Animal Crazy

Meg Harper

Description

Jenni wants a pet. She also wants to be a saint. So where better to start than by imitating St Francis, patron saint of animals? But all does not go as planned for the `trainee saint'. She causes chaos in the park, at the zoo and at home. Even the vicar declines her offer of a family of homeless `church' mice, but he does help some of her dreams to come true. These entertaining stories have underlying themes of family values and encourage positive behaviour and relationships. In the following two books in the series, Jenni has similiar mishaps while trying to imitate other saints renowned for daring deeds and `good works' - both with hilarious results.

Informations

• Publié par: Lion Hudson
• Date de parution: 20 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780745979571
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

with love

Text copyright 2004 Meg Harper
Illustrations copyright 2004 Jan McCafferty
This edition copyright 2004 Lion Hudson IP Limited
The right of Meg Harper to be identified as the author and of Jan McCafferty to be identified as the illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by
Lion Hudson Limited
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Business Park
Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com
ISBN 978 0 74594 894 2
eISBN 978 0 74597 957 1
First edition 2004
This edition 2020
Cover illustration: Jan McCafferty
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved
Contents
1 Aiming for the top
2 A load of rubbish
3 Pick up a penguin
4 Let s play saints
5 A mouse about the house
6 I DO want a pet!
7 Jenni gets her Halo
Jenni s Guide to the Saints Part 1

1
Aiming for the top
When I grow up I want to be a saint. Aim for the top, that s my motto. I used to want to be the queen until I found out that if you re not born a princess, you don t stand a chance. Then I wanted to be prime minister - Dad says I d be ace at that because all you have to do is talk a load of rubbish - but people have to vote for you. And what if they don t? Sounds a bit too risky to me.
Then I found out all about saints. I ve got this Big Book of Saints that my grandpa gave me when I was born. He died when I was only a few months old so Mum s been saving it till I was old enough to look after it properly.
Huh! says my dad. You won t make much money out of being a saint! - but then, as he keeps reminding me, Money isn t everything. And who says I m in it for the money? Anyone can be a saint - even kids! You have to be very holy but you do have the most amazing adventures too. And once you re a saint, people remember you for ever!
Anyway, what would my dad know about aiming for the top? The nearest he s got is being stuck up a tree. OK, so that was my fault, but if you re the father of a saint-in-training, you ve got to expect life to be a bit different.
The treetop experience started simply enough. You probably know the story of St Francis. He was the one who liked animals. I don t think it s actually true that he could understand what animals said - that s a mix-up with Dr Dolittle or Ace Ventura - but he did talk to them. Animals were his thing (mainly).
Well, I don t have any animals. Not so much as a hamster or even a goldfish. Frankly, I think this is cruelty to children and just shows what dreadful parents I have. I want a pet. I need a pet. After all, everyone knows that children are supposed to have pets to teach them about interesting things like where babies come from and coping with death , not to mention being caring . And saints have to know about those things too, so just one measly little pet would be ideal for me. There were simply loads of saints who loved animals - not just St Francis!
One day when we went to the park, I saw my chance. There were bound to be lots of needy animals for me to practise on. It went very well to start with. The first little dog we met was very friendly. Its owner had a chat with my dad while I tickled its tummy and tried out some dog-talk. The next one wasn t so good. It kept sniffing us in rude places and my dad got all embarrassed. I bet St Francis didn t have that problem! I tried telling it to behave better but instead it went and did a wee on a nice rose bush. Then we met this fluffy, long-haired thing with a bow in its hair, and its owner wouldn t let me anywhere near it in case I messed it up! By this stage my dad was getting a bit crabby.
What s all this with stroking every dog we meet? he said. Don t start on that I want a dog stuff again because there s no way. I know who d end up having to take it for walks.
You see what I m up against? I m sure St Francis had it a lot easier. Anyway, when we met a Rottweiler, my dad finally lost it. There was nothing wrong with the Rottweiler. It was grinning at us and its owner said it was ever so friendly - that s why it kept jumping up at my dad - but my dad behaved like a complete wimp. He grabbed me by the arm and marched me off to the play-park so fast I had to run to keep up. When we got there, he collapsed on a bench, and - I m not kidding you - he was shaking!
Go and play for a bit and leave me in peace, he growled. I want to read the paper.
I could see that he was dog-tired (ha, ha) so I looked around for a bit of inspiration. There s a very nice pond in the park, and sometimes (when Dad s in a good mood) we buy some fish food from the man at the caf to feed the Japanese carp. There was no chance of any of that but I did have a very old and sticky packet of sweets in my pocket. I thought the carp might fancy them.
Unfortunately, the park-keeper, who happened to be passing, didn t agree.
Hey, you! he shouted. What d you think you re doing, chucking stones at the fish?
They re not stones, they re sweets, I said. I thought they might like them.
Don t give me that, he said. I wasn t born yesterday. (I could see that - he must have been about ninety.) A nice mess you re making, throwing litter in the pond!
But it isn t litter, I said. It s just that I can t quite get the wrappers off all these sweets. Would you like one? I m afraid they re a bit old.
I thought the park-keeper was going to eat me, never mind the sweets. Honestly, it s not easy being saintly. There s me trying to share what I have and all I get is a mouthful of abuse.
Where are your parents? the man growled. I want a word with them.
I couldn t lie (I don t think saints do lies even in the worst situations) so I pointed to where my dad was lolling on a park bench with his newspaper over his head.
I might have known! the park-keeper said. Typical! No sense of responsibility whatsoever! And he stormed over and snatched the paper off my dad!
There was no point in hanging about. The park-keeper obviously wasn t going to believe a word I said and I could see where it was all going to end - with me being marched off home. But I still needed some animals to practise on, so I climbed a tree.
There s a story about St Francis where he teaches so well that all the birds gather round and listen. Maybe I could try a bit of that? Right then I had a lot to say on several subjects. Being kind to children was one. Saying thank you if someone offers you a sweet was another. And believing what people say was yet another.
There were no birds low down in the tree, so I kept on climbing. It suited me to get away from that pesky park-keeper. Through the leaves I could see him having a real go at my dad. Anyway, at last I reached the point where I couldn t go any further, so I settled down to talk to the birds. Unfortunately, I still couldn t find any. I suppose all the noise of me climbing had scared them away - so I decided to be very still and quiet and wait for them to come back. That s why I didn t answer when I heard Dad calling me.
In the end, though, he began to sound a bit frantic and other people were calling my name too. The birds were hardly likely to come back with all that row going on, so I parted the branches and peered out.

Dad! I shouted. Dad, I m up here! I ll come down.
Now I was a long way up. And I suppose I had been gone quite a long time. So it s understandable that when I said I ll come down Dad thought I said, I can t come down. That s why he started climbing up the tree - just at the moment when I started climbing down.
We met about halfway.
Jenni, said my dad. Thank goodness you re all right!
Of course I m all right, I said, puzzled. Why wouldn t I be?
I thought you were stuck, said Dad. I was coming to help you.
No, I m fine, I said. Is it time to go home?
Dad glared at me. I have been looking for you for half an hour - ever since the park-keeper came and complained about you!
Sorry. I was only trying to feed the fish. Shall we go now?