Wonderfully Wacky Families Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  My Uncle Wal the Werewolf

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1 Buster Rebels

  CHAPTER 2 Be a Human!

  CHAPTER 3 Buster Sets Out

  CHAPTER 4 Down off Werewolf Mountain

  CHAPTER 5 A Red-haired Detective

  CHAPTER 6 Detective Prunella

  CHAPTER 7 The Search Begins

  CHAPTER 8 Bum Sniffing

  CHAPTER 9 Back to Werewolf Mountain

  CHAPTER 10 Back to the Tower

  CHAPTER 11 Searching for Uncle Wal

  CHAPTER 12 The Factory

  CHAPTER 13 The Trap

  CHAPTER 14 Cages!

  CHAPTER 15 Partners

  My Gran the Gorilla

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1 Dinner with Gran

  CHAPTER 2 The Problem with Gran

  CHAPTER 3 School with Linda

  CHAPTER 4 Gran Comes to School

  CHAPTER 5 Into the Bush

  CHAPTER 6 The Wombat’s Story

  CHAPTER 7 Asking Linda

  CHAPTER 8 Tracking Mr Pifflewhiskers

  CHAPTER 9 Trapped

  CHAPTER 10 Down the Dark Muddy Hole

  CHAPTER 11 Gran Arrives

  CHAPTER 12 Discovery by Mr Pifflewhiskers

  CHAPTER 13 Discovery

  CHAPTER 14 The Elephant

  CHAPTER 15 The Poachers

  CHAPTER 16 Rescue

  CHAPTER 17 A Happy Ending with an Elephant and a Gorilla and a Slug too

  My Auntie Chook the Vampire Chicken

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1 A Vampire’s Happy Birthday

  CHAPTER 2 The Best Present in the World

  CHAPTER 3 Fang

  CHAPTER 4 Gone

  CHAPTER 5 Cousin Snot’s Great Idea

  CHAPTER 6 All Alone

  CHAPTER 7 Auntie Chook

  CHAPTER 8 Auntie Chook’s Story

  CHAPTER 9 The Plan

  CHAPTER 10 A Good Meal for Vampires

  CHAPTER 11 Toads

  CHAPTER 12 A Clue

  CHAPTER 13 Finding a Disguise

  CHAPTER 14 To the Rescue

  CHAPTER 15 Into the Cave

  CHAPTER 16 The Mystery of the Sea Cave

  CHAPTER 17 Down in the Caves

  CHAPTER 18 No Way Out

  CHAPTER 19 How Can We Escape?

  CHAPTER 20 Help!

  CHAPTER 21 Things Are Different Now

  My Pa the Polar Bear

  Dedication

  CHAPTER 1 The Skinniest Bear in the Zoo

  CHAPTER 2 The Zoo Family

  CHAPTER 3 A Cruise with Pa

  CHAPTER 4 A Polar Bear on Board

  CHAPTER 5 The Flying Ship

  CHAPTER 6 Look at the Bears!

  CHAPTER 7 Trapped!

  CHAPTER 8 Off with the Bears

  CHAPTER 9 The Elf Policeman

  CHAPTER 10 Off with the Flying Reindeer

  CHAPTER 11 The Girl with Green Eyes

  CHAPTER 12 A Fuzzy Hero

  CHAPTER 13 Lunch with Legsie

  CHAPTER 14 Hunting for Bears

  CHAPTER 15 Danger!

  CHAPTER 16 Saved by the Bears

  CHAPTER 17 A Totally Bearable Solution

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  My Uncle Wal the Werewolf

  To Lewis, here’s another one for you.

  Much love, Aunty Jacq

  To the Hayes Pack

  S.M.K.

  CHAPTER 1

  Buster Rebels

  It was the fattest, juiciest rat Buster had ever seen, and it was scampering across the grass in front of the Tower as though it hadn’t a care in the world. The rat smelled like guts and garbage. Buster drooled. He hadn’t realised he was hungry!

  Snap! Buster’s jaws closed round the hairy body. Crunch!

  Sweet…

  It was just as juicy as he’d thought it would be. There was nothing like a fat rat when you’d been sniffing your way across an entire mountain, decided Buster, settling down in the middle of the lawn to munch the bones. Things never seemed as bad with a rat in your belly!

  ‘Buster? What are you doing?’

  Buster gulped the last of the rat guiltily. ‘Nothing, Aunty Paws!’ he yelled.

