Norman Snodgrass Saves the Green Planet , livre ebook

Troubador Publishing Ltd - Sue Bough

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51 pages

English

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Meet Norman. Clumsy and overweight, he spends most of his time trying to avoid being teased by his Poggle classmates. No one would ever have him pegged as a hero. Until now.When he loses the school pet, Norman reluctantly sets off to find Spong inside the strange Green Planet where rocks move and insects do the weirdest things. Along the way, he meets a mysterious Professor and discovers that deadly perils threaten his world. And it's not long before this simple rescue mission turns into a dangerous and deadly adventure to protect the entire planet...Will Norman save the day?

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Children's

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Publié par	Troubador Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	19 juin 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781838599508
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	4 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0000€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Copyright © 2019 Sue Bough
Interior Illustrations copyright © Sue Bough, 2018
Cover Illustrations by Lorna Murphy

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 978 1838599 508

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

Heartfelt thanks to my family & friends who badgered me to bring Norman to life and who believed in him before a single word was written… For Pops, who will always be my Arthur Snodgrass – and for Charlie, my immovable rock.
Contents
The Green Planet
A Brilliant Invention
Lost
The Fib Pot
Lies
Spies
To the Wasteland
The Laboratory
A Flash of Light
A Cunning Plan
A Strange Meeting
Bad Timing
The Landing Party
The Antidote
The Switch
Fall and Rise
Boy Meets Girl
Hooting With Honours

Look up at the sky on a winter’s night and find Orion, the Hunter, with his twinkling belt of three stars. Follow their path to Sirius, the Dog Star, shining brighter than a thousand candles…
Stare long enough at Sirius and you’ll see the ghostly outline of something else hidden there. Rub your eyes and it’s gone – but it’s no trick. Behind Sirius lies a secret planet, stranger than anything yet discovered… the Green Planet.
The Green Planet
From a distance, the Planet looked almost normal.
Nothing strange about its craters that belched candyfloss-scented steam. Certainly nothing unusual about the rocks that lay quiet and still until… Wait a minute… Did that one just move?
Sure enough, a big rock opened a sleepy eye. It shook itself, sending a shower of sparkling dust into the air, then sneezed and settled back into its hollow.
Not such an ordinary place, after all.
The rock sat next to a large hole, lined with plastic tubing that poked out of the ground. Beside it was a post with a flashing sign that simply said ‘Z’.
Poffff !
Suddenly, the hole exploded.
The rock watched as something small and blue shot out and landed with a thump on its backside. As the dust cleared, the blue thing coughed and began to mutter.

POFFFF! Suddenly, the hole exploded.

