by Guy Bass
“Dad!”
Amber woke with a start and looked around. She was in Ergo Ego’s inner sanctum. Spynosaur’s blow had sent her skidding under the stone table. She winced silently as she tried to move. Then she heard the CLIK-CLAK of her father’s toe-claws tapping on the ground. He snorted loudly, sniffing the air. She saw his shadow on the ground. A moment later a claw grabbed the edge of the table and flung it into the air.
growled Spynosaur, head low and jaws snapping. Only his eyes betrayed his desperation.
“Snap out of it! Come back to me, Dad!” Amber pleaded, trying to drag herself across the floor. But Spynosaur stopped her in her tracks by pressing a great clawed foot on her back. “I lost you once when you got shot into the moon! I don’t want to lose you again… Please, come back!”
“Enough! Ego says, finish her!” Ergo Ego ordered.
Amber closed her eyes. Then, as her dad’s jaws opened, his razor-sharp teeth glinting, Amber had an idea. It was such a horrible idea that she immediately tried to banish it from her head.
“Please don’t make me do it,” she whispered to herself. “Please don’t make me do it, please don’t make me do it, please don’t make me do it…”
But she knew she had no choice. She had one chance to save herself. One chance to save her father…
…And it would be the most embarrassing thing EVER.
“What … what’s she doing?” snapped Ergo Ego. “Are – are you singing?”
Amber’s face flushed red with humiliation.
“RRRR…” Spynosaur growled.
“What larks!” noted Fandango Scaramoosh. “A doomed sidekick, humiliating herself further for no apparent reason! It’s these sort of moments a villain lives for…”
“Enough!” said Ego, striding over to Spynosaur. “What’re you waiting for, slave? Ego says, eat her!”
Spynosaur let out a low growl. Then he turned to face Ergo Ego.
“Ego,” Spynosaur said, “you must be out of your mind.”
“Wh-what?” blurted Ergo Ego. “Ego says, I didn’t say you could speak! How did you—?”
“Didn’t you work it out, Ego? I’ve got a super-secret weapon, too,” replied Spynosaur, helping his daughter to her feet. “Her name is Amber.”
WHOMP.
With a flick of Spynosaur’s tail, Ergo Ego flew across the room, bouncing and skidding until he landed with a FUDD! on top of the pile of P.O.I.S.O.N.’s henchmen.
“I appear to be back,” said Spynosaur, ruffling Amber’s hair with a claw. “What would I do without my poppet?”
“Da-ad, not in front of the evil masterminds…” Amber groaned, still red with embarrassment.
The members of P.O.I.S.O.N. turned tail and raced towards the doorway.
Without warning, the wall of Ego’s inner sanctum blew open, and twenty armed-to-the-teeth Department 6 agents rushed in, surrounding the panicked villains.
“Ain’t nobody going nowhere!” came a cry as Danger Monkey, his tail fixed in plaster, strode triumphantly inside. “Move a muscle an’ I’ll gnaw your eyebrows! I’ll spit in your dinner! I’ll post unflatterin’ remarks about you on social media!”
A moment later, M11 strode through the assemblage of agents, her moustache twitching victoriously. “Well, well … the world’s most unspeakable rotters, all together in one room,” she said, glaring at the cowed criminals. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you that under Amendment Thirteen-point-two of Article 6 of the Anti-Infamy Imperative, you are duly retained at the pleasure of Her Majesty the Queen of so on and so forth.”
“In other words, yer nicked,” Danger Monkey added.
“It’s a stitch-up!” cried Gums Gambino.
“What a drag…” sighed Fandango Scaramoosh.
“We’re cornered and collared!” wailed Shady Lady. “Ego, consider your consideration for membership … unconsidered!”
“Wait … don’t go…” groaned Ego from the pile of henchmen. “I have more nibbles…”
It wasn’t long before Danger Monkey and the agents were leading the lair-full of lawbreakers (masterminds or otherwise) back up to the surface as M11, Spynosaur and Amber looked on.
“Don’t get me wrong, M11, it’s always nice to see you,” Spynosaur remarked. “But what are you doing here?”
M11 let out an exasperated tut.
“As hard as you may find it to believe, Spynosaur, I didn’t get where I am today without a modicum of common sense – I had a hunch you were on to something, so I had Dr Newfangle track the Dino-soarer here.” She looked round. “I assume you found the McGuffin?”
“Well, to be honest—” Spynosaur began.
“There never was a McGuffin,” Amber quickly interrupted. “It was all just wild herrings and red goose chases! And definitely no singing.”
“I see. Well, in that case it’s a job well done,” M11 concluded happily. “And you didn’t even blow anything to smithereens!”
Spynosaur glanced at Amber, and grinned.
“The day’s not over yet,” he said.
Ten minutes later, Spynosaur and Amber were taking to the air aboard the Dino-soarer. They sat in the cockpit, hovering above Ergo Ego’s secret island lair-within-a-lair as the last of Department 6’s helicopters headed for the horizon.
“Dad, I know you’re probably never going to forgive me for disobeying you,” said Amber. “But I am never ever going to forgive you for making me sing that song in public.”
“Well, it certainly struck just the right note with me,” replied her dad. “It was quick thinking, using that tune to free me from Ego’s control.”
“I s’pose … just don’t make me do it again. Ever,” Amber huffed. Then she leaned over and gave her dad a hug. “So now what? Ergo Ego and the whole of P.O.I.S.O.N., all locked up. What are we going to do?”
“Oh, I’m not sure we’ll be out of a job any time soon. If you’re a spy trying to save the world from villainy, business is booming.” Spynosaur looked out of the cockpit window, and stroked his chin with a deadly claw. “But, I can’t help thinking something’s still not quite right…”
“What is it? Do you think we missed something?” asked Amber. “Do you think Ergo Ego has got another trick up his sleeve?”
“No … I just noticed his lair-within-a-lair is not in the least blown up,” added her dad, aiming the Dino-soarer’s missile launchers at the island. “Would you care to do the honours, pop—Amber?”
“Me? Really?” squealed Amber excitedly.
“Well, you did save the world,” said Spynosaur. He flipped open the cover on the button labelled “BOOM” and gave Amber a wink. “And didn’t I tell you the spy business was booming?”
Amber let that one go. She just grinned and pressed the button.
Amber’s mum was waiting outside the gates of Little Wallop Primary School in time to see Amber and her friends head out of the gates.
“See you tomorrow!” Amber’s friends called after her.
The disguised Sergei gave a disgruntled wave, before Amber’s mum gave him a hug.
“So, did you have a good day?” she asked as they made their way home. “How did you do on your test?”
“I passed, of course. My score was total of one hundred per cent,” replied Sergei. “It should not be surprise. In my country I was top of classes at Spy Academy.”
There was a long silence, as Amber’s mum stared at Sergei. After a moment she chuckled and put her hand on Sergei’s shoulder.
“Amber Gambit,” she said with a smile. “You have such an imagination.”
Copyright
STRIPES PUBLISHING, an imprint of the Little Tiger Group
1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road, London SW6 6AW
A paperback original
First published as an eBook by Stripes Publishing in 2016
Text copyright © Guy Bass, 2016
Illustrations copyright © Lee Robinson, 2016
eISBN: 978-1-84715-761-4
The right of Guy Bass and Lee Robinson to
be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. All rights reserved.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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