Cub Reporters

by Belinda Murrell

  About the Book

  Pippa is settling in to her island home – she’s even learning to surf. School is abuzz when Mrs Neill announces the launch of a new student newspaper. But how will Pippa, Meg, Charlie and Cici decide what to write about when the four friends have such different interests? A fashion photo shoot could be fun – if it weren’t for bad weather, a naughty puppy and other disasters.

  Just when things couldn’t get any worse, the cub reporters get a news scoop that could bring the whole town together at the Beach Shack Cafe. Cupcakes for everyone!

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  A LETTER FROM PIPPA

  CHAPTER 1: PUPPY LOVE

  CHAPTER 2: A NEW PROJECT

  CHAPTER 3: SQUABBLING

  CHAPTER 4: CLUB MEETING

  CHAPTER 5: A SPECIAL SECRET

  CHAPTER 6: MY NEW JOB

  CHAPTER 7: SURF LESSON

  CHAPTER 8: THE NAUGHTIEST PUPPY IN THE WORLD

  CHAPTER 9: LOOKBOOK

  CHAPTER 10: DINO ROMPS

  CHAPTER 11: FRIDAY FRENZY

  CHAPTER 12: CICI’S BOUDOIR

  CHAPTER 13: SATURATED

  CHAPTER 14: DOGGY DISASTER

  CHAPTER 15: PUPPY TALK

  CHAPTER 16: MONDAY MISERY

  CHAPTER 17: BEST FRIENDS EVER

  CHAPTER 18: RIPTIDE

  CHAPTER 19: SCOOP

  CHAPTER 20: THE CONCH

  CHAPTER 21: RUBY’S FAREWELL

  CICI’S STRAWBERRY CREAM CUPCAKE RECIPE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO BY BELINDA MURRELL

  THE BEACH SHACK CAFE

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  For Emily, Ella and Meg.

  My beautiful girls.

  Thanks for your endless inspiration!

  Summer, our new puppy, looked up at me with adoring brown eyes. Between her paws was one of Mum’s best shoes, which was covered in tiny tooth marks. The insole was in shreds all over the floor.

  ‘Oh, Summer,’ I said. ‘You are so gorgeous and so wicked!’

  Summer wagged her plumed tail madly and licked my fingers. When I tried to extract Mum’s shoe, the puppy grabbed it with her needle-sharp teeth and shook her head from side to side, ripping the shoe more.

  ‘Summer, it’s not a game,’ I said, hanging onto the shoe tightly. ‘Mum will be furious!’

  Then I remembered the command that Mum had taught us to say whenever Summer stole something she shouldn’t have.

  I let go of the shoe and used my sternest voice. ‘Summer, leave it!’

  Summer grabbed the shoe and ran for it instead. She hid under the caravan table and happily chewed away. I crawled in after her. Eventually I managed to wrestle the shoe off the puppy. But I doubted Mum would want to wear those shoes ever again.

  Our golden retriever puppy was only ten weeks old. I’d named her Summer after our new home, because she is the colour of Kira Beach sand and endless sunshine. Mum gave her to Harry, Bella and me to say thank you for helping her renovate the old boatshed.

  I think Summer was also a kind of bribe for the three of us, to help make up for everything that had happened. You see, none of us had wanted to leave London and move to Kira Island. First of all, my dad’s investment business went bankrupt so we lost most of our money and had to sell our house. Dad became different after that – I think he thought he had let us all down. Then, when he was offered a new job in Switzerland, he decided to take it and move away from us. It hurt so much to think about, so mostly I tried not to.

  That’s why Mum came up with the crazy idea of moving back to Kira Island, to be near her parents, Mimi and Papa. The only problem was that Mum worked as a stockbroker, and there isn’t much work for stockbrokers on a tiny island. So she decided to run a cafe instead. Turns out it wasn’t such a mad idea after all.

  At first I was ecstatic about getting a puppy. But if I thought it was crowded living in a tiny caravan with my mum, my brother and sister – well, imagine adding a wriggling, bouncing, naughty golden retriever into the mix. Life in our family is never boring!

