Agatha Parrot and the Mushroom Boy

  This book is dedicated to Flozzy Slippin because I never got her anything for her birthday.

  First published in paperback in Great Britain 2012

  by Egmont UK Limited,

  239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA

  Text copyright © 2012 Kjartan Poskitt

  Illustrations copyright © 2012 David Tazzyman

  The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

  ISBN 978 1 4052 5777 0

  eBook ISBN 978 1 7803 1126 5

  www.egmont.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by the CPI Group

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

  The gang!

  Bianca can do hippopotamus impressions on her trombone. Ha ha wicked!

  Warning! Martha’s mouth is like a bucket with teeth. If she’s hungry . . . keep back!

  Agatha (that’s me). The last time I had my hair cut, the lady found a snail. And that’s true.

  Ivy’s new skateboard only lasted 23 seconds. No brakes. No steering. It was awesome.

  Ellie still has her fairy outfit just in case they ever come into fashion.

  When you get to the word COO-EE you’re exactly halfway through the book. So if you want to save the second half of the book for later that’s where to stop.

  CONTENTS

  What is the Point of Big Brothers?

  The Start

  Twenty Seconds Later

  Next Door or Next Door to Next Door

  The Famous Cake of Odd Street

  BBC2 is a Chocolate Flower

  The Lucky Guess

  Mean Old Mum and Martha’s Milkshake

  The Silver Bullet

  Nasty Surprises

  If You Go Down to the Woods Today . . .

  Who’s Laughing Now?

  The Ending

  How to Make a Cake

  What is the Point of Big Brothers?

  Before we start, have you got a big brother? If you do then you’re going to LOVE this book. Even if you don’t have one, I bet you’ll be nodding as you read it saying to yourself, ‘Well done Agatha, wahoo! Go for it girl . . .’ especially right at the end when James gets turned into a mushroom. Oh, sorry about that, that’s supposed to be the surprise ending. You’ll have to forget the mushroom bit now until you get to it.

  (Gosh, I just had a thought – you might actually be a big brother yourself. But if you are I bet you’re really cool and always offer your sweets round and never hog the computer to play stupid video games. So this book isn’t at all about you! I promise promise promise it isn’t, so keep reading.)

  Anyway, my name is Agatha Jane Parrot and thanks for reading this book! As you might have guessed I HAVE got a big brother who’s called James. He gets called some other things too but the old bloke who is typing this story out for me says we’re not allowed to put words like that in a book or you wouldn’t be allowed to read it ha ha!

  It’s very hard to think of anything good about having a big brother, and if you don’t believe me then ask the QUEEN. If she had a big brother then she wouldn’t be queen, because he would get to be king instead, even if she was really nice and he was totally horrible. The big brother king could choose which bedroom he wanted in the palace and he’d get all the best jobs like launching ships and going to see brand new films. Even at dinner time they’d never take turns as to who gets the sauce first, it would always be him.

  I bet the Queen would be desperate to turn her big brother into a mushroom because then he’d be King Mushroom the First ha ha! (Sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you about the mushroom bit so you’ll just have to forget it again.)

  Of course nobody minds having LITTLE brothers. My friend Ellie Slippin at number 9 has two twin ones and they’re dead funny because like all little kids their heads are a bit too big for their bodies so when they run they can’t do corners very fast and they end up banging into the wall BAM! Later on in the story there’s a bit where the twins both bang their heads on a bucket which is dead funny too but we haven’t got there yet.

  Unfortunately for me, James isn’t the little funny type of brother, he’s the big smelly evil type. Just to prove it, here’s a list of evil things he did last week with marks out of ten for evilnessity:

  MONDAY: He came in from football all muddy and then sat on MY bed and then Mum blamed ME for it (6/10).

  TUESDAY: He grabbed my packet of crisps and scrunched them up into mush before I could eat them (4/10).