  ‘You’re not spoiling your dinner, are you?’ called his aunt.

  ‘Me? No way!’ yelled Buster, dropping the rat’s tail and sitting on it, as Aunty Paws trotted out the Tower door.

  ‘Where have you been?’ demanded Aunty Paws worriedly. ‘It’s just not safe on the mountain now! You haven’t been hunting for your parents, have you? You know what Uncle Wal said!’

  ‘Me? No! Of course not,’ said Buster innocently, licking a dribble of rat guts off his fur.

  ‘Look at you!’ Aunty Paws sat back on her haunches and sighed. ‘You’ve got rat juice on your tummy. And Uncle Wal has told you a hundred times: “Change when you come home!”’

  ‘It was just one rat,’ protested Buster. ‘Just one tiny little rat. Here,’ he offered. He picked up the rat’s tail in his mouth, stood up and offered it to Aunty Paws.

  Aunty Paws gazed longingly at the rat’s tail, then crunched it quickly in her strong jaws. ‘You know Uncle Wal doesn’t like us eating rats,’ she said guiltily, swallowing the last of the tail. ‘Why don’t you have a nice bowl of broccoli with peanut butter? Or I could make you a porridge sandwich. They’re good human foods!’

  ‘I hate broccoli!’ protested Buster. ‘And porridge doesn’t have any guts in it. Anyway, you don’t like broccoli. And you haven’t Changed either,’ he pointed out.

  Aunty Paws sighed again, her long tongue hanging out. ‘We’d better both Change,’ she agreed. ‘Uncle Wal will be upset if he comes home and we don’t look human.’

  Buster felt his tail droop between his legs. Things had been so different since Mum and Dad disappeared two weeks before, and Uncle Wal took over the werewolf pack.

  Dad had been the biggest, strongest werewolf on the whole of Black Mountain—except for Mum. Mum was even bigger, with golden fur and a tail like a broom.

  Mum didn’t mind how many rats you ate, as long as you saved some guts for her, thought Buster sadly, as he and Aunty Paws trotted back into the Tower. Dad had shown him how to snap flies out of the air, crunch the fleas that bit your tail, and find the smelliest cow pats to roll in so the deer couldn’t pick up your scent.

  But Mum and Dad had vanished, totally and utterly. One day they’d been there at breakfast, chewing their bones. And then they’d gone out for a run and never come back.

  Buster, Uncle Flea and Aunty Paws had searched everywhere, trying to follow Mum and Dad’s scent on every tree or leaf pile till Uncle Wal ordered them to leave the hunt to him. Uncle Wal was still looking for them, he told the others, every chance he got. But there’d never been the faintest sniff of Buster’s parents again.

  And that meant Uncle Wal was leader. And he’d changed.

  Uncle Wal had always been good at pretending he was human. He even had a car—you had to be really good at being human to drive a car. He brought Buster human-type presents too, like balls and remote-controlled cars that went ‘crunch’ when you caught them.

  But now Uncle Wal kept insisting that everyone else had to try to be human too, thought Buster indignantly, lifting his leg to widdle on the Tower doorpost. Totally human, not just some of the time!

  ‘Buster!’ growled Aunty Paws warningly.

  Buster stopped mid widdle, his leg still up in the air.

  ‘But, Aunty!’ he protested. ‘Someone has to widdle on the doorpost! How will anyone know we live here, if we don�
��t mark our doorposts?’

  ‘Uncle Wal says we can only widdle in the bathroom!’ said Aunty Paws sadly, scratching her ear with her hind paw. ‘There’s hardly anything to widdle on in a bathroom! And there’s…’ Aunty Paws shuddered, ‘a bath in there! Uncle Wal says humans never widdle on doorposts.’ Aunty Paws shook her head. ‘Poor things. How do they know who’s been in and out if they don’t leave a bit of widdle?’

  ‘Dad used to widdle on the doorpost every day! And on the rose bushes!’ protested Buster, his leg still in the air. ‘Dad said werewolf rule number one is: Learn how to produce enough widdle to cover everything in your territory every day! Uncle Wal can go bite my bu—’

  Buster froze, the last yellow drops of widdle scattering to the ground, as Uncle Wal’s car zoomed up the Tower driveway. Dad had said that cars were only

  good for two things—for riding in with your head out the window and your ears flying in the breeze, and for chasing. But Uncle Wal liked driving a car.

