Mascot Madness! Read online

  Andy Griffiths is one of Australia’s funniest and most successful writers. His books have sold over 4 million copies worldwide, have featured on the New York Times bestseller lists, and have won over 40 Australian children’s choice awards.

  ALSO BY ANDY GRIFFITHS

  AND ILLUSTRATED BY TERRY DENTON

  Just Tricking!

  Just Annoying!

  Just Stupid!

  Just Crazy!

  Just Disgusting!

  Just Shocking!

  The Bad Book

  The Cat on the Mat is Flat

  The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow

  What Bumosaur is That?

  ALSO BY ANDY GRIFFITHS

  The Day My Bum Went Psycho

  Zombie Bums From Uranus

  Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict

  Schooling Around:

  Treasure Fever!

  Pencil of Doom!

  Mascot Madness!

  MASCOT

  MADNESS!

  ANDY GRIFFITHS

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  First published 2009 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited

  1 Market Street, Sydney

  Copyright © Backyard Stories Pty Ltd 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

  Griffiths, Andy, 1961–

  Mascot madness! / Andy Griffiths.

  978 0 330 42486 8 (pbk.)

  Schooling around

  For primary school age.

  A823.3

  Illustration by Nathan Jurevicius

  Typeset in 12/16 pt New Aster by Post Pre-press Group

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  These electronic editions published in 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Mascot Madness

  Andy Griffiths

  Adobe eReader format: 978-1-74198-461-3

  Online format: 978-1-74198-542-9

  EPUB format: 978-1-74198-488-0

  Macmillan Digital Australia

  www.macmillandigital.com.au

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com.au to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks online. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.

  Contents

  Cover

  About Andy Griffiths

  Also by Andy Griffiths

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1 Once upon a time

  2 Milk attack!

  3 The Super Dryer 3000

  4 Is that delicious smell coming from me?

  5 Mr Grunt

  6 The handbook toss

  7 A stumble, a trip and a fall

  8 Debriefing

  9 Big, yellow and banana-shaped

  10 An inspiring mascot?

  11 Mr Brainfright’s important lesson no. 1

  12 Mr Brainfright’s important lesson no. 2

  13 Who wants to be the banana?

  14 Mr Brainfright inspires the school

  15 Principal Greenbeard arrives

  16 Return of Fred and Clive

  17 The winners’ podium

  18 Let’s go bananas!

  19 Just another normal sports class

  20 Egg attack!

  21 The Brainfright Program for Sporting Excellence

  22 Visualisation

  23 Bananas

  24 Mr Brainfright’s top ten facts about bananas

  25 Art class

  26 The great banana milk mystery

  27 Mascot madness

  28 Sorry

  29 Tomato attack!

  30 Mr Grunt’s program

  31 A visit from Mr Grunt

  32 Grunt vs Brainfright

  33 Grunt vs Spade

  34 Northwest West Academy welcome us to the stadium . . . NOT!

  35 Inside the stadium

  36 Banana power!

  37 Go, Newton, go!

  38 Stop, Newton, stop!

  39 Flip Johnson’s top ten ‘Flipisms’

  40 Troy vs Gretel

  41 What a throw!

  42 Mr Constrictor’s top ten threats

  43 Pimple zapping

  44 Where’s Newton?

  45 Henry vs Fred, round 1

  46 Newton’s bodyguards

  47 Constrictor vs Brainfright

  48 Squashed banana

  49 If the suit fits . . .

  50 The truth

  51 The true truth

  52 Chomp

  53 What Chomp looked like as he raced across the field towards me

  54 Chomp vs Henry

  55 Mr Brainfright’s important lesson no. 3

  56 Death-cathlon part 1

  57 Death-cathlon part 2

  58 Mascot massacre

  59 Mr Grunt has a big fall

  60 A dream come true

  61 Fred and Clive’s last stand

  62 The truth about Mr Grunt’s Olympic career

  63 The last chapter

  For Sooty

  1

  Once upon a time

  Once upon a time there was—and still is—a school called Northwest Southeast Central School.

  Northwest Southeast Central School is located to the southeast of a town called Northwest, which is located to the northwest of a big city called Central City.

  You don’t need to know where Central City is, because it’s not important. What is important is the school. In this school there is a classroom. And in that classroom there is a fifth-grade class. Most important of all, in that fifth-grade class there is a student named Henry McThrottle who likes to tell stories.

  That’s where I come in.

  I’m Henry McThrottle . . . and this is my latest story.

  2

  Milk attack!

  It all started one morning before school a few weeks ago.

  I was standing in the yard with my friends Jack Japes, Jenny Friendly, Gretel Armstrong and Newton Hooton.

  Jack was telling us about a fish he’d caught on the weekend. Like most of Jack’s fishing stories, it was entertaining, but mostly untrue.

  ‘You should have seen it!’ said Jack, spreading his arms as wide apart as he could. ‘It was this big!’

