by Kate Davies
“That’s okay,” said Imogen. “We’ll think of something. . . .”
“Will we?” said Delia.
“Yes,” said Big Nana. “It just might not be the right thing.”
15
IMOGEN, DELIA, AND Big Nana sat around Don Vadrolga’s kitchen table, which was shaped like the underground bunker from Vadrolga’s worst-reviewed sci-fi movie, and came up with a plan. It was quite a simple plan—it involved stealing Don Vadrolga’s speedboat, driving to the Gull’s lair, and saving Ava somehow. Sure, that last bit was a bit vague, but they figured they’d improvise. They had started taking improv lessons at Mildly Amusing, Blandington’s most mediocre comedy school, so they were good at thinking on their feet. It wasn’t hard to persuade the rest of their family to go along with it. As Sam had said, “If I have to play one more Don Vadrolga–themed game or watch one more Don Vadrolga movie, I’m going to die. Either that, or I’ll move to Hollywood, grow my hair into a ponytail, and start going to the gym a lot, which would be worse.” Plus, none of them had ever been on a speedboat before.
They all piled into the boat, and Isabella sat on Uncle Clyde’s lap and steered as Delia read out the directions from Ava’s phone. Imogen looked around at her family—Josephine’s hair was whipping in the wind; Freddie’s shirtsleeves were whipping in the wind; Aunt Bets’s whip was whipping in the wind (she was striking the side of the speedboat as though it were a horse, shouting at it to go faster). Imogen felt another rush of love for them all. She did enjoy doing things with them, really. She just didn’t like going on vacation with them to horrible campsites.
“I’m bored,” said Henry, flicking his lighter.
“How can you be bored?” asked Imogen. “You are literally on a speedboat, racing toward a superhero’s lair. It’s like you’re inside a computer game.”
“Yeah, but I’ve played that one before,” said Henry.
“Great,” said Delia. “So, you can tell us how to defeat the Gull when we get there.”
“Are we nearly there yet?” asked Sam, stroking his pet hedgehog.
Imogen looked out at the horizon. “Actually, I think we are,” she said. There was an archipelago in the distance—a series of rocky white islands, arranged in a semicircle. They reminded her of something, but she couldn’t work out what, exactly.
Seeing the islands cheered the Crims up a bit. Henry put away his lighter. Sam put away his pet hedgehog. Aunt Bets put away the kitchen knife that she had been threatening to stab Sam with if he poked her with his hedgehog one more time. Everyone sat up straight. Focused, serious. Imogen started to feel a little more confident. We can do this, she told herself.
Delia told Isabella to park the speedboat next to one of the two central islands. These two were taller than the other islands, and strangely square. And carved out of the rock was a huge, shining castle. With no obvious entrance.
“We can’t get any closer than this,” Delia said to Imogen in a low voice. “If we do, the boat will run aground, and we’ll have no way of escaping.”
“Okay,” said Imogen. “We’re going to have to swim to shore. Has everyone got their life jackets on?”
The other Crims nodded. They had found them underneath the seats of the boat—a dozen life jackets with Don Vadrolga’s grinning face printed on their fronts and backs.
Imogen zipped the blueprints they’d printed out to the Gull’s lair in a waterproof folder—Big Nana had always told her, “You never know when you’ll need a waterproof folder. In an emergency, you can even poke holes in it and use it as underpants”—and tucked it inside her swimming costume.
Pretty soon, all the Crims had sploshed into the water and doggy paddled to shore. Nick and Nate took a bit longer than everyone else, because they wanted to practice doing forward rolls in the water, but soon, they were standing on the rocks, looking up at the huge, white castle.
Imogen pulled the blueprints out of the waterproof folder. “There’s a door into the basement somewhere close to the waterline . . . ,” she said.
“It’s here!” said Sam, running over to a tiny doorway. He pushed the door. “It’s locked. Who’s got a skeleton key with them?”
“Me!” said every single other Crim. Except Al, who tried to avoid skeletons of all kinds.
Sam took Josephine’s key and jimmied the lock. The door creaked a little as he pushed it open, and, one by one, the Crims walked into the castle.
