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  Text copyright © 2018 by Andrew Clover. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Ralph Lazar. All rights reserved. First published in Great Britain in 2018 by HarperCollins Children’s Books. Published in the United States in 2020 by Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. PENGUIN and PENGUIN WORKSHOP are trademarks of Penguin Books Ltd, and the W colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us online at www.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  Ebook ISBN 9781524793678

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  We dedicate this to

  ALL DOGS EVERYWHERE

  (and to the people who love them)

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Chapter One: A Call to Adventure

  Chapter Two: Wilkins Welkin, King of Dogs

  Chapter Three: A Quick Word About Prejudice

  Chapter Four: The Great Stakeout

  Chapter Five: Paperwork

  Chapter Six: Betrayal

  Chapter Seven: The Cat’s on the Case

  Chapter Eight: A Huge Dark Shape

  Chapter Nine: Someone Actually Tells Me Something

  Chapter Ten: In the Deadliest of Deadly Dangers

  Chapter Eleven: Reinforcements

  Chapter Twelve: Let Battle Commence!

  Chapter Thirteen: Back at the Base

  Excerpt from Rory Branagan Detective

  About the Authors

  I am Rory Branagan.

  I am actually a detective.

  Only three days ago, I, with my new Best Friend and Accomplice, Cassidy “the Cat” Callaghan, trailed some poisoners to the Deadly Pirate restaurant, where we GOT THEM!!

  Soon I am going to be the Biggest Detective in the World!!

  I am even going to solve the biggest mystery in my life, which is: WHERE IS MY DAD?

  He disappeared when I was three. Literally . . .

  One moment he was there—cracking jokes, telling stories, and being the best dad in the world.

  And the next, he was gone.

  BUT THEN . . .

  Three days ago, I got a secret letter from him. He said he was hiding in the place where he was once happiest. So now I know he’s alive, but I’m thinking . . .

  Where IS he?

  Is he living in a tree house in a secret island hideout?

  I’m thinking . . . Where was he happiest?

  Was it some place far away, where he once went on vacation?

  I ask my brother who is looming

  by the hallway mirror. He got the first four hairs of his mustache last week, and now he rushes out, ten times a day, to see if more have appeared.

  “Where do you think Dad is?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I do know Mom gets mad if we even ask.”

  “OK,” I say, “where do you think he was happiest?”

  “Why are you even asking?” he says.

  “Because,” I tell him, “I am just . . . being a detective.”

  “MOM!!!” he shouts.

  “He’s BEING A DETECTIVE AGAIN!”

  And, two seconds later, Mom appears, and already she looks set to blow up.

  “RORY!”

  she says “You are NOT

  a detective!”

  “I am,” I reply. “Even the policeman said so when I solved a crime.”

  Now she’s more set to explode than a ship with ten cannons that are about to go BOOM.

  “Rory,” she says, “you need to think about OTHER PEOPLE. I am trying to keep this family together, and it’s hard enough without you getting into danger. There are some bad people out there. Last time you were being a detective you hurt your leg very badly.”

  Now THAT is a tiny bit true, I suppose.

  I did sprain my leg very badly, which is why I am supposed to be spending ONE WHOLE WEEK in bed wearing a surgical boot.

  “But I did not hurt my leg because of bad people,” I say, “but because I jumped over a high gate, and landed next to a pig . . .”

  And that does it. Suddenly my mom . . .

  . . . BLOWS UP like a ship with a hundred cannons that are all BLASTING OFF.

  “NO!!! I do not want some story!” she screams.

  “I just need you to stay in your bed doing your homework, and, if I find you’ve been being a detective, you will be in the worst trouble of your life!”

  But even as Mom is shouting I am thinking: But I LOVE being a detective! I am thinking: I even like getting into danger!

  And I swear . . . it is literally only about an hour after that . . .

  . . . that Cat and I discover a real, actual crime, and end up getting into the very DEADLIEST OF DEADLY DANGERS!!!

  I’ll tell you the whole story.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A Call to Adventure

  It all starts . . . with me doing something that is not DANGEROUS at all. I am lying in my room. I am having a cool, relaxing time reading a book.

  It is about Napoleon.

  Apparently he was small but he became the most powerful person in the world, and I am thinking . . . I am small. I could become the most powerful person in the world.

  Suddenly my brother’s big head appears.

  “There is someone at the door for you,” he says.

  “Who is it?” I ask.

  But he just goes.

  But I don’t mind.

  You don’t need to be a genius to detect that the person coming is Cassidy “the Cat” Callaghan. I can hear her singing as she comes up the stairs.

  “DUM-DUM-der-dum-dum-DUM!” she sings, then she . . .

  leaps into the room.

