Funny Kid #3 Read online

  “Um, it says it’s two o’clock,” Tyson replies.

  Everyone stops cold.

  Tyson holds up his watch. “That’s what it says.”

  Abby’s eyes go wide with panic. Pip starts shaking her head frantically. Hugo looks confused.

  “It can’t be,” I whisper.

  “The bus is supposed to leave at two o’clock!” Abby says. “Have we really been walking for that long?”

  “You did take a very long time picking up all Pip’s stuff,” I throw in for good measure. Abby scowls. “You must be getting very tired carrying that suitcase. Would you like some help?”

  “Don’t worry. Miss Sweet is not going to leave without us, I don’t think,” I say. Then I pretend to look puzzled. “Although I’m not really sure where we are . . .”

  Abby drops the suitcase so she has two hands to hit me with.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay!” I protest. “I think we’re probably almost there. Let’s just hurry up a bit. You’re walking quite slowly, Abby. Are you sure you don’t want Tyson to carry –?”

  Abby looks like she wants to pull my toes off one by one.

  I lead the group forward again. It should be just a little bit farther ahead. “Come on, everyone! We’re almost there!”

  We race through the bushes and branches until suddenly we stumble out of the trees into . . . a completely empty clearing.

  Everyone comes crashing in behind me.

  The suitcase gets dropped.

  Abby’s jaw is open so wide it almost lands on the ground next to the case.

  We look. There are no tents. There are no canoes. There is no bus. Our food is not there and neither are any of our bags.

  “They . . . left us here?” Pip murmurs.

  Abby drops to her knees in the dirt. “I don’t believe this. I can’t believe this. This cannot be happening.”

  “I really didn’t think they would leave without us,” I say.

  Duck is quacking angrily.

  “I guess we’re going to be spending another night out here . . .” Tyson says.

  “With no tents and no food,” I add. “All alone.”

  “And don’t forget the Gunker Dragon,” Hugo says.

  “What?” Abby looks up.

  I pretend to be flabbergasted. “How could you forget the whole reason we came walking out here?” I exclaim. “The Gunker Dragon!”

  Abby stands and her shoulders slump. She looks at Pip and Pip looks back. They seem to be having one of those silent conversations that girls are so good at. I can never understand how they do that.

  “There . . . is no Gunker Dragon,” Abby admits eventually.

  “WHAT?” Tyson, Hugo, and I all yell together.

  “You made it up!” I gasp, faking disbelief.

  Abby nods.

  “What about the whole I’ve-been-reading-the-scary-history-of-Lake-Quiet stuff?” I ask.

  “That’s not true either,” Abby says. “I’d never heard of Lake Quiet before this trip.”

  “So are Gunker Dragons just extinct or did they never even exist?” Tyson asks.

  Pip and Abby both drop their heads.

  “They never even existed. We . . . invented them,” Pip says.

  They look sooo guilty.

  I slap my hand against my chest and gasp, pretending to be shocked.

  “And we got you pretty good,” Abby continues. “We dragged the suitcase into the woods and set up the dragon nest. We even scattered the leftover chicken bones from last night’s dinner on the ground. It was super gross, but it felt worth it when we made you cry . . .”

  “Now it feels pretty dumb though,” Pip adds quickly. “Because we’ve missed the bus and I really don’t want to be stuck out in the woods for the night without a tent.”

  “Yeah. Great prank, guys,” Tyson says sarcastically.

  “You must be feeling pretty bad right about now,” Hugo adds.

  They both nod.

  “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean for this to happen,” Abby says.

  Did she really just say that? I don’t believe it. Abby Purcell just apologized for something! This is the most amazing day in all of human history. To be honest, I never thought I’d live to see it! I would have paid good money for tickets to watch Abby Purcell say sorry!

  I look over at Tyson and smile. He grins at Hugo. Abby and Pip notice.

  “What?” Pip asks, confused.

  “Why are you boys smiling? What’s going on?” Abby demands.

  Tyson, Hugo, and I burst out laughing. And then it all just comes tumbling out in mad excitement.

  “What’s the real time, Tyson?” I ask.

  “Oh, hang on a minute,” he says. “Let me just put my watch back to where it’s supposed to be. Oh, look at that, it’s only actually eleven o’clock. We’ve been gone for about twenty minutes. Plenty of time!”

  Pip and Abby look at each other, wide-eyed.

  “Then where is everyone?” Pip asks, pointing to the campsite.

  “This is not our campsite,” Hugo explains, grinning. “It’s one campsite over. There are identical campgrounds all the way along this lake. We just took you to the next one!”

  Duck quacks, trying to tell us that’s what he’s been saying the whole time.

  “So you knew we were faking about the Gunker Dragon?” Pip asks.

  “Of course we did,” I reply. “Turns out, Tyson and I are smarter than you think.”

  “And we make a pretty good team!” he adds.

  “But you two hate each other!” Abby says. Her whole body is shaking like there’s a volcano beginning to erupt from her toes and it’s going to blow the top of her head off.

  This is the best ever!

  “I think we have more in common than we thought,” I say, grinning at Tyson. “Like being awesome.”

  “And winning prank wars!” Tyson holds out his fist and we do our first successful fist bump!

  Abby and Pip look at each other.

  “You think this means you won the prank war?” Abby asks.

  “Of course it does,” I say.

  “I don’t know.” Abby shrugs. “What do you think, Pip?”

