Frankie Fish and the Sister Shemozzle Read online

  TO ALL THE LiBRARiANS: THANK YOU FOR SPREADiNG THE LOVE OF BOOKS FAR AND WiDE TO KiDS TALL AND SHORT. LONG MAY YOUR PASSiON RULE (AND MAY YOU NOT BE PRANKED!)

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  A Tiny Bit before We Catch Up with Frankie Fish

  Chapter 1: The Blood of Fish

  Chapter 2: The Extremely Short Trial of the Two Prank Kings

  Chapter 3: A Dinner Date with Destiny

  Chapter 4: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Lou Fish

  Chapter 5: There are Plenty of Fish in the Sea of Crete

  Chapter 6: Greece is the Word

  Chapter 7: I Would Like to Thank the Academy

  Chapter 8: The Using of Brains

  Chapter 9: Hula Hoops and Crime Rings

  Chapter 10: Riddle Me This

  Chapter 11: Where in the World is Louicles Fishtos?

  Chapter 12: Off to the Games – But How?

  Chapter 13: Stop Talking and Go to Sleep, Alexi … Please!

  Chapter 14: To Mount Olympus We Go!

  Chapter 15: The Lost Girl

  Chapter 16: The Games to (Possibly) End All Games (Possibly)

  Chapter 17: Not Going for Gold

  Chapter 18: Somebody’s Hot on the Fishes’ Tale

  Chapter 19: What can Stop a Javelin?

  Chapter 20: Frankie’s Fed Up!

  Chapter 21: Blue Lou

  Chapter 22: Ms Fix-It

  Chapter 23: Feet of Clay

  Chapter 24: The Great Escape

  Chapter 25: Time for a Detour

  Chapter 26: The Trapping of a Chadwick

  Chapter 27: Alexi, The God of What?

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  A TiNY BiT BEFORE WE CATCH UP WITH FRANKiE FiSH

  The St Monica’s Primary School library wasn’t exactly a bustling place first thing in the morning (or at any other time of day, actually).

  The librarian, Miss Davis, spent most of her time writing Davis’s Doozies (her daily list of book recommendations, which only one student ever looked at), dusting the ever-expanding collection of books about Ancient Greece (which only one student ever read) and repairing damaged books (which plenty of students read, usually while eating spaghetti bolognaise as they jumped on trampolines, judging by the filthy state the books were in).

  Miss Davis spent the rest of her time wishing students would treat the books – and the library – with more respect.

  The highlight of Miss Davis’s week was Wednesday lunchtimes, when her one favourite student – Louise Fish – came to help her in the library. Some people thought of Louise as Lou. Other people, such as her brother, Frankie, thought of her as Saint Lou, because she was always doing good deeds. Miss Davis thought of Lou as pretty much the only reason she turned up to work, because Lou loved books and learning as much as she herself did.

  On this particularly warm Wednesday – which was about to spiral out of control – Lou was helping Miss Davis with the Book Week display in the front entrance.

  This year, St Monica’s had chosen the theme ‘My Hero’ and the students had made dioramas of their favourite writers or book characters. Many of the boys had chosen autobiographies by sports stars. Dr Seuss was very popular and there were, at last count, one hundred and thirty-three Harry Potter dioramas. (Lisa Chadwick had made twenty-two of them.)

  Lou had put many hours of work into her own diorama.

  ‘Can you tell what it is?’ Lou asked Miss Davis, placing it carefully on one of the tables. A tiny bearded figure wearing a white robe stood before a white building surrounded by columns.

  Miss Davis looked at the diorama admiringly. ‘Ah, yes! It’s Gandalf from Lord of the Rings!’

  Lou’s faced dropped for a second before Miss Davis burst out laughing. ‘I’m teasing, Lou! It’s clearly Plato and the Academy, the philosophy school he founded in Ancient Greece. You’ve done a great job – Plato looks very authentic.’

  Miss Davis knew even more about Ancient Greece than Lou did, which was one reason Lou liked to spend Wednesday lunchtimes in the library. It gave her a chance to let out her nerdy side and talk about the ‘big things’ in life. Lou never talked with her friends about history or art or books. None of them even had a clue that the Ninja Turtles were named after famous Renaissance artists. The biggest thing Lou had spoken to Frankie about was the Big Pineapple, which they'd visited on holiday to the Sunshine Coast. (Frankie denies it now, but for a while he believed the Big Pineapple was not a sixteenmetre-high fibreglass sculpture but a real, freakishly large mutant pineapple.)

