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- Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Sam Hannigan runs an animal shelter in Clobberstown, Co. Dublin with her creepy-crawlie-crazy best friend Ajay Patel and her just-plain-crazy granny Nanny Gigg. Oh yes, and her big bully brother Bruno. When a mysterious package arrives on the doorstep of Hannigan's Haven, Sam and the gang are astonished to discover that it contains a living, breathing Dodo bird! Where did the dodo come from, who sent it, and, most importantly, how is it not extinct? Being a lover of all animals, Sam immediately falls in love with the dodo (which she names Desmond) and treats it like a member of the family. Unfortunately, a gang of ruthless exotic animal smugglers is near. When Captain Stinky Derriere and his lumbering First Mate Chum get the scent of the miraculously still alive dodo, while Stinky makes it his life mission to catch and eat Desmond! Join Sam, Ajay and the gang as they endeavour to keep Desmond safe and secret until they can deliver him to Uncle Monty, whose one wish is to deliver the dodo to the mythical Dodo Island.
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Contents
Chapter One
Hannigan’s Haven
Plit. Plit plat plit. Plat plit plit.
Sam Hannigan opened the patio doors at the end of the kitchen and stuck her arm out, holding her palm upwards.
Plat plit. Small drops of cold rain plinked onto her hand.
With a happy sigh she pulled on her raincoat and went out into the yard, pulling the patio door across behind her. ‘Don’t worry, Cecil and Maureen,’ she called, ‘I’m coming!’
Cecil and Maureen were two new arrivals to Hannigan’s Haven, the animal sanctuary that Sam, her granny Nanny Gigg and her best friend Ajay Patel had built at the rear of Sam’s family home in the Dublin suburb of Clobberstown. Despite being Capuchin monkeys, which are native to the Amazon rainforest, Cecil and Maureen were not overly fond of rain. In fact, the two small monkeys were found in the neighbouring suburb of Fettercarrig, so they had probably never even seen the Amazon rainforest.
Ogg, the part-time handyman and full-time hulking man-mountain who worked at Hannigan’s Haven, had found the little furry creatures two days before, hiding under an abandoned car. On hearing an unusual EEEEP coming from under the deserted, rusty automobile, Ogg had hunched down his enormous bulk to peer underneath and found the pair of little monkeys, scared, hungry and clinging to each other.
‘Come here, monkeys,’ he cooed softly in his deep, rumbling voice, and the creatures crept out and immediately nestled into the fur vest Ogg wore beneath his overalls. For some reason animals instinctively trusted this big, monobrowed human, despite his massive strength and size. Maybe it was because he was almost as hairy as most of them. Ogg brought the two small monkeys straight to Sam at the Haven, and they had named them Cecil and Maureen.
This kind of thing happened quite a lot. Since Sam and Nanny Gigg opened the animal sanctuary a few months before, people regularly brought them stray animals they had found. Sometimes they would be of the everyday, run-of-the-mill types, such as dogs, cats, mice and hamsters, and sometimes they would be a little bit more unusual. Hannigan’s Haven was now home to twelve dogs, seven cats, a couple of koala bears, one sloth, one pelican, five parrots, two llamas, a multitude of smaller critters and insects, and, as of two days ago, two Capuchin monkeys.
And – big or small, cuddly or slimy, four-legged or two-winged – Sam loved them all. She adored every single swishy tail, every single pointy ear and every single wiggly tentacle. The only person who loved animals as much as Sam did was Ajay. Ajay was particularly fond of the ones with more than four legs, like cockroaches, spiders, ants and centipedes. But, having said that, he loved snakes too, and snakes had no legs at all. At his own house (and much to his mum’s alarm) he kept two snakes, a pet rat and a tarantula spider called Tadhg.
‘Monkeys okay?’ asked Ogg, peering into the cage over the curly mop of ginger hair on Sam’s head.
‘I think so,’ said Sam, pulling a canvas tarpaulin over the wire mesh on the cage’s roof. ‘I don’t think they like the rain though.’
Ogg grunted and looked up at the sky. ‘Better get used to rain,’ he said. ‘Storm is coming.’
Ogg was right. All morning the weather reports on the radio had been forecasting that Storm Gabby would reach the Dublin area that evening. The news reports were calling Storm Gabby ‘The Pest from the West’ and predicting high winds, torrential rain and electricity outages. Sam held out her hand again and felt the light pitter-patter of raindrops. She wasn’t too sure – it didn’t seem that bad so far.
‘Ogg will stay tonight, Samantha Hannigan,’ boomed Ogg. ‘Will sleep in llama enclosure. Just in case animals are scared.’