  ‘Uh-oh!’ Buster gazed around hurriedly. ‘Hide!’ he hissed to Aunty Paws. ‘Before he sees that we haven’t Changed!’

  Buster and Aunty Paws darted behind the door as the car drew to a stop. Buster peered out, then his tail droop even further. Only Uncle Wal was in the car. So he hadn’t found Mum or Dad! Every day he just kept hoping…

  Uncle Wal got out. He looked totally human in his green suit and thongs and baseball cap, thought Buster disgustedly. Uncle Wal could at least have widdled on the baseball cap, he decided, to give it a good wolf-like smell!

  Uncle Wal smelled of talcum powder these days. He’d even started to use aftershave! What sort of a wolf used aftershave?

  Uncle Wal looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes. He looked around, his nostrils widening suspiciously.

  ‘Who’s been widdling on that doorpost!’ snarled Uncle Wal. He bent down and sniffed again.

  ‘Buster!’ he roared, ‘I can smell it was you! Come out here this minute!’

  Buster slunk out from behind the door, his tail between his legs. Uncle Wal never used to get as cross as this! ‘Hello, Uncle Wal,’ he muttered. ‘Um, did you find any scent of Mum and Dad?’ he added hopefully.

  ‘No. And Change when I’m talking to you!’ growled Uncle Wal.

  Buster gritted his teeth. ‘Yes, Uncle Wal,’ he said obediently. He shut his eyes, nodded his head twice, then…

  It was like a sneeze back to front, with a sort of tickle in between. Buster could feel his tail getting shorter, his ears getting lower, his fur disappearing and his body rising…

  And he was human.

  Suddenly the world was brighter, the colours sharper, and the scents fading.

  Uncle Wal stared at him. ‘And get some clothes on!’ he barked. ‘Humans don’t go naked, boy!’

  Oops. Buster grabbed the doormat and held it in front of himself. At least it felt reassuringly hairy against his skin. It smelled good, too. And it covered the embarrassing bits. Changing from human to wolf was easy—you were covered in fur. But when you Changed into human form there were bald dangly bits exposed!

  ‘That’s better,’ growled Uncle Wal. ‘Now what do you think you’re doing, eh, boy? Widdling on doorposts; prowling around in dog form!’

  ‘I’ve been out on the mountain trying to track Mum and Dad! And I’m not a dog, I’m a wolf!’ muttered Buster. ‘Dad said widdling on posts was part of being a wolf, too! Dad was proud to be a werewolf!’ he added bravely.

  ‘What did I tell you, boy!’ thundered Uncle Wal. ‘You’re not to go roaming around the mountain by yourself any more! It’s my job to hunt for your parents, not yours. Are you the head of the pack now?’

  ‘No, Uncle Wal,’ muttered Buster.

  ‘I didn’t think so!’ Uncle Wal’s nostrils flared as he sniffed the air. ‘And I smell dead rat too!’

  Uncle Wal began to count on his fingers as he listed Buster’s crimes. ‘Not Changing for dinner, widdling on the doorpost, and catching rats. That’s three black marks. You know what happens when you get three black marks, don’t you?’

  Buster looked up in alarm. ‘Not…not…’ he stammered.

  ‘Yes!’ said Uncle Wal dreadfully. ‘A bath!’

  Buster gulped. Not a bath! It took weeks to smell as good as he did! Dad always said make sure you stink was werewolf rule number two. A werewolf could tell everything from the way you smelled. A bath would wash off all that lovely dead-rat pong—and the wallaby droppings he’d rolled in—and that green bubbling…

  ‘Buster didn’t eat the rat.’ Aunty Paws stepped out from behind the door. ‘I ate the rat. I felt hungry,’ she lied courageously. ‘I just can’t get used to broccoli and peanut butter for lunch! And that spaghetti stuff may crunch when you bite the packet but it doesn’t taste of anything, even if you bury it for days!’

  ‘Silence!’ barked Uncle Wal. He gazed at Buster and Aunty Paws, then shook his head. ‘You’re as bad as Buster! Well,’ he added, ‘things are going to be different around here!’

  ‘How?’ asked Buster nervously, clutching the doormat closer to his body.

  ‘It’s just not safe up here on the mountain since your parents disappeared,’ declared Uncle Wal. ‘We’re too isolated! So I’ve come to a decision!’

  ‘What?’ asked Buster nervously.

  ‘I’m putting the Tower on the market,’ growled Uncle Wal.

