My Life and Other Exploding Chickens Read online

  ‘Or soaked in cat wee?’

  ‘Um … not good?’ I say. A little bit of vomit burns the back of my throat. Cat wee has never been one of my favourite smells.

  ‘Or with a used Band-Aid for a bookmark?’ I shake my head. ‘That’s right. Not good.’

  She’s in real close now, and I’d like to say that her breath smells like two dead dogs and that she has sleep nuggets in her eyes and loads of orange earwax … but none of those things is true. And she smells good, like daffodils. (I’m not totally sure what they smell like, but I have a hunch that this is it.) I try not to fall in love with her, but it’s very difficult.

  ‘So, what do I do with you?’ she asks.

  ‘Maybe … let me go?’

  She laughs out loud and rests a hand on my back, which feels kind of nice. ‘I’m afraid library policy in a situation such as this is to give you “the treatment”.’

  ‘What’s the –’ I begin.

  The other librarians gather closer, tightening the circle, grinning like maniacs.

  ‘You survive the treatment, I wipe your fine,’ she says.

  She pulls morning tea out of her backpack. There are lamingtons, a sponge cake and individual lemon meringue pies.

  This is the punishment? They’re going to make me eat pie? Bring it on. I love pie.

  All seven librarians choose a lamington, a slice of cake or a pie. I reach out for a treat and the Head of Youth Services slaps my hand. ‘Not for naughty boys,’ she says.

  They stand there and eat the morning tea right in front of me. It’s torture. They are the plumpest, most delicious-looking lamingtons I have ever seen – a light, fluffy cake, thick with chocolate, and cream in the middle. The librarians have cream all over their lips and they guzzle cups of tea from a tall floral thermos, poured by the greasy guy with the dog catcher’s net. My stomach lets out a deep, Jurassic groan. When the last bite of morning tea is gone, Sienna Harper-Hill licks the Tupperware container, giving herself a coconut moustache.

  Next, she pulls a book from her KBPL library bag. The others reach in and take out a book, too. They open them up, each gripping a single, razor-sharp page, and they swipe and slash the paper at me. I try to move out of the way but one of them cuts the sleeve off my T-shirt.

  ‘Ow!’

  Another one slices my shirt right across the chest.

  ‘Hey!’

  They deliver paper cuts with such terrible accuracy that within a minute my shirt is in shreds.

  ‘Alright, that’s enough!’ Sienna Harper-Hill jerks her head and two of the others grab me by the arms and escort me inside.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘One last challenge,’ Harper-Hill grunts. The others titter and snort.

  Never let a librarian take you to a second location. I’m sure I’ve heard this sometime.

  Library customers watch me from behind their books and computer screens as I am led past ‘Magazines and Non-Fiction’. My captors take me behind the front counter and park me at a section marked ‘Information’. There is a long queue of people with angry, twisted faces.

  ‘You’re to deal with public complaints until the library closes.’

  ‘But I–’

  ‘About time,’ says an elderly lady with a scrinched-up face who can barely see over the counter. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as old as her. Not even in a museum.

  ‘I want to know where I can plug in my blender,’ she says.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I say.

  ‘Don’t be sorry. Just show me where an outlet is.’

  She actually has a milkshake-maker under her arm and two litres of Lite White in her hand. I turn for backup but the librarians are all busy doing their own thing.

  ‘Um, I’m pretty sure you can’t make milkshakes in the library,’ I say.

  ‘Is this the library?’ she asks.

  And it gets worse. Over the next two and a half hours, I am treated to a parade of the strangest humans and weirdest questions I have ever heard. They include:

  ‘Could you please rip off this Band-Aid for me?’

  ‘What time do you stop serving breakfast?’

  ‘It’s so hot outside. Is the sun getting bigger?’

  ‘How many books on maths problems would you have left if I checked out eight?’

  ‘Did a lady with a tattoo of a gecko on her neck just come in here?’

  ‘Could you help me find some examples of Ancient Greek AFL players?’

  ‘Can you mind my cat for a couple of hours?’

