G-Mamma stopped her at the door. ‘Small question, Blondette. How the squirrelly squirts are you planning on getting up to the top of that crane?’
‘Well, I do have one idea . . .’
‘My little fighter jet?’ G-Mamma blinked innocently.
Janey stared. ‘You brought that fighter jet home out of the moat? Where is it?’
‘Out there,’ said G-Mamma, pointing to the allotment across the gravel road. Janey peered through the grimy window. There did seem to be a strange shape buried under a mountain of net, which the turkeys were pecking at disconsolately. ‘That’s how that turkey got out.’
‘The jet would be brilliant,’ said Janey, trying not to laugh, ‘but Bert says I have to get up there silently. So here goes.’
Janey opened the door, whistled softly and in trotted Maddy the sheep, followed by Bert and then her parents. Janey stopped short, feeling as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.
‘Al Halo told me before he left that you’re going after this pterodactyl,’ said her father, his voice as dark as the five o’clock shadow sweeping his chin. ‘When exactly were you planning on telling us?’
Janey looked at the floor. ‘Um . . . afterwards?’
‘I’m sure Janey had her reasons for keeping it to herself,’ said her mum, laying a hand on Boz’s arm as if to calm him. ‘You do have reasons, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Janey confidently. ‘Number one, James is stuck out there for a second night on his own, and we need to get to him quickly. Two, of everybody he knows, he’s least scared of me – the last thing we need him to do is panic. And three . . . I’m the lightest and can skydive down to him without disturbing the ptera.’
Her father looked over at Bert. ‘Don’t blame me,’ said Bert, holding up his spade-like hands. ‘It was all her own idea. Pretty darn clever though, if you ask me.’
‘We can all go with her to the launch site,’ said Janey’s mum. ‘Then James will have us there for him if – I mean when – he’s rescued.’
Boz looked from one to the other of them, thinking hard, raking through the coarse hair on the back of one hand with the fingers of the other. His hand? Janey sneaked another glance at him. It was true; the backs of both hands were distinctly hairy. ‘Fine,’ said Boz at length. ‘Blonde it is. I see you’re all ready to go.’
‘I just need my transport now,’ said Janey, inwardly breathing a sigh of relief.
And, as she’d hoped, Maddy the special sheep needed no second bidding. She loved being a little aeroplane, just as she had when she’d taken on Copernicus and the SPIclone in her home at Dubbo Seven. As soon as the Wower door opened she pelted inside, and when her bleat changed from her usual ‘paaaaaa’ to a smooth growl like the engine of G-Mamma’s Pet Jet but a million times quieter, Janey let her out into the Spylab again. The Wowed sheep emerged at eye level, hovering gently on the angel wings that had sprung from her sides in place of the flaps of knotty wool. She dropped down so that Janey could climb on to her back, but Janey shook her head. ‘You need to save your strength, Maddy,’ she said. ‘Let’s wait until we get near the building site.’
On the way to the launch site, Maddy sat with Trouble in the back of the Clean Jean van. Crowded into the front seats were Janey and her parents, while G-Mamma and Bert powered along behind on a couple of industrial mops the size of dustbin lids, motorized to become Segways, or SPISegs, as Bert had christened them.
‘Mmmm, Spice Eggs, now they sound ni-i-ice,’ said G-Mamma, straddling the mop handle. ‘Spice Eggs, those nice eggs, they’re tasty and true . . .’
‘Focus, Rosie,’ said Bert softly. ‘It’s a SPI-Seg. SPI pause Seg. Repeat after me.’
‘Oh, shut up. Always spoiling my fun,’ grumbled G-Mamma, but she didn’t really sound very mad about it. Riding on the solid disk that had once been the mop head, G-Mamma dared to take her hand off the stick just long enough to give Janey a thumbs-up through the back windscreen. She wobbled, shrieked and quickly grabbed hold of the handle again.
Like an all-terrain vehicle – Janey suspected Bert had been tinkering with more than just the mops – the Clean Jean van traversed rough land around the reservoir and followed one of the tributaries under the motorway through thirty centimetres of water, dodging tree trunks and foliage. As soon as Janey saw one of the cranes through her Ultra-gogs she tapped her mum on the shoulder. ‘I think we should stop here and walk the rest of the way. We don’t want the pterodactyl to hear us.’
