by Sue Bentley
Sue Bentley’s books for children often include animals, fairies and magic. She lives in Northampton in a house surrounded by a hedge so she can pretend she’s in the middle of the countryside. She loves reading and going to the cinema, and writes while watching the birds on the feeders outside her window and eating chocolate. Sue was brought up surrounded by small animals and loved them all – especially her gentle pet rabbits whose fur smelled so sweetly of rain and grass.
Sue Bentley
Classroom Capers
Illustrated by Angela Swan
PUFFIN
To Tinka Minka – handsome lion-headed little bunny
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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First published 2010
Text copyright © Sue Bentley, 2010
Illustrations copyright © Angela Swan, 2010
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-14-196216-0
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Prologue
Arrow hopped across Moonglow Meadow. His strong paws kicked up dust from the dry patchy ground. Nearby there was a muddy puddle that had once been a sparkling pool. The spring that fed it was a mere trickle.
He had returned just in time!
The tiny gold key he wore on the chain round his neck glowed brightly and a cloud of crystal dust appeared. It floated down and a fresh carpet of grass and wild flowers sprang up, spreading out over the whole meadow, and the spring began flowing again.
Arrow watched as his fellow magic rabbits began emerging from their burrows. Some hopped over to the pool to drink and others began hungrily eating the new fresh grass.
A large older rabbit with a wise expression and a dark-grey muzzle bounded towards Arrow.
‘Strike!’ Arrow bowed his head in greeting before the leader of the warren.
‘Greetings, keeper of our magic key,’ Strike said warmly in a deep velvety voice. ‘Because of you, Moonglow Meadow is lush and green again.’
Arrow felt a glow of pride at the leader’s praise. As the chosen guardian of the magic key, it was his responsibility to keep it safe.
‘Have the dark rabbits agreed to come and live with us?’ he asked the leader, hopefully. The deep gully next to Moonglow Meadow was home to a neighbouring warren of dark rabbits. Their land had become so dry that nothing grew there any more and they were hungry.
Strike shook his head regretfully. ‘No. They still refuse to share our land.’
‘But how will they survive without our help?’ Arrow asked.
The leader’s eyes darkened with anger. ‘By stealing our key. They want to use it to make their gully green and beautiful again!’
‘But without the key’s power, Moonglow Meadow will become a desert,’ Arrow gasped, his silver-tipped ears flattening nervously.
‘That is why you must go to the Otherworld. Hide there with the key, so the dark rabbits cannot find it.’
Arrow felt very frightened of all the unknown dangers he must face, but he took a deep gulp and raised his head. ‘I will do it!’
Strike gave a soft but piercing cry.
All the rabbits hopped towards Arrow and Strike and formed a circle around them. Suddenly the golden key around Arrow’s neck glowed so brightly that for a moment he couldn’t see.
The light slowly faded and where the pure white-and-silver magic rabbit had been now stood a tiny fluffy silver-blue bunny with huge chocolate-brown eyes that twinkled with tiny rainbows.
‘Go now! Use this disguise,’ Strike said. ‘Come back only when Moonglow Meadow needs more of the key’s magic. And beware of dark rabbits. They will try to find you.’
Arrow lifted his tiny fluffy chin. ‘I will!’
Thud. Thud. Thud. The rabbits began thumping their feet in time. Arrow felt the magic building and a cloud of crystal dust shimmered around him as Moonglow Meadow began to fade …
Chapter
ONE
‘Come on, Wolverines!’ Julia Hill called happily. She tucked a strand of her wavy blonde hair behind one ear as she marched across the lumpy uneven grass. ‘We’ll get team points for putting the tent up by ourselves!’
Julia took a big breath of fresh air. A patchwork of fields, hedges and trees stretched into the distance, where they met the hills. She could see the cotton-wool shapes of sheep on the gentle slopes. It seemed a world away from the busy town where she lived.
She had been looking forward to the school camping trip for ages. It was the first time she’d be spending a whole week away from her parents. She felt quite grown-up at the idea of taking care of herself.
Five of Julia’s classmates from Blakestone Primary School followed her. One of them was lagging behind. Julia wasn’t surprised to see it was Ellie. She was small and pretty, with glittery pink slides in her shoulder-length blonde hair.
‘Wait for me!’ Ellie called, gingerly picking her way between small mounds of sheep droppings.
Julia sighed as she waited for Ellie to catch up. When their teacher had sorted them into teams, she had been worried that Ellie might not enjoy the trip. She usually sat on the benches at playtime, while Julia and her best friend, Lucy, played ball games and tag. Lucy was on a family holiday and hadn’t been able to come camping with the rest of their friends. Julia felt a pang of sadness as she thought about the fun they could be having together.
Julia could see the other teams had already picked their camping sites. The Bears, Elks and Cougars all seemed to be getting on well with putting up their tents. One of the boys looked over at the Julia and the Wolverines.
