We haven’t had any time to play a trick on Lucinda and her ghastly chums because we had a crisis.
This is what happened. It’s been really cold around here. Well, the weather played a trick on poor old Bart.
Last Saturday I was having breakfast when there was a tapping sound at the kitchen window. Jessica was facing it and shouted that there was a monkey outside. I knew at once she must mean Toby. While Mum told her that monkeys don’t live in our street, I said I’d make sure and I grabbed Dad’s gardening coat and I went outside. It was freezing and all the grass was white with frost.
I hadn’t gone far when Toby burst out from a bush. He told me that Ben and I were needed urgently down at the church and with that he flew away. I ran to Ben’s house and we whizzed down to the church on his skateboard. At first we couldn’t see what was wrong. Then we realised that Bart was standing in the gutter of the church roof. It turned out that his feet had frozen to the gutter while he was sleeping and now he couldn’t move. He was staying very still so that no one guessed that he was alive. And his friends didn’t know what to do. Azzan had tried to breathe flames over Bart’s toes but as it was so cold, his fire was coming out as red ice!
There was only one thing for it. We decided to defrost Bart with warm water but we thought someone might spot us if we threw buckets of water at him. Especially as we’d have to climb up on the church roof to do it. Then Ben remembered that there’s a hose that we’re not supposed to touch in the playground. The only hot water tap we could get to was in the boys’ toilets so we got Toby to fly in and stick one of the hose ends onto it when there was no one in there. It might have been Saturday but Mr Bucket the caretaker was around and we were sure we’d seen Mr Widget’s bike in the staff car park.
Anyway Zack popped invisible and ran along, pulling the other end along behind him. He ran over the school wall and into the churchyard, with the hose trailing behind. When he’d got it aimed at Bart we told Toby to turn on the warm water. It came out in a gush and defrosted Bart so quickly it nearly knocked him off the gutter.
Then we heard Mrs Hogsbum shouting, “Outrageous!” We didn’t know she was in school! She stormed out into the playground so we couldn’t tell Toby to turn off the tap. We hid behind the bins instead and Bart shinned out of sight down a drainpipe and behind a gravestone. All Mrs Hogsbottom could see was the hose trailing into the churchyard and water spraying up in the air. Zack was so surprised when he caught sight of her ugly face peering over the wall that he turned the hose on her! It was great! She fell over backwards and we rushed up to help her back into school, dripping and spluttering. She kept moaning about school rule number 392 – school hoses must not turn themselves on and soak the headteacher. We gave her a towel and ran off to have fun with our stony friends.
I hope Mrs Hogsbum doesn’t start wondering what we were doing in school on a Saturday.

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In assembly today Mrs Hogsbum said she didn’t want to hear any rubbish about Friday 13th being unlucky. Worse than that we were all to work extra hard. Even worse than that, she’d told our teachers that we couldn’t have play time until we’d finished. And even even worse than that she was going to come to all our classrooms and give us a spelling test. She unrolled a great long list that ran down to the floor!
It was awful. We had to go straight to our classroom and start learning hundreds of spellings. We needed gargoyle help and we needed it straight away. Luckily I was sitting next to the window. I pretended that there was a wasp around me and quickly opened it. Busybody Lucinda stuck her nose in and piped up that there aren’t any wasps around in January so I told her these were special Arctic wasps – very rare and very deadly! That shut her up and she hid under her desk for the rest of the lesson. Then I flapped my arms at the imaginary Arctic wasp and hoped that one of our friends would see me from the church roof. The spellings were really hard to learn and the lesson ticked by without one sight of a stony tail or ear. It was time for secret plan: signal the gargoylz in a different way!
I started coughing as loudly as possible. When Miss Bleet asked if I was all right. I said I’d caught a cold from having the window open. I asked if I could get a drink of water as that was the only think that would stop it. Then Ben asked if he could go with me in case I was taking really poorly and he had to call an ambulance. Miss Bleet looked at us as if she didn’t trust us – I don’t know why – and then she said ‘All right then, but be quick.’
We scooted out of the classroom at about a thousand miles an hour, straight up to the caretaker’s cupboard. There’s a good view of the church roof from the little window there. We waded through mops and dusters and loo rolls and I climbed on a ladder to reach the window. Toby saw me waving and flew down. We told him the problem and he scratched his head. None of us could think of a way out of the spelling test. If we stayed in the cupboard we knew Mr Bucket the caretaker would find us and we’d still have to do the test. If we flooded the whole school Mrs Hogsbum would make us sit in lifeboats and still do the test.
“I’ve got an idea!” Ben yelled suddenly and I was so surprised I fell off the ladder on top of him. But it was a brilliant idea. We wrote a load of really easy peasy spellings on a long bit of toilet paper and gave it to Toby. Ben told him to give it to Zack who would pop invisible and swop it for the hard list that Mrs Hogsbum was going to give us.
It worked! Ben and I ran back to the classroom and took our places just in time. Mrs Hogsbum gave us all evil stares as we were trying not to laugh at her loo roll list. But we got every spelling right! Everyone did – well, everyone except for Lucinda who was still under the table hiding from the wasp and refused to come out. Mrs Hogsbum couldn’t understand it. So Friday 13th was a lucky day for us!
Trouble is – I have the feeling Lucinda might want her own back on us when she finds out that there are no such things as Arctic wasps.

