Danny Baker Record Breaker (5): The World's Itchiest Pants (13 page)

I’m glad to hear you are attempting a record, Danny. I seem to be sending certificates to everyone else in your Adventure Camp except you! The Ant-filled Underwear
Endurance world record is one of the hardest to break. By an extraordinary coincidence, this record is also held by someone from a tribe in Papua New Guinea. When the time comes to choose a new
leader, the men of the tribe fill their loincloths with ferocious Melanesian Mango-muncher Ants and see who can keep his loincloth on for the longest. In 1957 Zun Bako gritted his teeth and kept
his composure for six hours, fourteen minutes and forty-seven seconds, but because of the numerous bites to his behind was unable to sit down ever again.

My advice would be to choose a species of vegetarian ant that won’t want to bite your bottom! Good luck!

Best wishes

Eric Bibby

Keeper of the Records

The quarantine was at an end and it was the final day at camp. The Gobsmacking Girls had won the Cool Competition hands down, and Danny still hadn’t broken a record. It
was now or never: Danny had to put his plan into action. For the last three days he had been secretly collecting the leftover slops from people’s breakfast plates in a plastic carrier
bag.

It was the Going Home fancy-dress tea-party and disco. Danny stood inside the Wygol-y-wigwam in his Roman gladiator costume, staring out at the crowd of fairies, pirates, hedgehogs, sheep,
carrots and other assorted animals and vegetables boogieing to the music.

‘Silly-billy-dilly-dally-bing-bang-bong, Vicky,’ he said.

‘Silly-billy-dilly-dally-bing-bang-bong, Danny,’ replied Vicky.

‘I’m just going outside,’ he whispered to Matthew. ‘I may be some time. If anyone asks where I am, say I’ve gone to the Pee-pee Teepees.’

‘Where
are
you going?’ asked Matt.

‘To get ants in my pants,’ replied Danny.

He sneaked out of the wigwam and hurried over to the boys’ hut to collect his slop bag of ant bait from under the bunk bed.

It was still daylight, and he made his way quickly through the trees towards the ants’ nest. When he got there, he lifted his short leather gladiator skirt and began to stuff the leftover
food into his underpants. In no time, the pants bulged with:

four half-eaten strawberry-jam sandwiches

one green, mouldy cheese-and-pickle sandwich

three splattered egg-and-ketchup sandwiches

two squashed Welsh cakes

a squishy, black, rotten banana

a greasy lamb chop

six slices of limp, wet tomato

three chicken drumsticks in sticky barbecue sauce

four green-pepper-and-onion pizza slices

nine spat-out pieces of Welsh spicy sausage

a slice of slimy laver bread

a splodge of gooseberry yogurt

a blob of rhubarb crumble (with custard)

and

a couple of cockles.

Danny stared at the seething mass of insects swarming around the rotten log and asked himself, ‘Do I
really
want to put my bottom in that lot?’

He thought about it for a moment. ‘Yeah, I do!’

He sat down with a squelch in the middle of the ants’ nest. ‘Grub’s up! Come and get it!’

Danny wiggled slowly back to the camp. The itching on his bottom was agonizing as the ants went into a feeding frenzy on the food plastered in his pants. He crept back into the wigwam and stood
by the door with Matthew, twitching and wriggling.

Bunny Grylls danced over to the boys. ‘What’s the matter, Danny?’ she asked. ‘Have you got ants in your pants?’

‘Yeah! I have!’ replied Danny through gritted teeth.

‘Ripper!’ laughed Bunny. ‘I once camped in the rainforests on the Zamboanga Peninsula and got bats in my hats!’ she told him. ‘And when I was trying to save a pond
near Grimsby I got coots in my boots!’

‘And her brain down the drain!’ whispered Danny as Bunny boogied away.

Matthew coughed as he tried not to laugh.

The intense prickling on Danny’s bottom and legs was unbearable. The ants were
really
on the move.

Sally ‘Boudicca’ Butterworth stormed up to him and pointed her floppy cardboard spear at his chest. Danny pulled out his plastic sword and batted it away.

‘Where’ve you been?’ she demanded. ‘What’ve you been up to?’

Danny couldn’t stand still so he pretended to dance. ‘Just been for a stroll,’ he replied.

The music finished and DJ Bush Tucker announced that supper was served: ‘Grub’s up, cobbers!’

Sally thrust her spear into the air, put back her head and let out a loud wailing battle cry.

‘Ee-yiy-yay-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

At Sally’s signal the girls stormed the buffet table, attacking the platters of food, stuffing handfuls of sandwiches, cakes and sausage rolls into pockets and pants. Before the boys knew
what was happening, the table was empty and the girls’ costumes swelled with piles of pillaged food.

Boudicca Butterworth stood in front of the girl army and let out her triumphant battle cry once more.

‘Ee-yiy-yay-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Victory! The Gobsmacking Girls win again!’

Danny stomped up to her, and the boys closed ranks behind him, lining up against the girls. The two groups stood glaring at each other.

‘That’s not fair!’ he snapped.

‘All’s fair in love and war, my mum says,’ replied Sally.

Suddenly, he felt the ants leaving his pants and spreading down his legs. He realized at once where they were going. Danny continued to glare at Sally until she began to twitch. He grinned as a
wave of wiggling, squiggling and jiggling spread through the crowd of like ripples across a pond, as the ants swarmed into their pockets and pants in search of more food to eat.