The World's Loudest Armpit Fart (2 page)

Suddenly a huge red jelly burst through the sign and wibbled and wobbled out to the centre circle, kicking a football and waving to the crowd.

‘Let’s give a big Walchester United welcome to our new sponsors, Wibberley Wobberley Jellies,’ announced a voice over the loud speaker. ‘And say “Hello” to our new mascot, Wibbles the Dribbling Jelly!’

Wibbles wore a red peaked cap, and the see-through red plastic jelly costume ballooned out from around his neck like a horrible bell-shaped dress. His red hands stuck out from the side and his skinny red legs from the bottom.

‘I don’t believe it,’ groaned Danny.

‘It’s worse than Wally the Wall!’ said Matthew.

‘It’s even worse than Gogo La Gamba, Real Marisco’s pink prawn mascot. It doesn’t even look like a jelly and you can see the man inside.’

Matthew peered closer. ‘Isn’t that Jack Dawkins’s big brother? I thought he was training to be an astronaut.’

‘Looks like he became a jelly instead!’

Just then another sound cut through the cheers of the crowd.

‘Daaaaaaaannnnnnnyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!’

The boys stared at each other in disbelief.

‘It’s not . . .’

‘It
can’t
be . . .’

‘Hiiiiiiiiyyyyyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!’

‘It is!’

Five rows behind them, wearing a red Walchester United shirt, her bright-red hair twisted into two long pigtails and tied on the ends with ruby-red ribbons, was Sally Butterworth.

Danny cringed as he remembered his and Matthew’s first meeting with Sally, in Spain just a few months before. Not only had she scored a goal against him in a game of beach-football, she had tricked him into winning his most embarrassing record of all: 18 minutes and 47 seconds of Budgie-costumed Perched-in-a-tree Kissing! Even worse, she had made him fall out with Matthew.

Sally waved furiously, then rolled her tongue and squinted. She edged along the row of seats and skipped down the stand towards them. Danny realized with horror that there was an empty seat beside him.

‘Hiya!’ beamed Sally. ‘Remember me?’

‘No, who are you?’ replied Matthew.

Sally laughed, but her smile instantly turned to a look of concern as she noticed Danny’s leg. ‘What have you done?’ she asked, sitting down in the vacant seat.

‘Slipped on a cheese,’ explained Danny.

‘Is it broken?’

‘What, my foot or the cheese?’

Sally punched Danny playfully, but hard, on the arm.

‘Ow!’ he complained. ‘What’re
you
doing here, Sally?’

‘I’m with Wibberley Wobberley,’ she said. ‘My dad’s the Regional Manager, so you’ll be seeing a lot more of me from now on.’

‘Your dad’s a jelly salesman?’ asked Matthew.

‘Yeah! How cool is that?’ Sally smiled at Danny and rested her hand on his. ‘Do you like jelly, Danny?’

‘Yeah . . .’

‘I can get you as much jelly as you can eat.’

Suddenly Danny had an idea. He pulled his hand away and folded his arms.

‘Could you get me enough jelly to break a record?’ he asked.

‘Course I can. Dad’s got thousands of boxes full of “experimental” jelly-mixes that nobody wants.’

‘
Experimental
jelly-mixes?’

Sally counted the different flavours on her fingers. ‘Caviar and Custard.’

‘Gross!’

‘Turnip and Trifle.’

‘Mega-gross!’

‘Fig and Fish Finger.’

‘Giga-gross!’ said Matthew.

Sally nodded. ‘They made people throw up, and it was hard to get the mix right: they either wibbled too much or they didn’t wobble at all. Anyway, you can have them all if you want.’

‘Ace!’ said Danny.

Matthew said nothing.

‘
I
broke the County Junior Jelly-juggling record, with three balls of Pepperoni Pizza and Pomegranate jelly,’ boasted Sally. ‘Two minutes, fifteen point four seconds.’

Danny was impressed. ‘You can juggle jellies?’ ‘Duh! If I couldn’t juggle jellies, I wouldn’t have broken the County Jelly-juggling record, would I?’

Matthew nudged Danny on the arm. ‘Here come the teams.’

The trumpets blared once more and the Walchester United and Downmouth Albion players ran out on to the pitch in two long lines. The roar of the crowd wrapped around Danny, Matthew and Sally and pulled them to their feet to cheer.

‘By the way,’ shouted Sally as the players’ names were announced. ‘Have you seen who your school team is playing this season?’

‘No,’ replied Danny. ‘Why?’

Sally didn’t answer. She flashed Danny a huge smile, then turned back to watch the game.

‘COME ON THE WIBBERLEY WOBBERLIES!’ she screamed.

Danny was looking forward to getting back to school. He hobbled on his crutches alongside Matthew as they passed through the school gates, the plaster cast on his leg now black and blue and green and red and purple and orange and pink with signatures. The name in pink was Sally Butterworth.

‘I’ve got a record-breaking itchy leg underneath all this plaster,’ he said. ‘I can’t wait for them to cut the cast off tomorrow.’

‘I’ll count the signatures at home-time and you can write to Mr Bibby at the Great Big Book of World Records to ask if it’s a record.’

Danny shook his head. ‘There’s nowhere near enough. He’d say: “Good try, Danny! You’re not going to believe this, but Thelma McCurdie’s massive record-breaking 622-centimetre bottom has foiled another one of your record attempts! In January 1994, Thelma slipped on a chilli-cheese French fry and broke her bum!”’

‘Mr Bibby would
never
use the word “bum”,’ said Matthew.

‘True,’ Danny grinned. ‘How much plaster do you think you’d need to cover a bottom as big as that?’

Matthew shrugged. ‘About three tonnes, I bet.’

‘“When the cast was sawn off four months later,”’ continued Danny, pretending to be Mr Bibby again. ‘“Officers from the Great Big Book of World Records took eleven years, five months and nineteen days to add up all the names.”’

‘“It took so long, because after five years, three months and twenty-nine days, they lost count and had to start again!”’ laughed Matthew. ‘“They eventually counted twelve quidtrillion, nineteen zigzillion, six googillion, four thousand, five hundred and forty-three signatures!”’

Danny chuckled. Then he nudged his friend. ‘Look, Matt!’

Mr Collinson, the Coalclough Sparrows football coach, was pinning the new season’s fixture list to the school noticeboard. The boys hurried over to see who they would be playing.

‘The first game’s against Parpington Aardvarks,’ said Matthew. ‘We beat them five–nil last year. They couldn’t score against you in a megatrinzillion games! You’d have broken the clean-sheet record against
them
!’