The Spy Who Loved Ice Cream

by Sam Hay

  “Have you seen that crusher?” Quigley peered over the edge and shuddered.

  “Um, yeah, but don’t worry,” Jackson said, trying to make his buddy feel better. But inside he was quaking. If we put one flipper in that thing we’ll be mincemeat! They’ll have to scoop us out and send us home in a plastic tub. “Quick! We’ll have to jump!” Jackson started to scramble up over the side.

  “Wait—put this on!” Quigley thrust something flowery into Jackson’s flippers.

  “What? No!” Jackson groaned. “Not the Poop Protector Hats again—”

  “They’ve got a heli-hopper mode,” Quigley said. “Just flick the switch on the top three times.”

  Jackson didn’t argue. Their dumpster had begun to tip. He pulled on the hat, flicked the switch three times and bailed out over the side with his spoons spinning and his eyes shut. Please don’t let Hoff see me, he thought. He’d never let me live this down. But then— “Shocking squids!” Jackson breathed as he glided softly to the ground. “It works!”

  “Phew!” Quigley landed next to him. “That’s a relief. I’d never tested the heli-hopper mode before.” He chuckled. “Good thing I didn’t get it mixed up with the self-destruct mode.”

  “The what?” Jackson stared at Quigley.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” His buddy grinned. “I always add a self-destruct mode to my inventions”—he turned off their hats with a small remote control unit—“in case they fall into enemy hands. We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?”

  Jackson shuddered. “I guess not. Come on,” he said, “let’s get out of here before that truck sled drops the dumpster on our heads.”

  They headed for the alleyway, running along the side of Brain Freezers.

  “At least we got the carton.” Jackson stopped for a moment and held it up so Quigley could see the tiny trace of yellow-and-green ice cream still glowing at the bottom.

  Quigley frowned. “I’m not sure there’s enough for me to analyze. I guess we could go try.”

  Jackson didn’t answer. He was peering at a label on the side of the tub. “I’ve got another idea. Look … there’s a manufacturer’s name at the bottom.”

  “Frosters?” Quigley read.

  “Yep, Frosters!” Jackson’s eyes narrowed. “The same factory that held the awards ceremony yesterday, where Victor and his team went. Remember, Victor said the café was closed. And he probably thought it was. But we know it wasn’t!” He scratched his crest and tried to order the facts in his brain. “Maybe someone just wanted to get Victor and his staff out of the way so they could use his café for something else.”

  “Like hypnotizing your uncle Bryn?” Quigley nodded. “Wow! Sneaky trick. And you think someone at Frosters might be involved?”

  Jackson shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think we need to check this Frosters factory out. Look—there’s an address on the label: Unit Thirteen, Driftwood Docks, Rookeryville.”

  “That’s not far from here,” Quigley said. “And I just thought of something else. Maybe Frosters has its own fleet of ice cream truck sleds!”

  “Hmm…” Jackson nodded slowly, a new thought crystallizing in his brain. And maybe Frosters’ ice cream trucks sleds have rocket boosters on the back and hopper gears. “Like the ones your dad has been working on,” he said aloud.

  Quigley nodded. “Exactly!” Then he sighed. “Shame we haven’t got time to find Hoff Rockface. We could have been pulverized to death in that dumpster truck sled thanks to him.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get him back,” Jackson muttered. “Finola always says ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold!’”

  “Huh?” Quigley scratched his crest.

  “I dunno what it means, either,” Jackson admitted. “But I know one thing for sure—Hoff’s got a lot of credits in the Bank of Payback! And sooner or later he’s going to have to make a withdrawal. Come on. We’ve got to clear Uncle Bryn’s name. And find out who’s really pulling the strings on these robberies. Let’s do this!”

  10

  Driftwood Docks wasn’t the sort of place Jackson’s mom approved of.

  MOM’S LIST OF PLACES JACKSON AND QUIGLEY MUST NOT VISIT—EVER!

  1.  Frostbite Ridge, the large iceberg above town: WAY too slippery.

  2.  Driftwood Docks: WAY too busy.

  3.  Criminal Lairs: WAY too many baddies.

  4.  FBI HQ: WAY too much secret-agent business for would-be junior secret agents to stick their beaks into!

  “Watch it!” Jackson pulled Quigley out of the way of a reversing log-loader sled.

