My Mum's Going to Explode! Read online

  Jeremy Strong once worked in a bakery, putting the jam into three thousand doughnuts every night. Now he puts the jam in stories instead, which he finds much more exciting. At the age of three, he fell out of a first-floor bedroom window and landed on his head. His mother says that this damaged him for the rest of his life and refuses to take any responsibility. He loves writing stories because he says it is ‘the only time you alone have complete control and can make anything happen’. His ambition is to make you laugh (or at least snuffle). Jeremy Strong lives near Bath with four cats and a flying cow.

  Read more about Nicholas’s daft family

  MY DAD’S GOT AN ALLIGATOR!

  MY GRANNY’S GREAT ESCAPE

  MY MUM’S GOING TO EXPLODE!

  MY BROTHER’S FAMOUS BOTTOM

  Are you feeling silly enough to read more?

  THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  RETURN OF THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  WANTED! THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG

  BEWARE! KILLER TOMATOES

  CHICKEN SCHOOL

  KRAZY KOW SAVES THE WORLD – WELL, ALMOST

  LAUGH YOUR SOCKS OFF WITH

  Jeremy STRONG

  My Mum’s Going to Explode

  Illustrated by

  Rowan Clifford

  PUFFIN

  With many thanks to my mother for the story

  about the sausages. It really happened.

  This story is for all Puffin poppers,

  especially Helen D. and Charlotte B.

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  penguin.com

  First published 2001

  This edition published 2007

  8

  Text copyright ©Jeremy Strong, 2001

  Illustrations copyright © Rowan Clifford, 2001

  Illustrations based on the original artwork of Nick Sharratt © Nick Sharratt, 2001

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  1 August: Mum Makes an Announcement

  Big news from my family! There’s no easy way to tell you, so sit down and brace yourself. My mum’s…

  … Well, I guess that first of all I’d better tell you how we found out.

  There we were – me, Mum and Dad, just about to sit down and eat our lunch with Granny and Lancelot. They’re living with us at the moment because they had a small problem with their house. Well, actually, it wasn’t really a small problem but a pretty big one – their house fell down. A whopping great hole opened up in their garden and half their house fell into it. So, they’ve moved in with us until they find a new house.

  It’s nice having them back. Granny always makes me laugh, and Lancelot is a brilliant cook. He might be a sixty-five-year-old Hell’s Angel, but I have to admit that he’s a whizz at the stove. He wears a special Hell’s Angel apron when he’s in the kitchen. It’s got silver studs that say:

  BURN, BABY, BURN

  Lancelot had just dished up some chicken in white-wine sauce when Mum made the announcement.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, as if it was something that happened every day, and carried on eating.

  Dad was so surprised he dropped his cutlery. The knife landed on a particularly sloppy bit of the plate and splattered white-wine sauce all over Mum. A split second later, Dad’s fork landed handle first and broke the plate. The rest of the sauce spilled on to the table, spread to the edge and dribbled into his lap.

  My dad’s like that. Things happen to him that don’t happen to anyone else. He’s great!

  Granny wagged a finger at him. ‘Don’t play with your food, Ronald! I thought a big boy like you would be more sensible.’ She turned to my mum. ‘What was that you said, dear?’

  ‘I’m going to have a baby’

  Granny’s eyes popped. ‘You’ve got rabies? Oh dear.’ She reached across the table and patted Mum’s arm. ‘Never mind, I’ve got some nice handcream upstairs.’

  Mum gave me a long-suffering look. Granny’s a bit deaf and sometimes she gets rather muddled. Mind you, I don’t know what good handcream is if you’ve got rabies.

  ‘Look at the mess you’ve made, Ronald,’ Granny went on, as if my dad were still a little boy. ‘I think you should take Brenda to the doctor. She’s got rabies. I have some cream she can use, but it will only treat the spots. I haven’t got anything for foaming at the mouth.’

  Luckily, at this point, Lancelot took over. He’s been married to Granny for a year now and he knows what she’s like. He put his mouth to her left ear and bellowed, ‘Brenda’s pregnant! She’s going to have a baby!’

  Granny jumped back in her chair. ‘There’s no need to shout. I’m not deaf.’

  By this time Dad seemed to have slipped into a state of deep shock. He just sat there, rocking slightly from side to side. His eyes had gone glassy. Mum flicked her fingers in front of his face. ‘Hello? Hello? Is anyone in?’

  Dad slowly turned and gazed at her. ‘A baby?’ he croaked. ‘How did that happen?’

  I giggled, and Mum’s eyebrows slid up her head. ‘I don’t think I’ll go into any details at the lunch table, but you were involved, Ron.’

  Lancelot gave my dad a nudge. ‘Well done! Another nipper in the family!’

