by Justin D'Ath
‘But we had to rescue Marcus!’ said Harry.
‘I know,’ Jordan said. ‘But it doesn’t count as a Mission Fox rescue because it wasn’t an animal rescue.’
Suddenly they remembered something.
‘Tigger!’ they gasped.
Tigger was still stuck in the tree.
‘Absolutely not!’ Mrs Walsh said.
‘Absolutely not!’ the twins’ parents said.
‘But the rope’s still there!’ said Jordan.
‘Myrtle can pull me back up,’ said Harry. ‘It’ll only take a minute.’
‘I’m not having you risk your lives to save a kitten!’ the principal told them. ‘And that’s final!’
‘I want Tigger!’ wailed Marcus.
They all stood looking up at the kitten.
‘I’ll see if the caretaker has a ladder,’ Mr Stokes said.
Secretly, Jordan was glad he and Harry weren’t allowed to rescue Tigger. He was allergic to cats (and kittens) and didn’t want to get too close. But he had an idea.
When the twins were little, they used to play superheroes. Harry was Captain Amazing and Jordan was the Pet Whisperer. The Pet Whisperer could talk to animals using thoughts. It was only a game, but sometimes it actually seemed to work.
Jordan tried it now. While everyone was watching Mr Stokes hurry across the oval to the caretaker’s shed, Jordan crept over to the tree and closed his eyes.
‘Come down, Tigger,’ he mind-whispered.
But the kitten didn’t move. It didn’t even look down at him. So much for pet whispering!
Mr Stokes and the caretaker came back with a very long ladder. Two men held it steady while Mr Stokes climbed halfway up. There was a big leafy branch poking through the ladder. Mr Stokes couldn’t get past. He snapped the branch off and carefully dropped it where it wouldn’t land on anybody. Then he climbed the rest of the way up and rescued Tigger.
‘YAAAAAAY!’ yelled 600 voices.
Mrs Walsh raised the megaphone. ‘NOW THAT ALL THE EXCITEMENT IS OVER, WHO WANTS TO HAVE A PARADE?’
Six hundred hands shot up.
She turned to Harry. ‘Can you control your dog this time, Jordan?’
Harry patted Myrtle. ‘As long as Marcus keeps Tigger under control, and nobody says the ‘M’ word, Mrs Walsh,’ he said.
He didn’t bother telling her that she had their names muddled up as usual.
Where was Jordan?
Harry’s brother was right at the back of the crowd, holding a guinea pig while its owner, a Grade One girl called Lola, tied her shoelaces.
Lola stood up and pointed behind him. ‘Look, Jordan, your lizard came back!’
Jordan spun around. The goanna had come out from under the gym and was sneaking across the oval towards the road on the other side. Cars zoomed back and forth – it was no place for a goanna.
The whole town was no place for a goanna!
Jordan gave the guinea pig back to Lola and pushed through to the front of the crowd. He found Harry climbing onto the FoxMobile.
‘Agent H!’ Jordan whispered. ‘The goanna’s heading for the road – it’s going to get squashed if we don’t stop it!’
‘Shishkebab!’ said Harry, settling himself into the driver’s seat. ‘Jump on, Agent J!’
Jordan stepped back. ‘You and Myrtle do it,’ he said. ‘Try to keep the goanna from going on the road. I’ve got a plan.’
‘Will do!’ said Harry. He turned to Myrtle. ‘Mush!’
The FoxMobile took off around the edge of the crowd.
Jordan raced over to Mrs Walsh and asked for the megaphone. Then he climbed four rungs up the ladder, where everyone could see him. And where he could see over everyone’s heads.
He watched the FoxMobile zoom across the oval. Was it going to get to the goanna before it reached the road?
‘ATTENTION, PLEASE, EVERYONE!’ Jordan said through the megaphone. Suddenly he wasn’t shy anymore. ‘THERE’S AN ANIMAL EMERGENCY! I WANT EVERYONE TO DO WHAT I SAY.’
Six hundred people looked at Jordan. They had all seen Jordan and Harry rescue Marcus, so they knew he could handle emergencies. Even though they didn’t know what the animal emergency was, they waited for their orders.
Behind them, Harry and Myrtle had got in front of the goanna. The lizard turned and went running back the way it had come. But if it went back under the gym, they’d never catch it. Harry drove the FoxMobile in another wide loop. It zoomed round between the goanna and the gym. The goanna changed direction again. So did the FoxMobile. Every time the goanna turned, Harry and Myrtle turned in front of it.
Go Mission Fox! Jordan thought.
He pressed the megaphone’s talk button. ‘HERE’S WHAT I WANT EVERYONE TO DO,’ he said. ‘SPREAD OUT AROUND THE EDGE OF THE OVAL. MAKE A CIRCLE, SO THE GOANNA CAN’T GET OUT.’
‘Not the same goanna?!!!’ gasped one of the Grade Fives.
‘IT WON’T HURT YOU,’ Jordan said. ‘IF IT COMES TOWARDS YOU, WAVE YOUR ARMS AND BARK LIKE A DOG – THAT’LL STOP IT!’
