by Guy Bass
Contents:
TITLE PAGE
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1: THE DOUBLE
CHAPTER 2: THE MISSION
CHAPTER 3: MISSING ‘N’ ACTION
CHAPTER 4: ATTACK OF THE NINJA SNOWMEN
CHAPTER 5: OH, DEER
CHAPTER 6: ON THE CASE
CHAPTER 7: DANGER MONKEY
CHAPTER 8: DINOSAUR IN DISGUISE
CHAPTER 9: KILLS WITCH
CHAPTER 10: NINE SECONDS
CHAPTER 11: JUMPING THE SHARK
CHAPTER 12: A BUMP ON THE HEAD
CHAPTER 13: MCGUFFINS GALORE
CHAPTER 14: FALLING, LANDING AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
CHAPTER 15: MIND GAMES
CHAPTER 16: ATTACK OF THE DINOSAURS
CHAPTER 17: SPYING AND LYING
CHAPTER 18: THE LAIR-WITHIN-A-LAIR
CHAPTER 19: THE REAL MCGUFFIN
CHAPTER 20: EGO SAYS, SPYNOSAUR OBEYS
CHAPTER 21: AMBER VS SPYNOSAUR
CHAPTER 22: SPYNOSAUR’S SECRET WEAPON
CHAPTER 23: BUSINESS IS BOOMING
EPILOGUE
DEPARTMENT 6 CLASSIFILES
COPYRIGHT
When top spy-entists put the mind of super-spy Agent Gambit inside the body of a dinosaur, they created the first ever Super Secret Agent Dinosaur. Together with his daughter, Amber, this prehistoric hero protects the world from villainy.
His codename:
Amber woke with a start. She sat up in bed and glanced over to her Super Secret Spy Watch™, which beeped incessantly.
“The signal!” she whispered. In twenty-seven seconds she was dressed and racing downstairs.
“Morning, Amber” said her mum, as Amber hurried past her on the stairs. “What do you want for breakfast?”
“Toast, please!” Amber replied. She waited for her mum to disappear into the kitchen before tiptoeing to the front-room window and sliding it open. Hiding in the bushes under the window was a very short, old man with a craggy face and a permanent scowl.
He was Amber’s exact height, wore a tracksuit identical to hers, and atop his head sat a wig just like Amber’s bob of red hair.
“Sergei does not like the toast,” grunted Sergei in a thick, deep growl. “Sergei likes Coco Pops.”
“Sorry, Sergei, I forgot,” said Amber with a wink. She clambered out of the window as Sergei clambered in. Once inside, Sergei adjusted his wig and brushed a leaf off his tracksuit, just as Amber’s mum returned from the kitchen.
“Toast won’t be a minute, Amber,” she said, kissing Sergei on top of the head.
“Toast…” he grunted. “Thank you, mother of Amber. I mean, Mother.”
“Well, you’ve got to keep your strength up – big day at school,” added Amber’s mum.
Sergei let out a long sigh. “School…” he grunted to himself. “Sergei is getting too old for this.”
While Amber’s double reluctantly awaited his toast, the real Amber was already speeding down the road on her bicycle. She was just out of sight of her house when a familiar low hum filled the air. The postman cycling towards her waved at Amber, before watching her and her bike suddenly rise up into the air and disappear.
“Woohoo!” cried Amber, as she and her bike were swallowed up inside an almost-invisible aircraft by a powerful gravity beam. She emerged into a garage-sized docking bay and hopped off her bicycle.
“Hi, Dad! So what’s the mission?” Amber asked, crossing the docking bay towards the Dinosoarer’s cockpit.
“Saving the world, of course,” said a low, clipped voice.
Standing before her was a dinosaur. The scaly, green Deinonychus measured a full nine feet from head to tail, with huge claws on his hands and feet, a long, broad head and a wide mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. He wore a sleek spy-suit, with a silver pistol tucked into a shoulder holster.
Amber threw herself at the dinosaur and hugged him tightly.
“I missed you, too, poppet,” he said, wrapping his deadly claws round her.
“Da-ad, I told you not to call me that,” Amber groaned. “I’m a super secret agent…”
“Super secret agent in training,” corrected her dad. “How’s your mother?”
