Whiffy Newton in The Riddle of the Two-Tone Trousers

By Rebecca Lim

Someone is stealing all the trousers in Kentwood and, this time, Whiffy’s hapless inventor father, Dr Bruce Newton, has nothing to do with it. Or does he?

Trousers are being daringly snatched in broad daylight, taken apart, and horribly put back together, so that bizarre, two-toned trousers

• Language: English
• Publisher: The High Street Publishing Company
• Release date: Apr 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9780648039273

Rebecca Lim

Rebecca Lim is an award-winning Australian writer, illustrator and editor and the author of over twenty books, including 'Tiger Daughter' (a Victorian Premier's Literary Award-winner), 'The Astrologer's Daughter' (A Kirkus Best Book and CBCA Notable Book) and the bestselling 'Mercy'. Her work has been shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Queensland Literary Awards, CBCA Book of the Year Awards and Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, shortlisted multiple times for the Aurealis Awards and Davitt Awards, and longlisted for the Gold Inky Award and the David Gemmell Legend Award. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Turkish, Portuguese, Polish and Russian. She is a co-founder of the Voices from the Intersection initiative and co-editor of 'Meet Me at the Intersection', a groundbreaking anthology of YA #OwnVoice memoir, poetry and fiction.

Book preview

Rebecca Lim

Whiffy Newton in The Riddle of the Two-Tone Trousers

First published by Rebecca Lim in 2017

Copyright © Rebecca Lim, 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

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Contents

Cover

About the Book

About the Author

Praise for Whiffy Newton

Also by Rebecca Lim

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Bum Crack Blues

A Day of Wedgies and Other Dramas

Atelier Dou Dou

Baiting the Hook

Doing the Math

A Bit of Fish Paste and Other Red Herrings

More Ghastly Garment Murders

A Bit of Field Work

The Subtle Art of Interrogation

Preliminary Findings Suggest…

Putting Two and Two Together

…And Making Five?

Kentwood Under Siege

The Stakeout

The Deal

New Trousers All Round

Cover

About the Book

Someone is stealing all the trousers in Kentwood and, this time, Whiffy’s hapless inventor father, Dr Bruce Newton, has nothing to do with it. Or does he?

Trousers are being daringly snatched in broad daylight, taken apart, and horribly put back together, so that bizarre, two-toned trousers are appearing all over town—sinisterly nailed to the front doors of some of the city’s wealthiest socialites.

Who is behind these ghastly garment murders and what does it all mean? Can Whiffy and the other intrepid members of The Agency stop the perpetrator before there isn’t a decent pair of slacks left in the whole of Kentwood?

About the Author

REBECCA LIM is a writer and illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia. Rebecca is the author of seventeen books, including The Astrologer’s Daughter (a Kirkus Best Book of 2015 and Notable Book, CBCA Book of the Year for Older Readers), Afterlight and the bestselling Mercy. Shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, Aurealis Award, INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award and Davitt Award for YA, Rebecca’s work has also been longlisted for the Gold Inky Award and the David Gemmell Legend Award. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Turkish, Portuguese and Polish. She is a co-founder of the Voices from the Intersection initiative.

Praise for Whiffy Newton

'A very amusing book. Whiffy Newton would give even Mma Ramotswe a run for her money!' - Alexander McCall Smith

Also by Rebecca Lim

Mercy

Exile

Muse

Fury

Wraith

The Astrologer’s Daughter

Afterlight

FOR YOUNGER READERS

The Sweet Life

Cover Girl

Sista Fashionista

Star Style

Whiffy Newton in the Case of the Dastardly Deeds

Whiffy Newton in the Riddle of the Two-Tone Trousers

Whiffy Newton in the Affair of the Fiendish Phantoms

Whiffy Newton and the Mystery of the Marble Beach Mugger

Five-Minute Tales Messiest Monster Ever

Five-Minute Tales Bravest Princess Ever

Title Page

Whiffy Newton in The Riddle of the Two-Tone Trousers

By Rebecca Lim

Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2006 Rebecca Lim

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

First published in 2006 by Funtastic Limited

Written and Illustrated by Rebecca Lim

Author: Lim, Rebecca

Title: Whiffy Newton in the riddle of the two-tone trousers

ISBN: 978-0-6480392-7-3 (ebook)

Dewey Number: A823.4

1

Bum Crack Blues

It started—a day like any other day.

