Gargoylz Blog » Enemy agents

Ben only just managed not to get a bashing from the Basher. As soon as Barry marched up to him and whipped the gloves out of his pocket Ben said, “That’s very strange! How did those gloves get back in there? I had them on the walk and suddenly I felt someone take them out of my pocket, but there was no one around. That’s spooky!” (Quick thinking, Agent Neal) Anyway, Barry looked really frightened and ran off down the corridor shouting something about the Ghastly Glove Ghost was now haunting the school. We heard him getting told off by Mrs Hogsbum for breaking school rule number 386 – Boys must not shout about Ghastly Glove Ghosts in school time.’

Nan brought round some lovely cakes yesterday and that reminded me. We promised you all a scrumptious recipe and Barney chose this one – Muffins. He says it’s one of my nan’s best and it’s easy peasy. 

It looks like a lot of ingredients but the muffins are really easy to make. Get a grownup to help you.

Barney’s Favourite Muffins

You will need: 

  • 250g self-raising flour
  • 25g cocoa powder
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 175g caster sugar
  • 175ml milk
  • 2 large eggs, beaten
  • 100ml sunflower oil
  • 75g plain chocolate chunks (don’t eat them all before you start)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Paper muffin cases
  • A 12-hole muffin tray
  1. Get your grownup to turn the oven on to 170ºC (375ºF, gas mark 5).
  2. Put muffin cases into a 12-hole deep muffin tray.
  3. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder; stir in the sugar. Add everything else and mix it all lightly together.
  4. Spoon the mixture into the cases. Bake them for about 20 minutes until they’re springy and not squidgy when your grownup gives them a poke. Cool for 10 minutes; then put on a wire rack and leave until cool.

Eat up as soon as they are cool!!!

Nan’s going to let us help her make some when Ben and I go round there on Sunday. The gargoylz are going to join in – when Nan’s not looking, of course.


2


Max’s trick on his dad didn’t quite go to plan but it was very funny.  He rubbed lead from a pencil on a pair of glasses but he didn’t realise his mum was going to borrow them for a second to write a note. Then she took them off and set off to fetch Jessica from Brownies and as it was cold she put her furry hat on as well. It’s got two points like ears. Brown Owl thought she’d come dressed as a great horned owl! And Max’s mum never understood why. The lead had rubbed off by the time she got home so she just thinks that Brown Owl is owl-obsessed!

We thought school was going to be really boring today because Mr Widget was leading Year Four on a snowdrop hunt!  We were waiting in the playground to set off for Oldacre Wood when Barry Price, codename: The Basher, barged into us.  He knocked me flying and I dropped my gloves in a puddle which made him really laugh and made my hands really cold. Max lent me one of his and we had to keep swapping to stop our fingers freezing and snapping off!

When we reached the wood, we had to search for snowdrops. The girls all shrieked with delight and ran around poking and prodding in the leaves. Max and I mooched about. I mean, who wants to find flowers in a place full of great trees to climb? But then we heard some gargoyly giggling and Zack and Neb popped up. They’d seen what had happened in the playground and had brought me some of the vicar’s gloves to borrow. They were a bit big but nice and cosy.  Then we got ready to play a trick on Barry Price to pay him back for being so mean. We got Zack to pop invisible and Neb to blend with the wood and take the vicar’s big gloves and sit in the oldest, tallest, spookiest looking tree in the wood. Then we told Barry that no one had ever climbed that tree as it was haunted. Of course the Basher went straight up it. As soon as Barry was up high, and sneering down at us, Zack and Neb put the vicar’s gloves on and waved them in Barry’s face. Zack wailed that he was the Ghastly Glove Ghost and he hoped no one had been nasty or he would scare them till their hair fell out. Barry hasn’t got much hair but he was still terrified. Then Zack said in a really spooky voice that only thing the Basher could do to make up for it, was to pick the biggest snowdrop he could find for teacher. Barry jumped down the tree immediately. It was so funny to see him scampering about trying to find the biggest flower for Mr Widget. And when he did Mr Widget told him off as no one’s was meant to pick the snowdrops. He didn’t listen when Barry said that the Ghastly Glove Ghost had told him to do it. It was awesome!

We’re back at school now and I’ve got a few minutes on the class computer. The Basher hasn’t said a word to anyone since we got back. That makes a change. Uh oh! He’s staring at the vicar’s gloves that Zack and Neb scared him with. They’re sticking out of my pocket. I forgot to take them back to the gargoylz so they could take them back to the vicar.

I think he suspects that Max and I had something to do with the Ghastly Glove Ghost. We’re going to be in BIG TROUBLE! HELP!