  “I seem to remember you three sobbing like babies back there,” she says.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Abby adds. “I don’t think winners do that.”

  “No one knows about that!” Tyson exclaims.

  What’s going on here?

  “We do,” Abby says.

  Pip pulls her phone out of her pocket and holds it up. “They don’t need to believe it,” she says.

  “The whole class can watch it.” Abby grins. “All the way home.”

  Tyson, Hugo, and I look at Pip’s phone in terror. Sure enough, playing on the screen is a video of the three of us crying our little hearts out. While we thought they were taking a long time packing up the suitcase, they’d actually been secretly filming us!

  The two girls stand next to each other with huge smiles on their faces. “It’s over, boys.”

  Once we get back to our real campsite, we pack up. It turns out Miss Sweet has become so stressed by this whole camping trip thing (she’s muttering to herself, “I’m never doing this again. I’m never doing this again”) she didn’t even notice the five of us had wandered off into the woods for half an hour. She just thinks we’re slow at packing up our tents, which, of course, we are.

  Pip’s phone goes flying around the campsite –they don’t wait until the bus ride home. I guess that will be a good opportunity for everyone to watch it for a second time. Once they’ve finished laughing, that is. I’ve never seen a video go viral like that – by actually passing the phone around to everyone!

  I have to admit they got us pretty good. I can’t even think of how to top it. I was so busy focusing on fighting Tyson in this prank war, I didn’t even realize we were both being played by the girls this whole time. Turns out they’re not so bad at pranks after all.

  Finally it’s time to get back on the bus. We
load our things into the cargo hold with a little help from Mr. Bert. Luckily this time I don’t need to put Duck in my backpack, which he seems quite relieved about. Miss Sweet has just given up and says he can sit in a box by the window. I’ve never seen Duck so happy.

  “Hey, Tyson – come sit here!” I call out. He drops into the seat next to me and Hugo hops in behind us.

  “Hugo,” Pip says. “Do you mind if I sit next to you?”

  Abby plops down next to Layla across the aisle and I suddenly realize we’re all sitting in exactly the same seats we were in on our way to camp, only now we all seem a little happier about it.

  This fresh air stuff is pretty powerful!

  “I want to talk about my book,” Hugo announces. Oh, not this again! I forgot all about his book. “I’ve made a decision –”

  “Me too!” I interrupt. “I don’t want you to write a book about me anymore!”

  Before Mr. Bert starts the bus, Miss Sweet stands up and gives us all a lecture about pranks, because I guess that’s what they taught her to do at teacher school. She looks like she just wants to go home and sleep for three weeks.

  She also has to give us all a punishment for messing up so much. I can tell she doesn’t really have the energy for that either, but I think there’s a line about consequences in her job description.

  “Given we have spent so much time talking about animals that may or may not be extinct, or even exist at all, I’ve decided that next week we are going to start raising money for endangered animals. You will each choose an animal and a charity that supports your animal, you will tell us all about your chosen charity and then you’re all going to work your little bottoms off trying to raise as much money for your charity as you can. You may have spent the past three days fighting each other in a prank war, but it’s going to be peacetime in Redhill now. You can compete with each other to see who is better at doing something positive for the world.”

  Ooh. What animal am I going to choose? That could be something for Tyson and me to discuss on the way home. Who would have thought?

  You know what else is strange? Ever since Tyson and I worked out that being funny kids together is better than being a funny kid on your own, I’ve kind of lost interest in trying to talk to Pip all the time. It’s like there was this switch that’s just been turned off. That will make things a lot easier.

  Besides, planning and scheming with Tyson is much more fun!

  It’s a great relief really, because I was a little nervous when we started this book that it was going to turn into a love story. So gross! But you’ll be relieved to see it’s okay! It didn’t become a love story at all!

  Then I hear Pip say behind me:

  Okaaaaaaayyyyy. Maybe I spoke too soon . . .

  THE END

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  About the Author

  MATT STANTON is a bestselling children’s author and illustrator, with half a million books in print. He is the cocreator of the megahits There Is a Monster Under My Bed Who Farts and This Is a Ball. Funny Kid for President debuted as the #1 Australian kids’ book and is fast winning legions of fans around the world.

  mattstanton.net

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Books by Matt Stanton

  Funny Kid series

  Funny Kid for President

  Funny Kid #2: Stand Up

  Funny Kid #3: Prank Wars

  Fart Monster and Me series

  with Tim Miller

  Fart Monster + Friends picture books

  with Tim Miller:

  There Is a Monster Under My Bed Who Farts

  The Pirate Who Had to Pee

  Dinosaur Dump

  Don’t Spew in Your Spacesuit

  Books That Drive Kids Crazy! picture books

  with Beck Stanton:

  This Is a Ball

  Did You Take the B from My _ook?

  This Book is Red

  Wait!

  With Mark Carthew:

  The Moose Is Loose!

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  Copyright

  FUNNY KID #3: PRANK WARS. Copyright © Beck & Matt Stanton Pty Ltd 2018. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  Cover art © 2019 by Matt Stanton

  Cover and internal design by Matt Stanton

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018958434

  Digital Edition JANUARY 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-257299-8

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-257297-4

  1819202122CG/LSCH10987654321

  Originally published in Australia by HarperCollins Children’s Books

  About the Publisher

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  *I can’t actually remember who Gandhi is. I think he did good stuff though, like help people be peaceful or something. Either that or he’s the weatherman on Channel 11.