Unreal Collection! Read online

  Smart Ice-Cream

  Spaghetti Pig-Out

  Skeleton on the Dunny

  Snookle

  Lucky Lips

  Grandad’s Gifts

  Ex Poser

  Cabbage Patch Fib

  Lighthouse Blues

  Licked

  Birdscrap

  Wunderpants

  Ice Maiden

  You Be the Judge

  Little Squirt

  A Good Tip for Ghosts

  Clear as Mud

  For Ever

  A Mouthful

  No is Yes

  Smelly Feat

  The Hat

  The Strap-Box Flyer

  Cow Dung Custard

  The Busker

  Tongue Tied

  Nails

  A Dozen Bloomin’ Roses

  Next Time Around

  Without a Shirt

  The book you are holding now contains thirty stories – all chosen by me.

  Thirty years ago my first book, Unreal: Seven Surprising Stories, was published. In those thirty years I have written one hundred stories – which means I have had to leave seventy stories out of this book.

  Imagine how those seventy stories feel. I can almost hear them saying, ‘Doesn’t he like me?’

  Of course I do like them. The poor things. They remind me of the time when school kids used to pick up football teams at lunchtime. The captains would take it in turns to choose team members, always starting with the best players. When each person was picked they lined up behind their captain. In the end there was only one poor kid left and it was always me.

  ‘You can have, Jennings,’ they would say.

  I used to feel terrible. I was hopeless at football. It took me a long time to realise that we are all good at different things. And that different people like different things.

  Readers often tell me the names of their favourite tales. So I have a good idea of which are the most popular. Most readers go for the funny stories, though some do prefer the sad ones.

  A young girl once wrote me the following letter:

  My mum was reading ‘The Busker’ to me in bed. I saw she had tears in her eyes.

  I said, ‘What are you bawling for?’

  Mum said, ‘Shut up, it’s a damn good story.’

  I love that letter. The girl loved her mother and the mother loved her daughter. They spoke roughly to each other because they were both moved but didn’t want to let it show.

  Why don’t you pick your favourite five stories from those in this book? Then see how they compare with the ones I like best.

  Mine are printed upside down at the end of this book.

  You might like the sad stories. Or you might like the funny ones. Or maybe you will like some of each. It doesn’t matter which ones you prefer.

  If you laugh, cry or are surprised while reading this collection, then I am happy.

  Paul Jennings, 2015

  Well, I came top of the class again. One hundred out of one hundred for Maths. And one hundred out of one hundred for English. I’m just a natural brain, the best there is. There isn’t one kid in the class who can come near me. Next to me they are all dumb.

  Even when I was a baby I was smart. The day that I was born my mother started tickling me. ‘Bub, bub, bub,’ she said.

  ‘Cut it out, Mum,’ I told her. ‘That tickles.’ She nearly fell out of bed when I said that. I was very advanced for my age.

  Every year I win a lot of prizes: top of the class, top of the school, stuff like that. I won a prize for spelling when I was only three years old. I am a terrific speller. If you can say it, I can spell it. Nobody can trick me on spelling. I can spell every word there is.

  Some kids don’t like me; I know that for a fact. They say I’m a show-off. I don’t care. They are just jealous because they are not as clever as me. I’m good looking too. That’s another reason why they are jealous.

  Last week something bad happened. Another kid got one hundred out of one hundred for Maths too. That never happened before – no one has ever done as well as me. I am always first on my own. A kid called Jerome Dadian beat me. He must have cheated. I was sure he cheated. It had something to do with that ice-cream. I was sure of it. I decided to find out what was going on; I wasn’t going to let anyone pull a fast one on me.

  It all started with the ice-cream man, Mr Peppi. The old fool had a van which he parked outside the school. He sold ice-cream, all different types. He had every flavour there is, and some that I had never heard of before.

  He didn’t like me very much. He told me off once. ‘Go to the back of the queue,’ he said. ‘You pushed in.’

  ‘Mind your own business, Pop,’ I told him. ‘Just hand over the ice-cream.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I won’t serve you unless you go to the back.’

