Literature / Angela Nicely

Angela Nicely, by Alan McDonald, is a series of books that are a Spin-Off to Dirty Bertie about Bertie's neighbour Angela.

Though Angela's personality is quite different from Bertie's, she does have madcap adventures with two close friends like he does (she has two girl classmates named Laura and Maisie). Another thing Angela has in common with Bertie is that she has a rival classmate — hers is a snobby, showoff girl named Tiffany Charmers.

Angela Nicely provides examples of

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• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Discussed in "Pony Party!", where Angela wonders if a "pony party" is a party where ponies wear party hats.
• Accidental Good Outcome: In "Cupcake Wars", Angela and Tiffany both decide to make cupcake stands at the school fair, leading to a petty fight between them. When Angela tries to make rainbow-frosted cupcakes, the icing mixes together, leading to ugly-looking icing. At first, this accident is far from happy, but when someone tells her the cupcakes look like "blobby monsters", she decides to turn that into a marketing ploy by encouraging buyers to add monster decorations to them.
• Acrofatic: "Puppy Love!" establishes that Pusskins can run surprisingly fast despite being "podgy".
• Actually Pretty Funny: In "Tiger Trouble!", Laura dresses as a tiger upon Angela and Maisie’s request so that she can pretend to be scared away by Miss Darling and Miss Darling can win Teacher of the Year. However, Miss Boot isn’t fooled and Laura is made to reveal herself in front of both her and Miss Darling. When the girls explain what they did, Miss Darling tries to look stern, but at the same time tries not to laugh.
• Age-Gap Romance: Discussed in "Matchmaker!", where Angela considers pairing Miss Darling (an adult) up with Bertie (a seven-year-old). She stops when she realises that he's her crush, and besides a boyfriend needs to be the same age as his lover. Then, she suggests pairing her with Mr. Grouch, but Maisie points out that Mr. Grouch is "ancient".
• Allergic to Love: Conversed in the love poem Angela writes in "Matchmaker!", which has the line "Evry [sic] day when you walk by, I feel so sik [sic] I want to cry."
• Alpha Bitch: Tiffany is Angela’s snobby rival classmate, with an obsession with being the best at everything.
• Alliterative Title:
  • One story is called “Pony Party!”.
  • One story is called “Healthy Holiday!”
  • One is called “Tiger Trouble!”
  • One is called “The Tidiest Tent!”.
• Amazing Technicolour Wildlife: “Blooming Gardens!” reveals Angela to own several blue soft toy elephants.
• Animal Jingoism: In “Puppy Love!”, Mr. Nicely doesn’t want a dog because they have a cat and “cats and dogs don’t mix”. Later, Max and Scruff the dog do indeed chase Pusskins, though Angela does point out that some dogs get along with cats.
• Animal Lover: Angela owns a cat, wants a dog, and in “Nature Detectives!”, she wants to see a bear, wolf, snake, bird, squirrel, or baby gorilla.
• Apophenia Plot: In “Neighbourhood Watch!”, Angela mistakes Mr. Monk for a burglar due to him wearing black clothes including a balaclava, owning some candlesticks, and having dug in his garden. Actually, he was wearing those clothes to decorate his house, the candlesticks are his, and he was digging because he wanted a garden.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In “The Ugly Sisters!”, Angela says that Bertie has probably eaten some bad things, like mud, slugs, snails, or… school rice pudding.
• Artistic License – Medicine: In “Matchmaker!”, Miss Darling says that she has hay fever and needs a day off. However, hay fever isn’t contagious and unless the sufferer is immunocompromised, it isn’t serious enough to incapacitate someone, so it wouldn’t generally necessitate a day off.
• Athletically Challenged: “Girls United!” reveals that Angela’s classmate Dora “burst[s] into tears if you ask her to catch a beanbag.”
• Attention Whore:
  • Tiffany Charmers hates other people getting praise.
  • Downplayed for Angela herself, who doesn’t fight for attention that much, but likes being the center of attention and the idea of being famous appeals to her.
• Bears Are Bad News: Discussed in “The Tidiest Tent!”, when Angela, Laura, and Maisie are camping and hear noises and they worry that it’s a bear.
• Big "NO!": In “Puppy Love!”, Angela yells, “NOOOOOOO!” when the dogs she’s looking after as a secret run into the lounge.