  “Hello, Deadly!” she says. (That’s what she calls me!)

  “Hello, Cat!” I reply. (That’s what I call her!)

  “So,” she says, “will we go out to track clues and solve crimes?”

  “Er . . . no,” I say. “I can’t just now . . . because of my leg!”

  “Oh, I won’t let you be stopped by a little thing like that! I have prepared something!” she says. “Come on! I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”

  I get on her back and she piggybacks me out of the room and down the stairs.

  “Behold,” she says. “Your chariot!”

  It’s a

  garbage

  can.

  “I am NOT going in there!” I tell her.

  “I have cleaned it,” she says, “and I’ve put in cushions, and I also have something very detective-y to show you!”

  So now she’s got me interested.

  “Stand back!” I command. “I shall mount the chariot!”

  I get in and she rolls me out the door.

  “Charge!” she shouts, and she starts to sprint up the street.

  As we go I am looking at the weirdest dog. He’s tied to a lamppost. He’s got short legs, but he’s got the longest back you ever saw; he looks like a furry crocodile. But I love all dogs.

  “Hello, boy!” I call.

  He wags his tail, and you can see he’s friendly. So now I’m longing to go back and stroke him. But the Cat is in the mood to go fast.

  “Full speed!” she says.

  She hurtles all the way to the store where the detective-y thing she wants to show me turns out to be a magazine called Real Detective, but we haven’t actually brought money to buy it, and also I can’t go into the store in my “chariot.”

  So we read it by the door. I see right away that Real Detective is great. We open it to read the cover story.

  REAL DETECTIVE

  SECRETS OF

  THE FAMOUS DETECTIVES

  No 1

  SHERLOCK HOLMES

  Secret: Notice

  EVERYTHING.

  We turn the page. There’s . . .

  REAL DETECTIVE

  SECRETS OF

  THE FAMOUS DETECTIVES

  No 2

  HERCULE POIROT

  Secret: List all suspects. List their motives.

  No 3

  PHILIP MARLOWE

  Secret: Don’t be afraid to fight.

  I am just thinking that I LOVE this magazine when I . . . Rory Branagan (detective) NOTICE a real, actual crime.

  A clue hits me in the face. It’s a piece of paper blown by the wind.

  It says . . .

  “Lost: Ben, our much-loved greyhound dog.”

  And there’s a picture of a dog looking sad.

  I then notice on a lamppost . . .

  Right away my heart is pounding. I cannot BELIEVE someone is actually TAKING dogs from Dean Swift Dr ive, which is my actual street. I am already very angry, but also very curious.

  “Rory,” says Cat, “look.”

  I look, and at the other end of the road someone is taking the furry crocodile. They’re wearing a black coat and a black wool hat.

  “Is that dog . . .?” I start.

  “Being stolen?” says Cat.

  You can tell the crocodile doesn’t like it. The thief and dog are turning the corner into Roy Keane Court.

  “Quick!” I say. “Follow that dog!”

  It’s two hundred yards but Cat RUNS all the way.

  But when we get to Roy Keane Court, there’s NO ONE there.

  We run down it.

  We look left. There’s NO ONE.

  We look right. There’s NO ONE.

  We look in the trees. There’s NO ONE.

  We turn around.

  There’s Corner Boy, my neighbor.

  He’s standing on his corner, but he’s staring up at a window on Jay Byrne Road.

  “Corner Boy!” I shout. “Did you just see a person stealing a dog?”

  “No! All I saw was that Jack Russell up there,” he says (pointing up to the left). “He always goes WILD if anyone goes past.”

  “Did he go wild?”

  “No.”

  Cat turns to me. “So,” she says, “that means the thief did not go up there.”

  “Could they be hiding in one of those cars?” I say.

  “Good thinking!” says Cat.

  She sprints past each of the cars. She looks into all of them, then runs back.

  “I saw nothing,” she pants. “That means whoever took that dog MUST have gone into one of these five houses!”

  I’m thinking: She could be right! But I’m also thinking: But, if she’s wrong, then the dog thief could still be OUT and ABOUT and if they are, they MIGHT TAKE WILKINS WELKIN!!!!!

  But some people might not know who Wilkins Welkin is.

  I shall explain . . .

  CHAPTER TWO

  Wilkins Welkin, King of Dogs

  When my mom goes out she always invites over Mrs. Welkin, the old lady from across the street, and before she leaves she ALWAYS says, “Are you sure you’ll be OK?”

  It’s AS IF Mom thinks that as soon as she goes out Mrs. Welkin is leaping over the wall with a sword . . .

  or firing me from a catapult.

  I actually love it when Mrs. Welkin comes, because she brings Wilkins Welkin, her sausage dog.

