Literature / Dirty Bertie

Dirty Bertie is a series of children's books by David Roberts.

The books focus on a seven-year-old boy who lives in London with his parents, his older sister Suzy, and his dog Whiffer.The boy's name is Bertie and he likes to do gross-out things like play with worms, pick his nose, and stuff like that, which disgusts other people.

His rivals include a snooty boy named Nicholas, also known as Know-All Nick, his teacher Miss Boot, a nosy girl next door who pretends to be his girlfriend named Angela Nicely, and a wealthy boy named Royston Rich.His friends are three of his classmates: Darren, Eugene, and Donna, the former two of whom are his best friends.

The first story was simply called "Dirty Bertie", whereas the others usually have one-word titles that end in an exclamation mark.

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Dirty Bertie provides examples of...

• Absurd Brand Name: In one story, the foods at a restaurant are named unappetizing things like "chicken on a bed of goop".
• The Ace: Flora, a little girl, is very talented and is good at maths, ballet and clarinet-playing.
• Accidental Good Outcome:
  • In "Fishy", Bertie tries to prank Nick with a maggot sandwich during a fishing trip. He fails but ends up catching a large carp that was attracted to the sandwich.
  • In "Mud", Bertie accidentally scores a goal in soccer/football, leading to a draw, which the school considers as good as a win since they were playing against a notoriously hard-to-beat team called Cropper Lane.
  • In "Snore", Bertie and his classmates are at sleepaway camp, but Nick has to bunk with Darren and Eugene (who hate him and vice versa) and Bertie has to bunk with Trevor (who he hates for being Nick's best friend) and Warren (who he finds annoying because Warren is Prone to Tears). Bertie, Darren, and Eugene try to carry a sleeping Nick into Trevor and Warren's room, but accidentally carry him into Miss Boot's room. However, Bertie, Darren, and Eugene then run away, so Miss Boot thinks Nick snuck into her room to cause trouble and puts him into Trevor and Warren's room and Bertie into Darren and Eugene's room, meaning all six boys got the bunkmates they wanted anyway.
  • In "Royal", Bertie hopes to meet the Queen at a party at Buckingham Palace. He does, but purely by accident, thinking she's just a random old lady.
• Accidental Misnaming:
  • In "Fame!", Miss Lavish calls Bertie "Billy". In another story with the same title, Paul calls him "Benny".
  • In "Bum!", Nadia calls Molly "Monny", probably because Nadia is only fourteen months and three weeks old.
• Actually Not a Vampire: In "Fangs!", Bertie, Darren and Eugene wonder if Mr Grouch is a vampire/human hybrid because he dressed as Dracula, he's creepy and he drank a substance that looked like blood. It turns out it was actually tomato soup.
• Affection-Hating Kid: Bertie finds his neighbour girl Angela's kiddie crush on him (she claims she's his girlfriend but she's six and he's seven) disgusting and he's both disgusted and bored by romance movies.
• Afraid of Doctors: Bertie is afraid of the dentist Mr Filling because he thinks Mr Filling looks scary. Bertie later find out Mr Filling is actually very nice and loves animals like Bertie does. Apparently, Suzy used to be afraid of him too.
• After-School Cleaning Duty: In "Fire!", Bertie is made to clean up the leaves that Mr Grouch was burning after putting them out, believing the school to be on fire.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Royston Rich.
  • Bertie's last name is Burns.
  • Apparently, Mr Grouch's first name also begins with G.
• Ambiguous Situation: Miss Boot freaks out when she sees Whiffer. It is unknown whether she's scared of dogs or just scared of Whiffer.
• Animal Lover:
  • Bertie likes all animals except cats, and even then, he doesn't dislike cats but doesn't "see the point" of them. He's tried to keep frogs, worms, etc as pets.
  • Angela also seems to be an animal lover — she owns a cat, likes ponies, and one of the Angela Nicely books reveals that she wants a dog.
• Animal Goes to School:
  • In "Rats", Bertie adopts the mouse that was in his pantry in secret and names him Monty. Bertie brings Monty to school in a cardboard box, but he escapes in class, scaring the teacher, Miss Boot, who is afraid of mice and rats.
  • In "Spider", Bertie tries to keep a pet spider, which he thinks is a tarantula, and names him Tickler. He takes Tickler to school, but Tickler escapes. Everyone freaks out until Miss Boot determines that he's not a tarantula and not dangerous. Tickler is then set free, but he decides to live in the boys' toilets, where Bertie can still see him.
  • In "Record", Bertie wants to use his dog Whiffer to break the record for a skateboarding dog. Bertie takes Whiffer to school and hides him in the closet, then when Whiffer barks, Bertie lies that he has a "barking cough".
• Anxiety Dreams:
  • When Bertie loses a bet with Nick and has to go to school in his undies, he has a "Not Wearing Pants" Dream out of fear.
