The Birthday Wars Read online

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  True! It’s a huge disaster (although I’m pretty sure that llama story is made up). But this is even worse than the time those two kids ruined the school fete when they hid a ghost in a jar of haunted stink cheese and the whole school smelled like dead seagull for a week.

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  Umm … that was us.

  Anyway, you don’t need to worry. There’s always a solution to every problem, or as the old saying goes, ‘behind every rainbow is a fried cat’. We can totally figure this birthday mess out. Because I’m a captain, I’ve had a lot of practice solving problems and as usual I have a brilliant, inspired, most fantastic, amazing and tremendous plan.

  Do you want to hear it?

  Yours positively,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Alice,

  It sounds like you do! Okay then, here it is … we have A CAKE-OFF. ‘A Cake-Off?’ I hear you ask … (I didn’t actually hear you ask that because you sit on the other side of the classroom and you didn’t actually know I was about to suggest a Cake-Off when I wrote it.) ANYWAY. That’s how we’ll solve this—we’ll have a Cake-Off. Tell me if you know what that is, and if not, I’ll explain.

  Yours bakingly,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Of course I know what a CAKE-OFF is! It’s a cake-making competition, like on that awesome TV show Cake Fail! Cake Fail is only like my absolutely favourite show on Notflix! I just looooooove it! I’ve pretty much seen every episode :)

  We should totally have a Cake-Off to sort this out. This is like the FIRST great suggestion you’ve EVER made that didn’t involve something TOTALLY RANDOM, like a seahorse or a giant flying crab or whatever.

  A Cake-Off is DEFINITELY the fairest thing to do. I don’t want you to be upset when you lose, though, because I’m PRETTY AMAZING at making cakes, so you WILL DEFINITELY lose :( But that’s okay, because as Princess Snow Cone always says, ‘losers are just winners that didn’t win.’

  So let’s agree that the winner will the birthday date and the loser will move their party. What an awesome idea!

  I can’t believe I thought of it!

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  You didn’t think of it! Read back over these letters and you will plainly see that I suggested a Cake-Off. Also, you are not the only person who has seen literally EVERY episode of Cake Fail. I’m a big fan. And it’s not so surprising as you might think. Girls always take over stuff boys were into first and then pretend it’s girl stuff, and cakes are no exception. For example, here’s a list of things that were originally boy things until girls took them over:

  Pink (This is totally true. In the olden days, only boys wore pink and then girls stole it.)

  Heaps of good names were stolen by girls, like Allison, Beverly, Carol and Fifi Trixibelle Sparkle Face.

  Ballet (The first ballerinas were all big muscly dudes that looked like sumo wrestlers.)

  Unicorns (The first unicorns were actually ridden by soldiers in the Middle Ages.)

  So I’ll have you know that I’m a total expert on Cake Fail. I watch it pretty much every week with Casper N and Conrad. My favourite bit is when they give some totally random cake challenge, like making a cake in the shape of a vomiting giraffe, and they always mess it up.

  Anyway, I’m AWESOME at making cakes. I’ve invented heaps of new cake flavours that no one has ever heard of, like salt-and-vinegar cake and chocolate gherkin cake. So watch out!

  Yours inventively,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  P.S. Now we need to select judges, I think Conrad and Casper N, because they’re both experts too.

  Those cake flavour inventions sound really, really bad :( If you make a cake like that, you will totally lose. A cake can’t just look good, it has to taste good too! I guess I want you to lose, so go ahead.

  Now about these judges, we do need to select judges but I don’t think choosing Casper N and Conrad would be very fair because they’re mostly YOUR friends. So you can only have of them. I would have chosen Jenny Philpot but since she got bumped to number 5 friend, I’m thinking it’ll probably be Emily Hoskins. Then we need a third judge. Someone who will be fair … I know! Ms Fennel! Okay, it’s decided. I will ask Ms Fennel after class.

  Dear Alice,

  I don’t know if Ms Fennel is actually fair. I think she likes you MUCH better than me because you’re always sucking up to her by NOT swinging on your chair or NOT inventing Russian words instead of doing your maths or NOT mashing all the glue-tack together to make a sculpture of Captain Cook.

  I also notice that she gives you WAY more class points than me. Like right now, you have three gold stars on your T-shirt, and I have none and I’ve been pretty amazing today.

  Yours competitively,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Too late! I already asked Ms Fennel and she agreed! I was chatting to her at lunchtime while I was picking up that people left in the playground and I told her all about our fun little competition and she said she’d love to be a judge (she also gave me another class point for helping, so make that a total of . Anyway, turns out she’s a MASSIVE fan of Cake Fail too! Oh, this will be sooooo much fun and also when you lose it will totally sort out this birthday mess :)

  P.S. I just want you to know that when I say I’m going to win, I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just that I AM EXCELLENT AT MAKING CAKES. I’m not going to hide my light under a bushel.

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  I don’t think you know what a bushel is. I’m a bit of an expert on weird olden-days stuff, so let me tell you it’s a basket full of crabs. If you don’t believe me, just google it. If you put a light under a basket of crabs, you would probably start a crab stampede and people could get hurt.

