Jane Blonde: Spy in the Sky Page 9

  ‘And Trouble . . . is . . .’

  She couldn’t even say the word, and one look at G-Mamma’s blue eyes swimming with tears was enough to make her sob herself. What was going on with the world? Trouble gone. Weird creatures chasing them around the forest. And her father turning into what looked like . . . a werewolf.

  Tap tap scrape. Tap tap scrape.

  Having tossed and turned all through the rest of the night, Janey was roused from an uncomfortable slumber by a tapping sound. At first she wondered if she was still dreaming; the noise sounded very like the banging at the back of the fireplace that had first alerted her to G-Mamma’s spy world all those months ago. But this sound was coming from the window and was quickly followed by a loud ‘OW!’ and then a stifled shriek.

  Janey raced to the window. In the dim dawn light she could see G-Mamma lying in the flower bed, a short upside-down stepladder half buried in the dirt next to her. The SPI:KE was swatting at one of the vampire sparrows, which was buzzing around her head. She struggled to her feet, wiping clumps of mud from her black outfit. It was flowing and floor length, and she had topped it off with a tight black skullcap with chiffon sides and back hanging over her curls. Like a mad nun, thought Janey.

  ‘I was just up the Bladder here, trying to wake you up, when one of those vampire sparrows attacked me. They’re . . . OUCH . . . Murdery birdery, there’s more of them! Meet me in my Spylab!’ Hoiking her skirts above her black wellington boots, G-Mamma ran for the garage, her flowing headdress pecked at by the flesh-eating birds of her own creation.

  It sounded urgent. Maybe the others were already down there. Not bothering to change out of her pyjamas, Janey scurried down the stairs and ran out of the back door towards the garage.

  But to her surprise G-Mamma was alone in the garage-cum-Spylab. Checking furtively over Janey’s shoulder, the SPI:KE ushered her in to a lab that looked more like one operated by Copernicus than a member of SPI. Every surface had been shrouded with shimmering black material, and projected on to the fridge was a video showing Trouble in various poses: Trouble as a kitten, running away from a mouse; Trouble draped around G-Mamma’s neck like a fox-fur; Trouble Wowed into the squirrel shape only the previous night . . .

  Janey’s eyes filled up. ‘Poor Trouble,’ she said.

  ‘I thought we should have a little fu . . . funer . . . ceremony,’ gulped G-Mamma, pausing to blow her nose on a black silk handkerchief the size of a pillowcase. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Should we invite the others?’

  ‘No,’ said G-Mamma with considerable feeling. ‘Nobody else appreciated him the way that you and I do, Blonde. I mean, did.’

  ‘I think Dad did,’ said Janey, but even as she said it she realized that this was possibly not true any more. Her father was changing, becoming more and more angry and short with her, and more and more, well, hairy, and lumpy in the face.

  G-Mamma had already turned away to the workbench, fiddling with her Tape-Ears which had both been draped in black in honour of the occasion. A loud drone filled the room. ‘Bagpipes,’ said G-Mamma with a sniff. ‘He always loved bagpipes.’

  Janey patted her arm, feeling so miserable, so lost without her cat that she could barely look at the little box G-Mamma had filled with his favourite things – a bottle of water, the Spyroscope that used to hang like a bell from his collar, and a photo of him with his Elvis quiff and his bright golden tail. ‘He was so proud of that tail,’ she whispered.

  Suddenly G-Mamma burst into song, in a hideous nasal screech that was even worse than the bagpipes:

  ‘Trouble, oh Trouble, you cat of the sky.

  Now you’re in Heaven, though Heaven knows why . . .

  Trouble, dear Trouble, oh Spycat supreme,

  We know that, in kitty clouds, your tail’s all . . . a-gleam.’

  With her chins wobbling furiously, the SPI:KE picked up the lid of the cardboard box and placed it ceremoniously on the top. Then, enveloping Janey in a shuddering hug, she whispered, ‘I’ll bury it later, when it’s dark, as we’ve no actual . . . you know.’

  Janey wiped a tear from G-Mamma’s black veil. No actual body, was what G-Mamma was avoiding saying. No body, and no tail. The bridge of her nose burned painfully as she fought back her tears. Burned like his poor tail, she thought. Why had his tail been burning?

