Today Max and I made a wonderful marble run at the bottom of my garden. It’s muddy down there so we built a mud mountain and then made twisting tracks all the way down. At the bottom we dug a tunnel that went along under the compost heap and came up on the lawn the other side. It was fantastic. Our marbles got such a run up down the mountain that they shot through the tunnel and sped on to the grass. My favourite marble – The Blue Wonder was the best. It went the furthest every time. Its record run was getting as far as the apple tree and that’s a long way across the grass!
We were just setting up for a double run which is two marbles racing each other when there was a loud Boo! I was so frightened I jumped and sat in the mud and Max dropped all his marbles.
Guess who it was! Yes, the gargoylz had come to see us and of course they had to play a trick on us. It was Eli, Theo and Abel. They were really impressed with our marble mountain and joined in the fun.
Then disaster! We heard a horrible moany voice and Arabella appeared. The gargoylz had to hide quickly. Eli turned into a snake and slithered under the compost, Theo turned into a kitten and Abel became a tree. When Arabella saw what we were doing she wanted to join in. I said no, but then she started yelling for Mum and Mum said we had to let her play.
Arabella only wanted to play to annoy us. Normally she says she’s too grown up for that sort of thing. Anyway she started bossing us about straight away. It really ruined the game especially when she demanded that she should have The Blue Wonder as she is the oldest. So I told her she couldn’t have it as it was mine. She stamped her foot and shouted and then told us that she didn’t want to play anyway and that we’d be sorry. She bent down by the tunnel to tie up her shoe and then she stalked off to the house.
Max and I cheered and the gargoylz came out of hiding. But when I sent the Blue Wonder down for its next run it didn’t come out of the tunnel. We tried to peer inside but we couldn’t see it. I was really upset. My favourite, record-breaking marble was stuck.
Lucky for me that I have a friend who can make himself tunnel-shaped. Eli turned back into a snake and shot down the tunnel to see what the problem was. He was soon out the other side with the Blue Wonder. And now we could see what had happened. There was a big lump of sticky chewing gum on my marble. Arabella must have poked the chewing gum down the tunnel with a stick when she tied up her shoe. She must have known that the next marble would run into it and then get stuck in the tunnel and that would be the end of our game.
So it’s time to plan a super trick to get Arabella back!

We had the worst lesson in the history of worst lessons today at school. Mr Widget took us for country dancing out in the playground. Yuck! If that wasn’t bad enough we had to dance with girls. Double Yuck! And if that wasn’t bad enough, Mr Widget played the tunes on his bagpipes.  We had to stick cotton wool in our ears.  We wondered about asking Zack to use his pin like he did last time and pop the bagpipes but Mr Widget had wrapped them in a sort of pin-proof bag. We sent out an urgent message to the gargoylz (paper aeroplane over the church wall) and along came Jelly.

Jelly was awesome. He glooped into a bouncy ball and bounced across the playground and then shot up the bottom pipe of the bagpipes into the bag. Then Jelly began to jump about inside. Poor Mr Widget could hardly hold on to the bagpipes, they were wriggling so much. He played faster and faster until we all fell over in a heap.  Mrs Hogsbum leant out of her window and said he’d broken school rule number 855– teachers must not play musical instruments that wriggle.

Country dancing was over – result!

Got to go.  Nan’s coming round and she’s promised to bring cakes.  Toby, Neb and Eli have just arrived so I’ve got to make sure there are some left for me!

Then we heard ‘boyz!’ hissed through the letterbox and when we looked, Toby and Abel were peeping out of a bush in the front garden.  They sneaked in and Abel slipped into the lounge. The girls and our mums had just got really gooey about lovely wedding dresses – yuck – when Arabella screamed. She told them that the plant in the corner had winked at her. The others didn’t believe her but then Jessica said it was waving at her and showing its teeth. Max’s mum just turned up the volume but then my mum gave a shriek and said there was a twiggy monster in the pot. Max’s mum looked but Abel had ducked down out of sight.

