Stinky Space Race Read online

  Written by Tim Collins

  Illustrations and cover design by Joëlle Dreidemy

  Thanks to Collette Collins, Justine Smith, Philippa Wingate and Bryony Jones

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Buster Books,

  an imprint of Michael O’Mara Books Limited,

  9 Lion Yard, Tremadoc Road, London SW4 7NQ

  www.busterbooks.co.uk

  Buster Children’s Books

  @BusterBooks

  www.cosmiccolin.co.uk

  Text copyright © Tim Collins

  The rights of Tim Collins and Joëlle Dreidemy to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them.

  Illustration copyright © Buster Books 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-78055-171-5

  eISBN: 978-1-78055-266-8

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  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  There is a bin at the back of our school.

  This is my friend Harry jumping into it.

  And there I am, following him right in.

  You might think we’re a couple of weirdos.

  You might even think we’re so poor we have to root around in a bin for our lunch.

  You can think what you like. The truth is, we have very important business in that bin and I can’t tell you about it.

  Alright then, if you must know …

  That bin can take us

  IN TIME AND SPACE.

  Look at the CCTV footage if you don’t believe me.

  Where do you think we got a genuine Sonic Blasterizer?

  From OUTER SPACE, of course.

  Strange things happen every time we get in that bin.

  Like that time we turned EVERYONE in the world into our teacher, Mr Watkins.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Picture your teacher for a minute. Now imagine if everyone in the world looked and sounded exactly like them. isn’t it?

  Maybe it isn’t horrible for you. For all I know, you might like your teacher. If you do, you’re very lucky. Because my teacher, Mr Watkins, is THE MOST BORING PERSON IN THE WORLD.

  No, forget that. He’s the most boring THING in the world. Even traffic jams and instruction manuals are more interesting than him.

  The most boring thing of all about Mr Watkins is the way he repeats the same things over and over again.

  I told you he repeats himself.

  If we don’t want to fall asleep when Mr Watkins is speaking, we play one of these brilliant games I invented …

  GAME ONE: PAPER THROW

  1. Screw up paper.

  2. Throw it at Mr Watkins’ shiny head.

  3. If it hits, say, ‘Sorry, I was aiming for the bin’.

  SCORING:

  GAME TWO: SPEED DRAW

  1. Wait for Mr Watkins to leave the classroom.

  2. Draw rude pictures of him on the whiteboard.

  SCORING: 1 point for every rude picture you can draw before Mr Watkins comes back in.

  GAME THREE: WATCH SHINE

  1. Place your arm in the sun and catch the reflection on your watch.

  2. Move your wrist until the reflection shows on Mr Watkins’ face.

  3. Pretend it was an accident when he gets angry.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I was playing WATCH SHINE the day I first met Harry.

  Mr Watkins broke off the lesson to grab my watch.

  He plonked it in the drawer of his desk.

  I hate that drawer. Mr Watkins keeps his moustache trimmer in there, so everything comes out covered in disgusting hairs.

  I had to wait behind after the lesson to collect my watch.

  Harry was there, too.

  Harry had joined our school a few days earlier. I thought there was something strange about him as soon as I saw him.

  He looked more like someone pretending to be a school pupil than an actual school pupil.

  I spoke to Harry while I waited to collect my watch:

  When the other pupils had all gone, Mr Watkins gave us a boring lecture.

  As you can see, I wasn’t listening. But it was probably something about how talking to us was like talking to a brick wall.

  Mr Watkins handed my watch back and I wiped the hairs off.

  I peered over at Harry’s phone. It didn’t look like any phone I’d seen before. It had red lights on top, and the word ‘DISTRESS’ was flashing on the screen.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When Harry thought no one was looking, he went around to the back of the school. I peered around a wall and watched as he approached the school bins.

  The bins behind the school are strictly OUT OF BOUNDS.

  Mr Watkins goes mad if he spots anyone going near them.

  Harry stopped in front of one of the bins and pressed a button on his phone.

  The lid of the bin flipped open. Harry glanced one way, then the other, then jumped in.