2


Happy new year, Gargoylz fans!

I’m supposed to be looking up how the Vikings farmed!  I’d much rather find out how they had battles and all that.  But Miss Bleet isn’t looking so I’m writing this blog and looking up Viking battles!

We’ve been back at school for four days now.  It’s been fun thanks to the gargoylz.  Mrs Hogsbottom was in her usual bad mood and really moaned at everyone in assembly today for coughing. She said we had broken school rule number 422 – children must not have colds during school time. After saying ‘outrageous’ three times in a row, she put her glasses on to read some important messages – well she thought they were important.  Ben and I don’t care about her new sprout garden in the playground! When she took her glasses off to glare at us, everyone started laughing, even the teachers. Mrs Hogsbottom now had black circles around her eyes. She looked like a disgruntled panda! She got crosser and crosser and of course that made us all laugh even more. Eventually Mr Duster, the caretaker, went over and offered her his sponge.  That was the end of assembly – five minutes early.

At playtime we rushed over to the wall next to the churchyard and sure enough there were Toby and Ira waiting to hear what we thought of their trick. We told them it was awesome and asked how they did it. Ira explained that it was an old pirate prank! They rubbed pencil on her glasses frames so that the lead rubbed off on to her face when she put her spectacles on.

I’m going to try it on my dad tonight!


11


I had an awesome Christmas Day with lots of goodies to eat and loads of presents. And I hope you did too.  But the best day was Boxing Day because I saw Max and the gargoylz.

We met up with Max and his family to have a long walk and a pub lunch because our parents said they’d done enough cooking! Max and I didn’t want to go on a boring walk until we found that the gargoylz were coming too. 

Arabella and Jessica were being really bossy and telling us not to jump in the mud as it was dirty. We told them they had to be careful not to upset the mud monsters. Arabella put on her most annoying bossy monitor face and said there were no such things as mud monsters.

Can you guess what happened next?

As soon as the grownups had gone on ahead, a whole army of mud monsters jumped out on the girls and splattered them with mudpies. One of the monsters turned into a mud kitten, another one burped muddy spiders and there was a dreadful pong.  The girls ran shrieking to our parents and got told off for getting so muddy.

 It’s New Year’s Eve and tonight Max is coming to my house and we’re allowed to stay up until midnight when it’ll be 2011 – as long as we go to bed straight after. All the gargoylz are coming so it’s going to be a bit of a squeeze.

Wow! Ira’s just reminded me that we’ve been doing this blog for a whole year. Awesome!

Happy gargoyling new year, Gargoylz fans!

from

Max and Ben

and

Abel, Azzan, Barney, Bart, Cyrus, Eli, Ira, Jelly, Neb, Ruben, Rufus, Theo, Toby, Zack


13


Our party hats started off okay. I went round to Max’s house on Saturday and found that Jelly, Neb, Barney and Ira were already there, helping Max to get out all the paper and glue and stuff that we needed. We decided to make pirate hats.  We’d just got our cardboard into cool pirate hat shapes when Max’s mum called us for a snack.  When we got back (bringing cookies for our friends, of course) we found a terrible mess and not a gargoyle in sight. The hats were covered in dead leaves, old socks and toilet paper!  And so was the furniture. Then Barney, Neb and Ira popped out of the wardrobe and yelled ‘surprise’! They thought we’d be pleased. When we complained about the hats, Ira told us that he knew all about olden day pirates and they always looked a bit messy. Then we heard Jelly calling for help. He’d turned into a ball of purple goo and was stuck to the top of Max’s hat. When we’d peeled him off and he’d gone back to normal he explained he wanted to be there when Mrs Hogsbum gave his hat the prize.

We felt really stupid at the party in our hats. I had one of Max’s football socks dangling in my face and he had toilet paper over one eye. We wanted to take our hats off but Mrs Hogsbum said we’d be breaking school rule number 961 – boys must not take party hats off at Christmas parties. And then it was brilliant because we won the prize for the funniest hats!

Then Abel played the most awesome Christmas trick on Mrs Hogsbum. He waited until she was making her rounds of the school at lunchtime and transformed into a Christmas tree, complete with baubles and tinsel. He took up the whole corridor. We were just coming along and saw Mrs Hogsbum going red in the face with steam blowing out of her ears. Unfortunately she spotted us and thought we’d done it. She told us we’d broken school rule number 962 – boys must not block the corridor with Christmas trees. The moment she’d gone, Abel turned back into his normal self, scampered round to overtake her and turned into a tree again. She couldn’t understand how the tree kept moving and in the end she thought she must be going mad and went home. Result!

Now we’ve got two whole weeks off for Christmas!


