Assisting with the dinosaur’s move was Harry Holt, the newest member of Theo Lamb’s team. He’d been cleared of all charges and praised by the Minister of Defence and Sergeant Singh for keeping Johnny’s USB stick safe, even though he’d never been able to open the notes it contained. He’d always blamed himself after Johnny went missing, fearing that either Johnny had met with an accident while out fossil hunting, or he had been harmed by the Order of Dragons – the secretive society Harry had encouraged him to expose.
Alicia Swann, aka Patient X, was in a French hospital under armed guard. She was not expected to survive long enough to stand trial.
‘It’s a pity that she won’t face justice – not in this life, at least,’ Kat’s grandfather had told the girls. ‘But thanks to Johnny’s investigation, the voice recording on Kat’s pen, Wolfe & Lamb Detective Agency’s peerless detective work and clever Mr Bojangles, Alicia’s fellow Dragons will be prosecuted.
‘It’s ironic that it took an adventurous python to bring down one of the most elusive fossil and wildlife criminals in history. Had Mr B not caused Alicia to scream so loudly that she brought hotel security, it’s likely that she’d have slipped the net and taken the names of Lucian – your blue-shoelaces man – and her other accomplices to the grave. Not even Ethan had access to her little Black Book. He was a committed Dragon, as obsessed with preserving his youth and looks as she was. But in reality, she was the brains.’
‘But didn’t she love him?’ asked Harper.
‘I’m sure she did – in her own way,’ said the Dark Lord, ‘but it seemed he angered her and the other Dragon leaders when he failed to assassinate me.’ He grimaced. ‘Yes, that’s what he was doing on the roof of Hamilton Park – a fight I gather you saw. Thankfully, V’s Mongoose Moves chased him off.’
‘Leaping Tiger,’ murmured Kat.
‘Leaping Tiger, yes. Not something I want you trying at home,’ he said sternly.
Kat hastily changed the subject. ‘What about Mr B? Who’s taking care of him?’
‘Happily, the gendarme who arrested Alicia Swann is a reptile expert who’ll give Mr B an excellent home until Mario can collect him. Any news on the Pomeranian?’
Kat smiled. ‘She’s been adopted by a dog-mad kid I met in the caravan park. Xena’ll have a lovely life with Immie and her mum. So will Pax – with you.’
Giving up the Border collie had been one of the hardest things Kat had ever done, but at Summer Street, Pax would have spent a lot of time shut indoors while Kat was at school and Dr Wolfe was working. So Kat had approached her grandfather, who, she knew, was already besotted with the collie. Pax would have a glorious life at Hamilton Park, taking long walks with the Dark Lord and helping James and Flush with the sheep.
Even better, Tiny would continue to rule the roost at Summer Street.
‘It’s great that the Dragons are being rounded up,’ Harper said to Kat’s grandfather, ‘but do you think you’ll ever win the fight against wildlife crime? As soon as one dragon is slain, doesn’t another pop up somewhere else?’
‘Sadly, yes.’
‘You’re saying there’s no hope!’ cried Kat.
He smiled. ‘Actually, I believe the opposite. There’s oceans of hope. We’ll win when we understand that everything’s connected. You, Harper and Kai are proof of that. You came together to overcome evil and help make our earth a kinder, more beautiful place. Every lynx, tiger, tuna or tree lost removes a brick from the wall of life. But every one saved puts it back.’
Kai looked unsure. ‘Is that really possible?’
Dr Wolfe leaned forward. ‘Let me tell you a story, Kai. Some years ago, wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone Park after a seventy-year absence. Conservationists knew that they might hunt some deer, but what they didn’t expect was what came next.
‘First, the deer began to spread out around the park for safety. Without the deer to chew the vegetation to stumps, the forests flourished. The songbirds returned and the beavers began to build dams, which helped fish, reptiles and otters to thrive.
‘The wolves also reduced the number of coyotes, which meant more rabbits and rodents, which in turn brought more hawks and bald eagles. The bear population rose because fewer deer meant more berries, and the thicker vegetation stopped erosion, so the rivers meandered less. The wolves quite literally changed the landscape.’
‘Wolves move rivers,’ Kai said wonderingly.
