Katie Tsang - Sam Wu is NOT Afraid of Sharks!

behind me. He started poking

me in the back. ‘Hey! Hey!

Sam Wu-ser! I’m talking to

you! Hey! Hey!’

This was, as you might

imagine, very hard to ignore.

‘He doesn’t have his

outfit on because we’re going to the

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aquarium not the Space Museum!’ said Zoe.

‘OBVIOUSLY.’

I was, in fact, wearing a

T-shirt, because it is the best show ever.

I made it myself. And in honour of the

aquarium trip, I’d even drawn on space

turtle Stephanie. I didn’t feel

the need to point this

out though.

Ralph was

quiet for all of

FIVE SECONDS.

But then he

barrelled on.

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‘Hey. Hey, Sam. I heard there is a submarine simulator in there. Bet you are too scared

to get in it. Especially after what happened

at the Space Museum.’ He started

laughing, but it wasn’t a real laugh, it was some sort of pretend villain laugh. Then

he pushed past me, because Ralph always pushes in queues, and went to the front.

‘I’d like to put him in a submarine

simulator,’ Zoe muttered. ‘And send it to the BOTTOM OF THE SEA!’

‘Yeah!’ said Bernard. Then he patted me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t listen to him, Sam. Everyone has forgotten about—’

‘Don’t say it!’ I said. ‘We don’t talk about it,

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RemeMber?’

‘Sorry!’ said Bernard. Then he coughed.

‘But, um, you aren’t going to get into the

submarine simulator, are you?’

‘Bernard might have a point,’ said Zoe,

tugging on her ponytail.

‘I wasn’t planning to,’ I said. ‘But please

can we stop taking about it?’

They nodded. Spaceman Jack, my

favourite character on ,

never has to deal with this kind of thing.

He NEVER does anything embarrassing,

but if he did, his friends would definitely

NEVER bring it up.

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‘Come along, you three, hurry up!’ It

was our teacher, Ms Winkleworth. ‘We have

lots to see – and we don’t want to be late

for the feeding at the shark tank!’

THe

FeedIng?

at tHe wHat?

WHat kInD of

FeedIng?

Who

is FeedI

ng

Who

WHat?

Before I had a chance to think about

all the ways a live shark-feeding was more than a little dangerous, we were shuffled

into the aquarium.

It was nothing like the fish tanks in Chinatown.

‘See, Sam! How COOL is this?’ Bernard waved his arms around. I tried to look

at everything all at once but it was impossible.

It was as if we were underwater but somehow breathing air. It was like being on a spaceship in water – dark and filled with aliens! Luckily, I have lots of experience

with aliens from watching

so I was TOTALLY fine. But otherwise I might have been a tiny bit afraid.

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‘That thing isn’t a fish,’

I spluttered, pointing at this HUGE

PURPLE BLOB that was somehow

floating above my head. I could hear Captain

Jane (she’s the captain of TUBS, The

Universe’s Best Spacecraft) in my head,

telling me to take a deep breath and stay calm.

‘What IS that?’

‘It’s a jellyfish!’ said Zoe. Her eyes were huge.

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‘LIKE THE POISONOUS

KIND?’ I said in a very calm but

also very loud way.

‘Yep! That’s right,’ said a friendly voice from

above me. I looked up. It was someone who

worked at the aquarium. Her name tag said

‘Betty’. ‘That is a jellyfish! One of forty-eight

species we’ve got here in the aquarium.’

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‘Ohhhh!’ said Zoe and Bernard and everyone else. They all seemed way too excited about the fact that we were

now trapped underwater, surrounded by POISONOUS JELLYFISH.

‘Mmmmm,’ I said, nodding as if I too was

excited. ‘But, Zoe,’ I whispered, ‘what if it

gets out?’

‘It can’t get out!’ she whispered back. We’d been pushed forwards till our noses were almost touching the glass.

‘That’s what we thought about Fang!’ I

said in a louder whisper. ‘And

we were pretty wrong

about that!’

As I’ve told

you, Fang is my

FIERCE SNAKE

sidekick. He escaped

from his tank once. With the help of Butterbutt,

my sister’s cat. It’s

kind of a long story.

But the point is, he wasn’t

supposed to get out of

his cage and he did. So I

didn’t think Zoe could blame me

for being a little . . . antsy 7about

the possibility of super-dangerous creatures escaping from their cages.

‘That was totally different!’ she said. ‘And anyway, Butterbutt isn’t here.’

‘You never know with Butterbutt,’

I muttered darkly.

7Antsy but definitely NOT scared.

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‘Okay, everyone,’ said Betty the guide,

leading us over to what looked like a pool of

sea monsters, ‘it’s time for the petting

tank! Everyone is going to get a turn to

touch some of their favourite sea creatures.

We’ve got starfish, sea slugs and

stingrays! Who wants to go first?’

I stared at Aquarium Guide Betty. ‘Touch

. . . a stingray?’ Didn’t Betty hear herself?

It says STING in the name! Who would want

to touch a STINGray? That’s like asking,

‘Who wants to pet this SPIKY porcupine? Or

this POISONOUS scorpion?’

‘We’ve got a volunteer!’ said Betty. She

reached out and pulled me forwards.

‘Sam won’t do it!’ Ralph said with a

snort. ‘He’s too scared.’

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‘No he’s not!’ said Zoe. ‘Right, Sam?’

‘Right,’ I said. I tried to smile bravely but

my mouth wasn’t really working.

I

was

totally

NOT

scared!!

It was rubbery and slimy and VERY unpleasant. It felt deadly. And I wasn’t even touching the stinger!

My whole class gasped.

Bernard gave me a thumbs-up. I really

hoped the stingray didn’t decide to, you

know, STING ME.

‘You all right?’ said Betty. ‘You seem to be

a bit shaky.’

‘I’m fine! Fine!’ I said. ‘The water is just . . .

cold. Really cold. Brrr!’

Betty raised her eyebrows. ‘It’s room

temperature.’

‘SO COLD,’ I said. I wanted to pull my

hand out of the water but I didn’t know how

to do it without everyone noticing.

‘Um, it is probably someone else’s turn,’

I said.

‘I want to try!’ It was Regina, Ralph’s twin

sister. She isn’t awful like he is.

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She is actually kind of nice. She also

doesn’t snort as much. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever heard her snort even once.

‘Well, come on up!’ said Betty, who still hadn’t let go of my hand.

Regina SQUEEZED in next to me and

put her hand straight into the water. ‘This

is so cool,’ she said, grinning at me.

‘Oh yeah,’ I said casually. ‘Super cool.’

Then Betty let go of my hand and I whipped

it out of the water so fast that I splashed Regina.

‘Sorry!’ I said.

She laughed. ‘That’s okay! It’s just water.’

Just STINGRAY-

INFESTED WATER, I thought, but I just nodded as if I wasn’t at all worried about the contents of the water.

I turned around and gave Zoe and Bernard a big grin.

No more Scaredy-Cat Sam here!

Spaceman Jack and Captain Jane would have been

proud.

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33

CHAPTER 4

EVIL SHARK LORDS

Now that I’d obviously done the BRAVEST

thing anyone could do at the aquarium, I felt

much more relaxed.

‘That was great!’ I said to Bernard as

we made our way through the rest of the