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

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TO OuR SIblIngs:

Jack, janE aNd StepHanIE

-Katie & Kevin Tsang

COnTenTS

CHaPter 1:

my HIStory AS A

CerTIfIEd, DefInItely nOT

afraId ghost-HUNTER

1

CHaPter 2:

one FISH,

Two FISh

7

CHaPter 3:

alIen eNcountER

15

CHaPter 4:

EVIL sHaRk lords

35

CHaPtER 5:

a dangerous

INvItatIon

55

ChaptER 6:

Sharks don’t lIVE

On THE mOOn

67

ChaptER 7:

BUtterButt ThE

Beach cat

87

ChaptER 8:

QUarantInE

103

ChaptER 9:

Prawn cRackerS

anD PYjamas

111

ChaptER 10:

UnderwateR

SpacesuIt

131

chapter 11:

An

attack IN

the pool!

139

chapter 12:

you

can’t gEt

chIcken pox twIce

151

chapter 13:

the eI ht senses

G

of doom!

165

chapter 14:

a party . . . for sharks!

183

chapter 15:

cake for heroes

195

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.

¹ I 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.² We even have the

ghost-hunter certificates to

prove it.

Back to me being brave.

² This 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.

³ Fang 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

⁴ But 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 King⁵. It was a great episode. Most people would have found it TERRIFYING, but I was only a little bit scared.

⁵ He’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.

⁶ It 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

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

16

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.

17

‘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,

18

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.

19

‘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.

21

‘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.

22

‘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.’

23

‘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 . . . antsy⁷ about

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.

⁷ Antsy but definitely NOT scared.

25

‘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.’

26

‘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.

29

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.

32

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

aquarium. ‘Did you see me wrangle that

stingray?’

Bernard blinked. ‘You mean when the

guide put your hand in the water?’

‘I touched it too!’ said Zoe.

35

‘Yeah, but I think the one I touched was

the scariest one,’ I said. ‘Definitely the

ringleader of the group.’

‘I don’t think stingrays have leaders,’ said

Bernard.

‘These ones do,’ I said. ‘I could just tell.’

Bernard frowned. ‘I’ll have to look it up

later.’ Bernard loves to look things up. It is

kind of his superpower – being smart and

knowing facts. Zoe’s super power is being

super fast. My super power is being SUPER

BRAVE, obviously.

We turned the corner and in front of

us was the biggest tank we’d seen yet.

THE SHARK TANK.

Maybe the stingrays weren’t the scariest thing in the aquarium.

‘Gather in close,’ said Betty. ‘But don’t rap on the glass – we don’t

want to bother the sharks.’

‘Of course we don’t want to bother

the sharks,’ I said to Zoe. ‘Who would

want to bother A SHARK?’

Then I saw who was rapping on the glass.

Ralph. Of course. If anyone was going to annoy a shark it would be him.

‘Did you know that sharks are older

than dinosaurs?’ said tour-guide Betty.

‘They’ve been around for over FOUR

HUNDRED MILLION YEARS.’

Bernard gasped. As I said, he loves facts.

He raised his hand. ‘Does that mean that

they are like dinosaurs that live in the sea?’

‘Kind of!’ said Betty. ‘But unlike the

dinosaurs, they’ve managed to survive all

these years. Masters of survival!’

And then I saw one. My very first shark

sighting. It was NOT going to be my last.

It looked just like the sharks in the

movies but BIGGER and MEANER. It

had big black eyes and rows and rows of

razor-sharp teeth. And I was sure it was

looking right at me.

38

‘Whoa,’ said Zoe.

‘Whoa,’ said Bernard.

I didn’t

say anything. I

couldn’t believe that

I was staring at a REAL

LIVE SHARK. Which could EAT ME.

A few other sharks swam by too, but the

first one – the one staring me

down – was definitely the

scariest one. NOT that

I was scared of it. But

everyone else probably

was because it was a

very scary shark.

39

‘And we arrived just in time for the feeding!’ said Betty.

Oh no! The FEEDING! With all of the excitement, I’d forgotten about the FEEDING.

Ralph cheered. ‘This is going to be the best!’ he said to his friends. ‘I can’t wait to see the shark DESTROY something.’ Then

he bared his teeth like a shark.

‘Ralph,’ said Regina. ‘Please calm down.’

But she looked excited too. Everyone looked excited. I didn’t get it! How could you be excited when we still didn’t know WHAT or WHO was going to get fed to the sharks?

In one episode of

they

went to Shark Planet, which was run by

the Evil Shark Lord, and he almost tricked

40

Spaceman Jack into being his dinner!

Doesn’t everyone know that sharks are evil masterminds? How else do you think they have survived for MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of years?

The sharks were swimming faster now –

all of them except the big one. The big one just kept moving in slow circles, going slower every time it passed me, Zoe and Bernard. It was looking at me. I was sure of it. Every time it

swam by, its eyes fixed on me. Even Bernard said, ‘Why is that shark looking at us?’

41

‘It’s not looking at us,’ scoffed Zoe. ‘How

can you even tell what it’s looking at? Its

eyes are on either side of its head! It’s

looking everywhere!’

‘Well, if it is looking everywhere then that

also means it is looking at us,’ said Bernard.

‘So I’m technically right.’

‘The shark isn’t looking at us,’ repeated

Zoe.

And then, as if the shark was LISTENING

(which it probably was, because, as I said,

they are SNEAKY MASTERMINDS), it

slowly turned and came right at us!

We all took a step back from the tank.

Even Zoe.

‘Now can you admit it is looking at us?’

I whispered.

42

Then the shark . . .

UNHINGED ITS GIANT

JAWS AND SHOWED

US ALL ITS TEETH. AND

IT WAS STILL COMING

TOWARDS US.

43

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