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School holidays! No more Mrs Hogsbum for two weeks. And it’s nearly Christmas!!
I went to hospital with Ben and his mum on Tuesday after school so he could have his plaster off. Theo and Jelly came with us as they wanted to see what happened. They sneaked into the boot of Ben’s car and when we got to the hospital they hid behind a curtain in the cubicle. It was okay until the nurse came in with an electric saw! They were so scared that Jelly melted into a pool of purple goo and Theo ran up the curtain in fright squeaking ‘She’s going to cut his leg off!’ The nurse thought it was me and told me not to be silly.
We were really looking forward to school the next day because Barry the Basher had been telling Ben that his leg would be all thin and weedy and would drop off when he didn’t have his plaster on any more. Of course, Ben’s leg looked fine but I found a an old chair leg and we put a sock on it and strapped Ben’s trainer to the bottom. Then at playtime we rolled Ben’s trousers up to the knee and he bent his leg up behind him so that it couldn’t be seen. Neb blended in with the background and held his leg steady for him. Then Zack popped invisible and held the chair leg in place. It really looked as if Ben had a skeleton leg under his sock. We called Barry over and told him he was right about Ben’s leg – it could drop off at any moment. Ben gave a little cough and Zack grabbed the chair leg and waved it in the Basher’s face.
Barry ran off screaming about haunted legs and did five laps of the netball courts before the dinnerladies tackled him to the ground.
It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow!! The gargoylz have decided that they will split into two groups and one will lot sleep in my room and the others with Ben. They want to stay awake and see Ruben, their gargoyle friend from the North Pole. We’d like to see Father Christmas as well and see how he is but we know that we have to be asleep or he can’t leave us any presents.
Happy Christmas, everyone!

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The play was awesome. Most of Ben’s lines were ‘Arggh, Jim lad,’ and even he could remember that! And Ira was in the play! Long John Silver has a parrot called Captain Flint and the stuffed model went missing just before the curtain went up. No one had any idea where it was except I did find some claw-shaped footprints in the dust near the costume box. Then Ira appeared. He’d covered himself in green paint and had an eye patch. Gargoylz don’t usually let humans see them but Ira was in disguise so it was all right. And he’s convinced that he’s a fierce pirate parrot, although he’s never been on a ship, so he knew all the right things to say, like ‘pieces of eight’ and shiver me timbers!’ Everyone was impressed and wondered how Ben was making the model talk. Though they were a bit puzzled when he suddenly squawked ‘pigeons on the spire’!  There was one sticky moment when he forgot himself and flapped his wings, making his special power work. It began to rain over Mrs Hogsbum but only for a few seconds!

I was a character called Blind Pew and I had to walk about as if I couldn’t see. I had great fun, bashing into Lucinda!  The audience gasped when she nearly fell off the stage though – but then they laughed as they must have thought it was part of the play. And Mr Widget said it was good character acting.

Then the gargoylz started to sing a pirate song from the lighting.

Pirates, pirates we are pirates

Pirates, pirates here we come

Fighting, swishing, swashing, swinging

Falling over on our … backs.

They’re still no good at rhymes!

Mum says we’re going to a party tomorrow and she said it’s not a person’s birthday. What a mystery! Hope there’s plenty of cake!!

