‘It’s me, Dad. Rusty,’ he managed.
‘Rusty? Is that you?’ his father’s voice faded further, cutting in and out.
‘Yes, it’s me, Dad. How are you?’
‘Rusty —’
‘Dad, I’m worried. The other pets are talking, but Bongo isn’t,’ Rusty blurted over the top of his father’s voice. ‘I don’t know if he can do it. Maybe you were right, maybe I shouldn’t have come.’ Now that he’d started, everything poured out of him in a wave.
‘Rusty —’ Mr Mulligan tried again, but Rusty couldn’t stop.
‘I miss you, Dad,’ Rusty went on, saying things over the phone he’d never be able to say to his gruff father in person. ‘I miss Charlotte. I miss my bedroom and watching cooking shows on TV with you, and I even miss Miss Chester and her stories about her cats.’
Rusty stopped talking. At the other end of the phone, his father was silent. Rusty heard what sounded like seagulls.
‘Are you at the beach, Dad?’
‘. . . fishing . . . far . . .’
‘Dad —’ Rusty started, but the line dropped out and he was left staring at the silent phone. ‘I love you,’ he said softly.
Rusty walked back over to Bongo and picked him up. ‘At least Dad didn’t seem to be missing me,’ he said, trying not to cry. Rusty felt stupid for expecting anything different. He loved yelling at cooking shows with his father, but if Rusty was left off the soccer team or fell off his bike, his dad told him to toughen up. It had been that way since Mum died. ‘He was at the beach, I think. Probably having fish and chips for dinner. It’s his favourite.’
Right then Rusty would have given anything to be sitting on the grass eating chips and shooing the squawking seagulls away. He sighed. ‘I’ll be back home soon enough,’ he whispered. ‘And nothing will have changed. I may as well never have come to Miss Alice Einstein’s School for Talking Pets.’
CHAPTER 43
A FOGGY START
Rusty twisted and turned as he slept.
He dreamed that Miss Einstein and all the pets from the island, and his family and friends from Sydney too, sat in the audience of the Golden Hall. Rusty was on stage with Bongo. His father called out, ‘Speak then, lizard!’ but Bongo sat silently. His blue tongue licked out and the crowd paused, but then he snatched and ate a cockroach from the stage. The animals started crying. Nan had tears in her piggy eyes, fogging up her glasses. Camembert growled at them both, baring his puppy teeth.
Nader had turned his squished-in face to Rusty. ‘Why did you come here, Rusty?’ the cat asked in a voice filled with sadness.
That’s when Rusty woke up.
He climbed out of bed and walked over to the window, pushing his sweaty hair off his damp forehead. Outside, the sun had risen but it was so foggy he could barely see the nearest tree. Rusty looked over at Bongo’s enclosure, which was aglow from the heat lamp that kept him warm. Bongo peered up at him.
‘You couldn’t sleep either, Bongo?’ Rusty asked.
Bongo blinked.
‘Let’s go for a walk, hey? Check out the fog.’
Rusty changed out of his pyjamas and put on his Driza-Bone. It wasn’t really cold enough for the big coat, but he wanted a warm pocket to put Bongo in. He picked up his lizard and put him in the right-side pocket so the lizard’s head stuck out and he could see where they were going.
‘That OK, Bongo?’
Bongo didn’t answer, but Rusty thought he looked comfortable enough.
Rusty tiptoed quietly down the huge staircase and out the massive pink door. His joggers crunched on the pink gravel as he crossed the driveway, then he was on dew-covered grass.
Walking through the milky fog, Rusty could imagine he and Bongo were alone in the world. It was strangely peaceful, gliding through the white clouds, not knowing what was ahead until he was almost upon it. The wet grass soon soaked through his joggers, but he kept walking, heading away from both the Pink House and the school, down towards the trees at the far end of the island, taking deep breaths of cool morning air.
‘Good morning, Rusty. Good morning, Bongo.’
Rusty lurched to a stop, his heart thudding. He turned to his left.
BJ.
The big man wore black pants, a black T-shirt and a long black jacket. His blue eyes were bloodshot, and he didn’t stand as straight and tall as usual. Rusty peered at him and saw Jade’s green head appear in a pocket of the jacket, sticking out much like Bongo’s was from his own pocket. Bongo shuffled around to get a better look at the chameleon.
‘Hi, BJ. Hi, Jade,’ Rusty said.
