Page 160 - Mobile Magic

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CHAPTER 13.
SPIES AND enemies
Sometimes you’ve really got to be glad that your mother is nosy and demanding, thought Saffron. With a glow of self-satisfied achievement she handed in her project and realised that only a third of the class had got it in on time. She spent a dreamy but active morning in the classroom and had no idea that stirring events were happening outside in the real world.
Mobo was up as early as any responsible parent of six hungry chicks should be. Worms and insects had been in great supply that morning, flushed out by the overnight storm. His family had full bellies and he was just scratching through the damp leaf-mould for his own breakfast when ... the call for which he had been waiting came at last.
Instantly, he took to the wing and sped down the hill, over the pasture land and into the suburbs of the town. He flew over an area with units, schools and old weather-board houses, turned right over the shopping precinct and followed along the river. Next to the river lay the broad, green expanse of a golf course and winding along its perimeter was a suburban street.
“Suburban” hardly seemed to suit the houses on this street. They were more like mansions, palaces, or even castles.