  • When Bertie has to go to the dentist, he has a nightmare where the dentist has fangs.
  • In "Mud!", Bertie has a nightmare about playing soccer/football against a team of Miss Boots when he's afraid to play it.
• Appetite Equals Health: In the story "Pants!", when Bertie doesn't want a potato crisp, Darren says, "Are you ill?"
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Bertie's imagined life as a pirate in "Pirate!" includes plundering, looting and not washing behind his ears (the first two words are synonyms for "stealing").
• Artistic License – Religion: Discussed when Bertie wants to rewrite the nativity story so that pirates fight robbers, but his mother says no.
• Baby See, Baby Do: In "Bum!", Molly copies Bertie saying, "Bum!" and it ends up her first word. To avoid trouble, he tries unsuccessfully to get her to say his name instead. Then, Molly says, "Bum!" again and her friend Nadia copies.
• Baby's First Words: In "Bum!", Bertie and his parents are visiting his mother's friends Simon and Jenny and their 14-month-old daughter Molly. When Bertie shouts, "Bum!" as an exclamation, it becomes Molly's first word and Bertie tries to hide it from Simon and Jenny.
• Babysitting Episode:
  • In "Zombie!", Bertie gets babysat by a laconic teenage boy.
  • In "Scream!", Bertie gets babysat by his gran.
• Baby Talk: In "Bum!", when Molly tries to kiss Bertie, Mrs. Burns says, "Molly want a kiss? Kiss for Bertie?".
• Bathroom Search Excuse: Sometimes, Bertie or another kid lies that they need to go to the bathroom:
  • In "Bum!", when Bertie is trying to get out of trouble when baby Molly says, "Bum!" (which he accidentally taught her, and which is her first word), he says that he's going off for a poo.
  • In "Fangs!", Bertie, Darren, and Eugene lie that they need to pee to distract Mr. Grouch.
• Bedsheet Ghost: In "Stinky!", Bertie wears a bedsheet to pretend to be a ghost to scare Suzy's mean friend Bella.
• Bicolor Cows, Solid Color Bulls: In "Runner!", Bertie and Nick run through a field of cattle. All the cows are white with dark spots, but the sole bull is totally black.
• Big "NO!": Bertie shouts, "NOOO!" upon learning he has to have a haircut, and so does Miss Boot when the penny pyramid crashes. Additionally, Bertie also said, "NO!" with one "o" but still in caps upon hearing that Great-Aunt Morag is visiting.
• Big "YES!": When Bertie gets to look after Snuffles in "Hamster!", he says, "Yessssss!". He says it again in "Zombie!" when he hears Eugene is coming for a sleepover, in "Fishy!" when his father allows him to go fishing and in "Fame!" when he hears he might be on TV.
• Bird-Poop Gag: In "Potty!", the house Bertie's class visits is described as being "whitewashed with pigeon poo".
• Bittersweet Ending: The series often plays this for laughs:
  • At the end of "Burp!", the school is back to the cook Bertie preferred, but he's lost his appetite and the other students still don't like the menu.
  • In one story, Bertie and his grandmother sign up to a dance contest to win a trip to New York. They lose, but don't mind, since their obnoxious rivals also lost.
  • At the end of "Hamster!", Bertie finds the eponymous hamster, Snuffles, but then Snuffles poops on him.
  • "Walkies" ends with Bertie being told off, but Whiffer passing his training test.
  • At the end of "Crackers!", the Christmas play goes wrong, but the boys and Whiffer happily go caroling.
  • "Slave" ends with Royston refusing to pay Bertie for making him his slave, yet Bertie doesn't mind and gets to tease Royston.
  • At the end of "Fetch!", Tiny the robot dog is destroyed and lost at the bottom of the pond. Bertie, however, doesn't mind and Whiffer gets to be the centre of attention again.
  • In "Wedding", Bertie ends up saving the wedding ring, but the cake is still missing some letters because Bertie ate them off.
  • "Robot Wars" ends with Bertie winning a trophy, but Miss Boot angry that he based his robot off her.
  • At the end of "Burger", the family is angry with Bertie, but he gets to eat at the restaurant he likes.
• Black Comedy Pet Death: In the story "Beg!", Bertie is pretending to be a beggar and tries to look sad by imagining his pet worm has died.
• Blatant Lies:
  • When Bertie doesn't want to go to school in "Pants!", he claims to have "germy measles", and when his mum says she can't see spots, he claims they're invisible.
  • Two of Bertie's excuses for not going to Angela's party are that a crocodile bit his head off and that he has a rare Polka-Dot Disease called "party-itis".
  • When Bertie hears Great-Aunt Morag is visiting, he suggests his mother say they're sick, but she says no.
