The Girl With Death Breath and Other Naughty Stories for Good Boys and Girls by Christopher Milne Page B

a hammer a couple of times it’d come good. And a toilet brush that looked pretty good, although Michelle thought they should come back for it later in case they found a better one.
    And then they saw it. Neither of them could believe their eyes. A huge television set! Michelle and Penny’s family hadn’t had a TV since the old one blew and, in Michelle’s eyes, here was half a million bucks just waiting to be carried away.
    â€˜Do you think it still works?’ Penny whispered in awe.
    â€˜Yes, it does,’ said a lady’s voice from behind. The girls got such a fright they almost jumped out of their skins.
    â€˜Sorry,’ said Penny, ‘we just –’
    â€˜No need to be sorry,’ said the lady. ‘It looks like you’ve got quite the haul there!’
    When Penny explained how they were going to be millionaires to help out their dad, the lady almost cried.

    â€˜Well,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing that pleases me more than people showing some courage. People trying their best. How about I ask my husband to put the trailer on the car and I give you a lift with all of this stuff?’
    â€˜I don’t want to sound rude or anything,’ said Penny, ‘but Mum and Dad always say not to get into cars with people we don’t know.’
    â€˜And very good advice it is, too,’ said the lady. ‘Silly of me not to think. What if you tell me where your place is, and I’ll just take the stuff for you? Oh, and if you’d like to give me your telephone number, I think I might have a few more things I could give you to sell.’
    â€˜Radical,’ said Penny. ‘We haven’t got a phone at the moment but the shop at the end of the street will usually take messages for us.’
    â€˜That sounds fine,’ said the lady. ‘My name’s Carmel, by the way.’
    â€˜Nice to meet you,’ the girls said.
    The lady dropped all the stuff at a park near the girls’ house, and by that afternoon the girls had their shop all set up. Guess how many things they sold?
    None. Not one. They had never been so disappointed in all their lives.
    â€˜Isn’t anyone using false teeth anymore?’ asked Penny. ‘I can’t believe it. Still, at least we get to keep the TV for ourselves.’
    â€˜What do we do now?’ wondered Michelle. ‘Leave the whole lot here, I suppose,’ said Penny. ‘Let the council pick it up in the morning.’
    As the girls trudged into their house, they were most surprised to hear the sound of laughter.
    â€˜You’ll never guess,’ squealed their mum. ‘Your dad’s got a job. A really good one.With better pay and everything.’
    â€˜Mum, that’s so fantastic,’ said Penny.
    â€˜Who with?’
    â€˜With a lady called Carmel, doing repairs and odd jobs and gardening,’ said her mum. ‘It’s unbelievable. Apparently she’d heard what a good worker your father is and how he’s really keen on gardening, and she just rang up the shop and offered him a job.’
    â€˜How terrific,’ said the girls, looking at each other. Although, of course, they would never tell that they knew who the lady was.
    Whether their dad knew their secret, the girls never found out. But he did spend a chunk of his first paycheck on two beautiful new dresses.

Bulldog Brown was tough. Very tough. If he told you to nick off, you wouldn’t hang around to ask why. If he punched you – which was often – you’d say, ‘Good hit, Bulldog.’
    I didn’t like him. Not at all. Not because he was tough – someone is always going to be the toughest in every school. It was because he picked on the little kids. And I hated that.
    It was when Bulldog belted up my brother Robbie that did it. No-one hits my little brother! Except me, of course, but that’s different. I have to put up with him all the time.
    Yes, Bulldog was a