The World’s Worst Children Read online

  PETER PICKER

  Peter closed his eyes in terror as the SNOT-SPHERE rolled over him and plucked him clean off the ground.

  “NOOOOOO!!!”

  The top of the boy’s head was instantly embedded in the ball as it thundered its way off back round the Earth.

  But Her Majesty the Queen was angry that everyone had seen her on the loo so she ordered her palace guards to fire their cannon at the SNOT-SPHERE.

  “Fire at will!”

  The cannonball zooooomed towards the giant bogey

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  K A B

  OOM !

  The SNOT-SPHERE into pieces exploded that began to fall back down to earth, returning everyone and everything to their rightful places.

  Except one boy.

  Peter was still stuck in a huge chunk of snot. This piece flew through the air, only to land on top of St Paul’s Cathedral.

  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  His parents visited every Sunday and hurled him titbits from the ground. Peter Picker remained stuck to the spire for the rest of his life, upside down in his own GIANT bogey.

  Which is, of course, what can happen if YOU pick your nose.

  Next time, have a blow.

  SNOTTING DISGUSTING!

  Grubby GERTRUDE

  DELIGHTED LOOK ON HER FACE

  STINKING SOCKS

  CLOUD OF PONG

  GRIMY UNWASHED CLOTHES

  Grubby

  GERTRUDE

  Do you know an extremely dirty child? A grimy girl? A foul-smelling boy? However dirty and stinky they might be, they could never compare to Grubby Gertrude. This was a girl who delighted in being the dirtiest child in the world! Soap and water were complete strangers to Gertrude. Everywhere she went, a huge cloud of dust and dirt and pong followed her.

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  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  Needless to say, everything Grubby Gertrude touched became grubby too. Her schoolbooks were splattered and stained with unspeakable things. And, despite her mother’s protestations, Gertrude refused to let her clothes be washed, so in no time they became encrusted with dirt too.

  However, the grubbiest thing in Gertrude’s life was her bedroom. Although her mother begged her to tidy it, Gertrude never, ever did.

  She simply dropped everything on the floor

  It was as if her room was her own personal rubbish dump.

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  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  Over time the pile of pongy trainers, snotty tissues, half-eaten egg sandwiches and hamster droppings that had gone white and crumbly* came up to Gertrude’s knees.

  The only way Gertrude could make it to her mucky bed was to wade through tons of rubbish. The bedroom carpet was a distant memory: it had not been seen for years. But, being one of the world’s WORST children, Gertrude loved living knee-deep in filth. The grubbier the better.

  Now let me take a moment to tell you about Gertrude’s feet. They were so grubby they looked like those of a troll.

  TROLL

  Fungus

  Overgrown Dirty Toenails

  GERTRUDE

  * Doo-Doo the hamster had long since disappeared.

  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  Each foot was covered in a green fungus, and she had long curling toenails that she refused to cut. As a result, her feet smelled even worse than runny cheese that had gone off decades ago. When Gertrude peeled each sock off at the end of the day, she would lift it to her nose.

  “Mmmmmmmmmm!” the girl would sigh in pleasure

  You or I would have screamed at the smell or, at the very least, projectile-vomited. Not Gertrude. She was over the moon that her socks were the pongiest in the world. Then, like everything else, Gertrude would simply drop them on top of the ever-growing mountain of muck on her bedroom floor.

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  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  “Please tidy your room this instant!” Gertrude’s mother would plead. The poor lady was in torment.

  She prided herself on keeping the rest of her house utterly spotless. If a single biscuit crumb dropped on to the carpet, Mother would get the vacuum cleaner out. The grubbiness of Gertrude’s bedroom was absolutely horrifying to her. How had she, a lady who always kept a vase of fresh flowers on the dining table, given birth to a child who chose to live in a… swamp?

  “BOG OFF!” Gertrude would reply with a laugh.

  She knew that her mother (always immaculately turned out with her hair in a swirl and a string of pearls round her neck) loathed her saying the word ‘BOG’. So Gertrude always, always, always made sure she used it when speaking to her.

  “Daughter! I forbid you from using that foul word!” Mother would wail.

  “What? ‘BOG’?” Gertrude would answer mischievously.

  “Yes. It’s a frightful word that has no place in my otherwise delightful home. Now, young lady, I need you to tidy your room this instant!”