• Book Dumb: Bertie is not stupid, but he does have bad grades, because he doesn't like to study.
• The Bore: Bertie finds Miss Boot to be a bit of a bore, but not all her students do.
• Broken Aesop: In the first book, Bertie learns not to urinate in the flowerbed as it's dirty. However, in "Twitter!", he has a full bladder whilst birdwatching, and Eugene and his dad suggest he pee outside.
• The Bully: Nick is a bit of a bully, often teasing people.
• Butt-Monkey: Zigzagged for both Bertie and Nick. Bertie often ends up having to do things he doesn't want to do, but quite often, things work out for him. Nick often has something inconvenient happen to him at the end of the story, but then again he gets lots of fancy things like his fast sledge.
• Call-Back: In "Battle!", Bertie's mother says that she's not taking him shopping because last time he was at Dibble's, he ended up on the fifth floor. This is what happened in "Fashion!".
• Calling Your Bathroom Breaks: Bertie says, "I need the loo!" several times in the story "Loo!".
• Car Ride Games: In "Loo," Bertie tries counting cars to keep himself occupied, but because he has to urinate, he says "thirty-loo" instead of "thirty-two."
• Cassandra Truth: In "Zombie!", Eugene eats some chocolate cake that the boys were not allowed to touch. When Bertie tells his mother, she thinks Bertie was the one who ate it, but he didn't.
• Cat Up a Tree: Played with in "Fire!". Bertie finds his friend Pamela trying to get a white kitten out of a tree, but when he climbs up, she climbs down but he forgets how to get down.
• Censorship by Spelling: In "Fleas!", Bertie spells out the word "vets" so that Whiffer wouldn't understand because the latter hates the vets. Only trouble is, his grandmother doesn't understand either.
  Bertie: "Dad asked me to take him to the V-E-T-S."
  Dotty: "The what?"
  Bertie: (whispering) "The vets."
  Dotty: "Oh, the VETS! Why are you whispering?"
  Bertie: "So that Whiffer won't understand. He hates the vets."
• Censor Suds: In "Fame!", Bertie is embarrassed about having to be in the bath on TV for a bubble bath ad, but other people reassure him that there will be plenty of bubbles and nobody will "see anything".
• Character Title: Bertie's name is in the name of the series.
• Chickenpox Episode: In the story "Germs", Bertie's older sister Susie gets chicken pox. He tries to catch it so that he can stay home from school, but unfortunately when he does catch it, it's the weekend.
• Child Hater: Apparently, Mr Grouch the janitor dislikes children.
• Christmas Episode:
  • In "Elf!", Bertie has to be an elf for Santa's Grotto.
  • In "Crackers!", Bertie's grumpy great-aunt Morag visits for Christmas and he makes Christmas crackers.
  • In "Baa!", Bertie brings Whiffer to church when he plays a shepherd in a play.
• Class Trip:
  • In "Potty", Bertie and his class go on a trip to an old historical building and are given a test on it.
  • In "Loo!", Bertie and his class are taken to the museum. Most of the story focuses on the journey home, though.
  • In "Splodge!", Bertie goes on a school trip to an art gallery and ends up getting a painting wet.
  • In "Zoo!", Bertie and his class go on a school trip to the zoo.
  • In "Snore!", Bertie and his class go on a school trip and stay the night there.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: The whole setup with the story "Pants!" is that Bertie loses a bet to Nick and has to go to school in his underwear. Eventually, he ends up using the loophole that he is wearing underwear under his trousers and tricks Nick into pulling his trousers down after saying that Nick doesn’t wear any, and so he tries to prove it, resulting in a photo of him in his underwear being taken by Angela Nicely.
• Comedic Work, Serious Scene: For the most part, "Toothy" is a funny story about Bertie thinking Mr. Filling is a Depraved Dentist because he overheard him mention putting someone who's both male and seven years old (like Bertie) "to sleep". However, the conflict is solved by a reveal that he was actually talking about Rex, his sick dog.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In "Ouch!", Bertie thinks that he never turns down dares, not even when Darren dared him to lock Mr Weakly in the closet. This happened in "Dare!".
  • In "Fame!", Bertie mentions that he used to play a dog in Oliver. This happened in another story, also called "Fame!".
  • In "Record!", when Darren is told that a record is something nobody has done before, he wonders if the time Bertie locked Mr Grouch in the shed (which happened in "Fangs!") counts.
  • In "Outlaw!", Bertie remembers when Angela tried to kiss him. This happened in "Kiss!".
• Cool Old Lady: Even though she does some things Bertie doesn't like, he still greatly appreciates his gran.
• Crappy Homemade Gift: In the story "Nitwit", Bertie's grandmother knits him a sweater as a belated birthday present, but he hates it, because not only is it too big and in a colour and pattern he hates, but it has holes.
