Laura's Revenge: Laura McNaughty Adventures, #1

By Simon Dudley

Welcome to the Laura McNaughty Adventures. The stories are suitable for all age groups, from kids of all levels, to teens and adults too. It's just good family reading. And the books can be read in any order as the stories stand alone.

 

Laura's Revenge is the first of the Laura McNaughty Adventures Books where you meet Laura and her family and friends for the first time. You will also be introduced to some of the more colourful characters she encounters in her adventures and conflicts.

 

Simon Dudley's, beautifully written and charmingly portrayed, children's adventure book series is a pleasure to read. The lost and nearly forgotten years of 1950's childhood can be experienced within these pages as the author cleverly immerses you into their world. This is a real treat for any reader, young or old, who fancies a bit of time travel back to when kids could literally be kids.

 

Laura McBean lives in the middle cottage of three with her brother Johnny and her mum on the edge of Stokey's Woods. Laura was quite a mischievous girl when she was growing up, and that is how she got the nickname of Laura McNaughty. She doesn't get into as much mischief now because she is that little bit older; but if she finds out that someone has been cruel to animals then that person, whoever he or she maybe, will have Laura and her friends to contend with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon Dudley
• Release date: May 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393754923

Book preview

Laura’s Revenge

Simon Dudley

LAURA’S REVENGE is the first of the Laura McNaughty Books where you meet Laura and her family and friends for the first time. You will also be introduced to some of the more colourful characters she encounters in her adventures and conflicts. The stories are set in the 1950s, which probably was, the last decade where kids in the U.K. had the freedom to roam and play outdoors to their heart's content.

Laura lives in the middle cottage of three with her brother Johnny and her mum on the edge of Stokey's Woods. Laura was quite a mischievous girl when she was growing up, and that is how she got the nickname of Laura McNaughty. She doesn't get into as much mischief now because she is that little bit older, but if she finds out that someone has been cruel to animals then that person, whoever he or she maybe, will have Laura and her friends to contend with.

Books in the series:

Laura’s Revenge

Strangers In The Woods

The Injured Deer

Windy Corner

Fun in the Harbour

Copyright © 2014 Michael J Holland

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author.

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LAURA'S REVENGE is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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1

Mum, There’s somebody at the door

See who it is, please, said Mrs McBean, who was busy scrubbing the kitchen floor.

All right, Johnny shouted, as he ran down the stairs from his bedroom.

It's Constable Beaky, he whispered, slightly out of breath after his dash from the front door to the kitchen. "He wants to talk to you, and he was asking if Laura was at home.

Show him into the back room, please, and stop calling him, Beaky. How many times do I have to tell you? It's rude to call people names.

At least I don't call him The Aardvark like some of the boys.

Shush, he might hear you. The poor man can't help it if he has a big nose.

It's more than big, mum, it's huge, and it's got big red spots on the end. Paul's dad reckons it's because he drinks too much whisky.

Well Paul’s dad should know better than to say things like that. Now off you go and take him to the back room. And Johnny, no earwigging. You know what happens to nosy parkers.

Johnny smiled at his mum and made a bolt for the front door to let the constable in and take him to the backroom.

The large old-fashioned bay widow to the left of the door as you walk into the back room has enormous panes of glass, and the sunlight just floods in. Apart from his own bedroom, this is Johnny's favourite room in the cottage. He likes to read his books, curled up on the settee, and bask in the warm sunshine.

His own bedroom doesn’t get much natural light during the spring and summer months because the leaves of two big conker trees in the front garden keep his bedroom in the shade.

Hello Constable, said Mrs McBean, please sit down and make yourself comfortable. Would you like some tea?

No thank you. I just popped round to have a word with Laura, but your son tells me she’s out playing.

Yes, that's right. She's out with the dog, but she’ll be home for tea if you would like to come back about five o’clock.

Mrs McBean, Beany to her close friends, was nervous and a bit fidgety when the village constable came to the house because it was always following a complaint made to him about something Laura had done or was supposed to have done.

She was nicknamed Laura McNaughty by some of the village folk because she used to be quite a mischievous girl when she was younger, and for this reason she often got the blame for things she didn't do.

One old man in particular would blame the weather on Laura if he could, and all because he ended up with a sore nose and a badly bruised back side one slippery day last winter. But that time, it really was Laura's fault