The World's Loudest Armpit Fart (9 page)

Danny waved the carrots around his head and boogied in the barrel.

‘Come on, Matt,’ he said, pointing to an unoccupied barrel of donkey dung. ‘Get your shoes and socks off, grab some carrots and get dancing!’

‘No thanks, Dan,’ replied Matthew. ‘I’d rather
chuck
poo than dance in it! Besides, I can see what it’s doing to your feet.’

Danny glanced down and his eyes widened with delight. When the donkey parade had passed by, the boys raced over to where Danny’s mum and sister, Natalie, were waiting.

‘Danny! It looks like you’re wearing brown socks!’ exclaimed Mum. ‘And your toes are like little shiny conkers!’

Natalie’s nose wrinkled in disgust. ‘I’m not sitting in a car all the way back to Penleydale with
those filthy feet
!’

‘Will it come off?’ asked Matthew.

‘There’s no way they’ll let you in the pool for Swimming Club tomorrow if it doesn’t,’ smirked Natalie.

Mum examined Danny’s blotchy feet. ‘When
I
was your age, I did the Donkey Dung Dance. My grandma got my feet clean by soaking them in vinegar and water, then rubbing them with newspaper. If you do it twice a day, the stains should be gone by next weekend.’

‘Aw, Mum!’ moaned Natalie. ‘The house’ll smell like a fish and chip shop!’

‘Ace!’ said Danny.

‘Cool!’ agreed Matthew.

Mum was right. By the following Sunday morning, Danny’s toes were back in the pink. The boys set off to the Sports Centre for their weekly session with the Penleydale Sea Squirts Swimming Club, both carrying bright-blue flippers under their arms.

Natalie walked on ahead of them. She was in the county swimming team, something that she never let her brother forget, because Danny hadn’t even swum a length yet. He had never managed to pass the red line that marked the end of the shallow water and the beginning of the Deep End.

‘I really want to try for my twenty-five metres certificate next week,’ Danny told Matthew.

‘Do you think you can Cross The Line?’

‘Yeah, I
have
to! I want to have a proper look at The Grid.’

The Grid was a metal filter in the wall at the deep end that sucked the water through and kept it clean. From the surface of the pool, it looked like a huge, gaping mouth, with clumps of hair and old sticking plasters dangling from its teeth.

‘Willy Williams in Year Six told me that his cousin’s best-friend’s older sister swam too close to The Grid and got
eaten alive
!’ said Danny.

‘I never heard
that
one,’ replied Matthew. ‘But I
did
hear there’s a monster python that lives in the drains behind it! It escaped from Dooley’s Pet Shop fifty years ago and just kept growing. They say it’s probably the biggest in the world by now!’

Danny laughed. ‘That reminds me, I’ve had an idea for a new record attempt. My feet went all wrinkly and crinkly when I was soaking the donkey do-do off last week. How long do you think I’d have to sit in water for that to happen to my
whole body
?’

‘No way,’ gasped Matthew. ‘You’re not thinking about . . . ?’

‘Oh yes I am,’ confirmed Danny.

He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled-up piece of paper. It was a newspaper clipping with a picture of a strange-looking gadget. He handed it to Matthew. ‘Can you make one of these?’

‘What is it?’

‘A Wrinkleometer.’ Danny pointed to the different parts on the diagram. ‘The small wheel measures the length of the wrinkles, the flat bit that looks like a little ruler checks the depth, and the two pointy things are to count the wrinkles per centimetre.’

Matthew nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ll have a go. It’ll take me a few days though.’

‘That’s OK. Today we’re going to put these flippers to good use and try to break another record.’

‘Just you and me?’

‘No,
all
the Sea Squirts – the more we have flipping, the better.’

Danny and Matthew approached the corner of Tempest Road. The Sports Centre stood at the top, right opposite the Crumbly Crunch biscuit factory. It was time for a quick game of Guess What Biscuit Is Baking Today.

‘Chocolate bourbons,’ predicted Danny.

‘Ginger nuts,’ guessed Matthew.

As they turned the corner, the smell of baking biscuits wafted to them on the breeze. Danny and Matthew sniffed deeply.

‘Custard creams!’ they laughed, and made their way down the road to the Sports Centre.

Dear Mr Bibby

Yesterday, twenty-one kids from my swimming club, the Penleydale Sea Squirts, tried to break a record. We all lined up at the shallow end of the pool, and at my signal everyone flipped their flippers at the same time.

A small ripple rolled down the pool, hit the wall at the far end, and bounced back. As it reached us we flipped again and made the ripple bigger.

Each time it came back to us we flipped, and each time the wave got bigger and faster. With one final flip at exactly the right moment, we created a huge monster of a wave.

It was Ace! The water crashed over the far end, swept through the doors of the girls’ changing rooms, then out across the reception area and into Tempest Road. Natalie said we were being childish and wouldn’t join in. She was in the changing rooms as the wave passed through. It picked her up, carried her outside and dumped her on the pavement. She wasn’t pleased.

The water travelled 354 m before running out of steam just before the zebra crossing near the Post Office.

Matthew found out that the pool holds 562,500 litres of water. If you take away the 26,373 litres of water left behind after the wave, this means that we managed to empty 536,127 litres of water from pool.

Are we the Swimming Pool Emptying Champions of the World?

Best wishes

Danny Baker

PS I’ve got a verruca. My dad told me he once had five on one foot and two on the other,
at the same time!
What’s the world record for having the most verrucas? I can’t try to break the record, because Mum’s covered my toe in Verrucablaster! cream. She says verrucas are banned when our new baby arrives.