Right, Ashton residents, I recently got up to the third story in Horrid Henry's Food Fight, Revenge Of The Demon Dinner Lady. It is intended as a sequel to 'The Demon Dinner Lady'. I can still hear the glorious first lines of the original Demon Dinner Lady in my head:
"You're not having a packed lunch and that's final!"
"IT'S NOT FAIR! Everyone in my class has a packed lunch!"
"N O spells no. It's too much work and you never eat what I pack for you!"
Anyway, in this story, Mrs Oddbod hires former dinner lady and arch enemy of his horridness, Greasy Greta, to swipe up sweets and sell them to charity. She even has a daughter, named Pasty Patsy, who can eat any sweets she wants under her obese mother's supervision, much to Henry's shock and jealousy.
What makes this story stand out to me is just the same as in Krazy Ketchup. Whereas this story had a picture of Henry recoiling at a poisonous Hydra popping out of a Vegchup bottle, Demon Dinner Lady's Revenge had two: one of Miss Battle Axe as a trapeze artist, the other of Henry's head as a balloon floating away into the sky. Bravo, Tony Ross - I have great sympathy for you there.
My favourite part of the story came at the very end (spoilers, so steer clear on the other side of the road). In order to save everyone from the wrath of the Demon Dinner Lady, Henry sets up a sweet shop near the nature reserve and sells sweets to every single one of his friends at the school - surprisingly, Margaret, Ralph, Bert and Al aren't involved, so it was up to Henry to face the Demon Dinner Lady alone.
And how did he do it? Patsy had no involvement too, so if Henry defeated her and made her explode into bits of bile and gore, this story would have an entirely different ending. But the real ending sees Mrs Oddbod scold Greasy Greta for what she has gone after seeing her stuff her mouth in the Sweet Confiscation Cupboard and fire her. With Henry victorious, Mrs Oddbod appoints him as the lunch monitor, but at a price: to remove all the sweets from each and every one of his gang's lunchboxes.
Then, comes the finest moment in the book. The very last word in Revenge Of The Demon Dinner Lady, which I find the funniest one of all:
"Wah."
Just that one word is bound to leave even the saddest, dullest reader who has had a bad day due to praying last night, or having an alarm set for 6:00AM every morning, in stitches from laughing.
This has to be the funniest story about the consequences of healthy eating, but, there are two things left out which I have to add on: I think while Horrid Henry is selling his sweets, Patsy would confront him and they would engage in a playground brawl while Margaret, Ralph, Al, Bert and the others cheered them on, resulting in his horridness punching Patsy in the guts and causing stomach cancer.
No.2: If Mrs Oddbod had been nicer to Henry, he would finally get his reward of becoming the lunch monitor, and Mrs Oddbod would ban the healthy eating law, stating that all healthy meals should be served with one or two sweets or cakes. But no...
Actions have consequences, right, Henry?
"IT'S NOT FAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIRRRRRRR!!"
To be continued:
Horrid Henry Minds His Manners!
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