Читать книгу Chomp'd - Susan Berran - Страница 8

This was going to be the best holiday ever! I’d been saving-up my for ages. Getting stuck with the smelliest, crappiest jobs. Like cleaning the thick, muddy sludge and yellowing from the roof gutters, shovelling the mountains of dog crap from all around the yard, scraping away the green mouldy build-up of food scraps on top of the compost pile and mixing it all in together. Even emptying little miss nappy bucket. Yep … the absolutely, positively, crappiest jobs ever invented by parents.

But it was all going to be worth it. Anything to get out of this ‘wart on a Pig’s butt’ town called Agnath. Even if it was only going to be for the shortest amount of time, it was going to be better than nothing at all.

Of course, I needed to make sure that I had plenty of money to spend on lollies and junk and stuff. So for the last six months or so, I’d been conning Mum out of pocket money twice a week. Firstly Sunday night just before bed, when she was running around like a mental chook, getting school uniforms and work clothes and stuff ready for the week, I’d quietly mention that I was Just grabbing my pocket money out of the ‘change tin’ because you’re so busy and I don’t want to disturb you.

Then, about Thursday, or Friday, when she was really busy with the usual mountain of paperwork from school and work, or trying to figure out all the bills, I’d zip in quick and ask for my pocket money again. Mum’s so busy trying to concentrate on her counting that she just holds up some cash in the air for me without saying a word. A couple of times I even managed to convince her that she definitely had not paid me the week before either. So I got TWO lots of money, plus Sunday’s ‘change tin’, which made it three for the week.

Anyway, I wanted to collect every single cent possible. Whatever it took, I was desperate. I mean Agnath isn’t that bad really … OOOH BULLCRAP! It’s the BUTT-CRACK of the universe … the S-BEND in the Earth’s toilet … the snotty green booger of the country. Mum loves it … of course she does. She reckons it’s "quaint, charming" and has a certain air about it Yeah, the trouble is that 'air' is from all the stupid cows and sheep dumping their disgustingly sloppy dung absolutely everywhere and when they’re not pooping all over the place, they’re farting all of the time. The whole town smells like my feet, after they’ve soaked in sweaty sandshoes without any socks on, after I’ve been running a marathon on the hottest day ever, in the middle of summer. You know how your feet sweat so much that the skin goes all white and wrinkly. Talk about stink! PeeeYewww!

You know what really peeves me off though? If you live in the city, there’s a law that when you take your dog, or cat, or ferret, or any animal for a walk and it ‘dumps a load’, then you have to pick up the poop, chuck it into a bag and take it away.

It’s totally gross!

You put your hand into a plastic bag, so it’s like a glove, then pick up the fresh, warm poop… with your hand! THEN hold the poop up and pull the plastic bag back over it so that it’s then inside the bag, tie it up and carry it with you until you find a bin. So then you’re walking down the street and everyone can see you’re carrying a bag of dog poop. Or if you don’t want anyone to see that you have a bag of dog poop, you put it in your pocket. Eeeeeewww!

But anyway … so then, why isn’t it the same in the countryside? Why don’t the farmers have to go and pick up the cow and sheep poop and take it away when the animals dump their load everywhere? IT’S DISGUSTING! You can actually see the ‘poop stink’ cloud floating around in the air because it’s so thick and disgustingly gross.

There you are, innocently taking a nice little drive in the picturesque countryside, getting all that great fresh air that your mum keeps waffling on and on about. Then it hits you! Like a fresh bag of snot hits a swinging baseball bat. The smelly brick wall, the strong solid stench of animal poop completely drenches you. It’s everywhere, creeping up your nostrils and crawling across your tongue … yep, you can definitely taste it as well. And for the three and a half seconds that you’re passing through Agnath, you could easily fill up a couple of barf bags.

And the locals wonder why no-one ever stops in. “Oh look kids here’s a quaint little town store. Let’s stop in for a milkshake and a bite to eat … sniff sniff … eewwwww!!”

VRRROOMMM… and off they go at the speed of light, disappearing through a massive cloud of dust.

Obviously the day we moved to Agnath, the wind was blowing in another direction so Mum and Dad didn’t notice it. I could smell it though! But no-one ever listens to me! And you didn’t have to look very hard to see that this was no ‘quaint’ little town either. But of course we still moved here. I reckon Mum and Dad must’ve been totally blind and … and …