Crazy Weird Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  I wasn’t at all scared

  about seeing

  the dentist …

  … until I heard the drilling!

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Granddad. ‘You can always borrow my teeth if you need to!’

  I thought about it for a second. If I wore Granddad’s teeth, the dentist could drill all he wanted and it wouldn’t hurt at all!

  But the sight of all that slobber put me off.

  Then the drilling got even louder! It was like a jackhammer!

  What was going on in there?!

  I didn’t want any drills anywhere near my teeth!

  I ran to the window to escape!

  When I looked down, I realised that the jackhammering was coming from across the street!

  It was just a worker jackhammering the road!

  But what about the

  The had been coming from the telly!

  A man in a white coat walked into the waiting room. He looked at his clipboard and chuckled.

  ‘That’s me,’ I said and stood up.

  ‘Weir Do. That’s a name,’ he said with a toothy grin.

  A dentist called Phil McCavity!? Fill. My.

  Cavity. And he thinks I’ve got a funny name?

  The dentist’s chair was really cool. It moved up and down like a robot.

  There were all these weird little tool things lined up on a tray. Like a little stick with a mirror on the end of it.

  That’d be pretty cool for sneaking around corners.

  If you were a mouse.

  Then there was another stick with a claw thing on the end of it.

  That’d be handy for reaching things that are just a bit too high.

  And there was this mini vacuum cleaner thing that the nurse stuck into the corner of my mouth to suck

  out

  spit!

  It was gross. I’d hate to be the person who has to empty that vacuum bag!

  Dr Phil took a good look around in my mouth.

  ‘Open wider, please,’ he said.

  So I opened wider.

  ‘Just a little w-i-d-e-r,’ he said.

  So I opened my mouth as w-i-d-e as I could.

  ‘Even w-i-d-e-r.’

  Even w-i-d-e-r? What does he think I am? A snake?

  ‘How are you today?’ the dentist asked.

  ‘Very well, thanks,’ I tried to say.

  But it came out sounding like—

  The funny thing was that Dr Phil seemed to know exactly what I was saying! I guess dentists get used to hearing people talk with their mouths full.

  ‘Well, Weir, the good news is that we don’t need to pull out any teeth,’ the dentist told me.

  Looks like I was worried for nothing! This dentist thing is easy peasy!

  ‘However, you do need braces,’ he said.

  BRACES?!? I remembered a kid from my old school who had those.

  Max Gribble. He called himself …

  He could barely close his mouth over those things! And that meant he DRIBBLED ALL THE TIME and SPAT all over you whenever he said something.

  We quickly found ways to stay dry.

  But my family didn’t have raincoats at home. If I had braces and spat everywhere, Mum would probably make everyone wear garbage bags and buckets!

  ‘Don’t worry, Weir,’ said Dr Phil. ‘You’ll only need to wear the braces for a couple of months.’

  A couple of months?

  I was weird enough already, without having a mouth full of metal for two months!

  Oh man …

  ‘Let’s get started, shall we?’ said the dentist.

  ‘Maybe … um, maybe we should wait a few weeks,’ I stuttered. ‘I think I can feel my teeth getting straighter

  by

  themselves!’

  But Dr Phil was not convinced.

  CHAPTER 2

  The braces felt really weird. And I was sure they looked really weird, too. Maybe if I kept my mouth shut for two months, no-one would ever have to see them!

  I’d just have to make sure I never smiled, talked, ate or laughed in public. How hard could that be?

  ‘Give us a look,’ said Sally.

  But I just shook my head.

  ‘I had to wear braces when I was a kid,’ said Mum. ‘They were really big back then. You should have seen me try to make it through a metal detector!’

  ‘I wore braces, too,’ said Dad. ‘But I had a braces HELMET! It was enormous!’

  ‘It was so huge, I was always bumping into things.’

  ‘And if anyone ever called me “train tracks”, I’d just laugh and play along.’

  ‘In fact, I made braces look cool,’ said Dad.

  ‘And before long, all the kids in school wanted braces helmets! Like mine!’

  Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad, I thought to myself.

  ‘Come on,’ said Sally. ‘Give us a look.’

  But I still wasn’t ready to show anyone.

  ‘Go on,’ said Granddad.

  ‘Do it! Do it!’ said Blockhead.

  ‘Woof!’ added FiDo. ‘Woof, woof!’

  That’s when Roger started breakdancing …

  He STILL can’t say WEIR! It makes me laugh every time!

