Jane Blonde: Spies Trouble Read online

  Jill Marshall moved from the United Kingdom to New Zealand, along with her small daughter and her even smaller mad dog. Her childhood ambition was to become an author, so in 2001 Jill gave up her career at a huge international company to concentrate on writing for children. When not working, writing and being a mum, Jill plays guitar, takes singing lessons and is learning to play the drum kit she has set up in the garage. One day she might even sing in a band again . . .

  Look out for the third book in the

  jane blonde series:

  jane blonde, twice the spylet.

  Also by Jill Marshall

  jane blonde, sensational spylet

  jane blonde, twice the spylet

  jane blonde, spylet on ice

  First published 2006 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2008 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-330-47369-9 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-47368-2 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-330-47371-2 in Microsoft Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-330-47370-5 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright © Jill Marshall LLC 2006

  The right of Jill Marshall to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  groovelicious gratitude to rachel and the whole

  of the macmillan bunch for being a writer’s

  dream team, to glenys for ceiling-scraping

  and black-hole digging, to friends and family on

  this side of the world and the other for putting

  up with me and putting me up, and to all those

  spylets-in-training who read ‘jane blonde,

  sensational spylet’. you rock!

  for mum and dad, who aren’t superspies –

  just super people

  contents

  1 a piece of cake

  2 steaming star signs

  3 kittynapped

  4 clean machines

  5 french friends

  6 the cat on the hat

  7 the scare-taker

  8 rats and brats

  9 a room with a broom

  10 cat-nip

  11 flying kites

  12 jean gets mean

  13 project painful

  14 brain strain

  15 all fired up

  16 mixed messages

  17 reeling abe

  18 dam rats

  19 spi-fly

  20 spy mums, spy dads

  21 the coach-doesn’t-stop cafe

  22 spi let-down

  23 brown again

  24 spies and spiders

  25 sinking the sun king

  26 spy-cats, rat-dogs

  27 furry ends

  a piece of cake

  The cubicle fizzed as Jane Blonde, Sensational Spylet, stepped into the Wower to be changed back into an almost normal schoolgirl once more.

  It had become such a familiar routine that she barely noticed the pearlescent moisture drops swirling around her inside the glittering spy-shower cubicle. Blonde was already thinking about what she had to do when she got out of the Wower. Her SPI:KE (Solomon’s Polificational Investigations: Kid Educator) was in the Spylab, chewing anxiously on a carrot stick as she awaited a debrief from her prize pupil. In fact, her only pupil.

  There wasn’t long to wait. Within a few moments a robotic hand had removed Jane Blonde’s voice-activated Ultra-gog spy spectacles, so that her eyes dimmed a little to their usual misty grey. Her silver Lycra SPIsuit was removed, and the angular limbs beneath it were encased once again in regular school-holidays uniform: jeans and a ‘Give Me Sunshine’ T-shirt. Finally, another metallic hand whisked the bright platinum colour from her hair, along with the band that had held it firmly in place in a high, multi-functional ponytail. The Spylet’s fine mousey waves settled on to her shoulders, and Janey Brown emerged from the Wower.

  Janey grinned as G-Mamma rifled through her large stainless-steel fridge. ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’

  G-Mamma seized the tatty box before Janey even had her arm fully extended. ‘That was mean, Blonde-girl. Mean, mean, mean. You know the order you’re meant to do this in: decode, debrief, de-Wow. Since when did you start de-Wowing before you gave me the goodies? I mean, the crucial info.’

  ‘Just trying to help you stick to your diet, G-Mamma. You said that was my mission for the holidays,’ Janey said teasingly.

  G-Mamma rolled her Amethyst-Dazzled eyes heavenwards. ‘That was just a trick, Blondette! I was bluffing! You were meant to see straight through it immediately and do the reverse: BRING ME CAKE!’