  Miss Davis, however, talked about the great Greek philosophers the way music lovers talk about bands like The Beatles or Shawn Mendes or (INSERT YOUR FAVOURITE BAND HERE!).

  Lou beamed and then let out a wistful sigh. ‘I wish I could’ve been a student at the Academy.’

  ‘Well, you know that they hardly ever accepted girls,’ Miss Davis reminded her. ‘They weren’t big on equal opportunity back then.’

  ‘I would’ve convinced them to take me,’ said Lou confidently.

  Lou was pretty convincing. She’d convinced the school canteen to introduce vegan hot dogs on their All You Can Meat Day. She’d convinced Miss Merryweather to hold a Spelling Bee in Ancient Greek. And she’d even convinced Principal Dawson to shave off his beloved beard a couple of years ago for Chilly Chins for Chalk, which raised money for school supplies (and which he instantly regretted).

  Miss Davis smiled at her young pupil. ‘I’m sure you could, Louise, you go-getter you.’ She picked up a paper aeroplane that someone had made with yesterday’s Davis’s Doozies and fanned herself with it. ‘It’s rather warm today, isn’t it? I might have to pop the fan on in a minute.’

  There was a sudden buzzing noise. Miss Davis’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Is there an insect in here?’ she said, worried.

  Miss Davis couldn’t stand insects. She was always scared they would damage the books. She was the only librarian Lou had ever met who genuinely feared bookworms.

  ‘No, sorry,’ said Lou guiltily. ‘It’s my … phone.’ Lou didn’t actually have her phone with her, but she did have a micro-earpiece, which she wasn’t keen on using in front of Miss Davis. Partly because it wasn’t polite, and partly because of, er, other reasons. So she excused herself (politely, of course).

  Lou dashed to a far corner of the library and pulled the earpiece and its tiny digital screen from her pocket. The screen said: Frankie, 200 million BC.

  At first, all she could hear from the other end was what sounded like a herd of elephants at the closing stages of a marathon, crossed with a volcano erupting into a microphone.

  Finally her brother’s voice came crackling through the earpiece.

  ‘Lou, it’s Frankie!’

  ‘Oh, really?’ Lou smiled. ‘I thought it was the dentist calling.’

  ‘We need your help, pronto!’ Frankie said in a rush. ‘We are –’

  But just as a breathless Frankie Fish said ‘pronto’, a terrified scream erupted behind Lou from within the library. She hung up on Frankie and dashed back to Miss Davis.

  And when she arrived, she got the shock of her life.

  The entire front desk was now WHITE, from the books to the computers to … poor Miss Davis. The fan above the desk was still whirring around cheerily, sending a fine spray of white powder everywhere, with Miss Davis frozen beneath it. She looked like she was standing inside the world’s worst snow globe.

  ‘Um, did a blizzard just blow through the history section?’ asked Lou Fish, looking as confused as a polar bear at a beach party.

  Miss Davis dejectedly took off her flour-covered
glasses and gave a huge, angry-sad huff, sending a little puff of white into the air. ‘It’s flour,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘And it’s obviously someone’s idea of a prank. But it’s not funny, Louise Fish. I can’t do this anymore. I QUIT.’

  And, with a tear welling in her eye, Miss Davis stormed out of St Monica’s library, vowing never to return.

  This single event could perhaps change the history – and future – of the world.

  But how, you ask? Well, you’ll just have to read on.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE BLOOD OF FISH

  Have you ever felt a T-Rex breathing down your neck?

  Hopefully not. But that is EXACTLY what was happening to both Frankie Fish and his best friend, Drew Bird.

  It wasn’t a gentle breath either, like a sleeping puppy’s. No, this breath was hot and forceful and it reeked of blood and fish. And getting more blood and fish seemed to be on this T-Rex’s mind as it chased the boys through a dense and tangled prehistoric forest. The blood of Frankie Fish. Frankie had happily donated blood to the Red Cross last Easter but was way less keen to give his blood to a Tyrannosaurus rex.

