The Girl Who Blew Up Her Brother and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls

The Girl Who Blew Up Her Brother
and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls
published in 2010 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
85 High Street
Prahran, Victoria 3181, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means
without the prior permission of the publishers and copyright owner.

A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

Text copyright © 2010 Christopher Milne
Illustration and design copyright © 2010 Hardie Grant Egmont

Illustration and design by Simon Swingler
Typesetting by Ektavo
Printed in Australia

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Other books by Christopher Milne
The Day Our Teacher Went Mad and Other Naughty Stories
The Bravest Kid I've Ever Known and Other Naughty Stories
An Upside-Down Boy and Other Naughty Stories

Also available from
www.christophermilne.com.au
The Western Sydney Kid
Little Johnnie and the Naughty Boat People

TO PETE AND ROB

Peter and Robert are my two sons and they
provided the inspiration for most of my stories.
They have always been a bit naughty in
real life, but also brave, clever, decent
and funny – and much-loved.

Pete and Rob went to Nayook Primary School
and many of these stories are loosely
based on those wonderful years.

Christopher Milne

Contents

The Girl Who Blew Up Her Brother

The Brothers' Fantastic Flying Machine

John the Joker

The Worst Holidays Ever

The Girl Who Had a Go

Beach Boy Bernie

The Kindly Kid From Hell

the girl who
blew
up her
brother

What would you think of a girl who didn't like TV, hated lollies, wasn't very keen on sport, loved school, thought all teachers were nice people and hated holidays?

Crazy?
Off the planet?

Well, Janet Collins was all of those things, and more. She had no friends. None. But it didn't worry her. She couldn't have cared less if she never had to speak to anyone for the rest of her life.

So what did she do? She read. Book after book after book. There was only one thing that excited Janet. Knowledge. Learning stuff.

Well, that's not quite true. There was one other thing that excited her but I'm not supposed to say. It's not very nice.

All right, I will – Janet had this secret wish to
blow up her brother.

It all began one day when Janet was reading a book about bombs. Her brother, Adam, had just sneaked up from behind and dipped her ponytail in the cat's toilet tray. Poor Janet – as she turned to grab Adam, her wet ponytail flicked around and slapped her in the face.

Adam was always teasing Janet. It was his favourite sport. Another time he put a dead rat in her bed, and once, just to really upset her, he dropped a brick on her toe.

Janet was never quite sure why Adam teased her all the time, but in Adam's mind the answer was simple. ‘Because it's fun. And she's such a loony. All she does is read all the time.'

As I said, Janet was reading a book about bombs. And suddenly it came to her. Wouldn't it be good to use all the stuff she'd learnt to get her stupid brother back? Once and for all? Wouldn't it be great to blow him up?

First, Janet asked for a chemistry set for her birthday, and then she went to the library. Unfortunately, books on how to blow up your brother were hard to find.

OK,
thought Janet,
I'll just have to invent
something myself.

Janet did get a chemistry set for her birthday. So every night after school for the next three weeks, Janet got out her chemistry set and made mixtures.

A little bit of this plus a little bit of that equals… nothing. Maybe two bits of this plus one bit of that equals… not very much.

In fact, it was more than a week before Janet worked out how to make bubbles. From there, however, things started to move quickly. Next she made some stuff that fizzed, and finally a mixture that sparked and flashed. With black smoke.

Ooooh!
thought Janet.

Adam would sometimes watch Janet playing with her chemistry set, and of course he would tease her.

‘Hope you blow your head off,' he said one day.

If only you knew,
thought Janet.

At last Janet was getting very close to making a bomb. One teaspoon of this plus five teaspoons of that added to one teaspoon of water makes a big flash. A
very
big flash.

What would happen if she made it ten times as strong?

Time to find out.

When Janet's neighbour heard a huge boom and then saw Janet's cat come flying through her window, her neighbour was more than a little surprised.

Janet was so excited she could hardly sit still. Now, to get her brother. Not to hurt him, just to scare him. A lot.

Adam had always thought he was cool with girls. So cool, in fact, that he always reckoned it was best to have two girlfriends at once. That way he could have extra fun watching them fight over him.

So Janet said one day that Adam must be a liar. She'd never seen him with one girlfriend, let alone two at once!

‘Yeah,' said Adam, ‘well, I have.'

‘Prove it then,' said Janet. ‘Ask them around after school.'

‘All right, I will,' said Adam.

Stupid Adam.

Sure enough, that afternoon, two girls came to their house and sat in the lounge room. Adam didn't quite know what to do with them, but at least he'd proven Janet wrong.

In the kitchen, so the girls couldn't hear, Janet said to Adam, ‘I don't hear them fighting over you.'

‘Oh yeah?' said Adam. ‘Watch this.'

He strolled back into the lounge room and said, ‘Only a week to go to the year six dance and I still haven't decided who to ask.'

Just then Adam was suddenly caught short. Without warning, he desperately needed to go to the toilet. He didn't know it, but Janet had put a very special mixture in the sandwich he'd had after school.

Adam went red in the face, said, ‘Excuse me,' and rushed out of the room.

Yes!
thought Janet.

You see, Janet had been a very naughty girl. Secretly, she had hidden a bomb just under the lip of the toilet bowl. All that was needed to set it off was water.

The girls argued and argued, and Janet waited. And waited.

Adam flushed and
BOOM!

He shot off the toilet, flew through the door and landed in the lounge room. Right at the girls' feet. With the toilet seat stuck to his bottom, the dunny brush melted into his hair and toilet paper around his neck. And his pants still down around his ankles.

‘How embarrassing,' said Adam's two girlfriends. ‘What a loser.'

At least Adam didn't have to worry anymore about who to ask to the dance.

the brothers'
fantastic
flying machine

There were lots of good things about living in Neerim West. In fact, Brett Porter and his brother Dave thought it was probably the best place to live in the whole world.

They could easily ride their bikes to the lolly shop, there was a really excellent creek running right through their farm and best of all, the Neerim West Tip was right next door.

Not only was the Neerim West Tip good for normal rubbish, but everybody dumped their old cars there as well. And sometimes, if the boy scouts didn't get there first, there were full bags of bottles to smash.

Dave and Brett liked the smell best. Somehow, the mixture of rotting food, old tyres and dead cats made a smell which said
excitement
. You never knew what you'd find. Maybe an old radio with lots of wires and stuff, or kids' toys, or comics. Even a half-eaten toffee apple once. Dave had a lick but he reckoned it tasted a bit like fish guts.