Laugh Your Head Off Again and Again Read online

  ‘That’s appalling!’ said Lucy.

  ‘I know,’ said Grandmother. ‘It is all very well to sit in the gutter if you want to weep in despair, or if your shoes are dirty and you need to wash them off in rain water. But if you are going to eat lollies it is much better to sit underneath a bush. Then you are much less likely to be interrupted by someone wanting to share with you.’

  ‘No, I meant it is appalling for them to spend all the rent money on lollies,’ said Lucy.

  Now Grandmother looked confused. ‘But what else could they do? If you are going to be homeless it is important to be well fed.’

  Lucy was about to argue further, but Peter touched her hand and shook his head ever so slightly. There was no way Grandmother would ever see reason in an argument against eating dangerously huge amounts of sugary foods.

  ‘So having had a lovely little snack, the three young pigs set off to find somewhere to live,’ continued Grandmother. ‘Of course they could not live together.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Because they were brothers and sister,’ said Grandmother. ‘So naturally they fought terribly.’

  ‘But we’re brothers and sister,’ said Peter, ‘and we don’t fight terribly.’

  ‘Yes, but that is because you have my mature guiding influence,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘You get into fights all the time,’ Luke pointed out.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Grandmother, ‘which saves you having to fight, which is why you can get along so peaceably together. Anyway, Nathan, Gerald and Sophie were not as lucky as you. They bickered. So as they set off down the road they were looking for three separate places to live.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Peter. ‘Nathan built a house of straw.’

  ‘How did you know?!’ asked Grandmother, taken aback.

  ‘I’ve heard a similar story before,’ admitted Peter.

  ‘Well, you haven’t got it quite right,’ said Grandmother. ‘He didn’t build his house of straw. He built it of drinking straws.’

  ‘What?’ said Luke (rudely because, as you know, you should always say ‘I beg your pardon,’ but he was so shocked he forgot his manners).

  ‘You see Nathan could not afford to buy any straw, being penniless, but he could go around to all the fast food establishments, milk bars and sandwich shops in town and, when nobody was looking, take three or four straws from their dispensers. It took him several months. But eventually he had enough drinking straws to build a two-bedroom bungalow with a rumpus room and an entertaining deck,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘He built an entire house out of drinking straws?’ marvelled Peter.

  ‘Yes, it was jolly good fun actually,’ said Grandmother. ‘True, they did crackle a bit under foot as you walked about, but you could run and bounce into the walls like a bouncy castle. And the walls were made with bending straws, so you could lower the ceiling when you needed to change a light bulb.’

  Grandmother stopped at this point and started eating cake.

  ‘Aren’t you going to tell us the rest of the story?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘What was wrong with that story?’ asked Grandmother. ‘It had a happy ending and taught you an important lesson about recycling and using sustainable materials to build a dwelling.’

  ‘Technically I don’t think it is recycling unless the straws had been used for drinking first,’ said Luke.

  ‘Well, that would have been disgustingly unhygienic,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘But what about Gerald and Sophie?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘You want to know about them too?’ asked Grandmother.

  ‘Yes,’ said all three children (this was by far the most intriguing version of the three little pigs they had ever heard).

  ‘Gerald was not as good at lateral thinking as his brother or sister, so as he walked along the road it did not occur to him to use drinking straws, drinking cups or any other disposable beverage aid to build a house. Night fell and he had nowhere to stay,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Not really,’ disagreed Grandmother. ‘It was summer, and therefore a warm night. He just lay down under a tree, took the lolly wrappers out of his pockets and sprinkled them all over himself as a makeshift blanket, and fell asleep quite happily.’

  ‘So he didn’t build a house?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Oh yes, he did,’ said Grandmother, ‘because the next morning Mother Nature had given him a brilliant idea.’

  ‘Mother Nature?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Yes, when he woke up in the morning a branch had fallen on him,’ said Grandmother. ‘He was covered in sticks!’

  ‘And that gave him the idea to make a house out of sticks?’ guessed Peter.

