Fearsome Tales for Fiendish Kids is a 1996 children's black comedy horror book written by British author Jamie Rix. It is the third book in the Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids series. It was published by Hodder Children's Books and was the last in the series to be published before the animated series adaption by CiTV (and later, Nickelodeon), containing 16 short stories—one story more than the previous two books.
Synopsis
The Cat Burglar Fedora Funklefink is a notorious con artist who uses any way she can to avoid responsibilities or get rich quick. She forces girls to pay to use the girls' toilets, forges her mother's handwriting so that she could sit out of P. E. lessons, makes other schoolchildren pay to lick her mints, refuses to let her father use his car until he paid her for cleaning the windscreen, and uses mirrors in exams to cheat. On the way to plan her next get-rich-quick scheme, she spots a poster for a missing cat, offering a £10 reward. She rips the poster off, runs home, changes into a "hunting" costume, and kidnaps a black stray behind her garden. The mother of the missing cat's owner answers the front door when Fedora goes to deliver but her daughter, Angela Tearful, runs out past her mother, excited about reuniting with her cat, and sobs when she sees the black stray. Believing Tearful to be insane, Fedora sneaks away with the cat to try something else.
The black stray is given a makeover with paints, boot polish and anything Fedora can find until it matched the description on the poster. However, Angela and her mother are not convinced, possibly because the "makeup" was dripping and Funklefink's clothes were covered in it. The next day, she returns with a white Persian cat but she is denied money. Then Fedora returned with a dog, then a tennis racket, and then a pepperoni pizza, but Angela's mother yells "NO!" and slams the door every time. Fedora finally leaves, officially out of ideas and reluctantly decides to abandon the plan. Suddenly, a cat jumps out of a bush and is ran over by a car. It has white paws, a black tail, a marmalade body, and a diamond shape on its forehead. Fedora realises it is Angela's missing cat and takes her home to look alive with a bicycle pump. "Not you again," groans Angela's mother when she sees Fedora outside her the front door. Fedora shows off the dead cat and uses it as a ventriloquist's dummy to convince the family to hand her £20. Angela decides to give Fedora a £50 note and takes the cat in for a bath.
Fedora runs off to laugh maniacally about scamming yet another group of people and sees another poster for a missing cat on the same tree she found the previous with a reward of £5000. Fedora salivates thinking about how she will spend £5000 and hears purring behind her. She turns gleefully to find a circus tiger, which eats her whole. The circus owner later finds the tiger asleep from a stomach ache.
Mr. Peeler's Butterflies
Alexander uses numerous tactics to stay awake past his 7:30pm bedtime by pestering his exhausted parents, such as taking time to put on a swimming costume, pretending to be interested in minute details of keeping his bedroom protected from creepy shadows, forcing his mother to search for his toys downstairs that he knowingly had in his room, and asking for water a few minutes later so that he could pretend to use the toilet. His parents (particularly his father) become angrier by the second, but Alexander does not break his naivety ploy.
By four o'clock, Alexander is asleep. His window latch creaks open and a sardine smell fills the bedroom. He wakes up terrified and calls for his parents. His father rushes in angrily and checks the window—it was closed—but only his mother admits she can smell the sardine, despite his father finding a sardine tin. Alexander denies throwing it there for a prank. "Then who did? Mr Peeler?" shouts his father, and then explains to his confused wife that Peeler was a character from a nursery rhyme he remembers from childhood. He leaves the room, followed by his wife, demanding Alexander to not bother them again for the rest of the night.
The window latch reopens and in creeps a man dressed in tweed clothing and holding a butterfly net with strange-looking butterflies surrounding him. He introduces himself as Mr Peeler. Alexander declares that he is not scared because he is still wearing his swimming costume. Peeler points out that he cannot call for his parents regardless because they are in a deep sleep. He moves to Alexander's bedside and explains he wants to help the boy stay awake, and takes out a key that opens sardine tins. With the key, he peels off Alexander's eyelids and uses the net to catch the rest of his butterflies, and dissects them into eyelids to stick onto his face, with Alexander's on the top. He floats into the air as he gloats, reopens the window and flies out, leaving a regretful Alexander with no eyelids, unable to sleep again.
Fat Boy with a Trumpet [a true story] An anonymous student recounts the time the worst bully in their school is finally defeated. The bully in question is Johnny Bullneck, a pale-skinned, overweight and angry-looking twelve-year-old who enjoyed interrogating students at random and torturing them if one of their answers displeases him. One anecdote features Johnny ordering a boy named Miles to sneak out of school and look for three gallons of polka dot paint; the narrator adds that they and the rest of school believe that Miles is too embarrassed to return empty-handed because after he obeys, he is never seen again, and is rumoured to have relocated to Darlington under an alias.
