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Text copyright © 2018 by Andrew Clover. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Ralph Lazar. All rights reserved. First published in Great Britain in 2018 by HarperCollins Children’s Books. Published in the United States in 2020 by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. PENGUIN and PENGUIN WORKSHOP are trademarks of Penguin Books Ltd, and the W colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Ebook ISBN 9781524793678
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We dedicate this to
ALL DOGS EVERYWHERE
(and to the people who love them)
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
Chapter One: A Call to Adventure
Chapter Two: Wilkins Welkin, King of Dogs
Chapter Three: A Quick Word About Prejudice
Chapter Four: The Great Stakeout
Chapter Five: Paperwork
Chapter Six: Betrayal
Chapter Seven: The Cat’s on the Case
Chapter Eight: A Huge Dark Shape
Chapter Nine: Someone Actually Tells Me Something
Chapter Ten: In the Deadliest of Deadly Dangers
Chapter Eleven: Reinforcements
Chapter Twelve: Let Battle Commence!
Chapter Thirteen: Back at the Base
Excerpt from Rory Branagan Detective
About the Authors
I am Rory Branagan.
I am actually a detective.
Only three days ago, I, with my new Best Friend and Accomplice, Cassidy “the Cat” Callaghan, trailed some poisoners to the Deadly Pirate restaurant, where we GOT THEM!!
Soon I am going to be the Biggest Detective in the World!!
I am even going to solve the biggest mystery in my life, which is: WHERE IS MY DAD?
He disappeared when I was three. Literally . . .
One moment he was there—cracking jokes, telling stories, and being the best dad in the world.
And the next, he was gone.
BUT THEN . . .
Three days ago, I got a secret letter from him. He said he was hiding in the place where he was once happiest. So now I know he’s alive, but I’m thinking . . .
Where IS he?
Is he living in a tree house in a secret island hideout?
I’m thinking . . . Where was he happiest?
Was it some place far away, where he once went on vacation?
I ask my brother who is looming
by the hallway mirror. He got the first four hairs of his mustache last week, and now he rushes out, ten times a day, to see if more have appeared.
“Where do you think Dad is?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I do know Mom gets mad if we even ask.”
“OK,” I say, “where do you think he was happiest?”
“Why are you even asking?” he says.
“Because,” I tell him, “I am just . . . being a detective.”
“MOM!!!” he shouts.
“He’s BEING A DETECTIVE AGAIN!”
And, two seconds later, Mom appears, and already she looks set to blow up.
“RORY!”
she says “You are NOT
a detective!”
“I am,” I reply. “Even the policeman said so when I solved a crime.”
Now she’s more set to explode than a ship with ten cannons that are about to go BOOM.
“Rory,” she says, “you need to think about OTHER PEOPLE. I am trying to keep this family together, and it’s hard enough without you getting into danger. There are some bad people out there. Last time you were being a detective you hurt your leg very badly.”
Now THAT is a tiny bit true, I suppose.
I did sprain my leg very badly, which is why I am supposed to be spending ONE WHOLE WEEK in bed wearing a surgical boot.
“But I did not hurt my leg because of bad people,” I say, “but because I jumped over a high gate, and landed next to a pig . . .”
And that does it. Suddenly my mom . . .
. . . BLOWS UP like a ship with a hundred cannons that are all BLASTING OFF.
“NO!!! I do not want some story!” she screams.
“I just need you to stay in your bed doing your homework, and, if I find you’ve been being a detective, you will be in the worst trouble of your life!”
But even as Mom is shouting I am thinking: But I LOVE being a detective! I am thinking: I even like getting into danger!
And I swear . . . it is literally only about an hour after that . . .
. . . that Cat and I discover a real, actual crime, and end up getting into the very DEADLIEST OF DEADLY DANGERS!!!
I’ll tell you the whole story.
CHAPTER ONE A Call to Adventure
It all starts . . . with me doing something that is not DANGEROUS at all. I am lying in my room. I am having a cool, relaxing time reading a book.
It is about Napoleon.
Apparently he was small but he became the most powerful person in the world, and I am thinking . . . I am small. I could become the most powerful person in the world.
Suddenly my brother’s big head appears.
“There is someone at the door for you,” he says.
“Who is it?” I ask.
But he just goes.
But I don’t mind.
You don’t need to be a genius to detect that the person coming is Cassidy “the Cat” Callaghan. I can hear her singing as she comes up the stairs.
“DUM-DUM-der-dum-dum-DUM!” she sings, then she . . .
leaps into the room.
“Hello, Deadly!” she says. (That’s what she calls me!)
“Hello, Cat!” I reply. (That’s what I call her!)
“So,” she says, “will we go out to track clues and solve crimes?”
“Er . . .