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: In “The Ugly Sisters!”, Laura suggests getting revenge on the Payne twins by calling them “silly sausage”.
• Birthday Episode: In “Pony Party!”, Tiffany has her birthday (supposedly turning six, since that’s how old Angela is) and at the party, Angela has to ride a full-sized horse while the rest of the girls are on ponies.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • At the end of “The Tidiest Tent!”, Angela, Laura, and Maisie are made to wash the dishes as punishment for stealing their scout mistress Brown Owl’s clothes (they meant to steal Tiffany’s), and not only did Angela not win her coveted prize, Tiffany did… However, Angela does manage to get her revenge on Tiffany by dumping water on her.
  • At the end of “Problems, Problems!”, Angela and Molly are both in trouble for pranking Miss Boot with a “kiss me” sign, but at least the plan to get Molly noticed worked.
  • “Talent!” ends with Angela losing the talent contest, but still enjoying herself, and Tiffany (her nemesis) also losing.
• Blind Without 'Em: Mr. Weakly is revealed to be “blind as a bat” without his glasses in “Matchmaker!”.
• Bratty Half-Pint:
  • Downplayed for Angela, who sometimes whines or fumes, but not any morseo than a typical six-year-old.
  • Played straight for Tiffany, who always pouts and complains whenever she doesn’t get her way, and who is obsessed with attention.
• Buffy Speak: In “Cupcake Wars!”, Angela anticipates making “chocolatey”, “lemony”, and “banana-ey” cupcakes.
• The Bully: Tiffany Charmers and the Payne twins both like to give Angela and her friends a hard time, Tiffany by showboating and berating Angela, and the Payne twins by doing things like stealing her lunch.
• Camping Episode: “The Tidiest Tent!” focuses on Angela and several other girls her age in a scout group going camping.
• Catchphrase Insult: Angela insults Tiffany by calling her a “smarty-pants”.
• Child Hater: One of the Nicelys’ neighbours, Mr. Monk, hates children and complains when they play on the streets.
• Collective Death Glare: At the end of “Blooming Gardens!”, Mrs. Shrub, Mrs. Nettles, and Mrs. Nicely all glare at Angela for pushing Mrs. Shrub into the pond mistaking her for Mrs. Nettles.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: In “Supermodel”, when trying out to be a model for a clothing magazine, a woman named Melanie asks Angela what her hobbies are. When Angela reveals she can stand on her head, she demonstrates, and her skirt falls down, showing her underwear and embarrassing her mother.
• Comically Missing the Point: In “Miss Skinner’s Wig!”, Angela sees Miss Skinner apparently wearing a wig and says to Laura, “Look what she’s wearing!”. Laura replies, “Sandals”.
• Constantly Curious: In “Neighbourhood Watch!”, Mrs. Nicely complains that Angela’s questions go on “forever”.
• Continuity Nod: In “Girls United!”, Angela says that Mrs. Nicely isn’t keen on football, since when Bertie played it, the ball broke her greenhouse window. This happened in the Dirty Bertie story “Smash!”.
• Cool Teacher: Angela considers Miss Darling the best teacher because she’s the most patient, most amiable, and most lenient.
• Crack Pairing: In-Universe, in “Matchmaker!”, Angela’s friends find the idea of Miss Darling dating Mr. Grouch or Mr. Weakly nonsensical.
• Cranky Neighbour: Mr. Monk lives across the street from the Nicelys and is often complaining about the kids’ antics and telling them off.
• Death Glare:
  • In “Cupcake Wars!”, Angela “looks daggers” at Tiffany for stealing her idea for a cake stall at the Spring Fair.
  • In “Miss Skinner’s Wig!”, Maisie glares at Angela for getting them both in trouble.
  • In “Supermodel!”, Mrs. Nicely shoots Mr. Nicely “a look” for complimenting Tiffany on being a model, since Mrs. Nicely and Mrs. Charmers (Tiffany’s mother) are rivals. Then, she glares at him again when he thinks Angela is too young to be a model, then Angela glares at Tiffany for claiming it’s “sweet” that she wants to be a model.
  • She glares at Tiffany again in “Starstruck!” for boasting about being able to sit close to the boy band at the concert.