  I winced as I thought about the smelly scraps of food he must have landed in.

  I was still thinking about this when the bin vanished.

  I rubbed my eyes and looked again. The bin was still gone.

  I sneaked over to where it had been. I knew Mr Watkins might rush over and yell at me, but I had to work out what had happened.

  Then the bin appeared again, right in front of my eyes. I had to dive out of the way so it didn’t squash me.

  The lid opened and Harry jumped out. His head was covered in green gloop. At first I thought it was school dinner slops, but then I saw it was glowing slightly.

  As Harry scooped some of the gunge out of his ear with his finger, he looked up at me.

  I didn’t really want my brain to leak out of my ears. It would be very annoying having to carry it around everywhere.

  But I was SO curious I decided to risk it.

  My brain didn’t leak of out my ears. But I was rather confused.

  Harry pressed a button on his communicator and the lid of the bin flipped open.

  ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ I thought, as I jumped into the bin and clicked on my seatbelt.

  Harry twisted the space dial and the bin rumbled violently. For a moment we lurched upwards as if we were in a supersonic lift. Then the bin came to an abrupt stop and the lid opened.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The first thing I should say is that space is

  AWESOME.

  The next thing I should say is that the future is

  AWESOME.

  The other thing I should say is that the past ISN’T VERY AWESOME.

  AT ALL.

  I should have listened to Harry.

  Harry turned the dial …

  CHAPTER SIX

  We were standing on a soft, yellow beach looking out at a calm, blue sea.

  Harry pointed to the lapping waves, where a small, green creature was bobbing about near the shore.

  As the creature waddled past, Har
ry held his space communicator above it, and scanned it. A diagram appeared on the screen.

  That must have been when the bad thing happened. Although Harry didn’t know it, he’d just RUINED THE WORLD.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I knew something was wrong as soon as we landed.

  There was a dinner lady standing at the edge of the playground.

  She turned around.

  It was worse than I could ever have imagined …

  It wasn’t a dinner lady at all. IT WAS MR WATKINS!!!

  But why was he dressed as a dinner lady?

  We rushed around the corner, where some little kids were playing.

  They turned around …

  They all looked exactly like Mr Watkins too.

  As I looked across the playground, the horrible truth sank in. Everyone looked and sounded exactly like Mr Watkins. Maybe we hadn’t returned to Earth at all.

  Maybe we’d landed on the PLANET NIGHTMARE.

  Why did we have to turn everyone in the world into boring teachers?

  This was the worst thing that could ever have happened.

  Why couldn’t we have turned everyone in the world into awesome killer robots?

  Or cool werewolves?

  Or a race of poo people?

  Even if they’d kept on being sea creatures it would have been better.

  We tried to go back to the bin, but the Mr Watkins creatures swarmed around it.

  They unlocked the doors of the gym and wheeled the spacebin inside.

  Then they turned to us.

  We rushed out of the gates and down the road. The Mr Watkins people chased us, their moustaches twitching.

  We ducked into an alley and pushed ourselves against the wall. I held my breath as the creatures approached …

  They ran past.

  I sighed with relief.

  Harry took out his communicator and was about to press a button on it when two more Mr Watkins creatures appeared.

  These ones were so hideous we both froze on the spot …

  The woman grabbed Harry’s communicator, threw it into her pram and scurried back to the school.

  We ran after her, but this only made the other Mr Watkins creatures spot us.

  They turned and pelted towards us, chanting the word ‘detention’.

  We dashed down the alley, ducking overhanging washing and leaping over puddles.

  The alley led us to a main road. The street was deserted, but the horrific influence of Mr Watkins was still everywhere …

  The creatures were stomping down the alley behind us, and the chants of ‘detention’ were getting louder.

  I saw a games shop. The lights were off, but the door was slightly open.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  We slammed the shop doors shut and crouched on the floor.

  I could hear the creatures stomping around outside.

  Eventually, they went off down the street, their chants fading away.

  I got up and glanced around the shelves. Every game I could see had Mr Watkins on the cover and looked incredibly boring.

  I grabbed a marker pen and a stack of paper from behind the counter and tried to come up with a plan.