  In other news, we need to work out what cake we’re going to make. I have three excellent suggestions:

  1. Ancient Mayan temple

  2. Antarctic explorer’s frostbitten foot

  3. Patagonian Toothfish.

  Yours creatively,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  I don’t think we will use any of those ideas of yours because, let me think … oh yeah … they’re But don’t worry. I have sooooo many amazing ideas for cakes :) Here are my top three ideas for a cake challenge:

  1. Unicorn with a long edible mane and a flashing horn

  2. A giant fairy cupcake that you can climb inside and jump out of

  3. Rainbow Panda.

  Dear Alice,

  I will not be making any of the cakes on your list, although I would totally like to jump out of a cake, but not THAT cake. We need to think of something we BOTH want to make. I know! You write one thing on a piece of paper and I’ll write one thing, and then we’ll put it together. That’s fair, right?

  Yours fairly,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  That’s so random! A glitter-Octo-Pug-with-chicken-pox cake! I have never heard of a cake like that before, but you know what? I think it sounds weird but also amazing. I’m feeling really inspired.

  Also, I like winning and I’m so happy we’ll soon have this awful birthday mess sorted and get back to party planning. Time to shine!

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  P.S. Did you get a class point today? Or is that just banana on your shirt? I can’t tell.

  Dear Alice,

  I heard you at lunch telling Conrad and Lucas Terrazzo that now it was safe to RSVP to YOUR party because there’s no way I can win. Well, I’m sorry to say that you haven’t won the Cake-Off yet and you won’t.

  Now, about the cakes. We’ll need to bring the cakes in on Monday morning. My mum said I’m not allowed to use the kitchen during the week because I made a really big mess the other day. I was trying to invent a whole new kind of food that is invisible and floats but t
astes like buttered corn, but it didn’t really work out because Mum said I was chucking corn everywhere, but that wasn’t even true because I was actually testing its gravitational pull. Anyway, Mum said I can only use the kitchen on Sundays now.

  Yours messily,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  P.S. It’s banana, thanks for noticing. I noticed YOU have two more class points today … or is that vomit?

  Dear Jimmy,

  Monday is fine. I can totally bring in my amazing cake on Monday. I’ve also made cool score cards for our judges :)

  About these class points … I DID get two gold stars today! Yay! Thanks for noticing! I actually got them for writing these letters to you! Ms Fennel said she’s really happy to see that we’re still writing to each other and that letter-writing is a great way to express our creativity.

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  You got a class point for writing letters to me??? I didn’t get one! My letters are way better than yours, so where are my gold stars??? I’m making a formal complaint. But I might wait until after Monday so Ms Fennel’s not cross when she judges my cake. Okay, it’s nearly the weekend and I can’t wait!

  Tomorrow Casper N is coming over to investigate a sinkhole that’s opened up in my baby sister Maisy’s room and will probably swallow the whole suburb, and on Sunday it’s cake-making time. See you Monday! And prepare to eat my dust.

  Yours formally,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  It’s funny you say that! Actually, dust is EXACTLY what I’m expecting your cake will taste like!

  Even though I don’t want you to win, you really should try and make it taste good. Cakes are a bit like people—it’s what’s on the inside that counts (sort of, I mean the outside is also REALLY important and should be as sparkly as possible LIKE ME!).

  I have a super-busy weekend too. I’m going to CakeLand, which is this amazing baking shop, to get all my supplies. Then I have Science Girls and Irish Dancing and four playdates. Sunday is my cake-baking day too. I can’t wait!

  I will see you on Monday. Prepare to be AMAZED!

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  CAKE-OFF! CAKE-OFF! CAKE-OFF!

  JIMMY AND ALICE’S CAKE-OFF!

  Chef: Captain Jimmy Cook

  Appearance:

  Taste:

  Effort:

  COMMENTS:

  Emily Hoskins: It looked like you ran over an octopus and then jumped on it wearing moon boots! But it tastes totally AMAZING! YUM! Can I have some more mashed octopus cake?

  Conrad: Jimmy’s cake looks like a pug vomited a rainbow but it sure tastes delicious!

  Ms Fennel: Jimmy, I was sorry to hear you dropped the cake on the way to school. You clearly put in a lot of work and you should be proud of yourself. I don’t think it looked too bad, very colourful! It certainly tasted wonderful and I might even have a little more cake mash with my cup of tea at lunch. Good job. A class point for your fine effort.

  CAKE-OFF! CAKE-OFF! CAKE-OFF!

  JIMMY AND ALICE’S CAKE OFF!

  Chef: Alice Toolie

  Appearance:

  Taste:

  Effort:

  COMMENTS:

  Emily Hoskins: OMG Alice. I nearly died when I saw your cake. It’s like the cutest thing ever! Its cute pug eyes and all those sparkly tentacles!!! Amazing! But WHY did it taste so disgusting?

  Conrad: SO CUTE! I want a pet octo-pug now! I’m sorry to say, though, it tastes like an octo-pug poo.