  And with the bright flash in her brain that accompanied her best ideas, Janey thought of something. She scooted over to the computer and keyed in ‘Squirrel’s tails’.

  ‘What are you doing?’ howled G-Mamma. ‘It’s Trouble’s fu . . . fu . . . special party! It’s not the time to be typing.’

  Janey mustn’t get G-Mamma’s hopes up. She shouldn’t get her own hopes up, she realized, but if there was the faintest chance that Trouble’s tail had come off by design rather than by accident, then there was also the hope that he wasn’t actually dead. ‘I’m just writing a letter – to go in his special box,’ she said, staring anxiously at the computer screen.

  At that G-Mamma threw herself across her makeup bench, wailing pitifully. ‘Oh, he’ll never look at me with those big green eyes again. Oh, I can’t bear it. Kill me, Blonde, kill me too! I’ll join him on his little cat cloud in the sky . . .’

  ‘You may not have to,’ said Janey under her breath. An article had popped up on the screen before her.

  It was better than she had ever dared to hope.

  The Squirrel’s Tale

  How the squirrel uses its tail to divert danger

  Scientists have discovered that squirrels may have the most useful tail of all animals. Not only does it heat up and swell in size, to scare off predators like snakes and burn them if they do still attack . . .

  Yes! thought Janey. She read on eagerly.

  . . . but it now appears they could have another ace up their furry sleeve. Like certain breeds of lizard, the squirrel may have the ability to shed its tail when under attack, leaving it free to escape up the nearest tree, completely unharmed.’

  ‘G-Mamma,’ she said, feeling a little breathless, ‘when Trouble Wowed up with that pellet, how much of him was actual squirrel, do you think?’

  G-Mamma lifted her head from the bench, mascara in thick black brushstrokes across her cheek. ‘I don’t know, Blonde. What a time to be asking things like that. He was all cat to me.’

  ‘But I don’t think he was,’ said Janey. ‘If he was, say, half-squirrel, then I think . . .’ She hardly dared to believe it herself. ‘. . . I think he might be alive.’

  She pointed to the computer screen, and G-Mamma skidded across the room towards her. ‘Blonde, how could he . . . ? Oh, his tail might have . . . but how could he . . . ?’

  Janey raced for the Wower. ‘I’m going to find out,’ she said. ‘He might still be in the woods near the reservoir, in pain, wondering why nobody’s come to rescue him. Though Maddy went that way too. Is she home? Get Bert – he can help us!’ she yelled as the Wower door closed behind her.

  She felt a lot better as the Wower worked its magic, replacing her wrinkled, sweat-dampened pyjamas with smooth silver Lycra and smoothing her tousled hair into her trademark ponytail of sleek platinum blonde. It even seemed to be helping her to think more clearly, and as the droplets shimmered and glittered around her she came to a few decisions, marking them off in the steamed glass surrounding her.

  1. Dad

  There was definitely something not right about her father. He was getting more dangerous-looking and more crotchety by the day. He barely grunted at her. Was he ill? Did he know something that they didn’t? Had he been experimenting again – on himself, as he always did first? She intended to find out.

  2. James

  Why did he run off like that in the first place? Wasn’t he happy? Was he escaping something? And did he have anything to do with the explosions?

  3. Spylabs

  WHO WAS BLOWING THEM UP? AND WHY?

  4. Creatures

  Pterodactyls. Velociraptors. How had these strange animals
from the past ended up in Winton? How were they even alive?

  As the steam evaporated and her Wower came to an end, Jane Blonde stepped out into the Spylab, bursting with curiosity and ready for action. It was time to sort a few things out. Beginning with . . . ‘Trouble,’ she said firmly.

  Janey had forgotten, however, that it was now a new day, and that the family would be gathering for breakfast. The first thing she saw when she walked out of the garage was the sunlight, and the second was her mum standing on their back doorstep, her arms folded and her expression rather stony.

  ‘We are meant to be in this together, Janey,’ she said in a very disapproving voice. Janey noticed that she was wearing her bronze SPIsuit under her dressing gown, while her hair was gleaming like a bronze motorcycle helmet. ‘G-Mamma says you think Trouble might be alive.’

  Janey nodded, peering past her mum to see her father, hunched over his cereal, and James, picking listlessly at a bunch of grapes. ‘I was just going to go and look for him myself,’ she said. ‘Didn’t want to get everyone’s hopes up . . . just in case.’

