Book excerpt: To liven up her creative writing lessons, Mrs P has got Class Five to write a story on a roll of wallpaper. Each child must add a sentence to make it the longest story ever. Soon we are swept along in the tale of King Fred, who narrowly escapes death at the hands of pirates and attempts tosave mermaids from the monstrous Wugblammer. (But he fails - it ate them all.) While Ecky Thump indulges his imagination, Noah Mount, who hates English, keeps trying to kill everyone off. Little does he or anyone else realize that in a parallel fantasy world all their characters come to life, in thewhirlwind of action that is the story. It's when the children make spelling mistakes or forget what's happened that things get interesting. The 'holey' archbishop finds himself in tatters, fluttering along like a ghost, while an army of 'nights' has plunged the kingdom into complete darkness. Thestory twists and turns with ever more hilarious consequences. Fully illustrated in black and white line and tone this is a truly original and captivating book.* Highly illustrated insides (in black and white line and tone) from an exciting new and sought-after illustrator, Jago, whose first picture book Fig's Giant is also written by Geraldine and will be published by OUP in autumn 05