The Black Paw

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  After being tipped off by an anonymous source (known only as ‘Deep Rodent’), Heather Frederick knew what she had to do. She had to go undercover. She had to find out for herself the truth of what was happening beneath the floorboards.

  Now she has broken cover to write books about the spy mice. ‘The world needs to know the peril facing the brave members of the Spy Mice Agency,’ she reports. She refuses to divulge her code name on the grounds that it would place her in danger. In addition, all the names in this book have been changed to protect active undercover rodent operatives.

  Books by Heather Vogel Frederick

  Spy Mice: The Black Paw

  Spy Mice: For Your Paws Only

  Heather Vogel Frederick

  Illustrated by Adam Stower

  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)

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  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, 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

  www.penguin.com

  First published in the USA by Simon & Schuster, Inc. 2005

  First published in Great Britain in Puffin Books 2005

  First published in this edition 2006

  3

  Text copyright © Heather Vogel Frederick,2005

  Illustrations copyright © Adam Stower,2006

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  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

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192601-8

  For Cousin Dorothy, who is true blue

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  DAY ONE – FRIDAY 1100 HOURS

  ‘DOGBONES! DOGBONES! DOGBONES!’

  Oz Levinson crouched down behind the gleaming grey sports car. He prodded his glasses up the perspiring slope of his nose and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, wishing he were invisible.

  ‘DOGBONES! DOGBONES! DOGBONES!’

  Oz covered his ears, but the chant pushed past his hands. It was the sharks again, same as at his old school. Different faces, different names, but the voices were the same. Taunting, teasing voices. Voices out for blood. Or tears, at the very least. And even though the sharks weren't after him this time, Oz's stomach still cramped in familiar knots of panic at the sound.

  ‘DOGBONES! DOGBONES! DOGBONES!’

  The sharks were drawing closer now. It wouldn't be long before they discovered his hiding place. Oz opened one eye and looked around in desperation for a better place to conceal himself. Running was pointless. He was fat; he was slow; they'd catch him for sure – even though he wasn't the ‘Dogbones’ they were after. One prey was as good as another when the sharks caught the sour scent of fear.

  Oz's gaze settled on the sports car beside him. The James Bond Aston Martin DB5 was the International Spy Museum's most popular exhibit, and he'd spent most of the morning's school field trip glued to its side. Its elegant lines and impressive array of modifications drew him like a magnet. Dual ram bumpers. Bulletproof glass. Armoured panels. Gun ports. Tear gas. It was sleek. It was dangerous. Just like he, Oz Levinson, would be someday when he was a secret agent.

  ‘DOGBONES! DOGBONES! DOGBONES!’

  The sharks were almost on top of him. Oz huddled lower and drew a shaky breath. The Aston Martin had an emergency oxygen system. He could use a little bit of that right about now. Either that or the DB5's smoke screen. A smoke screen would give him the perfect cover he needed to escape. A smoke screen –

  ‘Hey, whadda we got here?’

  Oz flinched as the bubble of his daydream burst. He looked up and poked nervously at his glasses again. Over him loomed Jordan Scott and Sherman ‘Tank’ Wilson. Unlike his last school in San Francisco, where sixth-grade thugs like Jordan and Tank were shipped off to middle school, Chester B. Arthur Elementary in Washington DC kept them around one more year. One more year to torture the younger kids and make lives like his miserable.

  Reluctantly, Oz rose to his feet. Jordan stepped forward and jabbed him in the belly. ‘Seen Dogbones around anywhere, Fatboy?’

  ‘Uh,’ said Oz, stalling for time. They were after his fifth-grade classmate Delilah Bean, better known as ‘Dogbones’ thanks to a pair of exceedingly skinny legs and what passed for wit amongst the sharks.

  He swallowed nervously and stared at Jordan. The older boy was lumbering right up the food chain towards adolescence. A thatch of shaggy dark hair partially obscured his narrow face, which sprouted a scattering of whiskers and acne. Oz studied the constellation of pimples on his tormentor's chin and wondered what to say. In fact, he knew exactly where Delilah Bean was hiding – in the museum's secret passageway through the ductwork overhead – but he had no intention of ratting her out. Not to the likes of Jordan and Tank.

  On the other hand, if he told them where Delilah Bean was hiding, maybe they'd let him off easy. Maybe they'd leave him alone.

  Or maybe they'd even let him become one of them. A shark.

  The thought was enormously tempting. Oz was so tired of always wishing he were invisible. Of always trying to stay off the radar screen. Maybe this was finally his chance. He didn't even have to say anything. All he had to do was point.

  ‘C'mon, Blubberbutt, you know who I'm talking about.’ Jordan was growing impatient. ‘Skinny legs, skinny little braids. I'll bet you've seen her.’

  Oz started to raise his finger towards the ceiling, then hesitated. What would James Bond do if he were here? James Bond was Oz's hero. He'd watched all the 007 movies at least a zillion times. Nothing ever rattled the world's most famous spy. He never caved in to pressure, never lost his cool. The sharks wouldn't stand a chance around James Bond. The British secret agent would make mincemeat out of a pimpleton like Jordan Scott.