  ‘In your dreams, Jack,’ said Gretel, rolling her eyes.

  ‘It was no dream,’ said Jack. ‘You should have seen the way it fought. It practically pulled me off the boat and down into the water!’

  Newton gasped with fright. Newton was always gasping with fright. Newton was scared of . . . well, pretty much everything, I guess.
You name it, he was scared of it. He was even scared of the word ‘it’ on the grounds that you could never be quite sure what ‘it’ referred to.

  ‘Don’t worry, Newton,’ I said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Jack’s just exaggerating.’

  ‘No,’ said Newton, shaking his head. ‘I’m not scared of that.’

  ‘Then what are you scared of?’ I said.

  ‘THAT!’ said Newton, pointing behind me.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Gretel.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Jack.

  ‘Watch out, Henry!’ said Jenny.

  I turned around to see the Northwest West Academy bus roaring past the school. I also saw an object being thrown from one of the windows of the bus, and the next thing I knew I was covered in milk.

  Sweet, sticky, banana-flavoured milk.

  ‘See you at the games, Northwest Southeast Central losers!’ yelled the familiar voice of Northwest West Academy school captain Troy Gurgling, and the bus disappeared in gales of laughter and a cloud of black, foul-smelling smoke.

  I stood there, dripping with milk.

  ‘Are you all right, Henry?’ said Jenny, a worried look on her face.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine, thanks,’ I said. ‘Just a bit more banana-milky than usual.’

  ‘Do you want me to take you to Mrs Bandaid?’

  Mrs Bandaid was the school nurse. Her solution to every injury or illness was to apply bandaids. Lots of bandaids.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not hurt . . . just a bit sticky.’

  ‘A bit stinky, you mean,’ said Fred Durkin, arriving with his brother Clive.

  ‘Yeah,’ echoed Clive, ‘really stinky. Good one, Fred!’

  ‘Thanks for your help,’ said Gretel, stepping in front of them and flexing her muscles. ‘Now run away and play like good little boys.’

  ‘I was just leaving anyway,’ said Fred, eyeing Gretel warily. ‘Something around here stinks like rotten bananas.’

  ‘It didn’t before you came,’ said Jack.

  Fred glared at Jack. ‘Why, you little pipsqueak squirt, I’m going to squeeze your head so hard that it pops!’

  Gretel stepped in between them, her arms folded across her chest.

  Fred stared at Gretel, his eyes narrowed to two black slits. ‘One of these days, Armstrong,’ he said quietly. ‘One of these days . . .’

  ‘You’re going to learn some manners?’ suggested Gretel.

  ‘No,’ said Jack, peering out from behind Gretel. ‘He’s going to take a bath!’

  Fred stared at Jack.

  Jack stared at Fred.

  Fred glanced at Gretel.

  Gretel jerked her head. ‘Move it,’ she said to Fred.

  Fred shrugged. ‘Come on, Clive,’ he said. ‘Let’s go somewhere that doesn’t stink so much.’ He turned and walked away.

  ‘Good one, Fred!’ said Clive, running after him. ‘Good one!’

  3

  The Super Dryer 3000

  As I walked into the 5B classroom, I wondered how so much milk could have come out of such a small container.

  I was soaked. My clothes stuck to me and, as much as I hated to admit it, Fred was right—I stank. Like bananas.

  ‘What happened, Henry?’ said Fiona McBrain, looking up from her calculator.

  ‘Northwest West Academy, that’s what,’ I said. ‘They threw a container of milk out of their bus.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Fiona. ‘A missile projected at that velocity could have caused a serious injury! Let me see . . .’ She began punching numbers into her calculator, muttering all the while about missiles, trajectories and projected impacts.

  ‘That’s completely out of line!’ said David Worthy, who, along with Fiona, was class captain. He was holding the school handbook. ‘It says here that it’s completely against school rules to project missiles from moving vehicles!’

  ‘David,’ said Gretel, ‘that’s our school handbook. The missile was projected by Northwest West Academy. They play by their own rules, remember?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said David glumly. ‘I hate it when people play by their own rules.’

  ‘Oh no!’ said Penny Palomino, jumping to her feet. ‘The horses!’

  ‘The horses!’ echoed her twin, Gina, jumping up as well. ‘Are they all right?’

  Penny and Gina were referring to their imaginary horses. Our teacher, Mr Brainfright, had insisted they be tethered outside so Penny and Gina could concentrate on their class work.

  ‘It’s okay, girls,’ said Jenny reassuringly. ‘Your horses are fine. They didn’t get a drop on them.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that!’ said Penny.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gina. ‘If anything happened to our horses I just couldn’t stand it!’

  ‘What about me?’ I said.

  Gina and Penny looked at me and frowned.

  ‘What about you?’ said Penny.

  ‘Something happened to me,’ I said.

  ‘You’re not a horse,’ said Penny.

  ‘But I’m covered in milk!’