  Suddenly, there was a huge SQUAWK!

  I looked across at Blockhead and FiDo.

  What was wrong?!

  Oh no! Was it me?

  Was it me they were scared of? My braces!?

  ‘It’s okay, Weir,’ said Mum. ‘They just need some time to get used to the new you!’

  But it wasn’t okay!

  My pets were scared of me! How bad did I look?!

  How was everyone going to react at school tomorrow?

  We were all going to the Fun Fair. It was meant to be heaps of fun–I’d been looking forward to it for weeks! But now I felt like I belonged in the sideshow alley, where people would come and stare at my strange face!

  Something tells me tomorrow is going to be a

  CHAPTER 3

  It was hard getting used to having braces.

  I went through

  22 toothbrushes

  in the morning!

  Luckily, Mum buys them in bulk.

  I made it all the way onto the bus to the Fair without anyone seeing my braces. Not even

  Bella and Henry had saved a seat for me, but I sat up the back of the bus in between James Nott and Toby Hogan, instead.

  It was really hard keeping quiet next to Toby Hogan. He kept showing me these football cards that he’d drawn funny things on.

  ‘Look how I made this guy’s ears bigger,’ said Toby.

  But I couldn’t open my mouth and laugh!

  Toby held up another card. ‘And look what I did to this guy’s eyebrows.’

  He pulled out one last card.

  ‘This is the best one of all,’ he said. ‘Look what I did to this guy’s teeth!’

  When we arrived at the Fair, guess where Henry wanted to go first?

  Not the Funhouse!

  It’s impossible not to laugh in the Funhouse!

  ‘Have fun in there, boys,’ said Miss Franklin.

  We headed up the stairs and walked over a wobbly bridge. A really wobbly bridge!

  I think someone should have told Henry that a really wobbly bridge is NOT the best place to eat an ice-cream.

  Henry had ice-cream ALL OVER HIS FACE.

  It was SO funny. I did my best again not to laugh.

  When Ha
ns Some, the best-looking kid at school, walked across the wobbly bridge, he didn’t lose his balance once!

  I made it over the wobbly bridge in a couple of big leaps, but nearly fell at the end!

  Once we were all across …

  we rode down a

  It was fun! I felt like a penguin sliding down an iceberg!

  After the giant slippery dip, we made our way to the Crazy Maze.

  The Crazy Maze was filled with all sorts of mirrors.

  We walked through lots of twists and turns, and finally came to this big wall of weird mirrors.

  Henry stepped up first and pulled a face.

  In the mirrors, Henry looked ten times as funny!

  Hans Some stepped up next.

  Totally, totally, totally, totally, totally, totally, totally, totally, totally, totally cool.

  Hans looked ten times as handsome!

  When it was my turn to face the mirrors, I tried really hard not to smile and open my mouth …

  but then Toby Hogan appeared

  out

  of

  nowhere …

  and suddenly there were

  TEN lots of bum cracks!

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that!

  And then I saw ten mouths full of braces!

  It was terrible! I had to get away! So I ran!

  But I kept running into even crazier mirrors!

  A crazy wavy one!

  A crazy tall one!

  A crazy short one!

  And every single time, all I could see was BRACES! I couldn’t wait to get out of there!

  I was outside catching my breath when I heard Bella call out to me.

  ‘Weir, over here!’ she called.

  Oh no! I couldn’t face Bella like this, so I had to act fast.

  I had two choices—come up with a clever story that explained why I couldn’t open my mouth … or run away.

  So I ran away.

  CHAPTER 4

  Henry and Hans finally caught up with me, and we wandered over to play some games.

  We stopped at the Carnival Clowns first.

  Henry bought five ping pong balls and popped one into the mouth of the first clown in line.

  But the clown suddenly coughed and spat the ball back out!

  It was a REAL CLOWN just having a break!

  Some of the other kids from our class were playing games, too.

  Blake Green was testing his strength on the Mighty Hammer Game.

  It was no surprise at all that Blake’s hit reached ‘MUSCLE MAN’!

  And then Jenny had a go. She swung the hammer high, then …

  The machine went Wild!

  I thought the bell was going to fly right off and hit a bird!

  Jenny’s hit said she was STRONGER THAN TEN MUSCLE MEN!

  Henry and Hans were playing the Magnet Game. I really wanted to have a go too …

  But I was worried about my braces. There was a lot of metal in my mouth. What if the magnets didn’t know which way to go?

  What if they all wound up on my face?