• Cuddle Bug: Both baby Molly and Gran's neighbour and friend Sherry like to cuddle Bertie, which he finds annoying.
• The Cynic: Mr Grouch and Great-Aunt Morag are both extremely gloomy and complain-y.
• The Dentist Episode: In "Toothy!", Bertie and Suzy have to go to the dentist but Bertie is afraid.
• Department of Redundancy Department: According to Bertie, a restaurant he likes (Burger Madness) serves chips with chips.
• Dhampyr: Discussed in "Fangs!", when Bertie and his friends mistake Mr. Grouch for a vampire/human hybrid.
• Disqualification-Induced Victory: When Bertie and his father compete in a sandcastle-building competition, he wins despite his sand sculpture of Whiffer being poorly-made, due to everyone else's sculptures being soaked by the rain to the point of being unrecognizable.
• Does Not Like Spam:
  • Bertie doesn't like carrots, cabbage or broccoli and hates cauliflower.
  • When the students were playing pirates, Darren suggests they punish Nick by "making him eat vegetables", implying that either Darren or Nick dislikes vegetables.
  • Darren and Eugene also don't like broccoli or cabbage.
  • Miss Beansprout doesn't like chips and she calls custard "horrible".
  • Donna doesn't like carrots.
  • Bella likes neither salad, nor pizza.
• Doomy Dooms of Doom: One of the rides at a theme park is called the Slide of Doom.
• Doting Parent: Both Simon and Jenny, minor characters who featured in the story "Bum!", think their baby daughter Molly is amazing because she can walk. This annoys Bertie, Suzy and their father.
• Dressed to Plunder:
  • In "Poop!", Bertie and Whiffer dress as pirates.
  • In "Pirate!", everyone at Bertie's school, the teachers included, dress as pirates.
• Eaten Alive: Mentioned when Darren says that Miss Boot will eat him alive if she catches him, but never played.
• Eating Contest: In "Record!", Bertie wonders if he can set a world record for fast eating of baked beans.
• Edible Theme Naming: One of the lunch ladies is called Miss Beansprout.
• Embarrassing Ad Gig: In the story "Fame!", Bertie is glad to be in an ad on TV, but becomes embarrassed when he learns it's for bubble bath and he has to pose in the bathtub.
• Embarrassingly Dresslike Outfit: In "Wedding!", Bertie is invited to his second cousin's wedding. Since the groom is Scottish, all the men are asked to wear kilts, but Bertie doesn't want to wear one, since he thinks they look too "skirty".
• Embarrassment Plot:
  • In one story, Bertie tries to get out of going to the hairdresser because he has to have his hair cut by a guy named Sweeney Bob who only does buzz-cuts, which Bertie finds embarrassing.
  • In "Pants!", Bertie is embarrassed and tries to get out of a bet he lost with Know-All Nick which means he has to go to school in his underwear the next day.
  • "Fame!" is all about Bertie having an Embarrassing Ad Gig when he learns he will star in an ad for bubble bath and they're going to film him in the bath.
• Episode Tagline: The story "Bum!" involves baby Molly learning her first word "bum" from Bertie and she says it twice. She also says the nonsense phrases "Bee bee" and "Da da da" several times.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Downplayed. Bertie and Darren view maths as boring, but it's not universal, as proven by characters such as Nick and Miss Boot, despite those being seen as antagonists.
• Extreme Omnivore: Bertie isn't really one of these, but he wants to be. On his sixth birthday, he'd apparently wanted to have dog biscuits for breakfast but his mum said no.
• Fainting: Discussed in "Hot!", when Bertie is glad no one has fainted on a hot day.
• Faint in Shock: Never really happens, but Bertie supposes his mother would have fainted if he'd weed on a tree like Whiffer. A third time, he says Miss Boot "looks like she might pass out", and a third time, he says his dad "looked like he might faint".
• Faking Amnesia: In "Worms!", Bertie tries unsuccessfully to fake a very selective type of amnesia to avoid going to Angela's party.
• Filthy Fun: Bertie really likes getting dirty, hence the title of the series.
• Foul Cafeteria Food: The students, with the exception of Bertie, are often heard complaining about the food the cafeteria serves, particularly the rice pudding. The chef's name is even Mrs. Mould (though, despite her name, she never seems to serve moldy food). In "Burp!", she gets temporarily replaced with Miss Beansprout, who serves salad and carrot cake, which all of the students hate.
• Freaky Is Cool: Bertie and Darren take pleasure in stories about scary/gross things such as zombies and vampires, however they're not Nightmare Fetishist's; they do get scared if they think they're in danger.
• Freudian Slip: In "Loo!", Bertie is trying to count the cars on the bus to distract himself from his Potty Emergency. However, when he gets to 32, he accidentally says, "Thirty-loo".