6


The Christmas fair was awesome.  There were some cool stalls in the hall – Cracker Tug-of-war, Pudding Rolling and Splat the Christmas Rat.  And of course, the cake stall.  The gargoylz were all hiding under it when Ben and I arrived and Miss Bleet, who was running it, looked very upset as the supplies kept disappearing. We had to buy a whole lot of goodies and lure the gargoylz away in case they got spotted. Then Zack saw Father Christmas and shouted – ‘Hello Santa, how’s Ruben?’

Mrs Hogsbottom thought it was me and told me I’d broken School Rule number 357 – Boys must not shout at Father Christmas! Poor Zack was very disappointed that Santa didn’t seem to recognise his voice. He cheered up when Ben and I told him it wasn’t the real Santa because we’d seen Mr Duster’s wellies under the red trousers – and Santa is far too busy to come to a school fair at this time of year.   

Anyway, the school play was yesterday and Ben was in it after all! And he played the main part – Scrooge. Luckily for him, Gavin, who was supposed to play Scrooge has chickenpox and Duncan, his understudy, came out in spots just before the curtain went up. Anyway, Miss Bleet had to ask Ben to do it instead. As he didn’t have time to learn his lines (and he couldn’t have done no matter how long he had!) he was allowed to use his script. He was very nervous but the gargoylz helped. When the ghosts visited Scrooge they sat above the stage and made wonderful wailing sounds and rattled chains and boxes of pasta.  We weren’t sure why they used pasta until Eli explained that they just liked the noise.

Signing off now. Tomorrow we’ve got to make hats for our school Christmas party next week. There’s a prize for the best one. We’ve promised the gargoylz that they can help. We’re not sure that was a good idea.


2

26
Nov
The hide-and-seek mystery

Posted by Max

Nan’s cakes were the best cakes in the history of best cakes. The only trouble was, she didn’t make enough of them. Well, she wasn’t to know that ten of our gargoyle friends would sneak along to her house with us and try to eat the lot. Ben and I only got three each because every time she went out of the room to get us more drinks the gargoylz popped in and snatched more.

We went back to my house afterwards. It was quite misty and the gargoylz ran along the pavement with us and no one could see them properly. One man thought we were walking a load of dogs when he saw all the little shapes scuttling along with us in the mist. Then he spotted Toby flying overhead. We told him we were walking the parrot too.

When we got home, Jessica came running out shrieking that everywhere was ‘mystery’. We knew she meant misty, but it gave us an idea for a trick. (She’s been really horrible as she wasn’t allowed to go to Nan’s with us.) We said we’d go out into the back garden with her and investigate the mystery. Then Max got the gargoylz to hide all round the flowerbeds and in the trees. Jessica followed us outside and yelped.  She said there was an ugly thing waving its nose at her from a bush. We had a look. It was Neb, of course, but we told Jessica it was just a twig. Then she said she could see a nasty-looking monster with long hair sitting on the roof. That was Eli, wiggling his snakes. Then the branch of a big tree bent over and tapped Jessica on the back. She nearly deafened us yelling that the tree was alive and coming to get her. We knew it was Abel in his tree form.

Mum told us not to tease Jessica and wouldn’t listen when we said it wasn’t us. Anyway, tomorrow we’ve got to bake some cakes for Jessica. Not fair.  I wonder what we can put in them so she won’t be too keen on eating them. Hmmmm…


7

19
Nov
Spelling test trickz

Posted by Ben

Mrs Hogsbottom told us we’d broken school rule number 820 – boys must not make working models of fireworks that contaminate the mashed potato.  We had to stay in at break time as a punishment but it was all right as Zack popped in and kept us company.

Talking of Zack – he played a good gargoylz trick on us today!  We were on our way to school and – wait for it – we were practising our spellings!  I know you must be thinking we’d gone soft in the head but there was a good reason.  Our mothers had sat us down and said that if we tried really hard in this test we could go to Max’s grandmother’s on Sunday and she’d bake all our favourite cakes.

So we were almost at the school gates when ‘pop’, Zack appeared.  He wanted us to play with him as the other gargoylz were all having a snooze.  They’d found a huge clump of thistles in the churchyard and were now sleeping off their prickly breakfast.  Well we had to tell Zack that we didn’t have time and we’d see him at playtime.  ‘No you won’t!’ he laughed and disappeared.

We did our test and I was really pleased that I remembered how to spell business and boomerangs – Miss Bleet was having a B day.  She gathered all the papers in and then looked at mine first and stared at me angrily.  ‘I should have known you wouldn’t learn your spellings, Ben,’ she said as crossly as she could.  I was gobsmacked – I was sure I’d got them all right. In my head, I could see Max’s gran taking my cakes away.

