Once upon a time there was a crazy, stinky old lady that smelt of carrots. Her stink could be detected from an incredibly long way away.  When people walked past her, they would mumble under their breath or whisper to the person standing next to them. You would hear these kinds of comments:

 

“I never smelt such a terrible smell since my little brothers’ farts.”

“She hasn’t stepped out of her house for 21 years.”

“Someone’s been eating cabbage.”

Tom, her grandson, liked all the normal stuff like video games, racing cars, yachts.  Basically, Tom liked all the stuff in the world apart from carrots! And this is why he hated his granny. The crazy old granny had prepared some carrot soup for her grandson, because she thought that enjoyed eating stinky crusty vegetables from farms (The pigs must have pooed in it. What do you think? And pigs have massive poos. I am only saying this, because the soil might have transferred some into the carrots, so Tom now might be eating pig poo with his carrots.) Does this explain why he does not like his granny?

This old lady had a big secret.  She had some jewels. They were worth many millions of pounds, nearly as much as the Crown Jewels. She had all her jewels hidden in an old cracker tin on top of her kitchen cupboard. It was the day that Tom was going due to visit, so his grandmother prepared some special Carrot Granny Soup. Tom was coming with his parents in a brown car. His granny waited for him by the door with a huge smile on her face. The little brown car parked safely and Tom walked to the doorstep, “Hello, Granny.  How are you today?”

“Am very well thank you very much how’s my favourite and only grandson?”

“Um I have only read some What’s Plumbing Magazines,” said Tom.

“Tommy, would you like some carrot soup?” asked his Granny. Now, of course Tom hated carrots but he didn’t want to hurt his granny’s feelings.

“Do you mean my favourite soup?” (It wasn’t his favourite soup. In fact, he felt like screaming a gigantic, “No!”)

“Thomas, lunch is ready.”

“Ugh!!” he screamed in his head, “Coming!” as he stomped down the stairs.

He sat down on the table and every time his grandmother turned around, he flicked his spoon, and it landed each time on the flowerpot by the window.
“Yum this soup is so good,” he lied, as he nearly choked of all the soup onto his grandmother’s face.  You see, Tom was allergic to butterflies and it randomly happened that a butterfly happened to fly into the house and land on his nose, at this is the point. He let a big achoo and a mixture of snot and carrot soup settled on his granny’s face. Granny’s spoon immediately stopped, while her mouth remained wide open.  She looked at Tom with a disgusted face and she spoke: “Well, that was unpleasant. Let me get cleaned up, I’ll be back in a second.”  Rising from her chair uncomfortably, Granny thought, “I need to teach that boy some manners.”
Tom thought, “Finally!” and he threw the rest of his carrot soup back into the pot on the stove.

“Bedtime, Tommy!  Go and brush your teeth.”
“OK but it’s only seven o’clock in the evening.  Why do I have to go to bed so early? Most of the kids I know go to bed at 9 pm or 10 pm. Granny, why do I have to go to sleep so early?”
“Don’t be silly. Every kid goes to sleep at this time of night.”
“Then how can I still hear children screaming by the window.”
“They must be very naughty to stay up so late.”
“Granny, can you turn the light off please?”
“Of course, my dear. Good night.”
“Good night, Granny.”

“Tommy! Wake up, your parents are going to be here soon. Go and brush your teeth.”
“Yes!” Even though it was early, I was so excited to be leaving that boring place.”

A little brown car pulled up. “Well, your parents are here.  Bye Tommy, see you next Friday!”
“Bye, Granny.”
“Thomas!” shouted his mum, “Hurry up and get your bottom in this car.  I should be watching Strictly Come Dancing, right now.”
“Yes, Mum!” (I don’t know why adults like to watch that stupid dance shows they’re so boring! Guess why they drop me off at Granny’s every Friday? Yes, it’s so they can watch that same show.)
“So, how was it at your Granny’s house today?”
“It was so boring, we had to eat carrot soup for all our meals and play Scrabble for hours.”
The next day Tom had to go to his grandmother’s house, again.  “Granny can I have some biscuits, please?”
“Umm, look on top of the cupboard.”
Tom climbed on a chair and stood up, “There we are! Finally, some biscuits!”
“Why does my granny not eat anything normal?”

 

 

 

CHAPTER 2
THE GANGSTA CARROT GRANNY

“Tommy did you find the biscuit tin in the kitchen, because am pretty confident I had one?”
“Yes, Granny I found it.”
“One thing Granny, mum and dad said that I need to go home early and by myself.”
“Of course, Tommy. Let me just ring them to make sure that it’s true.”