• Games of the Elderly:
  • In one story, Bertie's school holds a bingo, which Bertie considers an old people's game and which his grandmother and Nick's grandmother eagerly go to.
  • In "Horror!", Bertie expresses disgust at his grandmother getting a boyfriend and says that if he had his way, old people would just stay at home and play bingo (and also knit, but that's another matter entirely).
• Genki Girl: Despite being elderly, Bertie's grandmother and her neighbour Sherry are both very upbeat and energetic.
• Getting Sick Deliberately: The book "Germs" has Bertie's sister falling ill with chickenpox, which leads to Bertie attempting to give himself xhickenpox so that he doesn't have to go to school. He is eventually able to catch it... during the weekend, which defeats the purpose of getting it that way.
• Go to Your Room!: Mrs Nicely sends Angela to her room when she thinks Angela broke the window (actually it was Bertie).
• Green Around the Gills: When Bertie gets carsick, Suzy says he's gone green.
• Green-Eyed Monster:
  • "Fetch!" focuses on Whiffer being jealous of the robot dog Tiny.
  • In "Snow!", Bertie is jealous of Nick because the latter has a fancy sledge and the former has to borrow Gran's beat-up one.
• Gross-Out Show: Some moments are grosser than others, but there's plenty of bathroom humour to go around.
• Guinness Episode: In "Record!", Bertie's school tries to set a world record.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Mr Grouch is just as grouchy as his name suggests.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Not actually, but when Eugene wonders if Mr Grouch is a vampire and Darren points out that daylight doesn't negatively affect him, Bertie wonders if he is half-vampire and half-human.
• Halloween Episode: In "Scream!", it's Halloween, but Bertie is not allowed to go trick-or-treating.
• Handwriting as Characterization: All of the main kid characters write messily and misspell a lot of words. This is because they're all either six or seven, and Bertie in particular is a bad student.
• Happy Dance: Bertie does a "wild dance of joy" upon hearing the school is closed in "Snow!" because that means he can play with Darren and Eugene. Also, in "Fame!", Bertie does a happy dance upon learning he might be on TV.
• Hates Baths: Bertie and Whiffer both really hate baths. In fact, Bertie wishes bath time was illegal.
• Heat Wave Episode: The aptly-named story "Hot!" takes place on a very hot day.
• Help, I'm Stuck!: In "Zoo!", Bertie gets his head stuck in the door to the monkey enclosure after Nick throws his lunch into the other side.
• Hurricane of Euphemisms: In "Loo!", when Bertie is having a Potty Emergency, his friends Darren and Eugene tease him by saying, "Bertie needs a wee." "A piddle?" "A widdle." "A tiddle?"
• Hypocritical Humour: In "Manners!", Bertie says to Suzy, "I'm more polite than you, fat-face.".
• I Don't Think That's Such a Good Idea: Eugene sometimes disapproves of Bertie's plans if they seem dangerous or are against the rules.
• If I Wanted X, I Would Y: When Bertie goes to a dimly-lit restaurant he dislikes, he thinks that if he'd wanted to sit in the dark, he would have gone to the cinema.
• I'm Not Hungry: In "Burp!", Bertie, Darren, Eugene, and Donna dislike the new cook's food, so they go on "strike" by not eating it. Only Bertie is stubborn enough to do this more than once, though.
• Implied Death Threat: When Bertie messes up the staged battle in "Battle!", someone points out that it's "not history", and Bertie's dad says he knows who will be history when he finds him.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: In "Worms", Bertie thinks of many excuses to get out of going to a party he doesn't want to (it's for a girl he finds annoying, he's the only boy invited, and it's pink-themed and he hates pink). While some of the excuses are plausible (e.g. that he has gas and they wouldn't want him around), most fall into this trope. For instance, he claims he has a disease called "party-itis" and then later pretends to have amnesia.
• In-Series Nickname: Nicholas gets called "Know-All Nick", "Nick", or "Nickerless".
• Kids Hate Vegetables: Both Bertie and Darren have complained about vegetables on numerous occasions, and when Miss Beansprout serves up vegetables in the cafeteria in "Burp!", all the students complain.
• Large Ham: While not overly dramatic all the time, Bertie can be dramatic sometimes.
• Lazy Bum: Zigzagged for Bertie himself, Whiffer and the Nicelys' cat Pusskins. All can be very lazy if they're not interested in something and sometimes they like to lie around, but they can be very active when they want to be.
• Lethal Chef: Zigzagged. Mrs Mould the school cook makes food that is generally unpopular with most of Bertie's class, but Bertie likes it, however, she seems to have improved. Miss Beansprout who temporarily replaced Mrs Mould is popular with the other students, but Bertie, Darren, Donna and Eugene don't like her food.
• Literal Ass-Kicking: When Bertie sees a pike, he thinks it would be good for poking people in the bottom.
