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- Herausgeber: Little Tiger Press
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
Izzy is so excited to be staying at a gorgeous Greek villa for the summer holidays - they even have a beautiful pool all to themselves! Then she spots a little puppy hiding in the bushes, who she names Mango. He looks scared and hungry, so Izzy tries to win the puppy's trust by offering him some food. The more time Izzy spends with Mango, the more she realises how frightened he is of loud noises and grown-ups, and when her dad spots the puppy, he runs away. Izzy knows Mango desperately needs food and shelter – will she be able to find him? A new story from best-selling author Holly Webb, perfect for animal-loving children, and fans of ZOE'S RESCUE ZOO and MAGIC ANIMAL FRIENDS.
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Seitenzahl: 61
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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For Ki’arah
Contents
Chapter 1
The car bumped on down the narrow lane, and Dad looked at his phone worriedly. “I hope this is right,” he murmured. “We’re following the route, but we’re in the middle of nowhere… The villa should be five minutes away…”
Mum slowed down even more, peering through the windscreen of the 6hire car. Izzy and her older brother Jamie leaned over as far as they could to look too. The dusty road stretched out in front of them, lined with straggly bushes and a palm tree here and there. They’d gone past a half-built house a little while ago, but that was all.
“Lucy and Dan did say it was really remote,” Mum said. Izzy thought she was trying to sound encouraging, but there was definitely a worried note there too. “But there’s a village a little way further on, by the sea,” she added, glancing back at Izzy and Jamie. “Plenty of places to go shopping, and a nice restaurant, don’t worry!”
“If we can find it,” Jamie pointed out, and Mum very firmly ignored him.
“What’s that – over there?” Izzy asked. 7She leaned round to the other side of Mum peering over her shoulder out of the driver’s window. “Past that clump of trees? That mightbe a house?”
“I think you’re right!” Mum said.
Dad glanced back down at his phone. “Yes, that would make sense, the road definitely curves in that direction. Oh, thank goodness!”
“I can’t wait to get out of this car,” Jamie muttered.
“Maybe we can go for a swim!” Izzy said excitedly. “The pool looked amazing in the photos you showed us.”
After the bumpy, dusty lane, Izzy had almost expected the villa to be falling down. They were borrowing it for ten days from a friend of Mum’s, Lucy, who lived in the village not far 8from where they were staying. She and her husband had been doing up this tumbledown house in Greece so they could rent it out for holidays, and they’d asked Izzy’s family if they’d like to try it now that it was nearly finished. Izzy’s mum was going to tell Lucy everything she thought she still needed to do, and in return they were getting a discount price for their holiday. Mum said it was a very good deal. But what if the photos Lucy had sent looked a lot better than the house did?
At last, they drove round the big clump of palm trees and pulled up in front of the villa – a pale blue house with a red-tiled roof, and pots of scarlet geraniums on either side of the front door. It looked beautiful.
Mum turned off the engine, and 9everyone just sat and stared at it for a moment. Then Jamie threw off his seat belt and charged out of the car, and Izzy followed him. They went racing down the side of the house to look for the pool.
10“Oh, wow…” Izzy whispered, stopping as they came round the corner.
“It’s amazing,” Jamie agreed. “I’ve never seen a swimming pool with plants all round it like that.”
The pool looked like it was in a little jungle, Izzy thought. There was a palm tree growing at one corner, and a wall with trailing plants covered in bright pink flowers down one side. There were even some enormous spiky things.
11Mum appeared round the corner. “Oh my goodness. I’ll have to tell Lucy she needs to take even more photos of this – it’s beautiful. Come on, you two. Let’s unpack first, and then you can have a swim. Don’t you want to see the bedrooms?”
Izzy and Jamie hurried back to the car after her, both thinking that the sooner they unpacked, the sooner they could get in that amazing pool. Izzy was feeling so hot and tired after waiting around at the airport, and then the flight and the long car drive – a swim was just what she needed.
The villa was almost finished inside, but not quite – there were spots where the kitchen tiles needed finishing off, and Izzy’s bedroom hadn’t been 12painted yet. The walls were all weird and patchy, but she didn’t mind. There was a big window looking out to the back of the house. Izzy could see the pool, and then some fields filled with rows of strange, twisted plants that Mum said were grapevines. Beyond that, there were mountains, sandy and bare-looking and stretching up to the sky. It was so different to back home – to anything Izzy had seen before.
She leaned on the windowsill, staring out and breathing the hot, scented air. Greece even smelled different to home. It must be the different flowers, Izzy supposed. Maybe it was those grapevines. She blinked and leaned a little further out of the window as she caught movement down by the pool. 13Had Jamie unpacked already, and gone down to swim without her? No, she could hear him in his room next door. He was arguing with Mum about putting his clothes away in drawers instead of just leaving them in his suitcase.
Izzy tried to spot whatever it was that had moved, but everything seemed still down by the pool now. Just a faint breeze lifting the leaves on the bougainvillea – that was the name for the trailing plant with the pink flowers, Dad said. Then a huge butterfly swooped out over the water. Perhaps that was what she’d seen?
The butterfly was skimming the surface of the pool now – it looked as if it was really dipping its wings. Izzy 14turned from the window and grabbed her bag, dumping it upside down on the bed so a pile of clothes fell out. She scooped up T-shirts and shorts and summer dresses and shoved them into the chest of drawers, then made a neat line of her shoes by the door. That would impress Mum. There – she was unpacked. She changed quickly into her swimming costume, grabbed a beach towel and a pair of flip-flops, and hurried out of the bedroom.
“Jamie! Are you coming for a swim?” she called.
“Mu-um! Look, I’ve unpacked – it’s just socks left in my bag. I’m not even going to wear them, it’s too hotfor socks. Can I go now?” Her brother burst out of his room, already in his swimming trunks, with a towel round his neck. 15
“Don’t get in the water till me or your dad are there!” Mum called after them as they raced down the stairs. “I don’t know how deep it is!”
“We can both swim, Mum!” Jamie yelled back. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
Izzy glanced back up the stairs, thinking she wasn’t going to just jump in without Mum or Dad there. She could swim, but she wasn’t as good as Jamie. She liked to be in her depth all the time, so she could put one foot down and feel the floor with her toes. Getting out of her depth made her insides feel squirmy.