Imogen squeezed through the door last, and shut it behind her. It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the basement after the glare of the sun outside. But even then, there wasn’t much to see—the basement was pretty boring, as most basements are, unless they’re incredibly terrifying.
She took the blueprints out of the plastic folder and studied them. “There’s a room on here marked ‘DUNGEON/AUDITORIUM.’ I’m guessing that’s where the Gull is holding Ava prisoner. So let’s head there first. And once we’ve rescued Ava, we’ll need to destroy the castle.”
“DO WE ACTUALLY NEED TO DESTROY THE CASTLE, THOUGH?” asked Uncle Knuckles. “BECAUSE THAT SOUNDS QUITE DANGEROUS, AND I’D PENCILED IN A MEDITATION SESSION AT TWO O’CLOCK, SO I’D LIKE TO GET BACK FOR THAT.”
“Yes, we do,” said Imogen, “because the only way the International Association of Supercriminals will take us seriously is if we bring the Gull down.”
“FINE,” said Uncle Knuckles. He sighed (and accidentally set off a tornado in Kansas).
Delia looked over Imogen’s shoulder at the plans to the castle. “It looks as though the basement is the lair’s weak point,” she said.
Imogen nodded. “This is where the electricity generator is, and the telephone cable—plus, it says here that the castle has very weak foundations. So, if we fire directly at the basement with Ava’s cannon, the whole castle will be destroyed.”
“But we don’t have Ava’s cannon,” said Sam.
“Actually,” said Imogen, pulling the small but deadly weapon out of her pocket, “we do.”
The Crims gave her a round of applause.
Imogen hushed them. “Shhh,” she said. “You can praise me silently. Bow, curtsy, whatever.”
Once the bowing was over, Imogen led her family out of the basement and into the castle itself. It was beautiful, in a strangely white sort of way. The walls were white, and the carpets were white—the Crims tiptoed across them, trying and failing not to leave dirty footprints behind—and for some reason, the walls were decorated with colorful pop art pictures of soft foods. Imogen saw an oil painting of scrambled eggs outside the bathroom on the first floor, and a huge mural of an avocado on the second-floor corridor, and a massive poster of a tub of plain yogurt on the third-floor landing.
“Is it me,” she said as they crept up another staircase, “or does this whole place smell like toothpaste?”
“I think it’s more like mouthwash,” said Uncle Clyde, walking headfirst into a wall. Probably because he was scribbling in his notebook instead of looking where he was going.
“This isn’t the time to develop your watercolor skills,” said Imogen.
“I’m not!” he said. “I’m trying to keep track of where we are in relation to the blueprints.” He looked down at his drawing and pointed to a pale pink door that led off the corridor. “Here,” he said. “This room should be the auditorium.”
Imogen pushed the door open. But it wasn’t the auditorium—it was a living room, completely upholstered in pale pink: the soft carpet on the floor, the pillowy sofas, and floor cushions—even the walls and the ceiling were covered in a squashy-looking pink fabric.
“It looks like a marshmallow,” said Nick.
“Or that pink Ralph Lauren gown Gwyneth Paltrow wore to the Oscars that time,” said Josephine. “I should know. It’s hanging in my closet at home.”
“Or . . . the inside of a mouth?” said Al.
Uncle Clyde looked at his drawing and gasped. “You’re right!” he said. “It does look like the inside of a mouth! And the whole castle—in
fact, the whole island—is shaped like a tooth!”
Imogen looked down at the blueprint again. Uncle Clyde was right. “So that’s why I keep thinking about oral hygiene,” she muttered. She turned to the blueprint that showed the whole archipelago, and gasped. Together, the islands made up an entire set of teeth. “This makes perfect sense,” she said. “That’s why the basement is the most sensitive part of the castle—because the nerves in your mouth are underneath your teeth. And this room looks like the gums—”
“Because it’s directly above the basement,” said Uncle Clyde, nodding.
“Right,” said Imogen. “What we need to do is perform a root canal on the castle. We need to drill directly down into the basement from this room and aim for the weak foundations. That way, we have a good chance of bringing the whole castle crumbling down.”