• A Lizard Named "Liz": The Nicelys' cat is called Pusskins. The word "puss" can be used to describe cats.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • In "Pants!", Bertie gets out of the bet to go to school in his undies by stating that he's wearing them... under his trousers.
  • In "Smash!", Bertie tells Angela to get his football. She does, but doesn't give it back because she'd always wanted a ball, and Bertie only said to get it, not to give it back.
• Lost Voice Plot:
  • In one story, Miss Boot is unavailable 'cause she lost her voice.
  • In "Elf!", Mr Grouch cannot play Santa because he lost his voice, so Bertie's father does.
• Lovable Coward: Downplayed for Eugene, who's cautious, but not downright cowardly.
• Mall Santa: In "Elf!", Mr. Burns plays as Santa at the mall, while Bertie plays an elf.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The Riches are a wealthy family.
  • Whiffer was named by Bertie because he "farts too much".
  • The robot dog from "Fetch!" is small, and his name is Tiny.
  • Mr Grouch is the school janitor and he is grumpy.-
  • Mr Filling the dentist.
• Mistaken for Destitute: In "Beg", Bertie dresses up as a beggar for a historical cosplay day at school, and then has to wait outside with Whiffer the dog while his mother goes shopping since the store doesn't allow pets. When strangers pass by, they think he really is a beggar and give him money, causing Bertie to go along with it and pretend to be one.
• Mistaken for Murderer: In "Toothy!", Bertie thinks Mr Filling is planning to murder him as he overhears him say something about "putting someone to sleep", but really he's talking about his dog.
• Mistaken for Transformed: Invoked in one story, in which Bertie gets a magician's kit and uses it to attempt to turn his friend Eugene into a worm. Eugene pranks Bertie by changing his clothes, putting a worm on top of his old clothes, and leaving, so that Bertie would think he really did turn into a worm.
• Mr. Vice Guy: Bertie, Darren and Eugene are good characters, but they're slobbish, Book Dumb and have some sexist stereotypes as beliefs (e.g. pink is for girls, girls can't be pirates).
• Naked People Are Funny: When Bertie gets in a bath on TV for a bubble bath ad, Eugene laughs about Bertie being "in the nuddy".
• Nature Is Boring: Bertie generally finds plants and wild animals boring, with the exception of hawks.
• Nature Lover: Both Bertie's and Eugene's fathers seem to really enjoy nature.
• Nature Tinkling:
  • In the first book, Bertie used to pee on the flowers, but has since stopped doing it.
  • In "Twitter", Bertie needs to urinate while birdwatching. Eugene tells him to go in the forest because apparently he always does that. Bertie does end up weeing in the forest.
  • In "Manners!", Bertie wonders why weeing on trees is not allowed if animals do it.
• Naughty Is Good: Zigzagged. While Bertie is a bit of a rule-breaker, this is sometimes good and sometimes not. And while Nick is more obedient than Bertie, he is also mischeivous in his own right.
• Neat Freak:
  • Bertie's older sister Suzy likes to be clean, which puts tension between her and Bertie.
  • Both Mr Grouch the janitor and Bertie's father seem to hate leaves and/or grass on the ground. Mr Grouch seems to hate messes more, possibly because he is a janitor.
  • One woman at the vets seemed like a bit of a neat freak, as she called Whiffer a "filthy fleabag" upon hearing that he had fleas.
  • Nick also has neat-freak tendencies, including wanting his superhero name to be "Tidyman".
• Nerdy Bully: The two things Nick loves most are studying and mocking Bertie.
• Never My Fault: Both Bertie and Nick sometimes try to shift the blame on to other people, including each other.
• Never Wake A Sleepwalker: When Eugene sleepwalks, Bertie's mother says that waking him up is "the last thing you should do."
• No Indoor Voice: Miss Boot shouts a lot, as does Miss Bowser the dog trainer.
• Nose Nuggets: Bertie picks his nose a lot.
• Nosy Neighbour: One of the reasons why Bertie finds Angela annoying is because she often wants to ask a lot of questions or join in with Bertie's stuff.
• "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: In "Pants!", Bertie has a nightmare in which he is called to the front during assembly in nothing but his underwear.
• Not Where They Thought: In one story, Bertie, Darren, and Eugene try to carry a sleeping Nick into Trevor and Warren's dormitory, but they accidentally wind up in Miss Boot's dormitory instead.
• Old People are Nonsexual: Being a kids' series, it doesn't mention sex but it does mention Bertie being really grossed-out by the idea of his grandmother kissing her boyfriend because she's old.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. There's a shop assistant and a school friend of Angela's who are both called Laura.
• One-Letter Pun: In one book, Bertie tells Eugene to help him cheat during the spelling bee by giving him clues, "Like if the letter's I, point to your eye."
  Eugene: "But what if the letter's P?"