“Blasted Zube Tubes… nearly choked me…”
The creature got up and dusted itself down. It pulled on a lead held in its three-fingered hand. The other end was attached to an excited ball of orange fluff.
“Come on, Spong… better get a move on. We’ve got to find these bugs before tea.”
The blue object was in fact a Poggle called Norman Snodgrass. He had bright beady eyes, long pointy ears and a trumpet-shaped hooter instead of a nose. He wore only a belt, covered with many buttons, clips and lights, which squeezed his large stomach.
Norman waddled over to the rock and prodded it nervously with the longest of the three toes on his left foot. The rock opened its eye again, frowned and shuffled sideways. Norman sifted through the dust hollow… then jumped as something moved under his toes. He dived into a bag hanging from his belt. Pulling out a glass jar, he scooped up the dirt and screwed the lid shut.
Norman held up the jar. There was something whizzing around inside.
“Only a Double Bug but better than nothing,” he sighed, watching a furious yellow insect with green spots buzzing and banging into the glass.
Without warning, it gave a loud ‘PING!’ and split into two identical bugs, which whirred around in opposite directions.
“Oh no… I should have collected this one last. There won’t be room for anything else soon.”
PING! Once again the Double Bug did what Double Bugs do best, and four insects now zoomed around, avoiding collision through split-second timing.
“Have to let ’em go, I suppose,” Norman sighed. “Wouldn’t impress Miss Lastic anyway; she only wants us to collect rare bugs. Nothing rare about these things…”
He shook the container glumly, setting off several more ‘pings’ and by the time he managed to open the jar, hundreds of Double Bugs scuttled off in a light green blur before burying themselves, bottoms first, in the dirt.
“Come on, Spong, better keep looking.”
Norman ambled off while his furry companion poked its snout helpfully under the rocks and stones. A belch of steam erupted from a nearby crater. The animal sniffed the sweet air, whining to be let loose.
“Now, Spong,” said Norman, “you know I can’t do that. Strict instructions from Miss Lastic: ‘ Only let him off the lead indoors. ’ I know what you’ll do if I let you go!”
He rubbed Spong under the chin and the little creature turned from orange to a golden yellow. A series of squeaks and purrs followed, and Norman smiled, remembering the day they had first met.
*
“Right, Poggles,” Norman’s teacher had barked two weeks earlier, “shut down your Data-Globes and pay attention. We have been given a new pet to look after this term!”
Instantly the chat from Norman’s classmates stopped. Everyone’s attention was fixed on a metal box that was quivering slightly on Miss Lastic’s desk. She opened it… and with the words, “This is Spong – he is a Reversible Minky…” she lifted out an orange ball that looked like a furry hedgehog. It squeaked excitedly in her hands. “Now, I’ll pass him around so you can all stroke him,” she continued, “but listen carefully to these instructions while you do so.”
A tall, spotty Poggle quickly grabbed the creature from Miss Lastic’s three-fingered hands.
“ Gently , Boris Whinge!” she reprimanded.
The tall Poggle scowled and blushed.
“Now, Reversible Minkies are friendly animals that can be easily tamed,” she began. “They are naturally curious and display their emotions through the colour of their fur. What you see now – orange – is their normal state. They turn pale orange when they sleep. Yellow means the Minky is happy, blue for sadness and purple means they’re annoyed. They will turn white if they are frightened. They are also very useful in times of danger and will glow red as a warning.”
The class of Poggles strained to get a glimpse of Spong, still held firmly in the clutches of Boris Whinge.
“There is one other colour,” continued Miss Lastic. “Green, which means… Well, I’m sure we’ll never see that. Now, Boris, pass Spong carefully to Ernie Sludgebucket – you’ve had him long enough.”
Annoyed at being forced to give up the endearing pet, Boris threw him roughly to Ernie, who wasn’t quite ready to catch him. There was a sharp intake of breath as Spong slipped from Ernie’s grasp. Then the strangest thing happened…
In mid-air, before their astonished eyes, Spong flipped inside out! He became smooth and rubbery, like a ball, with four small paws and a snout, before hitting the ground with a ‘Boiiiiinnnggg’ and bouncing gleefully off the walls, floor and ceiling.

Then the strangest thing happened…

Squeals of hysteria erupted from the Poggle class as they ran around trying to catch him.
“Calm down, calm down !” shouted Miss Lastic, dodging slightly as Spong whizzed past her left ear. “Now, if everyone will just sit down, I’ll sort this mess out. This is exactly why I asked you to pass him carefully .” She aimed a beady eye at Boris.
“Not my fault if Ernie can’t catch,” he muttered sulkily.
“The reason…” said Miss Lastic, ducking again as Spong rebounded over her head, “the reason these creatures are called Reversible Minkies is because, given any opportunity, they turn themselves inside out and display the behaviour you see now. When they do, there’s really nothing for it but to wait patiently until they turn themselves back. So, will you all quietly reboot your Data-Globes and select your Mathematics modules.”
With groans and glares at Boris, the class reluctantly pushed the large round buttons on the benches in front of them. Hazy orbs of colour floated in the air above each Poggle before clearing to reveal a 3D menu. One by one, they selected the word ‘Mathematics’ from the list and the colours were replaced by whirling shapes and numbers.
“Oh yes, before I go I need a volunteer to look after Spong outside of school hours.” A sea of hands waved in front of Miss Lastic’s nose, and there were cries of “Miss! Me! Pick me!” The teacher scanned the eager faces.
“Norman Snodgrass. I shall ask you to take care of him.”
Norman jumped. He’d been so busy watching Spong, wondering what it meant if he turned green, that he hadn’t even put up his hand.
“Th-Thank you, Miss Lastic,” he stuttered, not quite sure what he was taking on.
Behind him, Boris Whinge hissed, “What does she want to give him to a long-toed freak like you for?”
“See me at the end of the day for some more care instructions, Norman,” his teacher added. “Ah, here’s Miss Take now.”
Miss Take, the Maths teacher, entered through the sliding door and seemed to find it completely normal to see a Reversible Minky pinging off the classpod walls. She put on her Data-Helmet and adjusted the antennae. A few bl