  I didn’t like the way this was going. Another nipper? I’m not a nipper! Is that what they think? I’m ten!

  Granny began clapping her hands with delight and bouncing up and down on her chair. ‘Oooh! I’m going to be a granny!’ she cried.

  ‘You already are a granny Granny’ I pointed out.

  She stopped for a moment. ‘Oh yes. So I am! But it’s very exciting, isn’t it?’

  I gave her a weak smile, but inside I was thinking that it wasn’t very exciting at all. Worrying? Yes. Depressing? Yes. Exciting? I don’t think so. I glanced round the table. Everyone was smiling. Everyone seemed over the moon.

  All except for me and Dad. Dad gazed down into his lap.

  ‘I think I’ve wet myself,’ he said glumly.

  2 Big Changes

  You should have heard Granny today. She really got Dad wound up. She’s been having a great time. The new b
aby is going to mean big changes around here. For a start, Granny and Lancelot will have to hurry up and find a place of their own. Their house may have fallen down, but the baby is going into the spare room, and that’s where Granny and Lancelot are.

  Granny made such a fuss! She doesn’t mind at all really. I think she just wanted to have a bit of fun. She stood in the middle of the front room, with her head down, looking lost, lonely and miserable.

  ‘We’re being thrown out,’ she wailed.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ said Dad. ‘You know it isn’t.’

  ‘Thrown out into the cold.’

  Dad glared at her. ‘It’s August, Mother. It’s mid-summer and it’s not cold.’

  ‘Thrown out without food or shelter.’ Granny winked at me and began sniffing.

  ‘Sniff! I suppose we could build ourselves a little shelter in the far corner of the back garden. Sniff! Sniff! We could use a few sticks, and make a roof with grass and old leaves. Sniff! But I’m sure the rain will come in.’ Granny plucked at Dad’s sleeve

  pathetically. ‘We’d have to go behind the bushes for a wee. Would you mind very much?’

  ‘I’m not having you living in the corner of the garden like a pair of trolls!’ cried Dad.

  ‘Oh dear. Sniff! Well, I suppose we could get a little caravan or something. We could put it on the lawn in front of the house. Then we could come in here for baths and meals and you could do our washing for us and…’

  ‘You’re not living in a caravan in the front garden either!’ yelled Dad. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’

  I could see that Granny was about to start laughing. ‘You’re awfully upset, aren’t you, Ron? I was only pulling your leg, you know.’ Dad sat hunched in the armchair, seething quietly. Are you upset about the new baby?’

  ‘Yes. No! I don’t know. It takes a bit of getting used to.’

  I knew just how he felt. He was right. It did take a lot of getting used to. I’d been the only child in the house since I was born. It was always Mum, Dad and me. (I’m not counting Granny and Lancelot. They’re sort of extras.) Now it was going to be Mum, Dad, me and – IT.

  We didn’t even know if it was going to be a boy or a girl.

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ said Mum. ‘I want it to be a surprise.’

  ‘It already is a surprise,’ snapped Dad, without thinking.

  Mum watched him nervously. ‘You do want this baby don’t you, Ronald?’

  Dad took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Yes, of course I do.’ He went across to Mum and gave her a big hug. It looked like they were getting soppy so I left.

  I went to see if I could find Lancelot. He was out in the garage, tinkering with his motorbike. It’s an ancient beast of a thing. It’s called a Matchless, and it’s got a sidecar that Granny sits in when they go out. They’ve both got leather jackets and everything. Lancelot’s has got fringed sleeves and studs.

  I stood in the corner of the garage while Lancelot grunted at his bike. He was too busy talking to it to take much notice of me. He always talks to his bike.

  ‘So, what’s up with you then, my pretty? Got a bit wet round your plugs? I’ll get you sorted out, don’t you worry’

  Lancelot noticed me hanging about. ‘Here you are,’ he said, handing over a spark plug. ‘See if you can clean up those ends so that they’re nice and shiny Can’t get a spark out of a dirty plug.’ He bent back over the bike while I rubbed away.

  ‘So,’ he said, as if he was still talking to the bike. ‘There’s going to be a new baby in the family. How do you feel about that?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Hmmm. Bit of a puzzler, eh?’

  ‘Is that all right?’ I showed him the plug.

  ‘That’s lovely. There’s another one on the bench that needs doing. What would you prefer, a brother or a sister?’

  I was silent. I wanted to say ‘neither’.

  Lancelot peered up at me. He must have seen the look on my face, and it made him chuckle. ‘You’d rather there was no baby at all! Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong in feeling like that.’

  ‘But I don’t want to,’ I said, and I didn’t.

  ‘It takes a bit of getting used to,’ said Lancelot. ‘Look at your dad. It threw him when he found out, and he’s grown-up.’