  ‘Well, I worked it out in the end,’ said Janey. ‘Unfortunately the only place to get cake at midnight was from the bins behind the bakeries. I chose the cleanest bin I could find. The cake’s probably only a day or two old . . .’

  ‘It’s been through the Wower though!’ G-Mamma’s eyes gleamed as she pulled a very smart cake box complete with ribbon out of the cubicle. ‘Look at that baby.’

  Janey laughed. The rather squashed and miserable Victoria sponge she had raised from the depths of the dustbin had been upgraded to a mighty gateau. Light-as-air angel cake interspersed with hefty layers of jam, cream and butter icing made its way into the cavern of G-Mamma’s mouth. ‘Save me some!’ said Janey. ‘That looks amazing. I didn’t know the Wower worked on food as well as people. Oh, and cats.’

  She looked around the lab for her Spycat, Trouble. Since being embroiled in Janey’s first mission, Trouble had become very attached to her and now spent most of his time on the other side of G-Mamma’s fireplace, in Janey’s bedroom, although the smell of cream cakes and doughnuts often enticed him back to G-Mamma’s lab. ‘Where is he then? Have you seen him tonight?’

  G-Mamma shook her head. ‘He’s a cat, girly-girl. He’s probably out chasing mice.’

  ‘He hates mice.’

  ‘True. Well, chasing birdies then.’

  ‘It’s night-time.’

  G-Mamma tutted. ‘The kitty’s fine. Now listen, it’s the end of the holidays, and I want to show Solomon how much we’ve done since you saw him last.’ She reached out for a ruler, dropped a little kiss on to it and pointed one end at Janey. A tiny pinprick of green light danced before her. ‘Speak. Tell your father what you’ve learned in the last couple of weeks.’

  The ruler was actually a LipSPICK (Lip-activated SPI-Camera Kilobank) – a spy camera with an enormous memory. Janey stared into the winking light and took a deep breath. When she went back to school tomorrow she would have to write a report about what she’d done in the holidays. There was no way she would be able to say what had really happened that summer: that a mad woman called G-Mamma had turned up t
o inform her that Janey was actually a spy (well, a Spylet), spy-name Jane Blonde; that her never-seen-before Uncle Solomon was actually the head of the mighty Solomon’s Polificational Investigations (SPI) and had disappeared with a secret so huge that it could change the world, since it allowed for one creature to be frozen and changed into another, completely different animal; that her lovely teacher and nice new friend Freddie were actually leading members of the evil rogue spy organization Sinerlesse, which Janey had had to thwart on her first mission. She certainly couldn’t write that the head teacher and her son, Alfie, were really a SPI and Spylet, and her greatest friends and supporters.

  And there was an even greater revelation. Her Uncle Solomon was really her father, Boz Brilliance Brown, who Janey had thought had died before her birth and whom her (now very ordinary) mother, Jean Brown, had partnered in her previous life as the superSPI Gina Bellarina. It was all so crazy that Janey could hardly believe it herself.

  ‘Come on,’ muttered G-Mamma indistinctly through a fifth mouthful of gateau. ‘Spill the beanage.’

  ‘OK.’ Janey ticked off the various things she had learned over the last couple of weeks in her spy lessons. ‘Body language: I’ve learned how to make myself blend into a crowd without being seen, or how to stand out so all attention is on me if I’m the decoy. And I can read other people’s body language to know if they’re lying. Codes: I’ve covered half a dozen different encryptions. I’ve learned that a single hair can tell you if someone’s been looking at your stuff, and I can take fingerprints with talcum powder. Equipment: I’ve mastered the Girl-gauntlet and my Fleet-feet technique. My self-defence is getting much better but I know the best way for me to stay unhurt is to get out of the way. Um, I guess that’s the lot.’ Janey smiled into the camera a little shyly.

  ‘Excellent briefing, Blonde.’ G-Mamma held the ruler out to Janey. ‘Now you hold it and turn it on me. I’ve prepared something a little special for Solomon.’

