Animal Crazy

By Meg Harper

Jenni wants a pet. She also wants to be a saint. So where better to start than by imitating St Francis, patron saint of animals? But all does not go as planned for the `trainee saint'. She causes chaos in the park, at the zoo and at home. Even the vicar declines her offer of a family of homeless `church' mice, but he does help some of her dreams to come true. 

These entertaining stories have underlying themes of family values and encourage positive behaviour and relationships. In the following two books in the series, Jenni has similiar mishaps while trying to imitate other saints renowned for daring deeds and `good works' - both with hilarious results.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lion Children's Bks
• Release date: Nov 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9780745979571

Meg Harper

Meg Harper was a contributor to My Kind of School, the short story anthology edited by Tony Bradman, and has written Stop, Thief!, one of the KS1 White Wolves titles.

Book preview

1

Aiming for the top

When I grow up I want to be a saint. Aim for the top, that’s my motto. I used to want to be the queen until I found out that if you’re not born a princess, you don’t stand a chance. Then I wanted to be prime minister – Dad says I’d be ace at that because all you have to do is talk a load of rubbish – but people have to vote for you. And what if they don’t? Sounds a bit too risky to me.

Then I found out all about saints. I’ve got this Big Book of Saints that my grandpa gave me when I was born. He died when I was only a few months old so Mum’s been saving it till I was old enough to look after it properly.

‘Huh!’ says my dad. ‘You won’t make much money out of being a saint!’ – but then, as he keeps reminding me, ‘Money isn’t everything.’ And who says I’m in it for the money? Anyone can be a saint – even kids! You have to be very holy but you do have the most amazing adventures too. And once you’re a saint, people remember you for ever!

Anyway, what would my dad know about aiming for the top? The nearest he’s got is being stuck up a tree. OK, so that was my fault, but if you’re the father of a saint-in-training, you’ve got to expect life to be a bit different.

The treetop experience started simply enough. You probably know the story of St Francis. He was the one who liked animals. I don’t think it’s actually true that he could understand what animals said – that’s a mix-up with Dr Dolittle or Ace Ventura – but he did talk to them. Animals were his thing (mainly).

Well, I don’t have any animals. Not so much as a hamster or even a goldfish. Frankly, I think this is cruelty to children and just shows what dreadful parents I have. I want a pet. I need a pet. After all, everyone knows that children are supposed to have pets to teach them about interesting things like ‘where babies come from’ and ‘coping with death’, not to mention ‘being caring’. And saints have to know about those things too, so just one measly little pet would be ideal for me. There were simply loads of saints who loved animals – not just St Francis!

One day when we went to the park, I saw my chance. There were bound to be lots of needy animals for me to practise on. It went very well to start with. The first little dog we met was very friendly. Its owner had a chat with my dad while I tickled its tummy and tried out some dog-talk. The next one wasn’t so good. It kept sniffing us in rude places and my dad got all embarrassed. I bet St Francis didn’t have that problem! I tried telling it to behave better but instead it went and did a wee on a nice rose bush. Then we met this fluffy, long-haired thing with a bow in its hair, and its owner wouldn’t let me anywhere near it in case I messed it up! By this stage my dad was getting a bit crabby.

‘What’s all this with stroking every dog we meet?’ he said. ‘Don’t start on that I want a dog stuff again because there’s no way. I know who’d end up having to take it for walks.’

You see what I’m up against? I’m sure St Francis had it a lot easier. Anyway, when we met a Rottweiler, my dad finally lost it. There was nothing wrong with the Rottweiler. It was grinning at us and its owner said it was ever so friendly – that’s why it kept jumping up at my dad –