Cyborg Cat and the Night Spider
Page 10
Everyone was still talking about the basketball shot I’d landed to trap the spider.
“That was incredible, Ade!” said Shed.
“It was more than incredible,” said Melody. “That took super Cyborg Cat powers!”
“Nah, it was nothing,” I said, playing it cool. I still couldn’t explain to the rest of them exactly how I felt when I became Cyborg Cat.
“But why weren’t you scared?” asked Dexter.
“Yeah, I mean, I wasn’t,” said Brian. “But almost everyone else was. Did you see Spencer on the table?”
“Well,” I said, enjoying the moment. “You know when you said I must be an animal expert because I came from Africa?”
They all nodded.
“You weren’t exactly right, but you weren’t exactly wrong. There were lots of tarantulas in my village, they’re Nigerian Brown Tarantulas.”
“Do you know the Latin name for them, Ade?” asked Brian.
“Funnily enough, I don’t, Brian. Anyway, I used to play with them, though I don’t think they liked me. I was only little and most of the time I just chased around after them.”
“But what if they’d bitten you?” asked Shed.
“Well, it would have hurt a bit, but it definitely wouldn’t have been deadly.” I paused, enjoying myself. “You see, tarantulas are actually pretty harmless, unlike the giant twenty-eight-legged sabre-toothed spidersaurus. A bite from one of those can flatten a fully grown elephant.”
“Wow, they sound terrifying!” exclaimed Dexter. “I’d keep well away from them.”
The rest of us looked at each other and managed to hold it together for about a second before bursting out laughing.
“Twenty-eight legs!” I said. “Dexter, mate, you’ve only got two, but I was pulling both of them.
I lay in bed that night feeling exhausted, but happy. I’d beaten two spiders, had a great time with my friends on the trip and shown everyone just what I could do in a wheelchair.
Or maybe Cyborg Cat had shown what he could do? Or both of us? After all, we were one and the same, weren’t we? I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened but I knew it was something amazing. I did have powers, and now I had wheels I was going to be unstoppable.
Okay, so I didn’t actually have my own wheels right now. There was still the small problem of persuading my dad to let me keep the wheelchair. I just wished Dad had been at the safari park. If he’d seen me controlling the chair, and sinking the basketball shot, maybe he would change his mind.
Maybe … maybe … maybe …
We interrupt this programme for a newsflash. Reports are coming in of a terrifying masked marauder causing chaos and spreading fear wherever he goes. Who or what lies behind the mask, and why is he intent on destruction? Only one person can answer those questions: Cyborg Cat. His powers will be no match for this demon. I repeat, Cyborg Cat is the only person who can take on and unmask this new foe – we need him now like never before.
Ade Adepitan was born in Lagos, Nigeria. At the age of fifteen months he contracted Poliomyelitis. The effects of the virus meant that Ade was unable to use his left leg, and only had partial use of his right leg. He was taught how to walk using iron calipers, which he wore until the age of seventeen. When Ade was three, his parents moved with him to the UK, and Ade grew up in Plaistow, East London.
Football was Ade’s first love, but he discovered wheelchair basketball when he was twelve. From that moment Ade had one ambition, to win a medal in the Paralympics.
Fifteen years later, having played professionally, Ade competed in the Sydney 2000 Paralympics and represented Great Britain for five more years, winning bronze and silver at the 2002 and 2005 European Championships respectively, and captaining his country to a silver medal at the 2002 World Championships. In 2004, Ade achieved his ambition, winning a bronze medal at the Athens Paralympics. He was awarded an MBE in 2005.
In 2002, Ade starred in and choreographed the wheelchair dancing in the BBC’s Hip Hop ident, kickstarting a television career. Now retired from professional sport, Ade is well known as a sports commentator, presenter of documentaries and travel programmes, such as the acclaimed Africa with Ade Adepitan and as an investigative reporter on Dispatches. He is a supporter of many charities, including Children in Need, Amnesty International, Unicef and the NSPCC and is particularly passionate about opportunities for young people and promoting diversity.
Ade is married, and still lives in London, when he’s not travelling the world with his work.
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by
Piccadilly Press
The Plaza, 535 King’s Road, London SW10 0SZ
www.piccadillypress.co.uk
Text © Ade Adepitan, 2019
Illustrations © Carl Pearce, 2019
Author photo © IWPHOTOGRAPHIC
With thanks to Ivor Baddiel
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of Ade Adepitan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-787-41482-2
Piccadilly Press is an imprint of Bonnier Books
www.bonnierbooks.co.uk