YUCK’S ROBOTIC BUTT BLAST
Yuck dangled a long piece of string from his bedroom window to the yard below. The string was covered with sticky red strawberry jam.
He watched excitedly as ants began crawling up the string, eating the jam. They crawled in a line, one after the other, all the way up to a jar on Yuck’s windowsill.
Yuck smiled. His invention worked!
Earlier that day, Yuck had been on a school trip to the science museum to see an exhibition about world-famous inventions, and his homework was to make an invention of his own. Yuck had invented his very own ant catcher!
He glanced down and saw his sister, Polly Princess, step into the yard. Attached to her shoes were two paper plates on drinking straws.
“Why are you wearing those?” Yuck called to her.
Polly looked up. “They’re my invention,” she told him. “They’re umbrellas that keep my shoes dry in the rain. I call them shumbrellas.”
“DUMBrellas, more like,” Yuck said, giggling. “What a silly invention.”
Polly scowled at Yuck. “You’re just jealous because my invention’s better than yours.” She looked at the piece of string dangling from Yuck’s window. “What’s this for, anyway?” she asked, tugging it.
“Hey, hands off my ant catcher!”
“Aaargh!” Polly cried as ants showered down onto her. She shook her head and pulled at her hair trying to get them out. “I’m telling on you!”
She stormed indoors and a moment later Mom stepped out.
“Yuck, come downstairs at once!” Mom called.
“But, Mom—”
“No buts, Yuck. Come down NOW!”
Yuck went downstairs to the kitchen and found Mom picking ants from Polly’s hair. “Yuck, why did you throw ants on your sister?” Mom asked.
“I didn’t,” Yuck told her. “She did it herself. She was trying to ruin my invention.”
Polly glared at Yuck. “An ant catcher’s not a proper invention,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”
“Polly’s right, Yuck,” Mom told him. “You’ll have to invent something else.”
While Mom finished picking the ants from Polly’s hair, Yuck sneaked to the kitchen cupboard and took out a packet of chocolate cake mix. He headed back upstairs and set to work on another yucky invention.
Using his baseball cap as a mixing bowl, Yuck shook in the chocolate cake mix, then fetched a tube of glue from his model-making box. He squeezed the glue into the hat and stirred it with the cake mix, making a sticky brown goo. Perfect, Yuck thought. He was inventing the world’s stickiest fake dog poo!
He scooped out a handful, then stepped to his window. Polly Princess was back in the yard watering her shumbrellas with a watering can, testing to see if they worked. Yuck threw the dog poo onto the yard path behind her. “I bet it’s difficult to walk in those,” he called down.
Polly turned around. “It’s easy.” She walked down the path and stepped straight into the dog poo. “Uurgh!”
Polly tried to lift her foot but it was stuck. “Help! My shoe! My shoe’s stuck in poo!”
Mom came running out of the back door. “What’s the matter, Polly?”
“Sticky dog poo!” Polly shrieked.
“Dog poo?” Mom asked, confused. “But we haven’t got a dog.”
Mom glanced at Yuck’s window as he ducked back into his room giggling.
Rockits! Yuck thought. Inventions are fun!
Yuck sneaked into Polly’s room and borrowed her Bubble Fun Bubble Maker from her toy box. It was time for another yucky invention. He put the Bubble Maker on his bedroom floor and opened its lid where the bubble mixture went. He filled it with yucky ingredients: half a glass of curdled milk, a rotten banana, and a lump of moldy cheese from an old sandwich. Then he took off his smelly socks and stuffed those in too, along with a pair of dirty underpants.
Yuck flicked the switch on the Bubble Maker and it began rumbling as bubbles started coming out. He was inventing a stink machine!
At that moment, his door burst open and Polly hopped in wearing only one shoe. “YOU put that sticky poo on the path, didn’t you?” she said.
“Polly, can’t you see I’m busy inventing?” Yuck told her. Polly saw bubbles floating around Yuck’s room. She saw her Bubble Maker on the floor. “Hey, that’s mine!”
“I’ve turned it into a stink machine. Do you like it?”
A bubble burst in Polly’s face. “PHWOAR!” she cried, pinching her nose. It stank of moldy cheese. More bubbles burst around her, each letting off a different stink: curdled milk . . . smelly socks . . . rotten banana . . . dirty underpants . . .
“Mom!” Polly called. “Yuck’s being disgusting again!”
Mom came running upstairs to Yuck’s room and saw the bubbles bursting. She saw the baseball cap loaded with sticky dog poo, and the jam jar full of ants on his windowsill. “Yuck, get rid of these revolting inventions right now!” she yelled.
“But, Mom, they’re for my homework,” Yuck told her.
“These aren’t proper inventions,” Polly said, choking on a big bubble that stank of underpants. “They’re gross.”
“Polly’s right, Yuck,” Mom said. “You will not invent anything else yucky!”
Mom and Polly left Yuck’s room and went downstairs coughing.
Yuck decided that when he was EMPEROR OF EVERYTHING, he’d invent all kinds of yucky things: slime-squirting spy planes, burp-blasting tanks, and even a sewage submarine. If Polly tried to stop him, his inventions would launch an ATTACK!
