Gargoylz Blog » Toby
26
Nov

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…



12
Nov

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 TheoBen 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!




For some reason, Ben got into trouble for the fake poo! He swears no one saw him put it there.

Did you know there’s a contest called the World Conker Championship that takes place in October every year?  How cool is that!  Last Saturday we decided to hold our own competition with the gargoylz as there are lots of horse chestnut trees in the churchyard – and that’s where conkers come from.  It was a bit tricky trying to explain to the gargoylz that you have to put your conker on a string and whack someone else’s with it until one of them cracks. They had other ideas. We made a big pile of conkers first, but Toby and Azzan ran off with some of them and rolled them all along the church gutters and down the drainpipes. That made so much noise that the demon flower arrangers, Doris and Aggie, came out to see if the church was falling down! Luckily they didn’t spot us.

Then Zack decided to pop invisible and drop conkers down the vicar’s chimney. Out came the vicar. Luckily he didn’t spot us.

We’d just got all the conkers threaded when The Basher turned up. Unfortunately he did spot us. The gargoylz quickly hid behind the gravestones. The Basher was holding the biggest conker we’d ever seen. He said he was the Oldacre School Champion and challenged us to a conker fight and said if we didn’t fight he’d whack us over the head with his prize conker – The Killer. So we had to agree. Barry put his conker down and did his ‘warming up’ exercises. He looked really stupid wiggling his fingers in the air. Meanwhile Neb blended with the background and swapped the Basher’s conker for another big one. It was a mouldy one we’d found earlier. Barry didn’t notice. He picked it up, swung it round his head and gave Ben’s conker a massive whack before Ben was even ready. Barry’s conker burst and splattered him with mouldy bits.  It was awesome!  Barry ran off yelling that we’d cheated and we’d killed The Killer.

After that we had a great time with our Grand Gargoylz World Conker Championship – before Azzan got over excited and set fire to all the conkers!

Can’t wait for next weekend. We are going to a fantastic climbing course called ‘Be a Chimp’.




Max’s banana trick didn’t work quite as well as he thought it would. Well, he wasn’t to know that his mum had decided to do baked bananas with syrup and sugar for afters.  The whole thing got covered in melted plastic so no one could eat it. And somehow, Max got the blame!

We had a scare on Wednesday.  We were just going home when Miss Bleet reminded us about a nature project on birds that we should have done during the holidays. Boring. We were supposed to give them in on Thursday.  Of course Max and I had forgotten all about it.  We were just wondering if she’d ban us from playing football all term when the gargoylz came to our rescue.  They sneaked home with us and rolled in Dad’s vegetable patch.  When they were really sticky with earth and squashed tomatoes, they covered themselves in feathersZack had brought along all the vicar’s pillows and we got the feathers from there.  Then the gargoylz climbed up in the apple tree and pretended to be birds while we took photos.  Toby flew about so we got some video shots too.  Then we quickly put them on a powerpoint and called it Unusual Birds of Oldacre.

Miss Bleet was a bit puzzled as she didn’t recognise all the types of bird, especially the Tobybird that seemed to wave at the camera, but she told our mums how well we’d done and they’ve signed us up for a footie training day on Sunday as a reward.  Can’t wait.

PS Bart has a joke…

Q. What is orange and sounds like a parrot?

A. A carrot!

Well, he thought it was funny!




Last day of school! Hurray!

The play was awesome!  There were witches and walking trees and ghosts.  And at the end, the baddie, who was called Macbeth, got his head cut off and someone held it up.  It looked really real and dripped with blood and the Basher burst out crying. We didn’t need Ira to make it rain at all but we forgot to tell him so the whole audience got soaked! 

Anyway, the gargoylz really liked it so they invited us to go and watch them put on their version of the play in the churchyard. It was called MacGargoyle. Zack was MacGargoyle and he kept disappearing so it was hard to follow what was going on. Rufus, Eli and Azzan were the walking trees but they only had two leaves and a dandelion between them. We tried not to laugh. MacGargoyle’s head was a balloon with a face drawn on it so when Toby lifted it up, the wind blew it away and it popped on the spire.

Bart has just nudged my elbow.  He wants me to tell you a joke he heard in a school recently.

Q. What do you call an exploding ape?

A. A ba-boom!

We’re off to an amusement park on Monday – hurrah!



16
Jul

Posted by Ben

The world cup is over – boo hoo!  Only stupid sisters like Arabella and Jessica are pleased about that.  Never mind, the football season starts soon!

Sports day was wicked. Toby and Eli hid in the sacks and Miss Bleet thought they were haunted.  And then Neb blended in with the sand in the long jump and tickled all the jumpers’ feet!

Next, Max and I won the leapfrog race! Lucinda and Tiffany were in the lead but they kept stopping to make sure that they weren’t showing their pants so we beat them easy peasy – and without the gargoylz help. 

But you can never keep the gargoylz quiet for long and soon they were playing a trick.  Mr Widget was selling his homemade lemonade to the parents. First Theo distracted him by doing his kitten impression. While he was busy shooing him off, Zack popped invisible and stuck a pin in all the plastic cups. Every time Mr Widget went to serve a drink he was showered in lemonade! He was so sweet and sticky he got chased by wasps. He zoomed down the 50m sprint faster than all the year 6 kids and won the race!  (The wasps came second.)

