Krazy Kow Saves the World - Well, Almost Read online

  After she’d gone I lay back on my bed and grinned at the ceiling. I’d always liked Gemma, and those things she had said about Krazy Kow – that was really good. I don’t know if anyone has ever said anything like that to you, but it makes you feel as if all your insides have just been given a big cuddle. I know it sounds soppy, but that’s how it is. It makes you feel pretty good. It’s nice to know there’s someone who’s on your side, someone who understands. After all, nobody else did.

  There was no point in telling the rest of the family about Krazy Kow anyway, because they were completely taken up with Big Bro. Matt had got a letter. He’d been called up for a trial for the county football team.

  ‘I’m gonna be in the county team!’ he sang at the top of his voice.

  ‘You’ve done us proud, son,’ said Dad.

  He was grinning from ear to ear. ‘The county team! You could play for United one day! I always said you were brilliant.’

  I thought: Yeah. You’ve always said he was brilliant. And you’ve always said I was… what? What have you told me, Dad? Not a lot, really.

  Do you ever get that feeling you don’t belong? Like maybe you were switched at birth in hospital, that you don’t belong to your family at all?

  ‘When’s the trial?’ I asked.

  ‘Two weeks,’ shouted Matt. ‘Tom Hardy’s been called up too.’

  ‘Oh good.’

  ‘You could sound a bit more enthusiastic, Jamie.’ This was my mother.

  ‘I’m going in for a competition too,’ I said.

  ‘What competition is this?’ asked Dad.

  ‘It’s some stupid thing about the environment,’ Matt explained. ‘Mrs Drew wants everyone to have a go.’

  ‘But you’ve got football practice,’ Dad said.

  ‘I know. It’s not me who’s going in for it. It’s Jamie.’ Matt turned his sneering face on me. ‘You haven’t got a hope. You couldn’t win an egg and spoon race even if they glued the egg to the spoon for you.’

  Dad smiled at me. ‘Going to make another film?’

  It was the way Dad said ‘another film’, knowing perfectly well that I hadn’t made any film at all yet, that all I did was talk about them. To him it was all talk. Things were so simple for him and Matt. They’d say: ‘Let’s play football.’ And they’d go and play football. But you can’t just say: ‘Let’s make a film,’ and then go and do it. So I left the room.

  I felt as if someone had just dumped a truckful of anger deep inside me somewhere. Making a film wasn’t a joke to me. It was real. This was going to be my big opportunity, and Gemma had helped me to make up my mind.

  I’m going to show them all, I thought. I’m going to do it.

  5 Krazy Kow and the Exploding Strawberries

  Scene One

  Breakfast at the Spottiswoods: Krazy Kow lazes in her chair, crossing her back legs and letting out a satisfied sigh.

  ‘Yum yum, strawberries for breakfast.’ She dangles a strawberry above her fat pink lips and drops it in. ‘Mmmmmmmm!’

  [Munch munch munch]

  Gosforth glances across at the supercow. ‘You have strawberries every morning. Don’t you ever get bored?’

  Krazy Kow clasps her front legs behind her head and leans back further. ‘Cows eat grass, Gosforth. Have you ever tried eating grass?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m not a cow.’

  ‘You are,’ mutters Bromley. ‘I heard that, Matchbox-Brain.’ Krazy Kow looks at them with disappointment. ‘Children, children! Brothers and sisters should love each other dearly.’

  (Sorry about this, but it’s just the sort of daft thing my mum says to Matt and me when we quarrel.)

  Bromley and Gosforth splutter into their cereal bowls. ‘Love each other? You must be joking!’ they chorus.

  Krazy Kow raises one eyebrow. ‘As I was saying, cows eat grass. We have it for breakfast, lunch and tea. If we want a snack between meals, we have grass. If we want a midnight feast, we have grass. Quite frankly, it gets rather boring after a while. But strawberries! Oh happy day!’

  [High and happy tinkly music: Tinkly winkly winkly wee! that slowly but surely changes into dark and nasty jangly music: Nang-nangy-nang! wing-twongy-twanng!!

  Dayayayayayayayinnnggg!!!]

  Scene Two

  As Castle Corruption floats above the bleak wastelands of Antarctica, Gobb-Yobb Badmash stares into the Mappa Monstrosa. A slow smile spreads like a plague across his face. It is a twisted, cruel, sneering, scar of a smile.