  But Quigley didn’t notice. “That’s the third milk truck that’s arrived in the last five minutes,” he said, peering through his bin-ice-ulars at the factory across the street. “But I haven’t seen any rocket-boosted ice cream truck sleds.”

  “Can I see?” Jackson borrowed the bin-ice-ulars and scanned the area from the delivery gates to the front entrance, where groups of penguins were lining up outside. “Looks like they have a visitor center,” Jackson said. “Come on, we can get inside that way.”

  A small penguin with well-muscled flippers who was wearing a cap and a badge that said HI, MY NAME IS THELMA. I’M HERE TO HELP! was waving the line inside. “If everyone can please follow the blue footprints painted on the floor, then you’ll be able to see the whole magical Frosters experience in complete safety,” she said. “Please DO NOT detour from the blue footprints. Anyone who detours from the blue footprints will be in big trouble! I repeat, STAY ON THE BLUE FOOTPRINTS!”

  Jackson and Quigley exchanged glances. No way were they going to stay on the blue footprints. If there was any funny business going on in the factory, they knew it wasn’t going to be happening anywhere near the blue footprints!

  “Mmm, smells good,” Quigley said as they followed the line of visitors into a large room with several mixing vats churning sugar, seaweed, and cream. “Maybe they’ll let us try some.”

  Jackson’s tummy rumbled. It did smell good. But the first rule of secret-agent survival was: No snack breaks!

  “Look, there’s Lily from school. Hi, Lily!” Quigley waved to a girl penguin at the front of the line.

  Lily had helped them on their last mission. And even though she wanted to be a rare-fish keeper at the aquarium when she grew up, just like her dad, Jackson thought she’d make a good secret agent—with a little training from him and Quigley, of course.

  “Maybe we could join her group,” Quigley said. “Look, I think that’s what she’s telling us to do. See? She’s waving us over.”

  Jackson waved back and smiled. “Um—maybe later,” he whispered. “She’s with her little cousin from first grade. I think it’s a birthday outing. See? The little girl’s got a balloon. Do you really want to go join a hatchling’s birthday party?”

  Quigley winced. “Um—perhaps not.”

  Jackson glanced around at the workers in the room. Some were checking gauges. Others were filling out charts. Could one of them be an evil hypnotizing, bank-robbing super-criminal mastermind?

  “Keep moving along the blue footprints!” shouted Thelma, the tour group leader. As they followed, she began to explain the ice cream–making process, which sounded a lot like “Blah blah blah, KEEP FOLLOWING THE BLUE FOOTPRINTS!” to Jackson. The other visitors nodded along, oohing and aahing at the impossibly large amounts of ice cream Thelma told them Frosters made.

  But Jackson had zoned out. There has to be more to this place than meets the eye, he thought. I can feel it in my feathers! And then he spotted it—a corridor leading away from the blue footprints with a sign above it saying:

  He nudged Quigley, who nodded back.

  “STAY ON THE BLUE FOOTPRINTS!” they heard Thelma shout from the head of the line. “WE’RE NOW GOING THROUGH TO THE FLAVORS ROOM. DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING! DO NOT EAT ANYTHING! STAY ON THE BLUE FOOTPRINTS!”

  Jackson and Quigley waited until she wasn’t looking, and then—

  Now! Jackson mouthed, and they raced down
the empty white-walled corridor, hearts beating fast, feathers standing on end, expecting at any moment to feel one of Thelma’s well-muscled flippers hauling them back to the blue footprints. Seconds later they reached a set of double doors.

  “Locked!” Jackson grimaced.

  But Quigley already had his remote control out and was pointing it at a keypad to one side of the doors. “My remote’s got a confuse-a-tron mode,” he whispered. “It’ll electronically bombard the locking system with number combinations until it malfunctions. It just needs a few seconds…”

  Jackson glanced behind them, his tummy doing somersaults. Were we seen? Are there any security cameras watching us? What if Thelma has already noticed we’re gone and set off a silent alarm? At any moment, an army of small, well-muscled Frosters guards might appear and—

  “Bingo!” Quigley said as a green light showed on the keypad and the door clicked open.

