The World’s Worst Children Read online

  Petula was even in motion as she slept. Sometimes the other girls at her posh boarding school, Modesty Place, would hear a noise in the dead of night. They would peek out from under their bedcovers and see Petula ballet-dancing across the dormitory with her eyes closed.

  One day, Petula’s rather grand headmistress announced that the girls of Modesty Place were to go on an awfully special trip.

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  “Quiet, girls!” ordered the lady as she stood on stage at assembly. Miss Prigg’s grey hair was styled in a magnificent bouffant hairdo and a pair of half-moon spectacles hung from her neck on a gold chain. If she was about to tell someone off (which was often), the spectacles would be lifted up to her eyes so she could stare her victim down and give them the willies.

  “Now, girls, we are going to take a school trip to somewhere I – your beloved headmistress – have chosen myself. We are going to visit my favourite PORCELAIN museum. Needless to say, I expect you to be on your absolute best behaviour. I don’t want any mishaps.”

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  Suddenly all eyes were on Petula.

  OH NO! thought the good girls sitting in the front row.

  OH YES! thought the bad girls sitting in the back row.

  To make matters worse (or better, depending on whether you were a good or bad girl), Petula was bouncing up and down on her seat like it was a space hopper.

  BOING!

  BOING!

  BOING!

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  “PORCELAIN has long been a personal passion of mine,” continued the headmistress, who loved making lengthy speeches. “Now I – your beloved headmistress – want to share that passion with you. This museum is the best in Europe. Every single piece on display is a priceless antique. There shall be no ‘accidents’. Do I make myself clear?”

  There was a faint murmur from the pupils.

  “I SAID DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!” she bellowed.

  “Yes, Headmistress,” chimed the girls in unison.

  “Excellent! Now, Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion, I need to see you in my study right away.”

  The girl glowed as red as a tomato driving a fire engine. What had she done wrong now?

  Surely the time when she accidentally spun backwards into the science block had been put behind her? Yes, the experiment taking place that day went badly wrong. Yes, there was still a huge hole in the floor where the acid burned through it. But Petula swore it was an accident.

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  Yes, her triple jump on sports day became an octuple jump (taking in eight different moves) and resulted in Petula karate-kicking the local mayor, sending

  him tumbling off the winners’ podium.

  But again the girl insisted it was an accident.

  And yes, of course, who could forget the time at the school Christmas Carol Concert when Petula couldn’t stand still in church, cartwheeled up the aisle and sent the vicar flying headfirst into the choir?

  But these were all accidents.

  It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t sit still.

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  Petula even had a note from her mother to prove it.

  To Whom it may Concern, My Darling Daughter, Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion, cannot stay still for more than a second. It is not her fault so she must not be punished in any way if she causes damage to property, buildings, people or animals. Please take great care of my Darling Daughter. Yours truthfully, Petula’s Mother

  With some trepidation, the girl knocked on the door of the headmistress’s study.

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

  “Come!” barked the headmistress from inside.

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  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK!

  Petula’s hand did not stop knocking.

  “I SAID COME!” came an angry-sounding voice.

  Still Petula couldn’t stop her hand from knocking.

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” roared the headmistress.

  Miss Prigg yanked open the door and Petula KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCKED the lady slap-bang on her nose.

  BOINK!

  “Ow!”

  “Sorry, Miss Prigg,” replied the girl with a hint of a smile. It was amusing to see the lady fuming.

  “COME INTO MY STUDY THIS INSTANT!” ordered the headmistress.

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  Petula forward-rolled into the room, which Miss Prigg always had kept spotless. In fact an old cleaner was in there at that moment, busily polishing some school trophies on a table.

  “You – out!” ordered the headmistress. Miss Prigg was curt to anyone she considered below her.

  The cleaner picked up her dusters and shuffled towards the door.

  “Quickly!” shouted Miss Prigg, and the poor old dear picked up her pace until at last she disappeared.

  “Now take a seat, Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion. ” said the headmistress.

  Petula did just that. She took a seat, and danced round the study with it.

  “I meant, sit down!” barked Miss Prigg.

  The girl whisked and whirled the chair to the floor, and slowly lowered herself on to it.