  Nobody could argue with that. Her mum nodded sympathetically, and they went indoors together. ‘Our Blonde wants to go and find Trouble,’ said her mum. ‘There’s no problem with that, is there?’

  Boz glanced up from beneath his mono-brow, and Janey felt even her mother flinch beside her. ‘No,’ he growled. ‘Take Sable.’

  ‘What about Bert? He’d be useful for tracking,’ said Janey.

  ‘He and G-Mamma have gone to take the ptera to the zoo. They’ll meet you in the forest, where you saw Trouble drop. And jeans over your SPIsuits,’ she added. ‘It’s broad daylight. You never know who you might bump into.’

  Once they were in their ordinary clothes Boz drove Janey and James close to the point where the pterodactyl chase had begun. He was obviously brooding over some problem or other; every so often he shot one of them a hunted look. For a moment, Janey even felt sorry for him.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she said. ‘You know you can talk to me, your ace Spylet.’

  But Boz simply grunted and then pointed out of the window. The tree where the pterodactyl had been tethered was just a few metres away. It was a good place to start tracking. ‘One o’clock – back here,’ growled Boz as they climbed out of the Clean Jean van.

  That gave them just under three hours. Janey nodded and took her little brother’s trembling hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘The monster’s all tied up at Solfari Lands. It won’t bother you again.’

  She hoped not, at any rate, though at this point there was no telling what other creatures might be lurking in the forest. Pushing back the brim of her baseball cap, Janey focused with her Ultra-gogs. ‘X marks the spot,’ she said. The map of the area had a large cross on it about four kilometres away – the place where they believed Trouble, or what was left of him, had fallen out of the sky. ‘Come on, Sable.’

  Together they ran, their Fleet-feet enabling them to cover the distance in less than ten minutes. As they got nearer the site, the locator on Janey’s spy glasses started to beep at exactly the same moment that James started to gibber excitedly. ‘Well done,’ said Janey admiringly. Her brother’s animal instincts were as finely tuned as her Ultra-gogs. ‘So, what are we looking for . . .’

  Jamie put his hands together in a time-out sign, followed by a crooked finger in his left palm.

  ‘T . . . R . . .’ spelled Janey. ‘Oh! Trouble. Yes, we are searching for him, but we’re also looking for signs of where he might be if he’s hiding, or hurt.’

  Giving her the OK sign, James dropped to his knees and started foraging around in the leaves, checking particularly under bushes. Janey moved out in a wider circle, using her Ultra-gogs to step in where her human senses might not be strong enough. ‘Heat sensor, DNA check on fur or . . . or blood, and print magnification,’ she instructed her glasses. They flickered before her eyes for a moment, and she worried that she had confused them with too many orders at once, but suddenly the picture cleared.

  ‘James!’ she cried. ‘Over here.’

  It was part of Trouble’s Cat’s Eye Collar – specifically, an eye. Blue and long-lashed, it stared up from the ground like a painted pebble. Janey picked it up gingerly. The Wow and Weld did a spectacular job. Spectacular, but not always pleasant. ‘Euw,’ she said. ‘It’s warm. But it’s definitely off Trouble’s collar! This must be where he fell.’

  But of Trouble himself there was no sign. They were moving closer to the reservoir, and the ground underfoot was becoming muddy. ‘Trouble loves water,’ said Janey, trying to think logically. ‘If he thought he was on fire he would have headed here, tried to swim to safety.’

  James simply nodded, then cried out. He was pointing to the ground.

  ‘Tracks,’ whispered Janey.

  She knew without checking that they were Trouble’s prints. Rather on the large side for cat paws, there was a slash in the mud in front of the print from the left front leg. His sabre claw. ‘He was going this way,’ she said. ‘And look.’

  On either side of the cat prints were other sets of prints. One was completely identifiable – human feet. Large ones. Shod in heavy boots, by the looks of it. ‘Bert’s, I bet,’ she said, her Ultra-gogs confirming that the boots were an Australian brand. ‘Looks like he’s found Trouble! But what are these?’

  The markings in the ground to the other side of Trouble’s prints were not ones Janey recognized. There were four rectangular indentations, quite evenly spaced, each a good ten centimetres deep. ‘That’s either a very funny animal,’ said Janey, as she and James pored over the tracks, ‘or someone brought a piece of furniture out here.’

