Katie Tsang - Sam Wu is NOT Afraid of Sharks!

195 First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN Text copyright © 2018 Katie Tsang and Kevin Tsang Illustration copyright © 2018 Nathan Reed Additional interior illustrations copyright © 2018 Egmont Ltd ISBN 978 1 4052 8752 4 eISBN 978 1 4052 9364 8 www.egmont.co.uk A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library 67431/001 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 publisher and copyright owner. Stay safe online. Any website addresses listed in this book are correct at the time of going to print. However, Egmont is not responsible for content hosted by third parties. Please be aware that online content can be subject to change and websites can contain content that is unsuitable for children. We advise that all children are supervised when using the internet. Egmont takes its responsibility to the planet and its inhabitants very seriously. All the papers we use are from well-managed forests run by responsible suppliers.

CHAPTER 1

MY hIsTORy AS A

CeRTIfIeD, DefInIteLY nOT

AfraID

GhoST

-HUNTeR

My name is Sam Wu and I am NOT afraid of sharks. Or ghosts. Or anything else, no matter what a certain someone – that someone being Ralph Philip Zinkerman

the Third – might tell you. And whatever anyone tells you, I am NOT Scaredy-Cat Sam.

You might have heard about my

adventures with some ghosts. They started

1

in the

Space Museum

and then everything snowballed from there. 1

Anyway, I’ve established that I’m NOT

afraid of ghosts. NOT even the Ghost

King, who is the number one bad guy in

the entire universe. I know this from my

favourite show,

There was a ghost in my house and we –

that’s me and my friends Zoe and Bernard –

had to find it and chase it out of my house.

1I recently realized that when people say ‘snowballed’ they don’t

really mean an actual snowball like you’d throw at an enemy. They

mean an AVALANCHE. Which sounds terrifying. NOT that I’m

afraid of avalanches.

See,

totally

NOT

scared!

True story. 2We even have the

ghost-hunter certificates to

prove it.

Back to me being brave.

2This story might NOT be 100 per cent true, but don’t tell Ralph

Philip Zinkerman that. Or his twin sister Regina.

I’m so brave that my sidekick is an actual,

genuine, man-eating snake named Fang. 3

I thought that by proving I

wasn’t afraid of ghosts nobody

would call me Scaredy-Cat Sam

any more. I was wrong.

It was just the beginning of

proving how NOT afraid I am.

3Fang doesn’t actually have fangs, and I’ve also

never seen him eat a man, but that isn’t important.

The important thing is that Fang is an actual snake

and he’s my very scary sidekick. NOT scary to me,

scary to everyone else. Except to my little sister

Lucy, who is apparently not afraid of anything.

Because aftEr tHe

GHOsTs...

CAme tHe

SHArkS!

5

CHAPTER 2

one FISH, Two FISH

After the INCIDENT at the Space Museum,

which won’t be spoken of (it involved me, an

Astro Blast Simulator

and a change of

trousers), I had to

prove my bravery

by getting a snake

sidekick and

becoming a certified

ghost-hunter.

7

It’s kind of a long story. All you need to

know is that I proved how BRAVE I am.

But apparently, bravery is something you

have to prove over and over again.

I thought everything would go back to

normal and I’d never have to hear the words

‘Scaredy-Cat Sam’

again. But then we had a school trip to

the aquarium. And that was when things

really went wrong. 4

It should have been a perfect day. I wasn’t

100 per cent sure what to expect at the

aquarium, but my best friend Bernard swore

it was going to be

4But not quite as wrong as they went at the Space Museum.

Maybe I should stop going on school trips.

8

AMAZING.

Up until this point I’d had exactly three

experiences with the deep sea:

1. On my favourite show,

there was once an episode where they flew

to a water planet and met a flying space

sea turtle named Stephanie. There was

also an Evil Shark Lord

who was in cahoots with the

Ghost King 5. It was a great episode. Most people would have found it TERRIFYING, but I was only a little bit scared.

5He’s the number one-enemy in the universe, according to Captain Jane, Spaceman Jack and ME. But Evil Shark Lord is probably enemy number two.

9

,

2. The beaches in Hong Kong (where my family

is from) very sensibly have shark nets. To

keep out the sharks. My little sister Lucy

wondered what would happen if a shark

got IN the shark net, but I told her that

was impossible. 6

3. When I asked Na-Na (that‘s my grandma –

she lives with us) what an aquarium was,

she told me it was like the big fish tanks

at the seafood restaurants in Chinatown,

which we go to on special occasions.

Na-Na always picks out a fish that is STILL

SWIMMING in a fish tank for us to have

for dinner. One time I named the fish, but

then it came out on a plate, so I don‘t name

the fish from the tank ANY MORE.

6It actually sounded very possible and EXTREMELY scary. But I didn‘t

want to worry her so I put on a brave face. All part of being a big brother.

10

So I thought that the aquarium was

going to be like a giant fish tank where you

picked out your dinner. When I told Bernard and Zoe that their mouths dropped open.

‘EW!’ said Zoe.

I frowned. ‘Zoe, you eat fish. Just

yesterday you had fish fingers for lunch,’

I said.

‘That’s different!’ she spluttered. We were

on the bus on our way to the aquarium.

‘How?’ I said.

‘It just IS! Tell him, Bernard,’ she said.

Bernard frowned and

then took out his thinking glasses. He only wears them when he is thinking VERY HARD.

11

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Fish fingers come in a box.

So obviously it is a completely different

thing.’

‘Yeah!’ said Zoe. ‘And fish

don’t even have fingers.’

‘Exactly! Why are they

called fish fingers?’ I said,

wiggling my own fingers.

‘I don’t know,’ Zoe said loudly (the more

unsure about something she is, the louder she gets). ‘They just are. But I do

know you don’t eat the

fish at the aquarium.’

I shrugged. ‘Try telling Na-Na that.’

And then we arrived at the aquarium.

CHAPTER 3

alIEn eNcOUNter

From the outside, the aquarium looked a

lot like the Space Museum. It was a BIG

building and we had to queue up to go inside.

‘Hey, Sam Wu-ser,’ someone further

back said with a snort. ‘Do you

have a stupid outfit for the

aquarium too?’

It was Ralph. Only Ralph thinks

it’s hilarious to call me Sam Wu-ser

because it rhymes with loser. And only Ralph

15

snorts like that. I took a deep breath and

tried to remember what my dad had said

to do about Ralph. His

advice was:

‘Just ignore

him.’

NOT

that easy!

Ignoring Ralph is

Ralph pushed

his way up through the

queue until he was right