  “Awesome work,” Jackson murmured as they slipped through. “Remind me to borrow that device for the new lock on Finola’s secret strongbox.”

  Through the doors was another corridor, and at the far end, Jackson could see a cloakroom with rows of white lab coats hanging on pegs. And just beyond there was another set of doors, with glass windows. “Let’s go take a look,” Jackson whispered, leading the way.

  They had to stand on tiptoes to peer through the glass, but then—

  “What on earth?” Jackson blinked at the brightly lit room beyond. “It looks like some sort of crazy laboratory made out of—” He squinted to see better.

  “—neon ice!” Quigley squeaked. “So cool!”

  Streams of freezing fog blasted across the room, making it tricky to see clearly.

  “It must be a thermostatically controlled ice lab,” Quigley said. “State of the art! That fog is keeping the temperature sub-zero. Whoa!” he added, using his bin-ice-ulars on fog-filter mode to get a better look. “Check out the equipment on that bench over there. That’s a super-powered electron-micro-flipper! I SO want one of those.”

  Jackson looked at him blankly.

  “It’s like a microscope—only a krill-zillion times stronger!” Quigley explained.

  Jackson frowned. “What’s a super high-tech lab doing inside a regular ice cream factory?”

  “Dunno, but I can’t wait to find out.” Quigley pointed his remote control at the keypad lock on the doors.

  “Wait. We should probably put these on.” Jackson handed Quigley a white lab coat. “If there’s anyone in there, it’ll help us blend in. Look, there are goggles in the pockets.” He slipped on a pair. “Tinted!” he said as the world turned yellow. “Neat!”

  They slipped inside and a blast of cold air hit Jackson’s face. His feathers stood on end, and he was pretty sure his lungs had just frozen solid. He shivered. Then he shivered even more because he suddenly realized the room was full of penguins. Through the blasting fog, at the far end of the neon ice room, he could see a dozen or so penguins in lab coats and goggles working at benches. And overseeing their work was a tall, scary-looking penguin with a spiked crest and razor-sharp flippers. Jackson craned his neck to see better. Is that a real, live gull on his flipper? It made him look a lot like a pirate penguin. That, and the long crest braid running down his back.

  Quigley nudged him. “Look at what they’re making,” he whispered, pointing to the workbenches. “Glowing ice cream! Just like the stuff your uncle was eating.”

  The scientist penguins couldn’t hear Quigley over the noise of the cold-air blasters, but the gull sitting on the pirate penguin’s flipper suddenly turned its head and stared at them. Uh-oh, Jackson thought, trying not to move in case he startled the bird. I don’t think that gull likes the look of us. He was about to warn Quigley when—

  “SQUAWK!” The gull let out a shriek, and all heads turned to see what had happened.

  Jackson tugged Quigley behind a cart of chemicals just in time. “We’ve got to distract that bird so we can get our flippers on some of that ice cream.”

  “Wait—I know…” Quigley rummaged in his backpack and pulled out the silent gull whistle Jackson had blown on Mrs. Hoppy-Floppy’s deck. He took a deep breath and blew.

  The effect was instantaneous!

  The seagull fluttered its feathers. It squawked, then took off, flapping up into the air, then swooping and diving around the room.

  “Fluffy!” boomed the pirate penguin. “Stop that at once!”

  Fluffy? Jackson mouthed to Quigley.

  Quigley smiled, then blew the whistle some more.

  “Stop your work!” the pirate penguin shouted to the other penguins. “Help me catch Fluffy!”

  “Fluffy! Fluffy! Here, Fluffy!” As the scientist penguins tried to catch the bird, Jackson dropped to the floor and began crawling across the lab underneath the workbenches. It’s like being in a maze in the fog, he thought. I just need to remember which bench has the ice cream on it. He popped his head up seal-at-an-ice-hole-style. There: two benches to the right. He dropped down again and crawled a bit farther before popping up once more. Several tubs of glowing ice cream lay on the bench in front of him. But as Jackson reached out a flipper, the pirate penguin turned around.

  Slithering spikefish! Jackson froze. I’ve been spotted!