The Dark Lord’s watch flashed red. He was on his feet at once, saying his goodbyes. Kat followed him outside.
‘Rabbit under the fence again? Or is it a situation?’
He laughed. ‘A situation. Sorry – I have to fly. Promise you’ll visit Pax, Faith and your ancient grandfather at Hamilton Park very soon?’
‘You’re not ancient,’ Kat said loyally. ‘And yes, I promise.’ A movement in the pines caught her eye. In the purple shadows, a rider waited with two horses.
Her grandfather hugged her. ‘Until next time, young Kat. Remember, even dragons have their endings.’
Kat laughed. ‘I’m not likely to forget.’
She watched him fade into the twilight with V, whose life he’d saved many years before, and who’d since devoted every waking hour to doing the same for him.
Kai leaned out of the hide. ‘Kat, come quickly. It’s happening.’
Inside, Kat sat between him and Harper, barely breathing as a lynx, her lynx, crept out of the pines and padded down to the water’s edge.
‘Forget video games,’ whispered Kai. ‘This is what I want to do with my life: become a guardian of the wild. Only I’m going to do it by becoming a healer like my dad. I’ll fight to save endangered animals from the inside, by showing patients ways to feel better that are good for everyone, including the planet.’
The deep, velvet dark of the Scottish Highlands had descended like a theatre curtain. Soon, Kat was no longer sure where the wild cat ended and the pines and mountains began, but the impression of her – proud, innocent and part of the ancient landscape – remained.
‘You and your mum helped Mario to save the lynx from the hunters and bring her to this special, peaceful place,’ Harper said later as she and Kat sat star-gazing at the bedroom window. ‘So, it’s not only wolves that move rivers. Wolfes do it too.’
Kat grinned. ‘Yes, but we’ll always need a Lamb to help us. And now we have Kai as a Wolfe & Lamb Detective Agency deputy to add to Edith, our champion researcher. We’re a crack team. Next time we have a mystery to solve, we’ll be a force to be reckoned with.’
‘Do you think there’ll be a next time?’ Harper asked hopefully.
‘I know there will. Wolfe & Lamb forever, right?’
They bumped fists in the darkness, and Harper felt a rush of joy. Soon – very soon – they’d be detectives again. ‘Wolfe & Lamb forever,’ she echoed.
It may have been coincidence but, as she spoke, a shooting star sparkled across the sky. The lynx, which was climbing a crag, paused to watch it before continuing on up the mountain, her ears attuned to danger, her big paws treading lightly on the earth.
Free.
The morning I finished this book, my sister Lisa took me to Thetford Game Reserve in Mazowe, Zimbabwe, my home country. At Thetford, we saw baby giraffe, zebra, kudu, wildebeest, sable, hartebeest and buffalo. We also spent time with eleven rhinos, one of which was a year old and still drinking milk from its mum. Few creatures are cuter than a baby rhino. They chatter non-stop to their mum in adorable squeaks, and are so playful and full of attitude, innocence and fun that it’s hard to resist rushing over to give them a cuddle.
Rhinos have a reputation for being short-sighted and bad-tempered. In reality, they’re as gentle and sensitive as horses. They’re also deeply loyal and willing to risk their lives for those they love, and they’re off-the-charts smart. Using infrasonic communication, a Sumatran rhino can communicate with another rhino up to twenty kilometres away.
Yet watching these ancient, beautiful animals was also unbea
rably poignant. Days before I arrived in Zimbabwe, seven Chinese nationals were accused of poaching after one million dollars worth of rhino horns was allegedly found in the house they were renting in Victoria Falls.
No poacher of any nationality works alone. For the most part, the people who do the actual hunting are locals, many desperately poor and in need of quick cash. They’ll often be assisted by greedy or badly paid National Parks staff and corrupt police or government officials who are receiving bribes for issuing illegal hunting licences, or turning a blind eye to poaching. Once the cargo of rhino horns, tiger skins, pangolin scales, turtle shells, lion bones or elephant ivory is on the move, there’ll be customs officials, airline staff and judges on the take to smooth its passage.