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Everyone in the class wanted to try out Ben’s crutches. And everyone wanted to sign his cast. The gargoylz hadn’t left much room with their paw marks but they managed somehow.
Then Mr Widget came over. He was full of boring facts about how they make plaster of Paris – which is what they used to put on broken bones a hundred years ago when he was a boy. And then he went on about how crutches should be measured. Then suddenly he noticed the marks on Ben’s cast. Mr Widget got really excited. He grabbed a magnifying glass and started inspecting the paw prints saying that he was sure that they’d been made by the Allogonian lizard that was extinct! We couldn’t tell him that Azzan had made them and that he wasn’t an Allogonian lizard but a stone gargoyle dragon! Ben had to pretend that he’d drawn them.
But it gave us an idea for a trick. Just before school, Azzan, Jelly and Enoch slipped into Mr Widget’s classroom, spilled flour all over the floor and then left their prints all over the place. We could hear Mr Widget from the school gates. He was telling Mrs Hogsbum that there was an escaped Allogonian lizard, a pterodactyl and an owl loose in the school. Mrs Hogsbum said that was outrageous and they’d all broken School rule number 3803 – escaped extinct creatures, extinct flying reptiles and nocturnal birds must not leave footprints on classroom floors!
Poor Mr Widget. He telephoned the local paper to come and see but by the time they arrived, Mr Bucket had swept up all the mess. The reporter took his picture and wrote a story about teachers going mad in Oldeacre Primary School.
Jelly has written a poem about it.

See the prints upon the floor
Claws and paws, claws and paw
Make the teacher scream and shout
Can’t see what the fuss is over, it’s only prints.

Hey it’s just one month to Christmas! See you all in December.

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Last Saturday was AWESOME! It was even better than last year’s display at the church. The gargoylz were all there – even Theo, who is terrified of fireworks! He hid under the roundabout in the playground and watched from there. While the fireworks were whizzing about, there was a stall where people were cooking sausages and baked potatoes and all sorts of yummy food for afterwards.
While everyone was ooo-ing and ahh-ing over the display I suddenly saw Barry Price – the Basher – sneak up to the sausage stall and nick a great big handful – and he has very big hands! He ran off to the playground and stuffed his face. I told Ben and as soon as the display had finished we went off after him. I had A PLAN. First we went on the swings. Of course Barry came along and pushed us off so he could have a go. Next we got on the climbing frame and guess what – Barry kicked us off there as well so he could have it to himself. So then we got on the roundabout. Barry immediately ran up and threw us off. He sat on it and smirked at us while he stuffed his face with his last sausage.
“That’s not fair!” I said so that Barry could hear. “He won’t let us have a go but he’s not even making it go round.”
“Of course not!” said the Basher. “I get sick on roundabouts and then I can’t eat – and I want to eat all the sausages – and all the potatoes – and all the cakes.”
“Then you’d better make sure it doesn’t move,” I said very loudly so that Theo could hear.
Theo was brilliant. The roundabout started moving straight away! By the time Barry realised what was happening it was going too fast for him to jump off. We waved goodbye and left him looking green and clinging on. We got in the queue for food and counted up our money. Nan had given us some to spend and when we put our pocket money with it we found we’d got enough to buy sausages and potatoes and cakes for us and all the gargoylz.
As we staggered off with our feast to find our stony friends, the Basher ran past clutching his stomach. “Hi, Barry!” we called cheerily. “Want a sausage?” Well, we were only being friendly but he gave us a very dirty look. I don’t know why. We sat on the roundabout with the gargoylz and ate until we were full to bursting. (We gave Theo extra, of course, as he’d helped us with our trick) Then we played hide-and-seek until it was time to go home. Zack won, of course, as he kept popping invisible!
Better go now. Ben and I are going to do some circus tricks in the garden with the gargoyz. Awesome!