  ‘Stwawbewwies!’ he cries. ‘Stwawbewwies will bwing about the downfall of that widiculous cow. I have an idea, Snirch, and it is wather good.’

  ‘I’m sure it is, Plague-Master,’ fawns Snirch. ‘Do tell.’

  ‘We shall gwow some genetically modified stwawbewwies, especially for KK. I shall make them manufacture their own high explosive. Moments after she swallows them – BANG! Poor Kwazy Kow, she’ll be blown to bits.’

  [Huge orchestra plays massive dark chords: Ba-ba-ba-baaaaaaa!]

  ‘A breakfast bomb,’ cries Secretary Snirch. ‘Snap! Crackle! Pop!’

  ‘Quite so. And to make it even better, the force of the explosion will be so gweat that the entire stweet will be blown to bits with her. Won’t Kwazy Kow be surpwised!’

  ‘Won’t Krazy Kow be surprised,’ echoes Snirch, with a satisfied chuckle.

  So Gobb-Yobb works away in his laboratory, producing the perfect Exploding Strawberry. He tests it on Secretary Snirch’s teddy. Snirch is not too happy about this, and the teddy is even less pleased, as it is blown up.

  Arms and legs and one glass eye shoot across the laboratory.

  [Sound effects: Spinning legs and bouncing eye: twoooweee-oooweee-oooweee-ooowoeee-oooweee, boing boing boing boing!]

  ‘Success!’ cries Gobb-Yobb, as bits of stuffing drift slowly down through the air, like swollen snow.

  Yes, Master, sighs bnirch, quietly gathering together the bits and pieces of his scattered teddy.

  That night he sits up late in his bedroom, sewing the teddy back together. He is only partly successful.

  The exploding strawberries are carefully packed into a box and given a label:

  Gobb-Yobb hands them over to a Mashman and sends him down with instructions to put them where Krazy Kow is bound to see them.

  [Manic echoing laughter: hee hee hee hee

  hee!!]

  Scene Three

  ‘It’s shopping time,’ says Mrs Spottiswood. ‘Who’s coming to the supermarket?’

  ‘Not me,’ says Gosforth, who is busy painting her fingernails black.

  ‘Not me,’ chorus Bromley and his dad. They are busy watching a film about how United become undercover spies during the Second World War, break the secret code being used by the enemy, invent the Spitfire, sink the Bismarck and Save the World from Tyranny.

  Krazy Kow watches as the football team somehow manages to beat off eighty-three enemy tanks, twelve thousand charging troops, an entire bomber squadron and win the war.

  ‘United are the best!’ sighs Bromley.

  ‘You don’t believe all that, do you?’ asks Krazy Kow.

  ‘Of course. It’s true, you know.’

  ‘It’s a film,’ says Krazy Kow. ‘It’s made up.’

  ‘I know it’s made up, but it’s still true,’ insists Bromley.

  Krazy Kow goes cross-eyed and shakes her head rapidly in despair, her tongue flopping about like a mad dishcloth. Brrrrrrrrrrrr!

  Scene Four

  [At the supermarket – background shopping music with voice-over: ‘And just for today we have reduced our cabbages. That’s right! Instead of being as big as a cabbage should be they are now the same size as apples, but they’re still the same price! Isn’t that fantastic? Come and get your reduced cabbage now.’]

  By the time Krazy Kow and Mrs Spottiswood reach the supermarket KK has calmed down. She has a nice time, wandering around the aisles with her handbag, trolley and shopping list.

  ‘Underleg deodorant, wrinkle c
ream, bubble bath…’

  Little old ladies keep popping over to ask for her autograph and see if she’s had any good adventures lately.

  ‘You’re my role model,’ one of them tells her. ‘You are the Cow!’

  ‘You’re not supposed to recognize me,’ hisses KK. ‘Why do you think I wear a mask over my eyes when I’m on a mission?’

  Krazy Kow doesn’t notice that everywhere she goes she is quietly shadowed by a very short, fat man wearing dark tights and a black polo-neck sweater with MASHMAN written across the front. (Most people think it’s a designer label.) He also wears a huge cape, with something hidden beneath it.