Whiffy Newton, real first name Alfred, entered his Tuesday morning Maths class to the usual boring, hateful chorus led by Solly Banfrey and his farting henchpersons, Jugs Morrison and Piggy Lugton.

Here comes Whiffy

His pants are too clingy

His bum’s a wide, wide load

It’s got its own postcode.

Whiffy sat down hurriedly in his usual seat in the front row (on account of his short sightedness), adjusting his trousers self-consciously. It was true that he was having trouble keeping his bum inside the blue cord pants that he was wearing today. They were clearly two sizes too small and he was afraid of bending over for fear that his bottom would try and leap out the back of them. Even sitting down, he could feel his buttocks struggling valiantly to escape.

To top it all off, if he moved too quickly he was liable to give himself a wedgie.

It was shaping up to be a very long day. Trust the three thugs to bring his latest wardrobe malfunction to everyone’s attention. He sat up very straight, trying to ignore the occasional tee hee hee behind him.

Jugs Morrison—called Jugs for obvious reasons—poked Solly Banfrey in the ribs with one of her peach-coloured nails. Miming the placement of a coin into the generous stretch of bum crack visible over the back of Whiffy’s pants.

Piggy Lugton—compulsive farter and infamous lunch stealer—hissed loudly, ‘I’ve got a better idea.’

He started to shape a heady arsenal of spitballs, something he was near-genius at doing. Each almost perfectly spherical, and disgustingly wet. (If only his grasp of long division was as good.)

‘Reckon you could land one down there?’ Solly whispered, jerking one thumb at the mighty crevice still visible from two rows back.

‘Can pigs fly?’ replied Piggy with a crafty grin (which gives you some idea of how Piggy’s strange little mind worked because, as everyone knows, they can’t).

Just then, Mrs Doddits started the class the way she always did. By banging her ruler violently on the blackboard. As usual, everyone jumped because they’d totally forgotten they were there to learn stuff and were instead busy catching up on the day’s gossip, or watching intently what the three goons intended to do to Whiffy Newton. (It’s not that people didn’t like Whiffy—he was actually thought of as a stand-up kind of guy. It was just funny to all be laughing at the one kid. Who wasn’t you.)

‘Today’s topic of discussion,’ sniffed Mrs Doddits, after everyone had gotten over their initial fright and picked up their pens reluctantly, ‘is pi.’

Now you and I know what kind of pi she meant. Only, this was the third-best Maths class and to the third-best Maths class pi meant food and nothing else. Stomachs began to rumble in anticipation of the day’s lesson.

‘All right,’ said Junior Baggits audibly, licking his lips. ‘That’s more like it.’ (This was a first—as Junior never said anything in Maths and, indeed, actively avoided drawing attention to himself as much as possible.)

Whiffy, who sat alone in the front row and was always hungry, knew that if there was any sampling to be done he’d be the first in line. He hoped she’d brought enough to go around.

‘What do you know about pi?’ breathed Mrs Doddits at the class through pinched nostrils.

Whiffy put up his hand. ‘There are many kinds?’ he said hopefully.

Mrs Doddits frowned heavily. ‘No there aren’t actually,’ she snapped. ‘There’s only one kind of pi.’

I hope it’s apple then, thought Whiffy wistfully. If she’s brought only one.

‘Is this a trick question?’ he said. ‘I know of three for starters.’

‘Elaborate,’ said Mrs Doddits nastily, pushing her great moony spectacles up her face. ‘And this had better be good, Newton.’

‘Beef,’ Whiffy responded confidently. ‘Apple. Apricot. There’s four, if you count the rhubarb and apple variety.’

Mrs Doddits gaped for a long moment, her complexion going a curious mottled vermillion. The tick, tock of the classroom clock sounded very loud as she grew redder, and redder.

‘She’s going to have a heart attack,’ muttered Junior Baggits, leaning forward with interest. This was shaping up to be