‘Thanks, Ogg. But remember, please don’t call me Samantha!’ said Sam, who much preferred the shorter version of her name. She watched Ogg as he walked down to the llama enclosure, checking in on the different animals as he passed their cages.
He was such a great friend to have – strong, loyal and trustworthy and always there to help. As well as being a part-time handyman at Hannigan’s Haven, Ogg worked full-time as the caretaker at Sam and Ajay’s school, St Gobnet’s. Some of the younger kids at the school whispered that Ogg was so big and hairy, he might be a caveman in disguise. Sam didn’t like that, but Ogg didn’t seem to mind. ‘Worse things to be than caveman,’ he said, winking at Sam.
They checked on Sharon the pelican and Kevin the sloth, making sure their cages were covered and their bedding was dry. ‘Ajay will be here soon,’ said Sam, looking at her watch. ‘He said he’d be over after he fed his snakes. Fancy a cuppa?’
Leaving Ogg to check on the koalas, she trundled into the kitchen and took down a couple of mugs for their tea – a small one for her and a huge one that looked like a bucket with a handle for Ogg. As she was filling up the kettle, she heard a moaning sound coming from the hallway on the other side of the kitchen door. ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,’ went the noise, ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, my poor finger!’
The door slammed open and in limped Bruno, Sam’s older brother, holding up a finger and looking very sorry for himself. His mouth was downturned and his eyebrows were so high on his forehead that they practically reached his curly brown hair. He had wrapped his finger in what looked like three metres of bandage from Nanny Gigg’s first aid kit.
‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO,’ repeated Bruno, ‘my poor, sore finger!’
‘If your finger is sore,’ asked Sam, ‘why are you limping?’
Bruno stopped limping and looked down at his foot. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m limping because my lace is open.’ Now it was Sam’s eyebrows’ turn to travel upwards. ‘I can’t tie my lace,’ said Bruno pitifully, ‘my finger is too sore. I, em, burnt it earlier when I was making a salad for my lunch. Would you tie it for me?’ He looked at her pleadingly. ‘Pretty please?’
Sam huffed out a ppppluuurrrffff with her lips. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘come over here.’
‘No,’ said Bruno, limping to the sink, ‘do it over here.’
Sam sighed and knelt down to tie Bruno’s shoelace, holding one end of the lace in each hand. Why do big brothers have to be so demanding? she thought. And, hold on a minute, how do you burn your finger making a salad?! She paused mid-knot, but it was too late – Bruno had quietly taken an empty glass from the sink, filled it with water from the tap and quickly but carefully balanced it on the back of Sam’s head. Her eyes widened. ‘Bruno …’ she growled.
Bruno whipped his foot away and, limp now mysteriously gone, danced around the kitchen, cackling. Sam tried to keep as still as possible. The glass of water was balanced on the back of her head; if she moved it would topple and drench her and the kitchen floor! ‘Bruno!’ she cried, starting to shake with fury and making the glass of water wobble on top of her red curls. ‘Get this water off me!’
Bruno just continued to cackle and dance like a loon, loosening the bandage on his finger and waving it around like a gymnast doing a twirly routine with a ribbon. ‘Ha ha!’ he cried. ‘My finger’s all better now! It’s true what they say – laughter is the best medicine!’ He bent down and tied his own shoelace, then he waggled his fingers at Sam. ‘Byeeeeeeeeee!’
‘Don’t go!’ shouted Sam. ‘Take this glass of water off my head right now, Bruno, I can’t move!’ But he was gone, his mad chuckles receding down the corridor.
Sam knelt on the floor and fumed. If she moved so much as a muscle the glass of water would tumble and give her her second shower of the day. Just then she heard the front door open and – PRAISE MOLLY! – Ajay’s voice calling from the hall.
‘Hi Sam,’ called Ajay. ‘Sorry I’m late, I had to feed the snakes and I was waiting for the dead mice to defrost.’
Ajay didn’t like feeding the snakes dead mice – he felt sorry for the mice – but it was the only thing Stormbringer and Jeremy would eat.
‘In the kitchen!’ yelled Sam. ‘Come quick!’
Ajay trotted into the kitchen, took one look at Sam kneeling on the floor, and lifted the glass of water off the back of her head. ‘Bruno?’ he asked.
‘Yup,’ said Sam through gritted teeth, ‘Bruno.’
