Just Crazy!
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''Just Crazy'' (renamed ''Just Wacky'' in
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...
), is the fourth book in the ''
Just! Just! is a series of short story collections by Australian children's author Andy Griffiths (author), Andy Griffiths, illustrated by Terry Denton. The book series is based on Andy Griffiths's early life. The series has been described as a portray ...
'' series by Andy Griffiths, published by
Pan Macmillan Australia Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...
. It contains nine short stories centred around Andy Griffiths. The book won the BILBY Award in the Younger Readers category in 2002 and 2006.http://cbca.blob.core.windows.net/media/QLD/lists/Burrow%20of%20fame.pdf


Stories


Band-Aid

Andy tries to take off a band-aid just under his left eye before school pictures day, which he got it when he found glasses on a footpath on his way home from school and fell in a roadworker's trench after putting said glasses on, as he thought putting them on would make him smarter thanks to a survey in the news paper. After a series of failures (including tweezers, which only results in three-pages worth of pain and anguish), he winds up getting another cut... just under his ''right'' eye, which is bleeding profusely. The chapter ends with Andy stating he's gonna need a band-aid for this cut.


The Dog Ate It

Andy and Danny, using plastic soldiers and a blowtorch make two aliens for their cardboard UFO for a school project. Andy's dog, Sooty, swallows them and the UFO as well. Due to wrecking all of the other soldiers and the fact that they can build another UFO, Andy and Danny use various tactics so Sooty can throw them back up.


A Crazy, Bad, Dumb, Bad, Bad, Dumb, Crazy, Bad Idea

During the planning of a fete by the school, Andy gets a "good, great, brilliant, great, great, brilliant good, great idea" to try flying like a kite using a large number of
helium Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic ta ...
-filled balloons (including four weather balloons which spell "FETE") with Danny holding a rope to secure Andy and prevent him from floating way. But when Danny accidentally let's go, Andy soon finds out what a "crazy, bad, dumb, bad, bad, dumb, crazy, bad idea" this really was...


Rubbish

Andy must take out the trash, the truck passes by their house when Andy forgets to take the bin out, so he is forced to go to the next street and beat the truck. He succeeds in beating the truck but looks inside the bin and realizes his mother threw out something precious to him: his rubber duck. After falling in the bin trying to get it out, he is scooped up along with the rubbish and is tossed inside the truck. Unfortunately, he eventually gets out at the park where Lisa is there waiting for him. Not only was it rubbish night, it was also
Valentines Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, thro ...
, disgusted by Andy's grungy appearance, she runs off.


Um-mah!

Andy has to babysit two of his cousins, Eve and Jemima, but both of them are exhibiting bad behavior like Eve jumping onto Andy's ceiling fan. When Andy's mother comes home, they blame everything on Andy.


Pinch

Andy basically
dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...
s of destruction and trouble around him and to his house caused by Danny, and when he pinches himself to wake up he just finds himself in another dream.


Kittens, Puppies and Ponies

Andy writes a story titled ''Kittens, Puppies and Ponies'' about three baby animals playing and having a peaceful time in their town in a short story competition, assuming that this was the judges' demand. Since it fails, Andy mixes it up by making it dreadful and evil. Doing this causes Lisa to be amazed by Andy's writing. However, since Lisa was crying about it, it gave the impression it was a bad thing so he blamed it on Danny. Eventually the story still didn't win, instead Danny was credited for being runner-up in the school's competition of literature.


Learn to Read With Andy

Like a Beginner Reader's book (with a big font as well), Andy gets in trouble by bouncing on the bed,
swearing Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, rud ...
and biting his mother.


Mudmen

Locked out of his house, Andy is nude since the shower towel wrapped around him is taken off by Sooty. Andy's father sees him naked so he tells him to put on some clothes, he also comes out and Sooty shoots out from under the house takes ''his'' towel as well. Since both don't have the key to get inside, the two ponder on what to do to get clothes. Knowing Jen and Andy's mother are in Mildura to visit their aunt, Andy slips accidentally on the backyard mud and falls, and the whole back is covered in mud and this brings him an idea. He gets mud on him and tells his father to do it too. They go through backyards to the father's work area where they keep overalls in the shed. When they get there, Andy opens the window to get them since the door is locked. It then starts to rain, leaving them naked again. After it rains Mr. and Mrs. Bainbridge (the father's boss and his wife) come up in the driveway. They see the two on each other trying to break into the shed. As a result, Mr. Bainbridge fires Andy's father.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Just Crazy 2000 short story collections Short story collections by Andy Griffiths Children's short story collections BILBY Award-winning works 2000 children's books