  ‘What happened to the distress call to Lou?’ Drew puffed, zigzagging through the forest in a desperate attempt to make the T-Rex go cross-eyed. ‘Why isn’t she getting us out of here?’

  ‘She hung up on me!’ Frankie gasped, leaping over a boulder that, a second later, was crushed to dust beneath the T-Rex’s massive clawed foot.

  Once again, the boys were in deep dino-dung. An innocent excursion to see the dinosaurs had seemed like an excellent idea. Who WOULDN’T do that if they had a time-travelling Sonic Suitcase? But everything had gone horribly wrong when the T-Rex began chasing them. The two boys had been running around like headless chickens ever since, silently praying they wouldn’t become a headless Fish and Bird themselves.

  ‘She HUNG UP?’ Drew screamed in disbelief. ‘Did you tell her we’re about to become dino snacks? I mean, I know you two don’t always get along, but I don’t want to be eaten today.’

  Drew had made two very good points.

  First, he understandably did not want to be eaten today or even tomorrow. He was quite happy never to be digested by any creature.

  Second, he was dead right about Frankie’s relationship with Saint Lou.

  Saint Lou had recently joined the small group of people who knew about the Sonic Suitcase: Grandad Fish, who had invented it; Nanna Fish, who had used it once and vowed never to time-travel again; and Frankie and Drew, who borrowed the suitcase as often as they could. Although Lou didn’t actually seem to WANT to time-travel with them, she had made many useful improvements to the suitcase. But this hadn’t helped the siblings get along any better. The problem, as Frankie saw it, was that he and Lou were just too different.

  In fact, apart from their interest in the Sonic Suitcase, Frankie could think of only two things they had in common.

  1. They both had brown hair.

  2. They both had a ridiculous last name.

  And that’s it! Their hair wasn’t even that similar. Lou’s was light brown and Frankie’s was dark, plus his hair stood up in a way that Lou’s would never dream of doing. To say they were apples and oranges wasn’t even going far enough. They were only apples and oranges if the orange wasn’t actually an orange at all but a giraffe painted orange.

  In almost every way imaginable, Frankie and Lou were completely, fundamentally, absolutely different. Lou was popular at school, while Frankie was not (apart from with Drew). Lou was smart, while Frankie was not. And Lou was so good at sports that she was chosen first for every sporting team – including the time she was picked for hockey DESPITE being at home sick with tonsillitis. Even when he was there, Frankie was almost always chosen last.

  As you can probably imagine, being Lou’s brother was hard. It sometimes felt like Lou was made of gold. Frankie felt more like he was made of Play-Doh. And not nice, new Play-Doh, but the crusty old stuff where all the colours have been smooshed together and there’s cat hair stuck in it.

  But despite all that, Frankie was sure that Saint Lou wouldn’t want him to be eaten by a dinosaur. Yep, pretty sure. She wasn’t called Saint Lou for nothing, was she?

  Just then, his earpiece beeped. Lou was calling back – quite a few million years into the future.

  ‘You hung up on me!’ Frankie screamed angrily.

  ‘Did you do it?’ demanded Saint Lou, equally angry.

  ‘Do what?’ Frankie retorted.

  The massive dinosaur swatted the air with its enormously tiny hands and Frankie darted away, the Sonic Suitcase swinging from his hand.

  ‘Did you put flour on the ceiling fan in the library?’ Saint Lou demanded.

  ‘What?’ yelped Frankie again, as he was nearly hit by the T-Rex’s tail, which was whipping around like a garden hose gone crazy.

  ‘There is flour all over the library,’ hissed Lou, ‘and all over Miss Davis. Now she’s quit and I want to know if you and your bird-brained friend were behind it.’

  It was hard for Frankie to know who was angrier right now – the T-Rex or Louise Fish. One thing was for sure, the T-Rex was a lot closer. Saint Lou’s voice was growing in volume (she was rapidly becoming Saint Loud), but Drew Bird’s voice could still be heard as he called Frankie’s name.

  Frankie turned to see Drew’s face popping out of a nearby cave. ‘Frankie, get in here, NOW!’ shouted Drew.

  Frankie jumped over the T-Rex’s swooshing tail and joined Drew in the sanctuary of the rocky cave.

  Throughout all of this, Lou continued to rant over the earpiece. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this, Frankie!’

