Unbearable! Read online

  Puffin Books

  The bird’s perch is swinging to and fro and hitting me on the nose. I can see my eye in its little mirror.

  Unbearably weird …

  You have the foulest feet ever.

  There are flies for lunch.

  A goat swallows your opal.

  And you have lived before.

  FROM THE ONE AND ONLY PAUL JENNINGS

  also by paul jennings

  Unreal!

  Unbelievable!

  Quirky Tails

  Uncanny!

  Unbearable!

  Unmentionable!

  Undone!

  Uncovered!

  Unseen!

  Tongue-Tied!

  The Cabbage Patch series

  (illustrated by Craig Smith)

  The Gizmo series

  (illustrated by Keith McEwan)

  The Singenpoo series

  (illustrated by Keith McEwan)

  Wicked! (series) and Deadly! (series)

  (with Morris Gleitzman)

  Duck for Cover

  Freeze a Crowd

  Spooner or Later

  Spit It Out

  (with Terry Denton and Ted Greenwood)

  Round the Twist

  Sucked In …

  (illustrated by Terry Denton)

  Paul Jennings’ Funniest Stories

  Paul Jennings’ Weirdest Stories

  Paul Jennings’ Spookiest Stories

  How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare…

  FOR ADULTS

  The Reading Bug … and how you can help your child to catch it

  FOR BEGINNERS

  The Rascal series

  More information about Paul and his books can be found at

  www.pauljennings.com.au and puffin.com.au

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Australia)

  250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Group (Canada)

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd

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  Penguin Ireland

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  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd

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  Penguin Group (NZ)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Penguin Books Australia, 1990

  First published as Unbearable! More amazing stories

  This edition published 2002

  Text copyright © Lockley Lodge Pty Ltd, 1985

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Text designed by George Dale, Penguin Design Studio

  www.puffin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74-228689-1

  Contents

  Licked

  Little Black Balls

  Only Gilt

  Next Time Around

  Nails

  Yuggles

  Grandad’s Gifts

  Smelly Feat

  For my sister Ruth

  Licked

  Tomorrow when Dad calms down I’ll own up. Tell him the truth. He might laugh. He might cry. He might strangle me. But I have to put him out of his misery.

  I like my dad. He takes me fishing. He gives me arm wrestles in front of the fire on cold nights. He plays Scrabble instead of watching the news. He tries practical jokes on me. And he keeps his promises. Always.

  But he has two faults. Bad faults. One is to do with flies. He can’t stand them. If there’s a fly in the room he has to kill it. He won’t use fly spray because of the ozone layer so he chases them with a fly swat. He races around the house swiping and swatting like a mad thing. He won’t stop until the fly is flat. Squashed. Squished – sometimes still squirming on the end of the fly swat.

  He’s a dead-eye shot. He hardly ever misses. When his old fly swat was almost worn out I bought him a nice new yellow one for his birthday. It wasn’t yellow for long. It soon had bits of fly smeared all over it.

  It’s funny the different colours that squashed flies have inside them. Mostly it is black or brown. But often there are streaks of runny red stuff and sometimes bits of blue. The wings flash like diamonds if you hold them up to the light. But mostly the wings fall off unless they are stuck to the swat with a bit of squashed innards.

  2

  Chasing flies is Dad’s first fault. His second one is table manners. He is mad about manners.

  And it is always my manners that are the matter.

  ‘Andrew,’ he says. ‘Don’t put your elbows on the table.’

  ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full.’

  ‘Don’t lick your fingers.’

  ‘Don’t dunk your biscuit in the coffee.’

  This is the way he goes on every meal time. He has a thing about flies and a thing about manners.

  Anyway, to get back to the story. One day Dad is peeling the potatoes for tea. I am looking for my fifty cents that rolled under the table about a week ago. Mum is cutting up the cabbage and talking to Dad. They do not know that I am there. It is a very important meal because Dad’s boss, Mr Spinks, is coming for tea. Dad never stops going on about my manners when someone comes for tea.

  ‘You should stop picking on Andrew at tea time,’ says Mum.

  ‘I don’t,’ says Dad.

  ‘Yes you do,’ says Mum. ‘It’s always “don’t do this, don’t do that.” You’ll give the boy a complex.’ I have never heard of a complex before but I guess that it is something awful like pimples.

  ‘Tonight,’ says Mum. ‘I want you to go for the whole meal without telling Andrew off once.’

  ‘Easy,’ says Dad.

  ‘Try hard,’ says Mum, ‘Promise me that you won’t get cross with him.’

  Dad looks at her for a long time. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘It’s a deal. I won’t say one thing about his manners. But you’re not allowed to either. What’s good for me is good for you.’

  ‘Shake,’ says Mum. They shake hands and laugh.

