Rory Branagan

by Andrew Clover

  PENGUIN WORKSHOP

  An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

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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.

  Visit us online at www.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019033122

  Ebook ISBN 9781524793654

  Version_1

  To all children who love a laugh,

  to all those who love adventure,

  to all those who see bad guys and deadly danger

  and who are not afraid to keep going,

  we dedicate this tale.

  Keep fighting, friends, keep fighting.

  Be bold, be curious, be DETECTIVES!!

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Chapter One: It All Starts

  Chapter Two: A Discovery

  Chapter Three: Cassidy Starts Making Mayhem

  Chapter Four: I Suck It Up

  Chapter Five: An Actual Crime

  Chapter Six: Cassidy Starts Her Investigation

  Chapter Seven: The Trip into Town

  Chapter Eight: The Alleyway

  Chapter Nine: In a Deep, Dark Hole Under My Brother

  Chapter Ten: Reinforcements Arrive. And We Go Out to Beat the Bejesus Out of the Baddies

  Chapter Eleven: Entering the Scene of the Crime

  Chapter Twelve: Action.: Fast, Lethal Action

  Chapter Thirteen: A Bit Like Heaven, and a Bit Like a Big Bang on the Head

  Chapter Fourteen: The Trip Home

  Chapter Fifteen: In the Tree House

  Excerpt from Rory Branagan Detective: The Dog Squad

  About the Authors

  I am Rory Branagan. I am actually a detective.

  This is my tree house den. It’s where I come to read, relax, and spy on people.

  That is my mom.

  That is my brother.

  That is Mrs. Welkin, my neighbor, and—yes!— I detect that she is with . . .Wilkins Welkin, her dog, who is probably my best friend in the whole world!!

  You might think it’s a bit weird having a best friend who’s a sausage dog. But Wilkins comes over most afternoons and usually we go out and mess around with balls in the park.

  He’s just like a normal best friend.

  The only difference is . . .

  . . . he’d never come around on a bike.

  And if we’re watching TV, he only really pays attention . . .

  . . . if there’s a cat on the screen.

  He even comes for sleepovers, and I don’t mind admitting that when he does Wilkins Welkin and I . . .

  . . . we do hug.

  As he dreams he kicks his little sausage legs, and just thinking what Wilkins might be dreaming about makes me smile.

  I basically have an amazing life.

  But . . . there is just one bad thing about it, which makes me worry at night, and that is . . .

  NO ONE

  TELLS ME

  ANYTHING!

  They don’t.

  And the thing they definitely don’t tell me about is the thing I most want to know, which is . . .

  Why did my dad disappear when I was three?

  He did.

  One moment he was there in the park, pushing me on the swings so hard I felt I was flying like Superman.

  And the next . . .

  He was gone.

  Why did he go? And where did he go?

  Those two questions are always swirling like fish in my head.

  Those two questions are always there.

  Well . . . those, and . . .

  It was my tenth birthday last week. I was thinking: Does my dad even KNOW?

  I was thinking: Does my dad even CARE?

  I was thinking . . .

  But finding out what happened to Dad—that’s what turned me into a detective.

  I’ll tell you the whole story . . .

  CHAPTER ONE

  It All Starts

  On a Tuesday, 5:22 p.m. . . .

  I am walking home, and I am in a REALLY GOOD mood, because I have been at Corner Boy Gilligan’s house.

  His real name is Connor, but we call him Corner Boy, because he is always standing on the street corner trying to look fierce. Literally, he has a spear, and if you go near him without asking, he hits you.

  But I actually like him. He also has forty-two guinea pigs, and I am allowed to play with them whenever I want.

  Today the Gilligans had loads of blender boxes . . . and we made a gigantic

  GUINEA PIG OLYMPIC STADIUM.

  It was hilarious.

  We scattered carrots up and down the track, and the guinea pigs were going wild.

  They were sprinting around squeaking for joy. We made them race.

  We even gave out medals made from cucumber.

  We gave most of them to Mike Tyson. He is our favorite guinea pig by a mile. He is the HUGEST, the FASTEST, and the GREEDIEST.

  If he sees food, he charges like a hippo, and he smashes the others out of the way.

