Mega Weird! Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Collect them all

  MEGA BUCKS!

  CHAPTER 1

  People usually put cars in garages, don’t they?

  Well, not us!

  We have everything BUT the car in our garage! It’s so full of stuff, we have to keep our car on the street.

  It’s actually really cool that we have so much stuff in our garage … because the MEGA STREET GARAGE SALE is coming up and Mum says it’s our chance to turn ALL of our junk into MEGA BUCKS!

  Imagine what sort of bike I could get for one million bucks? It would be the FERRARI of bikes!

  On Sunday, everyone in our street will join in.

  People come from all over town to check it out!

  Hopefully someone will come looking for this headless ninja hamster.

  Mum and Dad think everything’s worth selling.

  Granddad thinks so, too.

  Hmm, maybe a school of really old sharks could use them …

  ‘Someone could use this,’ said Dad, pulling out an old rocking chair.

  ‘But I’m pretty sure it still works,’ he said, before sitting on it.

  I thought the seat of the chair might rip …

  Or that the legs would collapse …

  I did not expect Dad to go …

  … rolling down the road!

  Our pile of stuff is ENORMOUS. It’s going to take ages to sort through it all.

  It’s as big as Mount Everest!

  Me and Sally keep thinking about what we could do with all the money we’re going to make!

  ‘What if we got a pool?’ I said.

  ‘Great idea!’ said Sally. ‘A really big one with a slippery-dip!’

  ‘Yeah! And what if we had waterslides attached to our bedroom windows?’ I said. ‘Then we could just jump right in!’

  ‘Or what about a treehouse?’ I said.

  Bella and Henry could get one too, and we could connect them down the street with bridges!

  FiDo and Blockhead barked, as if to say ‘What about something for us?’

  ‘We won’t forget you guys,’ said Sally. ‘How about we buy you two some singing lessons?’

  ‘What do you want us to buy, Roger?’ I asked my brother.

  Roger wanted dirt?

  Mum and Dad appeared from behind some junk, covered in dust and cobwebs.

  Me and Sally frowned at each other.

  Mum and Dad probably wanted to buy a new can opener or a broom or …

  something

  REALLY,

  REALLY

  BORING.

  ‘We’re going to buy everyone brand new undies!’ said Dad.

  ‘Just kidding!’ said Dad.

  What? Grandma Do!? We hadn’t seen her in aaaaages!

  Grandma Do is the best! She’s so funny and cool. We always have so much fun together!

  This was THE GREATEST NEWS ever!

  Now we really had to make sure we could make enough money from the garage sale!

  JUNK PILE!

  CHAPTER 2

  By the end of the day, we’d almost made it to the bottom of the junk pile.

  We’d sorted everything into smaller piles.

  Old …

  Really old …

  And stuff that was so old, even cavemen would think so.

  Problem was, Mum and Dad kept finding things they wanted to keep …

  Dad kept digging up falling-apart clothes.

  Or clothes that wouldn’t fit anyone!

  ‘I don’t think so, Dad,’ I said.

  And Mum kept finding things that she figured she could, ‘use for something.’

  ‘What if I turned this broken umbrella into a rain hat?’

  ‘Or my old bike into a unicycle?’

  ‘Or these old mop heads into a pair of Slide and Shine Shoes?’

  Slide and Shine Shoes?

  Mum and Dad were forgetting why we were doing this!

  ‘Mum, Dad …’ I said. ‘We need to make money for Grandma Do’s visit, remember?’

  ‘You’re right, Weir,’ said Mum. ‘I’ll get to work on fixing a few things for the sale.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Dad.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Sally. ‘I wouldn’t have a clue.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I said.

  THE WEIRDEST!

  CHAPTER 3

  Everyone on our street was getting ready for the SALE. People had bits and pieces

  Mr McDool was selling the biggest collection of Sparkly Pony Dolls I’d ever seen.

  My neighbours Will and Hugh were selling some of their trucks.

  Hans Some was selling his collection of mirrors.

  No-one had as much stuff as though!

  When I reached Bella’s house, I got a big surprise. Her family’s garage was completely …

  EMPTY.

