Agatha Parrot and the Floating Head by Poskitt Kjartan Page A

uncooked cheese and tomato pizzas on the table then she opened up all her cupboards andgot out all the half-eaten pots and packets she could find. ‘Choose your own toppings,’ she said. ‘Put on whatever you like!’ Martha’s mum is big and jolly just like Martha.

    Most of the pots had labels with funny writing on them, so the only way to tell what was inside was by opening them up and having a look. The first one I tried turned out to be marmalade which isn’t too bad on a pizza actually. I’d give it 6/10. Ivy found ham with red pepper bits (8/10), pineapple (10/10) and black cherries in syrup (2/10 but Ivy LOVES them because she’s nuts).
    We put loads of stuff on the pizzas. I made a spider pattern, Martha did a rainbow and Ivy did a face with lots of mad hair made from spaggetty. (Or is it spaggeti? Spaghety? Spahgetti . . . oh you know what I mean, it’s that long stringy stuff you can eat with bollonays sauce. Bolonaiz. Bollonnaze . . . OH FORGET IT.) She said it was supposed to be me because my hair is a bit impossible like my mum’s is.At least it’s better than having hair like my dad because he’s as bald as a light bulb ha ha!
    We’d just about finished loading up the pizzas when Martha opened a jar of yellowy-pink stuff which smelt like James’s football socks (0/10).
    â€˜No way am I having THAT!’ said Ivy.
    â€˜Coward,’ said Martha.
    â€˜Then I dare you to put it on YOUR pizza,’ said Ivy.
    That got Martha thinking. ‘I’ve already got pineapple, beetroot, garlic sausage, dried banana, olives and raspberry jam. Anything else might ruin the taste.’
    I had a look at the label on the jar.

    The only bit I could understand was the ‘best before’ date and it was ages away, so whatever it was should have been safe enough.
    Ivy gave Martha a poke in the ribs. ‘Go on Martha, I dare you to eat all that for a million billion pounds.’

    Ha! Martha would eat her own head for 20p. So for a million billion pounds she slopped the whole jar of yellowy-pink stuff all over her pizza(oh boy did it STINK or what?), and then her mum came in and shoved all the pizzas in the oven.
    We had ten minutes to wait, so we got talking about the class trip that was coming up. There were only three days left before half-term and so far not one person in our class had had a single day off sick. As a special reward Miss Pingle had said that if we all made it to the last day, the whole class would go to see the Egyptianmummy exhibition! Mummies are well cool because out of zombies, vampires and mummies, they are the only ones that are real. At least I think so. Gosh I hope so. Eeky freak – scary!
    â€˜I bet one of the boys goes off sick and ruins it,’ said Martha crossly. ‘Remember the end of last term when Matty knocked himself out playing football?’

    Hmmm . . . that wasn’t how Ivy and I remembered it! Actually it was Martha who knocked Matty out. He’d kicked the football across the playground and hit Martha on the leg and messed her trousers up. All the boys had laughed so she kicked it back HARD and the next thing Matty knew he was sitting in reception with a bandage round his head. Ha ha wicked!
    â€˜It was still his fault,’ said Martha. ‘So if he does it again I’ll kill him. Well, not kill him, but you know what I mean.’
    Soon the pizzas were out of the oven and being chopped up and then Ivy was owing Martha a million billion pounds because Martha had eaten the lot. Then Martha’s mum came in and saw the strange jar was empty.
    â€˜Aha!’ she said, sounding a bitsurprised. ‘I see you’ve finished off that octopus paste.’
    â€˜
Octopus paste
?’ gasped Martha.
    Ivy started giggling and doing a strange underwater dance round the kitchen. ‘Whoa! Does that mean Martha might grow eight arms?’
    Gosh, what a thought. Argh! Mind you, if Martha