Licence to Fish

by Justin Richards

  “Oh we’ve studied those in Surveillance,” said Sam. “It’s a shopping trolley. Can be very dangerous.”

  “I think they’ve changed the way the wheels work now,” said Miss Jones. “So they’re not as dangerous as they used to be.”

  Harry was examining the old bottle that Alfie had found. “I think there’s something inside it,” he announced.

  “Water, probably,” Jack told him. “Don’t drink it!”

  “No, it’s paper.” Harry unscrewed the top and managed to tease out the rolled up paper. “It’s a note.”

  “What’s it say?” Alfie asked. Harry handed him the note, and Alfie read it out: “‘TO Agents A R. Usual RV after FC. Progress Report to H of S.’”

  “Sounds like something Mr. Cryption might say,” Alice said.

  “Let me see that.” Jack took the note and inspected it. “Of course. We just need to work out the letters. What this means is: ‘Throw Out Agents At River. Usual River Visit after Five o’clock.’ So someone is going to throw some agents in the river and then go and see what’s happened to them at five o’clock before reporting back to H of S. That’ll be the Head of School—Mr. Trenchard.”

  Miss Jones took the note from Jack. “I’m not sure it’s about Mr. Trenchard at all. I’ll go and get him. He’ll want to see this.”

  “Why do you think he’d be interested?” Sam asked after Miss Jones had left.

  “Maybe,” Alfie suggested, “because the message could be addressed to Agents Annette and Rod, telling them there’s the usual rendezvous after Fishing Club, and that they have to make a progress report to the Head of SPUD.”

  There was silence for a few moments, then Harry said, “You mean that Rod and Annette are working for SPUD?”

  “Could be,” said Jack.

  “I did see them throw a bottle in the lake,” Alfie told everyone. “Maybe they were sending a message.”

  “To the monster?” Chloe asked. “Get real.”

  “This looks real,” Beth said. She had moved on to the next photo. It showed a large, grey, bulbous shape. “But I don’t think it’s a monster.”

  The next photo showed the fin—which looked like it was made of metal.

  Another photo showed the tail end of the monster. Only it wasn’t a tail at all.

  Mr. Trenchard arrived in time to see the photo appear on the whiteboard. “Good gracious, where was that picture taken?”

  “In the lake,” Alfie explained.

  “Our lake? Here at Thunder Raker Manor?”

  “What is it, Mr. Trenchard?” Alice asked.

  “It’s the back end of a new submarine that SPUD has been developing specially for operations in shallow water.”

  “A SPUDmarine!” said Sam.

  “That’s right. They can hide agents inside it and keep watch. While they’re on duty,” Mr. Trenchard said, “they all live in a shallow SPUDmarine.”

  “A shallow SPUDmarine?” everyone echoed.

  “A shallow SPUDmarine,” Mr. Trenchard agreed. “They all live in…But never mind that now. This is very serious if we have SPUD agents hidden in the lake. They must be spying on Thunder Raker.”

  “We think they’ve infiltrated the Fishing Club,” said Jack.

  “Goodness,” said Mr. Trenchard. “Do we have a Fishing Club? Disguised themselves as bait or something have they?”

  “It’s Rod Boiled and Annette Mash who run the club,” Alfie explained. “They must be working for SPUD.”

  “Good work.” Mr. Trenchard turned to Miss Jones. “We have to sort this out at once. I’m giving the mission of stopping the SPUDmarine and getting rid of these dastardly agents to Class 3D. It can count as coursework towards their SATS.”

  Chapter 7

  Homework that night was to come up with a plan to capture the SPUDmarine.

  “That’s nice,” said Alfie’s mum when he told her all about it. “You let me know if you need any help, won’t you.”

  “Thanks, Mum.”

  “And don’t forget to underline the heading and put your name on it.”

  Alfie’s dad was watching television. “I hope you kept the bottle you found that message in. The secret is to force the submarine to surface so you can get on board,” he said. “I expect. Not that I’ve ever done anything like that myself. Not for years. Not since…I wonder if there’s anything good on the Golf Channel?” he went on quickly.

