Sage Cookson's Literary Launch by Sally Murphy and Celeste Hulme

SAGE

’ COOKSONS

y r a r e Lit nch Lau Sally Murphy

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SAGE ’

COOKSONS y r a r e Lit nch Lau

To Sophia, who launched me into sharing Sage’s adventures.

First published in Australia 2017

by New Frontier Publishing Pty Ltd ABN 67 126 171 757 48 Ross Street, Glebe NSW 2037, Australia www.newfrontier.com.au Text copyright © 2017 Sally Murphy Illustrations copyright © 2017 New Frontier Publishing Illustrations by Celeste Hulme This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted by the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be addressed to the publishers.

All rights reserved.

A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN: 978-1-925594-01-0 Cover illustration and design by Celeste Hulme 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in China

SAGE ’

COOKSONS y r a r e Lit nch Lau

Sally Murphy

CHAPTER 1

‘C

ome on Sage, it’s not that bad,’ my friend Lucy says, one hand on my shoulder. ‘I know you can do it.’

Tears spring to my eyes. ‘I don’t think I

can, Lucy. I think I’d rather fail!’

I look around the room at the rest of our classmates, all busy working on their task, or talking about it, or trying to get away with doing other things without the teacher, Mr Duke, noticing. I wonder if any of them feels as bad as I do about our assignment.

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See, I have a secret. I’m not scared of much, which is lucky because I travel to all kinds of interesting places with my parents.

Along the way I usually get myself into a few scrapes, most of which I get myself out of, often with the help of Lucy.

But the secret is that two things really freak me out. The first is frogs: they are green, and slimy, and they jump at you unexpectedly from damp places.

The second is public speaking.

I don’t mind talking to people but when I stand at the front of a crowded room, everything changes. My palms sweat, my stomach fills with butterflies and my throat goes tight like I’ve got a cold. I see all those people looking at me, waiting for me to speak. What if I say something dumb? Or forget my words? Or they laugh – when what I’m saying isn’t funny? Or they don’t 2

laugh when what I’m saying is funny?

Normally it isn’t a problem. My parents are the famous television chefs the Cooksons, and they’re the ones who usually do all the speaking in front of crowds, or to the television cameras. I just get to watch.

But this morning Mr Duke made a big announcement.

‘It’s time we practise public speaking,’ he said. ‘I want everyone to prepare a speech – three minutes, any topic you like. And no reading from your notes!’

Lots of people groaned and a few people smiled like it was the best assignment ever, but I’m pretty sure I was the only one who instantly broke out in goosebumps.

‘You’ll be among friends,’ Lucy says now.

‘We won’t laugh or anything.’

I look around the room again. They might be Lucy’s friends, but there are kids here 3

who I hardly know. That’s what happens when you miss as much school as I do. You don’t get to know your classmates very well at all.

I groan and put my head in my hands.

‘But what am I going to talk about?’ I moan.

‘Mr Duke said it’s free choice. That could mean anything!’

Lucy laughs. ‘That’s the idea, silly. We get three minutes to convince the class to like something that we like. Three minutes isn’t that long, really.’

Three whole minutes? Three minutes of standing at the front of the room while everybody looks at me? Three minutes of umming and ahing and trying to remember what I was going to say? Plus we have to try to speak from memory or from the heart, with only palm cards to help. It will be three minutes of super-embarrassing myself.

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‘But it will feel like three hours when I’m up there!’ I say.

Lucy sighs. ‘Well, you have to do it, and so do I. We’d better get started. I’m going to talk about rollerblading. What about you?

Maybe you could talk about one of your trips?’

That sounds like a good idea. ‘Maybe I could talk about the amazing things we did in Singapore?’

‘Or Crystal Beach!’ suggests Lucy.

‘I think I could do that,’ I say, but then I look around the room, remembering that not very many people get to travel as much as I do. ‘Except … well, won’t everyone be jealous?’

Lucy chews her pencil as she thinks.

‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘But mostly I bet they’ll just think it’s cool.’

I hope she’s right. It’s going to be bad 5

enough speaking in front of the whole class without them all giving me grumpy looks while I’m doing it.

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