  Ms Fennel: Oh dear, Alice! You clearly put so much effort into your wonderful cake! But I think you may have mixed the salt up with the sugar, because it was a very salty octopus! Well done. I am also pleased to see you and Jimmy are making an effort to find things in common. I have a class point for your efforts too.

  Dear Alice,

  You look pretty sad about your cake. Don’t be too upset. I’m sorry that your cake tasted like a sea sponge, but it did look brilliant! I was TOTALLY impressed when you did your big reveal. You even had sparkly little cake lights on the tentacles! The big pug bug eyes were funny too.

  I know you’re really upset that it tasted like a sea cucumber, but when I first tasted it, I thought it was genius to make an octopus cake taste like an octopus. Are you sure it was a mistake? I think you should have gotten extra points for that, although I’m sort of glad you didn’t because it means you didn’t win.

  Yours reasonably,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Thank you for your letter. Yes, I was VERY, VERY UPSET about the cake disaster :( And for your information, I did not intend for my amazing rainbow octo-pug cake to taste like a sea monster! I guess Ms Fennel’s right and I did use salt instead of sugar! How bad :( Your cake looked TERRIBLE and even though I wanted to beat you, I felt bad that it got dropped on the way to school. How did that even happen? Is it really true you were attacked by ninja swamp chickens??? Still, it tasted heaps better than mine :( I’m also sad because since no one won the competition, we STILL have this problem about the birthday party! Plus, I even heard that one of the kids said they weren’t going to my party now because they didn’t want to eat salty birthday cake!

  Dear Alice,

  Don’t worry if people say mean stuff like that.

  Let me tell you a little story …

  Once there was an elephant called Plimmy (I think you’ve met him before!) and he had this sometimes-friend who was a howler monkey mermaid named Balice Poolie. One day, Balice and Plimmy had really cold necks so they knitted a big long scarf out of seaweed and Christmas lights and jungle vines. But it turned out they weren’t actually vines, they were really venomous alien snakes that Balice just thought were vines.

  So as soon as the scarf was finished, it started biting them and then it started biting all the animals in the jungle and everyone it bit started to smell like dead seagulls and say random stuff like, ‘SIT DOWN CABBAGE HEAD,’ and ‘I EAT CLAY’ and stuff like that.

  Anyway, the animals were all super cross because they didn’t want to smell like dead seagulls and say random things, so they all ganged up on Balice and Plimmy and started throwing atomic mud.

  But then Plimmy activated a reverse magnetic forcefield that made all the mud just bounce off and land back on the animals. Also, the atomic mud was really sticky, so they all got stuck except for Plimmy and Balice Poolie.

  Yours randomly,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Thank you for your Plimmy story. I think the moral is, don’t throw atomic mud? Or maybe don’t knit scarves with snakes? Anyway, it was WEIRD, but also nice :) It’s true, you really can’t let other people get you down. I guess I was just so excited about my cake being the best that when it turned out to be a total flop, I felt really bad. But I never stay upset for long. So it’s time to dust myself off and get back on the old unicorn. There’s really NO TIME to be moping around anyway, because I have a birthday to plan! Also, I know how we can sort out who gets the birthday date! We can just do Eeny Meeny Miny Moe! It’s simple and it always works. Why didn’t I think of that earlier???

  Yours troolie,

  Alice Toolie

  Dear Alice,

  Nice try! Eeny Meeny Miny Moe is not fair. It’s totally rigged and in some countries it’s actually against the law. I once knew a kid who used Eeny Meeny Miny Moe to get everything he wanted. He had five sportscars, a lollipop factory and a castle made of cheese. I think he actually ended up becoming the king of some island because he cheated with Eeny Meeny Miny Moe. So there’s NO WAY I’m falling for that one.

  I know! How about we guess how many jelly beans are in a tin? That’s very hard to cheat at. I even heard the smartest computer robot in the world can’t guess it properly. The winner can also get the jelly beans for their party!

  Yours guessingly,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  Actually, that’s a pretty good idea :)


  Guessing jelly beans is a really fair way of deciding who gets to keep their birthday party (ME) and who has to push off (YOU).

  Dear Alice,

  It’s great that we can finally agree on how to sort this birthday mess out.

  So here are the rules: We both get ONE guess about how many beans there are, and the winner is the winner.

  NO QUESTIONS.

  NO ARGUMENTS.

  NO SOOKING.

  I’ve put some beans in a tin already (I found them squashed at the bottom of my schoolbag), so I’ll go first. My guess is … 3. You can’t guess the same number.

  Yours administratively,

  Captain Jimmy Cook

  Dear Jimmy,

  That’s not how it works!

  There are ONLY 3 jelly beans in the tin so far, because YOU ONLY PUT 3 jelly beans in—anyone can see that!

  We need way more beans before we can start guessing. Lucky for you, I’ve got heaps of jelly beans left over from Halloween last year, so I’ll bring them in tomorrow.

  Dear Alice,

  Fine, if you want to be like that, I will bring in some more jelly beans tomorrow too. We always have some hiding in the first-aid kit at home. I don’t know why my mum keeps them there, but she says they’re for emergencies only (which I guess this is, so it should be okay).