Rating: 5/5
Ben’s parents loved ballroom dancing. They loved it so much that sometimes the little boy began to think that they preferred dancing to him. Every Friday, it was a show night, where a show was performed on stage. This show was called ‘Strictly Stars Dancing’, where a load of dancers were paired up with celebrities and made to move along with the beat. So the ignorant mum and dad, every Friday, would go to the show and watch, clapping excitedly. But they didn’t want Ben to be there – oh no! So they dropped him off at his granny’s, every week, just until Saturday. But Ben was remarkably angry with this. His granny, to him, was dull and boring.
Most people think that every granny is dull and boring. But this particular granny was the most dull and the most boring. She reeked of cabbage, and kept blowing off humongous bursts of the yucky vegetable. All she wanted to do was play Scrabble, and whenever Ben came down to tea, it was always cabbage soup followed by cabbage pie followed by cabbage tart. Poor Granny! She had absolutely no idea that Ben found her so unbelievably boring.
Well, not until one eerie Friday night. Her grandson had just gone to bed, but he did not sleep – that was boring. He waited until he heard Granny’s snores, and then he tiptoed out of his bedroom and released the phone from its set on the landing. Then he dialled his mum, and said to her plainly: “Mum, please, come and get me! Granny’s asleep – but she’s so dull and boring! To eat at dinner time is the same as every Friday! She’s so awfully boring!” but the only reply was the phone being hung up, because neither Mum nor Dad liked Granny either.
But when he hopelessly put down the phone, he heard that Granny’s snores had stopped.
Had she heard everything? Was she deeply upset and offended?
She had to come up with something to make her grandson like her. So the next day, she thought up a brilliant plan; she told Ben that she was a gangster. She made up stories about how, when she was a little girl, she stole rubies and rings, and diamonds and pearls. But she knew full well that there was no way of getting the overwhelming Crown Jewels. Ben, however, thought he did. He had no use of ballroom dancing; he wanted to be a plumber. He had plenty of magazines, all new issues, called ‘Plumbing Weekly’. In one of these it talked about a giant pipe that ran up through the Tower of London. Together, they made up a plan that they would steal the jewels. Up the pipe they would go, swim through the Thames, get the guards drunk, and so on. But who should come along but the Queen!
Find out more by reading this brilliant book…