  I went round to the back of the van, but I didn’t get in the queue. I took out a nail and made a long scratch on his rotten old van. He had just had it painted. Peppi came and had a look. Tears came into his eyes. ‘You are a bad boy,’ he said. ‘One day you will get into trouble. You think you are smart. One day you will be too smart.’

  I just laughed and walked off. I knew he wouldn’t do anything. He was too soft-hearted. He was always giving free ice-creams to kids that had no money. He felt sorry for poor people. The silly fool.

  There were a lot of stories going round about that ice-cream. People said that it was good for you. Some kids said that it made you better when you were sick. One of the teachers called it ‘Happy Ice-Cream’. I didn’t believe it; it never made me happy.

  All the same, there was something strange about it. Take Pimples Peterson for example. That wasn’t his real name – I just called him that because he had a lot of pimples. Anyway, Peppi heard me calling Peterson ‘Pimples’. ‘You are a real mean boy,’ he said. ‘You are always picking on someone else, just because they are not like you.’

  ‘Get lost, Peppi,’ I said. ‘Go and flog your ice-cream somewhere else.’

  Peppi didn’t answer me. Instead he spoke to Pimples. ‘Here, eat this,’ he told him. He handed Peterson an ice-cream. It was the biggest ice-cream I had ever seen. It was coloured purple. Peterson wasn’t too sure about it. He didn’t think he had enough money for such a big ice-cream.

  ‘Go on,’ said Mr Peppi. ‘Eat it. I am giving it to you for nothing. It will get rid of your pimples.’

  I laughed and laughed. Ice-cream doesn’t get rid of pimples, it gives you pimples. Anyway, the next day when Peterson came to school he had no pimples. Not one. I couldn’t believe it. The ice-cream had cured his pimples.

  There were some other strange things that happened too. There was a kid at the school who had a long nose. Boy, was it long. He looked like Pinocchio. When he blew it you could hear it a mile away. I called him ‘Snozzle’. He didn’t like being called Snozzle. He used to go red in the face when I said it, and that was every time that I saw him. He didn’t say anything back – he was scared that I would punch him up.

  Peppi felt sorry for Snozzle too. He gave him a small green ice-cream every morning, for nothing. What a jerk. He never gave me a free ice-cream.

  You won’t believe what happened but I swear it’s true. Snozzle’s nose began to grow smaller. Every day it grew a bit smaller. In the end it was just a normal nose. When it was the right size Peppi stopped giving him the green ice-creams.

  I made up my mind to put a stop to this ice-cream business. Jerome Dadian had been eating ice-cream the day he got one hundred for Maths. It must have been the ice-cream making him smart. I wasn’t going to have anyone doing as well as me. I was the smartest kid in the school, and that’s the way I wanted it to stay. I wanted to get a look inside that ice-cream van to find out what was go
ing on.

  I knew where Peppi kept his van at night – he left it in a small lane behind his house. I waited until about eleven o’clock at night. Then I crept out of the house and down to Peppi’s van. I took a crowbar, a bucket of sand, a torch and some bolt cutters with me.

  There was no one around when I reached the van. I sprang the door open with the crowbar and shone my torch around inside. I had never seen so many tubs of ice-cream before. There was every flavour you could think of: there was apple and banana, cherry and mango, blackberry and watermelon and about fifty other flavours. Right at the end of the van were four bins with locks on them. I went over and had a look. It was just as I thought – these were his special flavours. Each one had writing on the top. This is what they said:

  HAPPY ICE-CREAM for cheering people up.

  NOSE ICE-CREAM for long noses.

  PIMPLE ICE-CREAM for removing pimples.

  SMART ICE-CREAM for smart alecs.

  Now I knew his secret. That rat Dadian had been eating Smart Ice-cream; that’s how he got one hundred for Maths. I knew there couldn’t be anyone as clever as me. I decided to fix Peppi up once and for all. I took out the bolt cutters and cut the locks off the four bins; then I put sand into every bin in the van. Except for the Smart Ice-cream. I didn’t put any sand in that.