  As Janey directed the camera G-Mamma whipped a lime-green cloth off the nearby counter and flicked a switch on the twin speakers that were hidden beneath it. A pounding rhythm filled the Spylab, and Janey’s SPI:KE popped her head in time, from one side to the other.

  Janey screwed up her eyes. ‘Oh no, I think I know what’s coming.’

  ‘Yo, Sol!’ yelled G-Mamma, flinging her hips around with wild abandon. ‘Here we go . . .

  ‘Your girl’s been SPI:KED, and I hope you liked

  What she had to say on graduation day.

  A Spylet true is what I have for you

  And a badge of honour is what you’re gonna gonna gonna gonna . . .

  GIVE BLONDE!’

  Janey smiled hesitantly. G-Mamma had so much enthusiasm that it was difficult to avoid admiring her for it. ‘So I’ve graduated? Wow. How are you going to get this message to Solomon?’

  ‘You’re all Spylet now, honey. Yes, you are. And a Spylet should be able to work out the answer to that second question.’ G-Mamma turned off the beat box to allow Janey some peace to think.

  ‘Well, we don’t know where he is,’ said Janey, ‘so we can’t send it by post. Right. He’s not going to drop round here to collect it either, so . . . ah . . . got it! He can collect the image from anywhere, wherever he is, provided he has the right password, or . . . or no, the right lip-print activation?’

  G-Mamma’s round blue eyes shimmered. ‘Oh, girl, I trained you well. How spiky is that SPI:KEd spylet? Very very, yes indeedy. Correct answer. Full points.’

  ‘So can I have some cake now?’

  ‘No way. Too late. You’ll get indigestion. And it’s school in the morning. So through the tunnel and into bed with you.’

  G-Mamma shoved her towards the fireplace as Janey protested. ‘You’re starting to sound like my mum.’

  Dropping to her knees, Janey shimmied through the short tunnel that ran between their two fireplaces and brushed herself down on her bedroom hearth before carrying out what was now her usual, secret night-time routine.

  Swallowing down the guilty feeling that hit her in the gullet each time she did this, Janey pulled out the old shoebox containing her precious collection of SPI-buys – gadgets her father had sent her over the years. It had once contained perfume that was really SPIT (SPI-Truth serum), a spy pen with invisible ink, rocket-powered hairslides and a LipSPICK ruler of her own. Now all that remained were a few drops of SPIT and a miniscule disc of metal from the LipSPICK. It was this tiny circle that she now balanced on the end of her finger like someone about to put in a contact lens. Instead of pushing it in her eye, however, she drew it to her mouth and, very gently, gave it a feathery kiss.

  ‘Hello,’ she whispered, as a moving image sprang up above her head.

  The flickering light in Janey’s bedroom caught the eye of the spy lurking outside in the garden. He turned his head slowly to the window, as if it was weighed down by the strange mask he wore – a circle made up of large jagged spikes. His Ultra-gogs were built into the narrow eye-slits cut into the metal.

  ‘X-ray,’ he instructed under his breath, ‘and zoom.’ There it was again, on the ceiling – footage of a man stroking the head of a large tabby kitten and mouthing something to the camera. The spy caught his breath and focused the Ultra-gogs to lip-read what the man was saying, over and over again.

  ‘. . . what I’ve created . . . what I’ve created . . . what I’ve created . . .’

  The spy smiled. From here on in, it was going to be plain sailing.

  ‘Thank you, my dear,’ he whispered. And then he was gone.

  steaming star signs

  The next morning Janey jumped out of the Clean Jean minivan at the school gates. ‘Have a good day!’ shouted her mother, already reversing as she sped off to her early supermarket cleaning job.

  ‘I will. Bye, Mum.’ Janey grinned. It was a ridiculous-looking van, with an oversized dustpan and brush perched on the top like a cherry on a cake, and feather dusters for windscreen wipers. But at least now she always knew exactly when her mum (or one of the three other vans in Jean Brown’s little cleaning empire) was approaching.

