The Secret Australian Animals Club

By John Champion

The Secret Australian Animals Club tells of a group of animals living together in a major Australian city park. They include a wombat, peacock, frilled neck lizard and many others. Their names reflect each animals character, Sleepy Head, Fancy Pants and Know It All are the names of the ones mentioned above. Each story features a different central character supported by the rest of the group. Stories are essentially moral and children can easily relate to the simple interaction of the characters, their friendship and the adventures they share.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Champion
• Release date: Sep 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476098869

John Champion

The author, John Champion is currently living aboard in Malaysia after a three year stint working in the marine electrics industry in Thailand. A regular writer for sailing magazines he has lived aboard since 1999 and sailed perhaps 22 000 sea miles. Much work in sail training and the charter industry has allowed him to test many dozens of different yachts and catamarans. He now needs a bigger boat so please buy a copy for a friend!

Book preview

The Australian Secret Animals Club

John Champion

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 John Champion

Chapter 1 Lazy Bones is released

Late one night in spring, after everyone had been asleep for a long time a car crept up to Centennial Park, the huge, beautiful parkland and bush reserve in Sydney, Australia.

The car, moving slowly along the fence without any lights, stopped and two people got out. Whispering to each other they opened the boot and carried a large and heavy bag to the fence.

Busy Body, the small and very quick humming bird was dozing in a tree nearby. She was awake in an instant and heard the people speaking. We will finally be rid of this useless creature, said one. Yes, replied the other, no use feeding this lazy bones anymore, he won’t move or do anything!

With these mysterious comments they untied the top of the bag and threw it far over the fence into some bushes, hurried back to the car, got in and drove away.

Very curious, thought Busy Body, I will have something to tell the others tomorrow, and promptly fell asleep again but that was normal for her, humming birds like Busy Body never did anything slowly.

In a few minutes there was a stirring in the bag that the people had thrown into the bushes and it started to move about the ground. Very slowly the top opened a little and the head of a big snake poked cautiously out.

This was Lazy Bones, a python who was captured in the country when asleep and taken to a circus in the city. The animal trainer had tried to make him perform tricks but without any luck as this snake was happiest when comfortably curled up and still.

Frightened by the new surroundings and a little hungry, Lazy Bones glided away from the bag and deep into the bushes to hide. Snakes are very good at hiding and Lazy Bones could lie still for a very long time without moving.

Many hours after the sun had risen, people were beginning to think about having lunch, it was a beautiful day and some decided to have a picnic in the park.

One group of people spread out their blanket quite near where Lazy Bones was hiding and began to