‘The Bears rule!’ he called, punching the air.
Julia’s eyes sparkled. ‘Not if we can help it!’
‘We’ll get our tent up first,’ a boy standing next to Julia said confidently. ‘I’ve been camping with my parents heaps of times.’
Le
x was one of the oldest boys in Julia’s class. Julia didn’t know him all that well as he’d only joined the school mid-term.
‘Great!’ she said to him, glad that someone in their team knew what they were doing. Maybe this trip would be a good time to get to know Lex better.
‘Let’s go!’ Lex’s blue eyes gleamed. He spread his arms like an aeroplane and zoomed down to where the field narrowed and sloped slightly towards a hedge. Off to one side, there was a stile that led to a footpath.
Julia and the others followed.
Lex stopped near the bottom of the field. ‘Here’s a good place for our tent. We’ll have it all to ourselves.’
‘This looks perfect!’ Julia was dumping her backpack on the grass when there was wail from just behind her as Ellie skidded to a messy halt.
‘Oh, yuck! That’s so gross!’ she complained, frantically wiping her designer pink trainers on the grass. ‘I hate smelly sheep and I hate this messy field. Why couldn’t we have stayed on a nice neat caravan site?’
‘Duh! Camping equals tents. Get it?’ Lex rolled his eyes. As Ellie fished a crumpled tissue out of her shorts pocket and dabbed at her pongy trainer, he started laughing. ‘Ellie Darlow, nil – sheep poo, one!’
Ellie went bright red. ‘Oh, shut up!’ she muttered, doing a one-legged shuffle down the slope.
‘Why do we have to have her on our team? She’s going to be useless,’ Lex grumbled loudly.
‘She’ll be OK.’ Julia thought Lex was being a little hard on Ellie, who obviously wasn’t as keen on camping as she was. Although she did hope that Ellie would start enjoying being in the outdoors soon – she knew that Lucy would have loved every minute. ‘So, what do we do now?’
‘You lot unpack the tent and lay everything out on the ground. And I’ll stand here and tell you how to put it up,’ Lex said bossily.
Ellie frowned. ‘Who made you team leader?’
‘I was joking, you muppet!’ Lex undid the tent pack and upended it, so everything fell out on to the grass.
Julia ignored their squabbling. She picked up the page of printed instructions that lay on the grass and began to read them.
‘We won’t need those. I know what I’m doing.’ Lex grabbed the crumpled tent. But after a few minutes of studying it from all angles, he gave a snort of disgust. ‘I’ve never seen one like this before. The stupid thing’s faulty.’
‘It’s not the tent that’s faulty,’ Ellie muttered.
‘Hang on. I think I’ve worked it out,’ Julia said hurriedly, peering at the diagram with the instructions. ‘Look, the poles and everything are all attached to the inside. They’re jointed and folded up like an umbrella.’
The other team members stepped forward to help Julia. With a few twists and a bit of jiggling, the jumble of fabric and tubing was transformed into a bright-blue dome shape.
Lex quickly took over. ‘Those dangling bits of stringy stuff are the guy ropes. They keep the tent upright and stop it blowing away in bad weather.’ Lex showed the others how to fasten the ropes to the ground with tent pegs and then stood back. ‘Ta dah!’
‘It looks a bit wonky on one side,’ Julia observed. Half of the tent seemed to be sitting in a dip in the ground. ‘Maybe we should move –’
‘Oh, let’s just get inside,’ Ellie interrupted, combing her hair with her fingers. ‘I need to shake out my clothes. My jeans must be horribly creased.’
‘Oo-ooh, so are mine!’ Lex said in a silly babyish voice. ‘I think I might ask Mr Potter to iron them for me.’
The others laughed. Ellie narrowed her eyes and glared at him.
Julia hid a smile. Lex and Ellie were like a double-act. She hoped they weren’t going to argue all holiday, though. Not for the first time that day, Julia found herself wishing that Lucy had been able to come on their trip. Lucy was great at stopping arguments and Julia was certain that she would have found a way for everyone to get along.
She felt a couple of raindrops plop on to her head. One of the boys felt them too and there was a sudden mad scramble to get into the tent. Julia forgot about the tent being lopsided as she crawled in after the others.
There was a bit of jostling and scuffling about as everyone tried to decide on the best place to sleep. In the end, just for the sake of peace, Julia spread her sleeping bag nearest the porch opening.
Rain began drumming on the tent in earnest. Oh great, Julia thought. She needed to go to the loo and the toilet block was back at the farmyard.
Ellie was unrolling her sleeping bag. It was violet with little flowers all over it and had a matching pillow. ‘Right, everyone. Now we need to check for spiders,’ she announced.
‘There can’t be any in here. The tent’s only been up for about five minutes!’ Lex said.
‘Says you! If I wake up with a big leggy brute on my pillow, I’ll scream the place down!’ Ellie promised.