  ‘Morning,’ said a voice behind her. ‘Great wheels. You must be so proud.’

  It was Alfie Halliday, Class Superstar, also known as Al Halo, Spylet, and now one of Janey’s best friends. Janey whacked him on the arm with her bag. ‘Actually I am. My mum’s clever, and brave. She set up Clean Jean all by herself.’

  ‘That’s right. She’s like Wonder Woman in an overall,’ drawled Alfie. Luckily, Janey was fully aware that really he liked her mum and knew that she had once been Gina Bellarina, superSPI, until she’d been brain-wiped to keep her safe.

  They made their way to their classroom and Janey plonked herself down at her desk, behind Alfie’s. She held back a yawn.

  ‘Hey, I graduated last night. It was a bit of a late one. I hope this new Mr Saunders is interesting enough to keep me awake this morning,’ she whispered to Alfie.

  ‘Just be glad he’s not trying to kill you,’ he hissed back. Their last teacher, the evil Miss Rale, was now seeing out her days as a mink, having been transformed by Janey’s dad.

  They soon discovered that Mr Saunders was a completely different kettle of fish – he was totally, utterly dull. As Janey had predicted, the new teacher began by asking the class to write an essay on ‘What I did in the holidays’. Janey was careful to leave out any mention of the exciting spy-life she had been leading at night, and she lied a great deal about cleaning and trips to the swimming pool.

  As the morning progressed there was only one matter of even vague interest. At ten o’clock Mr Saunders checked his watch and shot outside for a moment. He held open the door as he came back, and in shuffled a scared-looking girl with deep brown hair and skin the colour of caramel. Janey’s heart went out to her immediately.

  ‘Class, this is Paulette Solay, who has just moved here from . . .’ Mr Saunders looked down at the girl. ‘Sorry, where was it again?’

  ‘France,’ said
Paulette quietly.

  ‘That’s right. Now, Paulette is joining our class, so I’d like you all to help her to settle in. She’s been at an international school until now, so I expect this will all feel a bit different for her. Paulette, go and take a seat next to . . .’

  Pick me, pick me, thought Janey, holding her breath.

  ‘. . . Alfie Halliday. He knows his way around the place pretty well. Well, he should do, he’s the headmistress’s son. Alfie, look after Paulette, will you?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Alfie, pulling out the chair next to him. Paulette sat down shyly.

  Janey knew just how Paulette felt. Before she’d learned that she was a Spylet, she’d been afraid of her own shadow. And Alfie, so confident and capable, had made her feel completely inferior. She resolved to make friends with Paulette and ensure the new girl settled in.

  ‘Right, finish off your essays and we’ll make a start on some real work.’ Mr Saunders turned to the blackboard. ‘Maths books open at page seventeen, please.’

  Janey looked down at her long divisions. She was quite good at maths – it was just more puzzles to solve, as far as she was concerned. She just didn’t feel like doing it right now. The room was clammy from all the wet coats drying on the backs of chairs, and she could feel her fine hair frizzing up at the ends. Bored, she looked over at the window.

  And sat bolt upright.

  Something had appeared on one of the steamed-up window panes. Janey poked Alfie in the back and nodded towards the window when he turned around.

  He frowned quickly, then stuck up his hand. ‘Mr Saunders, do you mind if I let some air in?’

  ‘I suppose it is a bit stuffy in here,’ said the teacher. ‘Go ahead.’

  Alfie flitted across the classroom and opened the window. Janey was probably the only one who noticed him wiping the sleeve of his jumper across the damp glass before he returned to his desk. After twenty minutes of tortured waiting, while Janey wondered if it was just the doodling of some bored pupil or a death threat – a Spylet could never be too careful – Alfie slipped a scrap of paper on to her exercise book. Janey dropped it on to her lap and opened it carefully.