Funny Kid Get Licked

Think before you flush!

Just because that thing in the toilet is brown DOES NOT mean you should automatically ‘flush it down’. You know that saying, right? ‘If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.’ Some people have it as a cute little sign on the back of their toilet door. Apparently it saves water or something. Well, let me tell you, sometimes there are more important things to consider than saving water. We’ve got oceans full of that stuff anyway, right? Lucky I’m here to set the record straight.

Here’s a little bit of Funny Kid Truth for you, right here in Chapter 1:

THERE ARE SEVERAL SITUATIONS WHEN YOU SHOULD NOT FLUSH IT DOWN JUST ’CAUSE IT HAPPENS TO BE BROWN.

For a start, what if you had some rare contagious disease? You know, some virus where your head grows so big that your body can’t carry it any more and if everyone catches the virus it will mean the end of the world and the only way that the scientists can find a cure is by getting a … well, a poop sample. You know, doctors need that stuff sometimes to save the human race. Do you really want the world to end because you flushed down the only hope for humanity?

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What if you had accidentally swallowed the key to a cupboard that had one million dollars inside? There’s only one way you’re going to get that key back, and it’s certainly not by ‘flushing it down’! Or what if we found out that poops have feelings? Ever thought about that? Scientists haven’t worked out everything about the universe yet. Maybe your poop feels sad. The poor little thing definitely can’t swim. Are you really going to drown an innocent poop that’s lost all hope, just because it’s the wrong colour?

WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?

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See? We must think before we flush, people! There are plenty of examples where the rule does not apply. I just thought of these ones off the top of my head! In fact, I’m in a situation right now where I’m looking down at a brown thing in the toilet and it most certainly should not be flushed. That’s because the brown thing in this toilet is … well, a puppy. Yeah, you read that right. There’s a brown puppy in the toilet.

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It actually seems quite happy in there. It’s not even trying to get out. I guess it would be quite refreshing in the water. Almost like popping down to the local swimming pool for a quick dip. If the local swimming pool also had a bit of pee in it, that is. Well, actually … The puppy’s brothers and sisters are running around the bathroom floor, having races between our legs. I do a quick count. Yep, there are five of us kids and five puppies. And we’re all squished inside the bathroom of my friends Pip and Tyson.

No one wants to be the one to reach in to get

the puppy out of the toilet bowl.

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TYSON, YOU SHOULD DO IT!

Tyson is Pip’s twin brother and he gags at the idea of scooping his hands down into the toilet to pick up the wet brown puppy. ‘No way,’ he says. ‘It looks like a poop. A wriggling poop with a tail. I’m not getting it out. Make Abby do it.’ Abby Purcell puts her hands on her hips and glares at him. Abby Purcell is my arch-rival who is always hanging around. Her hands are on her hips most of the time. She calls it her ‘power pose’. I think she’s just worried her legs are going to fall off.

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YOU. ARE. NOT.

I CAN'T DO IT. I'M ALLERGIC.

Abby manages to weasel her way out of a lot of things, but I’m not going to let her use a ridiculous excuse like that. Besides, I’d really like to see her stick her hands in a toilet. ‘Yes, I am, Max!’ she whisper-yells at me. We have to be quiet, because Pip and Tyson’s dad doesn’t know there are five kids and five puppies crammed inside his bathroom. ‘Then why aren’t you sneezing from all the other dogs?’ I whisper-yell back. ‘We’re surrounded by puppies!’

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‘I’m not allergic to dogs, idiot,’ Abby snaps.

‘I’m allergic to germs.’

‘Oh, right. So you’re saying Pip and Tyson

don’t clean their toilet?’ I ask her.

Tyson screws up his face. ‘You’re supposed to

clean toilets?’

One of the other puppies is pulling the toilet

paper off the roll.

‘Abby’s got a point,’ says Hugo, who until now has been oddly quiet. ‘Everybody who lives in this house has put their bottom on that toilet seat.’ No one says anything in response to Hugo’s comment. I think we’re all busy thinking about nudie bums sitting on the seat. Judging by the looks on our faces, we all must have just got up to imagining Pip and Tyson’s dad’s bottom. Ew.

