Chapter 1 — The Discovery

It was raining. AGAIN. Kobe grunted in disgust. Days and days of his precious school holidays were being snatched by the endless water droplets.

Kobe had been completely grounded by the rain. Grown-ups aka the fun police, had cancelled everything. His much-anticipated trip to a local theme park — cancelled. Playing at the local park with his friends — cancelled. Indoor ball games — never allowed, but Kobe always tried! — cancelled. Trip to visit his nana, who lived at the beach, and go surfing — cancelled.

Surfing rocked and Kobe had recently won a regional competition. He was a sports crazy kind of kid. Playing every sport he possibly could and generally being good at them. But his ultimate dream was to be an All Black rugby legend. How cool would that be?

This morning Mum had banned his iPad due to “unacceptable behaviour”. Kobe realised he shouldn’t have locked his sister outside in the rain, but she’d deserved it! She’d been winding him up for hours, teasing him and stealing his stuff. Yeah, she’d screamed as if she was dying, but it was worth the penalty to see her face — red, wet and furious.

Last night, when Dad deemed it too wet for Kobe to ride his small stunt bike, Kobe thought he might self-explode with frustration. Kobe had painstakingly made several wooden ramps, it was epic hitting the jumps and sending the bike as high as he could.

“It’ll damage the grass, and the jumps will be too slippery,” Dad had declared.

The fun police had cancelled that too. What a nightmare! …