One day, an overweight, bespectacled boy becomes a new student to the narrator's class, who carries a trumpet case. His name is Timothy and he becomes famous for performing for everyone on the playground. Johnny approaches him on the outskirts of the school grounds and orders him to remove his clothes so that Johnny and his gang can take a mandatory "medical photo". When Timothy obeys, the school bell rings and Timothy is given detention from the headmaster. Johnny continues to target Timothy, forcing him to take laxatives, stealing his glasses, and name-calling him about his weight. A girl named Tina briefly confronts Johnny and snatches Timothy's glasses out of his hand so Johnny decides to take the trumpet case instead. Timothy roars at Johnny and holds the trumpet case tightly, snapping Johnny into a sulking silence for a week and stunning the petrified audience into awe.
Johnny garners permission to borrow the school's cricket equipment and waits for school to finish. When school is over, it begins to thunderstorm as Timothy walks past. Johnny's gang jumps out of the shadows to roll him through mud and tie him up, positioning him in front of the goal net. Johnny appears and gloats about having the upper hand, taking Timothy's glasses and trumpet case as he explains his revenge plan: attempting to play Timothy's trumpet as his gang throws cricket balls at Timothy like a firing squad. Johnny puts on the glasses and takes out the trumpet, and begins to play as Timothy tries to see through his blurry vision. A lightning flash hits close to the ground and Johnny 's gang run away screaming as the rain stops. It becomes clear enough for Timothy to see Johnny's charred corpse with the rings of Timothy's glasses glowing red around his eyes. In the epilogue, the narrator recalls no one seeming mournful when the next school assembly announces Johnny's death, but personally admits they wish that Johnny had suffered longer during the accident because the headmaster had claimed it happened "in a flash".
The Chipper Chums Go Scrumping Back in 1952, Algie visited his aunt Fanny and uncle Herbert, with his pet dog Stinker and his best friend Col in Kent for their summer holidays. They had created a gang, named The Chipper Chums, with three of the neighbourhood kids: the children of a Royal Navy captain, Alice and her older brother Ginger; and gentle giant tomboy Sam, "a girl with a boy's name" who slapped Dick Stick, the son of an underclass rat skin seller, for teasing her.
One morning before breakfast, Algie and Col decide to go on a picnic and look for an adventure. Aunt Fanny offers to pack them scones and Herbert's tomatoes; Ginger and Alice's mother gives them gingerbread men, and Sam's mother gives them a Victoria sponge cake. The group cycle through the fields and stop by a river next to an apple orchard. They decide to open the hamper and eat despite the time being 11am and find scones covered in clotted cream, sardine sandwiches, a tin of spam, ginger beer and Uncle Herbert's tomatoes, along with the other families' donations. After finishing the picnic, the hot sun makes the children drowsy, and they fall asleep. The sun disappears behind a cloud when they wake up and Algie is disappointed that Sam (the noted logical member of the gang) suggests leaving for home despite only eaten lunch. Col suggests fishing from a string in his pocket and a stick he could look for by the riverbank, but the ultimate decision is given to Alice, who wants an apple from the orchard. Col is hesitant to scrump but Ginger and Algie point out that the orchard is too big for the owner to notice four missing apples.
The group tidy their picnic away and climb through a fence hole. Col cannot reach the branches and Sam fails to climb the trunk. Algie reminds them of a circus act they saw a week ago and suggests two members should re-enact it. Being the tallest, Sam allows Algie to walk up her back and pick the apples, and the four children begin to eat. A gunshot rings through the meadow and the orchard's owner appears: an angry, unshaven Farmer Tregowan with a shotgun. Stinker leaps at the farmer to protect the children but Tregowan shoots him in the chest, killing him at point-blank range. Algie threatens to tell his father about the murder, but Tregowan refuses to back down. The children attempt to apologise, even consenting to corporal punishment but Tregowan points out it will not bring the four apples back, so he has to squeeze every drop of juice out of them. Conveniently, the children become paralysed and collapse due to the insecticide that Tregowan often sprays around the orchard. He gathers their bodies onto his tractor and drives to his fruit press, where he crushes their corpses and drains out the juice for cider. The story ends with a warning that "if you ever come across Tregowan's Vintage Cider from 1952, do not drink it!"
Prince Noman Somewhere in the desert is a town named Misery. It had been ruled for over 500 years by the House of Volgar. The aging king Norman had married a young, beautiful peasant named Letitia, who later gives birth to a son. When the newborn boy is ready to be shown to the rest of the family, each member passes the child around and gushes over the features he has inherited from each of them. Letitia points out they never mentioned any features that her son had inherited from her but her in-laws sneer and ignore her. The king wants to name his new son Norman, despite Letitia's hesitations, but at the naming ceremony, he forgets his reading glasses and misreads the name as Noman. The royal family are concerned and Letitia is horrified—"Noman" had unfortunate connotations because it could also be read as "No man".