Alex Sparrow and the Furry Fury E-Book

Jennifer Killick

• Herausgeber: Firefly Press Ltd
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 280

Beschreibung

Catching the school's runaway guinea pigs is not giving Alex job satisfaction, but how can he find a bigger test for his and Jess's awkward superpowers? Jess is more worried about the bullied new boy, whose Mum runs the animal sanctuary. She volunteers at the sanctuary, but soon realises that something is very wrong; the animals are terrified. People report strange events: things missing, property destroyed, and the local squirrels have turned mean. The police have no suspects. It looks more and more like a job for Agent Alex...

Leseprobe

Contents

PraiseAbout the AuthorTitle PageDedication1. My Life as a Hero2. It Begins With an 'M' and Ends with an 'N'3. The Really Surprising Sanctuary4. Confession Time5. Criminal Squirrels and Medium-sized Sheep6. The Great Essssssscape7. Secret Codes and Broken Fences8. A Costly Breakthrough9. I Have a Seriously Bad Day10. Falling Out With Jess11. Things Get Super-Creepy12. You Can't Keep a Secret From a Goldfish13. Chasing the Storm14. The Fox Hunt15. Ragey Rex16. Really Important Person Piper17. Miss F is Back in the Game18. Hostile Negotiations19. We Parley Like it's Friday Night20. Nothing but Darkness21. Smiling With the Enemy22. Showdown at the House of Horror23. We Meet at Last24. Code Red25. AftermathBe a Hedgehog HeroAcknowledgementsCopyrightAdvertisement

Son of a biscuit – Alex and Jess are back for a second thrilling and rib-tickling adventure…Alex Sparrow and the Furry Furyjust the sort of book everyone will want to run off and spend the day reading. James Nicol(The Apprentice Witch)

Praise forAlex Sparrow and the Really Big Stink:

‘A very funny story full of suspenseful moments.’Primary Times

‘This is a hilarious, exciting, fun read, and it is filled to the brim with great characters. There are laugh-out-loud moments which make you hope this is only the beginning of a fantastic new series.’Book Trust

‘Laugh your socks off with this brilliantly funny fantasy adventure.’Lovereading4kids

‘Alex Sparrow’ is an irresistible combination of humour and heart.’Big Book Project

‘…had me in giggles the whole way through.’Hellopipski’s Blog

Jennifer Killickalways wanted to be a writer, but really started when she applied for a Creative Writing MA at Brunel University, which is where she first got the idea for ‘Alex Sparrow.’ She lives in Uxbridge, in a house full of children, animals and Lego. When she isn’t busy mothering or step-mothering (which isn’t often) she loves to read, write and run, as fast as she can.

More than anything else, this story is about kindness. So I dedicate it to Toby Cox – one of the kindest people I have ever known.

1

My Life as a Hero

‘Agent A is back on da case; hunting ’dem pigs who off on da chase; picking up clues like he picks up da ladies; smellin’ so fresh like a field of daisies…’

‘Smelling like poo, you mean,’ Jess snorted. ‘You just stepped in some.’

‘Oh, nuts,’ I said, trying to scrape it off my school shoe. ‘Mum’s going to kill me.’

‘Anyway, ladies doesn’t rhyme with daisies.’

‘It would be easier to freestyle if you laid me down some sick beats, Jessticles,’ I said. ‘But of course you’re in too much of a mood.’

‘I never thought I’d say this, but I wish you’d go back to the narration thing. It was slightly less annoying.’ Jess bent down to look under a stack of PE equipment at the side of the games area.

‘This is the first mission we’ve had in weeks.’ I dropped into a crouch and sniffed at the ground like proper trackers do on TV. ‘You could be a bit more enthusiastic.’

‘Looking for Boris and Noodle is hardly a mission, Alex.’

‘There are two ferocious beasts on the loose in the school grounds. We’ve been charged with protecting the innocent and bringing those thugs to justice.’

‘They’re guinea pigs.’ Jess rolled her eyes so hard that I thought they might disappear into her brain cavity.

‘That’s right. And we’re taking them in – dead or alive.’

I rubbed a bit of dirt between my fingers.

‘You know that’s poo too, right?’

‘How’s that poo?’ I wiped my fingers on the ground. ‘They look like little brown candies.’

