Secret Superhero Read online

  ‘It wasn’t me. I was back at Circus City with Birdy.’

  ‘He isn’t lying,’ said Birdy. ‘We were in my caravan when it started. We heard all the bangs and shouting and the lions roaring and stuff, then Mrs Hinton came and told us to stay inside.’

  ‘Well, I saw someone with white hair just like yours in The Menagerie,’ Mr Busby insisted.

  Birdy let out a gasp. ‘We saw that person, too!’

  ‘It was a lady,’ said Colt. ‘We thought she was trying to stop Assam from getting away.’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Captain Noah. ‘How did you see this if you were back at the caravan?’

  ‘We didn’t stay there,’ said Colt.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘We went to help catch the animals.’

  ‘Even though Mrs Hinton told you to stay inside?’ Kristin asked.

  ‘She isn’t our mother,’ said Birdy.

  Her real mother frowned at her. ‘You should have taken her advice, Birdy. You both might have been hurt.’

  ‘But we weren’t!’ Birdy turned to Captain Noah. ‘And we told you where to find that missing meerkat, didn’t we?’

  The circus boss nodded thoughtfully. Colt could see that all the adults were beginning to believe them now. It was a big relief.

  ‘I think it was a disguise,’ he said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked his mother.

  ‘The lady who let out the animals – I think she was wearing a wig.’

  ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘So nobody would recognise her,’ he said.

  Mr Busby scatched his chin. ‘But why would anyone want to let out circus animals?’

  ‘Think about it,’ said Colt, letting his gaze travel around the motorhome until he’d looked everyone in the eye. ‘Who’s our biggest enemy?’

  ‘We’re a circus. We don’t have enemies!’

  ‘We do,’ said Colt. ‘There’s one person who wants to close us down – and by letting Assam and Puss escape, she very nearly succeeded.’

  Officer Katt scowled at her holovision screen. All the escaped animals, including the rhinoceros, had been recaptured and returned to the Lost World Circus.

  Worse still, Ryan Nottingham, inventor of the RyNo™ Firewall, had had a change of heart. Instead of buying the rhino, his software company was going to sponsor it. He’d paid Captain Noah an undisclosed sum (rumoured to be millions!) to feature the rhino and another circus animal in a worldwide ad campaign announcing his latest product, the Assam-&-RockE™ Spambuster.

  And the city had a new hero. A boy calling himself Superclown had performed a number of extraordinary feats involving the recapture of dangerous circus animals and the rescue of a family trapped in their burning car. His real name was Zac Watson and there were photos of him all over the news.

  Officer Katt froze her holoscreen and spoke to the 3D image of the strangely dressed superhero. ‘We met the other day, Superclown,’ she said. ‘Do you remember? No, I suppose you wouldn’t – my hair was a different colour.’

  Suddenly the rat cop’s eyes narrowed.

  She frowned and leaned so close to the free-floating pixels that her pointed nose nearly touched the ping-pong-ball nose of the boy who claimed to be Superclown.

  ‘And wasn’t yours . . . orange?’

  The fire started on the ground floor. It spread upwards from there. By the time the first fire engine arrived, angry yellow flames came boiling out of the first, second and third floor windows.

  Three levels higher, barely visible through all the smoke, two figures waved frantically from a top floor balcony.

  Centenary Apartments was the tallest building in Abattoir. It offered great views of the town. Earlier that day, Jacinta Mills and her daughter Harriet had watched a procession of circus trucks arrive at Stockyards Park, next to the abandoned slaughterhouse at the bottom of the hill.

  There were Lost World animals – giraffes, camels, lions in cages, even an elephant!

  Three-year-old Harriet had never laid eyes on real live animals before – much less Lost World animals – but what she really wanted to see were clowns. Her mother had promised they would go and see them tomorrow. But right now, clowns and animals were the last things on their minds.

  ‘Bad smoke!’ Harriet said, coughing and rubbing her eyes.

  Jacinta led her inside. Wetting a tea towel, she showed her little daughter how to hold it over her mouth and nose. ‘Breathe through this, darling – it makes it easier. You can wipe your eyes with it, too.’

  ‘Bad fire!’ Harriet said through the wet fabric. ‘Make fire stop, Mummy!’

  ‘It’ll stop soon,’ Jacinta promised. ‘The firemen will put it out.’

  She had phoned triple 0. The firemen knew they were up there. But their high pressure hoses seemed to be having no effect. The lower half of the building was a blazing inferno. Up on the sixth floor balcony, the air was almost too hot to breathe.

  ‘Heeeeeeelp!’ Jacinta yelled.

  Down in the street, a small crowd of shocked passers-by peered up through the smoke. Jacinta wished she was down there with them. Wished she and Harriet were safe behind the line of police keeping the onlookers back. Wished they weren’t going to die.

  Harriet tapped her leg.

  ‘Go back inside!’ Jacinta snapped.

  Harriet wasn’t listening. The damp tea towel trailed, forgotten, from her left hand. Her other hand was pointing.

  ‘Clowns,’ she said.

  Her mother fought back tears. ‘Yes, darling. We’ll go and see the clowns tomorrow.’

  Scooping up her daughter, Jacinta carried her back inside.

  And missed seeing the two clowns.

  Choose the sentence below that best describes you and remember the letter next to it. Then turn the page to find out which superhero you’re most like . . .

  My favourite colour is green.

  I like the nighttime better than the daytime.

  I can get changed in small spaces.

  I would love to wear a dress and a cape and boots at the same time.

  I’m great at martial arts.

  I’m pretty flexible.

  I love outer-space.

  I’m stronger than I look.

  I can think quickly to get myself out of sticky situations.

  I am pretty sure I have nine lives.

  I’m smart and I like wearing suits.

  a. The Incredible Hulk

  b. Batman

  c. Superman

  d. Superwoman

  e. Wolverine

  f. Elastigirl

  g. Buzz Lightyear

  h. Superclown

  i. Spider-Man

  j. Catwoman

  k. Iron Man

  Lost World Circus:

  Book 1: The Last Elephant

  Book 2: The Singing Ape

  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 Chase

  Dolphin Rescue

  Horse Hijack

  Puma Rumour

  Zebra Rampage

  Go Goanna

  Koala Round-up

  Visit justindath.com for heaps of great stuff about the author!

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (Australia)

  707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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&nb
sp; Penguin Group (Canada)

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  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Penguin Group (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.

  Cover and text design by Marina Messiha © Penguin Group (Australia)

  Cover image by Sam Hadley

  Colour separation by Splitting Image Colour Studio, Clayton, Victoria

  puffin.com.au

  ISBN: 978-1-74253-590-6