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I look down at the puppy in the bowl. It smiles up at me. Then it starts to drink the toilet water. Ewww! ‘Well, someone needs to get it out,’ Pip says. ‘My dad could come up here any minute and we need to get these puppies out of here before he finds them!’

It’s Friday morning. Pip and Tyson called Abby, Hugo and I on the phone an hour earlier. ‘Help! It’s an emergency,’ they said. ‘You need to come to our place before school!’ I assumed Tyson had got himself stuck in the fridge again and I hurried over with Mum’s hairdryer, ready to defrost the icicles off his armpits.

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But when Hugo, Abby and I arrived at the twins’ mansion, we discovered that they were dealing with quite a different problem. It turns out last night Pip was riding her scooter in the alley behind their house when she came across a cardboard box with five puppies in it. It seemed like someone had dumped them, which Pip was horrified about. Pip is one of those people who is determined to make the world a better place. I know! Booooring! Of course Pip decided that the only thing to do was to adopt all five puppies. Tyson and

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Pip carried the box up into their second upstairs bathroom. Pip and Tyson’s house has four bathrooms, which is weird because only three people live there. They have to invite guests over just to take advantage of the fact that so many people can piddle at the same time. Somehow they managed to get the puppies settled in there for the night without their dad seeing, which was good because there was no way he was going to let them have one dog in his big, fancy house, let alone five! The problem was, when they woke in the morning, the puppies had torn the cardboard box to shreds and gone completely nuts in the bathroom. Meanwhile their dad was downstairs, preparing for a magazine photoshoot that was happening in their sitting room. ‘We have to get these five puppies out of the house without my dad seeing,’ Pip explains once

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again. ‘Five dogs. Five of us. Easy. We each just smuggle one puppy.’ ‘Hey, Pip, this puppy looks like you!’ Abby says. She picks up one of the puppies and holds it next to Pip’s head. The puppy has an identical fringe. ‘And this one’s a bit like you, Tyson,’ Hugo says, pointing to a slightly bald puppy that looks like a troublemaker. ‘We should call it T-Dog!’ ‘This one’s all cute and cuddly,’ Pip says, ‘just like you, Hugo!’ She hands him the dog and he goes all pink. ‘This one looks like a genius, don’t you think?’ Abby says with a wink, holding the puppy beside her own face. ‘Definitely an A-Dog.’ Everyone turns to me. ‘That only leaves one more puppy, Max,’ Pip says.

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P-Dog

Pip

T-Dog

Tyson

H-Dog

Hugo

Abby

A-Dog

We all look at the smiling puppy in the toilet. Now that it’s wet from the toilet water, the hair on top of its head is all spiked up. It sticks its tongue out.

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‘Oh, look, Max,’ Abby says. ‘The puppy in the toilet is exactly like you. M-Dog, the funny pup!’ I stare at the others in horror. They’re all grinning. ‘It’s fate, Max,’ Pip says. ‘M-Dog is all yours. Let’s go.’ I feel like pointing out that the saying is not: ‘If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, PICK IT UP!’ Grrrrrrrr …

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What’s wet and brown and sitting in the toilet?

‘No way,’ I say. ‘I’m not picking up that dog. I hate dogs.’ Most people seem to think this is weird, but to me it makes perfect sense. Dogs are slobbery and smelly and hairy and jumpy, and they lick their own butts. If there was a kid at school who did that, you probably wouldn’t want to be friends with them either. ‘But we’ve all got our puppies, Max,’ Abby says. ‘We all carry one each. That’s fair.’ Sure enough, my four horrible friends are standing there, holding puppies and waiting for me to stick my hands in the toilet. I’ve heard

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about this peer-pressure thing, but I’m not buying it. What is it that Dad always says? ‘Just because everyone else is building sandcastles in the tiger’s litter box, does that mean you should do it too?’

I shake my head and fold my arms. I’m not

budging.

Then I hear a little whine. M-Dog has his front paws up on the side of the toilet bowl. He is splashing his back legs in the water, trying to climb up to me. ‘Aw, Max. He wants you to pick him up,’ Pip says. Then she puts her hand on the bathroom door handle. ‘Come on! We have to go!’

