Just Tricking!

Andy Griffiths wrote Just Tricking! for 10 year olds who reckon a really good practical joke is worth almost any amount of trouble.

What happens

It is quarter past eight in the morning and Andy is still in bed. He should have got up an hour ago. He hasn't, because he is dead.

Well, not dead. Pretending to be dead, so he doesn't have to go to school.

He got the idea from his dog Sooty, who learned to play dead at obedience class on a Sunday morning. If a dog can manage it, why not him?

Mum comes in and doesn't scream. She complains about the dirty socks. Dad comes in, shakes him hard, hunts for a pulse and can't find one.

Then Dad goes outside to dig a hole under the lemon tree. Mum puts the kettle on.

The fun of it is being stuck inside Andy's head while all this happens. He keeps going for hours after any sensible person would have owned up. He tells you exactly why too, and his reasons always sound perfectly sound to him.

The stories are short and the timing is super. Each one starts small. A cockroach in the salad at his dad's boss's house, say. Then it gets worse in a way you can see coming and Andy can't.

One thing to check before you hand it over. That first story ends with Andy down in the hole, soaked and freezing, with earth landing on his face and in his mouth so he can't get the words out. He honestly doesn't know any more whether his parents have worked out he's alive. It runs on for several pages and it is played for laughs, but a child who gets anxious about being trapped or buried probably won't read it that way. The same story has him convinced he's given his dad a heart attack and starting first aid on him in the garden.

If your reader takes all that in their stride, it's a proper laugh-out-loud one. There are a few mild swear words along the way and a LOT of bottoms, maggots and rubber vomit, which is rather the point.

What to read next

Andy carries on being his own worst enemy in Just Stupid!, where the first disaster involves a supermarket, a desperate hunt for a toilet and an old man with a walking frame.