‘What are you doing out so early in the morning?’ BJ asked.
‘I couldn’t sleep. You?’
‘I always do my rounds about this time. However, I couldn’t sleep either.’ He frowned. ‘Those people you saw the other day. Have you seen them again?’
‘Ah, no, I haven’t. Why? What do you think they are doing? Did you talk to Miss Einstein yesterday?’
‘I tried to,’ BJ sighed. ‘Alice is caught up in preparations for this New York school of Nader’s. I fear she doesn’t give enough attention to the matter of these . . . intruders.’
Rusty swallowed. He didn’t like the sound of that. ‘What do you think they’re up to?’ he asked again.
‘I don’t know, Rusty. That’s the problem.’
They stood in silence for a moment. Jade’s head became pink, then blue, then yellow, before BJ spoke again. ‘The smaller one gives me a bad feeling.’ BJ’s brows knitted together and the octopus head on his face seemed to frown along with him. ‘He obviously works out, but his muscles are all for show. There’s no real strength there, and that suggests a man who is vain and interested only in himself.’
Rusty pictured the man he’d seen on the wharf as they left the mainland, and in the gardener’s clothes at the school. They were show muscles? They seemed real enough. But, he supposed anyone would look small if you were the size of BJ. Even now, the big man’s biceps appeared ready to pop his coat at the seams with a single flex.
‘And the woman with orange hair . . . I’m not sure what to make of her.’
Rusty started. He pictured the fisherman . . . fisherwoman. The hedge with the orange flowers. ‘The orange-haired one is a woman?’
‘Yes. I get a completely different feeling about her. She seems . . . not harmless exactly. No, I believe she is far more deadly than the man. But there is a kindness in her manner. A softness.’
Rusty couldn’t remember anything about the woman suggesting softness.
‘She’s been watching me, you know.’ BJ lifted his eyes to Rusty and smiled almost guiltily.
‘You like her!’ Rusty blurted.
‘What? No. Well, not really. I mean, I don’t know,’ said BJ, and Rusty would have smiled at the confusion in his voice if he wasn’t so worried about the intruders. ‘She is . . . interesting,’ BJ said, the furrow reappearing between his eyebrows.
‘And about the right height for you,’ muttered Rusty as he craned his neck to peer up at his new friend.
BJ sighed again. He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. ‘Care to walk with me, Rusty? I’m heading your way. Thought I’d check out this end of the island; see if there is any sign of them.’
Rusty should have been scared at the idea of walking into the fog and possibly stumbling across two intruders, but with BJ’s gigantic presence beside him, he wasn’t.
‘Sure,’ he said, and they started off.
‘Are you enjoying the school?’ BJ asked as they walked.
‘Oh yes. It’s amazing. I’ve met so many clever animals. It’s a marvellous place. You must love living here.’
‘Yes.’ BJ smiled. ‘I might not agree with what Alice has set up, but it is a wonderful island.’
‘And you really won’t let Jade learn to talk?’ Rusty asked, peering down at the chameleon, who fixed one eye on him while the other rotated in circles.
‘I believe animals were made to be animals. N
ot humans. Alice can teach her pets to talk, but Jade is perfectly happy just being a lizard. Aren’t you, Jade?’
The chameleon focused her rotating eye on BJ and directed the other at Rusty. He thought she was trying to tell him something, but he wasn’t sure exactly what that was.
Suddenly, BJ stuck a massive arm out, stopping Rusty in his tracks. It felt as if a brick wall had been plonked down in front of him. ‘Shush,’ BJ said in a low voice. ‘It’s them.’
CHAPTER 44
A WORRYING DEVELOPMENT AND A COUPLE OF EAVESDROPPERS
‘Wilhelmina! Where have you disappeared to now?’ Kyle whispered as loudly as he could, but the words were lost in the fog. He yanked the camo netting from their boat with an angry flourish. His partner had been worse than useless on this mission. She kept mooning after the tattooed man or wandering away right when Kyle needed her.
If that’s what love does to you, then keep it far away from me, thank you very much.
Take now, for instance. Wilhelmina had disappeared into the fog right when they were expecting new orders from Lord and Lady Roderick.
With an exasperated sigh, Kyle dropped the netting to one side and brushed the leaves from the top of the silver storage boxes they’d left in the boat. He tilted his head to better see his cheekbones in the reflection on the metal. Not bad. Camo gear really did suit him.