“OK, I s’pose,” Amber replied with a shrug. “I don’t see her much, what with all this spy stuff – Sergei spends more time with her than I do. Are you sure we can’t just tell her the truth?”
“And admit we’re spies? Out of the question,” replied Spynosaur. “I’ll always love your mother, but she can’t keep a secret to save her life. Do you remember the time you asked her not to tell anyone that you accidentally flushed your pet gerbil down the toilet? It was all over the village by teatime! No, I’m afraid your mum believes that I was a travelling peanut-butter salesman who died in a tragic kite-flying accident. We’re spies, Amber – keeping secrets is what we do.”
“I s’pose,” Amber sighed.
“Good girl,” said Spynosaur. “Now, have you been practising your ninja skills?”
“Every day!” replied Amber, kicking and punching at him furiously.
“Ah, the Hasty Puffer Fish Open Sandwich Drainpipe Attack excellent work, poppet,” said Spynosaur, casually deflecting her blows with his tail.
“Please stop calling me—” Amber began. But she was interrupted by a voice blaring out from the cockpit’s control panel.
“The DEPARTMENT 6 top-secret transmission channel!” Amber cried, as Spynosaur pressed a button on the Dino-soarer’s control panel. A woman’s face appeared on the cockpit viewscreen. She had a neatly cropped bob of greying hair and an impressive moustache.
“M11! Missing me already?” Spynosaur grinned, flashing his sharp teeth.
“Spynosaur, if it were up to me you’d be extinct,” snarled M11. “As far as I’m concerned, your maverick methods and routine recklessness have no place in Department 6. You were more than enough trouble when you were human, but—”
“—But since I continue to save the world on a bi-weekly basis, you’ll let me off,” interrupted Spynosaur, giving Amber a wink.
“Blast it to smithereens, Spynosaur, just pay attention,” M11 sighed. “A week ago, we began intercepting coded messages between high-ranking members of your favourite international crime syndicate.”
“P.O.I.S.O.N.?” hissed Spynosaur. “What are those diabolical do-no-gooders up to now?”
“The P.O.I.S.O.N. bigwigs are planning a meeting to consider the recruitment of a new member,” M11 continued. “None other than your former nemesis, Ergo Ego.”
“Ego’s alive?” Spynosaur growled, clenching his clawed fists. “I thought he was destroyed when you blew up his secret island lair in the Bermuda Triangle after he tied me to a space rocket and fired me into the moon!”
“And after I fought Ego for the brain box that contained your brainwaves,” added Amber proudly.
“You did very well, poppet,” her father noted, before returning to the screen. “Why didn’t you tell me, M11? Why didn’t you assign me the mission in the first place?”
“Because, blast it to smithereens, Spynosaur, I knew you’d make it personal!” snapped M11. “Making things personal is what reckless, rulebook-ignoring mavericks do!”
“Shooting someone into the moon is personal!” growled Amber.
“The point is, we have reason to believe Ego has created some sort of super-secret weapon, known only as the McGuffin,” M11 continued. “He plans to hand the weapon over to P.O.I.S.O.N. in exchange for membership of their guild.”
“He’s been desperate to join that felonious faction for years,” said Spynosaur. “Where is Ego now?”
“That’s the problem – we’ve had your former partner secretly tracking Ego for weeks – but two days ago we lost all contact,” M11 explained.
“Sounds like Danger Monkey needs me to save his tail again,” said Spynosaur.
“Your mission is to locate Danger Monkey and secure the McGuffin,” concluded M11. “Preferably without blowing up everything in sight.”
“Never fear, M11, we’ll find the Department’s prized primate and this weapon of mass mischief – and put a stop to Ergo Ego for good measure,” Spynosaur assured her. “And we’ll be back for Amber’s bedtime.”
“Da-ad,” groaned Amber.
The Dino-soarer had been in the air for more than an hour, speeding silently through the skies at supersonic speed. As Amber piloted the craft, Spynosaur sat beside her reviewing the mission briefing.
“Dad, we’re coming up on Danger Monkey’s last-known location,” said Amber, checking the viewscreen.
