The World's Loudest Armpit Fart (10 page)

Dear Danny

I’m sorry, but the Penleydale Sea Squirts are not record breakers. The record for Collective Empty of a Swimming Pool by Simultaneous Flipper-action is held by thirty-three members of the Freemantle Flipper-Floppers Formation Water-dancing Team, of Freemanle, Austalia.

On 24 December 1996 they displaced 1,967,852 litres of water from their pool. The Team Coach asked them to do it because his glass eye had dropped out into the water and no one could find it. The plan worked and the Flipper-floppers eventually discovered the glass eye starting up at them from the bottom of the deep end.

Bad luck with your record attempt, Danny. I hope the other children in the Sea Squirts won’t be too disappointed. It sounds like you all had fun!

In answer to your second question, the world record for Most Verrucas is 993, held by Lars von Doinker, of Molde in Norway. He has size seventeen feet, so has lots of room to grow them. Mr von Doinker believes that verrucas are an alien life form, come to take over the world foot by foot, that he is their leader.

So if you want to save the world, keep using the Verrucablaster! cream!

Best wishes

Eric Bibby

Keeper of the Records

Danny pulled on his waterproof tracksuit bottoms, gathered the material together just above his left ankle, twisted the cloth tightly, and tied it in a firm knot. He repeated the procedure with his right trouser leg and then walked round to the side of the house where Dad kept the hosepipe.

Danny pushed the end of the hose into the top of his trousers, and Matthew turned on the tap. Cold water gushed in and the trousers ballooned out, tight and taut, like two big blue sausages.

Danny gasped. ‘Why couldn’t we use warm water?’

‘Because I read that swimming records are more likely to get broken if the pool water’s cold,’ replied Matthew. ‘So, it might be the same with Water-filled-trousers Land-speed Dashing.’

‘If you say so, Matt,’ said Danny. ‘But I’ve got goosebumps on my legs as big as gobstoppers!’

Danny tightened the belt around his waist and walked towards the front of the house. His legs were heavy with the weight of water, and he had to swing each one forward to move. Thin trickles leaked from the trouser bottoms and seeped into his trainers.

Matthew had measured out fifty metres of pavement and placed flags at each end. He checked his stopwatch as Danny took up position at the end of the street.

‘On your marks . . . get set . . . go!’

Danny shuffled stiffly down the street, trying to get his running-rhythm right. As he passed the finish line, Matthew stopped the watch and read the display: 51.26 seconds.

‘I can do better than that!’ said Danny, gasping for air.

He got his breath back and prepared to do a second run. This time, he cut his time to 38.91 seconds.

‘I can go faster,’ he puffed. ‘One more try.’

‘Go!’ called Matthew, and Danny got off to a great start, really picking up speed. This was going to be the fastest run, he could tell.

Suddenly, about twenty metres into the dash, Natalie and her best friends Kaylie and Kylie rushed down the garden path and surrounded him. They each had a pair of nail clippers, and held them up for Danny to see.

‘Noooooooooooooooo!’
wailed Danny, as he realized what they were about to do.

The three girls attacked Danny’s trousers with the nail clippers, snipping dozens of tiny holes in the fabric. Thin spurts of water shot from the little punctures and in moments Danny’s trouser legs were leaking like a sieve.

‘That’s for dropping jelly on me and spoiling my hair!’ shouted Kaylie.

‘That’s for putting jelly in my sleeping bag and making me blotchy!’ yelled Kylie.

‘And that’s for . . .
everything
!’ shrieked Natalie. ‘You should be happy – now you’ve got world-record-breaking leaky pants!’

The girls retreated into the house, cackling like witches.

‘Matt, I’ve been ambushed!’ cried Danny, standing in a steadily growing puddle of water. ‘Get the sticky tape, quick!’

Dear Mr Bibby

Natalie and her friends sabotaged my attempt on the Water-filled-trousers Land-speed Dash record, by puncturing my pants. My best speed was only 4.626 km/h before they got me, and I know this isn’t even close to the record. When I’ve mended the pants, I’ll have another go. I might even attempt the Water-filled-trousers Long-distance Dawdle record. I’ll just do it as far away from Nats as possible. How far do I need to dawdle to be a record breaker?

Best wishes

Dany Baker

Dear Danny

That was a good try – 4.626 km/h is fast for a Water-filled-trousers Land-speed Dash, but the record is held by Deng Dong of Hong Kong, who reached 15.3km/h wearing specially made aerodynamic dash-pants.

The record for Water-filled-trousers Long-distance Dawdling is humongous. It is held by Tebogo Selepeng of Botswana, who dawdled the entire 1,750-km length of the Limpopo River in Africa. It took him 191 days.

Dawdling at night because it was cooler, Tebogo topped up his trousers from the edge of the river. When he reached the end of his gargantuan trek, his pants were swarming with tadpoles of the Lesser-spotted Limpopo Trouser Frog. This tiny amphibian was thought to be extinct because its spawn can only hatch in the trousers of fisherman who wade into the water, and nowadays the local fishermen always use boats.