The Bravest Kid I've Ever Known and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls

The Bravest Kid I’ve Ever Known
and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls
published in 2010 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street,
Richmond Victoria 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au

EISBN 978 1 742733 86 9

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior permission of the publishers and copyright owner.

A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

Text copyright © 2010 Christopher Milne
Illustration and design copyright © 2010 Hardie Grant Egmont

Illustration and design by Simon Swingler
Typesetting by Ektavo

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

The Bravest Kid I’ve Ever Known

The Girl Who was never Wrong

A very Unlucky Boy

A very Nasty Girl

The Worst Team in the World

Father Christmas Crakes a Wobbly

A very Naughty Boy

Peter Mills is the bravest kid I’ve ever known. Peter Mills is my brother.

Now I know it’s no use saying how brave Pete is unless I can prove it. And I will. I’ll tell you a story about him — an excellent story. But first I have to explain something.

Our mum and dad have split up. Which is nothing unusual, I suppose, but unless it’s happened to you too, some of this might be hard to understand. So you’ll have to use your imagination, which isn’t so bad.

When we were all still together, Mum and Dad used to fight really badly. All the time. And Pete and I would get this terrible feeling. Almost a sick feeling that this was
it.
That Mum might leave. Or Dad might. And then that worst feeling of all, that you might never see them again. Sometimes it’s hard for me to even talk about it.

I wanted to scream out, ‘Please! Stop it! You’re such nice people and we love you — why do you fight all the time?’ But I didn’t. I would just cry and leave the room.

Pete didn’t. He stayed. He wanted to cry, but he stuck it out as long as he could. Do you know what he did? He tried to make Mum and Dad laugh by telling jokes. If that didn’t work — and it usually didn’t — he’d make silly faces. One day he even pretended to hit his funny bone. Poor Pete. He thought if Mum and Dad laughed, they’d stop fighting.

Later I’d hear Pete crying by himself in his room. Yep, Pete is the bravest kid I’ve ever known.

After Mum and Dad split up, it wasn’t as bad as Pete and I thought. Not nearly as bad. Mum and Dad said they loved us so much that whatever happened, we would all stay close to each other. And we have. Mum and Dad’s houses are just ten minutes apart and we spend half our time with Dad and half with Mum.

It’s not as good as it used to be but, as I say, it’s not bad either. Poor Dad still misses Mum, but he tries to be brave about it. Maybe that’s where Pete gets it from. Sometimes I think Mum misses Dad too. Maybe she’s the bravest of everybody.

Which brings me to the real start of the story. I’ve taken a long time to get there, I know, but you have to know everything to understand.

One day this new kid started at school. Straight away, I knew I didn’t like him. His mum and dad had suddenly changed jobs, so he didn’t start until halfway through first term. Bruce was his name. Big Bruce. And he was a fighter.

Big Bruce could think of really smart things to say that made you feel stupid. And then he’d laugh and maybe spit on you. If you said anything back, he’d punch you out. And he never, ever stopped punching you until you cried. He reckoned that’s when you’d given in.

You can understand why Bruce wasn’t exactly my best friend. One day he did a wee in my lunch box. I’ve had better days.

Bruce used to get everybody. Everybody, that is, except Pete. Sure, he bashed Pete up. And made him cry, too. But he was never able to make Pete feel stupid. It was as if Pete was somehow strong inside. There was just nothing Bruce could say to get him.

It was really strange. You could watch Bruce punch Pete out and see Pete cry and then hang around while Pete slowly got up off the ground, and somehow — don’t ask me why — you would get this feeling that Pete had won! Maybe it was this look Pete used to get. It was different from any look I’ve ever seen. It was a strong look — as though Pete knew something we didn’t. And did it get to Bruce!
It drove him crazy.

So Bruce started asking questions. Really sneaky questions. Trying to find something — anything — that would really fix Pete up. And he found it.

Before I get to the next bit, which is the really good bit, I should tell you about Pete’s running. Pete was the fastest kid in school. In fact the fastest kid any of us had ever seen. You’ll know why I had to tell you that later.