• Only One Finds It Fun: In "Burp!", the beginning shows Bertie and his friends eating lunch together with only Bertie enjoying it.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: In "Toothy!", Bertie mishears Mr Filling the dentist say, "He's only seven years old but it's kindest to put him to sleep." Bertie thinks he's talking about murdering him, but really he's talking about his dog Rex.
• Out Sick:
  • In "Dare!", Mr. Weakly is substituting because Miss Boot is sick.
  • In "Germs!", Suzy gets chicken pox so she has to stay home from school. Bertie tries to catch it off her but he doesn't until the next day, which is Saturday.
• Phrase Catcher: Downplayed with Bertie. It doesn't happen in the other books as much as the first, but sometimes if Bertie does something disgusting, someone will say, "That's dirty, Bertie!".
• Picky Eater: Bella doesn't like salad or pizza and will only eat her mother's chips. Bertie and Darren also dislike all vegetables.
• The Pig-Pen: Bertie often has dirt on his face and likes to get dirty, hence the title of the series.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: When Bertie wears a pink anorak as a disguise, his friends pretend he's a girl. It doesn't occur to them to just pretend he's a boy in a pink anorak. In "Worms!", Darren thinks of a pink-themed party as a "girls' party". This seems to be a theme with them.
• Pirate: No actual pirates appear, but Bertie and several other characters do occasionally pretend to be pirates.
• Playing Sick:
  • In "Pants!", Bertie claims to have "Germy Measles". When his mother says she cannot see any spots, he says they are invisible.
  • In "Beg!", Bertie paints red blotches on his face while dressing as a Victorian beggar, because apparently "beggars are always getting diseases and plagues". Later, when he's mistaken for a real beggar, he tells a woman that he has the plague.
  • In "Worms!", one of the excuses Bertie thinks for not going to Angela's party is that he has "party-itis", which brings him out in spots, but he eventually scraps that idea.
• Polka-Dot Disease: When Bertie doesn't want to go to Angela's party, he thinks of claiming to have "party-itis", which gives him spots.
• Potty Dance:
  • In "Loo!", Bertie is a bit fidgety when he needs to use the bathroom on the bus.
  • in "Spell!", Bertie is using Eugene to hint at the letters to help him cheat at a spelling bee (for example, pointing at his eye if the letter is "I"). For the "P"s in "dripping", Eugene pretends to do a potty dance.
  • In "Yuck!", Bertie is described as "hopping up and down as if he needed the toilet".
• Potty Emergency:
  • In "Loo!", Bertie has to pee while on the bus on the way back to school from the museum.
  • In "Twitter", Bertie needs a wee while birdwatching.
  • In "Fangs", Bertie, Darren and Eugene pretend they need the toilet to distract Mr Grouch. Bertie pretends that he at least is "bursting".
• Potty Failure: Discussed in "Outlaw!", when Bertie pretends to be Robin Hood (with Darren and Eugene as his merry men) and tells Royston to "hand over [his] chocolate or else", to which Royston says, "Or else what? You're all going to wet your pants?"
• The Prankster: Bertie, Darren, Eugene and Nick are all practical jokers.
• Puppy Love: Angela is "in love" with Bertie because he gave her candy, despite the fact that she's six and he's seven.
• Remote Control Ruckus: In one story, Bertie's older sister Suzy has her mean friend Bella over for a sleepover. When Bertie wants to watch his favourite show, he gets outvoted when both of the girls want to watch a movie called Pop Princess instead.
• Rhyming Names: The series is about a dirty kid named Bertie.
• Rhyming Title: Dirty Bertie.
• Rich Jerk: While not too jerky, Royston Rich and his father can be a bit boastful about their wealth, making Bertie and his dad jealous.
• Revenge via Storytelling: In one book, Angela writes a story about marrying Bertie, on whom she has a Puppy Love crush. Bertie, who doesn't like Angela, angrily rewrites the story to have her marry his Nerdy Bully rival Nick instead. He adds in a jab at Nick by having him fall into a cowpat at the end.
• Santa Claus: Santa is mentioned a few times, but never seen.
• Say My Name:
  • Bertie shouts out "ANGELA!" when he finds out that Angela's friend Laura doesn't have the toy he wants.
  • Bertie's mother shouts his name when he says, "When are you going?" to Great-Aunt Morag.
  • Miss Boot sometimes says one of her students' names when she wants their attention.
  • Bertie's parents shout out his name when he is being rude at the table.
• Scarily Specific Story: The story "Spooky" has Bertie tell a campfire story while camping with Darren and Eugene. He makes the campers in the story three boys, just like them.
• The Scream: Bella screams when Bertie pranks her with a plastic spider.
• Self-Deprecation: The restaurant Bertie hates actually describes their dishes as "sickly" and "gunk".