Al raised his hand. “I have a question,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “Your plan is an excellent one—your plans always are! Have I mentioned how proud I am to have you as my daughter?”
“Yes. But I always like hearing it,” said Imogen.
“But if we really do manage to hit the weak foundations and destroy the whole castle, how are we going to get out alive?”
“We’ll just need to brace ourselves,” said Delia. “Get it?”
“We all know the drill,” said Sam.
“Please don’t brush off my concerns,” said Al.
“Well, I find this whole plan unnerving,” said Josephine.
“Okay,” said Imogen. “Enough of the terrible puns. First things first. Let’s not worry about destroying the castle right now. First we’ve got to rescue Ava. So let’s try to find the dungeon/auditorium. Everybody ready?”
“Yes!” chorused the Crims.
So, Imogen pushed the pink, padded door open—and came face-to-face with two security guards.
The security guards were wearing white coats—like dentists, Imogen realized. One of them held a walkie-talkie up to his mouth and said, “We’ve found the cavities. Repeat: We have found the cavities.”
Imogen pointed the cannon at the other security guard, but he managed to snatch it. Then he turned it around and pointed it at her.
“What are you doing here?” asked the security guard.
“Let me fill you in,” said Sam, whose pun skills actually improved when he was under pressure.
“No need,” said the other security guard. “We know who you are. We have orders to take you to see the Gull.”
Imogen swallowed. It was like Big Nana had always told her: “If you find yourself staring down the barrel of a cannon, you’ll know that you have made some very bad decisions, and you probably won’t have time to put them right.”
16
A FEW VERY unpleasant minutes later, the Crims were lined up in the huge, empty dungeon/auditorium. It was more auditorium than dungeon, really—there were banks of seats up each side of the room, like a high school gym, and although there were a few cages at the far end, they were empty. There was also a water slide leading from the auditorium out into the ocean below, which Imogen thought was a good sign. People who enjoyed water slides were usually quite lighthearted and not very good at hurting people. Imogen wondered what the Gull used the room for when he wasn’t sliding out into the sea. Seabird-themed superhero conferences? Lycra-based fashion shows? And then she wondered: If this was the dungeon, then where was Ava?
But then she stopped wondering, because a huge video screen flashed into life at the other end of the hall. The Gull appeared on the screen, flapping his ridiculous (but very effective) homemade wings. “Thmo,” he said. “Thme meet mat mlatht.”
“What did he just say?” Delia whispered to Imogen.
“I think he was trying to say ‘So we meet at last,’” she said. “Must be hard to talk with that stupid beak attached to his face.”
“Is it a real beak?” Nick whispered.
“Or has he had plastic surgery?” asked Nate.
“I’d love to have plastic surgery,” Josephine said wistfully. “Just a couple of tweaks and tucks, and I think I’d look just like Princess Grace of Monaco. When she was alive. But why you’d want to make yourself look like a mutant duck, I have no idea.”
“To stay on brand,” said a voice from above them.
Imogen looked up—and there, dangling from the ceiling in a tiny cage, was Ava.
“Are you okay?” Imogen mouthed. But Ava looked away. She obviously hadn’t forgiven Imogen for choosing her family over her. You think she’d get over it, seeing as I’ve risked my life to come here and save her, Imogen thought. But the Kruks considered “grateful” to be such a dirty word that they employed a censor to beep it out of their favorite TV shows, along with words like “helpful,” “friendly,” “kind,” “honest,” and “Malala Yousafzai.”
“Smo. Smi smave moo min smy sums,” said the Gull.
The Crims looked at him blankly.
“Mmm smpose smoo—”
“Oi. Bird Face,” said Ava. “No one has any idea what you’re trying to say.”
The Gull groaned with frustration. He reached behind him, picked up an iPad, and started to type, turning the tablet around so they could see what he had written.
So. I have you in my grass at last.
The Crims looked at one another. “We’re not in your grass,” said Nick. “We’re in your auditorium.”
The Gull groaned again. That was a typo, he wrote. Meant to write “grasp,” not “grass.”
“Ohhhh,” said the Crims, nodding.
“Must be quite hard to type when you have wings instead of fingers,” Aunt Bets said sympathetically.
