everyone.
“Well, I love disco dancing,” said Little Flo, leaping through the air like a pop star.
As for Corkella, she had just gone spinning overboard. SPLADDASH!
“Disco dancing is good for you!” roared Patagonia, who secretly dreamed of being a Disco Queen. “One day you will thank me for this.”
“Fat chance,” muttered Ziggy.
“I heard that!” roared Patagonia Clatterbottom. “No rice pudding for you tonight!”
“Don’t like your piddly pudding anyhow,” said Ziggy, and he bared his vampire teeth at her.
“Argh! You horrible child!”
2. Dick Lurkin’s School
Not very far from Patagonia Clatterbottom’s School for Pirates was a quite different kind of school.
It used to be a school for young highwaymen. Now it taught both girls and boys, so the name had been changed.
This was where highwaymen (and women) sent their sons (and daughters) to learn how to be highwaymen (and women).
Dick Lurkin taught his pupils to ride and how to point a pistol properly. He also taught them how to wear a mask, look very fierce and say highwaymannish things like:
“Stand and deliver, your money or your liver! Grrrrr!”
Dick Lurkin said the “grrrrr!” at the end was the most important bit because it was scary.
They also learned how to make masks so that they could not be recognized.
When Dick thought his young pupils knew enough he would send them out to practise being highwaypersons.
They would jump out of the trees and bushes, scare the pants off people and then run off with them, giggling.
In other words they were a BIG NUISANCE. And if ever the School for Highwaypersons met the School for Pirates then there was an enormous fight, lots of noise and the highwaypersons always won. (This was because there were more of them and they all had big brothers.)
3. Presents for Patagonia
It was Patagonia Clatterbottom’s birthday. She insisted that everyone give her a birthday present, and because it was her birthday she said that Jiggling Jim must dance with her.
“I’ve always wanted to be a Disco Queen,” Patagonia sighed dreamily, waving her hanky.
“More like a Disco Dinosaur,” Corkella muttered.
“I heard that!” screeched Patagonia, and she gave Jiggling Jim such a twirl that he went flying off and got stuck in the rigging.
“Leave him,” ordered Patagonia. “What have you children got for me?”
“It’s a shell I found,” said Little Flo.
“It’s a picture I made,” said Smudge.
“It’s a sweet I saved,” said Corkella.
“My present is special,” said Ziggy. “You have to sit down to get it.”
Patagonia greedily rubbed her hands and sat down.
SPLRRRRRRGH!!!
“It’s a whoopee cushion!” cried Mad Maggott. “I love whoopee cushions.”
“Throw that child overboard! He’s a disgrace,” bellowed Patagonia. But everyone was too busy laughing.
“We are going to have a party,” she announced. “We need crisps and crackers, fizz and whizz and jelly and jam and jars of jollop. Snitty – to the shops!”
r /> Off they all went, in a noisy, happy crowd – everyone except Jiggling Jim, who was still stuck in the rigging.
They went past the trees and bushes where the highwaypersons sometimes hid.
“Be careful,” said Miss Fishgripp.
“Don’t be scared,” trembled Mad Maggott.
“Let’s run,” suggested Mrs Muggwump.
But the highwaypersons didn’t jump out because the pirates didn’t have anything worth stealing.
At the shop the pirates found everything they needed and they started back.
“Carry this,” Patagonia told Little Flo. “And you carry this,” she told Smudge. Soon everyone was loaded down with party food. (All except for Patagonia Clatterbottom, of course.) “This is going to be the best birthday bash ever,” she said.
4. The Ambush
When they got to the trees and bushes – WHAT A SHOCK! Out jumped the highwaypersons (and their big brothers).
“Grrrrrrr!” growled Black Mask.
“Not yet, stupid. The ‘Grrrr’ goes at the end,” hissed Monkey Mask.
“What do we say then?”
Spotty Mask stepped forward and waved a pistol in the air. “Stand and deliver, your mummy or your liver! Grrrrr!”
“We’re highwaypersons and we are robbing you!” yelled Daisy Mask. “Hand over your mummies!”
“We heard you the first time,” said Ziggy. “We haven’t got our mummies with us.”
“In that case we’ll take all your shopping,” said Monkey Mask.
“Oh no you won’t. That’s my birthday bash beanfeast,” yelled Patagonia.
“Tough bananas!” Spotty Mask yelled back, and the highwaypersons leaped on to the pirates.
Biff! Baff! Boff!
When the dust cleared Patagonia’s boat-pram was halfway up a tree, and so was Patagonia. The pirates were all
over the place, the party food had gone and so had a lot of their pants.
The pirates crawled back to the boat.
“Look at you!” cried Jiggling Jim, who had now escaped from the rigging. “Black eyes! Nosebleeds! Missing pants! What a mess!
“That’s not the way to deal with highwaypersons. I shall teach you. Follow me.”
“Another daft disco dance,” groaned Ziggy. “This is all we need.”
