The World's Loudest Armpit Fart (12 page)

Dear Danny

I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve missed again! It was an excellent attempt, but the world’s wrinkliest person is Thelma McCurdie, of Kissimmee, Florida – the same Thelma McCurdie who holds the world records for the biggest and spottiest bottom!

Embarrassed by all the attention given to her vast behind when she broke those records, Thelma went on a crash diet to make it smaller. Unfortunately, while she lost all the fat, she didn’t lose the skin. After a year of living on just celery and water, Thelma’s whole body looked like a huge, deflated hot-air balloon.

Her longest single wrinkle went five times around her body, and measured 36.43 m.

Her crinkliest wrinkle had 2,973 crinkles per wrinkle.

Her Skin-wrinkle Index was a massive 3,769!

Her deepest wrinkle was 35.6 cm deep.

A team of specially trained officers from the Great Big Book of World Records went to check Thelma out. When they began to use the Wrinkle-dept Dipstick Attachment of the Wrinkleometer, in the deep folds of skin, they discovered:

A family hamster (two adults and five babies)

Three jelly beans

A baseball mitt

A French dictionary

Two sticks of half-eaten celery

A bunch of the keys

and . . .

A three-month-old
TV guide

Yours was a brave attempt, Danny, but you could
never
compete with Thelma’s tent-sized torso. I hope your cold gets better soon.

Best wishes

Eric Bibby

Keeper of the Records

Danny and Matthew were just leaving home to play the Tootleby Tomahawks in the Penleydale Cup when, from her bedroom, Natalie let out a horrible, blood-curdling scream.

Dad ran from the living room and bounded up the stairs. Danny and Matthew followed him.

Mum rushed out of the bathroom.

‘Don’t scream like that, Natalie!’ she said. ‘The shock made the baby jump in my bump!’

‘There’s a big black furry thing in my backpack!’ cried Natalie.

The boys looked guiltily at each other.

‘I forgot to take out the hairy gloop!’ whispered Danny.

Dad went into the spare room. He returned wearing his motorcycle helmet and goalkeeping gloves, and wielding a cricket bat.

‘Stand back,’ he ordered, striding into Natalie’s bedroom.

‘Er . . . Dad . . .’

‘Hush, Danny!’ hissed his father, raising the bat above his head like a Samurai warrior.

‘But, Dad, it’s just a hatful of plughole gloop.’

‘What?’ spluttered his sister.

‘From the drains at the swimming pool.’

‘Mum!’ yelled Natalie. ‘Tell him!’

She made a lunge for Danny’s ears, but the boys were too quick. They fled down the stairs and out of the house.

As they made their way to the school, the air swirled with brown and yellow leaves, ripped from the trees by the strong wind.

Danny grinned. ‘Next time I put yucky stuff in Nat’s bag, remind me to take it out again!’

‘Will do!’ laughed Matthew. ‘Hey, I saw your dad’s photo in the paper!’

‘Yeah, he’s really chuffed to have Walchester United’s new stand named after him. There’s a sign across the front of the roof that says “The Bobby Baker Stand” in letters two metres high. It’s Ace!’

‘I thought you had to be dead for a trillion years before you got something named after you, like . . .’ Matthew thought for a moment. ‘Saint Paul’s Cathedral.’

‘I wonder if I’ll ever have something named after me.’

‘A tin of smelly foot powder probably,’ grinned Matthew.

They turned through the school gates. Danny ducked as a wrapper from a Crumbly Crunch Mint-choc Dreambar whizzed past his head.

‘Did you break the Whole-body Skin-wrinkles record?’ asked Matthew.

‘No! Guess who’s got the certificate for
that
one?’

‘Not Thelma “Big Bum” McCurdie?’

‘Yeah! Her bottom’s unbeatable,’ complained Danny. ‘Huge, spotty
and
wrinkled!’

Matthew sniffed. ‘What’s that smell?’

‘It’s not my feet!’ said Danny, sniffing too. ‘That’s biscuits! The wind must be blowing it all the way from the Crumbly Crunch factory.’

‘It’s fruity flapjacks!’ said Matthew.

‘Nah, jammy sandwich!’ argued Danny. They both breathed in deeply through their noses, then nodded in agreement.

‘Fig rolls!’

Dear Danny

I hope you are well and planning your next record attempt. Unfortunately, I have some bad news: you are no longer the world record holder for the Most Saves in a Single Game.

Your record was broken by Giuseppe ‘Peppe’ Marulo, the goalkeeper for Atletico Tonino, a small club near Naples, in southern Italy. At half-time in a match against rivals Sant’ Anna, nine of his team-mates went on strike and refused to carry on with the game because their traditional half-time pepperoni pizzas had not been delivered.

Peppe and the other remaining player had brought their own meatball sandwiches and played on, keeping the score to 39-nil. In doing so, Peppe made an incredible score 109 saves, otherwise the score would have been 148-nil! (This would been a world record, by the way.)

I’m sorry to disappoint you, Danny, but I thought you would prefer to know.

Best wishes

Eric Bibby

Keeper of the Records

‘Hi, Dan!’ said Matthew, running up the stairs and into Danny’s bedroom.

‘Hiya, Matt.’ Danny held out Mr Bibby’s letter for Matthew to read. ‘My world record for the Most Saves in a Single Game has been beaten.’

‘Never!’ Matthew shook his head in disbelief and began to read.

‘That’s not fair!’ he protested, when he had finished it. ‘You didn’t let
any
goals in. He let
thirty-nine
in!’

‘He still made one hundred and nine saves,’ said Danny. ‘So he’s the record holder. Dad says this always happens when you’re the best at something: sooner or later someone comes along and takes your crown.’

‘What are you going to do with the certificate?’ asked Matthew.

‘It’s staying up there on the wall,’ said Danny. ‘And today I’m going to get my twenty-five metres swimming certificate to put up next to it.’

Matthew grinned. ‘Come on, let’s get to the pool.’

‘Be careful, you two,’ called Mum, as the boys left the house. ‘It’s so windy today you might get blown all the way to Timbuktu.’

‘What’s the world record for being blown by the wind?’ wondered Danny as he and Matthew staggered down the High Street.

They leaned forward into the fierce gale. Several times it blew them back a pace or two. There was no need to wait until they reached Tempest Road before guessing which biscuits were baking today. The tangy-sweet smell had been carried all over the town.

‘Lemon puffs!’ they cried together.

A strong gust of wind pushed them straight through the doors of the Sports Centre, and as Danny and Matthew entered the pool area, they saw that the team for the Swimming Gala had been pinned on the noticeboard. Natalie was studying it as the boys walked towards her.