  ‘Are you deaf as well as blind?’ Tank, a beefy redhead, glared at him. ‘What are you doing back here anyway?’ He swivelled his thick neck towards the DB5 and grunted. ‘Cool car.’

  Jordan grinned maliciously. ‘Bet Fatboy's pretending he's James Bond,’ he said. Behind him, a knot of students snickered.

  Oz froze. Was it that obvious? Were his innermost secrets not so secret?

  ‘That's a good one!’ hooted Tank. ‘Who ever heard of a supersize superspy?’

  ‘Double-O-LARD!’ jeered Jordan, and the sharks and sharks-in-training clustered around him exploded with glee. Shame rippled through Oz. Shame and humiliation. Tears started in his eyes, and he struggled to blink them back. He scanned
the crowd, desperately searching for a friendly face. All he saw were sharks. And with the sound of their laughter ringing in his ears, he turned and fled.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  At that very moment, a small nose – a very elegant little nose – emerged from an electrical conduit beneath a desk on the museum's fourth floor.

  Elegant whiskers fanned out from either side of the nose. They twitched slightly, then waited. A full minute ticked by. The office was silent; the desk's occupant nowhere to be seen. The whiskers twitched again, and then the elegant little nose to which they were attached poked out further, followed by the nose's owner – a small brown mouse.

  Quietly, she set down her mousesized skateboard. Expertly fashioned from a lolly stick and the wheels of a broken toy car, it was painted flamingo pink, thanks to the remains of a discarded bottle of nail polish. The mouse unstrapped her tiny safety helmet (a bottle-cap-and-rubber-band Forager's Special), hitched her small backpack (made from the thumb of a mitten) firmly into place, and shimmied up the phone cord.

  She emerged on top of the desk a moment later. Keeping well out of sight, she skirted the telephone and clambered on to the stack of phone books propped beside it. She paused for a moment, then with a graceful leap propelled herself up through the air and on to the shelf above. She scurried into the shadows behind a dictionary and whispered into the microphone (part of an old mobile-phone headset) that was clipped to her glossy and impeccably groomed brown fur, ‘Agent in place.’

  ‘Check,’ replied a voice in her ear – a very elegant little ear. ‘Proceed with caution.’

  ‘Affirmative.’ The mouse inched forward. She peeked around the edge of the dictionary. Not a human in sight. ‘The coast is clear,’ she reported.

  ‘Can you see the merchandise?’

  She craned her neck for a better view of the desk below, scanning its surface with bright little eyes. There it was, inside a small plastic bag atop a red folder marked NEW ARRIVAL. Her whiskers twitched in excitement.

  ‘Affirmative,’ she whispered. ‘I'll have it secured in two shakes of a cat's tail.’

  ‘Watch your back, now, Glory. Remember what happened last time.’

  The mouse named Glory grimaced. How could she forget? That little mishap earlier in the week had landed her on probation. Not something a field agent took lightly. Trust Fumble to remind her about it over the airwaves. She could practically hear the wisecracks zinging around right now down at Central Command.

  It's not as if it was my fault, Glory thought sulkily, opening her backpack and drawing out a rubber band. I was distracted.

  She scowled, recalling Tuesday afternoon's brush with disaster. Fumble had no business bringing it up. It wasn't as if she'd actually lost the Kiss of Death, after all. She knew as well as any mouse what would happen if that lethal weapon fell into the wrong paws. She'd managed to get it back in the end, and that was all that mattered. Besides, she'd like to see Fumble try to concentrate if he'd found the Black Paw in his postbox right before an important mission.

  Glory shivered. Even now, three days later, the thought of that menacing symbol sent a chill all the way to the tip of her tail. Marked for death, it meant. By none other than Roquefort Dupont, leader of Washington's rat underworld and the cruellest, most despicable rodent on the face of the planet. By dipping his mangy paw in ink and pressing it to a slip of paper, Dupont had announced to the world that she was on his hit list. Just as her father had been before her. And now, her father was gone – kidnapped and assassinated by Dupont and his conniving cronies.

  Glory's bright little eyes glittered with tears at the thought of her father. He'd vanished three months ago, and she still missed him horribly. Time heals all wounds, everyone kept telling her, but she was beginning to think it wasn't true. Her father's death had left a hole in her heart that she doubted anything could ever fill.

  Her whiskers quivering angrily, Glory shoved a safety pin through one end of the rubber band and jabbed it into the spine of the dictionary behind her. She'd show Fumble. No way was she going to let him get the better of her. Or Roquefort Dupont. Hit list or no hit list, she had a job to do.

  Pushing all thoughts of her father and the Black Paw out of her mind, Glory tugged on the rubber band to make sure it was securely anchored, then tied a small loop in the other end and thrust a hind paw through it. She crept to the edge of the shelf, steadied herself, and was just about to dive over the edge when – BRNGGGGG! – the phone on the desk below her rang.

  Startled, Glory shot straight up into the air. She landed on top of a framed picture of a cat and glanced around in alarm, her heart pounding a rapid tattoo. Had she been spotted? No, still no humans in sight. But the telephone's insistent ringing always brought them running.