  WEDNESDAY: When we were getting ready to go to school he stood outside the bathroom and twiddled the door handle all the time when I was inside which put me off doing anything and I ended up having to go out of class in the middle of quiet reading time and Ivy Malting who sits next to me held her breath all the time I was away which made everybody laugh when I came back because she was blue in the cheeks and rolling about which I admit was pretty funny so we love Ivy WAHOO GO IVY but we do NOT love James (9/10).

  THURSDAY: He spent all day just generally being a boy (2/10). (Actually he does this every day, but I know he can’t help it so I only gave him 2/10.)

  FRIDAY: He finished off the lemonade without asking, and then he did a big burp right in my face (7/10).

  Of course this is the sort of thing that everybody with a big brother has to put up with, but when it got to Saturday James did his most evil crime EVER. (It has to score 11/10 at least.)

  Before you look at the next chapter to read about it, don’t forget that you have to forget about James getting turned into a mushroom or it’ll ruin the end for you. Have you forgotten it? Not thinking about boys being turned into mushrooms? No? Good. Off we go then . . .

  The Start

  For me, seven o’clock on Saturday evenings can only mean one thing . . .

  Sing, Wiggle and Shine!

  It is absolutely the second best programme on the telly.

  Of course I never get to watch the FIRST BEST programme because that’s Celebrities at the Dentist and Mum always comes in and says, ‘I will NOT have you watching that rubbish,’ then she turns it off and sends me upstairs and THEN she puts it straight back on and curls up watching it with a box of chocolates.

  Oh well. When I’m a mum I’m not going to have kids. I’m going to get on with my own life and not go bothering other people just because they’re younger than me.

  Sing, Wiggle and Shine is for unfamous people who want to be famous. I’d watched every show in the series for the whole 26 weeks and at last – da-daddle-ah-da-da-daaaah – they’d got to the final! Along the way they’d kicked off about 200 losers including the bloke with the rabbit ears who hopped around singing Carrots Are a Bunny’s Best Friend, oh he was just so brilliant I wish they’d do t-shirts of him.

  Anyway, there I was sitting on the sofa and the last three people had just finished singing, wiggling and shining. I really wanted Sophie to win because Lauren had stupid earrings and Darren had his hairy chest showing which is hardly suitable for family viewing is it? It looked like he had a doormat stuffed up his shirt. Yuk. And anyway I felt sorry for Sophie because her shoe flew off in the dancing bit and then she forgot her words, and then she cried when she told everybody how poorly her hamster was so COME ON SOPHIE. Eeeek . . . it was all too exciting!

  The judges had got together in their very last judges’ huddle. That’s when they all put their heads together and whisper so it’s a good job
my friend Ellie’s not a judge as she’s always got nits and they’d all end up scratching ha ha!

  ‘And now we come to the big exciting moment!’ said Grin Sickly. He’s the presenter whose hair looks like a mouldy cycle helmet. Oh gosh I was so wound up I was biting the sofa cushion. ‘Tonight’s winner will become a huge international star! And to tell us who it is, will you please welcome last year’s winner . . .’

  BIG APPLAUSE.

  ‘Oh, sorry. He’ll be here in a minute, he’s still locking his bike and changing out of his overalls.’

  CLICK! That’s when the telly switched channel.

  Evil big brother James had sneaked into the living room, grabbed the remote control and then plonked himself in the armchair.

  ‘Turn that back!’ I shouted.

  ‘No way,’ he said. ‘The football’s on in five minutes.’

  ‘But they’re just about to announce the winner.’

  ‘Tough. You’ve been watching for ages. My turn.’

  Before I knew it, I’d thrown myself at James to get the remote off him but YUK he shoved it under his bottom and sat on it. I tried to drag him off the chair, but he was grabbing on to the arms too tightly.

  ‘Please James, turn it back. PLEASE!’

  ‘No way,’ said James. ‘It’s the adverts. Football’s on straight after the adverts. Besides I like the adverts.’