  She crouched down and examined the dents in the ground. They had faint ridges, and each one was about the size of a large box of matches. ‘It can’t be a table, or even a chair, but it might be a stool,’ she said, holding her hands up so they pointed towards each other but didn’t meet in the middle. ‘Something where the legs are quite spread apart, but the top’s quite small.’

  It didn’t make sense. Why would someone – presumably Bert – bring something like that out to the middle of the forest?

  And where was G-Mamma while all this was going on? Just thinking about her mad SPI:KE gave Janey an idea. She looked directly into the blue eyeball they’d found. There was a white film across the pupil, and she wasn’t at all sure that it could see her, but it was worth a try.

  Sure enough, after just a few seconds her SPIV rattled on her chest, and G-Mamma’s voice spurted out of it. ‘Blonde! Where did you find that?’

  ‘On the ground, near where the ptera dropped Trouble,’ said Janey, holding up her SPIV necklace. G-Mamma’s face loomed back at her, wearing a rather smug expression. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’ve got him, girly-girl!’ G-Mamma’s head dropped out of sight for a second, to be replaced by a pair of hypnotic green eyes. ‘He’s OK! Well, a bit chilly round the botty without his tail, but we’re just sorting that out now.’

  ‘But where are you? We want to see him,’ said Janey.

  And suddenly G-Mamma’s eyes flitted furtively left and right. ‘Well, you go home, Blondette, and you’ll see little kitty really soon.’

  ‘But I want to see—’

  ‘NO!’ screeched G-Mamma, so ferociously that Janey dropped the SPIV. Honestly, why was everyone shouting at her these days?

  ‘All right,’ she said crossly.

  She popped the eyeball in her jeans pocket, then turned to James, who was poking around with a stick in the strange rectangular tracks. What were they? She should ask G-Mamma . . .

  And suddenly it came to her. G-Mamma would never stop her from seeing Trouble. It had to be a trap. Someone must have kidnapped G-Mamma, and possibly Trouble, and maybe even Bert, and they were trying to keep Blonde out of the way by luring her home.

  ‘Nearest Spylab,’ she said quickly to her Ultra-gogs. The enemy had probably taken G-Mamma and Trouble to a lab. They might be doing vile experiment
s on them even now. ‘Quick!’ she yelled.

  The information that came up on the screen made her heart sink. Because the nearest Spylab did not belong to Solomon’s Polificational Investigations. It was a black, hideous place, where Trouble had been tortured once before by evil overlord Copernicus.

  It was Sunny Jim’s Swims. And the instant he’d understood the location, James was off again.

  Wishing she could have strapped her ASPIC on to her thigh over her jeans, Janey finally arrived at the Sunny Jim’s Swims gates after Fleet-footing around the reservoir and across the footbridge which spanned the motorway. The pool complex was looking strangely derelict. There was certainly no sign of any customers, even though it was summer, and the kiosk blinds hung down at angles as if nobody had opened them in a long time. Not that that meant anything, thought Janey. There could still be a lab full of enemy spies downstairs.

  Meanwhile, there was absolutely no sign of James. Her spy instincts kicked in again. James had taken off in too much of a hurry for it to be coincidence – almost as if he had his own mission. To . . . Janey hardly dared think it . . . to blow up the Spylab?

  She quickly scanned the whole park, using her Ultra-gogs’ X-ray vision to see though buildings and kiosks to the outlying areas. The only thing that appeared to be unusual was a bank of huge lights, strung up on scaffolding along one side of the picnic area. Janey ran across, searching for signs of enemies, or of James, but found only one thing – a pink feather.

  ‘Jamie!’ she called. ‘Sable! G-Mamma . . .’

  Luckily she’d been here before. Wading across to the middle of the toddler pool, she pressed the tiny S on the central sprinkler stand that she knew would lead her into the Spylab. The moment that she rolled out from under the entry tubes she realized that she had guessed correctly – or at least, partly correctly.

  James was being thrown against the wall by some kind of gorilla. Janey’s heart sank. Copernicus had been known to use gorilla henchmen to do his dirty work for him in the past; now one of them had hold of her brother and was dragging him forcibly across the glossy black floor of the Spylab. Towards what, Janey did not know.