  We gave him ten medals, which he ate.

  As I go home I am in such a good mood I could float up into the sky like a balloon.

  As I enter the house I even find a letter for me.

  I am going to take it upstairs, to read it.

  But then, as I’m going up the stairs, I overhear my mom jabber-wabbering away to my Auntie Jo in the kitchen.

  She’s saying, “So I said I’ll MEET you, but NOT at my house . . . and HE said . . .”

  Right away it felt like when you’re out swimming and the water goes cold.

  I am thinking: Who is she meeting? Is it Dad?

  I go back down.

  But as soon as I go into the kitchen, they are as silent as statues.

  They are as silent as statues that are

  deep,

  deep

  below the sea.

  I say, “Mom, what is happening?”

  She’s suddenly very interested in the dishes. “Mrs. Welkin is coming over,” she says. “She wants to play Boggle.”

  “But who are you seeing?” I ask. “Are you seeing Dad?”

  “RORY!” says Mom (very loud). “I need to speak to your Auntie Jo!”

  Then she puts on her being-nice-to-Rory voice. “Go upstairs and see your brother.
He wants to see you,” she says, and she shoos me out of the room.

  I am thinking: It is very, very, very, very unlikely my brother wants to see me. But if I go in his room, it will wind him up.

  So I go.

  My brother’s name is Seamus. His room is dark and stinky like a cave.

  But it’s here that I first see someone very, very important.

  Do I go in and find a secret passage . . .

  . . . . . and do I slide down till I find a huge puffer fish that has hair like Donald Trump, who says “I will tell you what happened to your father, young man”?

  NO! (That would be deranged!)

  What happens is, I go in and I smell a smell like a hundred dead fish all being sick at once . . .

  And I see my brother.

  He is sitting on the bed glaring at me over his trading cards, like a crab that’s looking out over a rock. “What do you want?” he says.

  “Well,” I say. “I would LIKE to know . . . WHERE Mom is going, and IF she is seeing Dad, and IF we even have a dad. And I would also like to know . . .”

  At this point I look out the window. “Who is moving in next door?”

  Right away I am drowning in curiosity.

  The house next door has been empty for three whole years. It has been one of the biggest mysteries on the block.

  Who would buy a house, then not use it?

  I am about to find out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Discovery

  I hurry down to the street. But when I get outside the people are already going into the house.

  In the front room I see a man with boxes.

  In the bedroom upstairs I see a woman with blonde hair that’s floating around her head like cotton candy.

  I peek through their front door. I see . . .

  . . . a girl.

  She’s carrying boxes to a room at the back. She’s about my height, and I so want to know what her face looks like.

  “Mom,” I say, running through to the kitchen. “A family is moving in next door!”

  “What are they like?”

  “I’m finding out,” I tell her, heading out into the garden.

  I put my eye to my special peephole in the fence.

  “I can see them!” I call.

  “What is the mom like?” calls my mom.

  “She is probably the most gorgeous mom in the world!”

  “After me!”

  “After you, Mom!”

  “And what about the dad?”

  “He does not seem to go with the mom at all!” I say.

  “Why not?” says a voice.

  I turn. I now notice something I might have noticed earlier but I didn’t (because the peephole doesn’t let you see much at once) . . .

  The girl is not in the back room. She is in the back garden wearing a cool blue hat. She is looking right at me while eating a lollipop.

  “Hello!” she says.

  “I’m Cassidy Corrigan.”

  “I’m Rory Branagan,” I manage to reply.

  Then she just looks at me.

  And I realize she is probably the best-looking girl I’ve ever seen, and she is definitely the most CONFIDENT, and it makes me feel a little dizzy as if I’ve just rolled downhill.

  “Do you live here?” she asks.

  “Yes!”

  “Which is your room?” she says.

  “That one,” I say (pointing).

  “I’ll be just on the other side of that wall,” she says.

  I say nothing.

  I can’t think of a single question to ask her, and I realize I should think of one fast, because I am staring at her like an idiot. But then suddenly I think of loads of things to ask.

  “Where have you just moved from?” I say.

  “Oh,” she says. “The other side of town.”

  “But which part?” I say.

  “Oh,” she says. “You wouldn’t know it!”

