The Dodo Made Me Do It by Jo Simmons

Author:Jo Simmons [Simmons, Jo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408877784
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

TORN

Danny slept fitfully that night. He had bad dream after bad dream. He dreamed he was running down a corridor that kept getting longer. Then he dreamed that Fat Hamaway came back after years under the floorboards and was the size of a hippo with giant beaver teeth. And then, worst of all, he dreamed that the dodo flew out of his granny’s outbuilding and went on the rampage, eating chickens, snatching Roddy Aye’s knitting needles, and shredding Wee Jimmie’s red woolly hat with his bare claws …

Sadly, waking up didn’t offer much relief from the nightmares.

‘Squawk!’

The dodo! It was like yesterday morning repeating itself all over again. Luckily, Granny Flora now slept without her hearing aid, but even so, this racket had to stop.

Danny ran across the farmyard and opened the outbuilding doors. He paused for a second, blinking and rubbing his eyes. Had it snowed? Inside? The outbuilding was covered in white: mountains of white! He stepped cautiously in. The white mounds crumpled and rustled under his feet. Not snow, but newspaper! A blizzard of shredded newspaper, all over the outbuilding!

‘What have you been doing?’ Danny hissed.

He couldn’t see the dodo, but he could see what he had done. He’d knocked over a huge tower of old newspapers and ripped them to ribbons!

‘You’ve shredded the lot!’ said Danny. ‘How am I going to clear this up?’

He waded through drifts of newspaper until he was standing by the cubby. It was full to the top with shredded paper. Danny couldn’t see the dodo but he could hear him rustling inside. Suddenly, the dodo’s head popped out. He was holding a single sheet of newspaper in his beak.

‘What’s that?’ Danny asked. ‘Can I see?’

The dodo pulled his head back a bit.

‘I want to see what you’re holding,’ Danny said. ‘You’ve shredded everything else, but not that one page. What is it?’

He reached his hand out slowly, but the dodo flapped his stubby wings angrily, sending a storm of shredded paper up into the air and across the floor. Danny leaped back and fell into the lopsided armchair.

‘OK, I get it!’ he said. ‘That piece of newspaper is really important to you!’

Most of the paper had blown away now and he could see the dodo clearly. He stared defiantly at Danny for a second then dropped the newspaper and stood on it firmly.

Danny eased himself off the chair and, reaching out his hand, began to lean in towards the paper the dodo was standing on. The dodo squawked, then yanked at the string of washers Danny had hung from the bamboo cane above the cubbyhole, snapping it. Hundreds of rusty washers tumbled to the ground. The dodo picked one up and flung it at Danny. This was like cracker Frisbee, but this time played with small metal rings.

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