| dbp:shortSummary
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- 3.15576E9
- N/A (en)
- 24000.0
- Bessy is both wasteful and forgetful, who has a mountain of dirty clothes and garbage in her room. When her mother orders her to clean it by herself, Bessy falls in the pile and lands in an alternate universe where messy leprechauns live. (en)
- Pylon Gaslamp is a paranoid girl who invents superstitions, but when her parents disbelieve her, she begins her revenge by inventing several so she can get out of being bossed by her parents, and her parents believe every single lie. (en)
- Somewhere in the world is a house with a haunted room that has been locked for 75 years. One day, a deaf couple from New Zealand called Matt and Jodie purchase the house and celebrate the birth of their daughter Rosie, who grows up fascinated by the locked door. (en)
- Set in 1952 and in the style of the children books of Enid Blyton, Algie is visiting his aunt and uncle in Kent for the summer holidays with his dog Stinker and his best friend Col. They go on a picnic in the countryside with three of the neighbourhood kids and search for an adventure, later deciding to scrump from a nearby apple orchard but they are soon caught by its owner, an angry cider making farmer armed with a shotgun. (en)
- Monty tortures his sister Mayflower with traumatising pranks and decides to take them to the next level by buying a python to terrorise her more. (en)
- A man visited a bar and got into a fight with another customer, who fell to their death. In fear and shock, the man runs away to start a new life, but his guilt of manslaughter personifies into a shapeshifting poltergeist, only he can see and communicate with, that refuses to disappear unless he confesses to the police. (en)
- Seamus O'Burger, the CEO of the successful fast food restaurant, Burgerskip, plans to expand his empire by clearing the Amazon rainforest, but his tour guide begs him to reconsider because of a tree shrine dedicated to the indigenous Amazonians' deity that is in the bulldozing path. (en)
- An invisible, spaghetti-smelling force invites itself into the home of Timothy King, an aggressive child who violently refuses to eat whatever dinner his mother places in front of him. Meanwhile, an old, seemingly-abandoned food factory in Italy only comes to life in the dead of night once a year, but no one knows what happens inside. (en)
- Jack Delaunay de Havilland De Trop precociously interrupts conversations and frustrates his parents, Lord and Lady Delaunay de Havilland De Trop. At his little sister's birthday party, in walks their hired children's entertainer, Mr. Frankenstein, a ventriloquist. (en)
- There is an Icelandic legend about shapeshifting trolls that has terrified the country for over five centuries. Meanwhile, in present-day Britain, Simon gets in a sulk by throwing tantrums when he does not get his own way and is furious when his parents want to relocate to Devon, so he locks his door all night. (en)
- A girl called Poppy is given a new mobile phone with a camera and uses it to blackmail people around her. (en)
- Donald is a thumb sucker and has been since the day he was born. A midwife warns that there is a man who uses sucked thumbs to hold up the pastries of his pies, so Donald's parents become determined to stop him from sucking his thumbs, which backfires when they buy him a dummy. (en)
- Outside the Wellsdeep cottage in Devon, there is a well. Mrs. Halley begs her husband to cover it up before their two inquisitive-fingered grandsons arrive. After telling her that he will do it later numerous times, Mr. Halley is woken up by invisible forces touching him and laughter from outside. (en)
- Desperate to become famous, Amos marries and has a child, hoping that she will become the youngest genius in the world. However, creating a child genius out of a toddler alerts a supernatural old man, who visits her every year to help himself to her youth by plucking a hair from her head. (en)
- Felicity is a daddy's girl, much to her mother's annoyance, and is allowed to do and wear whatever she wants, but tensions arise when her mother considers buying "horrible" clothes from the mysterious Miss Shears. (en)
- At home, Willard is a science enthusiast, but at school, he is known as a popular globetrotter. He improvises far-fetched anecdotes outside of the classroom and the younger students envy his "exploits" but when Willard claims that he stole the sun and has it hidden in his house, an unconvinced girl in the audience dares him to prove it. (en)
- Delia is the daughter of university professors, so she believes she has a right to never study. One day, a substitute English teacher forces her to write an essay and Delia discovers her writing comes to life. (en)
- Two boys called Augustus and Arthur who have run away from their homes live together in an abandoned cottage. To pass the time, they decide to prank call all the emergency services. (en)
- Bill refuses to eat his vegetables and tries any absurd method he can think of to get rid of it. (en)
- Tom and Jerry are two brothers who despise each other to the point of their negative energy manifesting into an evergrowing wart. (en)
- A boy named Jumbo Ferrari wants a new "life suit". (en)
- A short story about a boy spitting. (en)
- Dee discovers The Bogeyman living inside her nose, who wants her to stop picking. (en)
- In this short story set in Victorian Britain, Polly Peach is a girl from a poor family who sells matchboxes for twopence, until the store owner cuts her pay to a penny. (en)