  ‘No,’ said Grandmother, ‘although, now you mention it, that’s not a bad idea. No, it gave him the idea to make a house of matchsticks!’

  ‘What?’ said all three children (they were all so enthralled in the story, they had lost their manners).

  ‘But how?’ asked Lucy, totally baffled.

  ‘He was a natural scavenger like his brother,’ explained Grandmother, ‘so he went around to bars and restaurants—anywhere that gave away free matchboxes.’

  ‘It must have taken him forever to build a house out of all those teeny tiny sticks,’ marvelled Peter.

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Grandmother. ‘And an absolute ocean of model glue.’

  ‘How could he afford to buy the glue?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘He got lucky there,’ admitted Grandmother. ‘A glue truck crashed at the end of his street, so he was able to scavenge vats and vats full. And that’s how he built his house of matchsticks.’

  ‘So how did Sophie build her house?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Ahah,’ said Grandmother. ‘She was a far more sensible pig than her brothers and she had something of her mother’s genius for desserts. So she did not build her house of drinking straws or matchsticks, she built her house entirely out of chocolate.’

  ‘Wow!’ said all three children.

  ‘But surely it would melt?’ said Peter. ‘You said it was summer?’

  ‘She had huge outdoor air-conditioners set up to blast cold air at the house,’ explained Grandmother, ‘and a giant parasol overhead to block the sunlight.’

  ‘But where did she get the chocolate from if she didn’t have any money?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Pillow mints,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘Pillow mints?’ asked the children.

  ‘Yes, if you stay in a fancy hotel, they often put a chocolate mint on your pillow when they make your bed,’ said Grandmother. ‘It’s to encourage tooth decay, by luring you into eating chocolate after you’ve brushed your teeth.’

  ‘But how did she get enough pillow mints to build a house?’ asked Luke.

  ‘By going through the trash of course,’ said Grandmother. ‘I know it is hard to believe, but some people who stay in fancy hotels—people like dentists, diabetics and dieters—they do not eat their pillow mints.’

  ‘And they throw them away?’ asked Peter.

  ‘They do,’ concurred Grandmother. ‘Shocking isn’t it? So by going around to all the hotels in the city and gathering up all the unwanted pillow mints, Sophie was able to get enough chocolate to build her home.’

  ‘And what happened next?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Isn’t that enough?’ asked Grandmother. ‘I tell you three extraordinary stories of pigs exhibiting unparalleled resourcefulness and architectural ingenuity and you want more?!’

  ‘What happened to the house?’ asked Peter. ‘Wasn’t there a wolf?’

  ‘No,’ said Grandmother. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘So all three houses are still standing?’ asked Luke. ‘No one blew them down?’

  ‘Oh I didn’t say that,’ said Grandmother. ‘There was a wicked butcher, called Mr Wolf.’

  ‘Was he a wolf?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘No,’ said Grandmother. ‘Whatever would make you think that? He was a huma
n called Wolf. Do I need to slow down or write out some notes for you because you’re finding it hard to follow?’

  ‘No, just keep telling the story,’ pleaded Peter.

  ‘Well this wicked butcher was too cheap and mean to actually pay for meat,’ said Grandmother. ‘He would never buy beef, lamb or pork from a farmer. He would scavenge for meat.’

  ‘But how can you scavenge for beef?’ asked Peter.‘You don’t find cows lying about the place.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Grandmother. ‘He would pick up possums and cats and pigeons that had been hit by cars and were lying dead on the side of the road, take them back to his shop, cut them up and stick them under signs saying they were beef or pork or lamb.’

  ‘That’s dreadful!’ exclaimed Lucy.

  ‘But how did he get away with it?’ asked Peter. ‘Possum or cat wouldn’t taste like lamb or beef.’

  ‘It would if you covered it in peanut sauce and called it a satay stick!’ declared Grandmother.

  The children gasped.

  ‘That’s right,’ continued Grandmother. ‘You should always be sure of the motives of your butcher before you buy any of his pre-prepared ready-sauced foods.’

  ‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Peter.

