Free Superpowers by Alex Cliff

PUFFIN BOOKS
    SUPER POWERS
    THE RAGING BULLS
    Books by Alex Cliff
SUPERPOWERS series
SUPER POWERS THE RAGING BULLS

    ALEX CLIFF
    ILLUSTRATED BY LEO HARTAS

    PUFFIN
    PUFFIN BOOKS
    Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL , England
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,
Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
    Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL , England
    puffinbooks.com
    Published 2007
1
    Text copyright © Alex Cliff, 2007
Illustrations copyright © Leo Hartas, 2007
All rights reserved
    The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted
    Set in Bembo
Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire
Made and printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
    Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other
than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition
being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
    British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
    EISBN : 978–0–141–90245–6
    For Peter, for everything, but most of all for
hearing the clipper-clapper and for always
knowing what I wish to sing.
(Stephen Crane:
There was a Man
with Tongue of Wood)
CONTENTS
    Just imagine…
    One Who Will it Be?
    Two Despair!
    Three The Raging Bulls
    Four Bucking Bronco!
    Five Taming a Bull
    Six The Battle Begins!
    Seven The Symbol in the Wall
    Eight The Power of Fellowship
    Nine Scars

JUST IMAGINE…
    the grey stone walls of a ruined castle on a hillside. Beyond the castle walls, a dark moat glitters. It is quiet and peaceful, apart from the occasional caw of a group of ravens perched on the castle walls.
    CRASH!
    A thunderclap echoes around the castle keep. The ravens fly into the air in alarm as a hawk with cruel eyes swoops out ofthe blue sky. The hawk lands beside the castle’s one remaining tower. As it lands, it changes into a very tall woman. A cloak of brown-grey feathers swirls from her shoulders and her black eyes flash angrily. This is the evil goddess Juno.
    She snaps her fingers and the stones on the inside of the tower wall start to crumble away. A man’s proud face appears. He grabs the edges of the hole. ‘Today is the day, Juno!’ he roars. ‘Today I will get the last of my superpowers back!’
    â€˜Never, Hercules!’ Juno cries. ‘I will not stand by and watch it happen!’
    Hercules thumps his fist into the wall of the tower. ‘Seven tasks, you have set those two boys. They have succeeded in six. If they complete the final task today, I will get the last of my superpowers backand will be able to break free from these walls. Then –’ he glares at her – ‘then you will be sorry!’
    â€˜But you will
not
get the power back today!’ Juno shrieks. ‘The boys must bring twenty raging bulls back to the castle. No mortal could ever do that. The bulls will trample and gore them. They

    will not survive. And when they die so do your chances of escape,