“No need, I’ll do it. ring Tommy doesn’t have a clue that am the best international carrot thief in the world.”

“Granny, they said I need to go now,” he lied.

“Bye Tommy, see you next week!”

 

Tom got on his bicycle and sprinted home, thinking: ‘My granny is so boring but not for long because she is an international carrot and jewel thief. I’m going to convince her to go to the Tower of London to steal the Crown Jewels.”

Ding dong, rang the doorbell.

“Come in. It’s me, Tom. My parents said to come back.  Granny, I know you are the best international carrot and jewel thief in the world.”
“Don’t be silly am a 62 year old lady. Do you think that I’d be a jewel thief?

Tom knew that she was lying. Her facial expression showed it, in fact Tom already knew that his Granny was the world’s best carrot loving jewel thief but he didn’t want say, because he wanted to see his Granny’s reaction.  He thought his Granny tried to get out of the situation but Tom couldn’t be tricked that easily. His granny was clever but Tom was, too.  He already knew what to do.

 

On Thursday after school, he went to a pound shop and bought a Truth Powder that makes you tell the truth for 2 hours. When his granny visited the toilet, he took the powder out of his bag, went in the kitchen and put a little bit of the powder into the carrot soup. The powder didn’t have any taste. So, Granny couldn’t taste anything suspicious. However, his granny thought that Tom believed her, so after she came out of the toilet, she had a little taste of the soup. Then she sat down on the sofa and started to read a book.

“Granny, do you have any precious jewels that I could borrow for my class on Monday?”
“Yes dear there in the top shelf in the kitchen.”

‘Why did I just tell him were my jewels are I can’t let him no am the world’s best international jewel thief?’ Granny thought
“It seems that the truth powder is working.”
“What are you talking about?”
“So you see Granny, I already knew that you were the best international jewel thief in the world but you kept saying you weren’t. So, I bought Truth Powder in the pound shop while you were in the bathroom.”
“But how did you have time to go in the pound shop I was only in the bathroom for five minutes.”

“Oh Granny, you really lose track of time in the bathroom. You were in there for half an hour, so that gave plenty of time to come and go to pound shop.  The good news is that you spilt your secret so now you can’t lie anymore. But don’t worry, the effects of the Truth Powder only lasts two hours.”
“But how did you know that I was the world’s best jewel thief?”
“Well, it was simple.  Last week, I asked if you had any biscuits but when I opened the tin, I saw a lot of jewels. At first, I thought that you collected the but when I saw the diamonds, emeralds and rubies I thought that you might have stolen them, Granny. I had never believed that you were so brave. I thought you were were a scaredy cat and a wimp but now I think you are awesome. It’s probably a one in a million chance that your grandmother is a jewel thief!”
“I know am pretty proud of it myself!  Not only did I steal a jewel from a Russian governor, I also stole from the Prince of Spain!”
“Woah Granny! You’re a legend. Could you tell me one of your adventures?” asked Tom excitedly.
“Of course. It was a long time ago, 54 years ago to be exact. One day on the television, they were performing a ceremony and the prince was wearing a beautiful necklace. I just knew I had to get that necklace. It was my dream, so I snuck onto a ship that was heading to Spain. It took five hours to travel there and the security system on land was huge. There were security guards everywhere, so I had to be careful and not get caught because I had a bounty on me. If anyone recognised me, it would be the worst thing. In Spain when you’re a criminal and they place a bounty on you. They decapitate you and feed your body to a pack of wolves in the zoo.”
“So what did you do next?” asked Tom.

 

 

 

Chapter 3
TOM, YOU HAVE TO BE QUICK YOU NEED TO RELEASE YOUR GRANNY.

“We oh get out of the car. We are sending you to cage 436 and you will be in prison for the rest of your life.”
“Are police officers nowadays so dumb that you believe an 11-year-old that his granny is an international jewel and carrot thief? That is just dumb. I guess that police officers are dumb now that they would arrest an old lady.”
“OK mam you’re free to go. Have a nice day and please don’t report us for arresting an innocent old lady. Sorry for believing your grandson.”
“The thing is that we were practising a school play and I was pretending to be the thief and he was the hero. There was this girl in his class called Daisy and she was the thief in the play. Unfortunately, she was sick so she couldn’t come and practise with Tom. So, I said I would replace her and he said he wanted to practise a lot so we went to the Tower of London to act there so he would have a good idea of what he needed to do and that’s when the police came and arrested me He said, “Arrest that jewel thief!” because he thought I had hired some people to come and help us with the act.  That’s why am in prison talking with police officers but the good thing is that am innocent and I can go home in peace. So, goodbye. Now I need my afternoon nap. Oh, and where is my mobility scooter? I need it to go home. I live close to the Tower of London. You can drop me there if you want or you can leave me by my house.”
“I will take you to the Tower of London and leave you there, because I might get an emergency call from the police station. Besides, mobility scooters can go up to 30 miles per hour, so you would get there in about ten minutes.”

