The Girl With Death Breath and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls

The Girl with Death Breath
and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls
published in 2011 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 © 2011 Christopher Milne
Illustration and design copyright © 2011 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
The Girl Who Blew Up Her Brother and Other Naughty Stories
An Upside-Down Boy and Other Naughty Stories
That Dirty Dog and Other Naughty Stories
The Crazy Dentist and Other Naughty Stories
The Toilet Rat of Terror 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.

contents

The Girl with Death Breath

Maybe Millionaires

The Toughest Kid in School

The Boy Who Ran Away

The Girl Who Answered Back

Bully-Boy ‘Boofer' Barnes

The Mystery of Willow Bend

Doris Katz had the worst breath in the history of the universe. Worse than my dog's. Worse than my father's in the morning.

Butt-breath, we called her.

How did it get so bad? I'll tell you.

It all began with a party – the first that any of us had been to with both boys and girls.

My best friend, Cassandra Watts, had decided it was time we had a ‘real' party and, unfortunately, that meant asking stupid boys. And boys really are stupid.

At the start of the party, we girls were all dressed up, sitting in the lounge room, waiting to maybe talk or dance or something, and what were the
idiot boys
doing?

Having burping competitions around the barbeque. And every now and then, doing a pop-off.

Eventually, Cassandra realised the party was going nowhere, so she decided to organise some games. Guess what she suggested?

Spin the bottle.

For those of you who haven't played it, that's where a boy spins the bottle and he has to kiss the girl it points to. In front of everyone.

Cassandra had seen her older sister play it and thought it was very grown-up.

We all groaned. I looked at that burping, smelly bunch of losers and thought,
There's
certainly no-one there I want to kiss
.

But Cassandra insisted.

And so the game began. Roger Smith was the first.The bottle spun, then slowed, and all the girls squealed as the bottle stopped – on Doris Katz!

‘Oh, no!' screamed Doris.

But, secretly, we all knew Doris would have been rapt. She'd always liked Roger.

‘Do I have to?' pleaded Doris.

‘Yes!' we all shrieked.

So, Roger walked over to Doris and put his arm around her waist – just like on TV! He opened his mouth, poked out his tongue, and, as we all leant forward to watch, he moved to kiss her.

But then Roger stopped. ‘Oh, yuck!' he shouted. ‘
Your breath stinks
. What have you been eating?'

‘I don't know,' said poor Doris. ‘Nothing.'

‘I'd rather kiss my dog,' said Roger.

Well, I've seen people embarrassed before, but never as badly as poor Doris. She went red, put her hands to her face, and ran crying from the room.

When Doris told her parents what had happened, minus the bottle-spinning, her mum took her to the doctor. But the doctor said there was nothing wrong with Doris.

Perhaps she could clean her teeth a little more regularly, but the doctor thought it was simply a case of boys being stupid.

So Doris went off to school thinking the whole thing would soon be forgotten.

But it wasn't.

Pretty soon, every single kid at school was calling her
Dunny-Breath
or
Death-Breath
, and pretending to choke every time she came near. Doris's life became a misery. Then misery turned to anger.

OK,
thought Doris one day.
I've had enough.
If it's bad breath they want, it's
bad breath
they'll get!

So, for the next month, Doris ate smelly cheese, onions and garlic every day – and didn't clean her teeth once. She also practised sleeping with her mouth open and deliberately wore as little clothing as possible, so that she'd catch a cold and have a permanently sore throat. Finally, she drank some week-old milk, and then opened her mouth and looked in the mirror.What she saw almost made her throw up.

Her throat was red, her
teeth were brown
, there was yellow in between them, and worst of all, her tongue had grown some
green fur
.

She grinned at herself, and then went to school.

Doris's plan had been to say a big, breathy
hello
right into everyone's face. But from the moment she arrived at school, she could tell something was wrong.

A big group of kids were gathered in a circle. In the middle, Doris could see Roger – whom she still secretly liked – and Kevin ‘Killer' Krump. They were shouting at each other and she could just tell a fight was going to start.

Poor Roger
, thought Doris.
He won't have a
chance against Killer. He's huge. And nasty
.

So, Doris pushed her way to the front, with her mouth closed, and stood right next to Killer. Just as Killer pushed Roger in the chest and said, ‘Come on!', and Roger pushed him back, Doris quietly took in a giant lungful of air.

Then, ever so softly, she blew it right into Killer's face.

Killer stopped, shook his head and started to sweat. He went limp, turned red, then green, and then finally, with his eyes rolling to the back of his head,
passed out cold.

‘Yes,' screamed the other kids.

‘He's scared!'

‘Too good for him, Roger!'

Doris and Roger are good friends these days. And do you know what? They've even had a kiss.

Doris cleans her teeth regularly, too. Although sometimes she finds it a bit hard.
Eleven times a day
is a lot.

When Penny and Michelle Dyer's dad started crying at the dinner table because he'd lost his job, they decided to do something about it.