  You see what I mean about big brothers? Evil evil evil. And selfish. The only chance I had was to run into the kitchen to get Dad. He was baking one of his monster cakes for our school fete Guess the Weight of the Cake competition. There was a big baking tin full of sloppy cake mix in the middle of the table, and he was at the sink washing out the mixing bowl.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Dad. ‘I know, I heard.’

  ‘Then make him give the remote back,’ I said.

  ‘James!’ Dad shouted. ‘Let her see the results, then you can turn it back.’

  I could hear the TV saying what fun it is to have car insurance.

  ‘He’s not turning it over Dad,’ I said. ‘It’ll be too late now.’

  ‘JAMES. Turn it over.’

  But the TV just went on to talk about a sort of shampoo that makes men give flowers to ladies.

  ‘JAMES,’ shouted Dad. ‘You can watch football in two minutes IF Agatha can watch her programme NOW. Otherwise I’ll empty my ELECTRIC SHAVER out all over your pillow and you’ll scratch yourself to DEATH in your sleep tonight. And I mean it.’

  The TV went off then James shouted through from the living room, ‘Here then you BIG BABY.’ Without looking he hurled the remote in through the kitchen door.

  OW! It cracked me right on the head.

  Dad was so busy admiring how shiny the mixing bowl was that he didn’t see what happened and so I didn’t bother telling him. He’d only have come up with one of his silly made-up punishments. And besides, I knew I’d missed the end of the programme.

  Thunk thunk thunk . . . creak . . . SLAM!

  James had run upstairs and shut himself in his bedroom. How pathetic. He should have known that he can run but he can’t hide from Agatha. He knew that he’d been a bully with the remote and therefore he was going to suffer. Oh yes he was indeed. Sounds of dramatic music: Dah-dah-dahhhhh!

  (Read that last bit again out loud. Oh go on, don’t be a wimp, you know you want to. This is the bit I mean:

  Sounds of dramatic music: Dah-dah-dahhhhh!

  If you’re in your classroom having quiet reading time and you just did that nice and LOUD then you’re awesome. Wahoo! Right, on with the next chapter, although the time has only moved forwards by about twenty seconds . . .)

  Twenty Seconds Later

  I was in the living room pulling all the cushions off the sofa and the armchairs. The idea was to make Dad come in and ask me what the matter was but he didn’t, so I had to make some sad little sighing noises too. Dad still didn’t come in, so I had to make the sad little sighing noises louder and louder until they sounded like this: HOOOOOO-NAH. Yes I know that sounds more like a hippopotamus but at least it worked because at last Dad stuck his head in through the doorway.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘I thought you wanted to watch your programme.’

  ‘I do,’ I said all sweet and innocent. ‘But I don’t know where James has hidden the remote. Oh well . . .’ dejected sigh ‘. . . it’ll all be finished now. I’ll just have to watch the repeat on Monday. Or the backstage special on Tuesday or the highlights programme on Friday.’

  Dad started picking up the cushions, feeling them for remote control-sized bumps, and then chucking them back. ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘I want to watch the film later. Where is that remote? James? JAMES?’

  Upstairs James’s bedroom door creaked open, and soon he was back down in the living room getting a good grilling. ‘I passed it to Agatha,’ he protested.

  ‘But I was in the kitchen,’ I said. ‘How could you pass it to me unless you had the longest arms in the world?’

  James was not looking happy at all. ‘Well, I sort of passed it,’ he said. ‘It’ll be in there somewhere.’

  ‘Then get it now please,’ said Dad, and then he sat down in the armchair and opened his newspaper in front of his face in a daddish sort of way.

  James went into the kitchen. He looked along the worktop, he looked under the table. Tee hee, no chance! He opened the fridge and looked inside, then he got the lid off the rubbish bin and poked around in that. Ha ha ha! Of course I was only having a secret inside-my-head laugh. All James could see was me standing by the door looking serious.

  ‘What did you do with it?’ he demanded.

  ‘You mean the remote? Don’t ask me. You’re the one who had it.’

