One Big Wacky Family Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  My Mum the Pirate

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 A Pirate Crew

  Chapter 2 Cecil’s Birthday Wish

  Chapter 3 You Want What!

  Chapter 4 The Wizard

  Chapter 5 The Problem With School

  Chapter 6 Parent Teacher Night

  Chapter 7 Mum goes to School

  Chapter 8 The Crew Arrive

  Chapter 9 The Day After is Even Worse

  Chapter 10 A Terrible Morning at School

  Chapter 11 A Message From the Principal

  Chapter 12 All Over School

  Chapter 13 Rain

  Chapter 14 Saved From the Flood

  Chapter 15 The End of the Black Ship

  Chapter 16 Freedom

  Chapter 17 Off to the Next Adventure

  Epilogue

  My Dog the Dinosaur

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 A Little Lonely Dog

  Chapter 2 Spot Comes Home

  Chapter 3 Spot Has Dinner

  Chapter 4 Spot goes to Bed

  Chapter 5 Green Gloop

  Chapter 6 Spot is Toilet-trained

  Chapter 7 Spot Works it Out

  Chapter 8 Life With Spot

  Chapter 9 The Football Grand Final

  Chapter 10 Spot Bounces In

  Chapter 11 Spot Can’t Sleep

  Chapter 12 Disaster

  Chapter 13 The Secret of Pete’s Shed

  Chapter 14 A Dinosaur

  Chapter 15 Pete is Brilliant

  Chapter 16 Teaching Spot to Bark

  Chapter 17 Still Teaching Spot to Bark

  Chapter 18 Woof

  Chapter 19 A Bark at Last

  Chapter 20 Plans

  Chapter 21 Taking Spot for Walkies

  Chapter 22 Danger

  Chapter 23 The Chase

  Chapter 24 Discovery

  Chapter 25 The End

  Chapter 26 One Year Later

  My Dad the Dragon

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 Sir Sneazle’s Horrid Homework

  Chapter 2 Kill a Dragon!

  Chapter 3 Mum Tries to Help

  Chapter 4 Grub the Inventor

  Chapter 5 Dad the Dragon

  Chapter 6 Is that a Real Dragon?

  Chapter 7 The Handsome Knight Spell goes Wrong

  Chapter 8 Grub’s Little Invention

  Chapter 9 It’s a What?

  Chapter 10 A Damsel is Rescued

  Chapter 11 You Have to Kill a What?

  Chapter 12 Dragon Hunting

  Chapter 13 Horace Goes Out Alone

  Chapter 14 Horace Meets a Dragon

  Chapter 15 Horace the Dragon Slayer

  Chapter 16 Did You Say I’m Your…

  Chapter 17 Back Home

  Chapter 18 Dad Explains

  Chapter 19 The Set Up

  Chapter 20 A Procession to School

  Chapter 21 It’s a Trap!

  Chapter 22 Dragon Anger

  Chapter 23 A Dragon Knight

  Chapter 24 Dragon Tales

  My Uncle Gus the Garden Gnome

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 The Bad Luck Spell

  Chapter 2 A Mate Named Mog

  Chapter 3 Tom’s Uncle Gus

  Chapter 4 Bad Luck Begins

  Chapter 5 Mutant Spaghetti

  Chapter 6 What’s Wrong with Everyone?

  Chapter 7 A Word With Fra

  Chapter 8 Fra Has a Plan

  Chapter 9 Kitty-Kat Pays a Visit

  Chapter 10 What’s That Smell?

  Chapter 11 Tom Apologises

  Chapter 12 A Tyrannosaurus Mouse

  Chapter 13 Mog Plans a Kidnap

  Chapter 14 Something Goes Wrong

  Chapter 15 It Smells Like…

  Chapter 16 Way Out to Sea

  Chapter 17 Back to Grizella’s Place

  Chapter 18 The Most Powerful Witch in the World

  Chapter 19 Uncle Gus’s Happy Magic

  Chapter 20 Uncle Gus Goes to School

  Chapter 21 More Magic Than Meets the Eye

  Chapter 22 A Little Bit of Magic Happiness

  Chapter 23 A Happy Witch

  Chapter 24 Bad Luck is Lifted

  Chapter 25 The School Dance

  Chapter 26 Tom and Uncle Gus

  The next four titles in the Wacky Families series:

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  My Mum the Pirate

  To everyone at North Rocks Primary…

  I promised you a dedication and here it is!