The others agreed, and before too long the group was forging its way through the undergrowth to the edge of the area quarried for building. One by one, as they reached the designated spot for launching, the SPIs all zoomed in with their Ultra-gogs. ‘Don’t put your active infrared night vision on,’ warned Janey.
‘Thermal imaging then,’ said Boz, and the spy glasses obediently switched to heat-seeking vision. Immediately two things became clear: James was definitely in the cage, cowering or crouching in a corner; and the pterodactyl was flying around just above, guarding its prey.
‘James must hate that,’ said Janey. ‘I bet it reminds him of . . . you know, his other cage.’
‘It’s now or never,’ said G-Mamma, straightening Janey’s ponytail. ‘Go to it, Blondette.’
‘And be careful! Here, give me a hug.’ Janey’s mum grabbed her quickly and squeezed very hard, and for a moment Janey recalled life before all this had happened, when her mum’s hugs had meant everything to her. She gave her a kiss on the cheek and turned to her father to hug him, but somehow she ended up colliding awkwardly with his ear.
‘Sorry, darling,’ he said in his unusually gravelly whisper. ‘Good luck, Blonde. Bring our boy home.’
‘I will,’ she said solemnly. ‘Trouble, Maddy – let’s go.’
And a few minutes later, with only a shaft of weak moonlight indicating the way to go, a flying sheep flung itself off the edge of a crater and pushed on up through the darkness, with a Spylet in a squirrel suit and a half-mutated cat hanging on to its back for dear life.
Maddy’s flight was eerily quiet – just a barely audible hum and the gentle swoosh of her white wings breaking the silence. Janey kept the cave and the pterodactyl in her sights on the Ultra-gogs, steering Maddy in the direction of the little red blob on the tiny screen, and the bigger red blob swooping menacingly above it. Trouble crouched between Janey’s knees, his great golden tail now so enormous and bushy that it tickled her chin. Janey pulled back on Maddy’s ears so they all rose higher into the night sky.
The pterodactyl was flitting between the tops of two cranes, seeming to move so slowly and deliberately that it looked as though it was hanging in mid-air. Janey swallowed, a little nervous. The closer they got, the bigger the creature looked, and the more vulnerable little James appeared, swinging dangerously in the wired top of the crane.
‘OK, team,’ she whispered to her spy-pets. ‘We’re going to have to distract that thing for me to get close enough to grab Jamie. Can you do that?’
Trouble arched his back, preening. No doubt that he could do it. Maddy just let out the tiniest of ‘paaas’, in what sounded like a confident sheep voice. ‘Up then, Maddy, please. We need to get above old Ptera there.’
She was trusting her safety and James’s to an untested squirrel suit, but as there didn’t really seem to be much choice she put that thought out of her mind. ‘Here we go,’ she hissed, as Maddy hovered above the menacing, spiky shape of the pterodactyl. ‘On three – I’ll go this way –’ she pointed – ‘and you two go that way.’
This is all a bit mad, she thought as she carefully got to her feet on Maddy’s polished rounded seat. She’d soon find out whether the suit worked. After a few moments to steady herself, she stood up and stretched out her arms. Instantly the wind filled the sails beneath her arms and she swayed back and forth, staggering to keep her footing on Maddy’s back. It’s now or never, Blonde, she told herself sternly. ‘One . . . two . . . THREE!’
She launched herse
lf up and out against the backdrop of cranes, mechanical equipment and half-built megastores against the starry sky, her profile in the shadows identical to the prehistoric creature she was chasing. She flew up and back, caught by the wind that made the arm-sails and the flap between her feet billow and snap. For a moment she spun, fearing she was going to drop, and then suddenly she stretched her arms out and found some kind of jet stream. The next instant she was soaring, swooping, skydiving, angling her body this way and that to catch the eddies that were holding her up, the wind whistling across the dome of her helmet. ‘This is superb!’ she cried, forgetting for a moment that she was on a mission.