  ‘So you can just imagine what such a wicked man thought when he heard that there were three young pigs living alone in the woods,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘He thought he could sell them some cat meat?’ guessed Luke.

  ‘No, silly,’ said Peter. ‘He wanted to chop them up.’

  ‘He did indeed,’ declared Grandmother. ‘He picked up his sharpest butcher knife and set off into the woods. It was not long before he came to the house of straws.’

  ‘Did he knock on the door?’ asked Luke.

  ‘He did,’ said Grandmother, ‘But it doesn’t make much noise when you knock on a door made out of drinking straws, so he had to yell, “Little pig, little pig, open the door or I’ll knock it down by force.” And Nathan replied, “Never, I won’t let you chop me up and cover me in sweet and sour sauce.”’

  ‘Well as you can imagine, a fully grown butcher with a very sharp knife was never going to be delayed for long by a door made out of drinking straws. The special in his butcher shop that week was pork in plum sauce,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘That’s dreadful!’ exclaimed Lucy.

  ‘I know,’ agreed Grandmother, ‘and the customers so enjoyed eating actual pork that he soon sold out. So the butcher went back into the woods in search of the second pig.’

  ‘I don’t like the way this is going,’ said Luke.

  ‘He soon came to the house of matchsticks,’ said Grandmother, ‘but again the little pig refused to let him in.’

  ‘So did he hack the door down with his meat cleaver?’ asked Peter.

  ‘He tried,’ said Grandmother, ‘but the second little pig was actually quite a gifted model-maker. He had used so much glue that, when the butcher made his first hack, the knife got stuck in the door and he couldn’t pull it out.’

  ‘So the little pig was saved?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘He would have been,’ said Grandmother, ‘but unfortunately the butcher was so frustrated he stamped and stomped on the ground, then he kicked at the dirt and inadvertently kicked a stone at the house. That stone was made of flint and when it hit the house it caused a spark.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Peter, guessing what was coming next.

  ‘When you make a house of matchsticks and highly flammable hobby glue you don’t want sparks coming anywhere near your home,’ said Grandmother. ‘The butcher had Cajun pork on special that week.

  ‘When all the slightly burnt pork was sold, the butcher set out into the woods in search of the third pig, and that is when he came to the house of chocolate,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘And he couldn’t get in because the house was so well made?’ guessed Luke.

  ‘No, the third little pig invited him in,’ said Grandmother. ‘“Little pig, little pig, let me come in,” cried the butcher. And surprisingly Sophie replied, “Sure but I’ve lost the key to the front door, so you’ll have to eat your way in.”

  ‘The butcher enjoyed chocolate as much as the next person, so he put down his knife and started chomping,’ said Grandmother. ‘Little did he know that Sophie was a deeply sensible pig. Her front door was not like a common house door, which is only two inches thick. She had made her solid chocolate door two feet thick. So the butcher ate and ate, and ate and ate, but he had to eat 50 kilos of chocolate before he broke through, and another 90 kilos of chocolate before there was a hole big enough for him to climb through. And by the time he had eaten the 140 kilos of chocolate he wasn’t capable of climbing anywhere. He just lay on the ground moaning.’

  ‘Is that the end of the story?’ asked Lucy.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Grandmother.

  ‘So the butcher learnt his lesson,’ guessed Peter, ‘and never troubled Sophie again.’

  ‘In a way,’ agreed Grandmother. ‘While Sophie had endured a lifetime of bickering and fighting with her brothers she did still love them. So she was not going to let the butcher off that easily.’

  ‘So what happened?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Sophie decided she would run the butcher shop,’ said Grandmother, ‘and that week’s special was Mr Wolf Pie. All the customers assumed that Mr Wolf had made the pie. Little did they realise that he had been made into the pie.’

  The children stared at Grandmother in stunned silence.

  ‘And so Sophie lived happily ever after, and to this day she runs the best vegetarian butcher shop in all the land. The end,’ said Grandmother. ‘Now, time for bed.’

