Читать книгу Barry Loser Hates Half Term - Jim Smith - Страница 7

‘My new phone!’ smiled my mum, pulling a huge great big shiny white phone out of her pocket and sliding her finger across the screen. ‘Loser residence!’ she said, holding it up to her ear.

‘What’s that I’m looking at?’ crackled a voice out of the phone’s speaker. ‘Is that an ear or something?’

‘Ooh, must be a video call!’ said my mum all proudly, and she took the phone away from her ear and looked at the screen. ‘Aunt Mildred!’ she smiled.

I hopped off the sofa and ran over to my mum, tiptoeing a centimetre higher so I could see the screen too. ‘Hi, Great Aunt Mildred!’ I said, spluttering biscuit crumbs all over Great Aunt Mildred’s face, which was staring back at me.

It was at about this moment in the history of the universe that I noticed that Great Aunt Mildred’s nose was about three times its usual size.

‘Are you OK, Aunt Mildred?’ said my mum. ‘Your nose looks a bit . . . puffy.’

‘That’s why I’m calling,’ said Great Aunt Mildred. ‘This little blighter bit me on the end of my hooter just now and the whole thing’s swollen up like an air bag!’

She held a jam jar up to the screen. Inside was a bright green beetle with six red legs and a humungaloid pair of pincers. ‘I was reaching for a banana when it jumped out of the fruit bowl!’ she warbled.

Bunky and Nancy slid off their bits of the sofa and ran over to have a look at Great Aunt Mildred’s nose. ‘She’s right - it DOES look like an air bag!’ chuckled Bunky, as Nancy peered into the jam jar on the screen.

‘Where are your bananas from?’ asked Nancy.

‘Feeko’s Supermarket, of course!’ said Great Aunt Mildred.

‘No, I meant what country!’ said Nancy, and Great Aunt Mildred put the jam jar down and wandered off, then reappeared a millisecond later holding a banana.

‘Sticker says “Grown in Smeldovia”,’ said Great Aunt Mildred, and Nancy gasped.

‘I knew I recognised that insect - it’s a Smeldovian Biting Banana Beetle,’ Nancy said. ‘They’re extremely poisonous!’

I looked at Bunky and raised my favourite eyebrow.

‘Typikeel Nancy!’ I said, seeing as she always knows stuff like that - especially since she’d started going along to her dad’s loserish nature club.

‘POISONOUS?’ gasped Great Aunt Mildred, grabbing her nose. ‘What does that mean?’ she whimpered.

‘It means I’m coming round right now!’ said my mum.