  “BOG OFF!”Gertrude would shout back.

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  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  If the girl wouldn’t tidy her room then her mother decided that she would. As soon as Gertrude left for school one morning, Mother put her plan into action. Armed with thick rubber gloves and a roll of a hundred pink perfumed bin bags, she hurtled upstairs with her sleeve over her nose and mouth (such was the STINKORAMA).

  “CHARGE!”

  she bellowed as if going into battle.

  With all her might Mother hurled herself against her daughter’s bedroom door.

  “HUMPH!”

  But the door would only open a tiny bit. The pile of grot had grown to waist height.

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  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  “ARGH!” screamed Mother as she sneaked a peek through the crack in the door at the sea of filth. “URGH!” she bellowed as the pong hit her smack on the nose.

  The problem was that, try as she might, Gertrude’s mother couldn’t get inside her daughter’s room. Gertrude could just about squeeze her little body through and surf over the rubbish. For her mother that was impossible.

  The lady was about to admit defeat when…

  PING!

  …she had an idea.

  Keeping the door wedged open with her shoe, she hopped back down the stairs to grab her vacuum cleaner. She pushed the long hose of the machine through the gap in Gertrude’s door, and flicked the switch.

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  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  BUZZ!

  The lady was delighted

  as the nozzle started

  sucking things up…

  A full carton of

  chocolate milkshake

  that had turned rancid.

  A pus-filled plaster.

  A lump of mouldy cheese.

  Mother smiled to herself. By the time her daughter was back from school, she might just have the rubbish down to ankle height.

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  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  At that moment the vacuum cleaner made an awful droning noise…

  UGUGUGUGUG!

  …before there was a sound of metal being crunched. CRUNK!

  The vacuum cleaner shook violently and exploded.

  BANG!

  Mother was covered from head to toe in all the things the machine had sucked up.

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  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  “The horror! The horror!” she wailed at being caked in dirt, dust and rancid chocolate milkshake among other things.

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  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  She bent down to examine her vacuum cleaner. It had been smashed to pieces.

  Something EXTREMELY big and strong must have broken it.

  Was there something lurking under the rubbish in her daughter’s bedroom that could have done that?

  “Hell-o?” called Mother. There was no answer.

  The lady dismissed it as a foolish thought. The vacuum cleaner must have somehow destroyed itself. She staggered to the bathroom, desperate to get clean. When Gertrude ret
urned from school her mother was

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  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  still in the bath, her twenty-seventh that day. Before the lady could say anything, the girl had dashed up the stairs and squeezed herself back into her bedroom.

  Using an old plastic tray from a fast-food restaurant, Gertrude surfed across the rubbish to her bed. There she peeled off her damp socks. A pair that had been worn hundreds of times without ever being washed. Gertrude was delighted to see that fungus had begun to appear on them.

  Rummaging deep down in the murky depths of her muck, the girl found another sock that she had dropped there many years before.

  This one had a number of unusual- looking growths sprouting out of it – like misshapen vegetables from distant solar systems. Gertrude realised her grubbiness had reached such an epic level that things were growing out of it.

  However, nothing could prepare the girl for what was about to happen…

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  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  Lying in her filthy bed that night, between sheets that were slimy with grime, Gertrude noticed something MOVING AROUND in the mucky darkness.

  Surely the girl’s mind was playing tricks on her.

  Was she dreaming?

  “BOG OFF!” she called out, just in case there really was something hiding down there.

  Whatever it was moved again.

  The smaller bits of rubbish on the grot-surface

  rustled as something SWAM underneath..

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  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  This was no dream. Or even nightmare. This was really happening. There was something living UNDER the rubbish in Grubby Gertrude’s bedroom.

  Could it be a rat?

  No, this thing seemed too big to be a rat.

  A giant cockroach perhaps?

  No, it didn’t SCUTTLE like a cockroach.

  Surely not a deadly snake?

  No, this thing didn’t hiss…

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  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  It growled.

  “GRRRRRRR!”

  There was only one explanation.

  This was some other kind of… creature.

  A creature that had hatched out of the murky depths of the girl’s muck.

  A creature previously unknown to humankind.

