Free Danny Baker Record Breaker (5): The World's Itchiest Pants by Steve Hartley Page B

making snowmen in the deserted school playground. They had raided the school’s overflowing big green wheelie bins and found an
assortment of grubby items to add to their sculptures. They stood back to admire their work:
    A model of their headteacher, Mr ‘Beaky’ Rogers, waited by the school gates, a bright orange traffic-cone nose sticking out from his face, below two black, soggy-tea-bag eyes.
Nearby, at the crossing outside school, Mr Flutey the lollipop man had been built, his snowy arm outstretched, holding a half-chewed tutti-frutti-flavoured lollipop in his hand.

    A sculpture of their teacher Mrs Woodcock filled the main entrance. Straggly, slimy spaghetti hair dangled from her enormous head, which was far too big to pass through the doors. Just around
    the corner, a snowy version of dinner lady Mrs Gommersall stood in the kitchen doorway, wearing a greasy-paper-bag chef’s hat and cooking up a battered old football boot in a rusty frying
    pan.

    ‘They’re better than the real thing!’ laughed Danny.
    ‘Someone’s coming!’ hissed Matthew. ‘It’s Creepy Cripps!’
    The boys scurried behind the wheelie bins. Scrunching footsteps came towards them and then stopped. They heard Mr Cripps’s familiar rasping cough as the caretaker studied the snowman of
‘Beaky’ Rogers. ‘Someone’ll be in trouble over this,’ he wheezed.
    Danny and Matthew waited quietly until Creepy Cripps had gone on his rounds, then they made a dash for the gates.
    ‘That was close,’ said Danny. ‘We’d get detention for a squigga-squillion years if he’d caught us!’
    The streets of Penleydale were empty. People had heeded the Skunk Flu Alert and were staying indoors. Great drifts of snow piled up against houses, smothering the roads and gardens. Huge flakes
continued to swirl from the grey sky, adding to the thick white mantle. A strange, soft silence had settled over the valley, and the only sound was the scrunch of the boys’ tennis rackets
plunging into the snow.
    Danny paused, staring along the deserted road. ‘You know, Matt, what this town needs is people – snowpeople.’
    Matthew glanced around to see if there was anyone looking. ‘The coast’s clear,’ he replied. ‘Let’s get digging.’
    Soon, snow-priest Father Paddy O’Hare sat on the low wall outside St Joseph’s Church, sharing a comic with snow-Reverend Dave Goodie, vicar of St Waldebert-in-the-Bottoms.
    ‘Hairy O’Hare isn’t hairy enough,’ said Danny, sticking short twigs in the snowman’s ears and up his nose.

    ‘And we forgot Mr Goodie’s buck-teeth,’ said Matthew, giving the Reverend a goofy grin made of orange peel.
    Danny and Matthew continued through town, leaving a trail of funny footprints in the smooth, untouched snow. All the shops were closed, and the High Street looked like a still, white river
winding between them.
    Danny created a pair of feet sticking out of the mouth of the postbox on the corner, as though someone had fallen head-first into it.

    At the bus stop, they built a snowy Snow White and seven snow-Dwarfs queuing patiently, while across the road a giant snow-rabbit was escaping from the greengrocer’s shop carrying a huge
    snow-carrot. Danny dropped a small pile of round black pebbles under the animal’s bottom.

    ‘It’s what bunnies do,’ he said, grinning at Matthew.
    They were just adding the finishing touches to a model of a monster mouse chasing Pardon, the ferocious one-eared cat that lived in Gertie’s Gum and Gobstopper sweet shop, when they heard
the tinkle of a bell as the shop door opened.
    The boys dived for cover in the doorway of the fish and chip shop nearby.

    They heard the voice of Gertie Gubbins. ‘When I find out who’s poking fun at my Pardon,’ she stormed, ‘they’ll be banned from my shop for good!’
    ‘We need to be careful,’ said Matthew. ‘We’ll cop for it if people find out it’s us making these snowmen.’
    ‘We need disguises,’ replied Danny. ‘And I