The clown is based on Burgerskip's CEO, Seamus O'Burger, who is planning to expand his fast-food empire even further as his helicopter team escorts him to the Amazon rainforest.

The guide refers to the tree opposite them, explaining the Amazonian tribes respect it as a deity named Panachek, the "heart and soul" of the rainforest.

The news of the burger reaches Burgerskip headquarters and to O'Burger, who redirects the plane to make an emergency meeting with the board of directors.

Terrified of disappointing their boss, the directors are hesitant to speak up but one stammers that similar tree burger complaints have reached their headquarters.

One day, a boy in Terry Blotch's class arrives at school with a giant marble given to him from a Scottish grandmother for his birthday, which everyone on the playground gathers around to admire.

While hiding in a locker in an empty school changing room, Terry notices a sports bag containing a football kit belonging to "A. Phantom", according to the name tags.

His mother telephones for an emergency home doctor, who recommends he avoids eating junk food and to have a bath, assuming it is acne (although he admits he has no idea whether his hypothesis was accurate).

Blotch never steals again — the slightest itch will remind him of his humiliation, whenever he has a potential shoplifting opportunity — however, he has started getting lots of acne that is hard to get rid of.

Rosie takes him to meet her parents and lets him eat sponge cake; Matt and Jody are expectantly shocked, and are surprised they can hear his voice.

Hours later, Nigel wakes up with a tight chest as if he had a severe cold; through the night, the vengeful spider ghosts had spun webs around his ribcage.

The children are disturbed as Mr Crumpdump proudly explains that he had someone trophy hunt for him but they move the foot towards the door by the leopard skin rug to use as an umbrella stand.

One rainy day, before a trip to the shoe shop, Belinda says aloud that she wishes the rain would stop as she takes her umbrella from the elephant's foot.

The children start to love their magical umbrella stand, making their schoolfriends jealous, and wish for several things every day until the mansion is almost full.

Mr and Mrs Crumpdump return home to find a broken staircase, a dirty carpet and the umbrella stand missing (the story writes that it has been stolen).

The narrator never got sympathy from his parents, who would call him ungrateful and selfish because there are children his age in the world who never get a chance to choose, let alone eat.

If he ever smelt baked beans being cooked, he would crawl under the nearest table and scream; tomato ketchup and carrots were two of his many trauma triggers.

The narrator screamed and covered himself with the tablecloth, accidentally spraying champagne over his girlfriend, making her leave in embarrassment and the other guests watch the commotion.

In the narrator's mind, the head waiter had shape-shifted into the school dinner lady, who demands he eats the cakes whilst trying to force feed him from a spoon.

Then he unscrews his tail and jumps down to the floor, sings a lullaby out of a navel, screwed his teeth in, kisses his son with one of eight lips and put a sausage in his ear to turn off the bedroom light.

The complicated back of the toilet allows Helen to hide her comic books from her family's clutches so that her "weak bladder" excuses are more convincing.

Confused and concerned, Augustus' mother says her son was inside and wanted her and his father to collect him because he and a boy he met were traumatised from seeing ghosts; "Sounds like him," the chief of police mumbled to himself.

When the police appear at the front door to ask questions about the bar death, the ghost gives snide commentary as the officer shows off the victim's photograph.

The officers reveal they are here to arrest him because the autopsy and forensic evidence finds him the culprit but the man still denies he was ever involved with the bar patron's death.

The alligator rolls itself into the corner of the room and begins to shape-shift again, growing a pinkish texture, turning into a man, and claims he is the actual killer; he is arrested and escorted out of the house.

He walks into his kitchen to take out beer to celebrate but his hand slides through the handle of the fridge, discovering he has switched places with his guilt ghost.

The ghost girl is named Penny and explains she was a student here 100 years ago who died when the school caught fire during her History exam.

On Results Day, the history class gather in front of a bulletin board poster full of everyone's grades, ordered from best to worst by percentage.

The last paragraph of the story points out Elisa never considered asking Penny if she had paid attention to the world around her during her haunting, or whether she had been a studiously diligent student when she was alive.

It takes Jack to a broiler room full of turkeys and explains how abusive and terrifying the poultry farming industry is for its species, especially during December.

"The Broken-Down Cottage" is the first story in the book series that is about the dangers of playing pranks, along with "Knock Down Ginger" and "The Gas Man Cometh" from More Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, "Monty's Python" from Nasty Little Beasts, and "The Piranha Sisters" from Blubbers and Sicksters.