Gargoylz Blog » Barney

Miss Bleet nearly saw our blog last week.  Just in time, Max fell off his chair and pretended he’d broken his nose so she forgot all about the tea cosies – whatever they are.

The Harvest Festival was nearly a disaster, thanks to the gargoylz!  When we told them about the food collection, they all rubbed their tummies and said it sounded like a nice feast.  We told them that the food was for the old people and they promised to leave it alone but when Max and I went to add our tins of spaghetti hoops to the pile we found that everything had been opened and scoffed.  We knew it was the gargoylz because there was a trail of custardy claw prints leading to the window.

And then we heard Mrs Hogsbottom coming.  (She was yelling at some infants and the sound was getting louder and louder.)  We quickly wiped away the prints and covered the mess with our new tins just as she came in.  She looked at us suspiciously and went on her way.  We knew we were in big trouble.  The moment she discovered the food had been eaten, she’d blame us because she’d seen us there.

We went to find the gargoylz and gave them a telling off.  They said they were very sorry but the food had looked so nice that they couldn’t resist. They told us they would sort it all out.

And they did!  Barney sneaked into the vicar’s kitchen and made muffins and cookies.  They were strange shapes and a bit burnt because Azzan helped him by breathing fire but he made loads and put them on pretty plates.  Then Abel and Eli carried all the food from the vicar’s larder into the school hall to replace the things that the gargoylz had eaten.  The next time Mrs Hogsbum checked on the display it was bursting with food and Max and I were safe.

We felt a bit sorry for the vicar because Miss Bleet recognised the plates and told him off for burning the cookies!

I can hear Arabella screeching from her bedroom.  I think she might have found the fake dog poo I put on her carpet.


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Barney’s home and has told us all about his holiday.  It turns out that the Leaning Tower wasn’t made of pizza after all.  It was a proper tower in Pisa that leans.  He didn’t realise until he’d got to the top and took a big bite out of the stone!   It gave him such a fright that he made one of his smells and Mrs Hogsbum got the blame!  All the tourists had to hold their noses and the guide asked Mrs Hogbum to leave.  She shouted outrageous and told them they’d broken holiday rule number 754 – No one tells a head teacher to leave a leaning tower. 

There was an animal fun day at the church yesterday in aid of the donkey sanctuary down the road.  The vicar dressed up as a kangaroo and bounced around giving out sweets from his pouch – until Zack got inside and scoffed the lot.  Ben and I went as a giant cockroach and scared Doris and Aggie, the demon flower arrangers.

Theo turned into a kitten and won first prize for his costume.  The vicar thought he was a small child.  Our new friend Abel had transformed into a tree and was having a snooze when the vicar’s wife pinned a treasure hunt clue to his trunk.  He soon woke up and changed the wording so that all the treasure hunters ended up in the pond!  It was a great day and the donkeys are now going to have new ear warmers for winter.

Mum’s calling me.  She says it’s Ben on the phone and he’s got an awesome surprise for me.


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13
Aug
Barney’s trip to Venice

Posted by Ben

Max’s Dalek impression with the tin foil and the plunger was really realistic. He knew Jessica is scared of them so he barged into her bedroom in his disguise, chanting ‘exterminate, exterminate’ and hoping she’d run for her life. But it didn’t work like that.  She whacked him over the head with a fairy wand saying that she was Doctor Who and that was her sonic screwdriver.

We had a postcard from Italy today.  It was a bit damp round the edges.  We’d been wondering where Barney had got to as we hadn’t seen him on the church recently and the other gargoylz couldn’t tell us.  Anyway, it was his writing on the card.  It said that last week he saw Mrs Hogsbum packing for her holiday and filling her case with cookies.  He dived straight in, got zipped up and next thing he knew he was in a hotel in Venice and Mrs Hogsbum was unpacking her knickers.  He was so scared he scrambled out of the window and fell straight in a canal.  He didn’t know the roads are all made of water in Venice.