  ‘Granny’s been teasing him. She said Dad was throwing you two out of the house. She told him she was going to build a shelter out of twigs in the back garden.’

  Lancelot burst out laughing. ‘That’s my babe! She’s a cracker, your gran! And I’ll tell you something else about her. She’s not as deaf as she pretends to be!’

  ‘We all know that,’ I said, handing over the second plug. Lancelot screwed it into place. He heaved himself on to the seat and gave the bike a hefty kick-start.

  You should have heard the noise! It was wonderful; a fabulous, roaring animal, throbbing away in the garage, desperate for freedom. Lancelot tossed me a crash helmet.

  ‘Let’s hit the road. I’ve got some serious house hunting to do. I don’t want to end up living in a twig hut!’

  3 September: Introducing Imelda

  Mum’s gone all weird on us. She’s been reading billions of books about baby care. She says the baby can hear things even while it’s inside her. She’s been singing to it, and now she wants to read stories to it. Mad or what?!

  ‘You can read the baby a story Nicholas, if you like.’

  ‘It’s OK, Mum.’

  ‘The baby would like you to read it a story’ Mum’s voice took on a hard edge.

  ‘Mum, how do you know?’

  Her face began to darken. ‘I just know,’ she said. Anyway, it says so in one of my books. If you read to it before it’s born it will help make it more intelligent.’ Her eyes fixed on mine. Are you going to read it a story or not?’

  ‘I’ve got homework to do,’ I lied, and went upstairs. I could hear Mum in the front room talking to her tummy. I shut my bedroom door. What kind of madhouse am I in? You see, it’s not just the reading stories to a stomach. There are other things too.

  Mum’s unearthed this big doll she had when she was a child. You should see it. It’s enough to give you nightmares! One eye is permanently half shut. Mum says it’s been like that ever since she was a little girl.

  ‘Some strawberry jam got stuck behind her eye,’ she explained, as if it were quite normal.

  The doll’s half bald as well. I suppose she once had a mass of carroty coloured curls, but now she has just a few straggly bits and lots of holes in her head where the hair has fallen out. She’s got a horrible red mouth. It’s tiny and all puckered up, as if it’s about to kiss you. Urgh!

  And then there’s the missing leg. Don’t ask me where it’s gone.

  So, as you can see, the doll is not exactly appealing. She used to have an ancient dress that stuck out from her waist a bit like a ballet frock, until it fell off. So now she doesn’t wear anything. I am surprised she hasn’t been arrested going around like that!

  The doll’s called Imelda, and Mum has told Dad and me to look after her. Can you imagine! Mum wants us to pretend that Imelda is the real thing.

  Dad dangled the doll by her single leg. ‘We can’t look after this!’

  ‘Don’t hold her like that,’ shouted Mum. ‘She’s upside down. You’ll hurt her. Look, she’s crying now.’ Mum snatched Imelda from Dad and held her in her arms. ‘There, there. Is he a big nasty gorilla? Yes, he is, isn’t he!’ Mum frowned across at Dad. ‘She says you’re a big nasty gorilla.’

  ‘Brenda, she’s a doll. She’s a bald, ugly doll with one leg, and she can’t speak.’

  Mum fixed Dad with a long stare. ‘I know she’s a doll, Ron, but we are going to pretend that she is a real baby. You and Nicholas will look after Imelda.’

  ‘But why, Mum?’ I whined.

  ‘It will be a good way for you both to get used to having a new baby in the house. It says so in one of my books. I want you to feed Imelda, to bath her and to change her nappies.’r />
  Dad collapsed with hysterics. ‘You’re mad!’ he cried. ‘If we give her a bath the rest of her hair will probably fall out. And how can we put a nappy on a doll with one leg? It will fall down!’

  By this time I was in hysterics too, but Mum was not amused. She simply held out Imelda for me to take.

  ‘And don’t forget to burp her,’ said Mum, as she swept from the room.

  Dad and I looked at each other and burst out laughing again, but it still left me holding the baby.

  ‘What are we going to do, Dad?’

  ‘We will do as your mother asks, Nicholas, because if we don’t, life in this house will get even worse than it is already.’ Dad thought for a few moments. ‘I’ll tell you what though. It could be fun.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Fun? Looking after an ancient doll?

  ‘We could have races, you and me.’

  ‘What sort of races?’ I asked.

  ‘Nappy-changing races. We could see who’s the fastest.’

  I looked at Dad. Nappy-changing races. What would he think of next? ‘You can have first go,’ I muttered.

  So, things are a bit strange at the moment. I’ve got Imelda tucked up in a little cot in the corner of my room. She sleeps with one eye half open, which makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s as if she’s watching me all the time. I’m sure she knows I hate her.