  And …

  ‘Do you have a recent photo of Captain Cook?’

  It takes half an hour to boot everyone out of the library at the end of the day. Sienna Harper-Hill leads me over to the front counter. She types, rapid-fire, into the computer. She still has coconut on her face.

  Ten seconds later, a brand-new library card slides out of the card printer. She picks it up and presents me with it. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘Thank you.’ Although I’m not sure I ever want to come into the library again.

  ‘Good luck getting your act together,’ she says. ‘Would you like to borrow anything before you go?’

  ‘Um …’ I think for a minute. I’m still reeling from the three-pronged torture. My shirt and mind are in shreds. But there is one book I’m really curious about.

  ‘Could I possibly re-borrow Fungus the Bogeyman?’ I ask.

  She tilts her head to the side, not understanding.

  ‘I didn’t actually get around to reading it.’

  What Would You Rather Do?

  Jack and I had a 15-hour bus ride to Canberra last week for a school excursion. Apart from the roadkill-spotting competition and Sophie Smith vomiting bright-green soft drink on the driver’s back, the highlight of the trip was an epic game of ‘What Would You Rather Do?’. Here are some of our best:

  Would you rather …

  Have your kidney removed without anaesthetic or declare your love for your teacher in front of the entire school?

  Have pimples all over your face from age 12 to 18 or have pimples all over your bottom for the rest of your life?

  Eat an entire boiled pumpkin or two kilos of raw potatoes?

  Be five years old or 50 years old for the next year?

  Eat an entire aeroplane or eat 18 bicycles and seven televisions? (Frenchman Michel Lotito ate all of these things in his lifetime. He was known as ‘Monsieur Mangetout’ or ‘Mr Eats All’. NB: Planes, bicycles and televisions are all gluten-free, but planes are sometimes produced in factories containing sesame seeds.)

  Lick a pig’s trotter or an elephant’s bottom?

  Take on Captain Jack Sparrow in a sword fight or Darth Vader in a light-sabre duel?

  Secretly eat camel poo or have everyone at school think you ate camel poo when you actually didn’t?

  Become rich and famous for something really embarrassing or remain poor and unknown for rest of your life?

  Win a lifetime’s supply of doughnuts but have to share each one with your worst enemy or never eat another doughnut again?

  Get bitten by a shark while out surfing or be swallowed whole by a whale and spat out onto the rocks?

  See your best friend go to jail for a year for a crime that you committed or go to jail yourself for five years?

  Kick your foot on a rock and rip off your big toenail or have your tongue pierced with a nail?

  Eat an extra-large barbecued seagull with chips or a small baked hamster with mash?

  If you can think of any good ones, email them to me at [email protected] and maybe I’ll put them in my next book and include your name.

  When Socks Come Back

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know where they go, Tom Weekly.’

  Mum is sitting next to me on the couch, folding a mountain of clothes. It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow, and I’m secretly hoping she gets through all the washing before the morning so that I won’t have to do it.

  ‘Seven socks and not a single mat
ching pair,’ she goes on. ‘Where do you put them?’

  ‘Uggh,’ I grunt, praying that she won’t continue to bother me while my favourite show, World’s Deadliest Cats, is on.

  ‘Don’t “Uggh” me – I’m serious. You wear them, and then where do they go? And only one. You never lose the whole pair!’

  ‘Mum. It’s a pair of socks! I’m watching a show.’

  Sig, my favourite character, has two minutes to bathe Tigger – one of the most vicious Persians in America. If she can’t do it, she goes into elimination and could be voted out of the Cattery.

  ‘Don’t “It’s a pair of socks” me. If you spent less time watching TV and more time looking after your belongings, we wouldn’t have this problem.’

  I mute the TV and look at her. ‘I don’t think you understand how important this show is to me.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand how important these socks are to me. They cost a small fortune.’

  I shake my head and study my mother for a moment, her face all scrunched up. I make a mental note to never become an adult, not if it means caring this much about socks. She only ever buys the cheap polyester ones anyway. They make my feet sweat like a dog in a sauna, and I’m developing a greenish fungus between my toes. I long for an all-natural fibre. Now that would be something to make a fuss about.