Jess just sighed and looked at the sprinkles of poo leading out of the playground. She turned towards the school field. ‘This way.’

‘At least we know we’re on their tails,’ I said. ‘Followin’ da trail of candy-poo devastation; Agent A and moody J spy out their destination; A’s majestic stealth don’t need no explanation…’

‘…But Alex’s attempts at rapping are a sad abomination.’

‘Now you’re getting into the spirit of it, Jessticles,’ I said, patting her on the shoulder with my poo fingers.

‘Also, guinea pigs don’t have proper tails.’

We made our way across the field towards the furthest corner, where the garden lived. It was November, and times were tough. As you probably know, I’m a pretty upbeat person, and I’ve always been like a flipping ray of sunshine compared to Jess. I was used to that. But in the aftermath of PALS and Miss Smilie, it was like she wanted life to go back the way it was before we got our powers. And I couldn’t understand it. I tried not to let her bring me down, but it was getting harder. I’d thought that volunteering to look for Boris and Noodle would make her remember the good times, but it just seemed to pee her off even more.

‘I think I can see something moving,’ I said. ‘Under that green leaf thing.’

‘You mean the lettuce?’ She looked at me like I was the most stupid person in the world.

‘I’m not a vegetarian like you – I can’t be expected to remember the names ofallthe vegetables.’

‘The other day you said you didn’t want to eat the orange stick thingy.’

‘Well, I didn’t. It tasted weird.’

‘It was a carrot, Alex. Acarrot.’

‘What’s your point, Jessticles?’

‘My point is that it’s the most basic of all the vegetables. Two year olds know what a carrot is.’

‘My mind is way too busy with important business to worry about things like that.’

‘You mean like your investigation of Miss Hussein?’

When Miss Smilie was arrested earlier in October, the school got a new teacher to replace her. She was called Miss Hussein and I was certain she was another bad guy in disguise, possibly planted by Montgomery McMonaghan and his corrupt organisation, SPARC. So I did what any good agent would do: I devoted my life to uncovering Miss Hussein’s secret identity. I followed her. I asked her constant questions. I tried my hardest to make her mad and trick her into telling a lie. But the thing with Miss Hussein was that she was really,reallynice. Like, so super-nice it was annoying.

We moved towards the vegetable patch: me with the stealth of a panther, and Jess with the clomp clomp of a buffalo. The sky had suddenly turned dark and it had started to rain freezing fat blobs of water. It was the perfect weather for our manhunt. I made a series of hand gestures and head movements to communicate to Jess what our plan should be without giving away our position.

‘What?’ she said.

It was quite dark so she must not have seen clearly. I did them again.

‘Alex, it’s cold and wet and I have no idea what you’re trying to do.’

‘I’m saying we should flank them, of course! Also – you ruin everything.’

‘Whatever,’ Jess said, and moved to the right of the garden. At least she knew what flanking meant, that was something.

I took the left flank, sneaking like a shadow through the gloom towards my prey. The vegetable patch was like an unlidded box made of logs, about the size of a wrestling ring. It was filled with mud and leaves and freakish-looking scarecrows that the Reception kids made out of old Coke bottles.

And there was definitely something in amongst the vegetables. I braced myself for the pounce, for the beast to fight back. Instead, a white floppy-haired head poked out from under a leaf and squeaked. I looked over at Jess. Her special power isn’t as useful as mine, obviously. But in this situation being able to talk to animals would come in handy. I used to laugh when I saw the twitch that came as the side effect of her power and happened whenever she talked to them, but even her twitching just wasn’t the same anymore. She’d decided to have ‘office hours’ for her power, when animals were allowed to come see her with their requests. At other times, she didn’t like talking to them – she said it got too tiring, what with all the Year 6 exam work we were doing at school. Now she twitched in the most bored way possible.

‘Boris is surrendering,’ Jess said. ‘He doesn’t like the rain and he wants to go back to his hutch.’

‘Oh,’ I said, feeling quite disappointed. ‘Well, one down, one still on the loose.’

A golden-brown head peeped out next to Boris and managed to squeak through the mouthful of green leaf it was munching on.

Jess twitched and sighed. ‘Noodle’s surrendering too. He does whatever Boris does.’

‘I think they were intimidated by my powerful presence,’ I said.

‘Let’s just get them back to school before we’re completely soaked.’