  ‘But you can’t!’ cried Aunty Paws. ‘It’s our home!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Uncle Wal. ‘But there’s no choice! We’re going to move into town—the whole pack of us. We’re going to learn to be human! And Buster is going to school.’

  School! Buster couldn’t believe it. Werewolves didn’t go to school! Werewolves hunted in the forest and captured their prey and howled on the cliffs at full moon. They didn’t sit at desks doing maths!

  ‘No!’ yelled Buster. ‘It’s not fair!’

  ‘Buster, dear, I’m sure your uncle knows best,’ wavered Aunty Paws.

  ‘He just wants us to be human because he likes being human!’ shouted Buster. ‘But I’m a wolf!’

  ‘If you’re a wolf, boy, you’ll do what your pack leader orders!’ snarled Uncle Wal. ‘Now go get Changed, Paws! And you, boy—get some clothes on!’

  Uncle Wal stomped off, into the Tower.

  CHAPTER 2

  Be a Human!

  Buster let the doormat fall to the ground. ‘He…he can’t mean it,’ he stammered.

  Aunty Paws hung her head. ‘He does.’

  ‘He never used to be like this,’ protested Buster desperately. ‘Was he just pretending to be nice when Mum and Dad were here? We’re werewolves, not humans! And I don’t want to go to school!’

  ‘It’s not easy for him, suddenly being pack leader. And it doesn’t matter if you want to go to school or not. The pack always does what the leader says,’ said Aunty Paws quietly. ‘That’s what being a wolf is all about. You can obey, or you can challenge him. Or you can leave the pack.’

  Aunty Paws moved closer and licked Buster’s ear. ‘And you’re not big enough to challenge Uncle Wal yet. One day you’ll be as big as your father—even bigger maybe. But now…’ Aunty Paws shook her head sadly. ‘We have to do what we’re told.’

  Buster shivered. He wished he was back in wolf form. When you were a wolf you thought mostly about what was happening now—the flea biting your bum or the great pong of a maggotty bone. But when you were human you could imagine what things could be like too easily.

  School! Living in town, with houses around, no feral rabbits to chase, just someone’s guinea pig if he was lucky!

  ‘I’d better go and get dressed,’ he muttered. He bent down and kissed Aunty Paws’ furry neck, then dragged his feet upstairs to his bedroom. If he’d been in wolf form, he’d have bounded up the stairs. But he didn’t dare upset Uncle Wal any further by Changing again.

  Buster’s room was almost at the top of the Tower, just under the battlements where Dad used to lead the pack in their
monthly howl under the full moon. Afterwards they’d all slurp up the sheep guts that Uncle Flea had specially buried so they’d be all ripe and smelly…

  Buster sniffed. It hurt too much to remember the howling parties with Mum and Dad.

  Where were they? How could they have possibly got lost? Mum and Dad knew every scent and every tree on the mountain! And werewolves never got lost—they just followed their scent back home again. It was impossible! But it had happened!

  How could things have gone from being so good, to so bad, in just a few short weeks? thought Buster desperately.

  Buster sniffed. He felt like really howling now, human-type howling with tears and sobs.

  Had Mum and Dad been caught in a trap? Buster had learnt about wolf traps. But if that had happened the werewolves would have been able to smell Mum and Dad’s tracks, and smell whoever had set the trap, too. Uncle Wal was the best tracker the pack had ever had. He could track a mouse across a paddock. But Uncle Wal had told them there’d been no strange smells at all on the mountain.

  How could a pair of werewolves disappear without a trace?

  Maybe aliens had captured them…Buster gave himself a shake. No, this was the real world. But what could have happened?

  Buster sighed and grabbed a pair of boxers and a raincoat out of his wardrobe, and flung them on. There! He was properly dressed as a human. Uncle Wal couldn’t complain now.

  Buster didn’t mind being human sometimes—after all, he was part human, as well as wolf. But he didn’t want to be human all the time!

  What would it be like in a human school? What if he forgot to be human and widdled on the classroom door? Or drank from the urinal, or barked in choir, or sniffed the teacher’s bum? Buster bet they didn’t even have corgi ice blocks at school canteens. Just human stuff like broccoli and peanut butter, or crunchy spaghetti, or raspberry jam and chips. Boring human food…

  He couldn’t be human all the time! He couldn’t!

  Buster flung himself on his bed. It was a round bed, big enough to turn around on six times when he was a wolf, or stretch out on when he was human.