Morgan and the Millipede

By Write-a-Book-in-a-Day

Ever since he lost his leg to cancer young Morgan has lived a lonely life, ignored by his classmates, absorbed by his scientific studies of millipedes and with a cat named Ginger his only friend. But when a strange accident in the laboratory results in Morgan meeting an extraordinary millipede named Limpy, it appears that he has a new friend.

However, things are not as they first seem. After Ginger goes missing, Morgan realises that a terrible monster is on the loose at Pritchard Grammar School. Even with the help of Sally, an amazing visitor from the remarkable planet of Ur, will Morgan be able to win a race against the clock and defeat the danger that confronts him... and the world?

Recommended for readers aged 10-14 years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write-a-Book-in-a-Day
• Release date: Apr 24, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465891945

Write-a-Book-in-a-Day

Hospital Books is a collection of books by The Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre to stimulate writing, to write children's books for children's hospital libraries.

Book preview

Morgan and the Millipede

'Quite frankly, this is the best book ever written about a boy named Morgan, a millipede named Limpy, a cat called Ginger and an alien girl from the planet Ur named Sally' – The Ur Daily Express

'Superb! 5 stars!' – Ginger the Cat

'I’d give my 998th leg for another story this good!' – Limpy the Millipede.

Morgan and the Millipede

by

Carol Astbury, Nigel Barker, Nadine Browne, Michelle Edmonds, Phil Mayne, Tim Nelson and Sarah Ryan

Published by Write-a-Book-in-a-Day at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2011 Individual Authors

This book is available in print from [e-mail]

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About this Work

Morgan and the Millipede is a collaborative work by:

Carol Astbury, Nigel Barker, Nadine Browne, Michelle Edmonds, Phil Mayne, Tim Nelson and Sarah Ryan, all members of the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre Thursday Night Group. It is a product of the KSP’s annual Write-A-Book-In-A-Day Competition, designed to benefit Children’s Hospitals in Australia, wherein the authors were presented with:

Two primary characters (a naturalist and a spacetraveller)

A non-human character (a millipede)

A setting (a school)

An issue (the loss of a limb)

They were then given one day in which to write a short book using all of those elements.

Contents

Chapter 1 Simultaneous Explosions

Chapter 2 Voices3

Chapter 3 Space Traveller

Chapter 4 Sally Meets Morgan

Chapter 5 Sally Wins Morgan Over

Chapter 6 The Story of Ur

Chapter 7 Green Slime

Chapter 8 How Do We Stop It?

Chapter 9 Run Away!

Chapter 10 Not Enough Water

Chapter 11 The Bridge

Chapter 12 Farewell

Chapter 13 Limpy’s Legacy53

Chapter 1 Simultaneous Explosions

The flash of light was possibly worse than the noise of the explosion, sending glass test-tubes shattering across the room. Morgan slowly wiped green slime from his safety glasses and stepped backwards, shattered test tubes crunching under his shoes. The smell was revolting, somehow managing to include rotten eggs and black bean sauce.

It seemed like a good idea at the time: test the strength of a millipede’s ‘armour’ with tiny drops of chemicals. Now the broken pipette fell from his blackened fingers, and Morgan couldn’t remember what liquid had actually caused the explosion.

He didn’t know it, but exactly the same experiment (and explosion) had taken place a long way away. The odds were about a billion to one that exactly the same amount of the same chemical was being dropped onto the same segment of a millipede’s back at the same time.

Morgan wasn’t like all the other students at Pritchard Grammar. He could hear his classmates playing footy on the oval nearby while waiting for the bus. He used to sit on the sidelines, hoping someone would speak to him, trying to fit in, but to the other twelve year old boys he was invisible. As he slowly turned deep pink with sunburn, despite the hat