Dirty Bertie: Germs!

Dirty Bertie: Germs! is a 2009 book.

Recap
Suzy walks into the kitchen complaining of aches and a fever. Mrs. Burns sees that she has red spots and diagnoses her with chicken pox. Bertie hopes he has it too because he finds school boring and it's homework day and he hasn't done his homework. He tries to convince his mother that he has chickenpox too, but she isn't fooled and he doesn't have any spots, so he decides to try to catch it.

He tries brushing his teeth with Suzy's toothbrush, even swallowing the toothpaste, but it doesn't work. When he sees his mother carrying a glass of lemonade for Suzy, he offers to bring it to her instead. His mother is confused that he wants to help but reluctantly lets him do it anyway. Suzy, however, has caught onto Bertie's plan and refuses to drink it. He tries to make her, but spills the drink, which causes her to dob him in for "being mean". He drinks the rest of the lemonade but doesn't catch chickenpox, so he looks it up in the medical book and decides to fake it.

He goes downstairs deliberately slowly, lies about being tired and achy, and gags on purpose, but Mrs. Burns isn't fooled, suspects that he didn't do his homework, and sends him to school.

At the school gates, Bertie spots Angela sucking a piece of liquorice and begs her for it, but she refuses, even when offered his apple in return. However, she gives him the liquorice when he offers her fifty pence. He eats the liquorice and tells Mrs. Burns that his throat is sore. She, mistaking the black liquorice stain in his throat for an infection, drives him home.

Bertie has a great afternoon watching TV, drinking more lemonade, and eating chocolate ice cream, and he wakes up the next morning wanting to play with Darren and Eugene at the park, but unfortunately he has now caught Suzy's chickenpox.

Stomp
Bertie is happily eating chocolate cake on a Sunday afternoon with his Gran over. However, when she invites him dancing next Saturday because Stan has thrown his back out mowing the lawn, he doesn't want to go-- he can't dance (even at the school disco, all he did was eat crisps), and Gran wants to take him ballroom dancing, which he hates. However, he changes his mind upon hearing that there's a prize, and excitedly agrees to do it when the prize is revealed to be a luxury cruise to New York.

At dance class, Bertie dances in a stompy manner and can't see when he waltzes with Gran because she's much taller than him. Bertie and Gran then watch their opponents, a couple named Kieth and Kerry-Anne, who dance extremely well. Upon hearing that Kieth and Kerry-Anne's dance is "like a bullfight", Bertie slips into a daydream, until Kieth and Kerry-Anne come over and express their sympathy for Stan. However, when Gran reveals that Bertie is her new partner, they laugh. Bertie, indignant, tells Kieth and Kerry-Anne that they will be doing the paso doble (the dance Kieth and Kerry-Anne were doing). This shocks Gran.

Bertie practices all week, and when the day arrives, Gran has trouble putting on her dress and Bertie finds a box of itching power and buys it, intending to use it on Kieth or Kerry-Anne. He wanders into Kerry-Anne's dressing room and she asks for her dress, so he puts itching powder on it.

On the dance floor, Bertie and Gran are disqualified for being clumsy and crashing into each other, but the itching powder does work on Kerry-Anne and when she shouts, "I'M ON FIRE!", Kieth drenches her with water, so she calls him an idiot and steals his wig. Bertie is happy-- he may not be going to New York, but he still has itching powder left and plans to use it on Miss Boot.

Zombie
Bertie's parents are going over to stay with two people named Penny and Paul (while Suzy stays with Bella), but Gran can't babysit him because she has toothache, Alice is at college, and Jackie doesn't want to because Bertie put a snail in her hair. So the only option is a spotty teenage boy named Kevin from across the road. Bertie doesn't like this idea because Kevin is a goth (his clothes scare him) and he doesn't say much.

However, when Kevin arrives, Bertie discovers that he lets him get away with burping and picking his nose. Bertie gets hungry and helps himself to crisps. He offers some to Kevin and he messily eats all three packets. They then both scoff chocolate and biscuits.

At this point, Bertie notices that it's almost nine PM, but wants to stay up late, so they have a pillow fight (breaking a vase) and watch a horror movie together. However, the movie begins to scare him and the parents arrive home early. He quickly cleans up, hides the broken vase in the fridge, and goes to bed, only for his dad to discover the broken vase when he goes to get a bedtime drink.