Dirty Bertie: Mascot!

'''Dirty Bertie: Mascot! '''is a book.

Mascot
Mrs. Burns brings the post in and announces that Bertie has a letter. Bertie reads the letter, and it's from a sports team called the Pudsley Rovers wanting him to be a mascot. This is because he halfheartedly entered a competition a few months ago. Bertie asks what a mascot is and Mr. Burns explains that it's someone who cheers for the players without actually playing, and that Bertie might meet Larry Lion. Initially, Bertie thinks there is a real lion but Mr. Burns explains that it is a man in a lion costume. This confuses Bertie, but Mr. Burns explains that he's a separate mascot. Bertie still wants to be a lion.

On Monday morning, Bertie tells his friends about the situation. Darren is jealous and thinks it's not fair because Bertie doesn't even play soccer/football except for the time he had to play in goal. Then, he tells his friends that he's going to be the lion mascot, which isn't strictly true, and when his friends, now impressed, tell him that thousands of people will be watching, which makes him even more excited at the idea of being famous.

Over the next week, Bertie practises acting like a lion, annoying his family. On Saturday, Mr. Burns drops Bertie off, telling him not to get "overexcited". A man named Barry Ball takes Bertie down to meet the (all-male) team and get changed into his clothes, which, to his disappointment, are just a uniform. He puts the lion costume on just to try, but then gets called forward before he can take it off.

The teammates laugh because the costume is too big for Bertie, but they let him wear it. At the game, they ask him to take a shot, but he ends up hitting the referee. Then, he cheers on the wrong team by accident and a man complains of him being in the way, even to the point of calling him an idiot.

But luckily, he ends up accidentally scoring a goal for his team when the ball bounces off his head, resulting in a drawer which makes him popular with his team's fans but unpopular with the opponents' teams' fans. He wants to be the mascot next week too, but Tommy, the guy who usually dresses as Larry, would want his job back. Bertie and Mr. Burns go home, but Bertie forgets to take the feet off his lion costume.

Swot Camp
Bertie goes home from school for the summer holidays, when Mrs. Burns digs out a letter, inviting him to an educational summer camp. She asks him if he wants to go and he says no because he wants to watch certain TV shows and the last time he went camping the toilets smelled bad and it was raining, but she is persistent saying that he will learn something, make new friends, and have a nice bed, besides it's only for a week and toilets at summer camps don't stink. Bertie is persistent too, arguing that he's not interested in learning, already has friends, and likes his own bed. She ends up winning, and signs Eugene up too (she tries to sign up Darren but he isn't available).

Bertie tells his friends about the camp and Darren is jealous because he thinks there will be zip wires, rock climbing, and cooking over a fire, Bertie is complaining, but Eugene is optimistic. On the coach, there are no other schoolmates except for Nick, who informs Bertie and Eugene that the camp does not host sports but they study instead. Bertie hates the idea.

He's even more displeased when he finds out that his bedroom is cold and he has to make his own bed despite not knowing how. Eugene, meanwhile, seems more nervous than annoyed, saying, "Help!" and gulping. The boys are handed timetables that schedule maths, spelling, grammar, science, advanced maths, and ending in a test. Nick likes the idea, but hammers in the fact that Bertie doesn't.

The next day, Bertie and Eugene have lessons, including a spelling game, but they hate it, even to the point of calling it "torture". Bertie then has an idea: be disobedient so they can be sent home.

The next afternoon, the campers have to collect insects for science class. Bertie collects some beetles, then, that night, he puts them into the other beds (discounting Eugene's) in the boys' dormitory. Mr. Twig induces that they pulled the prank as they're the only boys with no bugs, so he and Miss Cram tell them off, but they don't send them home: instead, they move them to Nick's dorm. Then, the story abruptly ends before it can be resolved.

Robot Wars
Mr. Weakly is teaching the class while Miss Boot is away on a course. He announces to the class that there is a robot-building challenge, which excites everyone. He tries to get into the competition by lying that he and his two best friends came top in science, which works.

Bertie comes up with a scary robot based on Miss Boot called Bootosaurus, while Nick comes up with a robot version of himself, Darren a football-playing robot, Eugene a robot spider, and Amanda a robot unicorn. They have a vote and Bertie's robot design wins, but Nick gets no votes, causing him to shout, "NO!", which disturbs Mr. Weakly.

Over the next few weeks, Mr. Weakly builds the robot (albeit with a flipping lid, not flamethrowers like Bertie wanted) and at the arena where the robot is to fight with other robots, Nick points out the rival school Swotter House. They have built a robot shark.

The Bootosaurus robot loses the race, the agility course, and the robot golf, leaving only the actual fight as a chance to win and all they have is a flip-up lid. Bertie then gets the idea to use the lid to throw pizza, which they do once Bootosaurus and Shark Attack (the robot shark) are the only two left. Shark Attack runs over the pizza and gets stuck. Bertie wins a trophy, but Miss Boot is angry at the robot's design.

Trivia

 * Bertie remembers playing for the school team because no one else would go in goal, which happened in "Mud!".
 * The time Bertie locked Mr. Weakly in the store cupboard in "Dare" is mentioned again.
 * Swotter House, from the story "Braniac", features again, and the same four students (Giles, Miles, Tara, and Harriet) make an appearance.