‘Shouldn’t we interrogate them about why they escaped?’ I said, really hoping for a bit more excitement out of the situation.

‘Alex,’ Jess turned to me, ‘they’re guinea pigs. They got out of their hutch and stole some lettuce. Even you can’t make this into a drama. Now grab Boris, and I’ll get Noodle.’

‘You grab Boris. He looks like he might bite.’

‘Fine,’ Jess huffed and scooped up Boris with an air of professionalism I had to respect.

I crept towards Noodle.

‘There’s no point tiptoeing, Alex. He’s looking right at you. He already knows you’re coming.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Do guinea pigs have claws?’

‘Would you like me to carry it back to the hutch?’ An unfamiliar voice made me jump out of my skin, and Jess too from the look of it.

The new boy, Rex, had somehow walked across the entire field without us noticing, and was standing right behind us. He was almost as stealthy as me.

Jess frowned at him, not in an especially nasty way, just in the way she frowned at everyone except Dave. Rex had only been at Cherry Tree Lane for a week, and he’d been getting a hard time from the other kids. His uniform was old, even though he was new. His trousers were too short, his jumper was too big and his shoes looked like they’d come out of a dustbin. Also, he hardly talked, just stared the whole time like he was judging everyone. I hadn’t picked on him, but I hadn’t made an effort with him either. He was a bit weird.

‘I’m used to dealing with animals,’ Rex said. ‘Me and my mum have just taken over the Cherry Tree Lane Animal Sanctuary.’

Jess’s face lit up. Honestly, I’d been trying to cheer her up for weeks with very little success, and this guy rolls in with the words ‘animal sanctuary’ and she’s practically smiling at him.

‘Some help would be great,’ Jess said. ‘Alex is obviously afraid of the guinea pig.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ I said, my tiny white lie setting off my lie-detecting ear, which rumbled loudly and sent the odour of fart cutting through the damp naturey smell of the garden. ‘He does have the eyes of a killer, though.’

Rex bent over the vegetable patch and laid his hands on the soil, palms facing up, and Noodle scampered out of the lettuce immediately. He sniffed at Rex’s dirty fingernails and then hopped into his hands like he was his best mate or something.

‘That’s amazing,’ Jess gasped in an infuriating way.

Rex just nodded like it was nothing and let Noodle cuddle into his jumper.

This was all it took for Jess to decide that the new boy was alright. I still had my doubts.

‘Can I work at the animal sanctuary?’ Jess asked. ‘I could come in after school and on weekends. I’m good with animals, aren’t I, Alex?’ She turned to me, which was nice because I was wondering if she’d forgotten that I existed.

‘Yeah, she’s got a special way with animals,’ I said.

Rex looked at me and then at Jess. ‘We do need help. But we can’t pay you.’

‘Stuff that then,’ I said. ‘No pay, no way – that’s what I always say.’

‘You’ve literally never said that, Alex,’ Jess glared at me. ‘And I’ll work for free; I just want the experience.’

‘Wait, what?’ I said. The girl was nuts.

‘Ok, I’ll ask my mum if we can give you a trial,’ Rex nodded. ‘I like the way you handle a guinea pig.’

He turned and started walking back across the field to the school, leaving Jess with a huge smile on her face.

‘I like the way you handle a guinea pig,’ I said, pulling my hat low on my forehead to try to keep the rain out of my eyes. ‘Dat boy got game, son.’

2

It Begins With an ‘M’ and Ends in an ‘N’

‘How can it not wake you up? It’s the most horrific noise I’ve ever heard.’ Jess yawned and picked at a scab on her elbow.

If anyone else had said that, I’d have expected my ear to fart extra juicily, but Jess was the biggest non-exaggerator in the world.

‘And it’s so loud,’ Dave said. ‘Maybe all that ear farting has damaged your hearing.’

It was lunchtime and we were sitting on what used to be called the Friendship Bench, but was now called the Reflection Bench due to the whole school trying to avoid anything that sounded like it was in any way connected to PALS. PALS was the ‘Positive Aspirational Life Skills’ programme that our school decided to inflict upon us at the start of the year, but it didn’t turn out so well. And after Miss Smilie was exposed by the amazing Agent Alex (that’s me), they realised PALS actually stood for ‘Pupil Automated Lobotomy Scheme’. People were pretty unhappy about it, and now the school was trying to act like it never happened. Anyway, they could call the bench whatever they liked – everybody still avoided sitting on it and being seen as a loser, which is why it was perfect for us. Wait – that came out wrong. I mean it was private and we could chat without anyone listening in. That’s why it was perfect for us. We are most definitely not losers.