  11

  Jackson stared across the room through the wispy cold fog, straight into the icy face of the pirate penguin; his small, evil-looking eyes glared through his goggles.

  Uh-oh! Jackson felt his feathers stiffen; his danger detectors were maxing out at 10. Do something, 00Zero! he told himself. Quick! “Um—Fluffy!” he found himself shouting, his voice high and wobbly. “Here, Fluffy! Come back now!” He waggled his flippers at the swooping bird just like the other scientists were doing. The pirate penguin stared at him, uncertainty washing over his face.

  Jackson held his breath. He was banking on the fact that through the fog, and in his lab coat and goggles, he looked a lot like the other penguins in the room, only shorter. “Fluffy! Fluffy!” he called again. “Whoa!” He ducked as the gull dived down from the ceiling, nearly taking his crest off, and then swooped away again. The pirate penguin made a grab for his bird, tripping and stumbling over a high stool. As he hit the floor, Jackson seized his chance. He swiped a tub of ice cream and fled.

  Run! he mouthed to Quigley, who already had the doors open.

  “Did he see you take it?” Quigley whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Jackson muttered. “But we’d better get out of here fast. This way,” he said, heading for another door off the corridor. “Flippers crossed it’s a quick exit!”

  This time, luck was on their side. The doors weren’t locked, and they shot straight outside, onto a metal ramp at the back of the factory.

  “Keep running!” Jackson said, pushing his goggles up onto the top of his head and blinking in the sudden daylight. They shuffled down the ramp, dodging several workers pushing carts in the opposite direction, and followed the path around the side of the building.

  “I guess this is the loading dock,” Quigley panted as they slowed to catch their breath. “Check out the truck sleds.”

  To their right were dozens of trucks coming and going, turning and reversing, chugging their loads in and out of the factory gates while chunky penguins in aprons charged around, pushing enormous carts laden with boxes and churns and giant sacks of ice cream ingredients.

  “I don’t see the truck sled from last night,” Quigley said, scanning the grounds to make sure.

  Jackson glanced behind them in case they were being followed. Phew! Nope, all clear! Maybe they’d actually gotten away with it? He felt his feathers puff up. This is exactly why the FBI needs us, he thought.

  “So that’s the ice cream,” Quigley said, peering at the tub Jackson had swiped. “Weird, isn’t it? So bright, and”—he leaned in closer— “so smelly! It kind of stinks like bathroom cleaner. I can’t wait to run some tests on it. But what do you think it’s got to do with this whole hypnotized-uncle
business?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing but—”

  “Watch it!” A large penguin pushing a cart of milk churns clattered past them.

  Jackson stuffed the tub into his backpack. “Hope it doesn’t melt too quickly,” he whispered. “I think my spelling book is in there.”

  Quigley nodded. Miss Chalk-Feather would NOT approve of sticky spelling homework.

  “Come on. Let’s see if we can find a fast route out of here.” Jackson led the way. “Hey,” he called back to his buddy, “did you see that crazy-looking pirate dude in the laboratory? His eyes! Sheesh! Scare-EEE!”

  “Jackson! Stop!” Quigley’s face had turned pale. “Over there. Look what just pulled up.”

  Jackson peered over at the loading dock. A large ice cream truck sled was reversing into the loading bay. He gasped, steadying himself against the wall of the building. “Same blacked-out windows,” he muttered. “Same yellow stripes.”

  “It’s the one your uncle drove off in!” Quigley said. “I’m sure of it. Hey, maybe he’s still inside!”

  Jackson nodded. If Uncle Bryn was still inside, then this was the perfect opportunity to make him snap out of the hypnotism. Jackson had seen TV magicians do that by clicking their flippers in front of the penguins they’d hypnotized. It’s worth a try, he thought. “Quick, let’s get over there!”

  The driver and his partner were already out of the truck and unlocking the back doors when Jackson and Quigley reached the loading dock.

  “I don’t recognize them,” Jackson said, shuffling closer. “But they’re wearing the same caps as Uncle Bryn had on. Look, see there, the letter F? It must be F for Frosters!”

  The penguins had found a cart and were unloading a large chest freezer from the back of the truck sled onto it.

  “I don’t see your uncle,” Quigley murmured, peering past the penguins and into the back of the truck.