JungleGirl Mia , livre ebook

Marshall Cavendish International - van Ditzhuijzen Karien

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58 pages

English

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Getting lots of likes on her @junglegirl account makes 12-year-old Mia happy. Her online popularity skyrockets after she moves to a house next to a Singapore nature reserve and starts sharing real animal photos from her garden. BFF Alice won't forget her now, even if they no longer live in the same condo. The thing is, Mia loves animals - but as a toy or on a screen. Not on her kitchen table, like the banana-pilfering macaque she encounters the first morning in her new house. And the bigger @junglegirl gets, the harder it becomes for Mia to admit that she is scared of the wild, and that boy-next-door Kalim snaps most of her pictures. She could lose her followers, or worse, her BFF. And why isn't Kalim allowed his own phone?Can the haze enfolding Asia, threatening people, forests and animals alike, offer Mia a chance to set things right?The Author When she lived in Borneo as a child, Karien van Ditzhuijzen developed a strong love for the jungle and those who live there. After wandering the world, she landed back in Asia in 2012 and gave up her career developing ice cream recipes to become a writer. She joined a Singapore charity that supports migrant workers, and the women she met there inspired her first novel, A Yellow House. Karien's favourite workplace is the garden of her jungle house - which looks suspiciously like that of Mia's - which explains why so many critters crawl onto the pages of her books. She started writing JungleGirl Mia for her own children, who love reading as much as playing in the mud. She is currently staying in the Netherlands, where she is plotting ways to get back to Asia soon.

Informations

Publié par	Marshall Cavendish International
Date de parution	10 février 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9789815009989
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Text 2022 Karien van Ditzhuijzen

Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International

All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: (65) 6213 9300. E-mail: genref@sg.marshallcavendish.com
Website: www.marshallcavendish.com
The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Other Marshall Cavendish Offices:
Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 800 Westchester Ave, Suite N-641, Rye Brook, NY 10573, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd, 253 Asoke, 16th Floor, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Marshall Cavendish is a registered trademark of Times Publishing Limite
National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Name(s): Ditzhuijzen, Karien van.
Title: JungleGirl Mia / Karien van Ditzhuijzen.
Description: Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2022
Identifier(s): e-ISBN 978 981 5009 98 9
Subject(s): LCSH: Social media--Juvenile fiction. | Animals--Juvenile fiction.
Classification: DDC 839.3137--dc23
Printed in Singapore
Cover art by Sharon Lei
For my own jungle kids, Tijm, Linde and Jasmijn - and all those who like to see what fun it is to get their feet dirty in nature
Contents
Chapter 1: notboring
Chapter 2: boxville
Chapter 3: toocute
Chapter 4: monkeynapping
Chapter 5: cockadoodledoo
Chapter 6: wet
Chapter 7: cutedracula
Chapter 8: cheepcheep
Chapter 9: snakeskin
Chapter 10: intothegreen
Chapter 11: storm
Chapter 12: wetandlost
Chapter 13: campingwild
Chapter 14: rescue
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter 1
notboring
Mia bangs the kitchen door open with her bum, turns, then freezes. Something hairy sits on the kitchen table. A scream forms inside Mia s belly but her throat is too tight for it to come out. When the creature turns around, it bares big teeth at Mia in a grin that makes her so scared she can t move. Then, it turns sideways and picks up a banana from the fruit bowl. Slowly, it peels the skin off the banana, one strip at a time. Sticking the fruit in its mouth, it smirks at Mia again. Huge canines pierce through the soft yellow flesh of the banana. It smacks its lips - that thing has no table manners. Defiantly, it stares into Mia s eyes until her heart thumps so violently in her throat that the scream finally escapes.
Dad comes running. What s going on?
Monkey, Mia gasps. She points at the banana peel left on the table.
Dad looks puzzled. What do you mean, a monkey? Inside?
Behind the table the window is open. Mia s hands shake and when she rubs them together, she feels something and remembers - her phone! She was filming the chaotic sight of their new house stacked with boxes to send to her BFF Alice. And it is still recording. Wait, let me show you.
Dad looks at Mia quizzically. Together they watch the video: boxes, her father from the back, unpacking, the doorframe and there he is, large and all teeth! He sits and stares at the camera like a movie star, so close he almost fills the screen. Peeling and eating the banana leisurely. Only when Mia screams does the monkey get up calmly. In the now shaky recording, he sways his behind at the camera until you see just the tip of his long tail disappearing through the window.
Dad laughs. I d never have believed that if you hadn t filmed it! You caught it in the act, that looks like a professional video. Well done.
Mia rubs the hair standing on her arms. She doesn t correct Dad, doesn t tell him the video was an accident. Dad looks at Mia s frozen face. Are you okay? I mean, he does look a little scary.
Mia still feels the big lump of fear inside but her father does not need to know. She shrugs.
Dad picks up the fruit bowl. I suppose we need to keep the fruits in the fridge.
Mia walks back to her room. She breathes in and out slowly, counting to ten. And again. Only after 30 does she feel she can breathe normally again. Those teeth! What was her father thinking, moving to a place like this, surrounded by jungle? Surrounded by monkeys that just stroll into their house like that?
Back in her room, Mia s phone buzzes - Going for swim. U comin? XO A .
Mia grunts. Dad said she can t go anywhere until she unpacks the boxes in her new room. If they were still at their old condo, she would have been at the pool faster than she could message Alice back. But this stupid place has no pool.
Mia sighs as she flops on the bed. There are boxes everywhere, clothes strewn over the floor. She picks up a swimsuit with her toe then kicks it under the bed. Enough to do but nothing she actually wants to. Her thumbs move over the screen fast - Need to unpack . Mia adds a sad face emoji and Boring here! Miss U!
There is no reply and Mia decides not to message Alice about the monkey. Before the move, she would have run over straight away. She tells Alice everything, things much less interesting - or scary - than a real life monkey in her kitchen. But now Alice is a bus ride away. Alice is close to school and all their friends. Mia is here in the jungle, alone with a monkey. The strange feeling in Mia s stomach grows bigger, expands to her throat. It tastes bitter and she can only just manage to swallow it down.
Mia looks out of the window. The next house is hiding somewhere behind the trees, she can barely see it. Behind the garden, a wall of green erupts: the Nature Reserve. More boring! A pang cuts though her. Maybe more scary than boring? How many more of those would there be out there? She sighs.
Dad keeps saying Mia should tear herself away from her phone. Go play outside With who, those monkeys? In the condo, there was not only Alice but many other kids to play with. She rummages around her room, pretends to unpack without doing much. Then sinks down on her bed and takes out her phone again.
Mia stares at the phone. It makes her angry. She wanted one for years and now she has it. But she d rather be close to her friends than have this, this thing. She groans. She wants to see her friends for real and the monkeys on a screen. Not the other way round. Maybe she is more like Dad than she likes to admit. Dad is old-school, he doesn t like kids with phones. He doesn t like social media. But when Mia cried, and yelled about how she would never be able to stay in touch with her friends after they moved, he gave in. Only Whatsapp, he said. You re not going on whatsitcalled, that Facebook thing.
Mia grins. As if. Only old people are on Facebook.
The phone arrived. Alice, who s had a phone for years, helped her set it up. He didn t mention Insta, did he?
Mia pushed away the thought that Dad had not mentioned it because he didn t even know it existed. What if my dad finds out? He might take the phone away.
Alice laughed. Your dad doesn t have Insta. How would he find out?
It was easy for Alice to say that, her parents are fine with social media, actually, Alice s mum is on Instagram all the time herself. She often asks Alice to help her take a photo of a new outfit or hairstyle.
Mia gave in. Let s use an alias, just to be safe. But what?
Alice giggled. You are moving to this crazy jungle house, right? What about junglegirl?
But I don t even like the jungle! Mia exclaimed.
Alice pointed at Mia s huge pile of stuffed animals. Animals live in the jungle. You can post photos of your animals.
And that s how @junglegirl started.
Mia opens @junglegirl . This morning she has taken a selfie in the pile of plush animals on her bed, the only thing she has unpacked, and posted it - Drowning in my own mess, help! moving newhouse junglegirl toomanyanimals .
Opening Instagram, Mia sees there is only one like so far on that photo. And it isn t Alice s. How depressing. She sinks in the toys again and scrolls though her feed to see if there is anything new, then stops dead. That s their pool. Correction, that was their pool, it is no longer hers. It is Alice, yesterday, with a girl Mia doesn t know - newfriends newBFF .
The big blob of heavy darkness inside Mia expands further and two tears well up in the corner of her eyes. She has only just moved away and Alice has already made a new BFF! She wants to throw the phone against the wall, smash it into a thousand pieces. BFF . How could she? And now Alice is at the pool again. With her ?
Mia s thumb hovers over the little heart button, thinking there should be one with a big fat skull. A hate button. She doesn t tap on the heart, but doesn t break the phone either. She buries it between the toy animals.
Lying on top of the toys, Mia pulls out a reddish brown furry one. Bonno. Her favourite. His fur is worn at the edges, him being the only one she sleeps with. Not that she d admit that online. She is 12 already. Cradling Bonno, she gets up again and peers through the window at the depressing green. Why did they have to move right at the start of the long school holiday? And worse, why did Aunty Yanti, their helper, have to go back home to Indonesia to look after her sick sister just at this time? Because of that, Mia has to unpack all her own boxes, tidy her own stuff. Because of that, Mia s dad has arranged to work from the house so