For Matt
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Acknowledgements
About Adam Stower
By the Same Author
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
If there’s one thing that is sure to get a boy out of a warm bed on a chilly morning, it’s the smell of smoke.
Ben shrieked, jolting wide awake. ‘Mum! Dad! FIRE! FIIIRE!’
He leaped out of bed and hurled himself down the stairs with all the grace of a donkey on skates.
Thick smoke curled from the kitchen. Ben took a deep breath and burst through the door.
‘Dad?’ Ben coughed, peering through the plumes of smoke that billowed from the frying pan in Mr Pole’s hand. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’m on breakfast duty.’ Mr Pole beamed proudly. ‘Mum starts her new job today. At the museum, remember?’
Ben wiped the tears from his stinging eyes and flinched as another sausage exploded and burst into flames.
‘Oh dear, crack open a window will you, Ben?’ said Mrs Pole emerging through the fug. She kissed Mr Pole on the cheek and cast a wary eye over the sausages rattling around in the pan. ‘Just cereal for me I think, thanks love. I don’t want to be late.’
‘All the more bangers for us, eh, Ben?’ said Mr Pole enthusiastically. ‘But perhaps you’d best pop on some clothes, eh?’ he chuckled, looking Ben up and down. ‘Aren’t you a bit old to be running round in nothing but your under-grumblies?’
Ben got dressed and was back at the kitchen table just as his dad was dishing up breakfast.
‘I like your uniform, Mum,’ said Ben, tapping his sausage with the edge of a knife, trying to find a soft spot.
‘Thanks, love,’ said Mrs Pole, giving her gold badge a little polish with her napkin. ‘It’s not bad, is it? Oh dear, hold on, listen to this,’ she said, turning up the volume on the radio. ‘It sounds like there’s been another burglary!’
‘Bumbleton?’ said Ben. ‘That’s quite near, isn’t it?’
‘Yup!’ said Mr Pole, who was busy trying to cut his sausage in half with a bread knife. ‘They’re getting closer. I expect that’s why they’re hiring more guards down at the City Museum. Better safe than sorry, eh?’
‘You will be careful, won’t you, Mum?’ said Ben, a little anxiously. He didn’t fancy the idea of his mum being alone at work in the museum with burglars about.
‘Ha! It’s those rotten robbers who need to be careful, now that your mum’s on guard!’ boomed Mr Pole proudly. He had given up on the bread knife and was taking a swing at his sausage with a meat cleaver. ‘Isn’t that right, my love?’
Mrs Pole ducked as the sausage pinged out from under the cleaver, shot past her at about eighty miles-per-hour, smashed through the kitchen window and landed in the back garden with a loud, solid CLUNK!
She smiled at Ben. ‘I’ll be fine, dear. At least there won’t be any low-flying missiles to worry about,’ she said, nodding at the banger that lay smouldering in the grass. ‘You’ll love the museum. You must come and visit. It’s full of weird and wonderful things.’
‘Is that where you got this, Dad?’ grinned Ben, holding up his shrivelled sausage.
‘Ah, erm … yes,’ said Mr Pole sheepishly. ‘How about some toast?’
Ben decided cornflakes would be the safest option. So he wolfed down a bowlful and headed out the door. It was the last day of his summer holidays, and he knew exactly where he wanted to be.
‘Cheerio, love,’ shouted Mrs Pole. ‘Have fun, and say hello to Coo from us!’
CHAPTER TWO
Ben knew the way off by heart by now. He slipped through the maze of alleys that ran between the high windowless buildings in the heart of the city. In a gloomy corner, down a dead-end, Ben swung back a loose board in a high wooden fence and squeezed through a small gap. It was dark on the other side.
Ben felt his way along a tunnel through a mass of twisting roots and branches until at last they thinned out, and he could see daylight shining at the other end.
He stepped out into …
… Coo’s magnificent woods.
Not many boys had a best friend like Coo. Ben was just lucky, he supposed. I mean, a genius who lives with a pet wombat in a secret wood in the middle of the city? In a tree house? He had to admit, it was pretty amazing! OK, so Coo’s woods might be riddled with tricky traps and bonkers contraptions that were as dangerous as they were fun, but it was here that he felt most happy.
Ben couldn’t wait to see Coo and Herbert again, but this time he was determined to reach Coo’s tree house without stumbling into one of her traps. So, instead of running along the path like normal, Ben moved slowly and carefully, peering at the ground with every step.
And it worked, too. There, stretched across the path, he spotted a tripwire. Ben grinned and jumped over it.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t Ben Pole,’ said Coo, grinning at him from her perch on a branch above. ‘You all right there? Need a hand?’ she asked, her gold crown glinting in the sunlight and her long beard blowing in the breeze.
Ben groaned and looked up at her.
‘Oh, OK, you got me again,’ he said, giggling. ‘The tripwire – it was a decoy, wasn’t it?’
‘Yup! You’re learning, Pole,’ said Coo, hopping down from the tree. ‘You were pretty impressive, I think you hit a new top speed on that final bend.’ She tugged a rope and the net fell open, dumping Ben in a heap on the ground. ‘So, what do you think of the “ZOOM of DOOM”?