  • In “The Big Bike Ride!”, Angela shoots Maisie a “sharp look” for claiming she and Laura did most of the work on the lemonade stand.
  • In “The Ugly Sisters!”, Suzy glares at the Payne twins for picking on Angela.
• Denied Food as Punishment: In “Healthy Holiday!”, the spa owner Miss Bullock punishes Angela for stealing food with no breakfast.
• Department of Redundancy Department: In “Talent!”, Angela, when trying to hypnotise Laura, says that she’s falling into a deep “sleepy sleep”.
• Determinator: Angela seldom gives up, even when she gets in trouble, which sometimes annoys her friends.
• Diet Episode: In “Healthy Holiday!”, Mrs. Nicely wants to lose weight, so she goes to a spa, and she brings Angela with her. However, since the spa is focused on weight loss, it serves ridiculously small portions of food.
• A Dog Named "Dog": Downplayed in “Pony Party!”, in which one horse is named Dobbin, which is slang for a horse.
• Dog Walks You: In “Puppy Love!”, Angela tries to walk Max (who appears to be an Irish Setter) and Scruff, but Max pulls her along and Scruff runs in the wrong way.
• Eat Dirt, Cheap: In “The Ugly Sisters!”, the Payne twins make Angela eat a mud sandwich.
• Entertainment Above Their Age: In “Matchmaker!”, Maisie (a six-year-old girl) compares Mr. Weakly to James Bond.
• "Eureka!" Moment: In “Cupcake Wars!”, Angela gets the idea to decorate her brown-iced cupcakes like monsters when Maisie complains that they “look like blobby monsters”.
• Exact Words: In “The Big Bike Ride!”, Maisie says that the money from her, Laura, and Angela’s lemonade stand is going to “poor people”, then says that’s technically true as Angela has no money.
• Extra Eyes: In “Cupcake Wars!”, Darren decorates his cupcake to look like a three-eyed monster.
• Extreme Omnivore: In “Problems, Problems!”, Laura suggests that Molly the new girl could eat a worm to get noticed.
• Faux Horrific: In “Starstruck!”, Angela sneaks into her favourite boy band’s dressing room, and fears they’ll call security, the police, or Mrs. Nicely, the latter of which she feels is the worst.
• Female Misogynist: In “Girls United!”, Miss Boot is taken aback by a girl (Angela) joining the football team.
• Filthy Fun: Angela’s classmate Ryan has a dog named Max, who likes to roll in mud.
• Flat Joy: In “Healthy Holiday!”, Angela simply states, “yahoo” because her mother had told her shouting gave her a headache.
• Foreshadowing: Early on in “Matchmaker!”, Miss Darling says she has hay fever. At the end, it’s revealed that this is why her eyes were red and she hadn’t been crying after all.
• Formally-Named Pet: Tiffany’s pet pony is named Princess.
• Full-Name Ultimatum:
  • In “Miss Skinner’s Wig!”, Miss Skinner the headmistress yells, “ANGELA NICELY!” when Angela whispers during assembly, then later when Angela looks through her office window.
  • In “Problems, Problems!”, Miss Boot says, “Molly Johnson!” when she learns it was Molly who stuck the “Kiss Me” sign to her back, then, “Angela Nicely, come here!” when she learns it was Angela who wrote the sign.
  • At the beginning of “Matchmaker!”, Miss Darling yells, “ANGELA NICELY, are you talking?!”. She yells Angela’s full name again when she catches her spying on Miss Boot and Mr. Weakly.
• Funny Photo Phrase: In “Supermodel!”, when Angela, Tiffany, and two other girls are posing for a photo, the photographer makes them shout, “ICE CREAM!”.
• Fun with Acronyms: Angela’s club is called Girls Only, Boys Smell (or GOBS).
• Genki Girl: He’s a male dog, but in “Puppy Love!”, Angela’s neighbour’s dog Max runs all about the place and literally the only time he sits down is to poop.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Angela wears a pink dress with a matching bow and likes ponies and romance, but she also climbs trees, and in “Girls United!” she plays soccer/football.
• Girls Have Cooties: Gender-inverted for Angela’s club, which is called Girls Only, Boys Smell (GOBS).
