Jack Beechwhistle 1 – Attack of the Giant Slugs

Kes Gray's Jack Beechwhistle Attack of the Giant Slugs is a world defence mission for 5 year olds, reported by the boy who ran it.

What happens

Jack Dragon Beechwhistle is a Junior Defender of the World. Adult High Command call him Agent J. You can call him Jack.

He's been working undercover for about three years. His dad recruited him. In that time he reckons he's saved the planet twenty-seven times, from poisonous footballs, man-eating post boxes and a few things he'd rather not put in writing.

He won't tell you where he lives, because that would put your life at risk. He will tell you his front door only looks red. The 38 on it isn't the real number either, and the men who fitted his bulletproof windows were world defence agents in disguise.

Harry Bayliss and Colin Kettle are his best mates and his trainees. They'd be proper agents by now, except they have to be in bed by eight o'clock. Even at weekends. Jack is very patient about this.

The three of them have a den in an old shed on Allotment 24. It took over a week to dig the tunnel in. Saturday mornings are bacon sandwiches on a camping stove the lost gardener left behind, then headlock training by the rhubarb.

That's where the slugs turn up. Seventeen of them, feelers waving. And they are not eating rhubarb.

The fun of it is that every word comes from Jack. He'll tell you he killed a giant spider with a rusty garden fork, and that its skeleton still beams distress signals out through the web. He is completely serious. Your reader gets to decide how much of it happened.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The thing under the rhubarb is a dead blackbird, and Jack has a proper look. There's a leg, some feathers and what's left of a wing. For a child who goes quiet about dead animals that's a real moment, even played for laughs. For one who already prods at things in the garden with a stick, it'll be the best page in the book.

Jack's home life is thin in patches too. His mum and dad have lie-ins until the afternoon and the milk goes lumpy. He's been cooking his own bacon since he was seven. He never once complains, which lands as very funny or a bit sad depending on your reader.

What to read next

If they've ever described an ordinary Saturday as though it were classified, Rise Of The Hairy Horror puts Jack, Harry and Colin back on duty with much worse haircuts.