I should have said–the play is entirely in French. Au revoir!” she called after him.
“Au revoir,” he called back in the most un-French accent he could manage.
“Now that I can’t wait to see!” said John laughing.
As they walked off together towards the main school building, John put his arm around him. Dennis smiled.
The world felt different.
Thank yous:
I would like to thank my literary agent at Independent Talent, Paul Stevens; Moira Bellas and everyone at MBC PR; all at HarperCollins, especially my publisher Ann-Janine Murtagh and my editor Nick Lake for their belief in the project and tremendous support of me; James Annal, the cover designer; Elorine Grant, interior designer; Michelle Misra, eagle-eyed copy-editor; the other side of my brain that is Matt Lucas; my greatest fan and mum, Kathleen; and my sister Julie for dressing me up in the first place.
Most of all though, I would like to thank the great Quentin Blake, who has brought more to this book than I could have ever dared to dream.
For my mum Kathleen, the kindest person I have ever met.
Table of Contents
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
