Читать книгу Muckabout School - Ian Whybrow, Tony Ross - Страница 8

Try as he might, Gary just couldn’t do anything right. He said his two-times table perfectly. He was the only child in the class who knew that fish were not mammals. And when Mr Dawdle asked his trick question – “Who wants to do some extra Geography?” – Gary was the one who fell for it. He looked really keen and nodded like mad.

“No, no, NO, Gary!” said Mr Dawdle. “NOBODY wants to do extra Geography!”

And just when he thought things couldn’t get any worse, the chip fryer exploded.

The fact that the chip fryer exploded didn’t bother Gary personally. He was much too good to eat anything as unhealthy as chips. But normal Muckabouts had chips with everything.

They had sausage and chips, fish and chips, burger and chips, chicken and chips, ice cream and chips, chocolate and chips, beans and chips, chips and chips… pretty much anything, so long as it was chips.

It was Mr Jolly, the headmaster, who delivered the bad news. He stood at the front of the class in a T-shirt that read:

LOVE FATTY FOOD HATE SPORT

“Muckabouts,” Mr Jolly said in his most serious voice. “We are gathered here today to pay our respects to the school’s chip fryer. I am sure many of you will have fine memories of that chip fryer. I know I have.”

He sniffed and wiped his eye.

“But I am afraid that the poor thing exploded from over-use.”

He lifted the hem of his T-shirt, exposing a hairy round tummy. He used the T-shirt to wipe his nose.

“Still – no point going hungry,” Mr Jolly said, pulling his T-shirt back into place and patting his tummy. “It’s packed lunches all round!”

The whole school cheered!

Quick as a flash, Mr Jolly produced a plastic raincoat and put it on, doing the zip up tight.

From all around the canteen there came the snap and hiss of violently shaken fizzy drink cans being opened. That was soon followed by the squeals and shrieks of dozens of young Muckabouts spraying one another with fountains of brightly coloured, sugary liquid.

The headmaster was ready. He pulled the hood of the raincoat over his head to protect his neck from getting too sticky whenever they tried to squirt him. To stop any of the sprayers getting too close, he screamed his war cry and pelted them with bread rolls.

Then, when the food fight was over, the children dug into their packed lunches. Table by table, the noise changed to something like a regiment marching through deep gravel as all the children crunched away at their family-sized packets of crisps. That noise gave way in its turn to a gentle slurping as everyone began sucking the jam out of their doughnuts.

Everyone, that is, except… Gary Goody.

Gary always had a packed lunch, but up until now he had managed to keep it a secret from everyone else. Now, as he prised the plastic lid off his lunchbox, it was finally revealed. He had a succulent red apple and neatly cut slices of carrot and celery. He had a luscious egg, mayonnaise and cress sandwich in seeded wholemeal bread. And to finish he had a low fat raspberry yoghurt.

Gary might have got away with it if he hadn’t been sitting next to William Whale. William was such an enormous child that his bottom took up most of the bench on its own.

“ERRRR!” said William, as Gary crunched a stick of celery.

“I beg your pardon?” Gary asked.

“You can’t eat that in here!” William wailed, rising to his feet. “That’s healthy that is!”

At that, the whole table rose in protest. It wasn’t long before Mr Jolly came over to see what was going on.