  I spotted Bella again. She was over at the Ring Toss. You had to land a ring over a bottle to win a prize.

  I could see exactly what she wanted to win …

  Bella made some really good throws … but she just missed the bottles.

  She turned and saw me.

  I quickly turned and ran away! I saw a dark doorway and headed straight for it.

  It was really dark in there and filled with cobwebs.

  I could hear wolves howling and owls hooting, and there was this weird, spooky music coming from somewhere.

  Then when I turned a corner, everything went really quiet … and dark!

  I couldn’t hear a thing!

  I couldn’t see a thing, either!

  What was going on?

  ‘Is anybody there?’ I called, trembling.

  Suddenly something touched me on the shoulder!

  I screamed!

  Then I heard a high-pitched scream right next to me.

  Bella?

  We grabbed each other and hugged really tight! Bella was so scared I could hear her teeth chattering!

  Together, we slowly shuffled out of there and …

  … into the daylight.

  Huh?

  I’d thought Hans was Bella!

  I quickly covered my mouth and laughed.

  CHAPTER 5

  I found Henry again over at the

  Apple

  Bobbing

  Contest.

  Whoever bobbed and grabbed the most apples with their teeth, in the time limit, was the winner!

  Maybe Henry’s pigeon moves would come in handy!

  Just as I was wondering whether I should try the game too, I saw something that made my mind up for me.

  I lined up next to Henry and some other kids.

  I splashed my face right into the water and started biting around like a crazy shark!

  And it turns out my braces were a MASSIVE help! I gripped those apples and flung them out, one after the other!

  One time, I even managed to get two apples in one go! Not only were my braces helping me, but it turns out opening my mouth really wide at the dentist was great training for apple bobbing, too!

  The buzzer went off and we all looked up.

  My basket was

  I’d won! And I knew exactly what I wanted for my prize!

  It was almost time to get on the bus back to school, but I couldn’t find Bella anywhere.

  Miss Franklin told me that Bella’s mum had picked her up early.

  ‘Don’t worry, Weir. She’ll be back at school tomorrow,’ said Miss Franklin.

  The frog would have to wait until then.

  CHAPTER 6

  After the Fair, my family was having dinner at the O’Henry’s place.

  Mrs O’Henry’s cooking always looks awesome, but tastes really bad … so I was glad we’d ordered pizza!

  Everyone loves pizza.

  It was yum, even though big bits of food kept getting stuck in my braces …

  The O’Henrys get along really well with my family.

  Our parents are always joking around …

  Sally and Henry’s sister, Jane, are always having boring conversations …

  Roger and the twins like to dance together …

  And even our pets, Blockhead, FiDo and Mo, love playing together!

  It didn’t seem like Blockhead and FiDo were as frightened of me and my braces anymore, but they were still

  keeping away

  from me.

  Henry sat at the dinner table and pretended to be a carnival clown, while Roger stuck leftovers into his mouth.

  Everyone laughed.

  It was really funny, but a couple of things were on my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about Bella—I hadn’t spoken to her all day.

  In fact, I’d avoided her because I didn’t want her to see me and my braces.

  Would it be so bad if she saw them?

  Plus, I still had stuff stuck in my teeth! It just didn’t want to come out!

  ‘Cheer up, Weir,’ said Mr O’Henry. ‘I get food stuck in my moustache all the time.’

  Everyone laughed, including me.

  ‘I reckon braces are cool,’ said Henry. ‘Better than having a giant red pimple on the end of your nose like I had all day long.’

  ‘GIANT red pimple?!’ I said. ‘You can hardly see it!’

  ‘Yeah, I guess it’s not that bad,’ said Henry.

  Wow! I wasn’t the only one who thought they looked strange. I guess everyone has something about themselves they worry about too much.

  Maybe even Hans Some.

  Then I remembered what my dad said yesterday about laughing and playing along.

  So I stood up and smiled.

  ‘You know what?’ I said. ‘I’m proud of my train tracks!’

  That made everyone laugh.

  And even better than that …

  Blockhead and FiDo seemed to think
it was funny, too. They both came over for a cuddle.

  Maybe they’d been keeping away from me because I hadn’t been laughing and smiling like my usual self. Maybe it had nothing to do with how I looked with my braces!

  CHAPTER 7

  I went to school the next day feeling heaps better about my braces. They weren’t so bad after all.

  I spent the whole morning trying to get Bella’s attention.

  I really needed to explain to her why I’d acted so weird (well, weirder than normal) at the Fair.