He says he’s having a great time eating pasta and gelato – that’s Italian for ice cream – and he can’t wait until she visits the Leaning Tower of Pizza.  He hopes it’s cheese and tomato!


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The trick on Arabella was footballtastic! Zack went invisible and signed her up for the school 5-a-side tournament and she had to play football all day. Mrs Hogsbottom wouldn’t listen when she said it wasn’t her writing, and anyway she’s not called Smelly Arabella. (Zack got over excited when he wrote it!)

Barney has insisted that I give you the recipe for Crackolates.  He says they’re drainpipingly delicious and should be eaten at least once a week.  So here it is.

Crispy Crackolates

Makes 12

Place 12 paper cake cases in muffin tray or on baking tray.

You will need a grown up to help you and -

  • 50g butter
  • 4 tablespoons golden syrup
  • 100g good quality dark/plain chocolate
  • 80g cornflakes
  1. Put butter, syrup and chocolate in large saucepan.  Warning – syrup is very gloopy!
  2. Melt it all very carefully over gentle heat until it’s mixed.
  3. Remove from heat and stir the cornflakes in well.
  4. Place spoonfuls of the mix in the paper cases. Leave to set in fridge.
  5. Eat from the fridge as soon as you come in.  Store in fridge. Crackolates keep for a couple of days – but we bet you won’t have any left. We didn’t.

Azzan says you should eat them four times a week! Jelly says every day!

The gargoylz were very excited yesterday.  They’ve been visiting lots of schools and the children have sent photos of the gargoylz models and pictures they’ve made.  They were amazing.  Toby flew up and decorated the church ceiling with them which really scared the vicar who rushed out in the middle of his sermon shouting ‘monsters!’

We’ve got Sports day on Tuesday.  I bet the gargoylz will do something to make it fun.  Can’t wait to see what.


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2
Jul
Max’s disaster haircut

Posted by Ben

Posted by Ben Neal

Max has a very interesting haircut at the moment.  Ira and Neb went with him to the hairdressers.  They had a great time playing hide and seek among the towels and curlers but just as the hairdresser was about to use the battery-powered clippers on Max, Ira got excited and made it rain – indoors!  The clippers fizzed and sparked and ran all round Max’s head.  He looks like a spiky tennis ball!

Max is at my house at this moment and we’re having a footie sleepover. More World Cup tonight so we’re going to watch it together in the lounge with the big TV. Barney, Azzan and Jelly are here too.  The others are going to watch the match on the vicar’s television. Not that the vicar has any idea.

Max and I had our own World Cup match at lunchtime yesterday. I scored the winning goal – thanks to Mrs Hogsbum! It was three-all and it was nearly the end of lunchtime. Mrs Hogsbum was just stomping across the playground to shout at some infants when I did a brilliant kick. The ball sailed in the air, bounced off her nose and zoomed straight into the goal. Mrs Hogsbum staggered about a bit and fell on her bottom in a flowerbed. Just then the bell went for afternoon school which meant I had won! I told Mrs H she’d scored the winning goal for me. I don’t know why she was so cross about it. She said I’d broken school rule 765 – boys must not use their head teacher to score winning goals.

We’ve got a special football feast of chocolate crackolates and cola to share with Barney, Azzan and Jelly. And best of all, Arabella’s banned from the lounge. She made a big fuss about it so the gargoylz have promised us they’ll play a trick on her.  And she deserves it. She said that football is silly!


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Agent Max Black reporting.

Poor Ben. His computer came back from being fixed and his dad took it away for another week. All because Arabella made a silly fuss about him using her laptop without asking.

Half term is about to start!  Ben and I are going camping with our families.  Problem is we’ve got to take Jessica and Arabella.

Today in school, Mr Widget brought in his bagpipes and gave us a concert in the hall for an hour.  It was awful.  It sounded like an elephant with toothache. We had to do something and we knew just who to ask for help – the gargoylz!  We quickly devised a secret plan – Stop the Bagpipes.