- An upper-middle-class couple arrive in Mr and Mrs Smith's council estate and decide to go fox hunting when they see the Smiths' pet fox, Elvis, in the kitchen. Mr and Mrs Smith's daughter Parker and Elvis scramble to create a plan to stop the event, through Elvis' cunning ways. (en)
- Herbert is allowed to eat as many cheese and onion crisps, because he wants and watches television all day, never leaving going to school as a result. A television malfunction sucks him inside and he has to try and escape before he turns into a crisp. (en)
- A cowboy arrives in The Cluck family's village of Dork, claiming to be the Son of God, and the townspeople believe every word he says. (en)
- Terry Blotch becomes a kleptomaniac after becoming jealous of a classmate's new popularity. Troubles begin when he steals "A. Phantom"'s PE kit from the school cloakroom. (en)
- A girl named Emily Stiff gets a new teddy bear from the latest popular brand but soon becomes bored with it and starts to vandalise it. (en)
- A short story about a father putting his son to bed as the son wonders whether if someone can tell whether they are still in a dream. (en)
- Lorelei Lee frequently pretends to be ill so that she can never go back to school. After momentarily being caught, a doctor recommends Dr Moribundus to her oblivious parents. (en)
- The town of Saucy by Sea is notorious for having the worst behaved children in the world, but the reputation is turning around, thanks to the town's new barber who offers free haircuts to the rudest of the schools, which change these children into completely different people. Peregrine and Tania are his next customers. (en)
- Gwendolyn Howling pretends to be a cry-baby so that she can get anything she wants. Her parents, who are both nervous wrecks, believe everything. (en)
- Brian is always daydreaming and one afternoon, it causes his head to snap off. (en)
- A girl named Dolores Bellicose enjoyed shouting because it made her the most heard person in her school. The school librarians are not impressed and plan to teach her a lesson. (en)
- Jack wants his mother to read him a story, but the book is upstairs, at the top of the staircase in the dark corridor. (en)
- Four centuries ago, an Indian village was terrorised by a large creature, known for kidnapping anyone who is still out at night. A tall farmer's son who is terrible at counting is the creature's next victim. (en)
- A boy named Jack Frost does not understand how horrible cold weather is, especially to the elderly. (en)
- A boy named Tom is never on time for anything in his life and when science discovers that the end of the world is imminent, Tom's mother is determined to make him on time for the evacuation spaceships. (en)
- Spike has an after-school job in a hairdresser's and falls in love with Esmerelda, a snooty, aspiring model. In order to get out of trouble with her parents, she asks Spike to shoplift special shampoo to prove his love for her. (en)
- Nigel is obsessed with hunting spiders and torturing them in numerous ways. When a pregnant spider named Ariadnae tries to find a new home in his bedroom, he burns her alive, but the ghosts of her children are born out of her corpse and are ready for revenge. (en)
- Hannibal loves to bite people but when his antics cause his parents to receive an expensive bill, they tell him that they hope bed bugs return the favour someday. (en)
- Greta Gawky is a tall girl at and very clumsy. After eventually managing to not break anything in her house for a while, her parents buy a porcelain figure from an ancient antique shop, which is based on the legend of The People Potter. (en)
- Two sisters named Kitty and Winnie who live in a country suffering from a severe drought ignore the Hosepipe ban and abuse their power over water for their entertainment. (en)
- A mean older sister named Cat Clore tries to coerce her siblings into doing her wishes. (en)
- An old man recounts the terrible memories he had from school lunchtimes, from the strict school dinner lady, to the actions of Elgin — a boy he used to sit next to, with a disturbing obsession with school dinners — and how it has impacted his relationship with meals. (en)
- A boy named Fick is tired of sharing everything with his twin brother Finn but then the family receives a mirror for Christmas. (en)
- School bully Johnny Bullneck and his malicious gang set upon the new bespectacled student with a trumpet case. (en)
- Shane and Sheila were once the most famous athletes in Australian history, but their children are not as lucky. Their daughter, Kitty, does not mind but their son, Bruce, is a failure at every sport he touches, and has become a sore loser as a result. (en)
- Daffyd Thomas used to suck his thumb but his thumb barely survived those days, now looking shrivelled and nail-less. Due to the lack of "affection", the thumb has a life of its own, making Daffyd fail to keep his hands to himself. His parents decide to go on holiday and leave him with his grandmother, which makes his hands fidget towards the telephone. (en)
- A paragraph-long story about a man frustrated about a chip growing out of his body. (en)
- Shannon Shellfish is empowered when her parents follow her demands but when they ask her what she wants, she is stunned, and soon becomes obsessed with a restaurant owner's lobster costume. (en)
- Cherie Stone tells her parents she refuses to eat fruit. (en)
- Joseph has a habit of ripping books apart and throwing them out of the window. When there are no books left in the house, he is sent to sleep in the cold, dark attic where he finds a book about goblins. (en)
- Jack is a huge fan of turkey meals. His parents are tired of them, so his father waits on a neighbour's roof during the late evening of Christmas Eve for Father Christmas to help them stop Jack's eating taste. The magic of Christmas creates a giant, one-legged, talking turkey, who visits Jack and takes him on a journey. (en)
