‘Are we there yet?’ says Terry (for about the 50 millionth time).
‘Almost,’ I say. ‘Just a few more steps.’
‘Look,’ says Jill. ‘There’s the nest!’
‘Can you see my tooth?’ I say.
‘No,’ says Jill. ‘Just a bunch of the cutest baby birds I’ve ever seen!’
We climb up a few more thousand steps until we are right across from the nest. But there’s a big gap between the staircase and the nest. And a long drop back down to the ground.
‘How are we going to get across?’ says Terry. ‘It’s much too far to jump.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘It didn’t look this far when we were looking up at it from the forest.’
Q Why did the golfer wear two pairs of pants?
A In case she got a hole in one.
‘What about your emergency inflatable underpants, Terry?’ says Jill. ‘We could whoosh across in those.’
‘I’m not wearing them,’ he says. ‘They got a puncture when we used them to sail to the desert island in the last book. But I am wearing my emergency inflatable ears.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ I say. ‘Emergency inflatable ears?! That’s the dumbest thing you’ve come up with since the Ninja Snail Training Academy.’
‘Yeah, but my Ninja Snails saved the day,’ says Terry, ‘just like my emergency inflatable ears will. Watch this!’
He takes a deep breath, concentrates hard and then ...
his ears inflate to about a thousand times their normal size!
Q What did the earwig say as it fell off the cliff?
A ‘Ear we go!’
‘See?’ he says. ‘I told you!’
‘You look so cute with big ears,’ says Jill. ‘Just like Dumbo the flying elephant!’
‘Yeah, he looks dumb all right,’ I say. ‘But what use are they?’
‘Well,’ says Terry, ‘they’re flappable and really good for getting from, say, the steps of a never-ending staircase across to, say, a bird’s nest. Climb into my ear and I’ll take us there right now. Everybody ready? Ear we go!’
Terry launches himself from the staircase and starts flapping his ears as fast as he can.
Q How do you tell if there is an elephant in your fridge?
A The door won’t shut.
‘Prepare the cabin for landing,’ says Terry. ‘Please ensure tray tables are closed and seats are upright. Thank you for flying Terry D Earlines.’
‘What tray tables?’ I say. ‘What seats? All I had to sit on was this disgusting lump of ear wax!’
‘Hey!’ says Terry. ‘I heard that!’
Q Why are elephants wrinkled?
A Because they don’t fit on ironing boards.
Terry lands in the nest with a bump and Jill and I fall out of his ears.
We are immediately surrounded by a bunch of noisy baby birds, all pecking at us.
Terry’s emergency inflatable ears don’t stand a chance against the baby birds’ sharp beaks.
‘Hey, those baby birds just popped my ears!’ says Terry.
‘Yes, they’re very pecky,’ says Jill.
‘I hate pecky birds,’ I say. ‘Let’s look for my tooth and get out of here as fast as we can.’
Q What did the balloon say to the pin?
A ‘Hi, Buster!’
‘I think we may have to put off the tooth-hunt for the moment,’ says Jill. ‘Here comes the mother bird!’
‘Eeek!’ I say. ‘Its beak looks even sharper and pointier than the baby birds’ beaks. And much bigger!’
‘Can you talk to it, Jill?’ says Terry.
‘Not while we’re in her nest,’ says Jill. ‘If she sees us, she’s going to peck first and ask questions later. Worm-snatchers are very protective of their young. We have to hide!’
‘But there’s nowhere to hide!’ I say.
‘In that case,’ says Jill, ‘we’ll just have to pretend to be baby birds and hope she doesn’t notice.’
We crouch down, put our hands on our hips and move our elbows back and forth.
‘Cock-a-doodle-doo!’ says Terry.
Q If a rooster laid a brown egg and a white egg, what kind of chicks would hatch?
A None, roosters can’t lay eggs.
‘You’re supposed to be pretending to be a baby worm-snatcher, Terry,’ says Jill. ‘Not a rooster!’
‘Oops,’ says Terry. ‘How about this: Peep! Peep! Peep!’
‘Much better!’ says Jill. ‘I mean, Peep! Peep! Peep!’
The mother worm-snatcher lands, gripping the side of the nest with her enormous talons. Her beak is full of wriggling, writhing worms.
The peep-peep-peeping of the baby worm-snatchers is deafening. They all crane their necks to the sky and open their beaks wide. We do the same (except we have mouths, not beaks).
The mother worm-snatcher opens her beak and fresh, wriggling worms come raining down into our open mouths.
Q What do you get if you cross a worm and an elephant?
A Very big wormholes in your garden.
Erk! My mouth is full of cold, dirty, wriggling worms! Yuck! I’m trying not to chew or swallow them but it’s not easy. It’s like they want to wriggle down my throat.
But, weirdly, Terry doesn’t seem to mind them at all. He’s slurping them up like he’s eating spaghetti!
At last, the mother bird runs out of worms, flaps her enormous wings and flies away.
‘Yuck!’ I say, spitting out the worms as fast as I can.
Q What did the worm say to the other worm when he was late home?
A ‘Where in earth have you been?’