  PS: It’s a pretty fantastic school, too.

  JF

  For Taden, Siobhan, Ellie, Kaitlan,

  Shauna, and their piratical parents.

  SMK

  CHAPTER 1

  A Pirate Crew

  ‘I’ll slice your gizzard!’ yelled Mum, waving her sword at the fleeing slaver captain. ‘I’ll chop your toes off to feed the fishes!’

  The battle raged across the decks of the pirate ship Mermaid. Swords clashed, seagulls yelled. Down on the lower deck, the pirates had caught half the slaver crew in the net Filthy Frederick used to catch sea monsters. Up on the mast the skull and crossbones fluttered in the breeze.

  Mum leapt down the stairs, grabbed the slaver captain by his greasy pigtail and gave him a kick in the backside with her long black boot, sending him over the rails and into the water.

  ‘Take that, snot whiskers!’ she yelled. She peered into the coil of rope where Cecil was sitting with his books. ‘Have you finished your homework?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Cecil. ‘It’s hard to concentrate with all the noise going on. It’s this really hard maths problem…’

  ‘I don’t care if it’s advanced alchemy; I want that homework done before bedtime…Take that, you undercooked son of a seasick gorilla!’

  ‘But Mum,’ shouted Cecil, as Mum leapt up back onto the bridge after another slaver, ‘what’s the cube root of twenty-seven?’

  ‘Three!’

  Filthy Frederick’s wooden leg clattered across the deck. ‘Sorry, me hearty,’ he yelled to Cecil. ‘But your mum’s busy at the moment!’

  Another slaver leapt down from the bridge and onto the coil of rope.

  Swack! Filthy Frederick’s wooden leg kicked him overboard.

  ‘Say hello to the sharks, you pile of seagull vomit!’ yelled Filthy Frederick, picking a cockroach out of his beard and absent-mindedly eating it.

  ‘Are there any sharks down there?’ asked Cecil, interested.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Filthy Frederick.

  Cecil quickly took a final breath of clean air as Filthy Frederick sat on the edge of his coil of rope. Filthy Frederick was one of Cecil’s favourite people in the universe, but sometimes Cecil wished he’d take a bath.

  ‘Oof! Time for a breather, me hearty,’ said Filthy Frederick, grinning and showing his three long, yellow teeth. ‘I’m not as young as I used to be. No, your mum would be cross if anyone got hurt in one of her battles. You know what she says: “Free the slaves, grab the treasure and don’t get any bloodstains on my clean deck.” Any more maths problems?’

  Filthy Frederick had once been thrown in a dungeon with the king’s mathematician who’d been silly enough to argue when the king said two times four was nine. Filthy Frederick had learnt lots of things in that dungeon, like the cube root of lots of numbers (including seven hundred and twenty-nine) and never argue with someone who has a crown and an army.

  ‘A pirate’s life is the way for me,’ sang Filthy Frederick, swinging his wooden leg around and knocking another two slavers into the ocean.

  ‘With lo
ts of enemies on the sea,

  With chests of treasure and jewels too,

  A fine free life for me and you!’

  ‘See you later, me hearty,’ added Filthy Frederick to Cecil. ‘Best get back to the battle!’ He heaved himself

  up, leaving a small cloud of fleas behind. His wooden leg tapped on the deck after another slaver.

  ‘See you later, Filthy Frederick,’ said Cecil.

  ‘Snap!’ agreed Snap, peering out of the coil of rope.

  Snap was Cecil’s pet crocodile. Mum reckoned no one was going to try to grab Cecil if he had a crocodile on guard.

  ‘Glop.’ Snap swallowed what looked like a couple of fingers and grinned at Cecil.

  Cecil grinned back. Mum said Snap wasn’t allowed to eat fingers or toes or even a nice chunk of slaver’s bum, but Cecil reckoned that sailors on any ship that carried slaves deserved whatever they got.

  Cecil turned back to his homework. Behind him the fight was nearly over. Filthy Frederick and Mum were pushing the last of the slavers off the plank.

  Ambrose One Arm and Harry the Hook were carrying half the treasure chests from the slaver ship to theirs.