• The Glasses Gotta Go: A rare male example in “Matchmaker!” when Angela and Maisie are trying to hook Mr. Weakly up with Miss Darling and think that he’d be more attractive without his glasses.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • Discussed in “Pony Party!”, when Maisie claims that Tiffany only invited Angela to the eponymous party because she was “up to something”, but Angela thinks Maisie is just jealous that she wasn’t invited.
  • In “Supermodel!”, Angela complains to herself that Tiffany always gets to brag during News Time at school, but she never gets a chance to.
  • In “The Big Bike Ride!”, Angela thinks it’s unfair that Laura and Maisie can afford sweets and she can’t.
• Happy Dance: In “The Big Bike Ride!”, Angela does a little dance upon getting her pocket money.
• Here We Go Again!: At the end of “Miss Skinner’s Wig!”, Angela realises that Miss Skinner doesn’t wear a wig, but now she thinks that Mr. Weakly does.
• Hypno Fool: Attempted in “Talent!”, when Angela tries to hypnotise Laura for the talent show, but it doesn’t work, so Laura just pretends. Then, Tiffany asks to be hypnotised, which also doesn’t work, so Angela tricks the audience by claiming she’s hypnotising Tiffany into being Miss Boot (which works because they’re both grumpy).
• I Don't Think That's Such a Good Idea:
  • Laura and Maisie often express doubt when they think Angela’s plans are too risky.
  • Mr. Nicely sometimes expresses concern about his wife’s ideas, usually if they involve Angela.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: “Problems, Problems!” introduces Molly, a new girl who is too shy to make friends and wants to know how to make some.
• Incompatible Orientation: Discussed in “Matchmaker!”, where Angela notes that if they want to hook Miss Darling up with someone, it would have to be Mr. Weakly, since he’s the only male teacher, and Mr. Grouch the caretaker is too old and too grumpy.
• Inevitably Broken Rule:
  • In “Healthy Holiday!”, the Nicely ladies go to a spa where snacks aren’t allowed and there’s a ten PM curfew. They end up having a midnight snack.
  • In “Starstruck!”, Mrs. Nicely tells the girls not to scream at the concert, but they do.
• Insufferable Genius: Tiffany Charmers is a snooty girl who’s always making fun of Angela, and she’s also the top student.
• Intentional Mess Making: Subverted in “Supermodel!”, where Angela tries to trick Tiffany into getting her dress wet before posing for a photo, by goading her into paddling in the sea. However, Angela gets splashed by a wave and Tiffany stays dry.
• Ironic Name: Mrs. Nicely, despite her last name, is actually quite a cross-patch, complaining about things such as messes and Mrs. Charmers’s bragging.
• Jerk Jock: Downplayed for the Payne twins, who are bullies, and they play soccer/football, but are bad at P.E. in general.
• Joke of the Butt:
  • In “Healthy Holiday!”, the flyer for the spa asks if the reader is “baggy as an elephant’s bottom”.
  • In “The Big Bike Ride!”, Angela thinks her father’s tight shorts make his rump look big.
• "Just Joking" Justification: In “The Ugly Sisters!”, the Payne twins try to pacify an angry Suzy by saying that their bullying of Angela was “just a joke”.
• Kids Hate Vegetables:
  • In “Healthy Holiday!”, Angela is revealed to hate beets and she makes a face when eating a carrot.
  • In “The Ugly Sisters!”, Myleen finds Angela’s carrot sticks gross.
• Kids Love Dinosaurs: In “Cupcake Wars!”, when Miss Darling asks the class what they want for the fair, the twins suggest a dinosaur stall.
• Large Ham: Angela is very dramatic, often shouting, throwing her hands up when frustrated, and making theatrical assumptions like Mr. Monk being a burglar.
• Lemonade Stand Plot: The plot of “The Big Bike Ride!” is Angela, Laura, and Maisie trying to sell lemonade to passing cyclists.
• Limited Wardrobe: Characters are generally drawn in the same clothes.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": The Nicely cat is named Pusskins.
• Loophole Abuse: In “The Big Bike Ride!”, Angela rationalises that it’s okay to use Mrs. Nicely’s expensive soda water that she isn’t allowed to drink to make lemonade with, because she’s not going to be the one to drink it.
• Ludicrous Gift Request: In “Puppy Love!”, it’s mentioned that Angela once asked for a puppy for Christmas.
• Mad Libs Catchphrase: Mrs. Nicely likes to say things like “If X happens one more time, I think I’ll scream.”
