The Hendrix Adventures: Adventure in Athens

By M. Osborne

For the Hendrix family, there’s a whole world out there… waiting to be explored!
If there’s one thing that you need to know about the Hendrix family, it’s that they love to travel! Harvey and Gigi Hendrix (oh… and their dog, Reggie!) Only need the teeniest-tiniest excuse and boom! Off they go on a whirlwind adventure!
Join the hilariously weird Hendrix family as they dive headfirst into the ancient city of Athens!
But what will they find amongst the crumbling ruins?
…hair-raising havoc? …long lost secrets? …awesome adventures?
Definitely!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398424425

M. Osborne

Creator and author of the world’s most exciting new globe-trotting adventure stories, The Hendrix Adventures, M. Osborne is an English WRITER and TEACHER based in Melbourne, Australia. A storyteller, traveller and lover of books, M. Osborne has always loved exploring the globe and learning about the culture, stories and history of the places that he visits. All of his wonderful, whirlwind travels and tours has led him to create the hilarious Hendrix family, who gallivant across the globe, wreaking hysterical havoc along the way. Introducing Mr and Mrs Hendrix, Harvey, Gigi and Reggie: M. Osborne gives you… ‘The Hendrix Adventures!’ Get ready for the journey of a lifetime!

Book preview

About the Author

Creator and author of the world’s most exciting new globe-trotting adventure stories, The Hendrix Adventures, M. Osborne is an English WRITER and TEACHER based in Melbourne, Australia.

A storyteller, traveller and lover of books, M. Osborne has always loved exploring the globe and learning about the culture, stories and history of the places that he visits. All of his wonderful, whirlwind travels and tours has led him to create the hilarious Hendrix family, who gallivant across the globe, wreaking hysterical havoc along the way.

Introducing Mr and Mrs Hendrix, Harvey, Gigi and Reggie: M. Osborne gives you…

‘The Hendrix Adventures!’

Get ready for the journey of a lifetime!

Dedication

To Ash,

The person that every adventure starts with.

Copyright Information ©

M. Osborne 2023

The right of M. Osborne to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, 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.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398413771 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398413788 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398424425 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Chapter One

We’re Going on A Trip!

Blimey, our mum sure can yell, thought Reggie.

Reggie Hendrix stood in the bright, clean kitchen, blinking up into his mother’s annoyed face. Of course, she wasn’t technically his real mother, but as far as the Hendrix family was concerned, she was – and Reggie was just one of the children, even if you might say he was a slightly strange one. With four paws, a wagging tail and standing about two feet tall, Reggie Hendrix was a dog.

You see, some dogs have owners, other dogs have friends, but Reggie had a family – the Hendrix family – and he certainly felt part of it now. He was cowering sheepishly, as Mrs Sarah Hendrix towered over him. She was a tall, athletic woman with blonde hair, which she pulled back into a neat pony-tail. She had kind, but rather pointy, features with warm, hazel eyes. However, the usually soft, loving eyes flashed with annoyance as they glared down at the filthy messes in front of her.

All four of Reggie’s paws were covered in thick, gloopy, brown mud, and were trembling as he backed slowly towards the safety of the fridge door behind him. Reggie wagged his tail left and right, trying to use it to search behind him for somewhere to hide.

I think we might be in for it this time, Reg. Mum doesn’t look too happy, said a hissing whisper from the person standing to Reggie’s left. He glanced his head around to look at his partner in crime. Still slightly flushed with red in his face but otherwise completely covered, head-to-toe, in mud, stood a thin, slightly small for his age, nine-year-old boy. He had a thick quiff of wavy brown hair, which was short at the back and the sides but stuck up in a messy, floppy swoop on the top of his head. Reggie noticed a small, green thicket of leaves lodged in the top of the boy’s curly quiff.

The brown-haired, muddy-clothed boy had a set of brilliant, bright blue eyes that were darting around the kitchen as he muttered to himself.

The door out to the living room? Maybe… The window above the sink? No chance. We’d never make it there without getting caught, and oh no… it’s just started raining outside. Typical. There goes that option. He let out a low groan to Reggie beside him. It looked like Mrs Hendrix really had got them cornered this time.

The boy was thinking fast as he continued to look frantically around the room, desperately searching for an escape route from the telling off that they were about to receive from their mother.

This was Harvey. Harvey Hendrix, to be precise. Reggie’s best friend in the whole world. More than a best friend, in fact – seeing as they shared a room in the same house. Harvey was more like Reggie’s brother, if truth be told… except for the fact that Reggie was a dog and Harvey was a human.

Harvey and Reggie Hendrix were completely inseparable and always had been, which meant that they were always spending their time messing around, laughing together, finding adventures… oh, and finding trouble.

Act… casual, Reggie, Harvey hissed nervously out of the corner of his mouth.

