My Brother's Famous Bottom Goes Camping (2 page)

‘Yeah, but Cecily’s not a sprout,’ I laughed.

‘I think you mean Cecily Carrot,’ suggested Mum, but Tomato shook her head firmly.

‘No, I don’t. I mean Sprout.’ She clasped the vegetable doll close to her chest and whispered in the carrot’s ear. ‘You’re a sprout, aren’t you? Yes, you are.’

‘Has your friend at nursery got green hair?’ I asked.

‘Stop teasing her!’ Mum murmured with half a smile. ‘Tomato’s only three.’

Of course, you’ve guessed that the green hair is really leaves growing out of the carrot top, and you may be thinking my family must be vegetable mad. Why is my sister called Tomato, and why does she have a carrot-doll?

Well, first of all I have a twin brother and sister. My sister’s called Tomato and my brother’s name is Cheese. They do have proper names – James and Rebecca – but they were born in the back of a pizza delivery van and my dad called them
Cheese and Tomato. It was just a joke, but it kind of stuck and now everyone calls them that, even Granny and her husband, Lancelot.

As for the pet carrot, that was sort of my fault. We grow vegetables in the back garden and the other day I dug up this weird carrot. The top half was normal but the bottom half had split into what looked like two long, pointy legs. I showed it to Tomato and told her it was a dancing carrot-woman. And now she won’t be parted from it. She got me to draw a little smiley face on paper. Then we cut it out and stuck it on the carrot.

We grow loads of stuff. It’s like a mini-farm out the back, with a goat and chickens and a tortoise. I know you don’t usually find tortoises on farms but my dad got him. Yes – that’s the same dad who named the twins after his favourite pizza. My dad’s daft. (And great fun!) Dad says that Schumacher (that’s the tortoise) is the garden’s security guard.

‘We haven’t had a single cabbage stolen since
we got him,’ declared Dad.

‘We never had cabbages stolen
before
we got him,’ Mum pointed out.

My dad’s good at thinking up names. He used to have a pet alligator called Crunchbag – don’t ask! – and our pet goat is called Rubbish. (Guess what she eats!) He’s named the chickens too. We only got them a few days ago – four hens and a cockerel. The hens are supposed to lay eggs, but they haven’t produced a single one yet. I’m not sure what the cockerel is supposed to do. At the
moment all he does is wake up the whole street in the morning before it’s even got light. Our neighbour Mr Tugg isn’t too happy about that and keeps coming round to our house to show off his impressions of an exploding volcano. (In other words he gets very, VERY angry!)

Dad has named the cockerel Captain Birdseye, and he calls
all
the hens Chicken Nugget. He thinks that’s very funny. Mum says it’s cruel. Dad told her she was being silly because hens don’t understand English. Mum said that was
just as well, because if hens
could
speak they’d tell Dad that he was a nasty, horrible man who ate chickens. Dad replied that she ate chickens too. Mum said yes, but she wasn’t the one calling them Chicken Nugget. Then they started laughing. My mum and dad are always having daft arguments.

‘Anyway,’ Mum went on, ‘you can’t call
all
the hens Chicken Nugget. Maybe the twins can think of some names. Come to think of it, where have they got to? I thought they came outside with us.’

‘They did,’ I agreed. ‘They went to look at the chickens.’

There was a startled squawk from the hen house and a hen came zooming out, half running, half flying and three-quarters falling over itself. There were several more protests from deep inside the coop and two more hens burst out into the pen. They looked upset and rather ruffled. Mum folded her arms.

‘I think I know where the twins are,’ she
muttered. ‘Nicholas, you’re just about small enough to get inside. Would you mind rescuing the hens from the clutches of the evil pizza twins?’

Honestly, I’m always having to rescue something in our house. If it’s not the twins, it’s the hens, and if it’s not the hens it’s my dad! I folded myself up as small as I could and squeezed into the hen house.