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  As soon as her bottom touched the chair she felt an overwhelming urge to bounce up and down on it, so she did.

  “Be still!” demanded Miss Prigg. But Petula continued to bounce and down, the chair squeaking along rhythmically with her bounces.

  BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE

  SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!

  “Now, needless to say, I want you on your absolute best behaviour during the school trip.”

  “Of course, Miss Prigg. As if I would be anything else.”

  BOUNCE SQUEAK! BOUNCE SQUEAK! BOUNCE SQUEAK!

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  The headmistress was not convinced. She lifted her half-moon spectacles up to her eyes and studied the girl.

  “The truth is, you have left a trail of destruction behind you wherever you’ve been at Modesty Place, which is the finest girls’ boarding school in the country. I hardly need remind you of the incident in the school dining hall yesterday lunchtime. You began by juggling huge bowls of trifle. Before long they were z z z o o o m m i n g through the air heading

  straight for the teachers’ table.”

  “At least it saved you all the bother of queuing for dessert, Headmistress,” replied the little girl. If this was designed to stop Miss Prigg from becoming further enraged, it failed miserably.

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  “I WAS COVERED FROM HEAD TO TOE IN TRIFLE!” boomed the headmistress, her face now boiling with fury, her teeth on the verge of gnashing. “Only this morning I found a piece of jelly in my ear.”

  “Did you eat it, miss?” enquired the girl politely.

  “No! I did NOT eat it!”

  BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE

  SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!

  This noise was really distracting the headmistress now, but she pressed on. “Then there was the time you caused chaos in your art class. You jiggled and wiggled and, before we knew it, there was paint sprayed across the walls, windows and ceiling…”

  “Our art teacher, Miss Splurge, remarked that she actually rather liked the redecoration.”

  The headmistress chose to ignore this smarty-pants reply.

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  “And the time when you managed to release ALL the lacrosse balls from the games cupboard. Miss Heft, your poor PE teacher, wobbled over and was carried off down the pitch on a sea of them!”

  “I do hope they eventually find her,” remarked Petula.

  “I DO TOO!” bellow
ed the headmistress.

  BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE

  SQUEAK! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!

  Miss Prigg couldn’t take it a moment longer. “WILL YOU BE STILL?!” she ordered.

  “Sorry, miss,” muttered the girl. For a moment Petula was still. But the moment soon passed.

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  There was a wobble, then a wibble, ending up in a huge wubble. The girl performed a dive roll on to the floor, before finishing her acrobatics display with a handstand.

  “Now, Miss Perpetual-Motion,” purred Miss Prigg with a new hint of menace in her voice, “I need the trip to the PORCELAIN museum to pass without incident or Modesty Place – founded one thousand years ago by a nun, no less – could become a laughing stock.”

  “Of course, miss,” said the UPSIDE-DOWN girl who was now scuttling about the headmistress’s office on her hands like a performing poodle.

  “So I have ordered Modesty Place ’s science teacher, Professor Blink, to come up with a contraption to stop you causing any damage to the priceless antiques.”

  Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion did not like the sound of this at all. “I will be fine without it, thank you, miss,” she said. The girl’s legs were now doing scissor kicks.

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  As she spoke, her legs sent a pile of school reports

  flying off the headmistress’s desk.

  They looked like a flock of sea gulls taking flight.

  “No, you will not!” barked the headmistress.

  “What is this contraption, miss?”

  “Oh, you’ll see!” said Miss Prigg ominously, desperately trying to pluck the sheets of paper from the air.

  “NOW GET OUT!”

  With that, Petula cartwheeled out of the study, booting the newly polished trophies to the floor as she went.

  CRASH!

  BANG!

  WALLOP!

  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  * * *

  The day of the school trip arrived, and Professor Blink proudly wheeled her invention out of the science block and into the playground.

  “There we are, Headmistress!” said the lady, still sporting her white lab coat and safety goggles. “Just as you asked.”

  “It’s marvellous, Professor!” replied Miss Prigg.

  It looked like a giant toy for a hamster.

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  The science teacher had created a huge, round, see-through inflatable ball, large enough for someone to be placed inside. Of course, that someone was Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion.