The mums then came looking for us because they were sure that we’d played a trick on them.  Luckily Max and I had thought about this so we made sure we were helping his dad out in the garden. They had to agree it couldn’t have been us and that they’d all be much happier watching it back at my house so off they all went. Result! Max and I got to watch our film in his lounge in peace!  And his dad made us some popcorn. He was amazed how quickly we ate it but he didn’t realise that we had five hungry gargoylz hiding behind the couch. Once they’d heard how well the trick had gone, Barney, Neb and Theo had come to join Toby and Abel.  It was a bit of a squash.

So it was an awesome Royal Wedding day for us.

Now we’re just off to drop a wet sponge on Arabella’s head from the bedroom window.  She’s been complaining we smell because we don’t wash enough and she says she just loves washing all the time.  So we’re going to give her an extra rinse and see how she likes that.

It was set up like a deserted castle and we all had laser guns in the shape of old fashioned swords.  Max and I were in a team together and we sped off to get away from the girls.  Our aim was to make it all the way from the drawbridge to the battlements without being blasted.  And we had to shoot the enemy teams and collect pretend gold coins on the way. The girls were on a different team and they were such sissies that they made our mums go with them! It was easy to know where they were because they kept screaming really girly shrieks just because it was dark.

We had an awesome time, blasting at monsters and collecting treasure.  But then something really scary happened.   We were creeping round the dark tunnels trying to find the last gold coin when we saw one whizzing along the ground ahead of us.  Every time we got near to it, it whizzed off again.  Then we realised it was being pulled along by a snake.  We thought we had it trapped in an old barrel but when we tipped it up we got covered in spiders! Yuck! It was only when the spiders vanished and we heard some growly chuckles that we realised the gargoylz were there! Eli and Bart had sneaked along for the fun! Eli was the snake of course and Bart had burped up the spiders.  Eli had found the last gold coin and we were able to get our prize – a slap up tea in the cafe.

As we were on our way there, we suddenly remembered that we were going to play a trick on the girls. But before we could think one up we heard a bloodcurdling shriek coming from a dark passageway and Jessica and Arabella came dashing out yelling that a haunted suit of armour was after them! We knew it must be one of the gargoylz.  The girls rushed off into the car park shrieking that they would never go to Lasershoot ever, ever again in their lives. RESULT!  When they’d gone, we saw Rufus – as a skeleton – waving one of his bony arms out of the suit of armour.

When we got our tea we made sure that all three gargoylz got plenty of cookies and doughnuts smuggled to them under the table.  Anyway Lasershoot was cool!

Bart wants me to tell you his favourite joke about Eli.

Q. What is a snake’s favourite food? 

A. Hiss Fingers!

And now Toby wants me to tell you something.  Oh yes!  The gargoylz are part of the World Book Day book.  I don’t think you’d need to be told.  Doesn’t everyone know that?  Anyway he’s insisting so I’m telling you!  And he says I must tell you to look out for the gargoylz next week as they’re going to visit lots of schools all around World Book Day. So if you live in Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire or Sussex you might see a stony paw or tail whizzing out of sight.  But remember, keep it a secret!

We weren’t going to let her get the better of us.  We thought we’d wait a few days until she’d forgotten all about it and then yesterday we played a wonderful trick.  Swotty Arabella had worked really hard on a project about barometers.  (They hang on the wall and tell you what the weather’s going to be like – boring!)   On our way to school, she went on and on about how it was the best project ever and she was the brainiest girl in the school and her teacher would be really pleased with her when she whipped it out of her bag.  Little did she know that we had a prank in store for her.

When we got to the playground, she put her bag down and started chatting with her horrible friends.  Barney was hiding in a nearby hedge and he made one of his best smells.  The girls all ran away coughing and spluttering, leaving their bags behind.  Quick as a flash, Toby grabbed the project and flew away with it.  Meanwhile Cyrus quickly shredded some paper with his claws and shoved that in her bag instead so it would look as if she’d torn her project into pieces.  Then we all went into our classes.