  I find the fifty cents and sneak out. I take a walk down the street to spend it before tea. Dad has promised not to tell me off at tea time. I think about how I can make him crack. It should be easy. I will slurp my soup. He hates that. He will tell me off. He might even yell. I just know that he can’t go for the whole meal without going crook. ‘This is going to be fun,’ I say to myself.

  3

  That night Mum sets the table with the new tablecloth. And the best knives and forks. And the plates that I am not allowed to touch. She puts out serviettes in little rings. All of this means that it is an important meal. We don’t usually use serviettes.

  Mr Spinks comes in his best suit. He wears gold glasses and he frowns a lot. I can tell that he does
n’t like children. You can always tell when adults don’t like kids. They smile at you with their lips but not with their eyes.

  Anyway, we sit down to tea. I put my secret weapon on the floor under the table. I’m sure that I can make Dad crack without using it. But it is there if all else fails.

  The first course is soup and bread rolls. I make loud slurping noises with the soup. No one says anything about it. I make the slurping noises longer and louder. They go on and on and on. It sounds like someone has pulled the plug out of the bath. Dad clears his throat but doesn’t say anything.

  I try something different. I dip my bread in the soup and make it soggy. Then I hold it high above my head and drop it down into my mouth. I catch it with a loud slopping noise. I try again with an even bigger bit. This time I miss my mouth and the bit of soupy bread hits me in the eye.

  Nothing is said. Dad looks at me. Mum looks at me. Mr Spinks tries not to look at me. They are talking about how Dad might get a promotion at work. They are pretending that I am not revolting.

  The next course is chicken. Dad will crack over the chicken. He’ll say something. He hates me picking up the bones.

  The chicken is served. ‘I’ve got the chicken’s bottom,’ I say in a loud voice.

  Dad glares at me but he doesn’t answer. I pick up the chicken and start stuffing it into my mouth with my fingers. I grab a roast potato and break it in half. I dip my fingers into the margarine and put some on the potato. It runs all over the place.

  I have never seen anyone look as mad as the way Dad looks at me. He glares. He stares. He clears his throat. But still he doesn’t crack. What a man. Nothing can make him break his promise.

  I snap a chicken bone in half and suck out the middle. It is hollow and I can see right through it. I suck and slurp and swallow. Dad is going red in the face. Little veins are standing out on his nose. But still he does not crack.

  The last course is baked apple and custard. I will get him with that. Mr Spinks has stopped talking about Dad’s promotion. He is discussing something about discipline. About setting limits. About insisting on standards. Something like that. I put the hollow bone into the custard and use it like a straw. I suck the custard up the hollow chicken bone.

  Dad clears his throat. He is very red in the face. ‘Andrew,’ he says.

  He is going to crack. I have won.

  ‘Yes,’ I say through a mouth full of custard.

  ‘Nothing,’ he mumbles.

  Dad is terrific. He is under enormous pressure but still he keeps his cool. There is only one thing left to do. I take out my secret weapon.

  4

  I place the yellow fly swat on the table next to my knife.

  Everyone looks at it lying there on the white tablecloth. They stare and stare and stare. But nothing is said.

  I pick up the fly swat and start to lick it. I lick it like an ice cream. A bit of chewy, brown goo comes off on my tongue. I swallow it quickly. Then I crunch a bit of crispy, black stuff.

  Mr Spinks rushes out to the kitchen. I can hear him being sick in the kitchen sink.

  Dad stands up. It is too much for him. He cracks. ‘Aaaaaagh,’ he screams. He charges at me with hands held out like claws.

  I run for it. I run down to my room and lock the door. Dad yells and shouts. He kicks and screams. But I lie low.

  Tomorrow, when he calms down, I’ll own up. I’ll tell him how I went down the street and bought a new fly swat for fifty cents. I’ll tell him about the currants and little bits of licorice that I smeared on the fly swat.

  I mean, I wouldn’t really eat dead flies. Not unless it was for something important anyway.

  Little Black Balls

  ‘What are these little black balls?’ said Mum in a loud voice.

  She was standing there holding a pair of my jeans in one hand and the little black balls in the other. I wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t going to like it. Mum usually checks the pockets before she puts my jeans in the wash. I should have emptied them. But I forgot. Now the jeans were all stained. ‘Well …’ I began.

  ‘Come on, Sally’ said Mum. She thrust the little black balls under my nose. ‘Out with it.’

  I just looked at my toes for a bit. Then I took a deep breath. It was no good stalling. ‘Goat poo,’ I said.

  ‘Goat poo,’ shrieked Mum. She threw the droppings on the floor and scrubbed at her hands with a towel. Then she turned on me with flaming eyes. I could tell that she was just about to do something silly. Like ground me for a month. Or stop my pocket money.

  ‘I can explain,’ I said. ‘You won’t be mad when I tell you what happened. Just give me a chance.’ I took another deep breath and launched into my explanation.