  Nothing I thought of seemed right. Soon I gave up and started doodling instead.

  I glanced down at my rude drawings. They gave me an idea. This time it seemed like it might work.

  I told Harry about my plan.

  CHAPTER NINE

  We watched the sun rise over the school from the alleyway. The Mr Watkins creatures started arriving just before nine.

  Cars pulled up outside the gates. Hairy mums and dads got out and said goodbye to their identical, hairy children.

  I squirmed with disgust as a Mr Watkins woman kissed her Mr Watkins daughter on the cheek, their moustaches brushing.

  Soon the playground was full and it was time for our plan to begin.

  Soon all the Mr Watkins creatures were staring at me. I threw a screwed-up piece of paper into the playground.

  It bounced off the shiny head of one of the adult Mr Watkins creatures.

  There was silence for a moment as the Mr Watkins clones looked down at the paper. Then they shouted at the top of their voices:

  I lobbed all my other bits of screwed-up paper through the railings. Soon all the Mr Watkins creatures were purple with anger.

  The Mr Watkins creatures gasped as they piled out into the street …

  We’d stayed up all night covering every surface with drawings of Mr Watkins.

  We’d painted them on windows, chalked them on paving stones and scrawled them on every piece of paper we could find.

  The Mr Watkins creatures looked at us, then at the pictures, gurgling and spluttering with rage.

  They stormed out into the street and began to tear down the posters, wipe away the paintings and rub away the chalk with their feet.

  It was just as I’d hoped. Like Mr Watkins himself, the creatures were unable to ignore rude pictures.

  I ran back down the alley into the school playground, which was now completely abandoned.

  The doors to the gym had been forced open.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Through the dim light of the high windows, I could see a mountain of catapults, balls and bats. They clattered to the ground as Harry rummaged through them.

  I peered out through the door. I could see a couple of the Mr Watkins creatures beyond the railings. Surely they couldn’t have removed all the pictures already?

  I could hear a distant murmur of ‘detention’ starting up again.

  I slammed the doors shut and grabbed a dusty cricket bat out of the pile. I jammed it between the door handles. It would hold, but not for long.

  Harry was frantically flinging stuff about now. There was still no sign of the spacebin.

  I scanned around the dingy room, hoping to see the green plastic of the spacebin in one of the piles.

  There was a doorway at the end of the room.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  We ran down a stone corridor into a large room with an arched ceiling.

  Multicoloured light streamed in through stained-glass windows.

  There it was. The spacebin was in the middle of the room, next to a golden desk.

  Harry yanked the desk drawer open. A piercing alarm ran out and one of the Mr Watkins dinner ladies barged in.

  She grabbed Harry by the neck and pinned him against the wall.

  I looked around the room for something to distract the creature. I wouldn’t be able to overpower her, but if I could make her angry, she might leave Harry alone and come after me.

  I walked into a bright shaft of light beneath one of the windows. A tiny reflection appeared on the wall next to my wrist.

  Of course! Watch shine would make her mad!

  I twisted my wrist around until the reflection fell on the face of the Mr Watkins creature.

  She turned away from Harry and roared.

  The Mr Watkins creature leapt at me. She was snorting loudly and a vein on her forehead was pulsing.

  There was a crash from outside, followed by stamping feet. The other creatures were in the building.

  Harry rooted around in the drawer, flinging rings, bracelets and necklaces aside.

  The other Mr Watkins creatures piled into the room chanting, ‘DETENTION!’

  They were almost upon us when Harry held up the communicator.

  He pressed a button on the front and the spacebin flipped open. I had never imagined I could be so pleased about climbing into a stinky bin.

  I barely had time to click my seatbelt on when the spacebin started rumbling and rocketed upwards.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  We were back on the beach in the distant past. I looked around for our past selves, knowing that I’d just have a few seconds to save the human race when we appeared out of the bin.

  Harry scanned the sand with his communicator.

  There was a loud pop.

  The spacebin appeared just a few metres down
the beach.

  Identical versions of us jumped out and wandered up to the sea.