 

Five minutes later: “Oh no! The road is closed! We won’t be able to go to the Tower of London, we need it go to London Victoria. I’m just going to walk home. Thank you. Bye, have a great time. Let me call Tommy`s parents and see if the’re coming this Friday.”

Prr prr prr. “Hello, it’s me Granny. Is Tommy coming to my house tomorrow?”

“Yes, why do you ask?”

“Um I need to do something on Friday, so I won’t be available this Friday, but I will be free next Saturday. If you can bring Tommy with you, it would be a really helpful because me and your beloved son are going to watch the Strictly Stars Come Dancing show.” “Very well then, bye.”

 

Everything was going perfectly. The next day, I knocked on her door.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, Tom, I’m here to steal the Crown Jewels.”

“Come on in! So, do you have the diagram and notes for the hunt?” Granny asked.

Tom had with the naughtiest smile in the world, it looked like his head would explode from the evilness. “Let’s do this Gran!” squealed Tom, maniacally. “We’re going to be the richest people in England! I could buy whatever I want.  I could buy a go kart, a plane, a yacht, a house, even my own school. Plus, the best present for the best Gran in the world.”

After trying to steal the Crown Jewels, Carrot Granny needed a bit of a break. So, she asked Ben to call his older sister to help her. (Funny thing is that Ben’s sister had left college a week ago and she decided to go back home. However, Ben didn’t know when she was coming, because his parents were making a surprise party that they hadn’t told him because he was terrible at keeping other people’s secrets.) Tiffany was Ben’s sister and she went to college two years ago but she didn’t like it so she left in 2023 and now she was going back home.
“Ben, your parents said that you have to get home,” cried Granny from the kitchen.
“What? I just came! Do they want me to watch the dancing show?”
“No ,they have a surprise for you it’s a very special surprise am sure that it while be nice and its only 2 o’clock.”
“I’ll be back in a few hours if you can please make a cake it would be perfect. I really want to give it to Tiffany when she comes.”
“I’ll make my special recipe.”
“No carrots, okay?”
“Fine.”

‘Granny better not put carrots in that cake’ he thought. The thing is that Granny loved to put carrots on anything even ice-cream, that’s why she had such good eyesight.  The only time when she hadn’t put carrots in a meal was when we went to the park for a picnic with our family. Only because she forgot to bring her bag of carrots!  When she realised that she had forgotten her bag full of carrots, everyone stood still and then she freaked out. After that, we never had a picnic with Granny again.
Mum had to pay the cleaner five pounds for all the mess that Granny made.
ding dong “Who is it?
“It’s me, Mum. Granny told me that you had a surprise for me.”
“Oh yeah, the surprise.”
“Come in the living room.”
“Tiffany!”
“Hello brother how are you it’s been a long time.”
“Yes I can.”
“Hello Tiffany.”
“What that’s it I came all the way from college and that’s the greeting I deserve.”
“Why did you come back?”
“Because I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
“You’re not my boss! I can do whatever I want. Besides, I would’ve come earlier to annoy you,” shouted Tiffany across the room.

“I hate you why do you always have to come and ruin my day? Do you remember last year when I got my new Star Wars set? When I finished building it, you came into my room and smashed for no good reason. Then I got a telescope for Christmas when I was looking at the moon you put gum on my telescope.”
“That was a long time ago.”

 

Tom’s Telescope had been with him since he was nine and his sister came to visit on Christmas Eve, because she had a college break for Christmas. So, students could visit their family for two weeks. When his Mum went to buy him one at the shopping centre there was a very big line for it, because it was such a large telescope.  It was sold out in every technology store in London but luckily Tiffany’s school was in Manchester and they hadn’t realised it yet. So, Tiffany camped out all night just to get it and it cost £125. Obviously, Tiffany wouldn’t buy such an expensive gift for her brother instead she just bought him a packet of raisins from the pound shop that were only one pound. The most expensive thing that she ever bought him was a packet of Flaming Hot Cheetos that were £6.99 because they’re from America and they’re so popular that they had to sell them in England for nearly seven pounds!