  2

  See, I’ve got this friend. Everyone calls him the Paper Man. He doesn’t dress in clothes. He dresses in newspapers. He wraps them around his arms and legs and ties them up with string. In the winter he wears lots of papers and in the summer he takes some of them off.

  The Paper Man doesn’t believe in money. He’s not into buying things. He thinks everybody should get by with a lot less. ‘I don’t need a car,’ he told me. ‘Or a house. Or a washing machine. I’ve got the stars. And the cool wind off the sea. I’ve got the birds. And the fish. I don’t need television. Not when I can watch the clouds tell a different story every day.’

  This is how the Paper Man goes on. He doesn’t care what other people think. He has a mind of his own. He lives in a bark hut on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. His carpet is paper. His bedcovers are paper. And his friends are the wild creatures that live on the cliffside.

  The kids at school think he’s crazy. When they see him wandering around in his paper clothes they call out names. From a safe distance of course. They pretend they want to buy a paper. Or ask him for fish and chips. But really they’re scared of him. No one goes near his hut except me. I’m his friend.

  I help him to care for the animals. He has a blind possum that he feeds every day. And a hawk that sits on his bed. It’s a pet. A black hawk with a yellow beak. The hawk can fly off whenever it wants to. But it never does.

  Anyway, yesterday I went to see him after school. He was sitting on a rock in the sun. On his lap he had a bag made out of old newspapers. I could see straight away that there was something moving inside.

  ‘What have you got?’ I said.

  The Paper Man looked up with a sad smile. ‘A friend,’ he told me. ‘A sick friend.’

  I pulled back the paper and looked. It was a beautiful little kangaroo. She stared up at me with soft, moist eyes. She felt safe in the arms of the Paper Man. He was strong and gentle. Animals knew that he would never harm them.

  ‘Can you fix it?’ I asked him. I thought I knew what his answer was going to be. The Paper Man had healed hundreds of animals. None of them had ever died.

  He shook his head slowly. ‘This one has bad trouble,’ he said. ‘It has a lump inside. It needs to go to a vet. For an operation.’

  I knew he didn’t like to go into town where people laughed at his newspaper clothes. ‘No worries,’ I said. ‘I’ll take her in for you.’

  He looked up at me. ‘That’s really nice of you, Sally,’ he said. ‘But vets cost money. It’s two hundred dollars for an operation. We have to get two hundred dollars.’

  ‘I’ll take up a collection,’ I said.

  He shook his head. ‘It wouldn’t be right. Not begging for money.’ He walked into the hut and brought out a rusty old tin. He reached inside and took out something. It was a jewel. Small and lovely. It was smooth with blue and purple swirls running deep inside.

  ‘An opal,’ he said. ‘My last one. From the old days. When I was a miner.’

  I looked at the opal as it rolled around like an egg on his cracked, brown palm. Suddenly he took my hand. He opened my fingers and gave me the opal.

  ‘Take it into town,’ said the Paper Man. ‘And sell it at the jeweller’s. It’s worth two hundred dollars. Cash it in for me. I know I c
an trust you, Sally.’

  I went red in the face. No one else would have ever trusted me with two hundred dollars. People always say I lose things. That I’m a scatterbrain living in a dream world.

  I stood up tall. ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘But I won’t be able to go to the jeweller’s until after school tomorrow. The shops will be shut by now. And I can’t wag school.’

  The Paper Man’s face crinkled up with a smile. ‘That’s the girl,’ he said.

  3

  I walked back along the clifftop. The sun was setting into the sea like an ingot in a blazing furnace. A soft wind ruffled my hair. I looked at the opal and knew that it had cost the Paper Man a lot to part with it. I would never let him down.

  Suddenly I heard something strange. At first I thought it was someone playing a joke. A sort of sad, bleating call. Then I heard it again. A baaing noise, like a sheep makes. It was coming from the cliff face.

  I looked over the edge but couldn’t see anything. There it was again. A loud baa. A cry for help?

  The cliff fell dangerously into the sea. The water swelled and crashed below. The edge was rocky and crumbling but there was a narrow track down. I clasped the opal firmly and started to edge my way along, sitting on my bottom because I was too scared to walk.

  I managed to inch my way around a clump of rocks and there he was. A large billy goat. He had a piece of chain around his neck which was tangled in a bush.

  It was the dirtiest billy goat I had ever seen. Its long hair was matted with dung and dirt. It was covered in burrs and twigs. Its teeth were green and horrible. It baaed at me crossly.

  ‘Okay, okay, Billy,’ I said. ‘I’ll get you out.’

  I was still sitting down on the little ledge, too scared to stand. I pulled myself towards the goat carefully. The sea was a long way down. There were sharp rocks in the water. I hung on to tufts of grass with one hand. My other hand still clasped the opal. I was too scared to jam it into my pocket.