THUNDER RAKER: Book 1 (Agent Alfie) - Softcover

Richards

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007273576 ISBN 13: 9780007273577

Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Fiction, 2008

Synopsis

A hilarious new series for younger readers, following the misadventures of an ordinary boy at an extraordinary school for young spies...

Jake's dad is head of the Secret Service. Alice's dad is a double agent. Harry's dad has infiltrated SPUD – the Secret Partners for Undertaking Destruction. And Alfie's dad... is a postman.

Thunder Raker Manor is a very exclusive school. All the pupils are there because their parents or guardians are agents and spies.

All except one.

Because eight-year-old Alfie's dad isn't anything to do with the secret services. He's the local postman who just reckoned that Thunder Raker Manor was a great school. So when the Head Teacher receives a letter from the Prime Minister saying that Alfie has been given a special place and will start immediately, he isn't to know that Alfie's dad wrote it and slipped it in with the 'special' post...

Now Alfie has to get to grips with Thunder Raker’s unusual curriculum and some even stranger new friends. He’s got classes in camouflage (if anyone can ever find Mr Trick) and Assassination (only kids keep going missing from Miss Fortune’s class). And he’s now in permanent danger from SPUD agents. But to his surprise, Alfie finds that he might just be quite good at this spying game...

About this title

From the Publisher:

Agent Alfie Character Profiles

Alfie - Alfie is an ordinary boy thrown into the life of a trainee spy at Thunder Raker Manor - school for spies. His Dad is a postman, nothing out of the ordinary, but when he signs a letter `PM' the headmaster at Thunder Raker takes on Alfie straight away assuming he was the Prime Minister's son! For such an `ordinary' boy, it turns out Alfie's better at this spying malarkey than he thought.

Beth - The daughter of an inventor working for GIT (the Government Inventing Taskforce) and a pretty great inventor herself. She's got her own laboratory and likes to design crazy spy gadgets, normally super speed skateboards and roller-skates, if it's not turbo powered it's just not fast enough for Beth!

Sam - One of Alfie's new friends at Thunder Raker. He has an anti-missile, turbo charged wheelchair with all the latest gadgets attached to it, more than handy in a sticky situation and great for Beth to invent gadgets for.

Chloe - When Alfie starts at Thunder Raker, Chloe doesn't seem to like Alife that much. She's very spoilt (as her dads an extremely important agent) and always gets the latest models of every kind of toy, at the moment she owns an z-box and a playstation 7.

Miss Jones - Miss Jones is Alfie's form tutor, an attractive lady that teaches Alfie the normal subjects at spy school and introduces Alfie to all his new friends in class 3D.

Mr Trenchard - The elderly head master of Thunder Raker, Mr Trenchard has been a spy for so long that he's become extremely forgetful, he can never remember anyone he meets or anything he's doing! This is partially due to his old age but also because of his first rule of spy school `learn as much as you can then forget it all' for security reasons of course.

SPUD - These are the Secret Partners for Undertaking Destruction. No one knows much about them but they are basically the bad guys.

Need to Know Secret Agent Facts

The word `spy' comes from the French word `espionage'

Espionage is the act of spying. This art has been around for 4,000 years! Secret messages were written on clay tablets so top-secret information could be passed on.

To make invisible ink all you need is Lemon Juice and an oven. Write on the page with lemon juice, then put it in the oven for a few minutes and hey presto the writing appears!

As a secret agent it's your job to complete dangerous missions and collect vital information to keep the country safe.

What you will need: a camera, binoculars, invisible ink, your secret agent card, a disguise (dark glasses are always great!), a code cracker.

IMPORTANT RULE: A secret agent NEVER uses their own name.

The Essential Secret Agents Glossary
All the vocab you need to become a top class spy and join Alfie at Thunder Raker school.

Agent - A person who performs secret missions.
Ambush - The surprise capture and arrest of an agent.
Bang and burn - Demolition and sabotage operations.
Cam-car - A vehicle equipped with a hidden camera.
CIA - The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States.
CLOAK - A disguise.
Code - A secret system to hide a message, like morse code!
DCI - The Director of Central Intelligence.
Dead drop - A secret place where materials can be left in for another agent to pick up.
Double agent - An agent who works for two people, telling one everything secret about the other.
(The) eye - The person on the surveillance team who watches the target.
FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Film loop - A loop of film used to project images continuously, on CCTV for example.
Ghost surveillance - Extremely secret surveillance that follows the target out of view at all times.
Infiltration operation - Moving an agent into a target area in disguise.
MI5 - The British spy service responsible for national and internal security.
Mole - A person who works in disguise with the enemy to spy on them, this means they can get secret information more easily.
Opposition - The enemy service.
PLASMA - A secret technique or device used to defeat a lock.
Rabbit - The target in a surveillance operation
Safe house - An apartment, hotel room, or other similar site considered safe for use by operatives as a base of operations or for a personal meeting
Smoking-bolt operation - A covert snatch operation in which a special entry team breaks into an enemy's place and steals a high-security device, like a code machine, leaving nothing but the "smoking bolts."
Spoofing - A ploy designed to deceive the observer into believing that an operation has gone badly.
Spy dust - A chemical for marking a spy target so they can be tracked.

From the Back Cover:

Welcome to Thunder Raker Manor, Alfie! We can't tell you how much you'll enjoy your time here. Really - we can't.

It's a secret.

We can tell you that you'll be perfectly safe. Although there was that unfortunate accident on the school trip last year and - Anyway, here's your timetable. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to keep them to yourself.

Careless talk costs lives.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Children’s Fiction
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0007273576
• ISBN 13: 9780007273577
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 146