  I laughed to myself. Peppi wouldn’t sell much ice-cream now. Not unless he started a new flavour – Sand Ice-cream. I looked at the Smart Ice-cream. I decided to eat some; it couldn’t do any harm. Not that I needed it – I was already about as smart as you could get. Anyway, I gave it a try. I ate the lot. Once I started I couldn’t stop. It tasted good. It was delicious.

  I left the van and went home to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. To tell the truth, I didn’t feel too good. So I decided to write this. Then if any funny business has been going on you people will know what happened. I think I have made a mistake. I don’t think Dadian did get any Smart Ice-Cream.

  2

  It iz the nekst day now. Somefing iz hapening to me. I don’t feal quite az smart. I have bean trying to do a reel hard sum. It iz wun and wun. Wot duz wun and wun make? Iz it free or iz it for?

  Guts Garvey was a real mean kid. He made my life miserable. I don’t know why he didn’t like me. I hadn’t done anything to him. Not a thing.

  He wouldn’t let any of the other kids hang around with me. I was on my own. Anyone in the school who spoke to me was in his bad books. I wandered around the yard at lunch time like a dead leaf blown in the wind.

  I tried everything. I even gave him my pocket money one week. He just bought a block of chocolate from the canteen and ate it in front of me. Without even giving me a bit. What a rat.

  After school I only had one friend. My cat – Bad Smell. She was called that because now and then she would make a bad smell. Well, she couldn’t help it. Everyone has their faults. She was a terrific cat. But still. A cat is not enough. You need other kids for friends too.

  Even after school no one would come near me. I only had one thing to do. Watch the television. But that wasn’t much good either. There were only little kids’ shows on before tea.

  ‘I wish we had a video,’ I said to Mum one night.

  ‘We can’t afford it, Matthew,’ said Mum. ‘Anyway, you watch too much television as it is. Why don’t you go and do something with a friend?’

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t tell her that I didn’t have any friends. And never would have as long as Guts Garvey was around. A bit later Dad came in. He had a large parcel under his arm. ‘What have you got, Dad?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s something good,’ he answered. He put the package on the loungeroom floor and I started to unwrap it. It was about the size of a large cake. It was green and spongy with an opening in the front.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  ‘What you’ve always wanted. A video player.’

  I looked at it again. ‘I’ve never seen a video player like this before. It looks more like a mouldy loaf of bread with a hole in the front.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’ asked Mum in a dangerous voice. ‘And how much was it?’

  ‘I bought it off a bloke in the pub. A real bargain. Only fifty dollars.’

  ‘Fifty dollars is cheap for a video,’ I said. ‘But is it a video? It doesn’t look like one to me. Where are the cables?’

  ‘He said it doesn’t need cables. You just put in the video and press this.’ He handed me a green thing that looked like a bar of chocolate with a couple of licorice blocks stuck on the top.

  ‘You’re joking,’ I said. ‘That’s not a remote control.’

  ‘How much did you have to drink?’ said Mum. ‘You must have been crazy to pay good money for that junk.’ She went off into the kitchen. I could tell that she was in a bad mood.

  ‘Well at least try it,’ said Dad sadly. He handed me a video that he had hired down the street. It was called Revenge of the Robots. I pushed the video into the mushy hole and switched on the TV set. Nothing happened.

  I looked at the licorice blocks on the green chocolate thing. It was worth a try. I pushed one of the black squares.

  The movie started playing at once. ‘It works,’ I yelled. ‘Good on you, Dad. It works. What a ripper.’

  Mum came in and smiled. ‘Well what do you know,’ she said. ‘Who would have thought that funny-looking thing was a video set? What will they think of next?’

  2

  Dad went out and helped Mum get tea while I sat down and watched the movie. I tried out all the licorice-like buttons on the remote control. One was for fast forward, another was for pause and another for rewind. The rewind was good. You could watch all the people doing things backwards.

