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called Scouse, Gerald runs down a train tunnel and is killed by an oncoming train. As the narrator struggles to cope with Gerald's death, 12 roses appear from their hand, a gift from Gerald from beyond the grave. Afterwards when the narrator has a violent altercation on a train with Scouse, the train suddenly becomes completely filled with roses which result in the death of the skinhead, saving the narrator's life. At the conclusion, it is revealed that the narrator, Samantha, was the girl Gerald had bought the flowers for. Was later adapted as a fanmade visual novel.
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demonstrate a point about the way a person learns to speak. A young plumber visits and is horrified, and the father gives him permission to attempt to explain the experiment to Linda, convinced that she will not be able to comprehend what he is telling her; he tries several times, and as the story progresses she shows signs of beginning to understand what her father has done.
333:, he actually loves toads and ends up having two of them for pets. Frisbee, a man who lives near him sells souvenirs, but he ends up becoming a toad clearer himself. But he is different - he enjoys killing the toads and stuffing them for his new line of souvenirs. Will Martin be able to stop Frisbee from killing them?
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A boy visits a hypnotist on
Christmas Day because he somehow gets a small mouth that is the size of a marble. The boy explains through writing that while taking his younger brother Christmas shopping, they encountered a Santa Claus that had claws for fingernails and gave them, as well as their older
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A boy who has a doctor for a friend visits the doctor every day to see his inventions. The doctor's latest invention is a machine that can copy people. The boy ends up copying himself so he can take down a bully, but his copy ends up stealing his tea, his girlfriend, and finally his life. Was later
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The story follows the narrator's encounter with a boy, Gerald, who purchases a bouquet of a dozen roses for a girl. After a series of embarrassing accidents including spending most of his grandmother's pension, destroying the flowers on the train and being publicly humiliated by a local skinhead
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A man has kept his 14-year-old daughter Linda locked up in his house for her entire life; he is the only person with whom she has interacted, and he has deliberately communicated with her in 'mixed-up
English', using words in opposite contexts (such as interchanging the words 'yes' and 'no') to
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A girl's mother remarries an undertaker, which embarrasses the girl because he always drives in his hearse, and also because he tells her younger brother that his coffins are boats. As a result, the girl's younger brother launches the coffin into the water, thinking it is a boat and ending up
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Two boys enjoy pretending to be ghosts and haunting houses so that their owners will sell them. But when they create a mechanical headless chicken to scare off the owner of a local
Melbourne pub, they find out that the pub really is haunted - by the real headless chicken.
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A principal who enjoys giving the strap to troublemakers, as well as people who insult him, goes for a boat ride, but when he gets trapped in a current, he is forced to watch images of people doing to others what those others do to them.
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disgracing the family, but the undertaker doesn't even care, which also messes up the girl's life. When the undertaker brings a corpse home from work and the girl gets locked in a room with the corpse, the story gets interesting.
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A boy who is obsessed with garden gnomes gets a gnome with a face in its mouth. After getting the face out of the gnome's mouth, the boy ends up getting the face in his own mouth, as well as an eye growing on his finger.
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At the climax of the story, the house burns down with Linda's father trapped inside. When the fireman asks Linda if anyone is inside the house, she tells him 'no'; but, her meaning is left ambiguous.
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As one of
Jennings' darker collections, death is a theme in many of the stories. This includes "Unhappily Ever After" (which serves as an allegory for
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As such, the collection features the fewest stories to be adapted for the television series
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from peoples' yards and releasing them in a swamp - despite the cane toad's status as an
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sister, two wishes. Was later adapted as an episode of
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109:Learn how and when to remove this message
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348:This story was meant for young adults.
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473:Uncanny! Even More Surprising Stories
457:Unbelievable! More Surprising Stories
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47:adding citations to reliable sources
497:Unmentionable! More Amazing Stories
489:The Naked Ghost, Burp! and Blue Jam
641:Children's short story collections
621:Australian short story collections
465:Quirky Tails! More Oddball Stories
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311:loosely adapted as an episode of
221:. It was first released in 1987.
481:Unbearable! More Bizarre Stories
449:Unreal! Eight Surprising Stories
395:The book on Paul Jennings's site
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513:Uncovered! Weird, Weird Stories
34:needs additional citations for
325:A young man works by clearing
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548:How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare
331:invasive species in Australia
616:1987 short story collections
213:is the third in a series of
611:Australian children's books
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505:Undone! More Mad Endings
270:A Dozen Bloomin' Roses
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155:Short story collection
631:1987 children's books
217:by Australian author
288:Unhappily Ever After
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297:Spooks Incorporated
135:First edition cover
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186:Unbelievable
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165:Puffin Books
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99:January 2021
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41:Please help
36:verification
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586:(2000–2001)
570:(1989–2001)
441:collections
439:Short story
255:Santa Claws
241:The stories
605:Categories
352:References
327:cane toads
69:newspapers
590:Singenpoo
430:Works by
376:7 October
337:No Is Yes
161:Publisher
306:The Copy
583:Wicked!
521:Unseen!
321:Stuffed
199:Uncanny
83:scholar
578:(1998)
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176:1987
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