A Grade Three boy started waving and barking.
‘THAT’S HOW TO DO IT,’ said Jordan. ‘BUT ONLY IF THE GOANNA COMES TOWARDS YOU, OKAY?’
The Grade Three boy stopped fooling around and hurried after his friends. The crowd split in two and followed the running track around the edge of the oval. Half went one way, the other half went the other. When the leaders of the two lines met, everyone stopped. Now there was a wall of people (and pets) right around the oval.
In the middle, Harry was driving the FoxMobile in slow circles around the goanna. The lizard had stopped running. It crouched in the middle of the oval, looking for a way to escape. But every time it turned its head, some nervous person in the crowd would bark at it.
The goanna looked nervous, too.
Jordan climbed down the ladder. His plan had worked so far, but he wasn’t looking forward to the next bit.
Dropping the megaphone, he picked up the big branch that Mr Stokes had broken off the tree. Then he raised it above his head, took a deep breath, and walked through the line of people and out onto the oval.
‘I’m a nice tree!’ Jordan mind-whispered, as he walked slowly towards the goanna, with the branch above his head. ‘Come and climb the tree!’
The goanna didn’t know what was going on. It was trapped in a huge clearing, surrounded by little moving trees. And whenever it tried to get away, the huge hairy animal ran in front of it.
All it wanted was to go back home to the tall (not-moving) trees where it came from.
Now one of the moving trees was approaching it. It wasn’t a very big one, and it had two pink trunks. But the top part of it looked pretty normal. There were branches and leaves and twigs.
Even though it wasn’t very tall, the walking tree looked like a place where a goanna might be safe from the huge hairy animal and the big circle of moving trees that surrounded it.
Then a thought came out of nowhere: Climb the tree.
And even the goanna’s not-very-big reptile brain reckoned that was a pretty good idea.
Raising itself up on its back legs like a miniature Tyrannosaurus Rex, the confused lizard raced over to the walking tree, shot up one of its pink trunks, and nestled in the safety of its branches.
It wasn’t nice being climbed by a goanna. Its claws were sharp. But Jordan was a member of Mission Fox. He had taken the Mission Fox Official Oath.
And 600 people were watching.
So he didn’t scream. He stood like a statue (well, like a tree) holding the branch with the goanna on it.
Except the goanna wasn’t totally on the branch. Its back claws clung to one of Jordan’s arms and its big, scaly tail drooped across his face.
‘Agent H!’ he called softly. ‘Do you reckon we can put it in the cage?’
Harry drove the FoxMobile over. ‘We haven’t got any blue vein cheese,’ he said. ‘Jump on the back, Agent J. I’ll drive you to the National Park.’
Jordan climbed care
fully onto the back seat, trying not to drop the branch.
‘Hold on tight,’ Harry said over his shoulder.
‘I can’t hold on!’
‘Sorry. I’ll drive slowly.’
Mrs Walsh and the twins’ parents stopped them at the edge of the oval.
‘Is it okay if we don’t lead the Olympics Parade, Mrs Walsh?’ Harry asked politely. ‘We have to take the goanna back to the National Park where it belongs.’
The principal looked worried. ‘What do you think, Mr and Mrs Fox? Is it safe for them to drive all that way?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said the twins’ mum.
‘Is there any other way to get it there?’ asked their dad.
Jordan moved his head so the goanna’s tail wasn’t in the way. ‘It won’t let go of my arm,’ he said quietly. ‘And the branch won’t fit in a car.’
One of the other parents came over. It was Lola’s mum. She was a police officer.
‘Why don’t I give them a police escort,’ she said.
The twins’ mum smiled. ‘Well, in that case, let’s hit the road!’
‘Hang on. Where are your helmets?’ asked their dad.
The twins missed the Olympics Parade (and 4S didn’t get 20 bonus points), but Mission Fox had a parade all of its own.
First came a police car with all its lights flashing. Then came their mother’s car, with its lights flashing. Then came the FoxMobile, with Jordan holding up the goanna on its branch, followed by their father’s car, with its lights flashing.
People came out of all the shops to watch them go by. Some even cheered and took photos.
By the time they got to the National Park, a TV van had joined the parade.
That night on the News, everyone in the state saw the FoxMobile stop outside Park Headquarters. They saw Harry jump off and help Jordan out of the back seat. And they saw both twins carry the branch over to a really big gum tree.
But nobody who was watching heard what Jordan said to the goanna, because TV microphones can’t read people’s minds.
‘Go goanna!’ Jordan mind-whispered.
And the goanna went.
VISIT JUSTIN D’ATH’S WEBSITE AT WWW.JUSTINDATH.COM
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VISIT JUSTIN D’ATH’S WEBSITE AT WWW.JUSTINDATH.COM
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First published by Penguin Group (Australia), 2012
Text copyright © Justin D’Ath, 2012
Illustrations copyright © Heath McKenzie, 2012
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ISBN: 978-1-74253-639-2