The World of David Walliams: 6-book Collection
David Walliams
Copyright
This e-book collection first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Childrenâs Books in 2014
The Boy in the Dress text © David Walliams 2008, illustrations © Quentin Blake 2008
Mr Stink text © David Walliams 2009, illustrations © Quentin Blake 2009
Billionaire Boy text © David Walliams 2010, illustrations © Tony Ross 2010
Gangsta Granny text © David Walliams 2011, illustrations © Tony Ross 2011
Ratburger text © David Walliams, illustrations © Tony Ross
Demon Dentist text © David Walliams 2013, illustrations © Tony Ross 2013
Ebook Exclusive Extras by The Corner Shop, © HarperCollins Childrenâs Books 2014
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
The Boy in the Dress ISBN: 9780007302086 Mr Stink ISBN: 9780007343829 Billionaire Boy ISBN: 9780007371433 Gangsta Granny ISBN: 9780007371457 Ratburger ISBN: 9780007453559 Demon Dentist ISBN: 9780007453597
Source ISBN: 9780007589036
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007589029 Version: 2014-09-08
For Eddie,What joy you have given us all.
Dennis was different.
When he looked in the mirror he saw an ordinary twelve-year-old boy. But he felt differentâhis thoughts were full of colour and poetry, though his life could be very boring.
The story I am going to tell you begins here, in Dennisâs ordinary house on an ordinary street in an ordinary town. His house was nearly exactly the same as all the others in the street. One house had double glazing, another did not. One had a gravel drive, another had crazy paving. One had a Vauxhall Cavalier in the drive, another a Vauxhall Astra. Tiny differences that only really pointed out the sameness of everything.
It was all so ordinary, something extraordinary just had to happen.
Dennis lived with his dadâwho did have a name, but Dennis just called him Dad, so I will tooâand his older brother John, who was fourteen. Dennis found it frustrating that his brother would always be two years older than him, and bigger, and stronger.
Dennisâs mum had left home a couple of years ago. Before that, Dennis used to creep out of his room and sit at the top of the stairs and listen to his mum and dad shout at each other until one day the shouting stopped.
She was gone.
Dad banned John and Dennis from ever mentioning Mum again. And soon after she left, he went around the house and took down all the photographs of her and burnt them in a big bonfire.
But Dennis managed to save one.
One solitary photograph escaped the flames, dancing up into the air from the heat of the fire, before floating through the smoke and onto the hedge.
As dusk fell, Dennis snuck out and retrieved the photo. It was charred and blackened around the edges and at first his heart sank, but when he turned it to the light he saw that the image was as bright and clear as ever.
It showed a joyful scene: a younger John and Dennis with Mum at the beach, Mum wearing a lovely yellow dress with flowers on it. Dennis loved that dress; it was full of colour and life, and soft to the touch. When Mum put it on it meant that summer had arrived.
It had been warm outside after she had left, but it hadnât really been summer in their house again.
In the picture Dennis and his brother were in swimming trunks holding ice-cream cones, vanilla ice-cream smeared around their smiling mouths. Dennis kept the photo in his pocket and looked at it secretly every day. His mum looked so achingly beautiful in it, even though her smile was uncertain. Dennis stared at it for hours on end, trying to imagine what she had been thinking when it was taken.