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First published 2017
Text copyright © Jeremy Strong, 2017
Illustrations copyright © Rowan Clifford, 2017
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Cover illustration by Nick Sharratt
ISBN: 978–0–141–37557–1
Introduction
1. Lots of Questions and Not Many Answers
2. Elephant Stuff
3. Phew! Things Never Stop Happening, Do They?
4. One in a Million?
5. The Lunatic Professor Gets Lucky!
6. The Goat is Redundant
7. A Wedding
8. What’s the Smelliest Stuff in the World?
9. Dust! Wind! Hooves! Noise!
10. GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO!!!
11. Be Patient!
12. Marriage? What Marriage? Whose Marriage?
12½. All Done and Dusted. Go on, Give Us a Biscuit!
Read More
Jeremy Strong once worked in a bakery, putting the jam into three thousand doughnuts every night. Now he puts the jam in stories instead, which he finds much more exciting. At the age of three, he fell out of a first-floor bedroom window and landed on his head. His mother says that this damaged him for the rest of his life and refuses to take any responsibility. He loves writing stories because he says it is ‘the only time you alone have complete control and can make anything happen’. His ambition is to make you laugh (or at least snuffle). Jeremy Strong lives near Bath with his wife, Gillie, two cats, two hens and a flying cow.
www.jeremystrong.co.uk
THE BEAK SPEAKS
BEWARE! KILLER TOMATOES
CHICKEN SCHOOL
DINOSAUR POX
GIANT JIM AND THE HURRICANE
KRAZY KOW SAVES THE WORLD – WELL, ALMOST
THERE’S A PHARAOH IN OUR BATH!
JEREMY STRONG’S LAUGH-YOUR-SOCKS-OFF JOKE BOOK
JEREMY STRONG’S LAUGH-YOUR-SOCKS-OFF EVEN MORE JOKE BOOK
The Hundred-Mile-An-Hour Dog series
THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG
CHRISTMAS CHAOS FOR THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG
LOST! THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG
THE HUNDRED-MILE-AN-HOUR DOG GOES FOR GOLD
My Brother’s Famous Bottom series
MY BROTHER’S FAMOUS BOTTOM
MY BROTHER’S HOT CROSS BOTTOM
MY BROTHER’S FAMOUS BOTTOM GETS PINCHED
MY BROTHER’S FAMOUS BOTTOM GOES CAMPING
This story is dedicated to one of my most favourite cities – Rome.
Hello! It’s me, Croakbag – the cleverest raven in the Roman Empire. Krraaarrkk! Give us a biscuit! Whaddya mean, am I a talking bird? Can fish swim? Do frogs jump? Of course I can talk, and have I got a story for you. Oh yes! I am Corvus maximus intelligentissimus. That’s your actual Latin, that is, and it means ‘a very brainy raven’ – in other words, ME!
So, salve, ladies, gentlemen and pipsqueaks. Do you know what salve means? Yes, you do. That’s right! It means ‘hello’ in the old Latin. Just try that out on your mum and I bet she’ll swoon with admiration and think you are the smartest youngster on the planet. On the other hand, she might simply stand there looking completely baffled, in which case you can explain, ‘I am speaking Latin, Mater,’ because mater means ‘mother’. Aren’t you a clever clogs? Yes, you are. Have a biscuit.
BUT, I can’t waste any more time on greetings and what-not. It’s down to business and there’s lots to explain. You’re in for a real helter-skelter of a story.
Our hero, Perilus, 11, dreams of being a charioteer like his friend and hero, Scorcha. But Perilus is facing a BIG problem – and he doesn’t even know it yet. His mum and dad (Krysis and Flavia) are stuck in jail, along with the two family slaves, Flippus Floppus and Fussia, and a good and kindly neighbour, Trendia. None of them have done anything wrong. It’s just one GINORMOUS MISTAKE, made even worse by the fact that the prison guards have got only one very small brain between them and they seem to have managed to lose even that.
Krysis has been accused of stealing 10,000 silver denarii from the Emperor’s bank. Did he do it? Of course not, but now Krysis has to find out who DID do it and prove that he, Krysis, is innocent. Which he is, because he’s a decent sort of chap on the whole, when he’s not shouting at Perilus or trying to marry his daughter, Hysteria, off to some ancient heap of wrinkles with brown teeth and no hair. Kraaarrk! It’s a tough life being a teenage girl in ancient Rome, I can tell you. No wonder Hysteria spends half her time in tears. Her little bro, Perilus, calls her The Waterfall On Legs.
Meanwhile Scorcha, the young, handsome and talented charioteer, is trying to make a name for himself on the chariot-racing circuit. And Scorcha is not just Perilus’s hero. I blush to tell you this, but Scorcha rather fancies Hysteria and she just happens to fancy him back. (Ah! Isn’t that cute?) But she hasn’t dared tell him. (OK, I’m going to be sick now.) However, her father, Krysis, is trying to sell Hysteria off as a bride to Fibbus Biggus, who isn’t very nice. (Remember the brown teeth?) Poor Hysteria; no wonder she’s in tears. But Krysis knows that if Hysteria’s not married off by the time she’s fourteen or fifteen, people in Rome will not be impressed. Bad parenting, that’s what they’ll say.
Anyway, we must get on! Plunge in! And hold tight to your cozzie!