Quentin Blake - Mr Stink

Copyright

First published in hardback in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books 2009 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Steret, London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk

Text © David Walliams 2009

Illustrations © Quentin Blake 2009

David Walliams and Quentin Blake assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work

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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007279050

Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007343829

Version: 2018-08-22

For my mum Kathleen, the kindest person I have ever met.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1 - Scratch ‘N’ Sniff

2 - Icy Silence

3 - The Wanderer

4 - Drivel

5 - Abandon Starbucks!

6 - Soap-Dodgers

7 - A Bucket in the Corner

8 - Maybe It’s the Drains

9 - A Little Bit of Drool

10 - Slightly Chewed

11 - Hair Pulling

12 - Pongy Pong

13 - Shut your Face!

14 - Lady and the Tramp

15 - Bath time

16 - Rule Britannia

17 - Collapsed Bouffant

18 - Rabbit Droppings

19 - Supertramp

20 - Grubby Toilet Roll

21 - Wet Wipe

22 - Long Lion Days

23 - Plastic Snowman

24 - Yuckety Yuck Yuck

25 - Black Leather Mistletoe

26 - Little Star

Acknowledgments

About the Publisher

1 Scratch ‘N’ Sniff

Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it is correct English to say he stinked, then he stinked as well. He was the stinkiest stinky stinker who ever lived.

A stink is the worst type of smell. A stink is worse than a stench. And a stench is worse than a pong. And a pong is worse than a whiff. And a whiff can be enough to make your nose wrinkle.

It wasn’t Mr Stink’s fault that he stank. He was a tramp, after all. He didn’t have a home and so he never had the opportunity to have a proper wash like you and me. After a while the smell just got worse and worse. Here is a picture of Mr Stink.

He is quite a snappy dresser in his bow-tie and tweed jacket, isn’t he? But don’t be fooled. The illustration doesn’t do justice to the smell. This could be a scratch ‘n’ sniff book, but the smell would be so bad you would have to put it in the bin. And then bury the bin. Very deep underground.

That’s his little black dog with him, the Duchess. The Duchess wasn’t any particular breed of dog, she was just a dog. She smelt too, but not as bad as Mr Stink. Nothing in the world really smelt as bad as him. Except his beard. His beard was full of old bits of egg and sausage and cheese that had fallen out of his mouth years before. It had never, ever been shampooed so it had its own special stink, even worse than his main one.

One morning, Mr Stink simply appeared in the town and took up residence on an old wooden bench. No one knew where he had come from, or where he might be going. The town folk were mostly nice to him. They sometimes dropped a few coins at his feet, before rushing off with their eyes watering. But no one was really friendly towards him. No one stopped for a chat.

At least, not till the day that a little girl finally plucked up the courage to speak to him—and that’s where our story begins.

“Hello,” said the girl, her voice trembling a little with nerves. The girl was called Chloe. She was only twelve and she had never spoken to a tramp before. Her mother had forbidden her to speak to ‘such creatures’. Mother even disapproved of her daughter talking to kids from the local council estate. But Chloe didn’t think Mr Stink was a creature. She thought he was a man who looked like he had a very interesting story to tell—and if there was one thing Chloe loved, it was stories.

Every day she would pass him and his dog in her parents’ car on the way to her posh private school. Whether in sunshine or snow, he was always sitting on the same bench with his dog by his feet. As she luxuriated on the leather of the back seat with her poisonous little sister Annabelle, Chloe would look out of the window at him and wonder.

Millions of thoughts and questions would swim through her head. Who was he? Why did he live on the streets? Had he ever had a home? What did his dog eat? Did he have any friends or family? If so, did they know he was homeless?

Where did he go at Christmas? If you wanted to write him a letter, what address would you put on the envelope? ‘The bench, you know the one—round the corner from the bus stop’? When was the last time he’d had a bath? And could his name really be Mr Stink?

Chloe was the kind of girl who loved being alone with her thoughts. Often she would sit on her bed and make up stories about Mr Stink. Sitting on her own in her room, she would come up with all kinds of fantastical tales. Maybe Mr Stink was a heroic old sailor who had won dozens of medals for bravery, but had found it impossible to adapt to life on dry land? Or perhaps he was a world-famous opera singer who one night, upon hitting the top note in an aria at the Royal Opera House in London, lost his voice and could never sing again? Or maybe he was really a Russian secret agent who had put on an elaborate tramp disguise to spy on the people of the town?

Chloe didn’t know anything about Mr Stink. But what she did know, on that day when she stopped to talk to him for the first time, was that he looked like he needed the five-pound note she was holding much more than she did.

He seemed lonely too, not just alone, but lonely in his soul. That made Chloe sad. She knew full well what it was like to feel lonely. Chloe didn’t like school very much. Mother had insisted on sending her to a posh all-girls secondary school, and she hadn’t made any friends there. Chloe didn’t like being at home much either. Wherever she was she had the feeling that she didn’t quite fit in.

What’s more, it was Chloe’s least favourite time of year. Christmas. Everyone is supposed to love Christmas, especially children. But Chloe hated it. She hated the tinsel, she hated the crackers, she hated the carols, she hated having to watch the Queen’s speech, she hated the mince pies, she hated that it never really snowed like it’s suppose to, she hated sitting down with her family to a long, long dinner, and most of all, she hated how she had to pretend to be happy just because it was December 25 th.

“What can I do for you, young lady?” said Mr Stink. His voice was unexpectedly posh. As no one had ever stopped to talk to him before, he stared slightly suspiciously at this plump little girl. Chloe was suddenly a bit frightened. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to talk to the old tramp after all. She had been working up to this moment for weeks, months even. This wasn’t how it had all played out in her head.