  In a desperate attempt to keep the thing at bay, Gertrude bounced on her bed until she reached high

  enough to leap up on to the top of her wardrobe. There she had stockpiled some grot for a special occasion. No matter, she needed it this instant.

  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  With all her might she threw down

  some half-empty yogurt pots,

  a stash of pepperoni pizza crusts

  elephant dung that

  she had collected on

  a school visit to the zoo.

  and a bag of

  Next, Gertrude threw herself off the wardrobe to land heavily on top of her new pile of rubbish, trying to squash the thing underneath.

  Little did the girl know that all she was really doing was feeding the creature.

  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  After stamping about for a while, Gertrude had a lie-down on her bed once more. Exhausted, she closed her eyes.

  But, in that place between awake and asleep, Gertrude heard the growling noise again.

  “GRRRRRR!”

  The girl sat bolt upright in her bed and shouted, “BOG OFF! Whatever is under there, can you just

  BOG RIGHT OFF?!”

  Her mother must have heard this as she rushed out of the bathroom, her frilly pink dressing gown wafting as she ran.

  “GERTRUDE? Is everything all right in there, dear?!” she called from the other side of the door.

  “Yeah. Just BOG OFF!”

  “No, I will not, you foul-mouthed child! Now tell me, who were you talking to?” demanded Mother.

  “YOU! NOW BOG RIGHT OFF!!!”

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  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  Once again the lady tried to push against the bedroom door. But the mountain of grot was even higher than before and now it was impossible to open the door AT ALL.

  “I want you to tidy your room first thing in the morning!” declared Mother. Then she rushed back to the bathroom to try and scrub the last of the rancid chocolate milkshake off her body.

  In Gertrude’s bedroom, there was a distinctive sound of munching.

  MUNCH! MUNCH! MUNCH!

  It sounded as if the creature was devouring everything in sight.

  “BUUUUURRRPPP!!!”

  Then, from out of the sea of filth, it finally emerged…

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  …THE RUBBISH

  MONSTER.

  It wasn’t that it was a rubbish monster – it was actually terrifying.

  It was called a Rubbish Monster because it was made of rubbish.

  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  Every part of it was made from something the girl had deposited on her bedroom floor.

  Two ears sat atop the monster’s head that had once been a pair of Gertrude’s pongy socks.

  Its eyes were a couple of slices of pepperoni from an old, furry pizza.

  The monster’s mouth was a mould-encrusted burger.

  Its bulging body was made up of everything from soggy PE kit and snotty tissues to sweaty Wellington boots and half-sucked sweets covered in dog hair.

  All bound together by manky plasters.

  It was a truly MONSTROUS sight. Which is what you would expect from a monster.

  “BOG OFF!” shouted Gertrud

  She couldn’t believe her eyes.

  Somehow her rubbish had fused together to create a mutant being.

  Pacing the girl’s bedroom, the monster began scooping up the rest of the mess that Gertrude had dropped on the floor.

  THE WORLD’S WORST CHILDREN

  It was quick work as the monster’s hands were enormous. Each scoop was then stuffed into its mouth.

  Old damp magazines, dog-chewed slippers,

  withered balloons, a long-forgotten dolly and dirty socks.

  Mouthfuls and mouthfuls of dirty socks.

  The monster loved Gertrude’s dirty socks. As it ate and ate and ate, it grew at an incredible rate. In no time at all, the monster was so big its head hit the ceiling. BOINK!

  “Carry on eating, Monster!” ordered Gertrude, a smug smile spreading across her grubby face, because she had realised something…

  Her mother had told her to tidy her room thousands of times.

  GRUBBY GERTRUDE

  Now a monster was doing it FOR her!

  In no time at all, the room was perfectly clean and tidy. Finally you could see the carpet again. And now that the monster had cleared her bedroom Gertrude could start filling it with rubbish all over again.

  “Thank you so much,” she said. “You may kindly BOG OFF now.”

  But the monster didn’t go. Oh no. It still looked HUNGRY. It turned to face the girl. Its gruesome pepperoni eyes focused directly on Gertrude.

  “Noooooo!” she pleaded as it advanced towards her.

  That the monster moved so slowly made it all the more terrifying.

  PLOD. PLOD. PLOD.

  “BOG OFF!” she shouted.

  It was too late. The monster picked Gertrude up and swallowed her in one GULP.

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