  Barnacle Bruce was explaining to the bewildered slaves on the deck of the other ship that the ship was theirs now and so was the other half of the treasure, so they were rich. And, by the way, did anyone know how to sail a ship because if not, he’d give them sailing lessons.

  Down in the sea the slavers were swimming over to the small desert island nearby. Mum made sure there was an island nearby when she made prisoners walk the plank or tossed them overboard, and if one of them couldn’t swim, she threw him a lifebelt.

  ‘Jelly-bellied sons of a sea serpent slavers!’ snorted Mum, striding back over to Cecil and wiping her sword on her trousers before sheathing it in its scabbard. ‘I hope the crabs crawl up their underpants and bite their…’ She remembered Cecil was listening. ‘Well, son, how’s the homework going?’

  ‘Nearly done.’

  ‘Good. Dinner’ll be ready in three shakes of a dolphin’s tail. Hey, Putrid Percival!’ she shouted. ‘What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Sea monster stew!’ came the answer from down in the galley.

  ‘But we had sea monster for lunch and breakfast and last night’s dinner!’ yelled Mum.

  ‘Can I help it if all you blighters catch me is sea monster?’

  ‘How many maggots in the ship’s biscuit then?’

  ‘One thousand, four hundred and twenty-two!’ called back Putrid Percival.

  ‘Not enough,’ decided Mum. ‘You need at least five thousand maggots in a barrel of ship’s biscuit to make it tender enough to get your teeth into. Let’s have pizza. That all right with you Perce?’ she called.

  ‘Fine by me,’ Putrid Percival called back. ‘I’ve been boiling the tentacles for three hours, but they’re still too tough to chew.’

  ‘You lads,’ bellowed Mum to the pirate crew. ‘You want sea monster or pizza for dinner tonight?’

  ‘Pizza!’ yelled Filthy Frederick, aiming his armpit at a slaver who was trying to climb back on board. The slaver fell back into the sea as the smell overpowered him.

  ‘Pizza!’ cried Barnacle Bruce.

  ‘Pizza!’ shouted Harry the Hook.

  ‘Without any anchovies,’ called Shark-eyed Pete. ‘Those maggot munchers put anchovies on my pizza last time. You know they make me burp!’

  ‘Snap,’ agreed Snap, breathing rotten fish and chewed up fingers all over the deck. Snap liked pizza even better than toes and fingers.

  ‘Make mine lasagne!’ announced Ambrose One Arm.

  ‘Right, eight pizzas and one lasagne, and make sure they don’t put any sea monster on my pizza. Make sail for shore, lads!’

  Mum threw Cecil a bag of gold. ‘Take these down to the rare coin shop when we get to Bandicoot Creek and order up the pizzas, will you? Get some of that white stuff too. What’s it called again?’

  ‘Milk,’ said Cecil.

  ‘Right,’ agreed Mum. ‘Nine tankards of their best milk too.’

  Cecil sighed as he shoved his homework back into his bag.

  He wished Mum and the crew had never discovered pizza.

  He wished Filthy Frederick would get singing lessons.

  He wished Snap could learn to use a toothbrush.

  But most of all, he wished he didn’t have to go to school tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 2

  Cecil’s Birthday Wish

  It wasn’t that Cecil didn’t like school. He did like school. He liked playing football with the other kids at lunchtime. He loved learning lessons and reading books. In fact, that was how the whole problem began.

  It had been his birthday. The whole ship had a holiday every year on Cecil’s birthday.

  ‘Even if the Black Ship sails by,’ swore Mum, ‘it’s not going to interrupt the party!’

  ‘But we’d have to chase the Black Ship!’ protested Cecil. The Black Ship was the biggest, worst, slave ship on the whole Spanish Main. Mum and the crew had tried to catch it many times, but the Black Ship was too big and too fast.

  Mum shrugged. ‘We’d never catch it anyway,’ she muttered. But then she grinned. ‘Let’s forget about the Black Ship, me hearties!’ she cried, waving her sword in the air. ‘Let’s have the best birthday party ever!’

  Cecil woke early on his birthday. His hammock rocked gently between the poles in his bedroom. Through the porthole, he could see the sun sparkling on the sea.

  Cecil pulled on his stockings and pantaloons and shirt and pirate hat, and headed out into the passageway.