Too late. The pterodactyl had heard her. It cocked its head, a beady eye penetrating the darkness. Confused, the creature flapped up towards her, then turned and headed back towards the cage. ‘No!’ screamed Janey. That was the last thing she wanted. She could really only ‘fly’ downwards; if the dino-bird took off across the hills with James in its jaws, she wouldn’t be able to follow.
Her scream worked, and the bird-like monster whipped its bony head around to find her. ‘Oops.’ Now it had a very clear idea where she was. With a beat of its leathery wing, the pterodactyl turned and headed straight for her.
‘Trouble . . . Maddy . . .’ shouted Janey, scanning the skies for the sheep as she was buffeted this way and that by the turbulence. ‘Decoy!’
Suddenly the pterodactyl gave one of its harsh cries and bent around. Janey zoomed in and saw something dripping from its feet – blood? There was only one thing that could have slashed it in mid-air . . .
She caught sight of Maddy overhead – at the sound of the Spylet’s call the sheep must have veered around and dropped Trouble into the fray. He hung in a thermal, taunting the pterodactyl away from Janey. The sabre claw that had just sliced through the creature’s skin winked in the moonlight, but even that was overshadowed by the sheer glory of Trouble’s golden tail. Fluffed out by the wind, it was the same size as the rest of his body. He looked rather like a flying cushion.
The cat attack was more than enough to distract the pteradactyl. Squawking, it angled its massive beak towards Trouble and dived. Trouble let out a shrill miaow – whether through fear or excitement, Janey couldn’t tell. He tumbled for several metres, the creature snapping at his rear end, then suddenly Trouble found a current of air. He was off, whipping through the air, this way and that, confusing the pterodactyl by seeming to fall within its grasp and then whisking out of reach.
Janey spun around in an eddy of wind. The creature was getting angrier and angrier, carving through the air with its ferocious talons. Trouble had done his job well. And just as it looked as though the ptera might get close enough to do Janey some damage, there was an outraged ‘paaaaaaa’ from above, and the creature found itself dive-bombed by a flying sheep.
It was time for Blonde to make her move. ‘Spylet Sable,’ yelled Janey, wishing there was some other way she could get his attention, ‘I’m coming to get you. Stand up.’
As she dived she focused on James through her Ultra-gogs, and within moments she was approaching the top of the crane.
There was a problem though. Rather a large one. ‘I don’t know how to stop!’ squeaked Janey as the metal surface hurtled up to meet her. If she carried on like this she would smack into it at about 150 miles an hour, and then there would be nothing left of her to save James or anyone else with, ever again. Alarmed, she rolled her right arm around so that she changed direction, away from the crane. James let out a small cry.
‘Don’t worry!’ she shouted. ‘I’m coming back.’
But just as she spun back towards the cave in a rather clumsy circle, her nylon wings rattling like the fuselage of a plane, she felt a searing pain through her ankle – the same ankle that had failed her in the woods. She looked down. ‘No!’ She was being dragged. The pterodactyl had her by the foot and was pulling her back towards the crane. Now after having James for a main meal, the monster could eat her for dessert.
‘It’s got me,’ she gasped into her microphone. Perhaps her parents or G-Mamma could do something. She coursed through the air, trying to kick at the creature but managing instead to drive its beak through the tightly woven material stretched between her feet. There was a horrible ripping sound, then Janey dropped backwards. Now she was dangling helplessly by the foot, with no more strength than a rag doll, from the mouth of the pterodactyl. James’s anxious face was getting ever nearer. Very soon she would be joining him in the cage . . .
Maddy took charge. Flying below Trouble so that she could scoop him up on to her back, she winged her way from the nearby crane and – boof! The sheep slammed into the side of the ptera. In the same instant, Trouble jumped off her back and wound himself, mewling and scratching, around the leathery neck of the monster. With an outraged caw it released its grip on Janey’s ankle and she plummeted towards the ground. She had no wings beneath her feet. She was going to die anyway . . .
Trouble and the pterodactyl tumbled through the air, head over vicious feet. As Trouble lashed out with his sabre claw, catching the ptera across the eye, Maddy swooped around and flew just over Janey’s head. Gratefully seizing a little cloven hoof, Janey watched as Trouble pushed off the dino-bird and streamed across the sky, leaving a red trail behind him. What was that? Janey focused more clearly on Trouble. Fire? Yes! It was coming from his tail. Trouble’s fluffy golden fur was alight, and the flames were enormous.