  Alfie thought this was a strange thing to say. His dad didn’t even like golf. But he had a few ideas now, and soon finished his homework.

  When Alfie arrived for school the next morning, everyone else was already in the classroom.

  “Jack’s got a plan,” Beth explained.

  Everyone waited excitedly as one arm of Sam’s wheelchair opened. A rod extended upwards and rolled up paper unfurled from it like a flag. On the paper was a picture.

  “That’s a badger,” said Alice. “Again.”

  “Not just any old badger,” explained Jack.

  “Why’s it got that thing on its head?” Chloe wanted to know.

  “This is a SUB,” said Jack. “And we use it as a key element of SICK in our BUCKET.”

  There was silence for a moment. Then Harry said, “It just looks like a badger to me.”

  Jack sighed. “That’s what I just said.”

  “Do you think you could say it again, please?” asked Alfie. “I’m not sure I quite understood.”

  “It’s very easy.” Jack pointed at the picture. “This is our SUB, and we use it—”

  “Hang on, hang on,” Beth told him. “SUB? As in ‘submarine’?”

  “Special Underwater Badger.”

  Sam nodded knowingly. “That’ll be why it’s wearing scuba-diving kit then.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And it has to be sick in a bucket?” asked Harry.

  Jack stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “No,” Chloe said to Jack, “what are you talking about?”

  “It’s the sick-in-a-bucket bit we’re having problems with now,” explained Alfie. “Tell us your plan again, Jack,” he suggested. “Without the initials this time. Just spell it all out.”

  Jack took a deep breath. “Special Underwater Badger,” he said, pointing to the picture. “Part of SICK—er, that’s our Submarine Identification and Capture Kit in our BUCKET. I mean, our Brilliant Underwater Capture Kit Executive Task.”

  “Does that actually make sense?” Chloe asked.

  “Maybe not, but it makes BUCKET.”

  “So what exactly is the plan?” Beth wanted to know.

  “And what else is in this SICK kit?” Sam asked.

  “Well, obviously,” Jack told them, “the underwater badgers will need a tin opener.”

  “Need a what?” Alfie asked.

  “A tin opener.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s simple, right?” said Jack. “The Special Underwater Badgers locate the SPUDmarine, OK? Then they hack their way in with a tin opener. The SPUDmarine starts leaking and it sinks.”

  “I thought submarines were supposed to sink,” Harry said. “Isn’t that the idea?”

  “Yes, but this one will sink sink. You see?”

  “No,” said Harry.

  “And,” Beth added, “we don’t have any badgers.”

  Jack folded his arms. “Well, if anyone’s got a better plan, let’s hear it.”

  “You mean one with fewer badgers?” said Alice.

  Alfie looked around, but no one else seemed ready to say anything else.

  “Yes, Alfie?” Beth asked.

  “I was just thinking,” said Alfie, remembering what his dad had told him, “that we need the SPUDmarine to come to the surface, not to sink. Then we can get on board.”

  “It’s a submarine,” Chloe said. “How do we get them to come to the surface?”

  “We could send them a letter,” Alfie said.

  Harry put his hand up. “Wouldn’t it get a bit soggy?”

  Sa
m nodded. “Be very difficult to read. The ink would run, and everything.”

  “Not if we put it in a bottle. That’s how Rod and Annette keep in touch with the agents in the SPUDmarine.”

  “Good one, Alfie,” said Beth. “And we’ve got their bottle already, so we can use that.”

  Alice was keen too. “Rod and Annette didn’t get the last message from the SPUDmarine because we found it first. We could send a message back to the SPUDmarine that seems to come from them and arrange another meeting.”

  “Only we’ll be there waiting,” Jack agreed. “With our badgers and tin opener.”

  “The Chaplain’s got some depth-charges,” said Chloe. “He uses them in Lower 2nd swimming lessons, I’ve heard. They might be useful.”

  “And we should get the Major involved,” Sam said.

  “And Sergeant Custer,” said Alice.

  Harry nodded. “And Gerald.”

  “Good plan, Alfie,” said Beth.

  “Only bits of it were Alfie’s,” Chloe grumbled.