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He is pretty cute, even if he is wet from toilet water. I’m not sure he’s happy about being in the dunny any more either. He’s looking up at me like he wants me to save him – like I would be his hero if I rescued him. It turns out M-Dog does have one very appealing personality trait. He thinks I’m awesome. My friends are leaving with their puppies and if I don’t go with them, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do alone in the bathroom with a dog in the toilet. Okay, fine. M-Dog, our friends are abandoning us and I don’t think either of us want to be left in here. It seems like I’m going to have to pick you up. I grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut, stretching my hands down towards the wet puppy. I can’t believe I’m sticking my hands in the toilet. This is so disgusting!

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Ew! I feel the cool porcelain. I’ve touched the bowl accidentally! I guess I should be looking at what I’m doing, but I can’t bear to see my hands going where Pip and Tyson’s dad’s hairy bum has been. Speaking of hairy, I can feel hair against my hands now. M-Dog’s jumping up and down, splashing toilet water. I grab him under the armpits (do you call them armpits on a dog? Legpits?) and lift him up. His fur is so wet!

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I suddenly feel him licking my arms. Gross!

Toilet tongue!

I’ve still got my eyes closed, which is going to be a problem because I have to walk places. I guess I probably need to look at this little monster. I open my eyes. He licks me across the face!

A A A A A R R R R R G G G G G G H H H H H H

I almost drop him back in the toilet. Splatter! Splurt! Ttttthhhhhhh! Blurgh! How did this even happen? I woke up on this perfectly normal Friday morning thinking all I had to do was get myself dressed, eat breakfast and go to school. Instead I’m trying to spit toilet water frommy face and it’s not even eight o’clock. Friends! For goodness sake! Who needs them? M-Dog’s wet tail is wagging furiously, flicking water across the bathroom. The others have already snuck out of the door, so I tuck my stupid puppy under my arm and follow them. As far as I’m concerned, hating dogs is the only reasonable response to this toilet monster I’m now holding. I’d be crazy not to!

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Have you ever tried puppy- smu g g ling?

Pip is leading the way and we all stop when we reach the top of the stairs. Down below we can hear their dad talking to photographers about the styling of his new home.

Pip and Tyson’s dad is the famous movie star George Khan. He adopted the twins when

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they were babies and they’ve moved around the world together ever since. They’ve only recently arrived in Redhill, apparently so that the kids can have a ‘normal’ life. That’s what Mum and Dad heard from someone at the shops anyway. Well, I don’t know anyone who would describe a photoshoot in their house as normal. ‘They’re taking photos in the front sitting room for some magazine,’ Pip says. ‘Once we get downstairs, we just have to run along the hallway, behind the photographers and out the front door.’ ‘What if they see the puppies?’ Hugo asks. ‘If they see the puppies, Dad will freak,’

Tyson replies.

‘What do you mean by “freak” exactly?’

Hugo asks.

‘Scream, cry, throw cushions, move us to Greenland,’ Tyson says.

‘Really?’ Hugo’s eyes go wide. ‘No, of course not,’ Pip interrupts. ‘But it’s best that we don’t find out. He’ll certainly make me get rid of them. We need to get out of the house without him seeing them.’ I look at the puppy under my arm. He licks his own nose and blinks. How on earth am I supposed to get this thing out of the house without anyone seeing? ‘Everyone, stick your puppy under your shirt,’ Abby says. What? Did I just hear her right? Abby scoops her puppy straight under her shirt and then holds it with two hands underneath like a pregnant person! She smiles. ‘Great idea!’ Pip agrees and suddenly all the rest of them are popping their puppies against their tummies. ‘Let’s go. If we walk down the

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hallway fast enough, they’ll be so busy they won’t even notice.’ I look at M-Dog. He’s gone cross-eyed. Awesome. I lift the bottom of my shirt and push the puppy up underneath. Instantly wet toilet fur is rubbing my tummy. I look down at the bulge of my shirt and shiver. M-Dog wriggles. Is this what it feels like to have a baby in your tummy?