Anyway, one day we were playing a game of football at lunchtime and we stopped to get a drink. Bruce came over and bashed Pete on the back of the head so that he’d hit his teeth on the tap. But Pete saw him coming and stiffened his neck just in case.

Bruce was really angry, and he must have thought to himself,
This is it. This is the time.
So he made sure everyone was listening, and he let Pete have it.

‘No wonder your stupid mum and dad split up,’ said Bruce. ‘I’ve heard they’re both dorks. And that they split up because of
you.
’

Well, you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone waited. They knew how much Pete and I loved Mum and Dad. And they knew how much we wished they were together again. But Pete didn’t say anything. Nothing. It was as if Bruce were talking to someone else. Except for one little thing. Something that only I noticed. Pete had that look I told you about.

Well, the footy game had only been going again for a couple of minutes when Pete disappeared. I thought he must have gone to the toilet.

There’s one more thing I have to tell you. Pete used to watch the football replays on TV and the thing he liked best was what Dad called a ‘shirt-front’. That’s when a guy is running as fast as he can with his eyes on the ball, watching it come down from a high kick, and another guy running from the opposite direction crashes straight into his guts.

It’s about the worst, bone-crunching, painful-looking thing you could ever see. The shirt-frontee is usually carried off on a stretcher. As I said, Pete loved them.

Well, the game of footy kept going and Bruce was getting heaps of kicks. That’s because everyone else was scared to go near him. And then it happened.

Bruce and Ali Fez were running side by side, trying to beat each other to a ball that had been kicked high over their heads. They were running as fast as they could and they were dangerously close to the trees along the boundary line. Ali got slightly in front, so Bruce grabbed him by the jumper and smashed him to the ground.

That left Bruce free to take the mark of the year all by himself. Well, almost by himself. I was the first one to notice. A foot sticking out from behind a tree. Pete’s foot. And then Pete’s eyes. Gleaming eyes. Pete knew that this was his moment.

Just as Bruce ran the last few strides to take his fantastic, brilliant mark of marks, a charging rhinoceros called Peter Mills came out from behind the tree. It was the fastest any of us had
ever
seen Pete run. And that’s fast.

We could see what was going to happen, but Bruce couldn’t. His eyes were still on the ball. Poor Bruce. And do you know what? I had to force myself to watch it.
THE SHIRT-FRONT OF THE YEAR. SMACK!

Not in a million years could Pete have done a better job. Bones rattled, teeth chattered, skin shivered and eyes rolled. The kids who hadn’t been able to watch said they wished they had, because listening to it was even worse. Something like an elephant being hit by a truck.

As Bruce lay groaning on the ground, feeling as sick as he’d ever felt in his life, Pete walked over to say sorry. He put out his hand to help Bruce up, and then did a burp right in Bruce’s face. A burp that was all too obviously a result of Pete’s lunch of salami, onions and smelly cheese.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Pete.

Bruce threw up.

Now, I know hurting people is bad. Dad always says violence only breeds more violence. But to this day Pete reckons it was a fair bump. And Bruce wasn’t hurt that badly, although he still feels a bit pukey when he thinks about it. I’m sure that’s because of the belch, though. The kids who were nearby said it was Pete’s best ever. A real sickie burp.

Bruce and Pete are friends these days, and do you know what? Bruce’s mum and dad hadn’t really changed jobs. Just his mum. You see, his parents had split up too. Poor Bruce. His way of hiding how sad it made him was to be nasty to everyone else.

Over the last few weeks, my dad has been visiting Bruce’s mum a bit. I think he likes her. In fact I know he does. I saw them having cuddles.

I’m going to tell Dad to take it slowly, though. No point in rushing in — he might get a shirt-front.

Mandy Cripps stormed home from school, crashed open the front door and threw her bag against her bedroom wall. Then she pinched her little brother, marched into the kitchen and demanded, ‘What is there to eat?’