  But Alfie didn’t mind. He was looking forward to capturing the SPUDmarine.

  Chapter 8

  Jack did the first draft of the letter to send to the SPUDmarine. He read it out proudly to everyone:

  Dear SPUD Agents, I hope you are well. Rod and Annette asked me to write to you to ask you to meet them at the edge of the lake by the weeping willow tree—you know that one with the dippy branches that bend into the water—tomorrow evening after Fishing Club.

  Many thanks.

  Yours sincerely

  Class 3D

  PS—This is not a trap. Really.

  “Well,” said Jack, “what do you think?”

  Chloe shook her head sadly. “You have no idea, have you?”

  “What?”

  “How long have you been at this school?” she demanded. “How long have you been learning all about Undercover Agent Work, Secret Messages, Sabotage Training, Maths and English?”

  “What’s the problem?”

  Chloe was exasperated. “You honestly don’t know? Are you so stupid? Do I really have to tell you?” She sighed. “In a letter like that, where you don’t know the name of the person you’re sending it to, you finish ‘Yours faithfully’, not ‘Yours sincerely’.”

  “Um,” Alfie said, “there are a couple of other things we might want to change too, I think.”

  “Really?” said Harry. “I thought it was good.”

  “Thanks, Harry,” said Jack.

  “Oh it’s great,” Alfie said quickly. “But if we’re changing it anyway, I just wonder whether it would be less suspicious if it wasn’t signed as coming from Class 3D.”

  “Well doh,” Jack said. “I wasn’t going to sign it ‘Jack’ was I? That would be a dead give-away.”

  “I know,” Alice said. “Why don’t we make it seem like it actually came from Rod and Annette?”

  “Brilliant!” Sam said. “Why didn’t you think of that, Alfie?”

  Alfie had thought of that. In fact, he thought that was the plan. But he said nothing.

  Jack was busy crossing out ‘Yours sincerely, Class 3D’ and writing ‘Yours faithfully, Rod and Annette’.

  “I suppose,” Alfie said slowly, “we could make it a bit more like the message we found as well. That might help fool them.”

  “Oh yes!” Beth agreed. “Let’s see that original message.”

  Soon they had a new message that everyone was happy with. It said:

  FROM Agents A R. RV after FC by willow tree. Progress Report ready for H of S.

  Jack wanted to keep the ‘PS—This is not a trap’ but everyone else managed to persuade him it wasn’t needed.

  Harry put the message inside the bottle Alfie had found. “How do we get it to the SPUDmarine?”

  “I saw where Rod and Annette threw a bottle into the water,” Alfie said. “We can just throw this in at the same place. The SPUDmarine must be keeping a look out.”

  “But what if Rod and Annette are there?” said Harry.

  “They will be,” said Chloe. “We’re pretending to be them.”

  “No, I mean, what if they’re really there. Really. In real life.”

  Alfie paused. “Good point. For all we know they might be sending a message at the same time as us. We need a way to get rid of them…”

  The Fishing Club was just finishing when Rod and Annette were surprised to see a frail figure coming towards them. The little old lady seemed quite doddery and picked her way very carefully down the slope towards the lake.

  It was a bit odd that the children who were leaving the Fishing Club kept so far away from her. Not one of them went to help the old lady, though she said good afternoon to them, and waved her walking stick in a friendly way.

  “Can I help you?” Rod asked as the old lady approached.

  “You are so very kind,” she said in a cracked voice.

  “This is Rod and I’m Annette. We run the Fishing Club,” Annette explained.

  “My name is Miss Fortune,” said the little old lady.

  Rod reached out to shake hands. “I’m very pleased to—oof!”

  Annette watched in surprise as the old lady grabbed Rod’s hand and flipped him expertly through the air. Before she could react, Annette found herself grabbed in an advanced judo hold. Then she was flying after Rod, a Korean karate victory cry echoing in her ears. She smacked into an oak tree and slid to the ground, dazed.

  “Oof!” said the oak tree.

  The frail little old lady continued on her hesitant walk round the lake.

  Alfie and his friends watched from behind the hanging branches of the weeping willow a short distance away.