  BRNGGGGG! Sure enough, Glory heard a door open and close just down the corridor. She didn't have much time. It was now or never. Glory slid down the back of the frame and scurried back to the edge of the shelf. She drew a deep breath – she had to concentrate! Much as she hated to admit it, Fumble was right. The Black Paw had rattled her. She'd been off her game these past few days, and she couldn't afford to make another mistake.

  Willing herself to focus, Glory aimed for the desktop below and bungee-jumped head first towards the red folder, scooping the small plastic bag on top of it into her paws before the rubber band snapped her back up to the shelf again. It was a clean move, flawlessly executed, and so swift that even had a human been present, he or she might not have noticed at all. Moving quickly, Glory unhooked the rubber band and stuffed it into her backpack along with the merchandise, then ran for cover. She flung herself into a rose-patterned teacup on the far end of the shelf and huddled in its depths, panting. BRNGGGGG! Rapid footsteps announced the approach of the desk's occupant. Glory heard the clatter of the telephone receiver, followed by the murmur of conversation. She hoped fervently that her microphone wasn't picking up the frantic pattering of her heart. She could only imagine the mileage Fumble would get from that.

  As if sensing her thoughts, her colleague asked, ‘Everything all right, Glory?’

  Glory drew a deep breath, trying to calm herself. ‘Just swell.’

  ‘Did you retrieve the merchandise?’

  ‘Affirmative.’

  There was a click as the telephone receiver was returned to its place, then the rustling of papers on the desk. A drawer opened and closed. Glory remained motionless, waiting for the human to leave. They always did.

  Suddenly, her stomach lurched as the teacup in which she was hiding rose into the air. She ducked as something hit her on the head. ‘Ow!’ She swatted the something aside and sat up, squinting at it. It was a square paper object with a string attached to one end. The string trailed over the edge of the cup. Glory gave a squeak of alarm. A tea bag!

  She sprang out of the cup and on to the saucer just as a stream of hot water came pouring in, but she wasn't fast enough. A few drops of steaming liquid spattered on to the tip of her tail. Glory squeaked again.

  The human on the other end of the kettle shrieked when she saw Glory and dropped both kettle and teacup on to the desk with a clatter. Glory leaped from the saucer just before it crashed. She ran, taking cover in the open tent of a birthday card.

  ‘What's going on, Glory?’ demanded Fumble.

  Glory clutched her scalded tail and forced herself to breathe normally. A fine field agent she was. She'd never earn her Silver Skateboard at this rate. That had been a close call. Way too close for comfort. Still, no point in reporting that she'd almost become a mouse tea bag. ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  ‘Didn't sound like nothing,’ said Fumble suspiciously. ‘Sounded like a scream. A human scream.’

  ‘Stow it, Fumble. You're imagining things,’ snapped Glory. ‘I'm coming in. Over and out.’

  Glory peered out from inside the birthday card. The human was distracted, frantically trying to mop up the flood of hot water. Glory darted towards the back edge of the desk and catapulted off,
catching the phone cord in one paw and rappelling neatly down to the floor. She landed with a light thump, jammed her safety helmet on her head, grabbed her skateboard, and wiggled into the conduit.

  If Glory herself had designed Washington's International Spy Museum, she couldn't have created a more perfectly mouse-friendly work environment. The conduits that channelled all the electronic wires and cables for telephone, computer, audio and video connections throughout the building not only allowed the Spy Mice Agency access to state-of-the-art equipment, but also doubled as a series of superhighways along which mice – especially field agents equipped with skateboards – could travel quite comfortably.

  Glory ollied up and over a line of computer cable, slapped down into the conduit tube, and rocketed towards headquarters. She had to get to Julius before Fumble did. If her colleague reported this second mishap to her boss, she could lose her job. Even though being spotted by a human during a mission wasn't technically a breach of the Mouse Code – certainly not as serious a breach as actually talking to one – still, it wasn't something Julius would take lightly.

  But even the thought of losing her job paled in comparison to the Black Paw, thought Glory grimly. She could always find another job. The Black Paw could mean the end of everything.

  And as she carved her way down towards Central Command, it seemed to Glory that the wheels of her skateboard clacked out the same ominous phrase over and over again: Marked for death… marked for death… marked for death…

  Oz ran blindly, heedless of anything but his dire need to escape. Behind him, Jordan and Tank were rallying the sharks for the chase. The hunt for Delilah Bean had been abandoned; he, Oz, was proving far better sport.

  ‘Don't let him get away!’ hollered Jordan.

  Huffing and puffing, Oz lumbered on through the exhibits. Ninja. Cloak. Dagger. Shadow. With its high-tech lighting and exposed pipes running along the ceiling, the museum looked like the inside of a submarine. Oz didn't stop to admire the view, however; nor did he linger by the display cases full of gadgets (hollow coins for hiding messages! lock-picking kits! video-camera sunglasses!), disguises and tips on the spy trade. Oz had a tiny head start, and he wasn't about to waste it. There was no way he could outrun the sharks. He'd have to outwit them.