‘Come in, Mr Strummer. Come in, Miss Beckford.’ The crackling voice on the radio startled him and he reluctantly turned away from his own image, picking up the handset.
‘Kyle here, your Lordship,’ he said, glancing up as Wilhelmina raced into the campsite, orange hair littered with leaves and even wilder than usual.
She didn’t meet his eyes. Kyle glared at her.
‘Mr Strummer, her Ladyship and I will be with you tomorrow. I repeat, we will arrive at the island tomorrow.’
‘But, I mean, I thought . . .’
‘I don’t care what you thought, Mr Strummer. We will be there soon. Be ready.’
‘Of course, your Lordship,’ he said. ‘What do you need us to do?’
‘We need you to gather everyone on the island together in one place ready for our arrival at ten o’clock on Saturday morning. Somewhere . . . contained. And I mean everyone. Pets included.’
‘But, how —?’ Kyle started.
‘Working that out is your job, Mr Strummer. Just have it done. Once we are on the island, we will use phones again, and I will text you to find out your location. We will take it from there. Until tomorrow, Mr Strummer.’
The radio went silent. Kyle looked at Wilhelmina. The concern in her eyes mirrored his. He had so many questions. What were Lord and Lady Roderick planning? Why were they coming to the island themselves? Normally Kyle and Wilhelmina handled everything while the Rodericks pulled strings from afar. They usually didn’t like to get their hands dirty.
This mission must be something special. Kyle stared at the leaves under his feet, recalling his last conversation with Lord Roderick. His boss had muttered about killing any talking animals that didn’t help them.
Kyle liked being strong. Being powerful. But he didn’t particularly enjoy killing things.
The previous day, after his chewy lunch of beef jerky, Kyle had watched a group of pets spill out of the school and onto the lawns for an impromptu soccer match. Cats kicked balls to dogs. Mice raced between the legs of sheep. A rabbit halted mid-tackle to nibble on a particularly tasty-looking patch of grass. The referee was a pony. A pony! It even had a whistle. Then, amid the animal snorts and laughter, he’d seen a llama.
The llama didn’t really look like his Loretta. This one had patches of brown fur, whereas Loretta had been a lovely sort of milky colour. But as he’d watched her canter gracefully between a goat and a pig, flinging the soccer ball high with her lanky legs, he felt an almost forgotten memory of peace.
He’d liked it.
Were the Rodericks still planning to close down the school? Or did they have another plan? Something they hadn’t told Kyle and Wilhelmina about?
Something more sinister.
‘Willy?’ Kyle said his partner’s name tentatively, still unsure if he should voice his misgivings. Talking about them might make them real. Wilhelmina grunted but didn’t remove her gaze from the foggy forest surrounding them. Probably daydreaming about the muscular man again. ‘Lord and Lady Roderick coming out here . . . It’s odd, isn’t it?’ he continued. ‘You don’t think . . . you don’t think they might be up to something even worse than usual, do you?’
Wilhelmina turned her face to his as he spoke. For several long seconds, she didn’t reply and Kyle almost told her to forget about it, but then she opened her mouth.
‘Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened,’ she said, then paused before continuing. ‘Yes, Kyle, they are up to something truly terrible this time. You don’t need me to tell you that. We’ll have to stop them.’
A twig snapped and Kyle’s head spun around. Wilhelmina slapped a hand to her heart in shock.
The enormous man with the octopus tattoo stepped into the clearing. The expression on his face was thunderous and Kyle ‘Bravery’ Strummer took a step backwards. A beat later, the boy with the lizard followed him out of the fog.
The four of them faced one another for several long seconds, before the huge bald man spoke. ‘Who are Lord and Lady Roderick?’ he asked. ‘And what do they plan to do to Miss Alice Einstein’s School for Talking Pets?’
CHAPTER 45
A PLAN IS HATCHED
In a move that shocked even himself, Rusty broke the silence.
‘What terrible things would they do? They wouldn’t hurt any of the talking animals, would they?’
The one he’d thought was a gardener — Kyle — glanced at the orange-haired woman — Wilhelmina — but she was too busy blushing furiously in BJ’s direction and didn’t notice. Kyle turned his gaze to BJ then, and, after standing up straighter, he directed his answer to the big man.
‘Knowing Lord and Lady Roderick, it is certainly possible.’