Anyway, Jess and Dave and everybody else in town were being kept awake at night by foxes. Loads of people were talking about it – it had even been on the news. Personally, I didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

‘It can’t be that bad,’ I said. ‘They’re just foxes, a.k.a. orange dogs.’

‘It sounds like demons screaming from hell,’ Jess said.

‘I wonder if they’ve eaten Colin from next door. He’s been missing for weeks.’

‘Your next-door neighbour has gone missing?’ Dave said. ‘His poor family.’

‘Meh, he was a scabby old thing anyway,’ I said. ‘I used to chase him out of my garden all the time.’

Dave looked confused.

‘Colin is a cat, Dave,’ Jess said.

‘Maybe the foxes are performing some kind of dark ritual.’ I imagined them dancing around a fire with Colin tied to a tree. ‘That would explain these “alleged” (I did the annoying finger-quote thing) noises.’

‘I can’t believe anyone can sleep through them,’ said Jess.

‘What can I say? I’m especially skilled at sleeping.’

‘Sleeping isn’t a skill,’ she huffed.

‘You only say that because you’re not good at it.’

‘I’m too tired to even argue with you,’ Jess said, yawning again and slumping back on the bench.

‘And I bow down to your mastery,’ Dave laughed. ‘Teach me, oh wise one, for I am in desperate need of zees.’

‘Don’t encourage him, Dave.’ Jess nudged him in the ribs but he didn’t seem to mind.

‘Well, before I go to bed, I like to have a largish snack,’ I said. ‘Because waking up from hunger is the worst. Something with cheese and ham, and then something with chocolate, or maybe…’

‘What’s going on over there?’ Jess jumped up, rudely interrupting me, and ran over to where a crowd of kids had gathered by the climbing frame.

Me and Dave followed Jess, who was pushing her way through the mob. You’d think that after we saved them all from becoming blueberry muffins, brainwashed by Miss Smilie and PALS last half term, they’d show a bit of respect and stand aside for us, but life moves fast in the Juniors and last month’s events had been pretty much forgotten. To be fair, Jess didn’t need them to stand aside: when she was on the path to justice, nobody got in her way, not even Big Bad Bhavi.

As I fought my way through, I wasn’t surprised to hear Jason’s voice shouting above all the rest. He used to be my best friend, but then I realised he was a total jerk. Apart from the odd comment under his breath, he’d pretty much stopped picking on me – I think because he was scared that Jess would kick him in the boy bits again. But Jason being Jason, he’d had to find someone else to bully. And that person was Rex.

‘Did your last school kick you out for being a jack-up weirdo?’ Jason said.

Rex’s face went bright red as he looked down at his ankles. ‘We moved.’

‘Everything was going fine until you came here.’

‘Apart from the PALS stuff,’ someone shouted, and a few people laughed.

‘I haven’t done anything,’ Rex said. ‘I don’t even know where you live.’

‘I’m Jason Newbold: everyone in this school knows where I live. And someone set fire to my house.’

Jess marched forward and put herself in between Jason and Rex. ‘Why would Rex set fire to your house? He hasn’t even been here long enough to know how much of a jerk you are.’

‘Oooh, burn,’ I said. I totally had Jess’s back.

‘Stay out of this, freak girl,’ Jason said, but more quietly and while moving his hands to cover his ‘area’. ‘Should have known you’d stick up for this scuzzy tramp.’

‘Should we go in?’ I whispered to Dave.

‘Nah – Jess has it covered, and she’ll be mad at you for thinking she couldn’t handle it.’

‘Call me that again, Jason,’ she said, her eyes narrowing. She took a step closer to him.

‘Whatever,’ he said, edging back. ‘Just stay the hell away from me – all of you weirdos. And when I find out who set my house on fire, they’re dead.’

‘Teachers coming!’ someone said, and the group started to break up, leaving only me, Dave, Jess and Rex.

‘Are you OK, mate?’ Dave said to Rex.