  “I am proud to finally unveil my invention!” announced the professor. “I have named it

  the Bouncing BOOM-BOOM Ball.

  “It is destined to stop jiggling children all over the world from destroying everything in their paths.”

  “KEEP IT BRIEF!” ordered the headmistress, who only liked the sound of her own voice.

  “Yes, yes, Headmistress,” replied the science teacher hurriedly. “It’s very simple – the child who cannot stay still is stuffed in here,” she began, indicating a small hatch in the ball. “Then, when the child does fidget, the Bouncing BOOM-BOOM Ball will simply bounce off any precious objects nearby, causing zero damage.”

  At least that was the idea.

  “Splendid!” said the headmistress. “You may go!”

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  It was a long coach ride to the PORCELAIN museum. Despite the driver’s protestations, the headmistress insisted that Petula travel in the boot so she couldn’t cause any damage on the way.

  As soon as they arrived, the headmistress stuffed Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion into the Bouncing BOOM-BOOM Ball. Then she led her party of schoolgirls inside the museum as Petula bounced along, bringing up the rear. Despite her initial reluctance, once inside the Bouncing BOOM-BOOM Ball the girl began to enjoy it. A smile spread across her face.

  The museum was a treasure trove of all things

  PORCELAIN.

  Porcelain dogs,

  porcelain cats,

  porcelain plates,

  porcelain vases,

  porcelain teapots,

  porcelain candlestick holders,

  porcelain porcelain.

  Every single object was an antique

  and worth a fortune.

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  “Now, girls, needless to say, there is absolutely no touching of any of the items on display,” announced the headmistress. “I know most of your mamas and papas are filthy rich since they send you to Modesty Place , which I am proud to say is the most expensive school in the country. However, if you do touch anything and cause it to break, you will have to pay for it yourselves, every last penny. Does your beloved headmistress make herself clear?”

  The pupils murmured.

  “I SAID, DOES YOUR BELOVED HEADMISTRESS MAKE HERSELF CLEAR?!”

  “Yes, miss,” replied the girls.

  “Now gather round!”

  The girls huddled round a plinth. On it sat a large bowl, with hundreds of tiny flowers hand- painted round the outside. Petula bounced up and down in her giant ball to try to get a better look. Miss Prigg raised her half-moon spectacles to her eyes.

  “This bowl was made in Paris. It once belonged to the last queen of France, Marie Antoinette, and dates back to the eighteenth century.”

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  Suddenly, in her eagerness to see, Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion bounced so hard that the Bouncing BOOM-BOOM Ball hit the ceiling.

  From there it rebounded, gathering speed at an

  alarming rate. Now it was going

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  WHAM!

  up and down, up and down, up

  and down, shaking the room as it

  bounce

  bounce

  bounced.

  BOOM!

  BOOM!

  BOOM!

  The head mistress gasped in horror. Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion was bouncing dangerously close to the priceless PORCELAIN pieces

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  As the Bouncing BOOM-BOOM Ball bounced closer and closer, Miss Prigg stretched out her long thin arms and gave it a shove. This caused the contraption to start ricocheting off the walls. As all the other schoolgirls watched with their mouths open, it walloped off the priceless PORCELAIN without damaging it at all, and then bounced back into the headmistress –

  BASH!

  sending her tumbling into a PORCELAIN penguin posing on a plinth.

  “Noooo!”

  she screamed.

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  The penguin went flying through the air

  It was an unusual sight as penguins are, of course, flightless birds. But the wonder of seeing such a bird f inally taking flight was soon brought to an abrupt halt. The PORCELAIN penguin smashed against the wall…

  CRASH!

  ….shattering into hundreds of tiny pieces. All the schoolgirls gasped in horror and delight.

  “You’ll pay for that, Perpetual-Motion!” shouted the headmistress.

  “But I didn’t touch the priceless PORCELAIN, Headmistress! You did!” reasoned the girl.

  Needless to say, this made Miss Prigg blaze with rage. She chased after Miss Petula Perpetual-Motion as the girl bounce-bounce-bounced off to the side of room.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!