  “So far so good,” said Jack.

  “All going according to plan,” Beth agreed.

  The next part of the plan involved Alfie and Chloe, though Chloe wasn’t too happy about it. But she was the most like Annette, and Alfie was the most like Rod. Though they were both smaller.

  They ran over to where the school nurse was now tending to Rod and Annette. Both were lying unconscious, and Nurse Deadman tied

  them up in bandages so they couldn’t escape.

  “I’ll give them an aspirin each and they’ll be fine,” she told Alfie.

  “That’s her cure for everything,” Chloe whispered. “Beth broke her leg a couple of years ago testing a jet pack. Nurse Deadman gave her an aspirin. It was the same after that nasty accident on the school minefield…”

  Alfie and Chloe took the dark glasses from Rod and Annette and put them on.

  “You look well cool,” Alfie told Chloe.

  She smiled. Then she seemed to realise she

  didn’t want to smile, and tried to stop. “Yes,” she said. “I do. Always.”

  “Right,” Alfie said quickly, “let’s go and stand by the willow tree and pretend to be Rod and Annette waiting for the meeting with the SPUDmarine.”

  “They’ll be fooled by me,” Chloe said. “I look every bit as glamorous as Annette. But Rod’s quite handsome. You’d better stay back in the shadows.”

  Behind them, Nurse Deadman was dragging the real Rod and Annette away on one of the school dinner trolleys. Rod was complaining in a dazed way, because he was on the bottom shelf.

  In their hiding place under the willow tree, the rest of Class 3D watched and waited. A few other people had joined them now, slipping carefully and almost silently into hiding.

  “Oops, sorry—was that your leg?” said one of them.

  “Woof,” said another.

  “Quiet, Gerald,” a third voice hissed.

  “When I was in the Royal Horse Artillery we had savage attack gerbils that could rip a man’s arm off,” another voice said.

  “What—not horses?” someone answered. It sounded like Harry.

  But Alfie wasn’t listening. He was watching the massive, dark shape of a submarine rising majestically from the lake in front of him. The whole of the bulbous nose swung open to reveal the dark interior. A figure stepped
out—a man wearing a dark suit and even darker glasses.

  “Is that you, Rod?” the man called out.

  “Only that doesn’t look much like Annette with you.”

  “He must be blind,” said Chloe. “It’ll be those dark glasses they all wear.”

  Chapter 9

  The SPUDmarine was still a way out into the lake. The SPUD agent had to wade waist-deep in water to get to the shore. As soon as he reached the edge of the lake, lots of things happened.

  First, he saw that not only was Annette not really Annette, but also that Rod wasn’t really Rod either. His mouth dropped open in surprise, and he turned to run.

  But before he could get back to the

  SPUDmarine, Gerald the guard dog bounded from under the willow tree and launched himself at the unfortunate SPUD agent. The man was knocked into the water with a cry.

  “Well done, Gerald,” Sergeant Custer called as he ran after his dog. The Major and the Chaplain were close behind, with Class 3D following. The Chaplain tripped on something and went flying.

  “Oops,” said the Major. “Sorry, Chaplain.”

  But the Chaplain managed to turn his fall into an impressive dive into the water. He swam the short distance to the open hatch at the front of the SPUDmarine and pulled himself inside.

  “Come on!” the Chaplain yelled at everyone else. “Last one in gets to feed the school panther. He likes children.”

  More SPUD agents in suits and dark glasses were appearing in the open hatchway. When they saw the Chaplain, dripping with lake water and flexing his muscles, they ran back inside the SPUDmarine.

  The Chaplain followed. His voice echoed back to where Alfie was wading through the water with Jack.

  “Right, you horrible load of SPUDs, let’s be having you. You—yes, you!—on the floor now. Press-ups. I want to see a hundred, quick as you can or I’ll have you mucking out the tiger enclosure with a toothbrush. One-two-one-two…Right the way up now, no cheating.”

  “I don’t think they stand a chance,” said Jack.

  “Slowcoaches!” Sam cried as he went past. His wheelchair was supported on large

  florescent orange inflatable floats. There was a propeller at the back.