Miss Bleet held up my paper and said, ‘you don’t spell business and boomerangs like this!’  Everyone started laughing.  On my paper it now said, businezz and boomerangz. And all the other words had been changed. I knew who’d done it. Zack! 

‘Why can’t you be more like Lucinda?’ demanded Miss Bleet, holding up Lucinda’s test.  The whole class – except Lucinda – began shouting with laughter.  Her test had been changed as well!  When Miss Bleet checked, every word on every test had been changed.  Good one, Zack!

Miss Bleet sat down with a thud. She couldn’t understand it. ‘Our pencils must be faulty, Miss,’ piped up Max, with a wink at me.  ‘Perhaps they can’t write the letter ‘s’.’

The bell rang then for break and we left our teacher writing ‘s’ over and over again with the pencils and waiting for them to change into ‘z’.  She had to give us all 10 out of 10 so Sunday cakes here we come!


9

12
Nov
The BEST fireworks ever

Posted by Max

The church firework display last Friday was THE BEST EVER, although we thought we were going to miss the whole thing, thanks to Theo.  Ben and I got to the churchyard before anyone else was there and went off to find the gargoylz. We could hear them rustling about in the grass and see them rushing about on the roof but they didn’t seem to notice us.  Suddenly Zack appeared with a pop in front of us. “Can’t find Theo… all looking for him,” he panted. Then he disappeared. Next Toby flew down in a flap and told us that Theo is so scared of fireworks that he hides every year and the gargoylz always miss the display as they’re too busy looking for him. 

We joined in the search. People were starting to arrive in the churchyard now and some of them tutted when they saw us crawling about among the graves. (They soon backed off when we told them we were looking for our pet tarantula!) Just before the display was going to begin we heard a little miaow from Ben’s backpack. Theo had jumped in there. He looked terrified and wanted us to take him away.

Then I had my brainwave. We got Abel to turn into a really bushy tree and got Theo to climb up into his branches. Theo felt safe curled up there with Abel’s leaves all around him in a sort of nest.  The other gargoylz got on the roof for the best view – after they’d eaten all the hot dogs that the vicar had brought out for the children.  (His wife made some more so it was okay.)

The fireworks were great. We oo-ed and ah-ed for ages and the last one lit up the whole sky. After that, all us kids were given sparklers and we wrote our names in the air. All of a sudden someone shouted that there were children on the church roof. We looked up and Ben and I had to stop ourselves laughing.  The whole roof was sparkling with sparklers. Some seemed to be running up and down the spire. Then Lucinda Tellingly gave a shriek and said there was a kitten in a tree, waving a sparkler.  Luckily no one believed her! 

Oh dear. Mrs Hogsbum is coming into the classroom. I think I can guess why. Ben and I made a working model of a Catherine wheel for the hall display. Unfortunately it went off accidentally at lunchtime and sprayed glitter all over the mashed potato. Well, it wasn’t me or Ben that set it off, but I think I know who it might have been!


5


The trick on Arabella worked spectacularly well!  She followed Theo round to our pile of leaves, cooing at him all the time and then we burst out – with ear-splitting screeches.  She was so scared she fell over backwards and got her bottom wedged in the washing basket.  She scuttled about the garden like a tortoise until her mum freed her.

We’ve had a great half term.  We went to an activity swim at the leisure centre on Tuesday with lots of floats and inflatables.  But mostly we’ve been getting ready for Halloween on Sunday.  And there’s lots to plan.  I’m having a Halloween party and everyone has to dress up in a scary way.  Ben’s coming of course and some other friends from our class – or should I say, fiends from our class.

The gargoylz have been helping and we’ve promised them their own party when everyone else has gone home.  We’ve been making paper ghosts and shiny skeletons to decorate my bedroom.  I left a skeleton on Jessica’s pillow and waited for her screams.  But Mum found it first.  She screamed really loudly so the trick worked in a way.  Bart’s going to burp up lots of spiders for us so my bedroom will be Scary! Scary!! Scary!!!  That will keep Jessica out.

Bart was wondering if anyone has some Halloween jokes for him.  Ben has one.

Q.  Why didn’t the skeleton go to the party?

A.  Because he had no body to go with!

Bart likes that one and so does Rufus!

Abel’s joke is -

Q. Why do witches wear name badges?

A. So you can tell which witch is which! 

Don’t forget to post your Halloween jokes too.

Right, we’re off to the kitchen to practise making witch’s guts and eyeballs. We’re going to use spaghetti and lots of gungy tomato sauce that looks like blood, with mozzarella cheese balls on top. Yummy and yucky!


6

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