‘Don’t be so pathetic –’ Lex began.
‘I hate spiders too!’ One of the other girls stuck up for Ellie.
Julia didn’t mind spiders. The poor things were scared of people, and she often rescued any she found in the house and put them outside. A row looked like it might break out, so Julia pulled on her hooded waterproof jacket and crawled out of the tent.
‘I won’t be long,’ she called, but no one answered.
From outside the tent, Lex and Ellie could still be heard having a go at each other. Julia sighed, starting to feel a bit fed up with them both. She agreed that Ellie could be a bit fussy at times, but Lex wasn’t helping by being so bossy. If only Lucy were here – she knew she’d laugh with her at how silly Lex and Ellie were being.
Black clouds had gathered overhead and there was no one outside. The other teams were all sheltering inside their tents too. The grey stone buildings of Penryth House looked washed-out behind a curtain of lashing rain. Julia jogged towards the farmyard.
She reached the toilet block and shook out her wet jacket before going into a cubicle. After washing and drying her hands, she went and stood in the doorway that opened on to the yard.
It was still raining heavily and Julia was wondering whether to run straight back to the tent or wait for the rain to ease off. Suddenly there was a flash of bright light and a shower of crystal dust drifted towards her like a shimmering cloud.
‘Oh!’ Julia blinked hard, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. As the dust slowly dissolved, she spotted a tiny fluffy silver-blue bunny crouching in the rain.
‘Can you help me, please?’ it asked in a small scared voice.
Chapter
TWO
Julia stared at the cute fluffy bunny in utter amazement. The pattering of the heavy rain on the metal roof had sounded almost like a tiny voice for a moment. She shook her head slowly. This might be the first time she’d been around farm animals, but she was pretty sure they couldn’t talk!
She saw that the bunny’s long floppy ears were laid flat and it was twitching its silver-blue nose nervously.
The poor little thing was getting soaked. Where had it come from?
Julia hoped it wouldn’t run away as she moved towards it, but it didn’t seem too scared of her, despite its tiny size. She bent down and gently picked it up and then dashed back into the shelter of the doorway.
‘Got you! Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you,’ she crooned softly. She felt the bunny’s little heart fluttering against her hands beneath its wet fur.
‘Aren’t you gorgeous?’ She held the bunny against her T-shirt to warm its tiny wet body. ‘You must belong to someone who lives here.’ But the tiny bunny had very unusual colouring, quite different from the wild rabbits her teacher had pointed out when they arrived.
‘I do not belong to anyone.’ The bunny’s voice trembled and it gave a shiver.
Julia’s jaw fell open and she only just stopped herself from dropping the little bunny in shock. She looked down at its fluffy silver-blue fur. Bits of it were sticking up in little wet spikes.
‘You … y
ou really can talk! How come?’
‘All of my warren can talk,’ the bunny told her, looking up at her proudly. ‘I am Arrow, of Moonglow Meadow. May I ask your name?’
‘I’m Julia. Julia Hill. I’m here at Penryth House Farm with the rest of my class from Blakestone Primary. We’re … um … on a camping trip,’ she said, still having trouble taking in a talking rabbit.
Arrow dipped his head in a formal bow. The effect was slightly spoiled by the tuft of damp silver-blue fur sticking up between his ears.
‘I am honoured to meet you, Julia.’
‘Me too.’ Julia nodded awkwardly, trying to keep a straight face. Arrow was the cutest thing she had ever seen, especially with his spiky hairstyle. ‘Is Moonglow Meadow part of this farm?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Arrow shook his head. ‘It is very far away in another world.’
Julia heard something tinkle softly and saw that Arrow wore a fine gold chain round his neck with a key hanging from it.
Arrow noticed her looking at it. ‘I am guardian of this key, which keeps our meadow lush and green. But our neighbours, who are fierce dark rabbits, want to steal it. Their land is dry and stony and they are hungry, but they refuse to share our meadow. They want to take this key to make their own land lush and green again. If they do this, Moonglow Meadow will become a desert.’
‘Oh no! That would be terrible!’ Julia exclaimed.
‘Yes. That is why I have come to this world to hide and keep the key safe.’
‘That must be really scary for a tiny bunny like you,’ Julia said gently.
‘Please put me down, Julia,’ Arrow said. Rainbows gleamed brightly in his warm chocolate-brown eyes.
Julia bent down and put him on the floor.
‘Stand back,’ Arrow ordered. As he rose up on to his back legs and his key began flashing, Julia felt a strange warm prickling sensation down her back.
A cloud of shimmering crystal dust appeared and swirled around Arrow. When it cleared, Julia saw that the cute fluffy silver-blue bunny had gone. In its place stood the most magnificent and impressive rabbit she had ever seen. It was as big as a large cat and had silky white fur, flecked with silver. The tips of its large upright ears looked as if they’d been dipped into molten silver.
