The Mission to Find Max: Egypt Read Free Page A

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    Then, suddenly, the falcon changed direction and dived towards the crowd, its talons outstretched. It was going in for a kill!
    â€˜Get down!’ yelled Jack. ‘Cover your necks!’

    Everyone fell to the ground in panic, and covered their head with their hands. The next thing Jack knew, something sharp scraped against his fingers. He looked out of the corner of his eye and saw the falcon soaring up into the air, circling around for another attempt.
    Spying a plant pot nearby, Jack grabbed a handful of stones that were sitting on top of the soil. He stood up as the falcon dived again and started throwing stones at it. Most of them missed, but one hit the bird square in the chest, making it screech in anger, pull away and fly off southwards.

    Jack and the others waited for it to return, but it disappeared into the distance. Everyone relaxed, and stood up again. ‘He nearly took your head off!’ said the twitcher to Jack. ‘At the very least you’ll need to get that taken care of.’ The man nodded down to Jack’s fingers, which were scratched and bleeding. Jack had been so focused on getting rid of the bird that he hadn’t realized he’d been hurt.
    â€˜Dude,’ said Richard, walking over. ‘That bird almost snatched you. I saw it with my own eyes.’
    One of the parent helpers rushed over to Jack with a first aid kit. She quickly began to wrap his fingers in sterile gauze. ‘You’ll need to see the nurse when you get back to school,’ she said.
    â€˜Hurry, children!’ yelled Mr Marshall, hustling his pupils towards the bus. ‘Let’s get on before there’s any more trouble.’
    Still in shock, Jack clambered onto the bus and settled into his seat. Richard and Charlie were talking about what they’d seen in the courtyard.
    â€˜Did you see its beak?!’ said Charlie. ‘It was huge!’
    â€˜It was this close to flying off with Jack!’ said Richard, putting two fingers an inch apart.
    Jack wasn’t sure about that, but he was sure of one thing. That bird was definitely targeting him . But why?
    He told himself the answer didn’t matter. After all, he was safely on the bus now. There was no way he was going to see that bird again. At least, he hoped not.

Chapter 4:
The Penny Portal
    Compared to being attacked by a bird, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Jack came home at 3:30 p.m., played a few computer games, ate dinner, and by 7:20 p.m. was heading upstairs. When he got to his room, he wrapped pieces of the GPF’s Fix-It tape around his cuts and watched as the clock ticked by to 7:30 p.m. His miniature globe, Whizzy, was still asleep, snoozing on Jack’s bedside table.
    Whenever the GPF had a mission for Jack, Whizzy would wake up at 7:30 p.m., and cough a country-shaped jigsaw piece out of his mouth. Jack would then slot the piece into the Magic Map of the world on his wall and be transported to his destination.
    Since Whizzy was still asleep at 7:32 p.m., Jack was sure he didn’t have a mission tonight. He went over to his desk and opened a drawer. Sliding his hand inside, he tapped the underside and a secret hiding place was revealed. He pulled out some important papers.

    Carrying them over to his bed, Jack laid them out on the duvet. The first was the original note he’d received many months ago, telling him that Max was in danger. The second was an example of a forged note from Max in Louise Persnall’s handwriting. The last was the coded note from Max himself.
    As he was looking at the letters, something struck Jack. The Signature ID was created after notes from Max started coming home. This meant that Jack had never checked the identity of the person who wrote the first note! Jack shook his head in frustration. He couldn’t believe how silly he’d been.
    Quickly he tapped his Watch Phone and asked for the code of the day. As soon as the code word F OOTBALL