by Justin D'Ath
But Colt wasn’t watching. He was staring back at the island, still listening.
Caruso had fallen silent, but the echo hadn’t.
Back on Skull’s Jaw, a gibbon’s voice was still raised in siren-like song.
‘Is it Melba or Rex?’ Peter asked.
A tiny black figure stood watching them from the top of the highest rock. It had fallen silent as soon as the boat started to come back.
‘It must be Melba,’ said Mr Busby. ‘Rex was already quite an old boy when they escaped. I don’t think he’d still be alive.’
Colt stood in the bow, holding Caruso. The gibbon was trembling with excitement. Every few moments he would break into a short, joyful burst of song. And the gibbon on the island – Melba – would sing back.
Peter slowed the engines as he edged the boat as close as he dared to the northern face of Skull’s Jaw. Melba was no longer in sight – the towering cliffs obscured her from view.
Mr Busby came forward to speak to Colt. He carried a lifejacket. ‘Peter suggests we put this on him,’ he said. ‘We don’t want him to drown.’
Colt clutched Caruso tightly and watched how the waves dashed themselves against the base of the cliffs thirty metres from the pitching boat. ‘Can’t we go closer? He might be able to jump across.’
Mr Busby pointed into the water. As the sea rose and fell, sharp blades of rock thrust clear of the boiling surf like daggers. ‘This is as close as we go.’
‘But we don’t even know if he can swim,’ Colt said.
‘All animals can swim,’ said Mr Busby. ‘And this lifejacket will help keep him afloat.’
But they didn’t get to put it on him. Suddenly Caruso let out a hoot of excitement and struggled free of Colt’s grip. A sleek black gibbon had appeared from a narrow crack at the base of the cliffs, just above the foaming surf. It waved its long arms at the boat and hooted back in greeting.
That was all the invitation Caruso needed. Jumping up onto the rail, he hurled himself into the churning sea.
Colt almost jumped in after him, but Mr Busby held him back.
‘He’ll be okay.’
And Caruso was okay. He didn’t need a lifejacket. His arms thrashed like propellers as he zigzagged safely between the sharp rocks towards shore. Towards Melba, who had been waiting for him for eight years.
There was one scary moment.
A big wave swept in and broke right on top of him. Caruso was pulled down into a wild, foaming whirlpool. All Colt could see was a spinning black hand. Then another black hand reached down, two pairs of long fingers locked together, and Melba pulled Caruso to safety.
Back on the boat, Mr Busby was still gripping Colt’s shoulder as they watched the two gibbons disappear into the crack in the cliff face.
‘And they lived happily ever after!’ Mr Busby said with a smile.
Colt stood in front of a mirror in the Flynn family’s caravan.
‘No way!’ he cried.
‘You wanted a disguise,’ Birdy said.
‘A superhero disguise.’ He frowned at his reflection. ‘I look ridiculous!’
Birdy made an adjustment to his red plastic nose. ‘No one will know who you are.’
‘I sure hope not,’ he said. ‘Whoever heard of a clown superhero?’
‘It’s perfect!’ Birdy was trying hard not to giggle. ‘It’ll make more people come to the circus. Captain Noah said crowd numbers are down now that the nights are getting colder.’
It was true. The Lost World Circus was losing money. Keeping nearly 2000 birds and animals supplied with regular RatVax shots cost a small fortune. If the nightly gate takings didn’t improve soon, they might have to sell some of them.
Someone was already interested in buying the rhino.
‘I’m not going to be a circus act,’ Colt muttered. ‘I’m just going to do rescues.’
Birdy nodded. ‘And when people hear that the rescuer was a clown, they’ll come to the circus to see who it is.’
‘But they won’t see me,’ he said. ‘Well, they’ll see me when I ride Lucy around the ring, but they won’t know I’m the superhero clown because I won’t be dressed in this ridiculous outfit.’
‘Exactly,’ said Birdy. She gave him a mischievous grin. ‘But it’ll make the crowds nice and big again.’
Colt studied himself in the mirror. Birdy was right – he’d wanted a disguise and nobody would recognise him dressed like this. Not even his mother, probably.
‘Superclown,’ he said experimentally.
And laughed.
Birdy shooed him into the main part of the caravan. ‘Wait in the kitchen. I’ve got a surprise.’
‘What if your parents come back and see me dressed like this?’
‘They’re helping put up the Big Top,’ she said, swishing the curtain closed behind him. ‘They won’t be back for ages.’
Colt heard drawers opening and the rustle of fabric. After five minutes, the curtain opened and another clown appeared. Her outfit was identical to Colt’s except the colours were reversed – white dots on a red background, instead of red dots on white. And her wig was green, not red.
‘Tah dah!’ said the Birdy-clown, striking a dramatic pose. ‘Meet your new sidekick, Clowngirl.’
‘I don’t need a sidekick,’ Colt said.