  You wouldn’t know it to see him, but he is quite a character.

  As soon as he sees me he goes BERSERK— leaping about and wagging his tail.

  Then he lets me rub his tummy.

  Then, suddenly, he starts his tricks. First he does two or three commando rolls. Then he sprints into the living room, then he LEAPS UP to the windowsill where . . .

  . . . he starts madly yanking on the blind, going rrr-rrr-rrrr.

  (I have no idea why he does that!)

  But then suddenly he leaps off again.

  He powers up the stairs . . .

  He pokes open my door with his nose . . .

  He leaps on my bed . . .

  . . . and he gets straight down to business staring out of the window.

  He stares out for ages.

  It’s as if he knows that if he turns his attention away for a moment . . .

  . . . in that moment twenty cats will go by.

  They’ll be swinging on the clothesline.

  They’ll be entering the house.

  In no time at all they will be romping around everywhere, scratching and leaving fur and their evil catty stink.

  Wilkins is determined that this will NOT happen. (Not on his watch.) He looks out for ages.

  I love it when he does that. I love Wilkins Welkin. And to my horror I realize that as we went running down the street just now, I saw him in his garden.

  “Quick!” I shout. “Take me back to Mrs. Welkin’s!”

  Cat dashes down past Corner Boy. We shoot down the middle of the street toward Mrs. Welkin’s.

  As I look through the gate, I can’t see Wilkins. But then . . .

  . . . he appears (looking totally calm). He’s just sniffing a piece of burrito that someone’s dropped by his gate.

  Then he turns. He sees me in the trash-can chariot, and he thinks I’m trapped. He gives me a look, as if to say, “Don’t worry, Rory, I am coming FOR YOU!” And then he LAUNCHES himself at the gate.

  Cat pushes the chariot toward him, I bend down, Wilkins and I hug and for about six seconds I’m totally happy.

  But then my mom appears from Mrs. Welkin’s house. She sees me.

  She also sees that I am not lying in bed doing homework, but am, in fact, charging up and down the street in a garbage can.

  To describe how Mom reacts I will first have to tell you about the Orient, which was Napoleon’s biggest ship . . .

  One night a flaming cannonball hit its gunpowder store, and it EXPLODED in a blast that shook the sky right across Egypt.

  That is the kind of blast that happens right now.

  “RORY,” Mom screams,

  GET HOME NOWWWW!!!”

  As I look up at her, I’m thinking I could cry, and I don’t want to in front of Cassidy. I also don’t want to run home just because Mom is shouting in the street.’

  I turn to Mrs. Welkin, who is behind Mom, and I say, “Mrs. Welkin, I’ve been getting lonely at home . . . could I borrow Wilkins for company?”

  She gives me a wise, kind look.

  “I’m sure Wilkins would love to visit you, Rory,” she says.

  She lifts him into the chariot. She also gives me his favorite squeaky hedgehog.

  “Just make sure he doesn’t eat any take-out food,” she says. “It gives him gas.”

  “Oh,” I say, “I know that!”

  I definitely DO know that. Wilkins eats the food that people drop, and then he does LETHAL FARTS. He does one now. (I can feel it echoing around the trash can.)

  “But the main thing is,” says Mrs. Welkin, “with this dog thief around, you must watch him at all times!”

  “Oh, I will do that!” I promise.

  “I know you will,” says Mrs. Welkin.

  And with that we head off toward home. I don’t even mind anymore about Mom shouting. We have Wilkins, and nothing else matters.

  As we cross the street we pass Dale and Shaza, who just moved into the apartment at the bottom of our garden. They’re all right. But they have a huge, lethal rottweiler called Bizmo.

  Bizmo thinks it’s WEIRD that I’m in the trash can.

  He starts to bark. RUR-RUR-RUR, he goes, in a deep, bearlike growl, as if he’s saying, “I cannot allow THIS on my street!”

  Wilkins sticks his face over the top of the can. RRRR-RRRR-RRRR, he goes, as if to say, “This is NOT your street. It belongs to ME, and RORY, and MRS. WELKIN!”

  And the trouble is . . . as he does that, he knocks his hedgehog out of the chariot.

  RIGHT! thinks Bizmo (the big greedy bully), I will have THAT! And he picks up the hedgehog, and walks off with it.

  Wilkins is furious. He barks, rur-rur-rur—as if to say: “You have taken my hedgehog, and I will TAKE YOU DOWN, Bizmo. I will TAKE YOU DOWN!”

  Dale and Shaza walk off. Wilkins runs up my chest, leaps, and then SOARS INTO THE SKY like he’s SUPERDOG . . .

 

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