Rex said nothing but looked like he might cry. There were only two situations in Year 6 when it was acceptable to cry: one – if you received a potentially life-threatening injury, for example, if someone smashed a chair over your head or you got a really bad paper cut; two – if you failed one of your exams and had to spend the next month in intervention. If he started crying now, it would be totally awkward. And I felt a bit sorry for him.

‘Do you want to sit with us?’ I said, and Jess smiled at me for the first time in a week.

‘Thanks, but I want to be on my own right now,’ Rex sniffed.

At that moment, Miss Hussein reached us. ‘Is everything OK, guys?’

‘Rex is having a tough day,’ Dave said.

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Rex,’ Miss Hussein smiled at him. And not like a Miss Smilie smile; it was a gentle, rosy smile with a twinkle in it. ‘Would you like to come inside for a bit and have some quiet time? I think there might be some ginger biscuits left over from lunch – we could sneak you a few and find you a book in the library.’

Rex nodded and started walking towards the door.

‘Thank you for looking after him,’ Miss Hussein twinkled at us. ‘It’s so hard being new and it makes me proud when I see people like you being kind. I owe you all a ginger biscuit, too.’ She hurried to catch up with Rex.

‘There’s definitely something sinister about her,’ I said.

Jess rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, let’s go back to our bench.’

‘Maybe she set fire to Jason’s house?’ I said.

Jess and Dave both turned to look at me. You know you’ve gone too far when even Darth Daver gives you the stink eye.

‘I know, I know. Miss Hussein is like a fluffy unicorn and I’m being stupid and desperate. It’s just that I want a new mission so badly.’

‘I heard Marek saying the fire happened when Jason’s Xbox blew up,’ Jess said. ‘It was just an accident.’

‘Wow – he gamed so hard he blew up his Xbox!’

I pictured a giant explosion with Jason’s family leaping out of the way in slow motion, flames twenty metres high and a mushroom cloud of smoke where Jason’s house used to be.

‘I think it was just a small fire,’ Dave said, as though he could see right into my mind. ‘Nobody got hurt but one of the curtains was a bit brown at the bottom.’

How disappointing.

‘Well, at least one good thing came out of this,’ I said.

‘You actually thought about someone else other than yourself for a change?’ said Jess.

‘Calm down, Saint Jessticles – even your hair looks ragey. Anyway, you got more out of this situation than anyone.’

‘Why’s that?’ We’d reached the bench and she stopped and turned, hands on hips.

‘Because Rex is definitely going to get you a job in the animal sanctuary now.’

She sighed and turned away, but not before I saw the corner of her mouth twitch upwards in what looked like the start of a smile.

We sat back down on the Reflection Bench.

‘Well, that was the most action we’ve seen in a while,’ Dave said.

A horrid feeling swept over me. I felt heavy and sad and it was hard to take a breath – kind of like I was being sucked down a plughole. After everything we’d been through and all we achieved. How had life got so boring?

‘I can’t stand this,’ I said. ‘No secret missions. No psychotic villains. No life or death situations. Life sucks right now.’

‘The Professor gave us our powers for a reason, Alex,’ said Jess, ‘and we did what we needed to do. We won. We should be happy.’

‘Then why aren’t I?’ It was true that Miss Fortress, a.k.a. The Professor, had given us our powers specifically to stop Miss Smilie, but that didn’t mean we shouldn’t use them for other cool things. Ten years old was too young to retire.

A loud rustling from the cherry tree branches over our heads made us all look up, and a familiar-looking grey blob swooped towards us.

‘Dexter!’ Jess and I jumped up and shouted at the same time, before remembering we shouldn’t be drawing attention to the fact that we had a friend who’s a pigeon. We hadn’t seen him since the day of Miss Smilie’s arrest and, honestly, I’d never been so happy to see his beady eyes and yucky toe stump.

He landed on the bench next to us and started strutting back and forth like a boss.

Jess launched into the series of jerky movements that meant she was listening to Dexter and, it could have been my imagination, but I reckon she was doing it with more enthusiasm than I’d seen from her in weeks.

‘Like what, though?’ Jess was saying, and I felt this rising excitement, like the opposite of being sucked down a plughole. Maybe something completely awesome was going to happen.

When Jess stopped twitching, Dexter turned to me, bobbed his head and then took off.

‘Did you see that?’ I said. ‘He nodded at me! He doesn’t hate me anymore!’