In a few sentences, he told them everything. How the Rodericks were super rich and owned orphanages and trained children to be secret agents — which is what he and Wilhelmina were — and now, it appeared, the evil pair wanted to take over Miss Alice Einstein’s School for Talking Pets. Rusty thought he’d seen and heard enough crazy stuff in the past week, but he didn’t expect to hear evil, crazy stuff.
‘This is awful,’ BJ said, frowning. ‘We have to do something.’
Wilhelmina nodded vigorously in agreement. Kyle shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Willy. The Rodericks helped us. They trained us. Gave us these jobs.’
Wilhelmina finally turned away from BJ. ‘Yes, that’s true, Kyle. But remember Loretta.’
Rusty frowned. Loretta? Who on earth was Loretta?
But, after a pause, Kyle nodded. ‘OK,’ he said, and Rusty could tell his mind had been made up.
‘Why should we trust you?’ BJ asked the secret agents.
Kyle sighed. ‘It’s true, we are usually happy to do the Rodericks’ bidding. We’ve done some stuff — horrible things — you wouldn’t believe . . .’ His words petered out when he saw BJ’s frown. ‘But they’ve never asked us to kill poor defenceless animals before, have they, Willy?’
Wilhelmina glanced at BJ, then shook her head.
The big man turned to Rusty. ‘What do you think, Rusty? Should we trust them?’
All three adults stared at him. He gulped. This was important. He took his time answering, looking from Kyle to Wilhelmina while they stood, waiting.
‘Yes,’ he finally said, believing it was true.
BJ nodded. He addressed the group. ‘It seems we are in agreement, then. Something needs to be done to stop these Roderick people. Can the four of us do it on our own? I don’t want to put the lives of the others in danger.’
Rusty’s blood froze. He hadn’t expected this trip to be dangerous. But, as he looked at the hug
e adults surrounding him and felt the faint but regular thud of Bongo’s heart through his Driza-Bone, he thought of his father. He had to make his dad proud.
‘Yes,’ Kyle answered. He grinned, seeming to have recovered a confidence that Rusty sensed was his usual state. ‘Since we know the Rodericks so well, we also know how to beat them.’ He started pacing, his fingertips together. ‘Firstly, neither of them is skilled in weaponry or fighting as Wilhelmina and I are. Against us — who they believe to be on their side — and,’ here he glanced at BJ, taller and wider even than Wilhelmina, ‘if you stand with us too, we will certainly defeat them.
‘And secondly, we have another advantage. We know their weaknesses. Lord Roderick is the least dangerous of the two. He’s chatty and easily distracted. Mention boats or saunas or, even better, boats with saunas, and he’ll talk for hours. Or ask him how much money he has. He loves to blather on about that.’
Wilhelmina nodded in agreement.
‘As for Lady Roderick, she’s a harder nut to crack . . .’ Kyle halted, his wandering gaze lighting on Bongo. ‘Lizards! Lady Roderick hates them. More than that, she’s utterly terrified of them. If one should attack her . . .’ He stared doubtfully at the placid Bongo.
BJ finally smiled, the grin changing his face from frightening to something quite beguiling. Wilhelmina’s eyelids fluttered.
‘Never fear,’ BJ said. ‘I have just the lizard.’ He held out a palm and Jade appeared, coloured red, then green, then finally blue. She swayed hypnotically, her eyes darting from adult to adult. Kyle and Wilhelmina gasped, and Rusty thought Jade looked quite pleased with herself.
Kyle grinned at BJ. ‘Yes, that’ll work.’
CHAPTER 46
PIGS REALLY CAN FLY
Rusty wandered along the cliff edge, Bongo perched in his usual spot on his shoulder.
He’d spent the day in classes. Bongo still hadn’t said a word. He hadn’t even looked like he was thinking about talking — unlike the other pets, who were improving every hour, or so it seemed to Rusty. They continued to say new words and had even begun talking to one another. Bismarck had added ‘yum’, ‘tasty’ and, most recently, ‘delicious’ to his repertoire of words. Porky, likewise, had learned ‘yum’ and ‘tasty’, as well as ‘yes’, ‘no’ and finally ‘Shelby’, much to his owner’s delight. She’d given him a big chunk of lasagne after that one. The two pets had also been conversing in a limited way, mostly at lunchtime, standing in front of the buffet table.
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