  I was rapt to have a video but to tell the truth the movie was a bit boring. I started to fiddle around with the handset. I pointed it at things in the room and pressed the buttons. I pretended that it was a ray gun.

  ‘Tea time,’ said Mum after a while.

  ‘What are we having?’ I yelled.

  ‘Spaghetti,’ said Mum.

  I put the video on pause and went to the door. I was just about to say, ‘I’m not hungry,’ when I noticed something. Bad Smell was sitting staring at the TV in a funny way. I couldn’t figure out what it was at first but I could see that something was wrong. She was so still. I had never seen a cat sit so still before. Her tail didn’t swish. Her eyes didn’t blink. She just sat there like a statue. I took off my thong and threw it over near her. She didn’t move. Not one bit. Not one whisker.

  ‘Dad,’ I yelled. ‘Something is wrong with Bad Smell.’

  He came into the lounge and looked at the poor cat. It sat there staring up at the screen with glassy eyes. Dad waved his hand in front of her face. Nothing. Not a blink. ‘She’s dead,’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh no,’ I cried. ‘Not Bad Smell. Not her. She can’t be. My only friend.’ I picked her up. She stayed in the sitting-up position. I put her back on the floor. No change. She sat there stiffly. I felt for a pulse but I couldn’t find one. Her chest wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing.

  ‘Something’s not quite right,’ said Dad. ‘But I can’t figure out what it is.’

  ‘She shouldn’t be sitting up,’ I yelled. ‘Dead cats don’t sit up. They fall over with their legs pointed up.’

  Dad picked up Bad Smell and felt all over her. ‘It’s no good, Matthew,’ he said. ‘She’s gone. We will bury her in the garden after tea.’ He patted me on the head and went into the kitchen.

  Tears came into my eyes. I hugged Bad Smell to my chest. She wasn’t stiff. Dead cats should be stiff. I remembered a dead cat that I once saw on the footpath. I had picked it up by the tail and it hadn’t bent. It had been like picking up a saucepan by the handle.

  Bad Smell felt soft. Like a toy doll. Not stiff and hard like the cat on the footpath.

  Suddenly I had an idea. I don’t know what gave it to me. It just sort of popped into my head. I picked up the funny-looking remote control, pointed it at Bad Smell and p
ressed the FORWARD button. The cat blinked, stretched, and stood up. I pressed PAUSE again and she froze. A statue again. But this time she was standing up.

  I couldn’t believe it. I rubbed my eyes. The pause button was working on my cat. I pressed FORWARD a second time and off she went. Walking into the kitchen as if nothing had happened.

  Dad’s voice boomed out from the kitchen. ‘Look. Bad Smell is alive.’ He picked her up and examined her. ‘She must have been in a coma. Just as well we didn’t bury her.’ Dad had a big smile on his face. He put Bad Smell down and shook his head. I went back to the lounge.

  I hit one of the licorice-like buttons. None of them had anything written on them but by now I knew what each of them did.

  Or I thought I did.

  3

  The movie started up again. I watched it for a while until a blowfly started buzzing around and annoying me. I pointed the hand set at it just for fun and pressed FAST FORWARD. The fly vanished. Or that’s what seemed to happen. It was gone from sight but I could still hear it. The noise was tremendous. It was like a tiny jet fighter screaming around in the room. I saw something flash by. It whipped past me again. And again. And again. The blowfly was going so fast that I couldn’t see it.

  I pushed the PAUSE button and pointed it up where the noise was coming from. The fly must have gone right through the beam because it suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It hung silently in mid-air. Still. Solidified. A floating, frozen fly. I pointed the hand set at it again and pressed FORWARD. The blowfly came to life at once. It buzzed around the room at its normal speed.

  ‘Come on,’ yelled Mum. ‘Your tea is ready.’

  I wasn’t interested in tea. I wasn’t interested in anything except this fantastic remote control. It seemed to be able to make animals and insects freeze or go fast forward. I looked through the kitchen door at Dad. He had already started eating. Long pieces of spaghetti dangled from his mouth. He was chewing and sucking at the same time.