The World's Awesomest Air-Barf (2 page)

Officers from
The Great Big Book of World Records
went to Bongandanga to measure this extra sick. It filled another 397
sick–bags, making a total of 787.

Enjoy your visit to Spain.

Best wishes

Eric Bibby

Keeper of the Records

PS Why isn’t your dad working for his old club, Walchester United? That would be a dream job, wouldn’t it?

Danny and Matthew hurried through the Hotel La Langosta on their way to the beach. They noticed Danny’s mum and sister Natalie just ahead of them.

‘Hey, Nits,’ called Danny. ‘Fancy a game of football?’

‘As if!’ replied Natalie, scornfully. ‘We’re going shopping.’

‘Shopping!’ complained Danny. ‘That’s all girls think about. If this new baby Mum’s going to have is a girl, I’m coming to live at your house,
Matt.’

They stepped from the cool hotel into the ovenlike heat outside.

‘Hot,’ gasped Danny.

‘Cool!’ said Matthew.

The two boys headed for the beach, where the Kids’ Club at the hotel had arranged a game of football.

It was a great match. The sand was hard and flat, and many of the kids who were playing were pretty good.

Danny stood in his goalmouth, watching a girl who looked about his age playing for the other team. She was quick, and she did step-overs and back-heels. Matthew was struggling to mark her and,
once, the girl even nutmegged him. Danny could see Matt wasn’t happy.

She had a shot like a cannon. Several times she blasted a fizzer towards Danny’s goal, but Danny was always equal to it.

‘You’re good,’ the girl remarked after Danny had just tipped her diving header around the post.

‘You’re brilliant!’ said Danny.

‘I play striker for Bunbury Bantams. I scored thirty-one goals last season,’ boasted the girl.

‘I
saved
eighty-seven goals
in one game
last season!’ replied Danny.

Towards the end of the game, the ball was played low and fast towards the girl. Matthew was close behind her. She went to control the ball, but at the last moment, lifted her foot and let it
pass by.

Matthew was completely fooled. The ball sped past him on one side, while the girl slid past him on the other. His legs went in two directions, and he stumbled and landed on his back.

She was through, with only Danny to beat!

Danny moved quickly off his line. The girl glanced up, and shaped to blast a shot. Danny stopped and braced himself to dive, but she didn’t shoot. Instead, she chipped the ball high over
Danny’s head.

He was caught off balance, and had to watch it soar through the clear blue sky and loop down into his empty net.

GOAL!

The girl disappeared in a scrum of kids as her team mobbed her.

Danny knelt on the sand and stared at the ball nestling in the far corner of his goal.

His goal.

Matthew joined him. ‘That’s the first time anyone’s scored past you for –’ He thought for a moment.

‘
Months!
’ Danny blurted out.

‘Fourteen months, three weeks, and . . . five days, to be exact.’

Danny and Matthew gazed across the sand as the girl broke away from the throng of kids, did a back somersault, and landed nimbly on her feet.

‘Wow!’ admired Matthew. ‘I can’t do that.’

‘Neither can I,’ admitted Danny. ‘I’d better get practising.’

She trotted over to them. She had the reddest hair and greenest eyes Danny had ever seen.

‘Hiya.’ She grinned. ‘I’m Sally Butterworth. See you later in the pool.’

Later that afternoon, Danny and Matthew stood in the shallow end of the hotel pool, playing keepy-uppy headers with a beach ball. They had got to twenty-one, when Sally
Butterworth launched herself from the edge of the pool and caught the ball in mid-air, before splashing into the water between the two friends.

‘Hiya,’ spluttered Sally when she surfaced. She was wearing a pair of red goggles and a snorkel. ‘Watch this.’

Sally ducked her head beneath the water and blew a towering spout from the snorkel high into the air.

‘Wow!’ said Danny and Matthew together. It was one of the best super volcanoes they’d ever seen.

‘How high did it go?’ asked Sally.

‘About one and a bit metres,’ replied Danny.

‘My record’s three metres. No one’s beat it at my school. Bet you can’t beat it either.’

‘Bet I can!’ said Danny.

He grabbed his own snorkel from the side of the pool, took a deep breath, then dipped beneath the water and blew out as hard as he could. He heard the spluttering, farty sound and knew he
hadn’t done it right.

‘I won!’ cheered Sally. ‘Want a race? I’ve got the Bunbury Belugas Swimming Club record for the Fastest Length of Butterfly Ever.’

‘Do you like trying to break records then?’ asked Danny with a slight tremble in his voice.

‘Yeah. I broke the school squinting record last month. Watch this.’

Sally made her eyes roll to the centre, as though she was looking at something on the end of her nose. Then her right eye drifted across to look away from her. It moved back to the centre, and
her left eye slid across to look away. Then
it
returned to the middle once more.

‘Ace,’ breathed Danny.

‘Cool,’ agreed Matthew.

‘How long did you squint for when you broke the record?’ asked Danny.

‘Nine hours, sixteen minutes and seven seconds,’ answered Sally. ‘It would have been longer, but my mum made me stop.’

Matthew hit the beach-ball high in the air. ‘Fancy playing a game?’

‘Let’s play piggy in the middle,’ replied Sally. She glanced at Matthew. ‘You can be piggy.’

Matthew grumpily took up position in the centre of the shallow end while the other two went to each side. Sally threw the ball high over Matthew’s head. He stretched, but couldn’t
catch it. Danny returned it, but again Matthew was too short.

‘Come on,’ called Sally after several minutes. ‘At this rate you’ll break the record for being the piggy in the middle.’

‘I’m fed up with this game,’ replied Matthew. ‘I’m going to the deep end to practise my diving.’

The next morning, Sally Butterworth marched up to Danny and Matthew as they were eating breakfast.

‘Hiya, Dan!’ she called. ‘Hiya, Matt.’

Danny noticed that Sally had a large plaster on her knee.