We asked to go to the toilet but Miss Bleet insisted on walking us there.  Luckily she didn’t come inside.  We climbed on a toilet and stuck our heads out of the window.  Even there we could hear the bagpipes.  Ben gave a whistle and Toby came flying over.  We asked him to find Zack and told him our secret plan.    

We went back to the hall.  Mr Widget was droning away at ‘the wheels on the bus go round and round.’ Nothing happened for a bit but then Ben and I saw the glint of a pin sailing through the air and heading straight for the bagpipes.  Our secret plan was working. The next second there was a terrible wheezing sound and the bagpipes deflated!  They sounded like one of Barney’s best bottom burps. Mrs Hogsbottom shouted “Outrageous!” and told Mr Widget he’d have to stay behind after school. He had broken school rule number 854 – teachers must not make rude noises when playing musical instruments. 

 Mum’s yelling at me to get packed. Can’t wait for our camping trip.  Ben and I are sharing a tent – with the gargoylz of course.  We’re going to make a secret plan to scare our pesky sisters. Tell you all about it next week.


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9
Apr
Easter Egg hunt!

Posted by Max

Blog writer: Agent Black

Poor Ben! He nearly didn’t get his hot cross buns! He was hiding in the wardrobe when he noticed an awful smell. For a moment he thought that Barney had sneaked in and made a bottom burp. Then he realised he was sitting on his dirty football socks that he’d stuffed in there instead of in the washing basket. He held his breath but it got too much and he began to choke. His mum found him straight away.

It was a good weekend for tasty food as it was Easter! We got lots of yummy chocolate eggs and Gran’s hot cross buns were scrumptious. We took some to the gargoylz and Rufus ate six! He said that when he uses his secret power he’s nothing but bones so he needed to fatten up! Then on Sunday, Ben and I made an Easter Egg hunt for the gargoylz. We bought lots of mini eggs with our pocket money and hid them all round the bottom of the garden. Then we invited the gargoylz over.

The hunt was going well when we heard Jessica coming. The gargoylz all froze in terror – except for Jelly who got so confused that he hopped backwards and forwards between our legs. Jessica took one look and ran inside, screaming to Mum that there was a bouncing dinosaur in the garden. Which was very silly of her because everyone knows that pterodactyls are lizards and not dinosaurs at all.

We carried on with the hunt and then we had a huge chocolate feast. Bart rubbed his tummy and told us that it was eggscellent, eggsciting and eggstraordinary! Groan! And we’ve still got another week of school holiday so who knows what we can get up to!

Keep reading, Gargoylz fans!


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Happy New Year!

I had the most AWESOME Christmas ever. The best bit was the look on my sister Jessica’s face when she saw my giant plastic spider on top of the Christmas tree. I skateboarded straight round to Ben’s house to tell him how loudly she’d screamed. When I got there I skidded on the snow and landed on top of the snowman he’d made in his front garden. It got squashed flat so we called for the gargoylz and Toby, Barney and Azzan came and helped us make another one.

It took a long time because Azzan kept breathing fire and melting it. In the end Toby sat on him and he wasn’t very happy. Then Ben’s mum poked her head out of the window and the gargoylz had to hide in the wheelie bin. She asked us to sweep the snow off the front path and she said if we did it straight away we could have some chocolate chip cookies that she’d just baked. Then she said our snowman looked a bit odd. I suppose she’d never seen one with a dragon’s tail and wings before.

As soon as she’d gone we asked Azzan to breathe all over the path. He cheered up straight away and melted the snow at super speed. Ben’s mum couldn’t believe it! We got extra cookies – and shared them with the gargoylz, of course.

Must stop now. Ben and I are going to put the Christmas spider in Jessica’s knicker drawer. We’ll let you know what happens next week!


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