Soon there was a humungous shriek from Arabella down the corridor.  I jumped up and told Miss Bleet that my sister needed me.  Max and I dashed out of the door to where Toby was waiting for us with the project. We grabbed it and ran along to Arabella’s classroom.  We peered through the glass door at her.  She was having a tantrum, chucking shredded paper everywhere as she ransacked her bag looking for her project.  Her teacher looked cross.

I knocked at the door and asked in my sweetest voice if Arabella had lost anything.  Then I held up the project.  Arabella went purple and shrieked that I had stolen it.  It was great because her teacher got really cross then and told Arabella she should be grateful to have such a lovely brother. 

Max and I did the biggest high five ever outside! 

It’s Valentine’s day on Monday which is really yucky.  Wonder if we can play a special Valentine’s trick on someone?

The show was as bad as we thought – full of dancing pixies and furry animals.  Ben and I got really fidgety.  We had to sit through ten minutes of this and Neb and Zack hadn’t played any pranks at all.  I was just telling Ben that I thought they must have gone to sleep somewhere when Mum poked us in the back.  She told us that if we didn’t keep quiet we’d be banned from playing football for a month!  So we zipped our lips while Jessica and eight other little lambs skipped about.  (They looked more like a herd of hippopotamuses.)  Then Arabella pranced on to the stage to do a dance called the Dying Duck.  She had a stupid pink costume on which was covered in feathers.  Ben and I were just agreeing that we’d never seen a pink duck before when we remembered the footie ban threat and shut up.

Arabella was jumping and twirling to some horrible twinkly music when suddenly the feathers on her dress began to fly off into the air.  We knew what was happening of course.  Invisible paws were plucking the dancing duck!  The feathers were all around Arabella like a pink blizzard.  She tried to dance on, spitting out bits of fluff when suddenly she began to spin like a top across the stage and then disappeared into the wings.  There was an earsplitting crash and that was the end of the show.  She’d bowled into the rest of the farm animals and they were all shrieking so loudly with terror they couldn’t dance.  Result!

I’m at Ben’s house now for tea and we’re going to leave some pink feathers all over her bed! 

The gargoylz said that as we had ten minutes before she opened her eyes, they could help us get everything ready and give her a big surprise. Well, she certainly got a big surprise! We put all the ingredients in a bowl and Neb jumped in and snorkelled round. He said he was mixing it all up but he squirted most of it round the room. By the time Max’s nan woke up there was egg on the ceiling, butter all over the bread bin and flour in the cooker. In the end she made the muffins and we ate them – at least, we ate as many as we could before the gargoylz got their stony paws on them!

This Saturday is going to be soooo boring. Max and I have to go and watch Jessica and Arabella take part in some sort of girly dance show. Hold on – maybe if the gargoylz come along it won’t be so bad…

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

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!

The gargoylz played a trick on us yesterday!  After school, we dashed round to the churchyard to see them because we wanted to tell them that half term started today and we’d have a whole week off school to play with them.  And most importantly, we needed to start making plans for Halloween.

But the gargoylz were nowhere to be seen.  The church roof was empty.  We walked up and down but all we could see were piles of leaves that had been swept up.  We even knocked on all the tree trunks to see if they were really Abel in disguise.  It was beginning to get dark and we needed to get home.

Then suddenly there was a roar and every pile of leaves erupted like mini volcanoes.  It was all the gargoylz!  Max and I jumped and yelled in fright.  It was a cool trick. 

And we decided to try it on Arabella tonight because she had been really bossy at lunchtime today and stopped us having third helpings of chocolate sponge. She’s the bossiest monitor in the history of bossiest monitors.  She had a humungous moan at us and all we’d done was ask for I’d given Mrs Simmer my best smile and as usual it had worked.  She’d got two huge slices of cake ready on her ladle and hovering over our plates when my bossy older sister ruined it for us by telling all the dinner ladies we were greedy and didn’t deserve it.

So we went straight home from the churchyard and made a huge pile of leaves in my garden.  We’re going to hide in it the moment I’ve finished this blog.  Arabella is watching TV in the living room so Theo is going to change into a cute kitten and appear at the window. Then he’s going to lure Arabella over to our trap.  She’s going to be so scared!