• Shout-Out:
  • "Fangs" has Darren dress as Dennis The Menace, Eugene as Willy Wonka and Bertie and Mr Grouch as Count Dracula.
  • In "Brainiac!", one of the questions for the big quiz is "Who wrote The BFG?"
  • "Outlaw!" is about Bertie emulating Robin Hood.
  • In "Monster!", when Bertie, Darren, and Eugene paint Nick's face to look like a monster, Bertie says that he "makes Dracula look handsome" and "looks like Frankenstein's monster."
  • In "Rocky!", Bertie mentions "swinging like Tarzan" at the theme park.
• Sibling Rivalry: Bertie and Suzy tend to quarrel.
• Sick Episode:
  • In "Germs!", Suzy and later Bertie get the chickenpox.
  • Downplayed in "Dare!", where Miss Boot is out sick but she doesn't feature until the end, where she's better.
  • Nigel is said to have a tummy bug in "Boast!".
• Sleepwalking:
  • Discussed in "Snore!". Bertie says that the only way he and Nick will swap rooms is if they sleepwalked, and later Bertie tries to explain Nick being in Miss Boot's room (long story) with "Maybe he sleepwalks".
  • In "Zombie!", Eugene sleepwalks during a sleepover, leading Bertie and Darren to think he's a zombie.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: Sometimes, Bertie has had to compete with clean freaks or characters who are arrogant.
• Something Itis: One of the excuses Bertie thinks up not to go to Angela's party in "Worms!" is that he has a rare disease called "party-itis" that gives him spots.
• Spit Take: In "Boast!", when Bertie's mother lies that he can play the trumpet and accepts him playing in a concert, he spits out his mash.
• Stern Teacher:
  • Miss Boot is quite loud and grumpy, but she's not evil.
  • Averted for Mr Weakly the substitute, although Bertie did act strict when he was pretending to be Mr Weakly.
• Strike Episode: Played with in "Burp!". Bertie, Darren, Donna and Eugene try to go on "strike" by not eating the new school cook's food which they hate, however, only Bertie is stubborn enough to strike through two lunches in a row.
• Sweet Tooth:
  • Bertie loves candy and would do anything for some candy.
  • Nick has shown to like candy as well.
  • Exaggerated for Angela, who thinks she's in love with Bertie, just because he gave her some candy.
• Teacher's Pet: One of the reasons why Bertie dislikes Nick is because the latter is a stickler for the rules and always gets picked to do things for the teacher.
• Themed Party: In the book Worms!, Angela has a pink-themed birthday party and Bertie goes as a worm.
• Toilet Humour: There's lots of yucky humour in this book.
• Training the Pet: In "Walkies", Mr. and Mrs. Burns become fed up with the family dog Whiffer's disobedience, so they make Bertie take him to obedience classes. However, the classes don't improve Whiffer's behaviour, so Bertie asks his friend Donna to help.
• True Companions: In "Zombie!", Bertie is against the idea of having a sleepover with just Eugene and not Darren as he thinks of them as a trio.
• Unconventional Food Usage: In "Ouch!", Bertie uses mustard to pretend that his bruised thumb is infected. The doctor pranks him back by pretending he'll need to cut off the thumb.
• The Undead: Never actually appears, but mentioned several times.
  • In "Fangs!", Bertie and his friends think Mr Grouch is half vampire (of course, he isn't).
  • In "Zombie!", Bertie, Darren and Eugene play a video game called Zap the Zombie and later, Darren and Bertie play a prank on Eugene, telling him he'll turn into a zombie from eating a blood orange, leading them to worry that he'll turn into a zombie.
• Underwater Fart Gag: At the end of "Pooh, is That You, Bertie?", Bertie says that everyone farts, but he does it best, especially in the bath.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
  • The last page of "Yuck!" has an illustration of Bertie throwing up on Nick.
  • In "Weekend!", Bertie throws up in the car and it's illustrated.
• Wearing It All Wrong: On the cover of the book "Pants!", Bertie is seen wearing his underwear on his head. In the story proper, he puts his dad's underwear on his head.
• Wedding Episode: The story "Wedding!" is about Bertie's second cousin marrying a Scottish guy and Bertie having to be the page. He gets the ring stuck on his finger and is embarrassed about having to wear a kilt.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In "Fangs!", a teacher named Miss Withers is rumored to have one day called in sick and never returned. What became of her and if that really happened is not revealed.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Mrs Nicely is afraid of bats, Miss Boot is afraid of rats and Mr Burns is afraid of heights (but keeps forgetting).
• Zany Scheme: Bertie thinks he's really good at thinking up plans. Gran thinks his plans are "harebrained". Examples of his plans include planning to weigh a chocolate egg to cheat at the Guess the Weight game and roller-skating while carrying sausages to get Whiffer to follow him to the vets.

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