: Ross Montgomery
: The Tornado Chasers
: Faber& Faber
: 9780571298433
: 1
: CHF 5.70
:
: Kinderbücher bis 11 Jahre
: English
: 320
: Wasserzeichen
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
When Owen Underwood's family move to Barrow, it's because there's nowhere safer in the Valleys - and safety is very important. Especially when the threat of tornadoes, and giant bears, is constant. But in Barrow, safety is taken to extremes. Children have to wear bright yellow at all times and are never allowed outside except to go to school. How can Owen face an entire summer of that? In secret, Owen and his friends form the Tornado Chasers. Their mission: to get as close to a Grade 5 tornado as possible. It's time for them to face their fears! And then... And then... The second hilarious, thought-provoking, highly original book from an extraordinary young talent - you've never read a novel like it!

Ross Montgomery is a primary school teacher and he writes his books when he really should have been marking homework. Author of Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door and The Tornado Chasers, Ross has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Award and nominated for the Branford Boase Award. Perijee& Me was his third middle-grade novel. Ross lives in Brixton, London.

MY NAME IS OWEN UNDERWOOD,
I AM 11 YEARS OLD TODAY,
AND THIS IS THE WORST BIRTHDAY
OF MY LIFE.

The last sentence I wrote in my diary, before it all happened.

To be fair it was theonly sentence I wrote in my diary. The other pages I just left blank, and they stayed that way right up until the police searched my room weeks later and stamped the word ‘EVIDENCE’ on the front in red ink. I didn’t have time to write down anything else, of course, because of everything that happened that night.

I was lying under my bed, which was wrapped with chicken wire and surrounded by several dozen sandbags. This was in case the tornado ripped the roof off the house, or threw a boulder through the wall, or a ravenous bear broke the shutters and tried to climb through the window – which is why my parents had also given me a can of bear repellent. I hadn’t used it yet, which was a relief because it had a label on the side that said the spray made you go blind if you inhaled it.

You might be wondering why I had a can of bear repellent, or why my bed was wrapped in chicken wire and sandbags. Maybe you don’t live in a village like Barrow. Consider yourself lucky. When my parents told me just a few weeks before that we were moving to Barrow because of the tornado warning, I was pretty confused. No one in Skirting had ever seemed bothered about the storms. There hadn’t been one in the valleys for over ten years. If we moved, I’d have to leave all my friends behind, and my school, right before the summer holidays. Mum and Dad said they had no choice – Barrow was the only safe place left to live in the valleys. And that made me evenmore confused.

What was there to be afraid of in the valleys?

And that was when they told me about the bear attacks.

‘OWEN!’

The shout came from behind my bedroom door. I startled, and smacked my head on the underside of the bed. Luckily I was wearing my crash helmet.

(I probably should have mentioned this earlier.)

I suffer from something called startling. Every time something happens that I don’t expect – like a loud noise or a sudden movement – I lose control of my body for a bit. I’ve had it all my life. It’s why I have to wear a helmet all the time. Luckily people are very understanding about it. At least, they were before I moved to Barrow.

I clambered out from under the bed, shaking the twitch out of my neck.

‘Y-yes, Dad?’

‘Your dinner’s ready,’ came his voice from the other side of the door.

I glanced around my bedroom. There wasn’t much to look at. No toys, books, posters – nothing. All that was left was the bed, a single