The World's Biggest Bogey (2 page)

‘Bad luck, Danny,’ said his best friend Matthew Mason. He handed the letter back to Danny and continued tying up the laces on his football boots. ‘Imagine
being killed by a giant bogey. Gross.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Danny. He pulled his green goalkeeper’s shirt over his head and tucked it into his black shorts. He sighed and gazed dreamily into space. ‘I was going to
have my bogey mounted on a wooden stand and present it to Penleydale Museum. They’d have put it in a small glass case with a sign saying THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BOGEY, PICKED BY DANNY
BAKER, AGED NINE AND A BIT.’ Danny sighed again. ‘I’d have to pick my nose for years to make a bogey 47 centimetres in diameter.’

‘No point now,’ grumbled Danny. ‘Natalie used the bogey to play fetch with next door’s dog and, instead of bringing it back, he ate it.’

‘She thought it was a rubber ball.’ Danny grinned. ‘She spent all afternoon washing her hands when she found out what it
really
was! Come on, let’s go and beat the
Snickwell Alleycats.’

With the studs on their boots clicking an upbeat rhythm on the floor, Danny’s team, the Coalclough Sparrows, walked out of the changing rooms to do just that, by four goals to nil.

‘Well done, Danny,’ said his dad when they got home from the game. ‘You haven’t let a goal in all season. If you carry on like this you’re going to be better than I
was.’

‘I doubt it, Dad!’

His dad smiled. ‘You’re the best in the world to me, Danny,’ he said.

That’s not the same, thought Danny. He scratched his head vigorously. Time to try for my next record attempt.

Dear Mr Bibby

Last night my mum found 109 head lice on my head. Is this a record? When they checked, my mum and dad had them too. And my
sister Natalie discovered that she was simply crawling with nits! She wasn’t pleased, because she was just about to go to the school disco with her best friends Kaylie and Kylie.

We managed to collect fifty-seven more head lice, making a total of 166.

I have stuck them all on the bottom of this page as proof. Could this be a family record?

I hope it is, because it might make Nats feel better to know that she didn’t miss the disco for nothing.

And she might stop trying to pull my ears off every time she sees me.

Yours sincerely

Danny Baker

Thank you for the enquiry about your attempt on the Most Head–lice world record, which I’m sorry to tell you was unsuccessful.

This record is held by Arthur Grimley, a hermit from Thornton Watlass in Yorkshire. He lived alone in a cave on the North Yorkshire Moors for
forty–one years, and never washed in all that time. His hair and beard reached down to just above his knees. Whenever ramblers went near his cave, he used to shout rude words at them and jump
up and down pulling faces. If this didn’t scare them away, he used to pull his pants down and show them his bottom. I imagine he had the dirtiest bottom in the world too, but as far as I know
no one dared to check!

One day, Arthur slipped on some ice outside his cave, and luckily was found soon after by some ramblers. He went to hospital and was washed and
deloused. They counted 8,433 head lice, as well as 169 fleas. (This isn’t a record. The most fleas ever counted on one person is 17,325.)

The record number of head lice ever collected from one family is 58,971. This record is held by the fifteen members of the Pickle family of West
Virginia, USA.

Bad luck once again. Perhaps you should buy your sister a present and say you are sorry. Or buy yourself a hat with earmuffs. Sisters are just no
fun are they?

Best wishes

Eric Bibby

Keeper of the Records