As it travels from Africa, India or Thailand to the Far East or Russia, the UK or USA, there’ll be the criminal gangs making tens of millions from these threatened or endangered animals. At the end of the line is the consumer. Whether those are uneducated or naive people using products such as rhino horn because they’ve been conned into believing powdered horn can cure anything from cancer to eczema, or rich and arrogant people happy to kill a rhino to fix something as basic as a headache, everyone involved in this chain of illegal trafficking is driving wildlife into extinction.
In our earth’s history, there have been five mass extinctions. The most recent took place 65 million years ago and wiped out the dinosaurs. The Sixth Extinction is now underway. Since 1970, humanity has wiped out 60 per cent of mammals, birds, fish and reptiles. Dozens of species are going extinct every day.
Sudan, the last male northern white rhino on the planet, died in Kenya in 2018, during a year in which close to 1,000 rhinos were poached in South Africa. There are fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos left in the wild. It’s not just rhinos that are vanishing. One elephant is poached every 15 minutes in Africa. Growing up on a farm and game reserve in Zimbabwe, I was lucky enough to have a pet giraffe called Jenny. Today, giraffe, like cheetah, are Red-Listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature IUCN) as vulnerable to extinction.
In Kat Wolfe Takes the Case, Kat, Harper and Kai encounter extinction at every turn. Their case and my story are fiction, but the facts behind both are real.
Some bits of the book were drawn from personal experience. When I was Kat and Harper’s age, our farmhouse was like an animal hospital. My family rescued everything from baby warthogs (we named them Miss Piggy and Bacon) to owls, lambs, calves, cats, dogs, a goat and, best of all, a baby monkey.
When I was 17, I spent a year in the UK working as a veterinary nurse at an animal clinic. And now I’m an Ambassador for the Born Free Foundation, which rescues lions, leopards and tigers from horrific situations of captivity and rehomes them in a beautiful sanctuary for life.
In Kat Wolfe Takes the Case, Mr B is based on a python I briefly kept in Zimbabwe. Her name was Samantha and she did in fact do her best to crush both my arms and would have bitten me had I not been saved by my dad. I had no difficulty putting myself in Kat’s shoes!
Most other plotlines in the book are based on real events. Across the globe, precious palaeontogical sites are being destroyed by unscrupulous ‘Dragon’s teeth’ and dinosaur bone thieves. They sell their wares to collectors and to the same dodgy practitioners who hawk rhino horn, pangolin scales and seahorses to patients, claiming they have miraculous powers of healing and can prolong life.
Heartbreakingly, across the globe, there really are wealthy people and evil corporations who are banking on extinction, stockpiling ivory, tiger skins and wine, lion bones, pangolin scales and, yes, bluefin tuna, in the expectation that their value will shoot up once these creatures become extinct. They look at wild animals and see gold.
Many of these people would have you believe that because species such as tiger, rhino and bluefin tuna can be farmed, it’s fine to use them as rugs or to make sushi. However, the reason a single bluefin tuna was sold for 3.3 million dollars on the Tokyo fish market in January 2019 was because it was wild-caught. Those who use endangered animals as sushi or to cure ailments believe that the wildness of the animal is what gives these products flavour or potency. The wild creatures are the ones they want. They believe that eating or bottling parts of wild animals can help them live longer.
They’re dead wrong. Every human, tree and animal on our planet is interconnected. If weed-killer wipes out scores of bees in Australia or South America, or a tiny shrew goes extinct somewhere in Europe, chances are you’ll never know about it. But across the world, the lives of millions of other people and animals will be directly impacted. The crops that were due to be exported might fail because there are no bees to pollinate them and the birds and creatures that might have fed on them might also be lost. A certain rare eagle that lived off the tiny shrew might be pushed to the brink of extinction because its only food source is now gone.
If we don’t do everything in our power to save every bird, tree and wild animal on the planet, we won’t have a future.
With so many challenging issues facing our environment, it’s easy to feel hopeless. My advice: don’t give into it. To paraphrase Kat’s grandfather, hope – oceans of it – is everywhere. You give me hope. Yes, you, the reader of this book. If you’ve made it this far, chances are that you care about animals and nature. Chances are you want a better world.