‘Double yuck!’ says Jill, spitting hers out too. ‘No offence to worms.’
Terry doesn’t spit his out, though. His mouth is still full—so full, in fact, that there’s a worm hanging out of it.
One of the baby worm-snatchers snatches the end of the worm and starts pulling on it.
Terry pulls back.
The bird pulls harder.
Terry pulls harder.
Q What is the laziest mountain in the world?
A Mount Ever-rest.
‘Look at this, Jill,’ I say. ‘Terry is having a tug of worm with a baby bird.’
‘Oh, come on, Terry,’ says Jill. ‘Let the baby bird have the worm.’
‘But it’s my worm,’ Terry mumbles through a mouthful of worms. ‘Mother gave it to me!’
While Terry is talking, the baby bird seizes its chance and snatches the worm and swallows it in one greedy gulp.
‘Hey!’ says Terry. ‘That’s not fair!’
‘Yes, it is,’ says Jill, ‘because you’re not really a baby bird and that mother bird was not really your mother.’
‘I know,’ sighs Terry. ‘But I am really hungry.’
‘So am I!’ I say. ‘But it doesn’t change the fact that worms taste awful. I mean, that baby worm-snatcher over there is being sick. Not even worm-snatchers like worms!’
Q How do you tell which end of a worm is which?
A Tickle it in the middle and see which end laughs.
‘It’s not being sick,’ says Jill. ‘It’s choking! It must have tried to eat too many worms at once. Stand back, I’m going to perform the Wormlich manoeuvre!’
Jill picks up the bird, holds it upside down and squeezes it gently.
The bird coughs up a bunch of worms, including one with a really big white head and an extremely thin body. In fact, it doesn’t look so much like a worm as a piece of string. A piece of string that is attached to ...
MY TOOTH!
‘I found my tooth!’ I say.
‘That must be what it was choking on,’ says Jill.
Q What do you give a sick bird?
A Tweetment.
‘Yay!’ says Terry. ‘Now all our problems are solved.’
‘Well, not all of them,’ I say. ‘We’re still stuck in a nest on the top of Mount Everest with no way of getting down.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ says Terry. ‘But hang on ... worms are really stretchy. When the mother bird comes back with another load of worms, we could tie them all together and make a worm-bungee to lower us safely back down to the ground.’
‘We can’t do that!’ says Jill. ‘That’s cruelty to worms!’
‘Maybe,’ says Terry, ‘but we’d be saving them from being eaten by birds, so we’d sort of be doing them a favour.’
‘No, we wouldn’t,’ says Jill. ‘Birds eating worms is nature’s way; tying worms together to make a worm-bungee is not.’
Q What reads and lives in an apple?
A A bookworm.
At that moment we hear the sound of flapping wings and a mighty RAWK. We all turn around. The mother worm-snatcher is back—and she’s seen us!
She dips her head down and swoops towards us.
‘So long, Andy and Jill!’ says Terry. ‘It’s been nice knowing you.’
‘You too,’ says Jill. ‘And you too, Andy.’
But before I can reply, the baby bird that Jill saved flutters in between us and the mother bird. It peep-peep-peeps loudly and quickly.
Q What bird movie won an Oscar?
A Lord of the Wings.
‘What’s happening, Jill?’ says Terry. ‘What’s the baby bird saying?’
‘It’s telling its mother how we saved it from choking,’ says Jill.
The mother bird turns to us. ‘RAWK! RAWK! RAWK!’ she rawks.
‘What does that mean, Jill?’ I say. ‘Is it good or bad?’
‘It’s good,’ says Jill. ‘Very good. She says she is extremely grateful and that if there’s ever anything she can do to repay us for our quick thinking and kindness, we only have to ask.’
Q What do you get if you cross a parrot with a shark?
A A bird that will talk your ear off.
‘Do you think she could give us a lift back down to the treehouse?’ I say.
‘I’ll ask her,’ says Jill. She turns to the mother bird. ‘Rawk rawk rawk?’
The mother bird rawks back at her.
‘She says yes, she’d be happy to,’ says Jill.
We climb up onto the mother bird’s back. The feathers are hard and slippery and very difficult to hold on to.
‘We can use the string as a set of reins,’ says Jill, throwing it around the bird’s neck. ‘Everybody ready? Let’s fly!’
The worm-snatcher flaps her wings, alights from the nest and begins a rapid descent.
Q What language do birds speak?
A Pigeon English.
Down and down and down we fly.
Q What is the most uncomfortable of all birds?
A A wedgie-tailed eagle.
Q Which bird is always out of breath?
A A puffin.
Q What is a bird’s favourite part of the TV news?
A The feather forecast.
and down until we reach the ground. We climb off the bird and Jill thanks her.
They have a long rawking conversation and then the bird rawks gratefully at us one last time and takes off again.
‘What were you and the bird rawking about?’ I say.
‘She said that if we ever needed her help again, all we have to do is rawk,’ says Jill. ‘What a big adventure we’ve had! I’m going to go straight home and tell my animals all about it.’
Q Why did the bird bring toilet paper to the party?
A Because it was a party-pooper.