  So what should I do about Mum’s mangled shoe? The thought of telling Mum about the fate of her favourite shoes made me feel ill. So I decided to do what any sensible person would do. Hide the evidence! At least for the moment. I hid both shoes (one chewed, one perfect) at the back of the wardrobe, then I crawled around and picked up all the pieces of shredded insole that were scattered all over the floor. These I buried in the bottom of the rubbish bin.

  Of course, I’d confess to Mum eventually. I just needed to wait for the right moment. If Mum came home tired and stressed and worried about money then I wouldn’t tell her about the shoe until later. If she was happy and relaxed and business had been good – then … maybe I wouldn’t tell her until later either!

  Early on Monday morning I was walking in the school playground with my friends – Charlie, Meg and Cici. Our school buildings are all white, with pink bougainvillea twisting up the veranda posts and across the roofs. Tall, spreading trees shade the playground. The gardens are filled with lush tropical plants – palms, ferns, jasmine, frangipanis, hibiscus and birds of paradise. It feels more like a jungle than a schoolyard.

  The four of us were chatting about our lovely, lazy weekends and my very first surfing lesson. Meg and her brother Jack had taken me to surf with them at Kira Beach. I’d borrowed one of Meg’s boards and luckily the waves had been small and gentle. I wasn’t very good but it had been fun trying to find my feet on the board.

  ‘Pippa did really well,’ said Meg. ‘She managed to stand up in her very first lesson.’

  ‘Only once,’ I replied. ‘I spent most of the time falling off!’

  Since I’d grown up in London, I hadn’t spent as much time at the beach as my new friends had, but I was loving learning some water sports. Meg particularly loved surfing, sailing, swimming and snorkelling.

  ‘That’s normal,’ said Charlie. ‘It just takes practise. You’ll be surfing like a water baby in no time.’

  ‘Meg’s the water baby,’ I replied. ‘She makes it look so easy.’

  Meg glowed with pleasure.

  ‘That’s because she grew up with dolphins,’ joked Cici. She literally had! Meg’s mum is a marine biologist studying Kira Island’s pod of dolphins. My friends have fascinating lives.

  I noticed a poster had been stuck up on the noticeboard outside the library. I stopped to read it.

  ‘Look at this,’ I said. ‘Wouldn’t it be fun? I’d love to write some stories for the school newspaper.’

  ‘What’s a cub reporter?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘It’s a young trainee journalist,’ I replied. ‘I saw a movie once set in a magazine office in New York. The cub reporters were always on the prowl trying to unearth amazing scoops.’

  ‘I’m not much of a writer,’ said Meg.

  ‘No, but you’re a fantastic photographer,’ said Charlie. ‘And you have excellent ideas.’

  Cici laughed. ‘Between the four of us we cover everything – writers, photographers, artists and designers. We could do the whole newspaper on our own!’

  Cici was right. I loved writing, drawing and designing. Charlie was fantastic at art and graphic design, just like her mother. Meg was a wonderful photographer and clever at research. And Cici was a great stylist and very organised. We’d be a perfect newspaper team.

  ‘We should at least go along to the meeting and find out what it’s all about,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ said Meg.

  So that’s how we found ourselves in the library at lunchtime, sprawling on beanbags, chatting with the other kids and waiting for our librarian, Mrs Neill, to tell us a
ll about the project.

  The library is my favourite place at school. It has lots of cosy nooks for reading and lounging, shelves lined with hundreds of books, and colourful artwork on the walls. When I first came to Kira Cove School, it was a refuge when I felt sad. Now it felt like my home away from home.

  A few latecomers straggled in and took their places. There were now about twenty students, a mixture of boys and girls from years five and six.

  ‘Thank you for coming, everyone,’ announced Mrs Neill. ‘Our principal has had the wonderful idea of launching a school newspaper run by our pupils. Our student volunteers will come up with ideas for stories, take photographs, cover sporting events, interview interesting people and report on newsworthy events around the school and our local community.’

