The World's Biggest Bogey (5 page)

Dear Mr Bibby

This
must
be a record! To get myself ready for this attempt, I’ve been wearing the same pair of socks and shoes every minute
of the day and night for the last few months (except when I played football, then I put football socks over the ordinary ones and wore my football boots).

Yesterday I finally took off my shoes during morning assembly. In just under ten seconds, 201 children, five teachers and Mr Rogers the
headmaster were unconscious. Nine children and one teacher escaped the pong, because they had very bad colds and their noses were full of snot. My best friend, Matthew Mason, was all right, because
I told him to put a peg on his nose. I did the same.

The teacher who escaped called 999. Firefighters in protective suits and breathing masks tried to pull m socks off, but they couldn’t do
it. They took me to hospital, where my socks were cut away with special surgical scissors. Two doctors and a nurse passed out. This makes a total of 210 people who were knocked out by my smelly
feet.

Thirty-three of the children who smelt my feet are still in hospital. The school still stinks of boiled cabbage and seaweed and eggs and
cheese and drains all mixed together. My feet look like two pizzas on the end of my legs, and they smell a bit like pizzas too!

I really hope this is a record, because I am in Very Big Trouble. The whole football team’s out of action, except for me and
Matthew, and it’s the Cup Final on Saturday. So we’re going to have to play Hogton Growlers with the nine snotty children who survived my feet. Six of the survivors are girls, none of
them even likes football, never mind plays it, and
all
nine have colds! Four of my new teammates are in Year 1! To top it all, my feet are so sore I can’t move properly. We’re
going to get slaughtered.

Do I have the Smelliest Feet in the world? Please say I do, then at least it will have all been worth it.

Yours sincerely

Danny Baker

PS Here is a photograph of me being taken out of school by the firemen.

What a
fantastic
effort! I have checked our records and you are
almost
a record breaker, but not quite.

The world record for the Smelliest Feet belongs to Wilma Wallace of Wagga Wagga, Australia. In December 1987, after a long day of Christmas
shopping in a shopping mall in Sydney, she kicked off her shoes in the food hall. 217 people were gassed and had to be taken to hospital. This only just beats the 210 people affected by
your
feet. Unfortunately, Wilma was not actually trying to break the world record so had not taken the precautions you had. She did not put a peg on her nose. Sadly, Wilma was killed by her own feet.
She was buried in a lead–lined coffin. To this day, no grass or flowers will grow on her grave, because her feet still pollute the soil.

This terrible story goes to show, once again, how careful you must be when you try to break a world record.

I hope the Cup Final goes better than you expect it to. If not, remember that it could be worse: just think of Wilma Wallace of Wagga
Wagga!

Good luck

Eric Bibby

Keeper of the Records

Danny was more fed up than he had ever been in his life. It was the morning of the Final, and he was sat in the kitchen swishing his feet in a bowl of warm water.

Matthew knocked on the back door. ‘Is it all right to come in?’ he asked, glancing warily at Danny’s feet.

‘Yeah, they still whiff a bit, but they’re not dangerous any more,’ replied Danny. ‘And we don’t have to wear pegs on our noses.’

‘How do they feel?’ asked Matthew.

‘Not bad,’ replied Danny. He lifted his feet out of the bowl and began to dab them gently them with a towel. ‘I have to bathe them three times a day, but they’re still
sore. The water in the bowl hasn’t gone green for the last two days, and the nurse says that’s a good sign. I’m not sure though. I left the bowl in the garden yesterday. Two
sparrows took a bath in it and all their tail feathers dropped off!’

‘Will you be all right to play today?’

Danny sighed. ‘I have to, Matt, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to get through the whole game.’

Just then they heard Natalie clomping down the stairs.

‘Quick,’ whispered Danny, ‘Nat’s coming. Put the peg on your nose.’

‘Why?’ asked Matthew as he grabbed a wooden clothes peg from the kitchen table, and pinched it on to the end of his nose.

‘Because I haven’t let on that she doesn’t need it any more,’ answered Danny, picking up a peg. ‘It’s too much fun listening to her speak. And when she eats
–
gross
!’

Natalie stomped into the kitchen to get her breakfast, and glared at the boys, but with the peg on her nose, she just looked silly, not scary.

Danny and Matthew giggled.

‘Bot’s so fuddy?’ growled Natalie. She slammed the fridge door shut, and flounced out of the kitchen with her bowl of cornflakes.

The boys collapsed in a fit of laughter.

Outside in the car, Dad sounded the horn to hurry them up.

‘Time to go,’ said Danny.

In the changing room at Penleydale Town FC, Danny pulled his football boots carefully over his sore feet and laced them up. ‘Owww,’ he moaned as pain shot through
his swollen, tender toes.

The referee opened the door and shouted, ‘Teams out on the field, please.’

Danny and Matthew looked at their emergency teammates. The six girls came out from behind a screen at one end of the room, where they had been getting changed. They were giggling.

‘These boots are great for tap-dancing,’ said Emily Barnes, starting to do a routine in front of the showers.

‘They’re not taking this seriously, are they?’ complained Matthew.

Three of the five-year-olds were kicking a ball to each other. They kept taking huge swings at the ball and missing by a mile.

Danny’s shoulders sagged and he frowned at Matthew. ‘We don’t stand a chance. This is all my fault.’

‘You never know, one of the girls might turn out to be the new Pelé,’ said Matthew hopefully.