  Someone had decorated the companionway with pirate flags, and long ropes of skulls (Filthy Frederick carved them out of driftwood) hung all around the galley.

  ‘Happy birthday, matey,’ called Putrid Percival, stirring a pot of sea monster soup on the stove.

  ‘Happy birthday, lad!’ yelled Harry the Hook, and Filthy Frederick and Ambrose One Arm and Barnacle Bruce.

  ‘Happy birthday!’ yelled Shark-eyed Pete, putting the last touches to Cecil’s giant birthday cake. It was shaped like a pirate ship and the candles poked out of tiny cannon. There were even some chocolate slavers walking the plank into a sea of blueberry jelly.

  Snap grinned at Cecil from under the table and said ‘Snap’, in a happy-birthdayish sort of way.

  ‘Happy birthday, son!’ cried Mum, putting her tankard of tea down on the table and kissing Cecil on the cheek.

  ‘Happy birthday to you!

  Happy birthday to you!

  Happy birthday, dear Cecil,

  From all of the crew,’ sang Filthy Frederick, absentmindedly squashing a cockroach as it ran out of his shirt and up his neck.

  The presents spilled all over the table. Cecil sat down and opened them.

  There was a pirate ship in a bottle from Harry the Hook and a giant skull with a candle in it that Filthy Frederick had carved for him, a spoon carved out of a shark’s jaw from Shark-eyed Pete and a new shirt with the skull and crossbones on it from Ambrose One Arm. Barnacle Bruce had knitted him a bright red hat with

  three pom poms, and Putrid Percival had made him a big box of toffee-coated sea monster.

  One last present sat on the floor. It was an old sea chest. Mum grinned. ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ she demanded.

  Cecil nodded. He lifted the lid. Snap slithered over and peered in too, just in case there was a nice dead body to eat.

  There wasn’t a body. Or diamonds. Or jewels…

  ‘Books!’ cried Cecil. ‘A whole chest of books!’

  Mum grinned. ‘We captured it two ships ago,’ she explained. ‘We hid them in the hold till your birthday. Those books were going to the King of Spain,’ she added. ‘But you’ll make better use of them. Now, I suppose you’re wondering what I’ve got you?’

  Cecil nodded.

  ‘Well, I was thinking, what would a lad your age want? A new sword? But you don’t like sword fighting. A cannon of your very own? But you can use the ship�
��s cannon whenever you want. And then I thought: I want my son to have whatever he wants!’

  ‘So,’ said Mum, taking a big gulp of tea, ‘what would you like? A chest of treasure? A crown with rubies and diamonds? A shrunken head to hang in your bedroom? A small island? A pet leopard? Anything, lad! It’s yours!’

  Cecil bit his lip. There was just one thing he wanted, one thing he wanted more than anything else. He gulped.

  ‘What I’d really like,’ he began.

  ‘Yes?’ said Mum.

  ‘More than anything else…’ said Cecil.

  ‘Anything!’ said Mum.

  ‘I want to go to school,’ said Cecil.

  CHAPTER 3

  You Want What!

  ‘School!’ yelled Mum. Her tankard of tea dropped from her hand and hit Snap on the head, though as he was a crocodile with a crocodile’s hard head, he didn’t notice.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cecil.

  ‘A son of mine going to school?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cecil.

  ‘But no one in our family has ever gone to school!’ protested Mum.

  ‘I never went to school,’ Mum continued. ‘Your dad never went to school. We’ve always been pirates! Grandpa was a pirate, Grandma was a pirate, your Aunt Mary has her own ship over in the gulf! Great Granddad was a pirate, Great Grandma was…’

  ‘But I don’t want to be a pirate,’ said Cecil quietly.

  ‘Not a pirate!’ cried Mum. The crew looked shocked. ‘Why not?’ yelled Mum.

  Cecil tried to work out how to explain.

  ‘I get seasick,’ he said.

  ‘Not since we gave you that turtle dung and vampire bat potion,’ objected Mum. ‘You didn’t even vomit up the sea monster custard Putrid Percival made last week!’

  ‘I don’t like sword fighting either,’ explained Cecil.

  ‘Then get your crew to do the fighting!’

  ‘I don’t like navigating by the stars. I…I…’

  Suddenly Mum stopped yelling. ‘What do you like?’ she asked softly.