Penny Undercover - Chapter 1

Main Characters

Pterodactyl

Penny

Polly

Smudge

Little Mack

Gloop

Mack

Black Texta

Rubber

Sarah

Ralph

Chapter 1

The Pterodactyl

It was unusually quiet in classroom 3B. The only sound was the soft scratch scratch scratching of pencil on paper as the children wrote their creative writing pieces.

All the children had their heads down, writing furiously. All the children, that was, except a little red-haired boy called Ralph.

Ralph sat staring at the blank paper, rolling his pencil backwards and forwards between his thumb and forefinger. He didn’t notice that the pencil was not enjoying this, and had her arms firmly crossed, frowning at him.

Next to Ralph, Ralph’s best friend Sarah had already written a full page. Sarah’s pencil, Polly, took a few quick breaths while Sarah turned the page, then got straight back into the important business of writing.

‘Polly’s so lucky,’ thought Ralph’s pencil, Penny. She watched Polly skim across the page, leaving lines full of words behind her. ‘Come on,’ thought Penny, trying to use pencil telepathy on Ralph. ‘Write something!’

The pencil telepathy didn’t work on Ralph, but the teacher, Mrs Sword, looked up.

‘Oh, no,’ thought Penny as Mrs Sword stood up from her desk and walked along the rows of desks, stopping behind Ralph.

‘Lost for words are you, Ralph?’ asked Mrs Sword.

 ‘I can’t think of anything to write,’ said Ralph.

‘How about a story about a sponge that wears pants?’ suggested Mrs Sword.

Ralph wrinkled his nose.

‘A boy magician?’

Ralph shook his head.

‘A war in outer space?’ said Mrs Sword desperately.

Ralph frowned.

‘I give up,’ said Mrs Sword, throwing up her hands and walking back to her desk.

Ralph watched her go, and thought she looked like a big, old bird, flapping its wings. He suddenly knew what his story would be about.

Ralph clasped Penny tightly. Penny watched excitedly as Ralph dragged her toe across the paper, leaving a trail of words behind her.

It was a sunny day. Too nice for being in school, wrote Ralph.

‘Well, that’s a good start,’ thought Penny, although she disagreed with Ralph, because Penny quite liked school.

Nevertheless, the children in Mrs Sword’s class had to sit inside and do their creative writing lesson.

‘Oh, dear,’ thought Penny, stifling a yawn. ‘I hope something exciting happens soon.’

Suddenly a terrordactle …

Penny paused briefly and looked up at Ralph. That was not the way to spell pterodactyl. Surely Ralph would correct his spelling. But instead of putting Penny down and picking up the rubber, continued writing without noticing his mistake.

… a terrordactle swooped down and grabbed one of the students in its deadly talons.

‘Poor Ralph,’ thought Penny, as Ralph continued moving her across the paper, writing more of the story. ‘He’s been so good at spelling lately. And pterodactyl is a really hard word to spell …’

A muffled sound right next to them made Ralph and Penny both look up. Sarah was reading over Ralph’s shoulder. She had her hand over her mouth, giggling.

‘What?’ said Ralph, the skin between the freckles on his face turning a deep shade of red. Sarah was a lot better at school than Ralph, and although she tried hard not too, sometimes she couldn’t help laughing at his mistakes.

‘Shhh!’ said Mrs Sword, looking at Ralph over the top of her glasses.

Ralph blushed so deeply that the freckles on his face totally disappeared.

‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Sarah, looking carefully in Mrs Sword’s direction, ‘but that’s not how you spell pterodactyl.’

‘Well? How do you spell it then?’ said Ralph a little too loudly, making Mrs Sword look up again.

‘Look it up in the dictionary,’ said Sarah, then burst into such a fit of giggles she had to cup both hands to her mouth to stop the sound escaping.

Ralph grabbed his big, red dictionary and looked through the T’s

‘Terrordactle isn’t there,’ said Ralph throwing the dictionary on the desk with a loud thud!

Mrs Sword looked up sharply and said:

‘Do you have something you’d like to share with the rest of the class, Ralph?’

‘No, Mrs Sword,’ said Ralph in a small voice.

Bert, the mean boy who sat behind Ralph and Sarah, snickered.

Ralph decided to forget about spelling pterodactyl the right way and get on with the rest of the story. He was very proud of the ending: Ralph had made himself the hero, managing to single-handedly fight off the pterodactyl and save the whole school – apart from Bert who was eaten by the prehistoric bird.

‘Once you’ve finished your stories,’ said Mrs Sword, ‘bring them to me then turn to page twenty-seven of your sums books and do numbers one to ten.’

Ralph and Sarah were the first to finish their stories. When they returned to their desks, their pencils had been scattered all over the table and Ralph’s big, red dictionary was lying open on the floor.

Ralph and Sarah looked at Bert

‘What did you do?’ Sarah asked Bert angrily, as Ralph picked the dictionary up off the floor. Some of the pages had been creased.

‘Me?’ said Bert innocently. ‘Nothing.’

As Ralph sat down, Bert bumped his desk hard into Ralph’s chair.

‘Just forget it,’ said Sarah quietly.

Ralph took a deep breath and started on his sums. The bell rang before he was even halfway through.

‘All right children, just leave your things on your desks and you can finish your sums after lunchtime,’ said Mrs Sword.

Sarah leapt up.

‘Come on, Ralph,’ she said impatiently. ‘I’m starving!’

‘So am I,’ said Ralph. ‘But I’m not leaving until he does.’

Sarah looked at Bert who was taking his time putting the lids back on his textas.

‘Look,’ Sarah said. ‘He’s the only one left in the classroom. If he does anything, Mrs Sword will see it!’

‘Okay …’ said Ralph, reluctantly following Sarah out of the classroom.

Extract courtesy of Mercier Press www.mercierpress.ie