The World's Awesomest Air-Barf (9 page)

He rubbed his leg once more.

‘A seed from the pod got stuck in my sock. I found it when I got home a week later, so I planted the seed in some soil and it grew. Ever since, I’ve been determined to be the first
person to get the Rotting Chowhabunga to bloom in a pot. That plant ended my football career, and I’m not going to let it beat me again!’

Matthew glanced nervously around the room. ‘Where is it?’

‘It’s in a pot, out near the vegetable patch,’ answered Grandma. ‘If your Grandad ever wins the battle, and it’s even
half
as stinky as he says it’ll
be, then I don’t want that thing anywhere near my house.’

‘How long have you been trying to make it flower?’ asked Matthew.

‘Thirty-nine years,’ replied Grandad. ‘I use soil from my compost heap, and feed it with the gunge from my barrel of liquid cowpats. The plant grows beautifully, but I
can’t find that one special ingredient that will make it flower.’ He shook his head thoughtfully. ‘I will one day though, you see if I don’t.’

Suddenly, Danny had an idea. He glanced over at Matthew and winked.

Grandad sighed. ‘I don’t have much luck with my veggies either. It’s the Puddlethorpe Annual Country Fair in a few days, and I never win first prize. Every year, Ernie Slack
manages to beat me into second place. I don’t know how he does it.’

After lunch, Danny and Matthew carried a bucket of swill across the farmyard to feed Fish, Chips and Peas, Grandma’s three little pigs. Then they went to check on the Pongy Potion, which
was brewing in a big metal bucket behind the pigsty. Its contents were cooking slowly in the sun, and for days the boys had been adding all sorts of ingredients to it.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Danny. ‘Do you reckon our Pongy Potion could be the special ingredient Grandad needs to make his Rotting Chowhabunga flower? Let’s add it
to the gunge in his cowpat barrel and see what happens.’

‘I don’t
want
it to flower, if it’ll turn us into stone,’ remarked Matthew.

‘Don’t be daft, Matt! You heard Grandad – it’s just a myth!’

Matthew frowned, but said nothing more.

‘Urgh!’ cried Danny, covering his face with his arm as they approached the bucket. ‘It’s getting
really
pongy!’

He held his nose, took off the lid, and the boys peeked inside. It looked like a giant had been sick in the bucket. It was filled almost to the brim with a thick, lumpy greeny-yellowy soup.
Wisps of green steam drifted slowly upwards from the surface.

Matthew reached into the pocket of his jeans, and unfolded a piece of paper:

‘I don’t remember putting that mushroom in there,’ said Danny, tipping in the beans they had saved from lunch.

‘We didn’t. That’s grown since yesterday,’ replied Matthew. He wrote ‘1 mushroom’ and ‘1 bowl of Grandma’s home-made baked beans’ at the
bottom of his list.

The Pongy Potion hissed angrily and a small bubble of gas popped on to the surface. Danny plunged a rusty old trowel into the concoction, and turned it over a few times. The Pongy Potion gurgled
and more bubbles burst from the brew. The smell smashed into Danny’s face, drilled up his nostrils and exploded through his brain. He reeled backwards, coughing and gasping for breath.

‘Quick!’ he spluttered. ‘Put the lid back on, before it gets out!’

Matthew slammed the lid on to the bucket and they scuttled away to safety.

‘Mega-ace!’ cried Danny.

‘Mega-cool!’ agreed Matthew.

Crag Top Farm
Puddlethorpe

Dear Mr Bibby

Today I sat in a bath full of worms for four hours and fifty-five minutes. We dug through Grandad’s gigantic steaming compost heap
and pulled out every worm we could find. It took us all morning. Matt lost count after 9,183.

I didn’t mind the worms wriggling around in my ears, but I had to stop when some of them started to crawl up my nose. In fact, they
were getting
everywhere
. It definitely wasn’t Ace.

Then we had to sneak all the worms out of the bath and back to the compost heap before Grandma realized what we were up to.

Is my four hours and fifty-five minutes in the worm bath a record?

Best wishes

Danny Baker

PS Grandad Nobby
is
the same person who broke the Blindfold One-foot Keepy-uppies Record. I’ve seen his certificate. It was
signed by Alfred Bibby – is that your dad?

PPS While I sat in the bath of worms, Matthew tried to do Blindfold Keepy-uppies. He’s only got up to three so far. It’s really
hard!

Dear Danny

Thanks for letting me know about your brave attempt on the Worm-bath Endurance record. You were exactly seventy-three hours short. The
record is held by Wolfgang Walnuss of Germany. He owned a worm farm in the town of Worms, and gave every single worm a name. His favourite was called Heidi.

Simply sitting in a bath of worms wasn’t enough for Wolfgang. He had a lifelong ambition to
swim
in worms in Worms.

On the 15 June 1993, Wolfgang filled a swimming pool with worms and plunged in, but after only half a length, he sank to the bottom of the
worm pool. Everyone watching searched desperately in the wriggling, writhing mass, but sadly Wolfgang Walnuss drowned in worms in Worms.

However, he
did
set a new Worm-swimming world record of 11.5 m, and his certificate is now on display in the Worms Town Museum. No
one has ever tried to beat it. As Wolfgang’s life and death show, one worm may be wonderfully wiggly, but dozens can be dangerously deadly.

Best wishes

Eric Bibby

Keeper of the Records

PS Alfred Bibby
was
my father. He became fascinated with record–breaking quite by chance one morning in 1951, when he
discovered the world’s biggest ever earwig (34.4 cm long) hiding in his left wellington boot. I have a photo of him somewhere holding up the whopper! If I can find it, I’ll send you a
copy.

That afternoon, the boys hurried across the farmyard with another bowl of Grandma’s baked beans to add to the Pongy Potion.

‘Don’t you think we’ve put enough of those beans in?’ asked Matthew.

‘You can never have too many beans, Matt,’ replied Danny. ‘And if we don’t put them in the potion, we’ll have to
eat
them.’

Just then they heard a clanking sound coming from behind the pigsty. When they looked, the lid of the bucket was jumping up and down, as though something inside was trying to get out. Two long,
greeny-yellow tentacles crept down the side of the bucket.

‘The Pong’s alive!’ yelled Danny.

With a bang, the lid shot a metre into the air and clattered on to the ground at the boys’ feet.

‘It’s escaping!’ cried Matthew.

Danny held his nose, raced to the bucket, and threw in the beans. ‘Come on, Matt, it’s time to chuck the Pong Monster into Grandad’s cowpat barrel before it gets
away.’

They grabbed the bucket, and raced across the garden to the vegetable patch. The big wooden barrel stood just inside the gate.