Agatha Parrot and the Floating Head by Poskitt Kjartan

The Usual Boring Old Warning

    H iya and THANKS for trying out this book! But before we get on to the story I’ve got to warn you about something.It starts all nice and normal like this . . .
    Last Tuesday me and Ivy went for tea at Martha’s house.
    . . . BUT there’s a bit later on where Martha’s head explodes. Don’t worry because she’s all right, even if one of the teachers was trying to chop her head off with an axe. It all ends up happily ever after with everybody having ice creams so isthat OK with you? Good.

    Sorry about that, but the old man who is typing this book out for me says that you have to have SAFETY WARNINGS. To be honest I couldn’t care if this book freaks you out so much that you have a nosebleed, in fact I think that’d be pretty cool (ha ha!) but he says I have to warn you about the Martha’s head bit becauseif I didn’t then you might ask me for £1000000000 of compensation but you’d be lucky because I’ve only got 73p so there. You have been warned.

    There’s still a couple of pages left before the story starts so I’ll introduce myself because that’s good manners.

    I’m Agatha Jane Parrot and I’m a supermodel celebrity actress who just happens to be killing a bit of timeat school before I get famous. Soon I’ll be in films and having my picture in the papers and going to posh parties, but first I’ve got to learn all that stuff like the water cycle and the eight times table.

    Yesterday we did the Romans invading Britain but I don’t know why the Romans bothered. It was cold and wet and we hadn’t even got any telly to watch in those days sothey might just as well have stayed in sunny Italy eating pizzas. Sounds good to me.
    Me and Ivy and Martha all go to Odd Street School which is at the end of our street where we live which is called Odd Street because the houses just have odd numbers like 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 . . . and all that lot.If there were any houses on the other side of the street then they would be the even numbers, but there aren’t.

    Ivy says it’s because somebody folded the plans in half and the builders didn’t realise so they missed half the street off and I believe her ha ha! It’s probably not the truth, but who cares so long as it’s funny? My granny believes there’s little sooty fairies living up her chimney and she’s well cool so there.

    I live at number 5 with big brother James (a bit older and a lot smellier), little sister Tilly (with a pink sparkly ballet dress, need I say more?) and two old slaves to obey all my orders (i.e. Mum and Dad) but none of them come into this story so don’t bother remembering all that.
    Next door at number 3 is Martha who is the big smiley one who can fight boys,then on the other side at number 7 is Ivy the hypernutcase who always jumps over her gate and swings off the washing line. Yahoo GO IVY!

    There’s lots of other people and stuff to know but you’ll pick it all up as the story goes along. As well as Martha’s head exploding there’s a balloon that gets top marks in spelling and a mad teacher whosaves the world from a bit of wet carpet but first of all there’s a really disgusting pizza. How disgusting? I’ll give you a clue:
    What would you get if you drove a steam roller along the bottom of the ocean?
    Give in? Never mind, the answer’s coming soon. Off we go then . . .

The Start
    L ast Tuesday me and Ivy went to tea at Martha’s house. Martha’s mum works at the Spendless food shop and they have a slogan ‘You’ll spend less at Spendless’ which is true. Most people go in, take one look round and then comeout without spending anything at all. That’s because Spendless never sells anything you might have heard of, but the good bit is that Martha’s mum gets lots of random things to bring home and try out.
    That night Martha’s mum put three