URSULA DUBOSARSKY
The Blue Cat
The Golden Day
The Red Shoe
Reindeer’s Christmas Surprise
(illustrated by Sue deGennaro)
The Cryptic Casebook of Coco Carlomagno (and Alberta)
The Perplexing Pineapple
The Looming Lamplight
The Missing Mongoose
The Dismal Daffodil
The Quivering Quavers
The Talkative Tombstone
ANDREW JOYNER
Bear Make Den
(written by Jane Godwin and Michael Wagner)
Published by Allen & Unwin in 2018
Text copyright © Ursula Dubosarsky 2018
Illustrations copyright © Andrew Joyner 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
ISBN 978 1 76011 204 2
eISBN 978 1 76063 581 7
Teachers’ notes available from www.allenandunwin.com/resources/for-teachers
Cover and internal design by Romina Panetta
Cover illustration by Andrew Joyner
CONTENTS
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
A note from Ursula and Andrew
About the author
About the illustrator
This is a story about a boy called Pender and a kangaroo called Brindabella, about how they became friends, and all the things that happened to them because of it.
Pender lived in an old house in the bush by the river, in a hidden valley not far from the coast. The house was made of honey-coloured stone, with green shutters on the windows. All the rooms were on one floor, and a long verandah wound all the way around the outside like the moat of a castle.
Pender’s father was an artist, so the house was filled with paintings and drawings. They were mainly of faces with large beautiful eyes, and sometimes of shadowy buildings or a sudden burst of flowers. The paintings and drawings hung on the walls or were propped up on shelves and tables, which were also crowded with statues made of wood and metal, leaves and pebbles, and folded animals cut out of different coloured bits of paper. At night, when it was very dark, it seemed to Pender that the whole house was filled with silent strangers.
Outside the house lived a little black dog named Billy-Bob, a flock of red hens led by Pertelote the chief hen, and a grey-striped cat, Ricky, who never came down from his very comfortable spot on the roof except at dinnertime. Beyond the fence, there were two black-and-white cows and a very old white horse who belonged to someone else. Beyond that fence, there were wombats and kangaroos and possums and echidnas and quolls and galahs and cockatoos and rosellas and kookaburras and thousands of other creatures besides.
When Pender and his father were inside the house, Billy-Bob lay on the back step, sleepily eyeing the red hens bobbing about the yard. As soon as Pender or his father came out, he would jump up and run around and around on his short legs in excited circles, barking, while the hens scattered for shelter in the bushes.
‘Calm yourself, Billy-Bob,’ Pender’s father would say. ‘It’ll all be the same in a hundred years.’
Pender’s father had white hair and thick, black-rimmed glasses. Sometimes he was not very well and needed a stick to help him when he walked. He painted his pictures in a hut on a hill above the house. Most mornings, half-leaning on Pender and half-leaning on his stick, he made his way to the hut with Billy-Bob running alongside him.
The hut used to belong to a shepherd, but all the sheep had gone a long time ago. It was just one room with a huge, cobwebbed window. There were piles of paintings stacked up carelessly on the floor, and there was a big desk covered in splotches of paint of every colour and dozens of paintbrushes of all different sizes lined up in a row.
In the corner of the hut was a fireplace. In the cold weather, Pender’s father lit the fire with twigs until the logs began to smoke and glow. Billy-Bob would lie down on the mat in front of the warm flames and close his eyes, falling at once into a deep sleep.
‘He’s dreaming,’ Pender’s father said.
‘What does he dream about?’ wondered Pender.
‘Dog-dreams,’ said Pender’s father.
After Billy-Bob fell asleep, it was time for Pender to go, to leave his father to paint. Pender’s father would pick up his paintbrush, say goodbye to Pender and shut the door behind him. He spent all day painting and would not usually come down again to the house until the late afternoon. So Pender was left to himself. His father didn’t seem to think Pender would be lonely. Pender didn’t think he was lonely, either. He was used to being alone.
Above the front door of the house was a piece of wood that had some words carved into it. It was in a different language—even the letters were different:
‘It’s in Ancient Greek,’ his father told him. ‘This is how you say it: Mem-nays-tho an-air ag-a-thos ayn-eye.’
He went through the words, one by one, and made Pender repeat them. The sounds felt strange in Pender’s mouth.
Mem-nays-tho an-air ag-a-thos ayn-eye.
‘What does it mean?’ asked Pender.
‘It means, Remember to be a good man,’ replied his father. ‘You must remember that, Pender. It’s the most important thing.’
The winter morning Pender met Brindabella, the sky was smeared with pink clouds. He woke up shivering in the cold morning air. He heard his father in the kitchen, so he got himself up and dressed and went out for breakfast. They always had the same breakfast in winter: a bowl of porridge, an apple cut into