Birdy’s big, painted-on smile turned down at the ends. ‘I thought we were a team. I helped you save Lucy. And didn’t I make that holovid of Caruso getting out of his cage?’
Colt reconsidered. ‘Okay, Clowngirl – you’re hired.’
Birdy’s smile was back. ‘No, you’re hired, Superclown!’
They exchanged high-fives.
‘I’d better go and get changed,’ he said. ‘Mum wants me to help her clip the giant anteaters’ toenails.’
He went into Birdy’s room and began removing his frizzy red wig. ‘Will there be time to get into all this gear if there’s an emergency?’ he asked.
‘Superman does it,’ Birdy said through the curtain.
Colt was about to say, That’s just a movie, when there was a loud CRASH in the distance – it sounded like breaking glass – followed by the thunderous roar of a lion and the shrieking of peacocks. Then people started shouting and screaming.
Birdy raced to the window and peered out.
‘Don’t bother getting changed, Superclown,’ she said.
In her office at DoRFE headquarters, Officer Katt sat staring at a quivering holoscreen. A short holovid was playing over and over in Repeat mode. Someone at the circus had slipped the thumb-sized VizCard into Officer Katt’s pocket while she was investigating the removal of the famous singing gibbon from quarantine. Officer Katt had put the animal in quarantine herself.
Whoever freed it had committed a serious crime.
Over the past day and a half, Officer Katt had viewed the holovid fifty or sixty times. And with every viewing, the rat cop grew more angry.
The holovid showed the creepy black ape using a screwdriver to free itself from its cage. Whoever recorded it wanted to prove that none of the circus people had been involved in the illegal breakout.
You can’t prosecute an animal.
And you can’t terminate it when it seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth, Officer Katt thought in frustration.
But someone had given it that screwdriver, and someone had made the holovid. And Officer Katt was 99 per cent sure who that person was.
Jabbing a button on her palm-computer, the fuming rat cop watched as the 3D holoscreen dissolved in a cloud of fading pixels.
‘Okay, Snowy,’ she muttered. ‘Two can play at that game.’
Grabbing her van keys off the desk, Officer Katt stormed out of the office.
1. A baiji is the name for a:
Japanese cartoon character that teaches kids about the environment
extinct river dolphin that used to live in China
pouch used by Japanese scientists to collect species of plant
endangered toad f
ound off the coast of Queensland
2. The population of the endangered black rhino is decreasing.
False
True
3. What percentage of the earth’s species are currently endangered?
10 per cent
20 per cent
40 per cent
80 per cent
4. How many pandas are left in the wild?
1.3 million
14
21,000
1600
5. To help save endangered animals, you can:
Avoid souvenirs made from endangered animals.
Take your rubbish with you when you visit national parks and nature reserves.
Pull out weeds so that native plants can grow.
Join a group that helps look after local parks.
Turn the page to find out the answers . . .
1. b.
2. a. False! Breeding programs have increased the number from 3000 in the mid-1990s to over 4000 today.
3. c.
4. d. There are also approximately 300 pandas in zoos and breeding centres around the world.
5. Any of these! Taking care of the environment in every way you can will give nature the best chance of keeping its complex systems in balance so that animals and plants can survive.
1. Most monkeys can’t swing from branches (they can only run along them) because of the shape of their shoulder bones. Apes can swing really fast. (Gibbons swing at speeds up to 56km/h – almost as fast as a car!)
2. Apes don’t have tails but monkeys do.
3. On average, apes live for about 60 years, which is twice as long as monkeys.
4. Apes can walk on two feet, whereas monkeys can only walk on four.
5. Apes can make and use tools, which monkeys can’t do. For example, chimpanzees fish for termites by dangling long pieces of grass into their nests.
6. Apes’ arms are longer than their legs, whereas monkeys’ legs are longer than their arms.
7. Apes sometimes eat small mammals, whereas monkeys mostly eat plants
8. Apes are bigger! The gorilla is the largest ape in the world and can weigh up to 180 kg. The smallest monkey in the world is the Philippine tarsier. When fully grown, it is only 8.5 to 16 cm tall.
9. Bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas, gibbons and orangutans are all apes.
10. Macaques, tamarins, lemurs, marmosets and baboons are all monkeys.
Lost World Circus:
Book 1: The Last Elephant
All the books in these action-packed series can be read in any order.
Extreme Adventures:
Crocodile Attack
Bushfire Rescue
Shark Bait
Scorpion Sting
Spider Bite
Man Eater
Killer Whale
Anaconda Ambush
Grizzly Trap
Devil Danger
Monkey Mountain
Tiger Trouble
Mission Fox:
Snake Escape
Panda Rescue
Dolphin Danger
Horse Hijack
Puma Rumour
Zebra Rampage
Go Goanna
Koala Round-up
Visit justindath.com for heaps of great stuff about the author!
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First published by Penguin Books (Australia), 2013
Text copyright © Justin D’Ath, 2013
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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ISBN: 978-1-74253-589-0
