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Zusatztext "A madcap! magical blend of fluff and other good stuff.” — Kirkus Reviews starred review “With an offbeat approach and beautiful! evocative language! this unusual! fablelike novel will appeal to literary-minded teens.” — Booklist starred review Informationen zum Autor Philip Reeve; illustrated by Sarah McIntyre Klappentext Get ready for a ruff! ruff ride! For early chapter book readers who are ready for something longer! the Not-So-Impossible Tales are packed with humor! action! and illustrations on almost every page. Far away! in a winter wonderland! an amazing sled race is about to begin. The winner can make one wish! and it will magically come true! Two friends! Sika and Shen! want to win more than anything. But all they have is a pack of yappy! yippy! pug puppies. Ten pugs can't move their sled. Even with thirty! it doesn't budge. But what about . . . SIXTY-SIX? With a little bit of luck! anything is paws-ible. "A madcap! magical blend of fluff and other good stuff." -Kirkus Reviews! starred review "Rich in humor and meaning both. Pug power!" -Booklist! starred review One Winter came in the night, like a white sheet laid over the world. It came so coldly and so fast that the waves of the ocean froze as they rolled. The good ship Lucky Star froze with them, trapped tight in the suddenly solid sea. Shen, the cabin boy, the youngest member of the crew, stirred in his sleep as the sounds of rippling and splashing faded into frozen silence. He snuggled deeper under the covers, trying to keep warm. Into the silence came other noises. First, the creaking of timber as the ice tightened its grip upon the old ship’s sides. Then the voice of Captain Jeggings, bellowing, “All hands on deck!” The crew bumbled blinking from their bunks. Able Seaman Bo; Mungbean, the ship’s cook; and Shen. They stumbled out on deck and stared at the frozen waves, which reared up all around them. “Don’t just stand there!” shouted Captain Jeggings, hauling an icy rope. “Get us out of here!” The rope snapped in his hands with a sound like breaking glass. The Lucky Star groaned and quivered as the ice clenched tighter. “What will we do?” asked Shen. But Captain Jeggings didn’t know. Neither did Able Seaman Bo. Neither did Mungbean. They’d weathered storms and sat out still waters, but they’d never seen a sea like this before. Creak . Crunch . Big tusks of ice pushed the planks apart and pierced the Lucky Star’s sides. Slosh. Gurgle. Cold black water that hadn’t frozen yet came swirling in. The ship sagged, and all the icicles that decked her rig- ging tinkled cheerfully. But Captain Jeggings couldn’t see anything to be cheerful about. “The cargo!” he shouted. “We must save the cargo!” All summer long, the Lucky Star had been cruising from port to port, selling this and buying that. Two thousand chunky-knit sweaters from the Isles of Aran, a second- hand snowmobile . . . and sixty-six pugs. Captain Jeggings had said those tiny dogs would sell like hot pies. Now, down in the leaking hold, they let out a terrible howling as cold sea sloshed round their paws. “The dogs!” shouted Shen. “We must save the dogs!” Mungbean and Bo went running down the steep stairway that led to the cargo holds and came struggling back up with crates of sweaters. Captain Jeggings hauled the snowmobile over the ship’s side. Meanwhile, Shen turned over the boxes where more pugs were sleeping. The tiny dogs raced up on deck and jumped off the Lucky Star ’s sides onto the ice. Shen had heard people talk about rats leaving a sinking ship before, but he’d never heard of pugs leaving a freezing one. There’s a first time for everything, he thought. He dragged the sack that held their leashes and harnesses up onto the deck...