  Sprawled on the floor of the cave, Frankie managed to gasp out, ‘We’re two hundred million years away, Lou! There’s no way we could have pulled off that prank. I mean, we’re good, but we’re not that good.’

  ‘Ha!’ snorted Lou, her voice crackling through the earpiece. ‘How many times have I heard you two brag about being the prank kings of St Monica’s?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ admitted Frankie. ‘But I swear it wasn’t us this time.’ He could hear the T-Rex just outside the cave, scratching and sniffing around. ‘Please can you just get us out of here? I don’t have time to program the suitcase!’

  ‘Not until you tell me what’s going on,’ came Lou’s voice over the earpiece.

  ‘Drew, um, accidentally threw his hacky sack at a T-Rex and hit it on the nose. The T-Rex isn’t happy about it.’ A furious roar nearby made it clear that this was the most understated understatement of all time!

  ‘OK, I’ll help you,’ Lou said with a groan to a much-relieved Frankie, ‘but if I find out that you were involved in that flour prank I’ll send you back to your Cretaceous friend tied up and covered in salt, understand?’

  ‘OK, OK! But can you make it snappy? Before this T-Rex snaps us in half and this trouble is behind us?’ Frankie shouted back.

  Over the sound of the T-Rex scrabbling around at the cave’s entrance, Frankie could just hear Lou rapidly clicking buttons. He really hoped she was programming the remote Sonic Suitcase controller she’d recently invented, and not just texting one of her hundreds of friends.

  ‘Right, I’ll have you home before you can say Jurassic Park,’ said Lou, but she still sounded cranky. ‘Make sure you and Drew are holding on to the suitcase or this won’t work.’

  ‘Um, Frankie …’ said Drew in a hushed voice as he wedged his hand next to Frankie’s on the suitcase handle.

  ‘Yes?’ Frankie replied. He was watching the T-Rex and didn’t look at Drew. If he did, he would have seen the petrified look on his friend’s face.

  ‘You were right,’ Drew muttered.

  ‘About what?’ Frankie looked at Drew, who looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Or a T-Rex.

  ‘The trouble is behind us,’ Drew whispered hoarsely. ‘RIGHT behind us.’

  Frankie felt his heart rate pick up again as he slowly turned to face what Drew had already seen. There was a wall
of darkness. A lot of rocks. And two gleaming, angry eyes that belonged to a massive triceratops.

  ‘Triceratops are vegetarian, aren’t they?’ said Drew, his voice quivering a little.

  The triceratops roared, its jaws salivating, its breath foul. Frankie made himself a silent promise that if he ever came back to the Cretaceous era, he would definitely pack breath mints.

  ‘Maybe we should have knocked first,’ Frankie muttered to Drew, before the enormous beast roared again.

  ‘I’m wearing my smelliest underwear!’ cried Drew in sheer desperation, hoping the thought of chewing on skid-marked undies would put the beast off eating him.

  Drew and Frankie screamed just as Saint Lou finished programming the remote control. All of a sudden there was a zipping noise, like the sound of someone whooshing along a flying fox, and Frankie felt himself being pulled at top speed back through time.

  There was a burst of purple light and before they knew it, Frankie, Drew and the Sonic Suitcase landed in a crumpled heap in the middle of the Dr Seuss book collection, sending a floury cloud over Lou’s furious face.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE EXTREMELY SHORT TRIAL OF THE TWO PRANK KiNGS

  When Frankie opened his eyes, he could hardly believe them.

  The entire front area of the library, including the loans desk and the Book Week display, was covered in white powder.

  ‘I am going to ask you one last time,’ Saint Lou said in the most serious of all her serious voices. She looked very upset. ‘Did you do this?’

  ‘Why would I want to make the library look like it’s covered in snow?’ Frankie said. It didn’t help Frankie’s plea of innocence that Drew started giggling. ‘I didn’t do it, Lou. Not that you’ll believe me.’

  Saint Lou looked hurt. ‘Why do you always think the worst of me, Frankie? All I ever do is stick up for you and get you out of trouble. But you’re never even a bit grateful. Just yesterday when you put salt in the sugar bowl I convinced Dad that salty coffee was trending right now, and that he was officially a hipster. But did you say thanks? No – you just called me a goody-goody.’