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National Geographic Kids Chapters: Kangaroo to the Rescue!: And More True Stories of Amazing Animal Heroes
Moira Rose Donohue
National Kids Geographic
Copyright © 2015 National Geographic Society
All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission from the publisher is prohibited.
Published by theNational Geographic Society
Gary E. Knell, President andChief Executive Officer
John M. Fahey, Chairman of the Board
Declan Moore, Executive Vice President; President, Publishing and Travel
Melina Gerosa Bellows, Publisher and Chief Creative Officer, Books, Kids, and Family
Prepared by the Book Division
Hector Sierra, Senior Vice President and General Manager
Nancy Laties Feresten, Senior Vice President, Kids Publishing and Media
Eva Absher-Schantz, Design Director, Kids Publishing and Media
Jay Sumner, Director of Photography, Kids Publishing and Media
Jennifer Emmett, Vice President, Editorial Director, Kids Books
R. Gary Colbert, Production Director
Jennifer A. Thornton, Director of Managing Editorial
Staff for This Book
Shelby Alinsky, Project Editor
Marfé Ferguson Delano, Editor
Jay Sumner, Photo Editor
Callie Broaddus, Associate Designer
Ruth Ann Thompson, Designer
Paige Towler, Editorial Assistant
Erica Holsclaw, Special Project Assistant
Sanjida Rashid, Design Production Assistant
Margaret Leist, Photo Assistant
Grace Hill, Associate Managing Editor
Joan Gossett, Production Editor
Lewis R. Bassford, Production Manager
Susan Borke, Legal and Business Affairs
Production Services
Phillip L. Schlosser, Senior Vice President
Chris Brown, Vice President,
NG Book Manufacturing
George Bounelis, Senior Production Manager
Nicole Elliott, Director of Production
Rachel Faulise, Manager
Robert L. Barr, Manager
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Trade paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4263-1913-6
Reinforced library edition
ISBN: 978-1-4263-1915-0
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4263-2225-9
v3.1
Version: 2017-07-11
Cover (#ud88e39eb-e1a7-5166-a822-9d9a9c7bc3ee)
Title Page (#u28de24be-be27-586e-83f0-3aa889643b89)
Copyright (#u3cd7e4e8-1e7a-5557-ab8d-c181e7edeff8)
LULU: Kangaroo to the Rescue (#u29e96bc1-391c-5f06-b25e-db581447820e)
Chapter 1: Pouch Pet (#ud385fecd-b3b1-5bb2-9ba5-3762b38567b0)
Chapter 2: Hop Along (#uf3d5ad08-7570-54a0-b543-698125147127)
Chapter 3: Big Foot (#litres_trial_promo)
MAGGIE AND PILOT: A Tale of Two Dogs (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1: Play Ball (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2: Look Out! (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3: Eyes and Ears (#litres_trial_promo)
DASIEY, LULU, AND BUTTERCUP:Three Little Pig Heroes (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1: Daring Dasiey (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 2: Loyal Lulu (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 3: Sweet Little Buttercup (#litres_trial_promo)
DON’T MISS! (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1: No Ordinary Cow (#litres_trial_promo)
More Information (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
Credits (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
Lulu takes a break from hopping to stretch out in the sun. (photo credit p01.1 (#litres_trial_promo))
Lulu is happy to hang out with Luke Richards and his parents. (photo credit p01.2 (#litres_trial_promo))
Luke Richards and his friends were driving home late one evening.
“Watch out!” one of the boys yelled. “There’s something in the road!”
Squee!! The driver hit the brakes and swerved. He avoided hitting the lump in the road.
“Pull over, mate,” Luke said. He wanted to move whatever was in the road out of the way. Luke hopped out of the car.
The lump turned out to be a dead kangaroo. That would be a shock if you lived in the United States. But Luke lived in Australia. Millions of kangaroos live there, too. Unfortunately, sometimes they wander into the road in front of cars and trucks.
Luke was sad to see the kangaroo, but he knew he had to move it out of the way. He grabbed the animal by the tail and dragged it to the side of the road. It was heavy. Full-grown eastern gray kangaroos, or “roos,” as they say in Australia, weigh about 145 pounds (66 kg).
Then Luke saw something amazing. The kangaroo’s belly twitched. Kangaroos are a kind of mammal known as marsupials (sounds like mar-SOO-pee-ulz). Females have a pouch across their bellies. That’s where they keep their babies, called joeys (sounds like JOE-eez). Luke put his hand in the pouch. Gently, he removed a joey. It had survived the accident!
Luke didn’t think his parents would be happy if he brought the joey home. But he looked into the animal’s frightened eyes. He just couldn’t leave the little roo behind.
The joey was about the size of a cat. Luke wrapped it in his sweater. He climbed back into the car.
When he got home, Luke tiptoed into the house. He didn’t want to wake his parents. He got some newspapers and covered the floor of his room. He offered the joey some water. Then he tucked the little roo snugly into his sweater. He draped the sweater over his bedpost. He hoped it would feel like the mother’s pouch. Within minutes, both he and the joey were asleep.
Did You Know?
When it’s born, a baby kangaroo is hairless. It takes several months before its fur grows in.
The next morning, Luke’s mother, Lynn, opened the door to his bedroom. It was a mess. She frowned. “Luke?” she called in a voice that said he was in trouble. Luke sat up. And like bread in a toaster, the joey popped up, too.
“I’ve got a little friend, mum,” said Luke.
“So I see,” his mother sputtered.
Luke’s family lived on a small farm. It was about 90 miles (145 km) west of the city of Melbourne. The farm was surrounded by land that was covered with wild plants and trees. This is known as “the bush” in Australia. Animals from the bush often wandered onto the farm. Sometimes Luke and his sister, Celeste, would find an injured one.
“They brought home a lot of king parrots that were hurt,” said their father, Len. Once Luke and Celeste found a wounded opossum. They even rescued a wombat. They brought them to their father. He showed them how to nurse the animals.
But a baby kangaroo was another story. This joey was a female. She was about three months old. Normally, a joey doesn’t even peek out of its pouch until it is four months old. At five or six months, it climbs out into the world. But only for a short time. After a few minutes, the joey dives headfirst back into the pouch. The joey doesn’t leave the pouch for good until it’s about ten months old.
This joey would need a lot of care. Luke’s parents wondered if he would have enough time to take care of her.
“I want to do it,” Luke told them. His mother and father discussed it. They were proud of him for wanting to take care of the roo. Len and Lynn decided to give him a chance.
Lynn found an old sleeping bag. She cut it up. She sewed a pouch for the baby kangaroo. Luke slipped the joey in. She seemed to like it. It was more like a mother’s pouch than Luke’s sweater had been.