She got to her feet. This was just the latest in a long line of mean tricks that Bruno had played on her. She had counted six pranks so far that week, and it was only Wednesday. He had started on Monday morning with his signature Early Morning Call, where he set his alarm clock for five minutes before Sam got up, crept up to her bedroom and then ran in and let rip with the noisiest, smelliest fart he could muster, waking her up and forcing her out of bed to open up the windows. Then on Monday afternoon he attached an air-horn to the leg of the chair at her study desk so that it went off with a loud PPPAAAAAARRRRRRPPPPPPP when she sat down to do her homework. Tuesday was a blur of jokes, stunts, larks and mischievous acts of mayhem, the worst of which was when Bruno used some of their granddad Daddy Mike’s ultra-sticky Stay-Put Putty to glue the toilet lid closed when Sam was dying for a wee. Sam was so desperate she had to go in the plastic bin beside the sink.
The good news was that today was the start of the summer holidays; they were off school for the whole summer. The even better news was that Bruno was going away for three entire weeks of that summer. Nanny Gigg had booked him into Irish College, and he was leaving that evening for the West of Ireland. Sam looked at her watch. Bruno was due to leave for the train station with Nanny Gigg at four o’clock – that gave her and Ajay just over an hour to come up with a cunning plan to get revenge on him.
She re-boiled the kettle and made two mugs of tea for herself and Ajay, and a giant one for Ogg. She delivered it to the yard, where Ogg was making sure all the enclosures, cages and coops were ship-shape for the arrival of Storm Gabby, then she took out a copy and her pencil case and sat at the kitchen table. ‘Right, Ajay,’ she said, opening up her copy book to a fresh page, ‘I’ve had enough of being bullied by Bruno. We have to come up with a plan – how can we get payback?’
‘Well,’ said Ajay, scratching his chin and running his fingers through his jet-black hair, ‘he loves his hair – he’s always putting gel in it. Could we put glue in the hair gel so his hands stick to his head?’
‘Too cruel,’ said Sam, although she was snickering at the same time. ‘How would he eat if his hands were stuck to his head? He couldn’t even pick his nose.’ Ajay was right though. Bruno didn’t just love his hair, he loved himself. He looked in the mirror so much that until Sam was five she thought her older brother had a twin.
Ajay reached out to the fruit bowl for a banana, and his hand stopped midway. ‘Aha!’ he cried, swerving around the banana and picking up a hairy brown coconut. ‘I think I may have an idea …’
Chapter Two
Monkey Business
At four o’clock Bruno brought his two bags down the stairs to wait for Nanny Gigg, who had promised him a lift to the train station. One bag was full of clothes, shoes, runners, books, and Lamby, the moth-eaten cuddly sheep he’d had since he was a baby. Lamby was once white, but now was a pale brownish colour from years of being dragged around on all sorts of trips; shopping trips, holidays, day trips to the beach and trips to the dentist and doctor. Bruno even brought Lamby on school trips. The other bag, a backpack, was full of sweets, hair gel, and a massive poster of his favourite football team, Shamrock Rovers.
Sam and Ajay burst out of the kitchen, pretending to look flustered. ‘Bruno!’ Sam said. ‘Thank dog we got to you before you left for Irish College!’
Bruno looked at his little sister warily. Sam rarely came looking for him; she usually tried to keep out of his way.
‘We need your help!’ said Sam, grabbing his arm dramatically.
‘Help?’ said Bruno with a sneer. ‘With what?’
‘With this,’ said Ajay, holding up the coconut from the fruit bowl. He cradled the hard, brown, hairy fruit in his two hands carefully and gently, as if he were carrying a tiny newborn baby. ‘It’s a monkey egg.’
‘A monkey egg?!’ said Bruno, wrinkling his upper lip and his eyebrow at the same time so he looked like he was sucking on a sour sweet. ‘That’s ridiculous. Monkeys don’t lay eggs!’
‘In the wild, no,’ said Sam, ‘but Cecil and Maureen aren’t wild monkeys. They never lived in the rainforest. Ogg found them in Fettercarrig – they’re local monkeys!’
‘And homegrown monkeys lay eggs,’ added Ajay. ‘Come on, Bruno, everybody knows that.’
‘Oh, yeeaaaah,’ said Bruno, not wanting to admit that he hadn’t a clue about monkeys, marsupials or mammals in general. Although he lived in an animal sanctuary, he wasn’t that interested in animals, and apart from bringing the odd mouse into school to scare a teacher or two, he really had no use for them.
‘This monkey egg,’ continued Sam, ‘needs to be incubated so the little baby monkey inside can hatch.’
Bruno looked at the egg and then at Sam. ‘And you can’t do that here?’