  ‘You can start buying them out of your pocket money, Thomas. If you pay for them yourself, you might value them,’ she snips.

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Yes way. I’ll be putting this week’s pocket money towards socks.’

  ‘That’s not fair!’

  ‘Well then, you’d better find some socks.’

  I growl at her, switch off the TV and head for the laundry.

  My pocket money was due to be paid this afternoon. She doesn’t realise it but that money was going to buy her Mother’s Day present – an ugly crystal horse that she likes in the gift shop on Jonson Street.

  Bando, my Labrador retriever, follows me into the laundry. At least he likes me. I snap on the light, flip open the lid of the dirty clothes hamper and start digging for socks. Moments later, I’m pretty sure I’ve struck gold. I pull my hand out and am clutching a pair of what can only be my sister Tanya’s frilly knickers. I squeal and fling them across the room. They slip down the wall behind the washing machine. I lunge at the sink, flip on the tap and scrub my hand with Dynamo. I wish I could scrub my mind of what I’ve just seen.

  Bando bumps against my leg, then turns and snarls at the clothes dryer. He does that sometimes. I don’t think he likes the noise it makes.

  I dry my hands and get down on my knees to look inside the dryer, hoping to find a missing sock that might win back my pocket money. It’s pretty dark in there. I reach in. It’s empty and deep.

  Bando growls again.

  ‘It’s okay, boy. I’m not going to turn it on. Hellooo!’ I call into the black pit.

  ‘Who are you saying “hello” to?’ Mum yells from the lounge room.

  ‘No one!’

  Bando barks at the dryer. My eyes start to adjust to the darkness but I still can’t see how far back it stretches. It’s no wonder socks go missing.

  I pull my head out of the dryer and grab the torch from the toolbox in the linen closet. I kneel back down and flick the torch on, but the batteries are dead. I stretch my arm in to feel for socks, but I can’t reach the back wall of the dryer. I squeeze my head and shoulders inside the small, round opening. I balance my stomach on the rim of the door, but I still can’t reach the back. I make a final lunge and tip forward, overbalancing. I reach out to stop myself, but all I feel is empty space and blind panic.

  ‘Muuuum!’

  I tumble into darkness, free-falling and somersaulting once, twice, then whump! The impact punches the wind out of me. I’m on my back, looking up, and the white circle of light where I entered the dryer looks like the moon in a night sky. Down here it’s pitch black.

  I dig my fingers into the soft surface beneath me. Something stinks like the potato storage room under Brent Bunder’s chip shop.

  I sit up, still clutching the torch, and flick the switch back and forth – nothing happens. I know this must be a dream but I don’t care. I want out. I open my eyes as wide as I can, trying to will myself out of the dream.

  ‘Mum!’ I scream, my voice sounding pathetic and small. ‘Ma!’

  Bando barks, but it sounds so far away.

  I smack the torch hard against the palm of my hand. The light flickers for a moment and then dies. I do it again and the weak beam stays lit. I whip the light around in scared, jerky movements. Specks of lint float past my face. I’m in what appears to be a small dungeon, maybe three metres by three metres. It’s warm and the air is dry and scratchy in my throat. The walls, floor and ceiling are peppered with bright spots of colour. As my eyes adjust and I look more closely, I realise what these bright spots are.

  Socks.

  Hundreds, maybe thousands, of socks. I have never seen so many socks in one place. I even see a sock that I recognise – a Ninja Turtle sock hanging from the wall, from a time when I was obsessed with Donatello. I train my torch beam on it and reach out to pick it off the wall. Then I recognise the sock next to it, too – a yellow skate sock with a blood stain on the ankle. The sock next to that is mine as well. In fact, they are all mine: baby socks, soccer socks, school socks, bed socks. One lone sock from every pair I’ve ever owned.

  I laugh out loud. I have fallen directly into the answer to my problem. I’ll stuff my pockets and shirt with these socks. I’ll bust out of here and, when I hand them to Mum, she’ll have no choice but to give back my pocket money, plus a bonus. Boom.