“Good! So, we rescue Danger Monkey, find the McGuffin and slap Ego in chains,” said Spynosaur, checking his pistol. “And all the while being cooler than a cucumber in the—”
“Snow!” gasped Amber, pressing her hands against the cockpit window as she peered out at a vast, snow-covered mountain range. After a moment, she glared at Spynosaur and saw a glint in his yellow eye. “Dad, don’t even think about—”
“Snow puns at all – got it,” he replied. He tapped at his Super Secret Spy Watch™ with a sharp claw. “Set the Dino-soarer to autopilot – it’s time to brave the elements.”
Spynosaur retrieved a puffer jacket from an overhead compartment and handed it to Amber. By the time she’d donned her spy gear, Spynosaur was dressed from head to tail in a fur-collared cold-weather suit, complete with parachute.
“Where’s my parachute?” asked Amber
Spynosaur scooped her up and held her to his chest. “Not until you’re at least twelve,” he said. He positioned himself in the middle of the docking bay and tapped his Super Secret Spy Watch™. “Now, let’s get some fresh air, shall we?”
Amber heard a CLUNK! and a WHIRRRR…Then she felt her stomach lurch as the floor of the Dino-soarer slid open, dropping them into the air.
They plummeted downwards, freefalling towards the snow-covered mountains. Spynosaur stretched out his powerful tail to change direction.
“AAAAAH-mazing!” cried Amber as they fell.
Spynosaur pulled a cord on his harness and the parachute opened with a FWUMPH! A moment later they were floating slowly towards a carpet of low-lying clouds.
“Remember, a good spy sees everything, misses nothing and never repeats himself. And sees everything,” said Spynosaur. “Let’s play our game, shall we?”
“I spy with my little eye…” began Amber, glancing around. This was a game they’d played hundreds of times, but Amber rarely matched the keenness of her dad’s uncanny spy-sight. “I spy with my little eye … I spy with— Wait…! There! I see something!”
A pair of stone towers jutted out from beneath the cloud line. Atop a mountain, surrounded by a small army of tall pine trees, was a fort built from grey stone.
“Well spotted, poppet. Ergo Ego’s hideout, no doubt,” said Spynosaur, directing their descent towards the fort. “Let’s see if we can’t wrap this case up before lunch. I have a sudden hankering for live goats…”
“Eeeeeew! Da-ad, I’m a vegetarian,” groaned Amber.
Spynosaur aimed for a high, arched window in the tallest tower … then he held Amber close and detached his parachute. He stretched his body out to its full length and crashed through the window like a scaly spear.
With a rapid roll, Spynosaur was back on his feet and depositing Amber on the floor.
“Hope you don’t mind us dropping in on you, Ego!” declared Spynosaur, drawing his pistol. “Now surrender, or— Oh, there’s no one in here.”
They found themselves in a large, dusty hall, strewn with shattered glass and upturned furniture. It was as if a tornado had swept through. At the far end of the room was a large portrait of Ergo Ego standing in a lake and holding a fishing rod.
“I spy with my little eye…” said Amber, her eyes darting around the room for clues. She ran her fingers along the leg of an upturned table, then gave them a tentative sniff.
“Ew, ew, ew!” she screamed. “Monkey poo!”
“I thought I smelled something,” noted Spynosaur. He holstered his pistol and paced across the room, his toe claws CLIK-CLAK-ing on the floor. “Danger Monkey was here all right, and it looks like he was in full fling. It must have been quite a tussle. Or perhaps…”
Spynosaur stopped dead in front of Ergo Ego’s portrait. There was a large splat of monkey poo covering Ego’s face.
“…Or perhaps he was trying to tell us something,” added Spynosaur. He struck the wall with his tail, sending the painting crashing to the floor. Behind it, hidden in an alcove carved out of the wall, was a small silver attaché case, no bigger than two lunchboxes and locked with a thick brass padlock.
“The McGuffin!” gasped Amber excitedly, as Spynosaur pulled the case from its hiding place. “You found it!”
“That does seem like the sort of achingly impressive thing I’d do,” said Spynosaur, inspecting the case. “But if this is the McGuffin, why would Ego leave it here unguarded? Unless— Wait.”