‘Maddy, take me up to James,’ called Janey.
With a bit of difficulty the pair flew above the crane and Janey dropped into position, still trying to keep one eye on her Spycat. With a painful crunch she hit the metallic arm of the crane. For a moment she thought she might tumble off, but her magnetic Fleet-feet pinged into action. She clung on like a crab, scuttling sideways up the mile-high metal slope towards the cage. Seconds later, she had sawn her way in.
‘Jamie!’ she said, wrapping her winged arms around her little brother. ‘You’ve had us all worried to death.’
James blinked solemnly, then pointed out into the night sky.
‘I know. Trouble’s in . . . trouble,’ said Janey.
The cat was streaking through the sky like a comet, but the pterodactyl was obviously able to detect heat as well as light. Furious, nipping at its own feet to stop the flow of blood, it sped after Trouble with only one thing on its mind. And even though Maddy was flying along after him, she wasn’t fast enough to catch up. All three of them could only look on helplessly as the dino-bird gained on Trouble and opened its jaws.
It was even more horrible than Janey could ever have imagined. As the hideous beak clamped around Trouble’s tail, it came off in the pterodactyl’s mouth. The cat turned, yowling, but then stopped short, stunned into silence by the sight of his beautiful tail parting company from his bottom. With a cry the creature dropped the great plume and swooped back round, but Trouble, with no tail to follow – or to hold him up – had disappeared from view.
Maddy fluttered nearby for a moment, then zoomed off to find her friend, bleating pitifully.
‘No . . .’ Janey gathered James to her side, blocking his view, hardly able to comprehend what she had just seen. Her beloved Spycat had been ripped apart before her eyes, dying just to save her, and she still hadn’t even managed to do what she had set out to on her mission. James – and now Blonde – were both captive in the cage, with the dino-bird winging its way back towards them.
And suddenly, instead of being upset, Janey found that she was furious. ‘You do NOT kill my Spycat,’ she roared. ‘You evil . . . horrible . . . aaarggh!’
Grabbing James’s hand, she ran back and forth in the cage, until she’d tipped it by forty-five degrees, then she launched herself off the top of the crane. The squirrel suit picked up enough wind in its wings to allow her to hover for a few moments. But James weighed her down. And her suit had been ripped. She probably had about five seconds before they both plunged to their deaths.
Well, that wasn’t go
ing to happen, she decided. ‘Come on then, you big chicken,’ she yelled at the pterodactyl, unbuckling the SuSPInder from her waist.
As the creature swooped, Janey swung. The next second, the pterodactyl found itself lassoed by a string of steel loops, with Janey and James swinging on the end. The weight made it drop; as it plummeted across the motorway towards the reservoir Janey called out to James, ‘We’re going to swing back and then . . . JUMP!’
Together they allowed the drag to pull them backwards. Then, just as they reached the trees near the reservoir, Janey let go of James’s hand so that he fell to the ground, landing lightly among the leaves. He watched, bewildered, as she swung past on the end of the SuSPInder, but she smiled reassuringly. ‘Just wait there.’
The pterodactyl tried to lift itself above the trees. As Janey’s legs made contact with the treetops, she made sure her Girl-gauntlet had the tightest grip possible on the SuSPInder. Then she wrapped her legs around the top of a tree trunk, and pulled. The dino-bird squawked furiously and tried to yank itself away, but in vain. Janey wrapped her end of the SuSPInder firmly around the trunk and then she let go and climbed down the tree.
The four SPIs had run to find them; James was being crushed in a hug from Janey’s mum, although he was staring over her shoulder at Janey’s dad in awe. Boz did look odd, thought Janey, and when she peered more closely she realized why. He was much more hairy than before in general, but now his eyebrows had joined together in the middle like a furry centipede, his whole forehead seeming to bulge.
Janey tore her eyes away. ‘The pterodactyl’s tethered at the top of the tree. Thought you might want to look at it,’ she said, and Bert hurried past her to get it.
Jane Blonde: Spy in the Sky Page 8