Mascot Madness!

 

Andy Griffiths is one of Australia's funniest and most successful writers. His books have sold over 4 million copies worldwide, have featured on the
New York Times
bestseller lists, and have won over 40 Australian children's choice awards.

ALSO BY ANDY GRIFFITHS
AND ILLUSTRATED BY TERRY DENTON
Just Tricking!
Just Annoying!
Just Stupid!
Just Crazy!
Just Disgusting!
Just Shocking!
The Bad Book
The Cat on the Mat is Flat
The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow
What Bumosaur is That?

ALSO BY ANDY GRIFFITHS
The Day My Bum Went Psycho
Zombie Bums From Uranus
Bumageddon: The Final Pongflict

Schooling Around:
Treasure Fever!
Pencil of Doom!
Mascot Madness!

ANDY GRIFFITHS

 

The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

First published 2009 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney

Copyright © Backyard Stories Pty Ltd 2009

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Griffiths, Andy, 1961–

Mascot madness! / Andy Griffiths.

978 0 330 42486 8 (pbk.)

Schooling around

For primary school age.

A823.3

Illustration by Nathan Jurevicius
Typeset in 12/16 pt New Aster by Post Pre-press Group
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

 

These electronic editions published in 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

Mascot Madness

Andy Griffiths

Adobe eReader format: 978-1-74198-461-3
Online format: 978-1-74198-542-9
EPUB format: 978-1-74198-488-0

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www.macmillandigital.com.au

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Cover

About Andy Griffiths

Also by Andy Griffiths

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1 Once upon a time

2 Milk attack!

3 The Super Dryer 3000

4 Is that delicious smell coming from me?

5 Mr Grunt

6 The handbook toss

7 A stumble, a trip and a fall

8 Debriefing

9 Big, yellow and banana-shaped

10 An inspiring mascot?

11 Mr Brainfright's important lesson no. 1

12 Mr Brainfright's important lesson no. 2

13 Who wants to be the banana?

14 Mr Brainfright inspires the school

15 Principal Greenbeard arrives

16 Return of Fred and Clive

17 The winners' podium

18 Let's go bananas!

19 Just another normal sports class

20 Egg attack!

21 The Brainfright Program for Sporting Excellence

22 Visualisation

23 Bananas

24 Mr Brainfright's top ten facts about bananas

25 Art class

26 The great banana milk mystery

27 Mascot madness

28 Sorry

29 Tomato attack!

30 Mr Grunt's program

31 A visit from Mr Grunt

32 Grunt vs Brainfright

33 Grunt vs Spade

34 Northwest West Academy welcome us to the stadium . . . NOT!

35 Inside the stadium

36 Banana power!

37 Go, Newton, go!

38 Stop, Newton, stop!

39 Flip Johnson's top ten ‘Flipisms'

40 Troy vs Gretel

41 What a throw!

42 Mr Constrictor's top ten threats

43 Pimple zapping

44 Where's Newton?

45 Henry vs Fred, round 1

46 Newton's bodyguards

47 Constrictor vs Brainfright

48 Squashed banana

49 If the suit fits . . .

50 The truth

51 The true truth

52 Chomp

53 What Chomp looked like as he raced across the field towards me

54 Chomp vs Henry

55 Mr Brainfright's important lesson no. 3

56 Death-cathlon part 1

57 Death-cathlon part 2

58 Mascot massacre

59 Mr Grunt has a big fall

60 A dream come true

61 Fred and Clive's last stand

62 The truth about Mr Grunt's Olympic career

63 The last chapter

 

For Sooty

Once upon a time there was—and still is—a school called Northwest Southeast Central School.

Northwest Southeast Central School is located to the southeast of a town called Northwest, which is located to the northwest of a big city called Central City.

You don't need to know where Central City is, because it's not important. What
is
important is the school. In this school there is a classroom. And in that classroom there is a fifth-grade class. Most important of all, in that fifth-grade class there is a student named Henry McThrottle who likes to tell stories.

That's where I come in.

I'm Henry McThrottle . . . and this is my latest story.

It all started one morning before school a few weeks ago.

I was standing in the yard with my friends Jack Japes, Jenny Friendly, Gretel Armstrong and Newton Hooton.

Jack was telling us about a fish he'd caught on the weekend. Like most of Jack's fishing stories, it was entertaining, but mostly untrue.

‘You should have seen it!' said Jack, spreading his arms as wide apart as he could. ‘It was this big!'

‘In your dreams, Jack,' said Gretel, rolling her eyes.

‘It was no dream,' said Jack. ‘You should have seen the way it fought. It practically pulled me off the boat and down into the water!'

Newton gasped with fright. Newton was always gasping with fright. Newton was scared of . . . well,
pretty much everything, I guess. You name it, he was scared of it. He was even scared of the word ‘it' on the grounds that you could never be quite sure what ‘it' referred to.

‘Don't worry, Newton,' I said, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Jack's just exaggerating.'

‘No,' said Newton, shaking his head. ‘I'm not scared of that.'

‘Then what are you scared of?' I said.

‘THAT!' said Newton, pointing behind me.

‘Uh-oh,' said Gretel.

‘Uh-oh,' said Jack.

‘Watch out, Henry!' said Jenny.

I turned around to see the Northwest West Academy bus roaring past the school. I also saw an object being thrown from one of the windows of the bus, and the next thing I knew I was covered in milk.

Sweet, sticky, banana-flavoured milk.

‘See you at the games, Northwest Southeast Central losers!' yelled the familiar voice of Northwest West Academy school captain Troy Gurgling, and the bus disappeared in gales of laughter and a cloud of black, foul-smelling smoke.

I stood there, dripping with milk.

‘Are you all right, Henry?' said Jenny, a worried look on her face.

‘Yeah, I'm fine, thanks,' I said. ‘Just a bit more banana-milky than usual.'

‘Do you want me to take you to Mrs Bandaid?'

Mrs Bandaid was the school nurse. Her solution to every injury or illness was to apply bandaids. Lots of bandaids.

‘No,' I said. ‘I'm not hurt . . . just a bit sticky.'

‘A bit stinky, you mean,' said Fred Durkin, arriving with his brother Clive.

‘Yeah,' echoed Clive, ‘really stinky. Good one, Fred!'

‘Thanks for your help,' said Gretel, stepping in front of them and flexing her muscles. ‘Now run away and play like good little boys.'

‘I was just leaving anyway,' said Fred, eyeing Gretel warily. ‘Something around here stinks like rotten bananas.'

‘It didn't before
you
came,' said Jack.

Fred glared at Jack. ‘Why, you little pipsqueak squirt, I'm going to squeeze your head so hard that it pops!'

Gretel stepped in between them, her arms folded across her chest.

Fred stared at Gretel, his eyes narrowed to two black slits. ‘One of these days, Armstrong,' he said quietly. ‘One of these days . . .'

‘You're going to learn some manners?' suggested Gretel.

‘No,' said Jack, peering out from behind Gretel. ‘He's going to take a bath!'

Fred stared at Jack.

Jack stared at Fred.

Fred glanced at Gretel.