‘I saw him move his head a tiny bit,’ said Jess. ‘I wouldn’t call it a nod, exactly.’

‘Shush, Jessticles, it was totally a nod – a mark of respect between comrades. He was practically telling me he loves me.’

A slimy wet poo suddenly fell from the sky and spattered on the bench next to me.

Dave cracked up.

‘I don’t think it’s love just yet, Alex,’ said Jess.

‘It wasn’t on my head, so I’ll take it.’ I would not let her chill my buzz. ‘Anyway, what did he say? Is it a mission? IS IT A MISSION?’

‘I wouldn’t call it a mission,’ she sighed. ‘But he said he’s been witnessing some funny business on the ground. He made it clear to The Prof that something was bothering him, and she told him to pass the intel on to us.’

‘What funny business, Jess? Tell me!’ I bounced up and down on the bench.

‘It’s the animals. The animals are acting out of sorts; doing things they shouldn’t be. We need to provide The Professor with a report.’

‘Jess, my delightful friend, do you know what this is?’

‘It’s not a mission.’

‘IT’S A MISSION!’

‘Not really.’

‘It’s a mission, isn’t it, Dave?’ I turned to him for help.

‘It does sound a bit missiony,’ he smiled.

Jess whacked him on the arm. ‘Now he’ll be unbearable.’

‘Mission, mission, mission,’ I marched around the bench chanting.

‘Shut up, Alex,’ Jess said.

‘Do you know what, Jessticles?’ I stopped in front of her and leaned in. ‘Mission.’

Jess rubbed her face with her hands and sighed. ‘I told you, Dave.’

3

The Really Surprising Sanctuary

So the next day was Jess’s first shift at the animal sanctuary. Well, I say Jess’s first shift, but it was actually my first shift, too. We’d spoken (argued) about it after Dexter’s exciting revelation and decided (reluctantly agreed) that it would make sense for both of us to be there in order to conduct the most thorough investigation of the strange animal behaviour. I really didn’t want to be getting scratched or to clean up poo, or whatever it is people do at animal sanctuaries, but I am a professional agent, and the mission comes first. To be honest, I don’t think Jess wanted me there, ruining her little fantasy world, but we both just had to deal with it. We work best as a team.

My mum agreed that me and Jess could walk to the sanctuary together after school, as it wasn’t very far and she’d finally given me my very own shiny new phone. Obvs I had to promise to text her when I left school, and text her when I got safely to the sanctuary, and text her if anything happened, and all that, but it was my first step towards freedom, so I didn’t complain too much.

‘Where is Cherry Tree Lane Animal Sanctuary?’ I asked Jess as we walked out of the school gate.

‘Are you kidding?’ She looked across at me and rolled her eyes.

‘Is that a trick question?’

‘Was your question a trick question?’ she said.

‘Why would my question be a trick question?’ This was a confusing conversation.

‘Because it was a completely stupid question.’

‘In what way was it stupid, my stroppy sidekick?’

‘Alex,’ she huffed, ‘it’s called Cherry Tree Lane Animal Sanctuary.’

‘So?’

‘Why do you think it’s called that?’

‘I don’t know. Everything around here is called Cherry Tree Lane something or other.’ Still confused.

‘Maybe because they’re all on Cherry Tree Lane?’ She was looking straight ahead so I couldn’t really see her expression, but I could hear in her voice that it was one of disgust. Which was totally unfair.

‘Listen, Jessticles. I’ve lived around here my whole life, and been at Cherry Tree Lane Primary for even longer. I think I’d know if there was an animal sanctuary on Cherry Tree Lane.’ That told her. ‘Why have you stopped walking?’

‘Because we’re here, Double-O-Dufus.’

We were standing in front of a gate in the middle of a crumbly wall. The gate was green, although half the paint was peeling off, and it had a black handle and a sign that said, Cherry Tree Lane Animal Sanctuary, with a picture of a hedgehog. The nails on the sign were rusty and the gateposts were covered in vines, like they’d been growing there for a hundred years.

I side-eyed Jess. ‘It must be new.’

Jess reached for the handle but before she could turn it, the door creaked open and someone walked right into us.

‘I’m so sorry!’ the guy said. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone to be coming in.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Jess said, gazing up at him. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

‘Well, technically it was,’ I said, but Jess jabbed me in the ribs.