  ‘Hi Weir,’ said Bella. She was sitting on the front steps, writing on a notepad.

  ‘Hey Bella,’ I said. ‘Your garage is so neat. You should see ours. We’ve been sorting for hours, but you still can’t see the floor!’

  Bella looked up.

  ‘Someone snuck into our garage the other day and took what we had … The worst thing is, they took my mum’s sewing machine,’ she said.

  That was terrible. Was this one of those times where I was supposed to give her a hug?

  I’m not really the …

  ‘Weir, what are you doing?’ said Bella, looking up at me weirdly.

  What was I doing?

  Bella laughed.

  I didn’t want to tell Bella that I was hoping we could borrow her sewing machine …

  ‘I’m just getting a sneak peek at what everyone has for the STREET SALE. We are hoping to make enough money to get Grandma over from Vietnam.’

  ‘Cool!’ said Bella. ‘Is she as weird as you guys?’

  Grandma Do loves to play pranks.

  ‘The last time we visited her, she jumped out the front door dressed like a gorilla!’

  ‘Then there was this other time when we were in the middle of a picnic, wondering where Grandma had gone …’

  ‘Then she jumped out of a tree and landed on our lunch!’

  We just hope Grandma never wears the gorilla suit to the zoo, just in case they think she’s a real gorilla.

  ‘What are you writing?’ I asked Bella.

  ‘Have you heard about the school writing competition?’ she said. ‘There’s for first place.

  You can write ANYTHING you want. A story, a poem … anything. I’m trying to write a winning song,’ said Bella, ‘so I can get my mum a new sewing machine. Got any tips?’

  ‘I think you should write about something you really love …’ I said. ‘Like animals.’

  TA-DA!

  CHAPTER 4

  Without a sewing machine, Dad picked up his old clothes and gave the needle and thread a go.

  Turns out he is REALLY BAD at sewing!

  Meanwhile, I had just one corner of the garage left to sort through.

  At the very bottom of the pile was something really big and heavy, wrapped in an old blanket …

  What was it?

  When I pulled the blanket off, there was a MASSIVE cloud of dust.

  And once it all settled and I could see again …

  I saw thing …

  DINO BONE?

  CHAPTER 5

  Dad helped me get the bone over to Henry’s house.

  We thought Henry’s dad might be able to help us figur
e out exactly what it was we’d found in our garage.

  ‘Well, I’m no expert in fossils,’ he said, ‘but I think you have yourself a dinosaur bone.’

  ‘Where did it come from?’ Mr O’Henry asked.

  Dad explained how a funny old uncle of his had given it to him years ago.

  ‘But he also gave me a button he said was a time machine and a cleaning brush he said would make your hair grow … so I didn’t think much of it!’

  ‘I had no idea it really could have been a dino bone!’ said Dad.

  ‘Well, I don’t know for sure,’ said Mr O’Henry, ‘but I’ll take it to the museum tomorrow and have an expert look at it.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Henry. ‘I wonder what dinosaur it belonged to!’

  ‘Or what about a ’ I suggested.

  ‘It’s said like Ter-o-dactyl,’ explained Dad, like the word began with a ‘t’ not a ‘p’.

  That made me think up a great joke.

  DEAL?

  CHAPTER 6

  The street was packed with people on the

  Mum and Dad were doing their best to be funny so that people would come and take a look at our stuff.

  At least they were making us laugh …

  Even Roger, FiDo and Blockhead did their best to help sell things.

  Everyone loved the show, but they didn’t buy much from us …

  There were some surprises …

  But aside from a few other bits and pieces …

  and …

  … we didn’t really sell that much.

  Definitely not enough to get Grandma Do over for a visit …

  So much for

  Maybe I needed to enter the writing competition too …

  We all wanted to see Grandma Do so badly. That prize money would really help.

  BELCHMAN!

  CHAPTER 7

  On the bus to school, Bella was still scribbling in her notepad.

  ‘Almost,’ said Bella.

  ‘I bet it’s great,’ I said. ‘I’m going to enter the competition too,’ I told Bella, and showed her a bunch of dinosaur jokes I’d written.