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seven

THE BRAVEST GRAN IN THE WORLD

 

“Hop on my super-fast mobile scooter.  Let’s go!”

“It wasn’t until I was close to Tower Bridge, Granny. You said that the mobile scooter was fast, but it only goes 10 miles per hour and that’s very slow …”

‘We oo we oo we oo!’ wailed the sirens
“Stop this instant by police order!”

“Granny, you have to pull up.”

“Tommy, promise you’ll come and visit me in prison.”

“What’s going on here?” asked the biggest policeman that either of them had ever seen. He was as tall as a giraffe, as fat as an elephant, hairy as a gorilla and his head was big like a coconut.
“Where are you going?”

“We are going to a bingo club close to the Tower of London.”

“I could take you there. Besides, it would take you forever on that. Hop in.”

“Bye sees you!” called the policemen as he drove off.

“I can’t believe we got away with it!  I thought we were done for. Now, let’s do this.”

“OK.”

“First, we need to sneak in but remember there are cameras everywhere and guards, so we need to make sure to cover the cameras.  This means we’ll be able to get through the security but the Crown Jewels are heavily guarded by three guards. So, we need to make sure we steal them before they come back from their break. We only have about fifteen minutes.”
“Great plan but the is one thing you haven’t thought of. The Crown Jewels are protected by bullet proof glass, so we need something that is stronger than bullet proof glass.”

“No, it isn’t normal glass and I already had that covered. I have this toy that can break glass, so I have that sorted.”

“Gran, just get in.  It’s not that smelly. It just smells like poop.  You know what poop smells like. I know that you smelt dad’s and am surprised that you can still smell. Honestly, it’s horrible anyway.  Get on with it. You don’t want to end up like my friend Thomas. He didn’t even go toilet, because he wasn’t bothered.  He said he was too weak to get up, so he peed himself in class and everyone was laughing.  When school ended some Year 8s came and called him pee.”

 

 

Chapter Nine

THIS WAS ALL A BIG MISTAKE

“Tom lets go back home.”
“No!” replied Tom.
“We will steal the Crown Jewels even if we nearly die. Let’s go!  We need to go to the River Thames and climb into the pipe.  The pipe is huge, but it smells terrible.  That’s why we have gas masks, so we don’t smell that horrible smell. OK, so let’s go. Here’s the screwdriver to open up the sewers. It’s going to be a short and smelly journey so don’t moan about the stink we are going to have to see very nasty things, but it will all be worth it.”

“OK, Granny. In three, two, one we jump three two one jump.”

“Woahhhhhhhh! are you OK?”
“Yes, hold my hand!”
“Swim as fast as you can.”
“Am trying to but am old 63-year-old lady, so hush. I was the best swimmer in my swimming classes. When I joined you and your parents, you were crying because the water was cold!”
“That was when I was 4!” said Tom, angrily, “Anyway, we’re here now so you can go in first.”
“This smells like poop. It’s horrible! It’s so nasty that I feel like am going to vomit.”
(By the way I thought it was really funny. Ha ha!)
I had a friend, and his mum came and said, “Tommy, my little baby, your teacher called me and said you had peed yourself. Are you OK?” (awkward)

 

The next day the same Year 8s came and called him Mummy’s Boy and Pee Boy. When his mum said, “Good morning,” and everyone started laughing, his face turned bright red.  He ran to the car and everyone was laughing.
“So, get in the pipe!”
“Alright! Gee, you sound like my mother!”
“Why don’t you go first?”
“Because you are slower than me”
“Well, that’s rude when we get home, you’re getting a whooping.”
“OK I’ll go first.  Hurry up, it’s cold!”
“So, when we get up, you need to check the room for cameras, while I hack into the system, so they don’t see us.”
“But you said, that I was going to break the glass.”
“Granny, this is a heist and am the boss, so you listen to me. I also planned the whole thing, so no more questions!”

 

 

Chapter 10

TWIST – IT WAS ALL A DREAM.

“Huh, Granny. It was all a dream.  This was the best dream ever, I can’t believe that we were actually going to steal the Crown Jewels!”

The next day it was Sunday, so Tom had to go home so he gave the biggest hug to his carrot granny (she still smelt like carrots)
he actually ate her carrot soup.
“What’s this for?”, she asked, she was grinning from ear to ear.
“Love you, Granny.”
“Me too, Tommy.”

“That wasn’t a dream. You were passed out on the floor after we got back.”

“That probably makes sense, because I don’t remember anything on the way back.  The last day of term is tomorrow at school but we haven’t done any work recently.”

