Jack stayed over at my place last night. We had an epic round of ‘What Would You Rather Do?’ till about 9.00, when Mum said, ‘Lights out. Night, boys.’ We kept playing till 9.30, when she said, ‘Time to go to sleep. See you in the morning.’ So we whispered till 10.30, when Mum poked her head in on her way to bed and said, ‘Are you still awake? Go to sleep now, Tom Weekly, or there’ll be consequences. By the way, this room smells like farts. Good night.’

We couldn’t help ourselves. It was so fun. We kept playing till 11.42, when Jack laughed raucously and Mum stormed in wearing her dressing-gown and a slathering of weird cream on her face, her hair all wild, screaming like the Abominable Snowman. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. Jack reckons it gave him nightmares and he’s never sleeping over again. Anyway, here are some of the devilish dilemmas we devised.

Would you rather …

Drink a tablespoon of bright yellow pus or eat 13 fresh scabs?

Be buried alive in marshmallows or Smarties?

Eat a whole jar of Vegemite or a stick of butter?

Eat cheesy Vegemite sausages wrapped in marshmallow or peanut butter sausages wrapped in bacon?

Find the tip of someone’s finger in your cheeseburger or a rat’s tail in your fries?

Be turned into a frog for a year or a cane toad for a week?

Get hit by lightning or never use technology again?

Get a needle though the eye or have your bum set on fire?

Ride rodeo-style on the back of a great white shark or an angry rhino?

Wake up and you’re the only person left on earth, or die and everyone else survives?

Spend the night alone in a haunted house or run through a mall full of zombies?

Travel into the future or into the past? (And you can’t come back.)

Get hit by a speeding bus or sat on by an elephant?

Get trapped under ice or be buried alive?

Tightrope walk over a swimming pool of vomit or bungee jump over a volcano?

Put a thumbtack under your toenail and kick a concrete wall or have paper cuts all over your body and jump into a pool of lemon juice?