  ‘You should have caught it,’ snapped James crossly. Oh deary me, the pressure was getting to him.

  ‘Caught it?’ I gasped in astonishment. ‘You mean you threw it? Then maybe it went in the sink.’

  ‘I hardly threw it at all,’ said James nervously, but all the same he went to look. The sink was full of sticky cloudy water so he pulled the plug out and gradually it drained away. Yuk! There was just one teaspoon lying in the bottom. For a moment James looked happy, because he knew he’d have been in real trouble if the remote had landed in the water. It might have short-circuited and zapped itself to bits ha ha!

  James was looking round blankly again. Come on James, I thought to myself. Get that little baked-bean brain of yours going and THINK! Where is the very worst place that remote could have landed? Even worse than the sink?

  It was no good, he was never going to manage to work it out for himself so I had to give him a clue. I took a long deep sniff . . .

  ‘Hmmm, that cake smells really nice Dad,’ I said. ‘How long before it comes out of the oven?’

  ‘It’ll be a few minutes yet,’ said Dad’s newspaper.

  If James’s head had been a giant light bulb it would have suddenly come on – Ping! He spun round to stare at the oven and whispered to me: ‘When did Dad put the cake in?’

  ‘About the same time as you were stomping upstairs. Why?’

  ‘Oh no!’ His lip was trembling. ‘And before that, was the cake mixture just sitting on the table?’

  ‘Of course it was,’ I said, keeping it innocent. ‘Where else would it be?’

  ‘So the remote must have landed in the mixture, and now it’s in the . . . in the . . .’

  ‘In the what, James?’

  But of course he didn’t need to answer. He was staring at the oven so hard that his eyes were almost out of his head HA HA HA!

  My work was done. It was time for Agatha to casually walk out of the kitchen. Tumty tum. Tee tumtum. Tum.

  Next Door or Next Door to Next Door

  The good thing about living at number 5 Odd Street is that all my best friends are either next door or next door to next door.

  I desperately HAD to know who’d won Sing, Wiggle and Shine, so while the cake was baking I went round to number 7 and rang
the bell. There was a big noise like thunder BAM BAM BAM as mad Ivy came jumping down the stairs four at a time and then the door flew open. (That’s the same Ivy as the Ivy who turned blue back on page 10.)

  ‘It’s AGATHA!’ said Ivy and then she grabbed me and gave me a big hug as if she hadn’t seen me for a million years even though she sits next to me at school all day.

  ‘Hey Ivy,’ I said. ‘Did you see who won Sing, Wiggle and Shine?’

  ‘When’s it on?’ asked Ivy.

  ‘It’s BEEN on,’ I told her. ‘Didn’t you see it?’

  ‘Aw no, I missed it,’ said Ivy. ‘Who won?’

  So that was useless, so then me and Ivy went to number 9. Their doorbell is broken, but you don’t need doorbells when you’ve got Ivy.

  ‘Hey ELLIE!’ shouted Ivy through the letter box. ‘Are you in there? Did you see Sing, Wiggle and Shine?’

  The door opened and Ellie was there holding her tiny baby sister who is just SO cute. The baby was only wearing a nappy and was wrapped in an old sweatshirt. Her little toes sticking off the end of her feet looked just like Rice Krispies and she had the most brilliantly snotty nose.

  ‘I had to give Bubbles a bath,’ said Ellie proudly. ‘She had jam stuck in her tummy button.’

  ‘A jammy tummy button? Oh that’s well cool!’ said Ivy.

  Bah. A jammy tummy button might be well cool but it didn’t help me so next we went to number 1. Bianca opened the door holding her trombone and we asked her if she knew who’d won.

  ‘Sorry, I was traying my plum bone,’ she said.

  ‘Eh?’ said me and Ivy.

  ‘Like this,’ said Bianca and then blew a big blast BWARB!

  ‘Oh!’ we said. ‘She was PLAYing her TROMbone!’