“Tom, come to the kitchen.  I just saw something that will shock you. Look at the newspaper. A lady from Ireland says that she’s the Queen of Potatoes.  She threatened the Prime Minister that she would take all the potatoes in the world, so that Irish people can have all the potatoes in the world.

“That seems a bit selfish. Is it just so they can enjoy their potato stew and all of their potato stuff? Mum is half Irish and barely likes potatoes. Dad is full English, but he only likes beans on toast. In my personal opinion, I prefer toast and eggs. My sister loves potatoes, even though my mom doesn’t really like them. Why does this lady think that she can just come and take all the potatoes in the world?”

“I’m sorry for her but that’s not happening in my watch. I’ll make sure of it.  That’s why I want me, you and Tiffany to have an exciting adventure. Even though I don’t like her that much.”

“Hear this Tommy, the Prime Minister is going to send the army against her. However, people said they shouldn’t because then she would get rid of all of them. Also, the king wants a group of people above 9 years old to go spy on her but nobody’s responded.”

“I just got an idea. Why don’t we accept it? That way we could just go and stop all this. They would probably give us prize money like 100 thousand pounds or more in that case I would “25,000 you would £50,000 and Tiffany. The people who don’t want to get it will have to regret it for all their life.”

“The Prime Minister has to do an online call with us by next week, so I don’t have to go to school. Tomorrow there will have to go to the Post Office to get a package with our spy gear in black. Now, we have to do a survey for our clothes size, the way that it works is that the survey will be Tuesday next week. The lady lives in in South London and we live in North London. The people who will be training us will come on Thursday, so they will have their equipment.  We need to tidy up the house we can have more space. The school has to do a presentation tomorrow.”

“But I can’t go.  That’s another day of school that I’ll miss and there will probably be another good Art lesson.”

“Tommy are you seriously sad about missing school? We literally have one week to save all the potatoes in the world!”

 

The next, day a package arrived with all their spy gear for training and the letter from the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister was now preparing to do a phone call but they have to do a trust survey before they do the call.

 

Two days before the Prime Minister contacted Tom and his Granny, Tom had a very unpleasant day at school.

“Please open your books to page 34.”

“Excuse me, Miss. What day is the presentation for the Year Seven End of Term Show,” asked Tom across the classroom.

“What page is it, Miss?!” shouted one of Tom’s former classmates.”

“Page 34, please. Pay more attention.”

 

At lunchtime, Tom’s Dad came to pick him up early from school for him to go to his Granny’s house early. They needed to carry out the spy training and the spy test that they had to do to see if they had the knowledge to save the whole of Britain.  The thing is that spies had to undergo a lot of training to become spies.

For half an hour ago Tom, Tiffany and his Granny were preparing to do the test. A strange looking man was looking at the window while the others were preparing to do the test. He was dressed in fully in black, including black boots. He wore a black hoodie with a label with his name on it.

 

One hour later and the results were back. They were ready to do the spy training but lucky for them it was just a spy doing all the moves on the TV. So, they didn’t really have to do any hard work themselves.

“That wasn’t what I expected. I thought we had to actually do the intense simulator ourselves,” said Tom in disbelief.

The Prime Minister said it was too dangerous for an under aged child and an elderly woman to do so we just had to watch it on the TV and not actually do it ourselves.”

“I don’t like that one single bit I was so excited to do the obstacle course. Now I can’t do because of you two,” said Tiffany angrily.

“It’s just an obstacle course no need to get over the top with it.”

“It is a big deal do you not how much fun an obstacle course is.”

 

The next day they got ready to go to the Queen of Potatoes’ base so the could stop her evil plans to take all the potatoes in the world. From Gatwick Airport they had to get a plane to Ireland to stop her once and for all.

“Tom and Tiffany hurry up we need to catch the plane. It leaves at quarter to three and it’s one thirty.”

The plane ride was one hour long so they arrived just in time to meet the Prime Minister.

We’re just in time to meet him. Let’s go!”

“It is a pleasure to meet you sir we are so happy to help you on this horrible occasion.”

“Thank you for volunteering to stop the evil Queen of Potatoes.”

“It’s a pleasure to work for you but we have to get on the train there’s a criminal that we have to stop.”

The train arrived quickly, so they had a bit more time to stop the Queen of Potatoes. The Queen of Potatoes had cameras everywhere.

“Ooh, who do we have here?  Three brats that are trying to stop the invincible Queen of Potatoes. I’ll make sure that they don’t.”

Join us next time for the incredible instalment of Carrot Granny, as they try to stop the so-called Queen of Potatoes.