  I felt a buzz of excitement. Writing for the school newspaper definitely sounded like fun.

  ‘The newspaper will be published fortnightly, but the first issue will probably take the most work,’ explained Mrs Neill. ‘We have two weeks to research, write and edit the stories ready for publication. I’m assigning the year six students as editors – they will decide which stories go in the paper, where they go on each page, and whether stories should be kept for later issues.’

  A group of year six students started whispering among themselves. I noticed Meg’s brother, Jack, as well as Charlie’s stepbrother Seb. Jack was jotting in a notebook.

  Mrs Neill waited until everyone was quiet again. ‘Don’t forget that each story is a lot of work. It needs to be researched, written, photographed or illustrated, edited and laid out for our newspaper before the deadline. While we can meet every Monday and Thursday at lunchtime in the library to work on the project, you might also need to spend some time on the weekends and after school.’

  A couple of the kids didn’t look quite so keen when they realised it would involve extra time out of school hours.

  ‘I’ll be here if you need any guidance, but the idea is that this is a newspaper for the students, by the students,’ continued Mrs Neill. ‘So, can I please see a show of hands from those students who would like to be involved?’

  I shot my hand up into the air, as did most of the other kids in the room.

  ‘Fantastic to see everyone so keen,’ said Mrs Neill. ‘Does anyone have any questions?’

  There were lots of questions judging by the number of raised hands.

  ‘Yes, Pippa?’ asked Mrs Neill.

  ‘Can we work on stories in a group?’ I asked. ‘Or do we need to do one individually?’

  ‘You can choose if you would like to do your own story or work as a team,’ she replied.

  Cici, Meg, Charlie and I grinned at each other. The Sassy Sisters would definitely make a brilliant team.

  ‘How many pages will we need to fill?’ asked Seb.

  ‘I’m hoping the first issue will be about ten pages,’ replied Mrs Neill. ‘So we’ll need a mix of short and longer stories. That’s roughly half a page per student or two pages for a group of four.’

  There were a number of other questions from students. A year six girl asked about what type of stories could be written.

  ‘Think about what stories you’d like to report on, then check in with the year six editors to make sure we have a good spread of stories and no doubling up,’ suggested Mrs Neill. ‘I’m sure there are a lot of students who’d love to cover the Friday sport results!’

  There were a few giggles and another bout of eager chatter.

  ‘Okay, let’s get to work,’ said Mrs Neill. She went to talk to the year six students about how the editing process would work.

  Charlie, Cici, Meg and I huddled in a corner in deep discussion.

  We weren’t the only ones who decided to work as a team. Some of the year five boys – Alex, Rory, Sam and Joey – formed another group. From overhearing their excited conversation, they were all dead keen on writing a collection of short stories on different sports. There were also two year six teams, as well as a few kids who preferred to work on their own.

  Across the room I could see Olivia Gray. She was with a group of girls including Sienna, Tash and Willow. They were being very secretive and whispering madly. Olivia is my arch rival at school. While initially we had been friendly, Olivia and I always seem to end up competing with each other. For the last couple of weeks we had been getting on fairly well, but I could never be sure when she might turn on me. I was glad Olivia wasn’t on our team.

  The different groups clustered together chatting and giggling. Everyone sounded like they had tons of ideas.

  I felt a thrill of excitement. What fantastic idea could we come up with for our story? Perhaps we’d get our names printed in the newspaper? Wouldn’t that be brilliant!

  Our group began by tossing around ideas for stories we’d like to work on. Meg and I were given the job of jotting down notes.

  Our first thoughts weren’t so great but then we all started making suggestions that sounded more promising.

  ‘We should have a guessing competition where we get baby photos from the teachers and everyone has to guess which baby is which teacher,’ said Charlie. ‘That would be hilarious.’

  No one else looked overly keen on that one.

  ‘How about a story on our Friday afternoon kayaking and sailing?’ said Meg. ‘That’s always lots of fun. Or maybe we could cover some of the Saturday touch football games.’