Don’t you even think about making a break for it! said Mrs Hendrix, colour rising into her face rapidly as a vein in her forehead pulsed angrily. You two are not getting away with this one! She stood with one hand firmly on her hip and the other gesturing around frantically. She was moving it around so quickly and erratically as she spoke that if you didn’t know she was in the middle of shouting at Harvey and Reggie, you might’ve thought that she was doing some kind of weird dance. We didn’t mean to, Mum, honest, blurted out Harvey. It was an accident. A gust of wind must’ve caught us and we…

Oh, don’t you dare give me that rubbish! interrupted Mrs Hendrix. You knew perfectly well what you were doing. A ‘gust of wind’ does not take you up to the top of the tallest tree, when I specifically said you are not to climb past the crooked branch in the middle of it!

She had them there. The familiar flush of red rushed back into Harvey’s cheeks – always the giveaway when Harvey knew he’d been caught doing something wrong. Harvey could’ve been the best liar or bluffer in the world, could’ve talked himself out of anything, and yet he would still get found out immediately because of his rosy, slightly chubby, truth-telling cheeks.

Noticing this guilty sign, Reggie immediately took over glancing around the room for an escape route – determined to not look his mother straight in the eye. It really was amazing, Reggie thought to himself. Mrs Hendrix was one of the kindest, most caring people that you could ever meet, and yet she had an uncanny ability to strike fear into her family with the slightest change in tone of her voice. Even Peter Hendrix – her husband, their father – found the you’re getting told off voice absolutely terrifying. Maybe it’s just a gift that all mums have. Reggie nodded to himself. That must be it.

You could’ve broken your necks! What were you thinking? Mrs Hendrix went on.

Harvey opened his mouth to answer, but then seemed to lose the words on the way to his lips, as he then closed it again without making a sound. He looked a bit like a fish, thought Reggie.

He knew exactly what was going through Harvey’s mind. How do I not make this sound too bad, so that we don’t get in too much trouble? Reggie had to admit, they did seem to be a bit cornered this time.

Reggie and Harvey had always loved playing outside, ever since they were very young. If the sun was out, then so were they. They had always been able to come up with endless games to keep themselves busy that would keep them outside for hours and hours on end. Despite Harvey’s skinny, knobbly arms and legs, he was surprisingly strong, which meant that he was particularly good at climbing things; and Reggie was proud to say that he wasn’t too shabby himself. In fact, it had become a running joke in the Hendrix household that Harvey and Reggie might be part baboon, they spent that much time in the trees.

Unfortunately, it had been precisely because of this, that today they found themselves in such trouble.

They had been messing about in the sunny garden, as normal, when Reggie had started to climb one of the trees that surrounded the edge of the garden. It had started innocently enough, Harvey had jumped up to join his friend in the trees and both Harvey and Reggie had continued to climb, higher and higher, branch to branch… then up to the next one… then up to the next one after that… then they had started to get competitive.

Bet you can’t get up to the top of the biggest one! Harvey had said.

Reggie let out a bark of laughter, as if to say ‘Piece. Of. Cake’. Reggie leapt up, biting down on the branches and swinging himself forwards, deeper into the thickets. Not wanting to miss out on the fun, Harvey quickly set off in pursuit of Reggie. No sooner had it started, than it had become a race to the top of the tallest tree. This regularly happened when it came to Reggie and Harvey. It always ended up snowballing into a contest or race of some kind.

They hurtled between branches, bustling each other out of the way. They raced up and up and up. Higher and higher into the treetops. It had all been going remarkably well, really. That is, until there was a deafening ‘CRAAACK!’

As Reggie and Harvey closed in on one of the very top branches of the tallest tree, sending birds scattering in every direction absolutely terrified of the two lunatics haring towards them, they had both reached out for the same branch. But it had been too much for the spindly, gnarled twig. It had snapped clean in half and sent Reggie and Harvey careering back down to earth.

Harvey yelled.

Reggie howled.

They fell like stones back down through the branches, bouncing from thicket to thicket of leaves until they plunged, semi-softly, into a large hedge at the base of the tree with a muffled ‘FLUMP!’ They both fell about, laughing hysterically on the muddy grass until they heard something that made them jump to their feet, poker still like statues.

HARVEY! REGGIE! Get in here this instant!

So, there they stood, filthy, sweating and breathing heavily in the kitchen, waiting to hear what punishment they were going to be sentenced to by the all-powerful Judge Sarah Hendrix. She wasn’t really a judge of course, but in the moment, it certainly felt like she was.

Harvey and Reggie glanced at each other as quickly as they dared. Harvey had come to his decision. He’d thought of a plan. There was nothing else for it… beg! He dropped down to his knees, splattering mud all over the grey, kitchen tiles. Reggie and Mrs Hendrix both jumped out of the foul, filthy spray with a start, narrowly avoiding getting covered in the dirt.

Oh, sweet, wonderful mother of mine!

Reggie stifled a laugh as Harvey launched into his begging.

We are so very, very sorry. How could we have been so stupid? Oh, what fools we are! Forgive us clever mother dearest! Harvey wailed over the sound of loud, and completely fake, sobs.

Reggie watched as his mother rolled her eyes. Harvey, realising that