  I grab the Ninja Turtle sock and feel a hot, sharp pain in my thumb. I train the torch onto my hand and see a red bite mark there, like a small child has bitten me.

  I go to grab the yellow skate sock and feel that same white-hot pain tear through my hand. I reel back and discover two bites. This is insane. Socks can’t bite. I switch the torch to the other hand and reach down to grab a bunch of socks from the floor, but I am bitten hard, over and over again.

  ‘OW!’ I scream, and Bando barks again from high above.

  I rub the bites, trying to make the pain go away. I focus the weak torch glow on the floor and see the strangest thing – the socks appear to be moving. Not much, just a gentle wriggle, like furry little snakes. I think I might have woken them. I lean down close and watch. They wriggle and squirm and slide over one another. The mouths of the socks open and close like hungry goldfish. They look quite cute, until I see the rows of fine, jagged teeth. I swear I can hear them now, too, squeaking like little chipmunks. This is the weirdest dream I have ever had. I need to grab some socks and get out of here.

  I reach down verrrry slowly and gather a handful of socks. They twitch and twist in my grip. They bite my fingers, but I don’t care. I stuff a fistful of the squirming zombie socks down the neck of my shirt. They attach themselves to my chest and belly like leeches, biting me hard.

  I accidentally drop the torch and it’s instantly swallowed by the socks. I reach around but it’s gone. The socks’ squeaking chatter grows louder, and they start to worm their way up my legs.

  ‘HELP!’ I scream into the darkness, and the only answer is Bando’s barking.

  They slither up my body and over my neck and face. I try to call out again but a sock covers my mouth, muffling my cry. I am so stupid – if I had taken better care of my socks I wouldn’t be here. Now my mother will wake up tomorrow with no Mother’s Day present. And no son.

  I look up at the dryer opening and see Bando’s head poking through the hole. He has something in his jaws – it looks like his extendable lead – and he’s shaking his head from side to side. The lead is uncoiling down towards me.

  The socks continue to attack, covering my entire body now, and I am in so much pain. I try to rip them off but new socks seem to replace them. I wonder how many other kids have died this way? Death by sock.<
br />
  I reach out and grab the lead’s plastic handle. I feel tension in the cord, pulling me up, and Bando’s head is no longer visible. My feet rise off the floor and I clutch the handle tightly with both hands. Bando is rescuing me. This is amazing. He’s usually so selfish and lazy. I’ve heard of dogs rescuing their owners from snow storms, but never from sock pits.

  As I rise through the darkness towards the light I am filled with hope that I might make it out of this alive. My head is hot, my skin is itchy and sore all over, and the smell of socks makes me feel like throwing up. But I am slowly, surely, rising from my sockish dungeon.

  Then I look down and see something truly horrifying – the socks seem to be linking up. They are joining forces to form one long, anaconda-like monster. The snake sways and stretches up towards my foot, snapping at me as I approach the dryer opening.

  Almost at the top, I pray that the lead won’t snap before I get there. I reach out towards the metal rim of the dryer with one hand and just grasp it with the tips of my fingers. I pull myself up with every ounce of strength I have, feeling the anasockda winding itself around my left foot. I hook one arm over the rim and I am born again as my head emerges into the light.

  The sock snake tries to pull me down but I kick hard one final time and pull myself through the hole, falling onto the tiled laundry floor. There is a moist feeling in my ear and a loud slurping sound as Bando licks me. He barks ferociously at the dryer and snaps at the anasockda as it slowly recoils back into the depths.

  I tear the socks away from my face and neck. I spit out the sock in my mouth and cough up a large, slimy lint ball into the palm of my hand. I flick it into the sink and rip the last remaining socks off my body and my legs. I lie on the tiled floor, sucking in one enormous breath after another.

  ‘Mum?’ I call.

  It’s quiet for a moment, then I hear footsteps before Mum comes into the room. ‘What on earth are you doing now? What’s happened to you?’