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We had a really awesome half term and a great stone skimming day on Wednesday. The competition was held on the big lake in the park. Ben is the best stone skimmer in the history of stone skimmers. He always picks the best stones and then he can throw them with that super special sideways skimming action that makes them skip across the surface of the water. His record before this was seven skips before the stone sank. So this competition was made for him.
The gargoylz were very excited when they heard about it. Abel said it was because they were also made of stone but Azzan let out the real reason. The prize is a box of chocolates and they wanted Ben to win so that they could help him eat them!
So we all went to the park. The gargoylz hid by the fountain so that if anyone saw them, they’d freeze and look like part of the decoration.
There were all sorts of competitors there from Miss Bleet to old Mr Windcheef who’s about ninety! To make it fair, the organisers had put a lot of flat pebbles into bags and the contestants could only use those and when they’d run out that was the end of their go. But then disaster struck. The competition was about to start when we heard a skuffle as someone with big fists was pushing their way through the crowd. I used my super sensitive radar and you’ve guessed it, it was Barry Price, codename: The Basher. He’d entered the competition as well and he came to stand next to Ben.
Ben tried not to let it put him off and his first stone did four skips before it sank. That put him in second place behind Mr Windcheef. Then the Basher had a go. He did six skips! And his next attempt was seven skips!
Ben was looking very sad. Then I felt a gargoyle paw on my arm and heard a whisper in my ear. There was no one there so I knew it was Zack. He’d gone invisible so that he could talk to me in private. He said that Barry was cheating! He’d brought his own stones with him and he told someone he’d rubbed them with sandpaper until they were superflat – just right for skimming.
So the gargoylz and I made a plan. I winked at Ben and then started telling him to be careful because the ghost of the lake didn’t like people throwing stones into it. Of course I said it all loudly so that Barry could hear. Ben pretended to look scared but the Basher laughed and said we were scaredy-scaredy girls’ pants!
He threw his next stone but as it hit the water, it rose up and came straight back at him. Barry couldn’t see that Neb had blended with the water, caught his stone and lobbed it back. He just looked gobsmacked. Then he took another stone and the same thing happened.
“That was the ghost,” I told him. “You’ve made it angry!”
The Basher picked up his next stone from his secret bag but before he could even move his arm, he was showered with tiny pebbles. All the gargoylz had joined in. He gave a scream of fright and ran away.
Success! It was up to Ben now. He drew level with Mr Windcheef and then on his last throw, his stone skipped across the water eight times! It was a world record – for Ben – and it won the competition. The big box of chocolates were yummy and the gargoylz were especially delighted as they were all shaped like pebbles!
It’s back to school next week, worst luck, but it’s Halloween on Monday so I’m going round to Ben’s house for a special spooky tea! I bet some little stony friends come too.

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I never thought I’d be writing this but science club was cool. In fact it went with a bang! We all trailed out into the playground following Mr Widget who had his bicycle pump under his arm. At first we thought we were going to watch him pumping up his bike tyres. BORING. Then he got out a lemonade bottle so we thought maybe there’d be food as well and we were going to have a picnic! AWESOME! But then he tipped out some of the lemonade and put the bottle on a stand and attached the pump to the bottle. He told us he was going to show us how to make a water rocket.  That sounded good to us but Lucinda and Poppy and Tiffany started shrieking that it was going to explode all over them.

The rocket was fantastic. It shot up really high in the air and the water all whooshed out of the end. It was only spoilt by those stupid girls shrieking so loudly that we were nearly deafened. Then the best thing of all – Mr Widget had brought loads of lemonade bottles and pumps and he said he’d let us do our own rockets. We had to wait about a year before he’d stopped Lucinda and Poppy and Tiffany whimpering.

We got everything ready and decided to play a trick on them for being so silly and girly. We tried to aim the rocket over their heads so the water would go all over them but it didn’t go the right way. We tried again but the rocket just zoomed off into a tree and we had to get it down. Luckily we spotted Toby, Rufus and Zack in the hedge, watching. And Ben had the most awesome idea in the history of awesome ideas. Zack popped invisible and clung on to the rocket. We pumped it up and off it shot with Zack clinging on. We saw it climbing into the air then suddenly it changed direction and the water shot all over the stupid girls. RESULT! We didn’t even get told off because Mr Widget said it wasn’t possible to control where the rockets went so we can’t have done it deliberately.

Must go now. Been writing this on the school computer and it’s playtime. There’s a huge pile of leaves in the playground and the gargoylz are going to hide inside and wait until

Arabella goes by!  Ben says she’s been the bossiest older sister in the history of bossy older sisters and deserves a trick.

And we have to give you a warning. The gargoylz have been writing more poetry and they want us to put it on the blog!