  Whenever Bella says something nice to me, I blush. It’s a bit embarrassing.

  Sometimes I wish I could wear clown make-up all the time and then no-one could tell when I was red in the face.

  ‘Hey, Weir, can you help me finish my song today?’ said Bella.

  ‘Of course!’

  Bella and I spent all of recess working on her song. It was so much fun!

  It turns out …

  By the time we finished the song, it was

  Bella was in with a real shot!

  We both were!

  We handed in our entries and wished each other luck.

  ‘Good luck to you, too,’ I said. ‘That’s a great song, you know it’s true.’

  ‘Are you still rhyming?’ asked Bella.

  ‘I’d like to say I’ve given it the chop, but it’s really, really hard to stop.’

  Quite a few kids had entered the comp and we were all really excited to find out who’d won!

  Blake Green had written a poem about how lonely it is being the school bully. He read some to us at lunch.

  Henry had written a story about a superhero who could fight crime by burping.

  ‘And the city was safe,’ said Henry, ‘thanks to Belchman.’

  At the end of the day, we had a special assembly to announce the winner. The judges—Miss Franklin and Mr Bongo—were going to pick their favourite entry.

  ‘It was a very close competition,’ said Mr Bongo. ‘We had so many brilliant entries. But two REALLY stood out. They were both very clever and very funny!’

  ‘We can only have ONE winner … but Miss Franklin and I can’t decide! So if you hear your name,’ said Mr Bongo, ‘could you please come up on stage?’

  We were the top two!

  Bella and I turned and high-fived each other, then we walked up to the stage together.

  I really wanted to win so that I could pay for Grandma’s flights … but I also wanted Bella to win so that she could replace her mum’s sewing machine. I didn’t know WHAT I wanted!

  ‘We’re going to need EVERYONE’S help to decide the winner!’ said Miss Franklin.

  Bella and I had to read what we’d written, then whoever had the loudest cheers from the crowd would take out the top prize!

  I was up first!

  I held my collection of jokes and started reading them out.

  Everyone was laughing!

  My jokes were a hit! They were laughing so much—it felt great!

  Once the laughter settled down, it was Bella’s turn. She smiled at me and I handed her the mic.

  Then Bella began to sing her song.

  The crowd was LOVING it! They were all laughing and clapping!

  Bella grinned and kept going …

  The crowd went nuts and it was clear there was a first prize winner …

  GRANDMA DO!

  CHAPTER 8

  Bella’s mum was so happy with her new sewing machine.

  And I was so happy Bella’s song won the comp.

  She deserved it. Her song was so funny.

  I didn’t take home the prize money … but it didn’t matter in the end!

  Because we had the most news from Mr O’Henry!

  It turns out the old bone we found in the garage actually belonged … to a T-Rex!

  Can you believe it?

  Dad decided to give the bone to the local museum, and in return they gave us MORE than enough money to get Grandma Do over!

  Mum and Dad bought us some cool presents, too, for our hard work at the garage sale.

  They took me and Sally to

  WILD WATER

  ADVENTURE PARK!

  They gave FiDo and Blockhead a karaoke singing machine.

  They gave Granddad a new container for his teeth …

  And they gave Roger …

  A worm farm! Filled with dirt!

  So what about Grandma Do?

  Well, she’ll be on her way over to see us real soon! We can’t wait!

  Neither can Grandma!

  FROM ANH

  For who beat me at Scrabble.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Published by Scholastic Australia

  Pty Ltd PO Box 579 Gosford NSW 2250

  ABN 11 000 614 577

  www.scholastic.com.au

  Part of the Scholastic Group

  Sydney • Auckland • New York • Toronto • London • Mexico City

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  First edition published by Scholastic Press in in 2016.

  This electronic edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited, 2016.

  E-PUB/MOBI eISBN: 978-1-760272-05-0

  First published by Scholastic Australia in 2016.

  Text copyright © Anh Do, 2016.

  Illustrations copyright © Jules Faber, 2016.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, unless specifically permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 as amended.

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  Anh Do, Mega Weird!

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