• Meaningful Name:
  • Mr. Nicely is the most agreeable member of his family; he isn’t grumpy like his wife.
  • Mrs. Darling is the most cheerful and patient of the teachers.
  • “Blooming Gardens!” features a judge of a gardening contest named Mrs. Shrub.
• Micro Dieting: In "Healthy Holiday", Mrs. Nicely discovers she can no longer fit into a dress, fears that it's because she gained weight, and goes to a weight loss spa with her daughter Angela. However, both of them have a horrible time, with one of the reasons being that the spa only serves tiny amounts of food.
• Midnight Snack:
  • In “Healthy Holiday”, Mrs. Nicely and Angela go to a spa that’s focused on weight loss and thus feeds the patrons ridiculously small amounts of food and confiscates any treats they take. At midnight, Angela sneaks into the cupboard and steals the confiscated snacks, and she and Mrs. Nicely dine on them.
  • In “The Tidiest Tent!”, Angela anticipates eating midnight snacks every night on her camping trip.
• Mistaken for Brooding: Downplayed in “Matchmaker!”, in which Miss Darling was in a bit of a bad mood (she was feeling a bit irritable because her eyes hurt), but she wasn’t as miserable as Angela thought, because Angela had seen Miss Darling with red eyes from hay fever and assumed she’d been crying.
• Mistaken for Thief: In “Neighbourhood Watch!”, Angela thinks that Mr. Monk is a burglar because he has some candlesticks, was wearing a black outfit including a balaclava, and had been digging. He’s not, though.
• Mistaken Identity: In “Blooming Gardens!”, Angela mistakes Mrs. Shrub for Mrs. Nettles, since she’s never seen either before, both are thin, and Mrs. Shrub ate a strawberry which she mistook as vandalism. Angela also mistakes a random old woman for Mrs. Shrub.
• Nasal Trauma: In “Pony Party!”, Dobbin the horse only runs in his course because he got bit on the nose by a horsefly.
• Nature Lover:
  • Both of the Nicely parents are often seen gardening, especially Mrs. Nicely, who complains about her garden getting messed up.
  • Mr. Weakly is revealed to like foraging in the woods in “Nature Detectives!”.
• Neat Freak: Mrs. Nicely gets very angry whenever there’s a mess, and the whole reason she doesn’t want a dog is because she doesn’t want to clean up poop or hair.
• No Animals Allowed: In “Puppy Love!”, Angela accidentally walks two dogs (one belonging to her classmate and one belonging to her neighbour) into a garden that doesn’t allow dogs and is yelled at by a woman.
• No Ending: “Blooming Gardens!” ends with Angela being glared at for pushing Mrs. Shrub the judge into the pond (mistaking her for Mrs. Nicely’s rival Mrs. Nettles), but we never find out whether Mrs. Nicely wins or loses the competition, or what happens to Angela.
• Nose Nuggets:
  • In “Miss Skinner’s Wig!”, Miss Skinner tells Bertie to wipe his nose, then adds, “Not on Darren!”.
  • In “Blooming Gardens!”, Bertie is illustrated with a finger up his nose.
• Nursery Rhyme: “Talent!” reveals that Angela used to dress as a teapot and sing “I’m a Little Teapot” when she was in nursery school. Later in the same story, Angela tells Laura to say, “Eenie meenie miny moe” when trying to hypnotise her.
• Oh, Crap!: In “Starstruck!”, when Angela sneaks into the boy band’s dressing room, she immediately realises that she’d be in trouble if they saw her.
• Plot Allergy: Miss Darling is revealed to have hay fever in “Matchmaker!”, and it causes trouble when Angela mistakes her red eyes for a sign she’s been crying and assumes she’s been dumped.
• Pun:
  • In “Puppy Love!”, Angela opens her dog-walking service ad with “Dog tired?”.
  • “The Big Bike Ride!” features an ad for a “wheely” big bike ride.
• Pun-Based Title: One story called “Puppy Love!” is about Angela wanting a puppy.
• Puppy Love:
  • “Starstruck!” establishes that Angela and her friends (all six-year-old girls) find a pop star “dreamy”.
  • Just like in the parent series, Angela has an unrequited crush on Bertie, and thinks of herself as his girlfriend.