It was pretty gloomy inside but I soon spotted Cheese and Tomato. They were sitting on the birds’ perch. Cheese had his arms firmly wrapped round the last hen and appeared to be introducing the poor creature to his sister’s pet carrot.

‘This is Cecily Sprout.’ Cheese looked up and beamed at me. ‘This is my hen, and she says Cecily Sprout can ride on her back.’ Tomato tried to stick the carrot on the hen’s back, but without success – surprise, surprise.

I groaned. Sometimes I think madness must run in my family. We all get it from Dad, probably. Not only is my whole family crazy, but I hardly dare mention Cheese’s famous bottom. Did you know about that? Cheese has probably got the most famous bottom in the country. When he was one he used to make TV adverts for a nappy company.
His bottom has been seen by millions! (But that’s another story!)

‘Has your hen got a name?’ I asked him.

‘Poop,’ grinned Cheese, pointing at Tomato’s jeans. There was a dirty white-brown smear on one leg. It could only be – you know!

‘Poop did that,’ Cheese smiled. ‘She’s a super-dooper-pooper!’ The twins burst into giggles.

So there we are. Cecily Sprout, the Barbie-carrot, has a new friend – a hen called Poop. As for the other hens, they’re called Mavis Moppet, Beaky and Leaky. So now you’ve met everyone!

Boy, oh boy! What a rumpus – big time! We’ve had a fox in the garden. It was after the chickens, of course, in the middle of the night. Dad said he reckoned the fox fancied a five-course meal.

‘It would have Captain Birdseye for starters, then Chicken Nugget One, then Chicken Nugget Two, then Chick–’

‘Yes, Ron,’ Mum cut in. ‘We get the picture. There’s no need to go through the whole menu.’

‘Want a chicken nugget!’ demanded Cheese.

‘See what you’ve started?’ Mum complained. ‘I knew those hens would be trouble. It’s all your fault.’

Dad’s eyes boggled. ‘My fault? How come?’

‘You got the hens.’

‘Yes, because you said you wanted some eggs,’ Dad protested.

‘Exactly. I wanted eggs, Ron. I sent you out to get some eggs and you came back with five chickens.’

‘So? I got you eggs on a time delay. They’ll be fresher that way – new-laid,’ smiled Dad.

‘And how many eggs have they laid so far? None. And now we have a fox. It may not have got any of the hens this time but it will be back. You can be sure of that, and then you can say goodbye to your hens, not to mention all the eggs they haven’t even laid yet.’

Dad went stomping off wearing a dark frown on his face. It’s best not to talk to him when he gets like that. I knew that frowny face. It didn’t mean he was cross. He was thinking, and he was bound to come up with a plan sooner or later. He always does. My dad’s clever like that.

Sure enough, he came stomping back an hour later and announced his brilliant plan. He was
planning to keep guard over the hens all night.

‘You can’t stand out there right through the night,’ Mum told him.

‘I’ll lie down,’ said Dad.

‘You can’t lie down either, Mr Dopey-drawers. Suppose it rains?’

‘I shall be safe and snug in my tent,’ Dad said.

‘What tent? You haven’t got a tent.’

‘Yes, I have. I shall use the twins’ play-tent.’

Mum burst out laughing. ‘It’s for babies!’ she giggled. ‘It’s too small for you, you… elephant!’

‘Isn’t!’ scowled Dad.

Mum had to go off to another room, but we could still hear her laughing. Dad looked across at me.

‘Don’t pay any attention to your mother, Nicholas,’ he said. ‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I’ll show her. You wait and see. You’ll be very impressed.’ Dad nodded a lot, as if he was trying to convince himself that his plan would work. ‘Oh, by the way,’ he added suddenly, ‘can I borrow your old water-gun? Foxes can’t stand getting wet. They’re like dogs, you know – they hate water.’

‘Er, Dad? It’s cats that aren’t supposed to like water.’