  [Every time the Mashman appears you hear music like when the shark appears in Jaws; Duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh duh-duh…]

  ‘I must get some cream for my udder,’ KK tells Mrs Spottiswood. ‘I had to use my flame thrower last night and it’s rather sore.’

  Try Plum de ma Tante Moisturizer,’ suggests Mrs Spottiswood, before going off to get some reduced cabbage because it is on Special Offer and that means it is special.

  After that Krazy Kow sets off to find some strawberries. As she approaches the fruit and vegetable selection the Mashman hurries ahead of her. He slips a box of strawberries on to the front of the display, steps back, and waits.

  Krazy Kow reads the label on the box and licks her lips. ‘Hmmm. Those look very nice. I shall have those for breakfast,’ and she slips them into her trolley.

  OH NO!

  Scene Five

  Gobb-Yobb Badmash, the Dark Contaminator, gazes into the Mappa Monstrosa and claps his hands. Soon Krazy Kow will be no more.

  [Dark and jangly music again – the Gobb-Yobb theme tune]

  Scene Six

  Krazy Kow gets home and she is putting the strawberries into the fridge when she realizes that she just cannot resist having one straight away. She chooses the biggest strawberry of all and pops it into her mouth.

  This is lovely,’ says Krazy Kow. The best strawberry I’ve had for ages.’

  [Munch munch munch]

  The strawberry slips down her throat. Shlurppy-shlippp. Just as it reaches Stomach Number One –

  The whole of Krazy Kow’s body leaves the ground, hits the ceiling and lands again.

  ‘A taste explosion!’ cries Krazy Kow, and she burps. A puff of dark smoke drifts across the top of her tongue.

  On goes the strawberry to Stomach Number Two. Shlurppy-shlippp…

  This time Krazy Kow does a complete backward somersault and lands flat on the floor.

  ‘Oh yummy yum!’ she cries. That is the best strawberry ever!’

  The strawberry slips into Stomach Number Three. Shlurppy-shlippp…

  It explodes again, and Krazy Kow finds herself stuck to the ceiling for several seconds, before she comes crashing back down on the table. She gives herself a good shake. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Smoke pours from her ears, and one or two other places.

  ‘Oh, heaven!’ she sighs. ‘That was so nice!’

  And then the strawberry reaches Stomach Number Four. Shlurrpy-shlippp…

  Krazy Kow shoots around the room five times, like a giant escaped balloon. Flames come roaring from her rear end as she is jet-propelled around the kitchen, with her tail spinning at several thousand miles an hour.

  [Sound effect: jet engine mixed with kitchen

  equipment crashing and smashing]

  Suddenly a miniature parachute-brake pops out and slows her down. She crash-lands in a chair, where she sits with a delighted smile on her face.

  That was some strawberry,’ she tells Gosforth, who has just put her head into the kitchen to see what all the noise is about. ‘And something tells me that strawberries don’t normally have that effect. I think someone has just tried to blow me up.’

  Krazy Kow goes to the fridge. She carefully sniffs the strawberries and examines them with the molecular microscope hidden in her horns.

  ‘Aha. I thought as much. These have been genetically modified to explode,’ she says. ‘If you had eaten these, Gosforth, they would have killed you, and lots of other people too. It’s a good thing I have a superhero’s stomach – standard issue, you know. I had better dispose of these safely.’

  Scene Seven

  Krazy Kow grabs the strawberries. ‘To the bathroom and beyond!’ she cries and with a whizz and a pat and a supersonic bang she zooms into the safety of the sky.

  ‘Like a rocket into the blue!

  She’s black and white –

  she’s Krazy Moooo!’

  Krazy Kow hurls the box of strawberries as far as she can into the upper atmosphere. She turns on her back, lifts one rear leg, expertly spins her udder, clicks it into position and [FFWWHISSHHH!] a miniature missile shoots out and hits the strawberries, dead on.

  [KAPPOWWW!!! SPPINNGG!!! SHADDANNGGG!!!

  FWIZZZZ!!!!! BADOOMM!!!!!

  Strawberries rocket up into the sky and explode, raining juice down on passing cars and people. More strawberries plaster the walls of the surrounding houses, but at least everyone is safe.