5. Secret Training
Jiggling Jim surprised everyone when he turned to Patagonia. “Dearest Disco Queen, you must learn too. You are my most beautiful dancer.”
“Who? Me?” Patagonia turned the same colour as her knickers. (Flame red.)
Little Flo was astonished. “He needs his eyes testing,” she whispered.
“I heard that,” snapped the head teacher. “If Jiggling Jim says I am beautiful then I must be.”
When the training was finished the young pirates seemed very pleased.
“I like that kind of dancing,” said Ziggy, much to everyone’s surprise.
Jiggling Jim smiled. “Now we must go and see those horrible highwaypeople and get back the party food.”
So off went the pirates again. Patagonia and Jiggling Jim sang a song as they danced down the road.
“A doo woppa diddle, and a bee boppa boo, we’re gonna make a mess of the highway crew.”
“What are they going on about?” asked Smudge.
Then Jiggling Jim stopped so suddenly that everyone bumped into each other and they fell over like a row of dominoes.
Clinkety-clunkety-clonkety-clang!
“Ssssh! We’re at the trees and bushes,” he hissed.
6. Battle Stations!
Patagonia climbed into the boat-pram. “Oi!” she roared. “You lily-livered load of land-lubbery
highway-hooligans! Give back our food. If you don’t we shall mash you into…
She broke off and hissed at her pirates. “What shall we mash them into?”
“Mash!” yelled the children.
“Exactly. We’ll mash you into mash!” shouted Patagonia.
The trees and bushes rustled like mad and out jumped the highwaypersons.
“Sand in your liver, whatever the weather! Grrrrrrrrrr!” cried Daisy Mask.
“Sam’s all a quiver, his mummy’s got a feather!” yelled Monkey Mask.
“You don’t scare me!” announced Patagonia, and she fired her cannon.
Boom! The boat-pram shot backwards and the head teacher suddenly found herself upside
down with her legs waving in the air. (Not a pretty sight!)
“Do that again!” taunted the highwaykids. “It was very funny.”
Jiggling Jim turned to the pirates. “Remember our secret training,” he said, with a wink. Then he called to the highwaypersons. “Let battle begin!”
7. More Biffing and Baffing
It was not long before the ground was littered with groaning highwaybodies. They had to hand over all the food. The pirates tied them up in a big bundle and stole their pants.
“It’s not fair!” cried the highwaypersons. “You wait until we tell Dick Lurkin. Then you’ll be in trouble.”
Ziggy towered over Monkey Mask. Suddenly he bared his vampire teeth.
“Eek!” squeaked Monkey Mask, and he fainted on the spot.
Patagonia Clatterbottom wrote a note and stuck it to the top of Spotty Mask’s head.
“Dick Lurkin will never work out who it’s from,” complained Ziggy.
“I heard that!” yelled Patagonia.
But since it was her birthday (and because she was hungry for her birthday tea), she decided to be nice to everyone. The party began.
The pirates were halfway through singing “Happy Birthday to You” when there was a terrible noise and trouble arrived.
8. The Birthday Bash
Dick Lurkin and all his highwaymen(and women, and their brothers and sisters) swarmed on to the deck of the pirate ship.
“Shiver me timbers!” cried Patagonia. “Raaargh!”
“Throttle me fetlocks!” cried Dick. “Grrrrrrr!”
“Why do they always talk rubbish?” asked everyone else.
But the highwaypersons hadn’t come for a fight. They just wanted to join in the party.
Patagonia Clatterbottom wasn’t too happy about this, but Little Flo and Smudge and all the other children thought it was brilliant.
“It’s better with more of us,” they pointed out.
They played loads of party games. They played “Pin the Eyepatch on the Pirate” and “Pass the Pistol”, but the best game was “Musical Cannons”. Everyone had to rush round the deck and when the music stopped they hid in a cannon. Ziggy fired one, accidentally on purpose, and Miss Fishgripp found herself far out at sea.
They had a disco too. Patagonia danced with Dick, who was very good at disco dancing. He even tossed Patagonia into the air, only to find himself holding her wooden leg, while Patagonia went flying up and up until she landed upside down in the crow’s nest.
“It’s the best birthday bash I’ve been to,” said Corkella. She was dancing with Monkey Mask. Ziggy didn’t think much of that and he showed his vampire teeth, but Monkey Mask had already seen them so he didn’t care.
“I like you,” he told Corkella. “Can I give you a kiss?”
“I heard that!” roared Patagonia Clatterbottom from the crow’s nest. “No kissing. Pirates do NOT do kissing!”
“Just ignore her,” smiled Corkella.
Daisy Mask stood shyly next to Ziggy. “I’d like to kiss you,” she said.
“Stop that at once!” bellowed Patagonia. “And as for you, Dick Lurkin, you give me my leg back, you light-fingered leg-lifter.
“Come back here at once!”
Jeremy Strong, The Birthday Bash
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