  ‘Don’t worry, Henry,’ said Grant Gadget. ‘I’ve got just the thing to dry you out in no time. Wait there!’

  Grant dashed out into the corridor to his locker. Grant’s dad was an inventor and Grant was always coming to school with some interesting new invention borrowed from his dad’s laboratory. Unfortunately, the inventions didn’t always work quite the way they were supposed to. But they were always interesting.

  ‘This ought to be good,’ said Jack, shaking his head. ‘Glad it’s you and not me.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got to do something,’ I said. ‘My clothes are soaked!’

  ‘Never fear,’ said Grant, returning with what looked like an oversized hairdryer. ‘Grant Gadget is here!’

  ‘That’s exactly what we fear!’ said Jack.

  ‘What I have here,’ said Grant, ignoring Jack, ‘is a prototype of the Super Dryer 3000. It’s not much bigger than a regular hairdryer, but it has the force—and drying power—of three thousand hairdryers. Are you ready?’ Grant was pointing the Super Dryer 3000 at me, his finger poised on the trigger.

  ‘Don’t let him do it, Henry!’ warned Jack. ‘You’ll be sorry.’

  I understood Jack’s concern. But I was cold, wet and smelled of bananas. I figured things couldn’t get any worse.

  ‘I’ll take my chances, Jack,’ I said. ‘Okay, Grant. Let me have it!’

  Grant nodded . . . and let me have it.

  The Super Dryer 3000 roared into life.

  At first it felt like getting blasted by a hairdryer.

  Then it felt like getting blasted by three thousand hairdryers.

  And then it felt like . . . well, I don’t know, because the next thing I knew the sheer force of the Super Dryer 3000 sent me flying backwards through the air and out the classroom window!

  4

  Is that delicious smell coming from me?

  I ended up flat on my back in Mr Spade’s freshly dug garden bed.

  Mr Spade didn’t like people falling into his freshly dug garden beds.

  I knew this because I could hear him yelling.

  I lifted my head out of the soft dirt. Mr Spade was running towards me waving his pitchfork.

  ‘Henry?’ called Jenny from the window above. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I called back. ‘I think so.’

  ‘You’d better get out of there,’ said Gretel. ‘Mr Spade’s coming.’

  ‘And he’s got a pitchfork!’ said Newton.

  ‘I’m onto it,’ I said. The sight of the sharp tips of Mr Spade’s pitchfork was all the incentive I needed. I got up and ran.

  Luckily, Mr Spade was still a long way off and I was able to get back to the classroom before he could introduce the tips of his pitchfork to the milk-stiffened seat of my pants.

  I had only been back in the classroom long enough for Grant to apologise and explain that the Super Dryer 3000 needed a little more work when Mr Brainfright entered.

  He stopped.

&
nbsp; And sniffed.

  ‘Well, I’ll be darned,’ he said, breaking into a huge grin. ‘Banana! I can smell banana! And it smells as if it’s been warmed up, or toasted. Lovely!’

  Mr Brainfright liked bananas.

  And I don’t just mean he liked bananas.

  I mean he really liked bananas.

  He took a few steps towards me, sniffing as he walked. ‘Henry?’ he said. ‘Is that delicious smell coming from you?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ I said. ‘But I can explain—’

  ‘No need to explain,’ he said. ‘Let’s just enjoy it! There’s nothing quite like the smell of fresh banana in the morning. What a wonderful, wonderful morning!’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ My clothes were dry. But now they were all stiff and uncomfortable, and smelly too. ‘It’s a terrible, terrible morning!’ I said.

  The rest of the class nodded and murmured their agreement.

  Mr Brainfright frowned. ‘Whatever do you all mean?’ he said. ‘The sun is shining. The birds are singing. The flowers are blooming. And the room smells like warm bananas. Why the long faces?’

  ‘Because it’s athletics season,’ said Jack gloomily.

  ‘Athletics season!’ exclaimed Mr Brainfright, his eyes shining. ‘How wonderful! Out there in the fresh air, warm sun, soft grass . . . pushing yourselves to the limit and beyond. Muscles working, sweat on the brow, lungs bursting, the pure primal thrill of the race . . . running, jumping, throwing . . . ahh! Some of the best days of my life were spent on the track and in the field.’

  ‘Maybe that’s how it was for you,’ said Gretel, ‘but that’s not how it is for us. Athletics for us means getting thrashed by Northwest West Academy at the annual interschool competition.’

  ‘Oh, come now,’ said Mr Brainfright. ‘Surely it’s not that bad.’

  ‘It is that bad,’ I said. ‘We’re hopeless. We lose every year.’

  ‘Northwest West Academy are unbeatable,’ said Jenny.

  ‘Well, you certainly won’t beat them with that attitude,’ said Mr Brainfright.

  ‘But they’ve never been defeated,’ said Gretel. ‘Ever! And their principal, Mr Constrictor, is an ex-pro wrestler.’