Free Harriet Bright in a Pickle by Claire Craig Page A

heard. Only 783 steps to go and she’d be safe.

    She could hear Paul Picklebottom. He was scuffing his shoes along the pavement.
    He was far enough away at the moment.
    But he was getting closer.
    Harriet Bright’s brain was alert. She was t h i n k i n g.
    What should she do?
    PLAN A : Outsmart the enemy. Take a shortcut across Wiley’s Creek, sneak through Mrs Pilchard’s backyard and climb over the fence to home.
    Disadvantage: Could end up in the creek. Again !
    PLAN B : Run fast. Screaming for
    Disadvantage: Loss of dignity. Forever .
    PLAN C : Think of Plan D.

A POET, don’t you know it
    â€˜I’M SPEAKING TO YOU … FATTY! ’
    Paul Picklebottom just had a way of saying that word.
    He shouted the first syllable FAT and hissed the second through his teeth T T Y , like air escaping from a tyre.
    Harriet Bright thought FATTY sounded square and solid. Just the shape she saw when she looked at her reflection in the window of Joyanne’s Fashions on High Street.
    Mrs Glossia, her teacher, said there was a special name for words that sound like the thing they are: ONOMATOPOEIA.
    Harriet Bright thought there were lots of words like this. Such as plump (round and juicy),(stuffed with pastries and meat pies) and(dollops of thick custard and cream).
    Harriet Bright’s mother said that she had puppy fat.
    â€˜You’ll grow out of it,’ she promised.
    Harriet Bright had read that snakes shed their scaly skins when they got too big for them. She wondered when she would grow out of her lumpy skin.
    She could hang it in the wardrobe.
    For emergencies.
    Like if she burnt herself rescuing a cat trapped in a house on fire.

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    Or she could use it later.
    When her skin got old and tired.

    She knew what was coming next.
    HARRIET BRIGHT
    WHAT A SIGHT!
    LEGS LIKE JELLY
    WITH A BIG
    WOBBLY
    BELLY
    Snigger. Snigger.
    Paul Picklebottom had taken months to come up with that. And all he could think of to rhyme with jelly was … BELLY!
    Harriet Bright scoffed. He had no imagination. Not like her.
    Mrs Glossia said that Harriet Bright’s poetry was very ‘individual’. She particularly liked Harriet Bright’s space poem:
    When I’m in space I feel so alone and I am very sorry you cannot telephone.
    I miss the movies and there aren’t any shops
    and my friend is a giant called Cyclops.
    Harriet Bright is going to be a poet when she grows up.
    â€˜HEY! FATTY BONANZA.’
    As soon as Paul Picklebottom is out of her life.

Wishing you WEREN’T here
    Harriet Bright closed her eyes tight.
    Her mother said that if you wished really hard for something and then counted to ten, it might just happen!
    Weasels and sneezels and snails on toast
    turn Paul Picklebottom into a
    g h o s t.
    1   2   3   4   5   6   –
    â€˜Fatty bom-bO- LA -TA
    You look like a chip-O- LA -TA.’

    Harriet Bright opened her eyes. Paul Picklebottom was laughing and pointing at her.
    Maybe wishing only works in the morning, thought Harriet Bright.
    Mrs Glossia said that morning was definitely the best time to think because your brain was fresh.
    Harriet Bright had seen pictures of a brain in a book. It looked like a tangle of raw sausages.
    Paul Picklebottom must have thought so too. He had snatched the book from her hands. ‘Hey, sausage brain,’ he had snorted. ‘Your brain would be good for breakfast! With lots of onions on the side.’

    Harriet Bright wondered why short distances sometimes seemed so long.
    She could see her yellow house with the red roof and the green fence, but her feet seemed to be moving extra slowly. Almost as if she hardly weighed a thing.
    Mrs Glossia had told them all about gravity last Tuesday. She’d said that gravity kept everybody on the ground.
    Not like in
    Harriet Bright imagined she was one of the first astronauts to land on the moon.
    The moon was cold and silent. She