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Then he starts licking my belly button. ‘Oooh! Eeee! That tickles! Stop it!’ ‘Ssshhhhhhh!’ everyone hisses. I hop from leg to leg, down the stairs behind the others, trying to get the tickling to stop. Of course that only makes it worse, because now M-Dog is bumping and moving all over the place. I giggle.

‘Ssshhhhhhh!’ ‘I can’t help it!’ I whisper-yell back at them.

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We get to the bottom of the grand staircase and look down the hallway to the front door. Pip is at the start of the line and she does a silent countdown for us with her fingers, like a commando. 3-2-1 … How come everyone else’s puppy is so still? Mine is trying to climb up my chest to get to my face. I don’t know what I look like right now, but with my shirt squirming all over the place, it must seem like I have a pretty serious case of indigestion. And then we’re off! Silently tiptoe-running down the tiled hallway towards the big front door.

Up ahead is the doorway to the sitting room, where I can see bursts of light from the camera flash. ‘Ooh, this fabric is divine!’ someone says. Pip makes it to the front door. Abby is right behind her, followed by Hugo and Tyson. I’m only a few steps away …when the puppy

bites me on the nipple.

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I know, I know. We’re supposed to be quiet, but have you ever been bitten on the nipple? All four of my friends turn around in alarm. Their expressions range from I-can’t-believe- Max-just-did-that to I’m-going-to-squash-Max- with-that-grand-piano! (That last one was Abby.) Only it’s not Abby I have to be worried about. It’s George Khan.

HELLO?

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Pip and Tyson’s dad comes bounding out of the sitting room, looking somewhat surprised to see five kids in his foyer. OH ... GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE. ABBY! HUGO! WHAT’S-YOUR-NAME! NICE TO SEE YOU. WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING HERE? OFF TO SCHOOL? WE’RE JUST DOING A PHOTOSHOOT FOR MR STYLE MAGAZINE.

George Khan has this way of asking you questions and then answering themhimself before you have a chance to say anything. Surely he’s going to see that we all have bulging, wriggling tummies. There’s no way we’re getting away with this! YOU SHOULD SEE THE NEW FUTON I PICKED UP YESTERDAY. DID YOU SEE IT? YOU DIDN’T. I’D SHOW IT TO YOU NOW EXCEPT SERGE IS DRESSING IT. DRESSING A FUTON IS A REAL TALENT, YOU KNOW. SOME PEOPLE THINK THEY KNOW HOW TO DO IT, BUT I TELL YOU, I HAVE SEEN SOME HIDEOUSLY DRESSED FUTONS IN MY TIME. WHENEVER I SEE ONE, I CAN JUST LOOK AT IT AND TELL IT WASN’T DONE BY SERGE.

I have no idea what a futon is. I’m beginning to think that Mr Khan is so giddy-excited about his photoshoot that he might not notice we’re clearly hiding things under our shirts. Maybe we’ll get away with it after all. Then I feel something very warm. My eyes go wide. Oh, no. This cannot be happening right now!The warmth spreads quickly across my tummy and then runs down my legs. The puppy is peeing on me! I look down in horror. My pants are quickly turning dark and damp, and there is a puddle forming at my feet! Seriously, M-Dog? You were just in the toilet! Couldn’t you have done it there? I look up and realise I’m not the only one whose eyes are wide! Everyone, including George Khan, is staring at the puddle on the floor. Mr Khan’s mouth hangs open.

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‘Are … are you … weeing on my floor, kid?’ Tyson bursts out laughing. I want to say no! I want to yell, ‘Of- course-not-are-you-crazy?’ I want to take this disgusting puppy out of my shirt and scream, ‘Your-daughter’s-dog-is-peeing-on-me! I’m-an- innocent-victim-here!’ But I turn and look at Pip, and she’s nodding her head at me desperately.

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She’s pleading with her eyes for me to make the ultimate sacrifice! And because I’m the best friend anyone could ever have … I do. ‘Yes, Mr Khan. I just weed on your floor. I’m … very sorry … about that.’ I know. You don’t have to say it. I’m a hero.

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I run out the front door, and Pip, Tyson,

Abby and Hugo follow right behind.

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