  CHOOSE

  YOUR OWN

  ADVENTURE

  by

  John

  Marsden

  CHAPTER 1

  The phone rings. You grab it out of the kitchen sink and shake the onion skin off it.

  It’s Captain Cook on the other end.

  ‘Listen,’ he says, ‘you interested in taking a trip? I’m going to discover Australia, leaving tomorrow. You want to come?’

  If you say ‘yes’, go to chapter 2. If you say ‘no’, go to chapter 3.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘Sure,’ you say. ‘I’ll just ask my mum.’ You put the phone on mute. ‘Mum,’ you yell, ‘Captain Cook’s on the phone. Is it okay if I go and help discover Australia?’

  ‘How long will you be?’ she yells back.

  ‘I don’t know. About six months, I guess.’

  ‘All right. You better take your bathers, though, in case there’s a beach. They’re in the dryer.’

  You tell Captain Cook, ‘I’m there. Meet you at the dock.’

  ‘Good. Now, we’ve only got two vacancies left. Do you want to be the chef or the lookout? You’d better decide now, because there’s this Sir Joseph Banks guy and he’ll take the other spot.’

  Yikes, you think. The chef has a lot of work and if the sailors don’t like the food they could get pretty upset. On the other hand, the chef stays warm and dry, and never goes hungry. The lookout has to climb those tall masts, but it’s a great view from up there.

  If you say ‘chef’ go to chapter 4. If you say ‘lookout’, go to chapter 5.

  CHAPTER 3

  ‘No way,’ you tell the captain. ‘There could be anything out there. Crocodiles and sharks and lamingtons and snakes.’

  ‘It’s true, lamingtons do sound dangerous,’ he admits.

  ‘Excuse me, but I’m right in the middle of US Marines Versus Everybody Else 3. Find some other sucker,’ you say, and terminate the call.

  Little do you realise you’ve just turned down the chance to be famous, have towns and rivers named after you, and have kids do assignments on you at school. Bummer!

  THE END

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘I’ll take chef,’ you say.

  ‘Good choice,’ he says, although you get the feeling he says that to everyone, just to encourage them. ‘You’d better
pick up a few slabs of Coke on your way down to the wharf. It’s a long trip, and we’ll need all the Coke we can get.’

  ‘Why?’ you ask.

  ‘There’s nothing better for cleaning the saucepans,’ he explains. ‘Gets rid of grease and stains and spots. Great stuff.’

  Next day you set sail. Before long you’re heading around the Cape of Good Hope. However, your cooking is hopeless, and the sailors have become suspicious of your chicken nuggets.

  ‘We never had any chickens on board,’ they tell you.

  ‘So?’

  ‘But we did have a lot of rats running around when we left England.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Now there are no rats left.’

  ‘Is that right? Oh, by the way, I’m taking chicken nuggets off the menu, guys. Sorry.’

  They complain to Captain Cook. ‘Throw the cook overboard!’ they yell.

  ‘Throw me overboard?’ Captain Cook says, looking surprised. ‘But I’ve given you everything you wanted. Free Wi-Fi, cable TV, 24-hour childcare . . .’

  But by now, the sailors are overexcited. They’re determined to throw someone overboard.

  If they throw Captain Cook overboard, go to chapter 6. If they throw you overboard, go to chapter 7.

  CHAPTER 5

  ‘I’ll take lookout,’ you say.

  ‘Good choice,’ he says, although you get the feeling he says that to everyone, just to encourage them. ‘Are you a good climber?’

  ‘Oh, not bad,’ you say.

  ‘You’d better bring your undies. Otherwise the crew can see up your trouser legs.’

  Charming, you think.

  Two days into the voyage you get to climb the mast for the first time. The higher you go, the scarier it gets. The mast sways from side to side, and with a strong breeze blowing you feel like you’re climbing a kite string. Miles below on the deck stands the boatswain, Sydney Codswallop, a man you’ve already learned to hate.

  ‘Get a move on, landlubber!’ he yells. ‘Shift your butt, you lazy bag of blubber! Work those legs, spindleshanks. Oh, and by the way, nice undies.’