Layton Neal - Uncle Gobb and the Dread Shed

Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain in June 2015 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Text copyright Michael Rosen 2015 Illustrations copyright Neal Layton 2015 The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-4088-5130-2
ePub ISBN: 978-1-4088-5131-9 To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com. Here you will find extracts, author interviews, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our newsletters. For Emma, Elsie and Emile CONTENTS Amazing Things Going On With His Face It all began when Malcolm looked through the keyhole. Of course he shouldnt have looked.

Well, there shouldnt really have been a keyhole. I mean, why was there a keyhole on the bathroom door anyway? What did the keyhole think it was doing sitting there stuck on a bathroom door? Thats a very good point. So really it was the keyholes fault. This is what happened: Uncle Gobb came to stay. No one liked Uncle Gobb. More on him in a minute.

Uncle Gobb went to the bathroom. Not the American kind of bathroom which is also a restroom. This can be confusing. Are you supposed to rest in the bath? But they dont mean the bath anyway. When they say bathroom, they mean the room where you go to pee and poo. Unless they mean youre supposed to pee and poo in the bath.

Which they dont. So there was no need to bring that up. Sorry. Lets get on. Uncle Gobb went to the bathroom. Thats the kind of bathroom which has a bath in it.

And a sink. He was standing at the sink, looking in the mirror. People often do that. They look in the mirror and talk to themselves. They say things like, Hiya, handsome, youre looking good today. Or, Whats cooking? Or, Ive got a little green bit on my chin I wonder if Im going mouldy Uncle Gobb wasnt saying any of these things.

He was polishing his face. Now, everyone knew that Uncle Gobb had a shiny face. And just to be clear, its perfectly OK for people to have shiny faces. And its perfectly OK for people to shine their shiny faces. The thing is, Malcolm had never ever seen anyone shine their face before. This is what happened: Malcolm was crouching down looking through the keyhole.

He saw Uncle Gobb take a piece of cloth in his right hand; in his left hand he took some stuff to make windows shiny. He squirted the shiny stuff into the cloth, took the cloth up to his face and started shining. Round and round and round, over his cheeks, his chin, his forehead till it was all very, very shiny. When he had finished, Uncle Gobb looked in the mirror and said, Hey, Gobby, youre looking good today. Malcolm stared. Well, it was one-eye staring because the keyhole wasnt big enough for him to do a full two-eye stare.

In fact, he was wondering whether one-eye staring could be a new kind of competition at the Olympics when the door opened and there was Uncle Gobb. He looked down at Malcolm, who was now trying very hard to stop one-eye staring, and said, That doesnt look like homework to me. Ah, you might be wondering why Uncle Gobb would say such a thing. Of course someone kneeling on the floor outside a bathroom doing one-eye staring through a keyhole doesnt look like homework. What an obvious and silly thing to say. Why Uncle Gobb Said, That Doesnt Look Like Homework To Me. Why Uncle Gobb Said, That Doesnt Look Like Homework To Me.

Youll see that this chapter is not called: Why Uncle Gobb Said, That Doesnt Look Like Homework to Me AND Why Tomatoes Are Red. Im sorry, we may never find out in this book why tomatoes are red. There are other kinds of book which explain things like that. Theyre called non-fiction books and theyre very good too. My favourite is one called Dont Eat Your Best Friend. Some Explanation And A BLAMMM!!! Wherever Malcolm went in life, he thought that people would ask him why he lived with Uncle Gobb.

This was the explanation he had ready: Many years ago, Uncle Gobb was married to someone called Tammy. Things didnt work out between Uncle Gobb and Tammy, because when they got together, it made a terrible mixture which exploded. They picked themselves up and said, Weve made a bit of a mess best not do that again, huh? Uncle Gobb and Tammy didnt stay married after that. Now Uncle Gobb has nowhere to live (the blew their house up) so he came to live with me and my mum. I can tell you that this is as near to the truth as it is possible to be. The Real Chapter, On Why Uncle Gobb Said, That Doesnt Look Like Homework To Me.

Uncle Gobb was very keen on homework. He liked talking to people about homework. His sister was called Tess and Tess was Malcolms mum. This is what happened next: Tess, Uncle Gobb said, the boy needs to do more homework. Tess, he said, the dog needs to do more homework. Tess, he said, the table needs to do more homework.

Yes, as far as Uncle Gobb was concerned, everyone and everything needed to do more homework. Tess, he said, if they dont do more homework, well fall behind and well all be ruined. When he said that, the dog got up, walked slowly over to Uncle Gobb and bit his leg. I can tell you that that was the last time Uncle Gobb ever said that the dog needed to do more homework. I can also tell you that the table didnt get up and bite Uncle Gobbs leg. It had legs of its own to worry about.

Four of them actually. (That was a non-fiction FACT for you to make up for the fact that I havent told you why tomatoes are red. I figured that you were rather sad and angry that I didnt tell you about the tomatoes and now youre feeling a bit happier that Ive told you the thing about tables. I hope so.) When Uncle Gobb said, The boy needs to do more homework, the boy he was talking about was of course Malcolm. So Malcolm said to Uncle Gobb, Well you dont do any homework, Uncle Gobb, so why should I have to? At that, Uncle Gobb pulled himself up to his full height and said, Aha, my boy, but how do you think I got so far in life if it wasnt for the fact that I did my homework? This is what is known as the