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We had to go down to the corner shop and buy some more raisins for Mum after we’d eaten them all. That was good as it got us away from Arabella’s screeching. Later on we got tummy ache and that wasn’t Arabella’s screeching. It was too many raisins.

Mrs Hogsbum has discovered Skype! At first this was really good because she was so busy talking to people that she didn’t come out of her office all week. It was so peaceful. Even the teachers looked happier. Then she appeared at assembly this morning and told us that each class were going to talk to another class in another school on the other side of the country. This sounded cool until we heard that our class had to recite a poem written by Lucinda Tellingly called ‘My ickle kitty’. We were to do this after first break so at playtime we ran to the church wall to ask for some gargoyle help.
We trooped into the hall and stood in front of the computer, ready to talk to the other school. A terrifying face appeared on the screen. Miss Bleet screamed and Mr Widget fainted. Ben and I high-fived because we thought we were going to see a ghost film but it turned out to be the head teacher from the other school. Her name is Mrs Scratchard and she is Mrs Hogsbottom’s sister!
Mrs Scratchard moved aside to show us the class we’d be reciting our poem to. They looked really cool and we knew we just couldn’t be seen reading the awful words that Lucinda had written. We hoped the gargoylz would come to our rescue soon.
We had just started with the first line, ‘My ickle kitty is fluffy wuffy’. I thought I was going to be sick! And of course we could hear all the children from the other school start to giggle.
At that moment, there was a loud tapping at the hall window that drowned out our voices. Everyone stopped and looked but it was only the branches of a tree. Ben nudged me and winked. We know there isn’t a tree outside the hall. It was Abel coming to our rescue.
But Mrs Hogsbum told us to just speak louder! We started again, shouting, ‘My ickle kitty is fluffy wuffy’ which was even worse because it meant other classes in our school could hear us too.
Then Toby appeared up at the top window but before he could do anything, Miss Bleet pulled the lever that shut it and he was knocked flying. Lucky he can fly.
We were really worried now because it looked as if the gargoylz were shut out and they wouldn’t be able to do anything. Then I felt something pull on my t-shirt. There was no one there but then I heard a gargoyly whisper in my ear – ‘Don’t worry, boyz. We have a plan! Put your fingers in your ears!’ It had to be Zack and he was warning us that Cyrus was about to sing!
All around us everyone fell asleep, including Mrs Scratchard’s school. Ben and I told each other jokes for ten minutes until they all woke up. And then Mrs Scratchard told Mrs Hogsbum off for making them hear a boring poem that put them to sleep. They started arguing so we all went back to our classes!

Ira thinks we should tell you the whole poem so you can see what the gargoylz saved us from. But we’ll be sick so maybe you can see it next week when we haven’t just had our tea.

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Remember the gargoylz paw prints all over Mrs Hogsbum’s office? We thought she’d go ballistic when she saw them. But she didn’t. She liked them! She thought that the painters had got some clever stencils and she wanted the staffroom to be decorated just like it. But of course the workmen didn’t know what she was talking about. When we got to school she was having a big argument with the chief decorator. They were shouting ‘you did’ and ‘we didn’t’ at each other like a couple of kids. In the end Mr Widget and Miss Bleet had to lead Mrs Hogsbum away and make her a cup of tea!
When we told the gargoylz they decided they’d help her out. But they didn’t put the prints on the staffroom walls. Instead they put them on the staffroom windows so no one could see out. Then Mrs H really did go ballistic. I don’t think the decorators will be coming back for a long time.

Bart has been looking at our photos from the animal park and it made him think of some animal jokes. He’s insisted that we tell you them. The gargoylz have already picked their favourites.
So here they are.

(Bart’s favourite)
What do you call an elephant at the North Pole?
Lost!

(Barney’s favourite)
What do you get if you cross a skunk with a bear?
Winnie the Pooh!

(Theo’s favourite)
What do tigers wear in bed?
Stripy pyjamas!

(Toby’s favourite)
How do you make a green Gorilla?
Cross a blue gorilla with a yellow one!

(Eli’s favourite)
Q: Why did the snake cross the road?
A: To get to the other ssssssside!

(Jelly’s favourite)
Q: What do you call a sleeping dinosaur?
A: A dino-snore!

Bart would love it if you could tell him which one you like best. Or even better – tell him some new jokes.

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