The guy laughed. He was older than us, but not old enough to be, like, a teacher or a dad. Anyway, his hair was too cool for him to be either of those. It was that not-too-long and not-too-short, messy but not-messy hair that I tried to make mine go like. He was tallish, wearing skinny jeans, a band T-shirt and a cardigan with some badges on it. One of them said ‘Vegan Warrior’.

‘I love your badge,’ Jess said, looking more impressed than I’d ever seen her. And, as if he wasn’t perfect enough already, a German Shepherd dog pushed out from behind him and licked Jess’s hand.

‘Settle down, Meena,’ the guy said. ‘Some people are anxious around big dogs.’

‘It’s fine – I love animals.’ Jess knelt down and made a fuss of Meena. I expected her to start twitching, as she often did around dogs because she couldn’t help talking to them. But she didn’t twitch, she just rubbed Meena’s head and smiled up at Mr Vegan Dog-Lover.

‘So I’m guessing you’re the new volunteers.’ When he smiled, he got these dimples in his cheeks and his eyes shone like melted chocolate. ‘Nice to meet you. I’m Taran.’

‘I’m Jess,’ Jess sparkled back at him. ‘Lovely to meet you, too.’

‘Ahem,’ I coughed.

‘This is Alex,’ Jess said.

I opened my mouth to speak but I didn’t get a chance…

‘Do you work at the sanctuary?’ Jess asked.

‘Sort of. I’m a specialist in animal behaviour and I work with most of the rescue centres, vets and refuges in the area. They call me in if they need my so-called expertise.’ Taran smiled again in an embarrassed way.

It was like a brag without being a brag. He was good.

‘That’s so interesting,’ said Jess. ‘I’d like to do something like that when I go to uni.’

I was going to point out that as Jess had only just turned eleven, it was ridiculous to be planning that far ahead, but I couldn’t get a word in.

‘You must love it,’ she said to Taran.

‘I do,’ Taran said. ‘I’m such a lucky guy to be able to work with animals every day. I’ve loved them all my life, been a vegan since I was six and decided to dedicate my life to helping them at about the same age. Four years at university and here I am, living the dream.’

Jess’s face turned into the heart eyes emoji, but I was distracted. Taran had lied, but I couldn’t work out which part of what he’d said wasn’t true. I wanted to ask him some questions, but Jess suddenly noticed the smell and got all flustered.

‘We’d better go in or we’re going to be late,’ she said, jumping up and trying to manoeuvre Taran away from the stink. Meena tapped at Jess’s leg with her paw, so Jess bent down to stroke her again. ‘Lovely to meet you, Meena.’

‘Hopefully see you again, sometime,’ Taran called as he walked away. ‘Good luck with your new job.’

‘Thank you,’ Jess waved. ‘Bye, Taran. Bye, Meena.’

I looked at her. ‘Er, what the heck was that?’

‘Why did you have to have your ear switched on?’ she said, obviously annoyed with me for some reason.

‘We’re on a mission, Jessticles. When I’m on a mission, I keep my ear ready for action at all times. Why didn’t you switch on the twitch?’

‘There was no need,’ Jess said. ‘Besides, it’s our first day and he works here – I didn’t want to risk him thinking we’re nuts.’

‘Mmmhmm,’ I said.

‘Shut up, Alex.’ She pushed the gate open and we walked through. Behind it was an overgrown path that led to a house that matched the crumbly wall and the ancient gate. Rex was standing at the front door.

‘You’re late. Here’s your overalls,’ he said, shoving green bundles at me and Jess.

‘Thanks,’ Jess said, holding hers up so that it unfolded into some kind of material that matched the wall, the gate and the house.

‘Is this a type of clothes?’ I had to ask because I wasn’t entirely sure.

‘They’re overalls,’ Jess hissed. ‘The same as Rex is wearing.’

‘Put them on,’ Rex said, and stood there while we shoved them over our uniforms. I made them look swag, just FYI.

‘So,’ I said. ‘Do you like Cherry Tree Lane so far?’

‘Not really.’

‘How come you moved here?’

‘They were looking for someone to take over this place,’ he shrugged. ‘Mum wanted to.’

‘Cool,’ I said. ‘Cool, cool.’

Rex led us through a narrow passage to a large room at the back of the house. Before he even opened the door, the noise hit me like an attack on my ears. Followed by the smell like a spear up the nose.