“What is it?” whispered Amber.
“My super-spy senses are doing their super-spy thing,” he said, making his way to the window. “Can you hear that? Sounds like … something diabolical. Sounds like…”
“Like what?” said Amber. She followed her dad to the window and they peered up. The low clouds had parted to reveal blue sky and a bright, yellow-white sun.
Spynosaur squinted. There was something flying towards them at high speed.
“Like a dino-seeking missile!” Spynosaur cried. He scooped Amber up in one hand and the attaché case in the other. Then he leaped through the window on powerfully prehistoric legs … just as the missile rushed over their heads and into the fort.
Spynosaur gripped Amber to his chest as the force of the explosion blew them through the air. Searing flames and rubble accompanied them as they fell, spinning and spiralling to the ground below. They crashed through a snow-covered pine tree, Spynosaur’s dense, dinosaurian body snapping branch after branch until he finally landed in a mound of mercifully soft snow.
“AAH! And OW!” yelped Amber as Spynosaur got to his feet. He deposited his daughter on the ground and casually extinguished a small fire on his left arm.
“Well, I’d say our cover is well and truly blown,” he noted, looking up at the flaming remains of the fort. Then he held up the attaché case to check it was intact.
“Who tried to blow us up? I’ll ninja kick them to bits!” declared Amber. “But wait, where’s Danger Mo—?”
Amber didn’t even see the blade spinning towards her head. With the unmatched reflexes of the world’s first and only super-secret agent dinosaur, Spynosaur swung the attaché case in front of her face just in time. The blade embedded in the metal case with a SHHUNK!
“Talk about getting to the point,” said Spynosaur, plucking the deadly blade from the case to get a closer look.
It was in the shape of a snowflake.
“Diabolical,” said Spynosaur, following the trajectory of the snowflake blade back up to the mountain’s ridge.
There were four rotund figures on the horizon, framed in white against the clear blue sky.
“Snowmen?” blurted Amber.
“Ninja snowmen,” corrected Spynosaur, staring at the snowmen’s gleaming katana swords and carrot noses. “Cold-hearted contract killers who won’t melt till they’ve terminated their target – namely, us.”
The snowmen began sliding towards them with breathtaking speed. Spynosaur glanced towards the maze of trees leading down the mountain. He handed Amber the attaché case. “He who spies and runs away, lives to spy another day. Get on my back!”
“What are you going to do?” Amber shrieked, grabbing hold of her dad’s shoulders.
“I’m literally on top of the problem,” Spynosaur replied. “Claw
skis!”
With a SHUFFF! a pair of long, green skis shot out from beneath Spynosaur’s feet.
“I want secret skis! How come I don’t have secret skis?” huffed Amber.
“When you prove you can look after that new rabbit of yours, then you can have secret skis,” replied her dad.
“I have proved it! Mr Fleming is— Yaah!” Amber shrieked as more deadly snowflakes whizzed past her head.
“Hang on – and don’t let go of that case,” said Spynosaur. He sped down the mountain, his skis carving through the snow as he aimed for the maze of trees.
Amber ducked as they raced under a low-hanging branch, with the ninja snowmen in hot pursuit. One of the snowmen bowed too late, and with a FWUMP! the branch knocked his head clean off. Spynosaur and Amber glanced back to see the snowman’s body topple limply to the ground.
“If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs…” said Spynosaur with a smirk.
“One down, three to go!” cried Amber.
The remaining snowmen leaned backwards as they approached the branch, sliding under it in a stylish sub-zero limbo. Within moments they were gaining fast.
“They’re still com— AAH!” screamed Amber as a snowflake blade skimmed past her head, slicing off a lock of hair.
“This calls for next-level impressiveness,” noted Spynosaur. He turned his skis swiftly in the snow, spinning round to face the snowmen. As he sped backwards down the hill, narrowly avoiding tree after tree, Spynosaur drew his pistol.
“The heat … is on,” he said.
“Well, the reception was a little frosty at first, but I think they warmed to me in the end,” said Spynosaur, as the last of the ninja snowmen ground to a slushy halt.