  [‘Strawberries-are-raining-on-my-head’-type

  music]

  An excited, strawberry-bespattered crowd gathers outside the Spottiswood house. ‘You have saved us from the Exploding Strawberries, Krazy Kow. Thank you, thank you!’

  Krazy Kow quickly adjusts her lipstick and holds up her front legs for silence.

  ‘It was nothing,’ she cries. ‘I am here to help you at all times. Now listen to me, I have a message for you. This is what I say: I am the Big Moo!’

  ‘You are the Big Moo!’ cheers the crowd. ‘Hurrah!’

  Scene Eight

  High in Castle Corruption, Gobb-Yobb Badmash fumes. ‘I shall get you, Kwazy Kow. I SHALL get you!’

  He plunges his hands into his pockets and pulls out two large wriggling clumps of worms. He stuffs them into his mouth.

  [Boo-hiss-what’s-he-going-to-do-next? kind of music!

  6 I Get the Job

  I worked really hard on Krazy Kow. I borrowed Mum’s computer and got it all written up tidily. I put the pages and all my drawings into a neat plastic folder and handed them in to Mrs Drew. After that all I could do was wait.

  Mrs Drew made the announcement in Assembly a few days later. She thanked everybody for their hard work. ‘But I can only choose one project to submit,’ she said, and I was thinking: We know that – get on with it! My heart was pounding. ‘All the staff have taken a look at your ideas and I have to say that there was one idea that really stood out. The winner is Jamie Frink, from Class J5.’

  It was me! I always knew it would happen. I was on my way to fame and fortune. I was already famous in my school. It was as if everyone was looking at me. I could see Matt’s face – totally stupefied. Somewhere in the background Mrs Drew was still talking, telling them about Krazy Kow and how she fights Gobb-Yobb Badmash. I was grinning from ear to ear. I couldn’t stop myself. When Assembly was finished I walked back to class in a kind of dream. Most of my classmates were already there, looking puzzled. I grinned at them.

  ‘A cow?’ said Rebecca, tossing back her long, blonde hair like a slow-mo shampoo ad. (You too can have hair like Rebecca – washed in a mountain stream; using pongy weed and toad bits. You can live the dream!) ‘Why a cow?’

  ‘That’s how it came to me,’ I explained.

  ‘It’s silly,’ she announced, and my heart sank. Beautiful Rebecca thought it was silly. I tried to explain that Krazy Kow was meant to be silly. I suppose I should have kept quiet at this point, but I couldn’t resist going on. Getting Mrs Drew’s support had made me feel really good about the whole thing.

  ‘Listen, I’m going to be a famous film director one day. This is just the start.’

  Rebecca looked at me as if I’d gone totally off my head and began a slow, hollow laugh. Then she delivered her final verdict. ‘That is so pretentious!’

  Everyone started sneering and laughing at me, even though none of us knew what it meant! I don’t suppose even Rebec
ca knew what it meant. She was always coming out with long words. It didn’t mean she understood them. It was the way she said them. And she said ‘pretentious’ as if it meant dog poo, or quite probably something bigger than that, like elephant poo. Maybe even brontosaurus poo.

  Then the others waded in with their little bits of criticism.

  ‘Yeah, and who wants to save the world anyway?’ interrupted Carl.

  ‘So what would you rather do?’ I asked. ‘Play football?’

  Silence. They didn’t want to answer that one. A single voice spoke up.

  ‘Save the world, of course.’ We all turned to see who it was. Cat blushed very red and scowled back. (‘Cat’ was short for Catherine, and also because she had green, slanted eyes. Her small nose and short spiky hair only added to the impression.) ‘Jamie’s right,’ she insisted. ‘Pollution is a big problem. The idea of Krazy Kow is a really good way to get the message across.’

  ‘Oh look,’ sneered Rebecca, ‘it’s the film director’s assistant.’

  A sniggering chorus went up from the boys. ‘Oooooh!’ One of them made kissy noises and they laughed. At last they moved off, leaving me alone with Cat, who was now crimson. She gazed up at me. (Cat’s actually pretty short, the shortest in our class. She has to gaze up at everyone.)

  ‘They’re just jealous,’ she said. ‘I like your idea. It’s different. All I did was write about polluting the planet, but a film – that’s brilliant.’