• Revenge: In “The Ugly Sisters!”, Eileen (along with her twin sister Myleen) bullies Angela to get revenge on her for laughing when she fell off her chair, then later Angela gets revenge back by siccing Suzy Burns on them.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In “Miss Skinner’s Wig!”, Maisie says that Angela was lying about Miss Skinner wearing a wig. She was right that Miss Skinner wasn’t wearing a wig (her hair was dyed), but Angela wasn’t lying; she was just mistaken.
• The Rival:
  • Angela and Tiffany are often competing with each other and bothering each other.
  • Mrs. Nicely and Mrs. Nettles often butt heads when trying to win the gardening competition, as revealed in “Blooming Gardens!”.
• Road Apples: There are several dog poop jokes in “Puppy Love!” – the opening drawing has a dog pooping, Mrs. Nicely doesn’t want a dog as she doesn’t want to scoop its poop, and when Angela is looking after her neighbour’s dog Scruff, he poops on the driveway and later Mrs. Nicely steps in it.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: In “Matchmaker!”, Angela misspells “could” as “cud” and “would” as “wood”.
• Savage Wolf:
  • Discussed in “The Tidiest Tent!” when Laura worries that there’s a wolf in the campsite.
  • Also discussed in “Nature Detectives!”, where Angela wonders if they’ll be eaten by wolves in the woods.
• Say My Name:
  • At the end of “Neighbourhood Watch!”, one of Angela’s friends moans, “ANGELAAA!” when she gets dirt in her face.
  • Mrs. Nicely screams Angela’s name when she steps in the poop of one of the dogs Angela was babysitting.
  • Mrs. Nicely yells, “ANGELA!” when she and her friends make a mess of her kitchen in “The Big Bike Ride!”, then later Maisie does when Angela tastes the lemonade they’re supposed to be selling.
• Senior Sleep-Cycle: “Blooming Gardens!” has an old lady, who randomly falls asleep in the middle of a conversation.
• Shared Family Quirks: Mrs. Charmers and her daughter Tiffany are both braggarts, with the former often boasting about the latter and the latter often boasting about herself.
• Shout-Out:
  • In “Cupcake Wars!”, Spike wants a Spiderman stall at the fair.
  • In “Pony Party!”, one of the ponies is named Bilbo.
  • In “Matchmaker!”, Maisie says that Mr. Weakly looks like James Bond after she and Angela style his hair with glue.
  • In “The Ugly Sisters!”, the Payne twins tease Angela by calling her Goldilocks.
• Shrinking Violet:
  • “Problems, Problems!” introduces Molly, a girl who’s new to the school, doesn’t talk much, blushes a lot, and gets nervous easily.
  • Just like in Dirty Bertie, Mr. Weakly is a very jittery, nervous man who hesitates a lot and his afraid of heights.
• Single-Minded Twins: Eileen and Myleen Payne are twins, and there’s not much separating them – they’re both bullies and both play soccer/football.
• Sleep Deprivation: In “Matchmaker!”, Angela wonders if Miss Darling stayed up too late to explain why she’s so grumpy.
• Slipping into Stink:
  • In “Miss Skinner’s Wig!”, Angela, who was on Maisie’s shoulders, gets startled by Miss Skinner and falls backwards into the compost heap.
  • In “Girls United!”, Angela keeps slipping into mud when she tries to play football/soccer.
• Smug Snake: Tiffany is a very arrogant girl who thinks she’s the best at everything. For instance, in “Cupcake Wars!”, she’s confident that her cupcakes will be the most popular.
• Soda Can Shake Up: In “The Big Bike Ride!”, the girls try to shake up a bottle of their homemade lemonade to make it fizzier, but it ends up spurting everywhere.
• Spelling for Emphasis: In “Puppy Love!”, Angela remembers that she’s been begging her parents for a dog for ages, but “the answer was always the same: N-O spells NO.”
• Spoiled Brat: Tiffany Charmers is often bragging and acting snobby, and always wants her own way, and it’s implied her mother Linda spoils her, for instance, in “Starstruck!”, Linda pays extra so that Tiffany can sit in the front row of a concert, claiming that Tiffany deserves the best.
• Stealth Insult: In “Problems, Problems!”, Angela asks Mrs. Nicely to read the Agony Aunt article, but Mrs. Nicely says no because the problems are all about “money, or boyfriends, or mothers who never get a moment’s peace”.
