MORNING EDITION

4th OCTOBER
MORE MONKEY
BUSINESS AT
CITY ZOO
Middle Park Zoo remains
UP! UP! AND AWAY!
closed today as zookeepe
regain efforts to get Beryl, an
rs WOMAN’S
orangutan, to return the keys
the main gates that she stole two
to GIGANTIC
evenings ago.
It is reported that she
SNEEZE
distracted her keeper by flinging BLOWS
bananas at him and swiped the
keys without him noticing. The HUSBAND’S
theft was only discovered whe
keepers tried to enter the park
n HAIR OFF
yesterday morning, but foun Full story page 4
d
themselves locked out.
Since she gained control of K. NEIN’S DOG
the zoo, it is reported that Bery
l WALKING SERVICE
has unlocked all the enclosures,
gained entry to the food store FOR BUSY PEOPLE
s
and has got up quite a part
y A pair of Cityville siblings have
atmosphere amongst her fello
w flown into the record
zoo dwellers. books after completing a tennis
match – in mid-air!
ESCAPED PRISONERS A pair of City ville siblings skyscrapers coul
have flown into the record dn’t believe their tap-dancing
STILL AT LARGE their eyes as the daredevil duo routine on
books after completing a a high wire strung between
steamed past their windows
tennis match – in mid-air! two hot air balloons last year.
hitting volley after volley back
Sisters Meredith (57) and The sisters are now planning
and forth between them. Their
Pamela (59) Huffelman from their next exciting challenge.
flight lasted approximately
the Upper East Side took to “We’re not quite sure what
45 minutes with the pair
the skies above the city, and we will do next,” said Pamela.
returning to earth in an
completed the full game, set “We would like to throw
airfield just outside the city.
and match whilst strapped ourselves over a waterfall in a
The sisters have something
to the wings of their biplane. barrel, but we’d need to find
of a track record for daring
Workers in many of the our cagoules first.”
stunts – who could forget

Cityville cops are continuing

to hunt for two prisoners
who broke free from
Cityville County High
Security Jail two nights ago.
Brothers Brian ‘The Brain’
and Rory O’Hoolihan,
who were both serving
life sentences for their
involvement in a series of
very high-profile robberies,
Al Dente’s Restorante Italiano pubCityville area. Police ask the
Little Italy
Bolognese like Mama used to make! CPD
are thought to have escaped
after tunnelling through
the wall of their cell using
teaspoons, then shimmying
MR PENGUIN THE
down the prison wall using
their bedsheets tied together
ADVENTURER AND PENGUIN
POPULAR PLAICE
as a rope.
All Adventures
considered!
24-HOUR DINER!
Speaking to our reporter,
Police Chief No mystery too big PANCAKES! BRUNCH!
Margie
Gunderson believes the
or too small! FISH FINGER SANDWICHES!
brothers are still in the
Competitive prices! OVER 50+ FLAVOURS
lic to remain vigilant and 1 OF ICE CREAM!
if spotted, not to approach
the men, but to contact the
CALL TODAY! FULL MENU SERVED DAILY!
0111-PEN-GUIN
immediately.
(AND NIGHTLY!)

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 ENGUIN
MR. P T T R E AS U RE
O S
THE L

alex t. smith

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 Mr Penguin was a penguin.
If you weren’t sure whether he was or not,
all you had to do was look at him.

He looked like a penguin.

He was all black and white with a little
beak, two flappy flippers and when he
walked, his bottom wiggled about in
exactly the sort of way a penguin’s
bottom should wiggle.

But there was something rather unusual

about Mr Penguin. You see, he wasn’t
JUST a penguin.

He was an Adventurer!
He had the dashing hat, enormous
magnifying glass and a battered satchel
with a nice packed lunch of fish finger
sandwiches inside to prove it.

All he needed now was an adventure

to actually go on…

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 ar mchair adventure
loved an
For Sid, who f a fish finger sandwich)
nd o
(and was fo

HODDER CHILDREN’S BOOKS

First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Hodder and Stoughton
This paperback edition published in 2018

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Text and illustrations copyright © Alex T. Smith, 2017

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly
in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in
writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including
this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

978 1 444 93207 2

Design by Alison Still

Printed and bound in China

The paper and board used in this book are made from wood from
responsible sources.

Hodder Children’s Books

A division of Hachette Children’s Group
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company
6
www.hachette.co.uk

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 c h ap t e r o n e

A L L A DV E N T U R E S
CONSIDERED!

I t was 10.32 on a Monday

morning, and Mr Penguin was
twirling about slowly on his swizzly
office chair and flipping the end of
his beak with a crabstick.
He was bored.

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 MR PENGUIN

10

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 ALL ADVENTURES CONSIDERED!

Today was his first day being a

Professional Adventurer, but it
wasn’t quite going to plan. Yesterday,
he’d placed an advertisement in the
local newspaper and he’d thought
that today his telephone would be
ringing its head off from the moment
he flipped the CLOSED sign on his
office door over to OPEN at 9am.
It was supposed to have been
nonstop Adventures – people ringing
up with mysteries for him to solve,
missing diamonds to find, jungles to
run through under a shower of
poison-tipped darts, and Certain
Death to be very much avoided.
That sort of thing was always going
on in Mr Penguin’s favourite

11

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 MR PENGUIN

Adventure books, which had given

him the idea to be an Adventurer
in the first place.
But this hadn’t been the case
at all.
His telephone had sat tight-
lipped and silent. The only noise
was the squeak, squeak, squeak of
the office chair as it twirled around,
and the low, dreary hum of the fan
on the ceiling of Mr Penguin’s igloo.
This really isn’t good enough,
thought Mr Penguin, trying not to
look at all the unpaid bills pinned
to his notice board.
Setting himself up as an
Adventurer had been a very
expensive business indeed. His

12

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 ALL ADVENTURES CONSIDERED!

special hat with the arrow through

it and the selection of rather jazzy
bow ties had cost a fortune. And
the rent for this igloo was
astronomical! All that was left in
his piggy bank was a bit of fluff and
a paperclip, and the fish finger
sandwich in his refrigerator was his
very last packed lunch.
If he didn’t get an Adventuring
job soon, there would be no more
fish fingers, no more crabsticks and
a lot more grumbly noises coming
from his tummy. It would mean
packing up all his belongings into
his battered old suitcase, and
hopping on the first boat
back to the Frozen South.

13

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 MR PENGUIN

Mr Penguin shuddered at
the memories of stomach-
churning waves and icy winds.
“What I need,” he said, “is for
that phone to ring, and for there
to be a jolly exciting Adventure
on the other end…”
The words were hardly out
of his beak when, would you
believe it, the telephone DID
ring, and it rang VERY loudly!

14

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