Mr Stink
The second original, touching, twisted, and most of all hilarious novel for children from David Walliams, number one bestseller and fastest growing children’s author in the country – beautifully illustrated by Quentin Blake."Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it was correct English to say he stinked, then he stinked as well…”It all starts when Chloe makes friends with Mr Stink, the local tramp. Yes, he smells a bit. But when it looks like he might be driven out of town, Chloe decides to hide him in the garden shed.Now Chloe's got to make sure no one finds out her secret. And speaking of secrets, there just might be more to Mr Stink than meets the eye… or the nose.
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First published in hardback in Great Britain by
HarperCollins Children’s Books 2009 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Steret, London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollins.co.uk
Text © David Walliams 2009
Illustrations © Quentin Blake 2009
David Walliams and Quentin Blake assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780007279050
Ebook Edition © JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780007343829
Version: 2018-08-22
For my mum Kathleen, the kindest personI have ever met.
Table of Contents
Mr Stink stank. He also stunk. And if it is correct English to say he stinked, then he stinked as well. He was the stinkiest stinky stinker who ever lived.
A stink is the worst type of smell. A stink is worse than a stench. And a stench is worse than a pong. And a pong is worse than a whiff. And a whiff can be enough to make your nose wrinkle.
It wasn’t Mr Stink’s fault that he stank. He was a tramp, after all. He didn’t have a home and so he never had the opportunity to have a proper wash like you and me. After a while the smell just got worse and worse. Here is a picture of Mr Stink.
He is quite a snappy dresser in his bow-tie and tweed jacket, isn’t he? But don’t be fooled. The illustration doesn’t do justice to the smell. This could be a scratch ‘n’ sniff book, but the smell would be so bad you would have to put it in the bin. And then bury the bin. Very deep underground.
That’s his little black dog with him, the Duchess. The Duchess wasn’t any particular breed of dog, she was just a dog. She smelt too, but not as bad as Mr Stink. Nothing in the world really smelt as bad as him. Except his beard. His beard was full of old bits of egg and sausage and cheese that had fallen out of his mouth years before. It had never, ever been shampooed so it had its own special stink, even worse than his main one.
One morning, Mr Stink simply appeared in the town and took up residence on an old wooden bench. No one knew where he had come from, or where he might be going. The town folk were mostly nice to him. They sometimes dropped a few coins at his feet, before rushing off with their eyes watering. But no one was really friendly towards him. No one stopped for a chat.
At least, not till the day that a little girl finally plucked up the courage to speak to him—and that’s where our story begins.
“Hello,” said the girl, her voice trembling a little with nerves. The girl was called Chloe. She was only twelve and she had never spoken to a tramp before. Her mother had forbidden her to speak to ‘such creatures’. Mother even disapproved of her daughter talking to kids from the local council estate. But Chloe didn’t think Mr Stink was a creature. She thought he was a man who looked like he had a very interesting story to tell—and if there was one thing Chloe loved, it was stories.
Every day she would pass him and his dog in her parents’ car on the way to her posh private school. Whether in sunshine or snow, he was always sitting on the same bench with his dog by his feet. As she luxuriated on the leather of the back seat with her poisonous little sister Annabelle, Chloe would look out of the window at him and wonder.
Millions of thoughts and questions would swim through her head. Who was he? Why did he live on the streets? Had he ever had a home? What did his dog eat? Did he have any friends or family? If so, did they know he was homeless?
Where did he go at Christmas? If you wanted to write him a letter, what address would you put on the envelope? ‘The bench, you know the one—round the corner from the bus stop’? When was the last time he’d had a bath? And could his name
