The Boy Who Was Afraid of Heights & Barnaby Cole: Detective!

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She steered her canoe expertly into the centre channel and immediately Tom followed. He felt the water grip his canoe and rush it along. He gasped and tried to slow himself with his paddle, but it was no use. The canoe swept between two huge rocks, plunged down a short rapid and ended up in a big calm pool.
Suzy was right beside him, and she grinned at him. ‘Bet that had you worried,’ she said.
‘Not a bit.’
‘Liar, you almost overturned.’
‘I was perfectly safe, thank you,’ he said coldly.
‘So, you didn’t really need me, then?’
‘I’m sure I would have managed,’ he said, stung by her attitude.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah!’
‘Well, manage this then.’ She gave his canoe what seemed a slight push with her paddle and immediately his canoe turned turtle. Tom found himself sitting upside down in the water, then he started to fall out. Tom could swim quite well, so he dived down right under Suzy’s canoe and came up on the other side. She was staring down into the water making sure he’d got out.
‘Looking for me?’ Tom chirped. Then he gave her canoe a push and she went over as well. Suzy’s canoe stayed upside down for a second, then it turned the right way up again as she demonstrated a perfect Eskimo roll. The grin was still on her face, the only difference was that now it was framed by soaking wet hair.
‘Very flash, I bet you can’t do that again,’ Tom said, treading water. Suzy took a deep breath and rolled over again. Only this time, Tom put his hand on the bottom of the canoe so she couldn’t roll upright. After a moment she surfaced beside him, gasping like a guppy.
‘Ratbag,’ she spluttered, but she didn’t seem put out.
‘Well, you told me to do everything you did,’ Tom said, swimming to his canoe. ‘You seem to have got rather wet,’ he added, unable to resist the wisecrack.
‘It was worth it to see you laugh,’ she said, good-naturedly.

Description

The Boy Who Was Afraid of Heights: Tom is sent to an adventure holiday centre in Cornwall at the last minute where all the other kids know one another. He feels out of place at first especially when he is the only one who can’t abseil down the cliff. But then Suzy befriends him and Suzy is very adventurous and can do everything: canoe, rock climb, swim, navigate in the dark…anything! Tom has to fight hard just to keep up with her. As he is gradually accepted by the other children he gets to join in all the fun of the holiday with the tricks the boys and girls play on each other and the night raids. But there is something more sinister going on in the middle of the night at the small lake down the road and Tom allies himself with Suzy to find out exactly what!

 

Barnaby Cole: Detective! Barnaby Cole’s passion is detective stories and Barnaby wants to be a detective but the problem is he’s not very good at it and all the other children in school make fun of him. There’s more important things going on at school though because the children all want to earn some money to send Geoff away on a gymnastic course. Rallied by the incredible Jessica they all put on a fete that raises much more than they intended and they are left with the problem of what to do with the extra money. But someone is stealing lunches from the locker room and Barnaby bets everybody he will find the culprit. But he’s still not very good at it: he gets locked in his own locker, he has his own lunch stolen and finally covers the Headmistress with soot!