Young people everywhere give me hope. So many incredible youngsters are fiercely intelligent, caring and passionate about saving animals and the environment and keeping our earth kind and beautiful.
The good news is, you can help stop extinction in its tracks. You don’t have to save the tiger or beluga whale all on your own. You can start with some of the species in your own backyard or balcony. Here are a few tips.
1. Get engaged and get your friends involved. For inspiration, follow teen naturalists and activists Dara McAnulty or Bella Lack on Twitter, or read Dara’s award-winning blog:
https://youngfermanaghnaturalist.wordpress.com/
2. Avoid products containing palm oil, which is devastating rainforests and the chimpanzees, orangutans, birds and other creatures that live in them. Palm oil is often hidden in ready-meals and shampoos.
3. Avoid tuna of any kind. Most species are threatened or near-threatened. So-called ‘line-caught’ tuna is not caught by a friendly fisherman on a beach with a rod, but by ships trailing hundreds of lines, each loaded with up to 2,000 hooks. Dolphins and sharks are decimated with every catch.
4. Ditch single-use plastic. Our oceans are becoming plastic soup, killing tens of millions of birds, fish and whales that swim with their mouths open to catch small fish and plankton. Carry reusable water bottles and coffee cups and encourage your school and parents to ban plastic bags, cups and cutlery.
5. Say no to dolphin and orca encounters. Everyone wants to swim with dolphins, but try to do it in the wild where they at least have a choice about whether to stay or go. If you have any doubts about whether or not dolphins and orcas suffer in captivity, watch Blackfish, a documentary about the ‘entertainment’ industry.
6. Eat less meat and dairy. Commercial farming is accelerating habitat loss, rainforest destruction and global warming.
7. Adopt animals from shelters and sanctuaries. I rescued my Bengal cat, Max, from the RSPCA and he’s repaid me with more love and joy than I could ever have imagined. He’s my best friend.
8. Saving species is one of the most important jobs on earth right now. Get your family, friends or school involved in helping birds, butterflies, bees and other insects, which often get forgotten. Putting out nesting boxes, winter feed and bee or insect hotels is vital, life-saving work.
In 2018 I launched an alliance of over 50 children’s authors called Authors4Oceans to campaign against the use of plastic in the book industry and in schools. Our website is packed with resources and cool blogs and tips on how you can help fight the plastic tide and save marine species. Follow us on Twitter or visit our website: authors4oceans.org
I’m an
Ambassador for the Born Free Foundation and can wholeheartedly say they’re one of the most extraordinary charities on earth. Find out how you can be involved here: https://www.bornfree.org.uk/
Lauren St John
London 2019
Perhaps because it’s about the subject closest to my heart, Kat Wolfe Takes the Case was one of the hardest novels I’ve ever written. All books take a village, but this time that felt especially true. As long as I write, I’ll never forget the kindness, patience and support over the past year of Venetia Gosling, my editor at Macmillan, Catherine Clarke, my agent at Felicity Bryan Associates, and Wes Adams, my editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Thank you all so, so much. This book wouldn’t have happened without you. It’s that simple.
I’d been a journalist and written a fair few books on a fair few subjects before I became a children’s author and I’m grateful every day for the very wonderful children’s book community. Special thanks go to Katherine Rundell, Abi Elphinstone and Piers Torday for providing wise counsel, company and just pure joy exactly when all of those things were most needed. The next dinner is on me!
For dracoraptor advice, I’m indebted to Dr Ben Garrod. I take full responsibility for any palaeontogical errors or leaps of fantasy, particularly with regard to the moving of the Jurassic Dragon! All dinosaur errors are mine alone.
Huge thanks to Daniel Deamo for the stunning cover and interior illustrations, and to the lovely, super-talented team at Macmillan, especially Jo Hardacre, Kat McKenna, Cate Augustin, Viki Ottewill, Sarah Clarke and Amber Ivatt. In the US, the cover art has been done by the equally incredible Aimee Fleck.
Of course, none of this would be possible or half as much fun without my friends and family. Love and thanks especially to Merina, Emelia, Jean and Jane, to my amazing partner, Jules, and sister, Lisa, and to my mum and dad, who are always there for me.
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