  I say: “Don’t you start doing it, too!”

  She says: “WHAT?”

  “NO ONE TELLS ME ANYTHING!” I shout. “And it drives me nuts!”

  Cassidy Corrigan comes so close I can see her freckles through the peephole.

  “Tell me,” she says. “What do you most want to know?”

  “I’d like to know WHERE my dad went,” I tell her. “He disappeared when I was three. And I’d just like someone to tell me WHY.”

  She comes so close I can see the speckles in her eyes and smell the lollipop on her breath.

  “You know what you should do,” she whispers.

  “What?” I say.

  “You should become a detective,” she says, “and you should FIND OUT, and I, my friend, will be your Sidekick.”

  I say: “What’s a Sidekick?”

  “It’s a helper,” she says. “Like Sherlock has Watson, and Superman has Lois Lane.”

  “But,” I say. “Will I be Superman?”

  “You won’t be Superman,” she says. “You’ll just be Rory Branagan (detective) and I’ll help.”

  I am already thinking: I like this! I will be like some kind of Super-Detective, who flies round the world solving crimes.

  But I figure, if I’m going to be a detective, I should play it cool. “Well, I suppose I could give it a try!” I say (quite modestly).

  “Boomtown!” she says.

  And then, to my astonishment, she just LEAPS over the fence.

  I cannot believe how easily she does it.

  “How did you do that?” I ask.

  “Ah,” she says. “That’s nothing.”

  And then she plonks her hat on my head, turns toward the house, and stalks straight in like a fox.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cassidy Starts Making Mayhem

  “Hello, Mrs. Branagan,” says Cassidy, as she sweeps past my mother in the kitchen. “I’m the new neighbor!”

  My mom stops me as I scuttle past like a little lobster.

  “What are you doing?” she says.

  “I am just showing her around, Mother!” I tell her.

  “Well, don’t you dare go into my room,” she says.

  “I’m not that stupid!” I tell her.

  And I’m not. I mean . . . my mom is great. She is really great. But if she catches you doing anything bad—for example, fighting or going into her room—she turns into an evil witch, and she does not stop shouting till you’ve shrunk down to the size of a worm.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I will NOT go into your room!”

  I turn and run after Cassidy. She’s already halfway up the stairs.

  “Don’t go into the room on the right,” I tell her (catching up with her).

  “Why?” she asks.

  “That’s my brother’s . . . Go in there and he’ll rip your head off!”

  “Sounds exciting!” she says (her eyes gleaming).

  She goes right in like a policeman making a bust.

  “I’m Cassidy Callaghan,” she says. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  My brother stares at Cassidy like an idiot.

  He could not have been more surprised if a unicorn (that was tap dancing and singing the songs of Justin Bieber) had come in.

  It’s actually embarrassing.

  I have to pull her out of there. And only when I’ve got her in the hallway do I say it.

  “You just said you were Cassidy Callaghan,” I whisper.

  “And?”

  “Outside you said you were Cassidy Corrigan.”

  “I didn’t,” she says, blinking her eyes like a cat. And she turns.

  I see she’s going toward my room.

  Oh.

  Oh no . . .

  I am suddenly wishing my room was about four hundred time
s better.

  I’m wishing it had a swimming pool, and maybe a spaceship.

  I’m wishing it had a mirror that leads to another land.

  But, in fact, my room is small, and dark, and it smells of cheese. It’s like the room of a mouse.

  I like it. I have a picture of Dele Alli on the wall (my favorite soccer player). I like that. But I can tell Cassidy is not impressed.

  “Oh,” she says.

  She leaves.

  Next she heads up the stairs.

  “Who lives up here?” she whispers.

  “My Auntie Jo,” I tell her. “Well, she’s not my real aunt. She’s just a friend who rents the room in our attic.”

  “So,” she says. “Are you coming?”

  I don’t feel good about going into Jo’s room, but Cassidy is waiting for me.

  “Oh yes,” I say. “I’m coming.”

  I stride past her and go in.

  I’ve been in here loads of times.

  My brother and I watched all of Sherlock with Jo.

  And Stranger Things.

  And CSI.

  We’ve spent loads of time with Jo in here.