  ‘No. I bet Mrs Neill is right about lots of kids wanting to write sport stories,’ said Cici. ‘We need to come up with something totally amazing and original.’

  ‘How about interviewing interesting people from the local community?’ I suggested. ‘You know our prickly neighbour, Mrs Beecham? She was once a world famous ballet dancer. She must have some incredible stories.’

  ‘Mmm … maybe,’ said Cici.

  ‘I like that idea,’ said Charlie. ‘But perhaps we could interview kids about what they want to be when they grow up. We could do lots of short interviews with different kids.’

  Meg and I scribbled that one down. Of course, my notes were decorated with endless doodles. A pod of dolphins cavorted in waves down the margin of my notebook.

  ‘We could ask them what their hobbies are,’ I said. ‘Or interview them and find out what they would do if they were principal for a day. That would be funny.’

  ‘I’d love to run the school! I’d make longer breaks so we had more play time,’ said Cici. ‘And start school later so we could sleep in.’

  ‘I’d ban maths forever and make a rule that every class had its own special pet,’ said Charlie. ‘Then I’d order the canteen to serve free party food to all the kids at lunchtime.’

  We all giggled at the thought.

  I scribbled down the ideas. ‘We could do a whole two pages just on that!’

  Cici leaned forward.

  ‘Actually, what I think we should do is a really cool fashion shoot,’ said Cici. ‘We could choose some gorgeous clothes and accessories, and photograph kids modelling them down at the beach.’

  Cici’s mum was a well-known fashion designer, so Cici knew a lot about fashion.

  ‘That would be awesome,’ agreed Charlie. ‘We’d easily get enough photos to do a two-page spread.’

  Meg chewed the end of her pen while she thought. ‘A fashion shoot would be fun but I think this is a perfect opportunity to do something important. I’d love to write about an environmental issue like endangered animals or pollution.’

  Meg looked super-serious – or, as Cici liked to say, she had her ‘Wildlife Warrior’ face on. Meg had grown up living on a marine animal research yacht and she was passionate about protecting all kinds of endangered animals.

  In fact, it had been Meg’s love for threatened African animals such as rhinos, lions and elephants that had helped us to win equal first in the school science competition. The four of us had made a 3D board game with models of African animals that were in danger of becoming extinct. We were all very excited about representing our school at the re
gional science competition on the mainland in a few weeks.

  ‘Well, we’ve come up with some really great ideas,’ I said. ‘But as Mrs Neill said, it is going to be a lot of work so perhaps we should vote to do one of them.’

  ‘The fashion shoot,’ said Cici adamantly.

  Meg looked mutinous and crossed her arms. ‘Fashion is frivolous, but saving endangered wildlife is really important.’

  ‘But we just made the Wildlife Warrior game,’ pleaded Cici. ‘And the fashion shoot will be so much fun … Pretty pleeease?’

  ‘They’re both good ideas, but I still like the idea of interviewing kids the best,’ said Charlie, throwing her blonde plait over her shoulder. ‘What kids want to do when they grow up, or some fun questions like what their favourite ice-cream flavour is.’

  ‘Salted caramel,’ said Cici at once.

  ‘No! Chocolate all the way!’ retorted Charlie.

  This was hopeless.

  ‘Come on, guys,’ I said. ‘Ice-cream is a little off topic!’

  Meg huffed with annoyance. ‘And, as usual, totally silly! But you can do whatever you like. I’m writing about rhinos.’

  ‘Kids don’t want to read about rhinos,’ retorted Cici. ‘They want to read about cool things like fashion, celebrities and funny people.’

  Meg looked really hurt. ‘Not all kids are totally trivial.’

  My heart sank. This was not what I had imagined. The four of us were squabbling over ideas before we’d even started. This was meant to be fun!

  We discussed all the ideas some more. The problem was that everyone liked their own ideas the best so we reached a stalemate. It looked like it would be my job to be the negotiator so we could reach some sort of compromise.