The Gull nodded and started typing again. I’ve been witching you—
“Witching?” said Uncle Clyde. “Is that another typo?”
“Or maybe he’s really a witch!” said Josephine. “That would explain how he ended up with that horrible beak! Probably a spell gone wrong!”
The Gull shook his head. Sorry! Autocorrect! He took his arm out of the wing part of his costume and tried again. I’ve been watching you for months.
“Ohhhh,” said the Crims again.
“So, we’re not beneath your notice, then,” said Josephine. “But in that case, why have you been sending your pathetic sidekick to deal with us, instead of attacking us yourself? It’s so disrespectful! We’ve appeared on national television, you know!”
The Gull laughed at that—at least, he tried to laugh, but the beak made it quite difficult, so it came out as a sort of smug, suffocated wheezing sound. I have been attacking you, he typed into his iPad. Indirectly. You’re the ones I’m really after. Not Ava. Everything I’ve done since I became a superhero has been designed to lure you to my island.
Imogen couldn’t help smiling up at Ava triumphantly. This wasn’t good news, obviously—really, the fact that a deranged, bird-faced superhero had targeted her family was very, very bad news indeed and would probably result in at least one death or a lot of prison sentences—but this meant that as far as the Gull was concerned, the Crims were more dangerous than Ava. And Delia was obviously thinking the same thing, because she stuck her tongue out at Ava and whispered, “See? People do know who we are. He was just using you to get to us! Who’s the loser now?”
Ava pretended not to hear. She was sitting in her cage, her arms crossed, a disgusted look on her face. Though that might have been because Uncle Knuckles was nervous, and when Uncle Knuckles was nervous, he sweated. And when Uncle Knuckles sweated, he smelled like a clogged garbage disposal.
I don’t know what you’re so happy about, typed the Gull. But you won’t be smiling after you’ve seen this. . . .
The Gull disappeared from the screen. His face was replaced by shaky camera footage of the Gull and the Mussel, standing in what looked like a tiny warehouse, surrounded by confused-looking people in black polo shirts. The Gull kept giving orders that no one could understand, and the Mussel kept translating them for him.
“Make sure the
y don’t suspect a thing,” said the Mussel. “They have to think that they’re actually good at stealing laptops.”
The confused-looking people burst out laughing.
“Good one,” said the one with frizzy hair.
I recognize her . . . , thought Imogen. And then she noticed the label on her shirt: “Mega Deals.”
Imogen felt sick. “So, you set up the Mega Deals heist?” she asked the Gull.
The Gull reappeared on the screen. He nodded as triumphantly as someone can when their entire face is hidden by a beak.
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” said Delia. “The Mega Deals heist was set up by the TV producers from that stupid show—”
But then the Gull disappeared again, and more shaky-camera footage flashed up on the screen. This time it showed the Gull sitting in a meeting room with Belinda Smell, the overexcited TV producer from EZTV.
“This is a win-win situation,” Belinda was saying to the Gull. “You get to lure these criminals to your lair. We get must-watch television. It’ll do wonders for our ratings! Gum?”
The Gull shook his head sadly and pointed to his beak.
Imogen sighed. This was all too much. She just wanted to go home alone and eat an entire tub of chocolate ice cream. But unfortunately, she was very far from home, and she was the opposite of alone, and every time she looked at the door marked “EXIT,” one of the security guards pointed a gun at her and said, “One move, and we end you.”
“Hang on,” said Freddie, scratching his head. “The Gull can’t be behind the TV show. The whole thing was Josephine’s idea. Which makes much more sense, because I’ve done the numbers, and she’s responsible for two out of every fifteen stupid decisions this family makes.”
Everyone looked at Josephine. The Gull appeared on the screen again. Why don’t you tell them how you came up with the idea for the show, he typed into his iPad.
“Well,” Josephine said slowly, “now that I think about it, the idea to apply for the TV show came to me in a dream . . . a very vivid dream. I dreamed a huge bird with a speech impediment came into my bedroom and handed over the EZTV registration forms. . . . And now that I come to think of it, I wasn’t actually asleep at the time.”