On Monday we’ve got a school trip. We’re going to an open air theatre to see a play by some bloke called Shakespeare.  Mrs Hogsbum says it will be really good so it definitely won’t be.  We’re going to get all the gargoylz to come along. They’ll have fun and Ira can make it rain during the boring bits which will probably be all the time.




Posted by Max Black

Bart’s spiders in the sleeping bags trick was great! Bart burped his spiders and then we all hid nearby and listened. As soon as Arabella and Jessica got into bed they gave a shriek and flapped about so much that the tent collapsed on top of them!

On the way home we stopped for a picnic by a church. When we got the food out half of it had gone and everyone thought Ben and I had eaten it. We said it wasn’t us (which was true), it must have been rats (which wasn’t true but it made Jessica squeal). We knew who’d been at the picnic hamper really – the gargoylz.

 Then we lost Bart and our parents were telling us to hurry up and get in the car. We couldn’t go without him and we guessed that he must be in the old church.  So we told our mums and dads we had to have a quick look around the church.  We said it was for a school project. (That always shuts parents up.)

Time for secret plan – Find Bart.  We took all the gargoylz with us and started searching inside. Then we heard gargoyly chuckling coming from the font. And there was Bart having a bath.  But before we could get him the door at the back opened and the vicar came in! Bart just managed to climb on to the end of a nearby pew and freeze like a statue. We quickly pretended to be admiring him. The vicar was really surprised to see Bart there. He said he didn’t remember an ugly statue like that being in the church yesterday, especially a wet one. Toby whispered from the rafters that it wouldn’t be there tomorrow either and we had to make sure we didn’t giggle till the vicar had gone. Zack wanted to pop invisible and trick the vicar by ringing the church bells but then Arabella shouted that we were going so we had to rush back to the cars and make sure all the gargoylz got in the boot.

We’re looking forward to tonight. Straight after school we’re going to watch the first match of the World Cup!  South Africa v Mexico.  We expect all our readers will be watching too. And tomorrow it’s England’s first match – Goaltastic!




Posted by Ben from Sunnybrook Campsite.

It’s raining this afternoon so we’ve come to an Internet café to catch up with our blog. Our mums and dads are writing postcards and Arabella is teaching Jessica how to make friendship bracelets. (Yuck!)

We’re having a great holiday. This campsite is awesome. There’s an adventure playground and a swimming pool. But best of all, Max and I are sharing a tent.

It’s a bit crowded as the gargoylz have all come with us and they insist on getting in our sleeping bags at night. Gargoylz don’t get cold but Rufus explained that they want to do the whole camping thing properly.

Toby’s just popped up from under the table. He’s reminded me to tell you about the fantastic trick we played on our pesky sisters.

We told them that there was a haunted toilet on the campsite. Of course they didn’t believe us so we dared them to go and look. Neb was already in there, using his special power to blend in with the background. As soon as the girls came along he made ghostly noises, flapped the lid up and down and flushed the chain. They screamed so loudly we had to put our fingers in our ears!

Something completely amazing is happening next Friday.  The World Cup is starting!  Poor old Bart thought that the World Cup must be an enormous cup of tea and we had to explain that it was in fact the best football competition in the history of best football competitions. 

Anyway, it looks like the rain’s stopping so we’re off to have a match in the mud. Off home tomorrow – worst luck, but tonight Bart’s going to burp spiders into the girls’ sleeping bags! Awesome!




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.




Blog writer: Agent Black

Mrs Hogsbum is back – worst luck.  She couldn’t wait for a flight so she hired a donkey all the way to Oldacre School.  Don’t know how it managed to swim the Channel!

Up early this morning and I’ve just played a great trick on my annoying little sister, Jessica. Mum’s going to call her for breakfast at any moment and I’ve swapped her boiled egg for rubber egg I got from the joke shop. It looks very realistic. She’s going to get so cross when she can’t break the shell.

Last Friday at computer (boring) club I clicked off the blog just as Mr Widget came up. Unfortunately he caught sight of a picture of Toby on the blog page so I had to pretend that I was researching Gargoyles of the World. Mr Widget said the picture looked nothing like a real gargoyle. He’d have a fit if he knew the truth – which he never will.

Anyway Toby overheard what Mr Widget said about him so he decided to play a trick on him.  He got Zack to pop invisible and go and borrow some green food colouring from the vicar’s kitchen. He put it in Mr Widget’s tea, so when Mr Widget drank it he went green all round his mouth. We went and told Mrs Hogsbum. She didn’t believe us until she came along and saw him. She told him he’d broken school rule number five hundred and thirty-two – teachers must not go green without permission. Computer club finished early – good result!

And then we told Bart all the jokes and he cheered up immediately so double good result.

Oh dear! Dad’s on the warpath. It turns out that Jessica hit the rubber egg so hard it bounced out, hit Dad’s spoon and splattered him with cornflakes and milk. For some reason they think it’s my fault. Got to go!



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