- A boy named Sammy Slitherall becomes smug when he is picked as a team mascot. (en)
- Thomas Rachet causes trouble in supermarkets, embarrassing his submissive mother, because he wants sweets. After a terrible shopping day, Thomas runs away and finds himself in a sweet shop with an old shopkeeper and his creepy mannequins. (en)
- A frail, doddery king forgets his reading glasses at his newborn son's naming ceremony and misreads his speech sheet, naming his son Noman instead of Norman. The mistake causes the newborn baby's body to go invisible. (en)
- A boy named William is determined to be the Conkers king of the school playground so he sneaks out of his house at midnight to destroy every conker tree in the area, angering a hermit who lives in a treehouse. (en)
- Helen enjoys going to the toilet so that she can escape doing chores. One morning, her mother loses her temper and threatens her to wash the dishes, otherwise The Bogman will come for her. (en)
- King Basil of Ruritania dies but with no heirs, the government advertises the available position. In a neighbouring country, its prince—nicknamed The Black Knight—plans to invade and take over the monarchy. (en)
- Alexander refuses to go to bed, wanting to never sleep again, and is visited by Mr Peeler, a character from a nursery rhyme who steals sleep from children who hate going to bed early. (en)
- The bin was such a successful invention, rats have become extinct and the streets are full of waste mountains. Bunty is a greedy girl who dumps her rubbish anywhere to the point of the mountains being too large for anyone else to leave their houses. She becomes the government's most wanted criminal. (en)
- A short fact sheet about seven ghosts: Old Hollow Legs, Nostalgic Nora, Transparent Tony, The Headless Coachman, The Bemuda Triangle, Henry Fink's smelly remains, and Smudger. (en)
- Fairies visit a boy named Hemp Sock when he envies his sister Moonunit's hair. (en)
- The spoilt children of the Crumpdump family called Belinda and Percy demand their parents for an elephant so their father compromises by having one killed and its foot turned into an umbrella stand, which they discover has magical powers. (en)
- The closest affection Chico gets is from the pictures he draws on his bedroom wall, which his snobbish, workaholic parents quickly wash off as they call him a nuisance. One day, Chico's drawings come to life and show him their world. (en)
- A short story about an ambulance failing to rescue a patient in time. (en)
- When Benjamin learnt how to walk, he found a top hat that his uncle had given to his parents as a birthday gift. After it breaks from its age years later, Benjamin hopes that his sixth birthday will grant him good fortune, but he is furious when his parents admit that they were unable to find any shops that sell top hats, so he decides to ruin his birthday party as revenge. (en)
- A boy Nobby finds it hard to distinguish whether he is in a dream or not, but Sophie really is the girl of his dreams. (en)
- Bertie's parents are ashamed their son refuses to keep himself clean and hope that he will change his mind one day so other people will want to interact with him, but an alien that has crash-landed in their garden will prove someone in the universe is not bothered by Bertie's filthiness. (en)
- In the city, a boy named Trueman "Truffle" Snuffle makes his parents do everything for him. In nearby farmland, piglets starve as their greedy family members push them out of the way to get a bigger helping in the trough. (en)
- A girl called Mattie enjoys torturing/killing moles. (en)
- A chocolate factory momentarily ceases production after a fly infiltrates the production line. The contaminated chocolate bunny is bought by the mother of Serena Slurp, a greedy chocoholic who bullies , her sister. When Serena catches accidentally breaking a fly swatter, agrees to become Serena's slave in exchange for not being snitched on to mother. (en)
- The Burglar family welcome a new son named Billy and his father cannot wait to teach him the family's tricks. (en)
- The greedy Ethel Turnip discovers a newspaper advert about a farm that breeds animal stomachs so she orders her parents to buy one in time for Christmas, but she regrets this decision almost immediately after the stomach is delivered. (en)
- Nick never wears shoes and always walks around in his socks. When the washing machine malfunctions, he discovers that one of his precious socks have disappeared, so he sets out to look for them. (en)
- A boy named Bart Thumper uses flatulence to get his way. (en)
- Girl Pinchgut enjoyed destroying children's imaginations, but when she tells her brother the Tooth Fairy is a tall tale, the Tooth Fairy plans her revenge. (en)
- In a Welsh cottage lives Hugh, a selfish, lisping giant who keeps growing. The more he grows, the greedier he becomes and the wetter the world gets. (en)
- Stefan, a frequent prank caller, wants to do more impressions, such as Queen Elizabeth II, and decides to take a gas tank full of helium from a "gas man". (en)
- Garth MacQueen tries to get his baby sister Moira kidnapped when his family hear about wolves terrorising their neighbourhood. (en)
- A girl named Holly Hotlips wants to have her first kiss and is visited by a two-faced fairy, who gives her advice and some makeup to look prettier. (en)
- A young girl named Scabbi gets a surprise visit from a sentient robot named Recyclops, who teaches her how not to waste one's possessions when there's nothing wrong with them. (en)
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