• Stern Teacher: Miss Boot, just like in the parent series, is extremely grumpy and strict and has a bad rap among the students.
• Stink Snub: In “Miss Skinner’s Wig!”, Angela, who’d fallen into the compost heap, complains that it smells. Miss Skinner sniffs the air and says, “So it would seem”.
• Stock "Yuck!": In “The Ugly Sisters!”, Angela thinks rice pudding is just as bad as eating mud or bugs.
• Students Playing Matchmaker: In “Matchmaker!”, Angela tries to set Miss Darling up with Mr. Weakly after thinking that Miss Darling had been dumped by writing love poems to both teachers.
• Supreme Chef:
  • According to Angela in “Cupcake Wars!”, Mrs. Nicely makes “amazing cakes”.
  • In “Cupcake Wars!”, Angela is sure that Mrs. Charmers made Tiffany’s cupcakes since they’re so immaculate.
• Sweet Tooth:
  • Angela loves chocolate, and she can be seen eating it in several stories, in “The Big Bike Ride!” she wishes she could afford some candy, and in “Healthy Holiday!”, she expresses desire for doughnuts, iced buns, and ice cream.
  • “Blooming Gardens!” features an old woman who’s shown eating cake and lemon slice.
  • In “The Big Bike Ride!”, Laura and Maisie are seen scoffing candy, and in “Girls United!”, Angela says that they’d be the first to join a cake-eating club.
• Tastes Better Than It Looks: In “Cupcake Wars!”, Angela makes cupcakes but tries to ice them in rainbow colours, resulting in the icings mixing together. The result is cupcakes that taste good but have ugly brown icing.
• Tempting Fate:
  • In “Cupcake Wars!”, Mrs. Nicely tells Angela not to spill any cake batter, and she says she won’t, but due to accidentally setting the electric whisk on high speed, she does.
  • Also in “Cupcake Wars!”, Tiffany tries to up her sales by writing people’s names in icing on their cupcakes. Angela says, “Who wants their name on a cupcake?”, but then the named cupcakes sell greatly.
  • In “Healthy Holiday!”, Angela says that all the staff at the spa they’re staying at are in bed, right before a staff member busts in.
• Theme Twin Naming: The Payne twins are called Eileen and Myleen.
• Toilet Humour: When the girls are spying on Mr. Monk in “Neighbourhood Watch!”, Maisie writes, “Ware’s he gone now? To toilet?”.
• Token Minority:
  • Maisie is the only black main character.
  • Inverted for New Boyz, the band seen in “Starstruck!”, which has three black guys and one white guy.
• Tongue-Out Insult: Angela is often sticking out her tongue at her rival classmate Tiffany. Justified in that Angela’s only six.
• Vacation Episode: “Healthy Holiday!” involves Angela and her mother vacationing at a weight-loss spa due to Mrs. Nicely fearing that she’s gained weight, but they hate it because it forces them to exercise and doesn’t give them enough food.
• Vague Age: Miss Darling is an adult woman old enough to be a first-year teacher, but in “Matchmaker!”, Angela claims that she could be anywhere between 21 and 40.
• Weight Woe: In “Healthy Holiday!”, Mrs. Nicely tries to lose weight after Angela wonders if she got bigger when Mrs. Nicely’s dress no longer fits.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • “The Tidiest Tent!” reveals Laura to be afraid of both the dark and snakes.
  • In “Problems, Problems!”, Angela imagines Trevor writing to her about being “afrade” of the dark.
  • “Nature Detectives!” reveals Mr. Weakly to be afraid of heights.
• Xtreme Kool Letterz: “Starstruck!” features a band called New Boyz.
• You Go, Girl!: In “Girls United!”, Angela wants to join the soccer/football team, but it’s only boys, so Miss Darling (who also plays it) assembles a girls’ team, consisting of Angela and her female classmates.
• Zany Scheme:
  • In “Tiger Trouble!”, Angela wants Miss Darling to win the Teacher of the Year award, so she decides to have Laura dress as a tiger and have it look like Miss Darling scared the tiger away.
  • In “Problems, Problems!”, Angela decides to get Molly the new girl noticed by writing, “Kiss Me!” on a sign, and having her stick it to Miss Boot’s back.

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