He had no idea whether she would regret it or not. It was his job to persuade her to accept the offer and he’d done that. He would get paid. Beyond that, he didn’t care. He snapped shut his briefcase.
“Will you stay and have some lunch with us?” asked Gran.
John Smith tried to refuse. He’d done his bit and now he wanted to wash his hands of the affair. And the smell of the country.
“So kind,” he said, “but I really must be getting back.”
But Gran wouldn’t take no for an answer. Tod cut some bread while she dished up the soup.
Mr. Smith took a polite mouthful. His eyes bulged, his nose ran, and sweat broke out on his forehead. He swallowed and felt the fiery concoction trickle down his throat and burn corners of his stomach he didn’t know existed. He smiled fixedly, loosened his collar, and took another sip. By the time he left, he’d removed his jacket, his shirt, and his socks.
“What a nice man,” said Gran as she closed the front door. “He looked a bit hot though. Do you think I overdid the chillies?”
“A bit,” said Tod. “But the banana was good.”
They stared at each other for a moment.
“Well,” said Gran, “I’d better go and pack. Though Mr. Smith said we won’t need much because it’s hot where we’re going.”
“Where exactly are we going?” asked Tod. He picked up the tickets again and shrugged. “It only says America. Is that normal?”
Gran shrugged. “I don’t know, dear.” Then she did a little jump and punched the air. “Who cares? America…Yippeee!”
“Yippee-iyo!” shouted Tod. He opened the back door. “I’ll make sure the sheep are ready while you’re packing.”
“Right,” said Gran. “And while you’re there, you could check out Rhubarb on the laptop. See how big their convention center is.”
3
Batteries Charged
While Mr. Smith was in the farmhouse, smiling and clicking his ballpoint pen, the thinking sheep had had a thought. Well, one of them had.
Wills had remembered that Ida sometimes used the laptop to get things like hen food and fence posts. And he’d wondered if you could use it to get airplane tickets to America as well.
So he’d found a stick and carefully tapped some keys: A.M.E.R.I.C.A.–W.E.S.T. The screen beeped and flashed.
“Ohmygrass…is it Red Tongue again?” whispered Jaycey as they crowded around the laptop.
The screen went blank and then an airplane zoomed across it and more words appeared.
“DESERT AIR,” Wills read aloud. “THE FASTEST WAY TO THE WEST. WANT TO KNOW MORE?”
“What’s desert air?” asked Oxo.
“Deserts are mega-hot places, right,” Links cried excitedly.
Oxo looked at him doubtfully.
“Trust me,” said Links. “I know these things.”
Wills had once told him about deserts. Wills knew because he’d seen them on cowboy films. Tod and Wills both loved films about the Wild West.
“But are they places where the sun will scorch fleeces and hot winds blow?” asked Sal.
“Bound to be, man!”
Links was quivering with excitement. His long curls bounced up and down on his forehead.
“And I suppose,” said Wills, “that Desert Air’s an airline that flies to a desert.”
“Quick, man!” yelled Links. “Say yes! We do want to know more.”
“Yes,” shouted the others. “Say yes!”
Wills picked up the stick between his teeth. Spelling wasn’t easy and hitting the right keys with a stick was even harder. Slowly, he prodded Y, then E, then S. Nothing happened. Then he remembered what he had to do next. He gripped the stick firmly and poked “ENTER.” The airplane on the screen zoomed backward and forward, then landed in front of a blazing sun.
“So far so good…” said Wills.
He nearly jumped out of his fleece when a strange voice suddenly came from the laptop.
“Your battery is low,” it said.
Wills dropped the stick and stepped back, alarmed.
“Your battery is low,” the voice said again. “It must be charged at once.”
“Anything you say,” grunted Oxo and he lowered his head.
“Charge your battery at once,” ordered the voice.
And before Wills could stop him, Oxo took a little run and smashed his head into the laptop. It crashed to the barn floor, where it lay with a shattered screen and a hole in the keyboard. The sheep stared at the wreckage.
“Ohmygrass…” said Jaycey. “You’ve killed it.”
“The important thing is,” said Sal, “that we said yes. We said yes and it understood. You all saw the airplane and the hot sun.” She beamed around at them. “We’re on our way to America!”
Wills was doubtful, but then they heard a screech of tires and a loud engine.
“It’s the airplane!” cried Sal. “Come for us so soon?”
“Ooh, I’m not ready,” bleated Jaycey. “I can’t go to America in this state…”
She started rubbing her hooves on an obliging hen to make them shine.
“It can’t be an airplane,” said Wills. “We’ll need a truck or something to take us to an airport first.”
They peered out into the farmyard. Wills was right. There was no airplane. Only tire tracks in the mud and a pair of shiny shoes.
“A truck, you say, dear?” asked Sal. “Well, I’m sure Desert Air will send one. Let’s go outside and enjoy some good Eppingham grass while we’re waiting.”
“I’ll eat to that,” said Oxo and he led the way.
Still in the barn, Wills turned and looked back at the laptop, wondering if Ida would be very upset when she saw what had happened. And he still wasn’t sure how he could have arranged a trip to America so easily when it took Ida hours, and sometimes lots of rude words, to make the laptop buy a bag of corn. But there was nothing else he could do, so he went outside to graze and hoped for the best.
Links was already composing his first Red Tongue rap.
“We’s usually quiet and don’t make no fuss,
But you evil guys shouldn’t mess with us.
The Lambad dude thought he’d got us beat,
But he’s history now and life is sweet.
We’ve been called again and we’s heading West,
So, monster dude, you’ll be messin’ with the best.
‘Red Tongue,’ you said. ‘Remember the name.’
Well we’s the Warrior Sheep, man.
You’d better do the same.”
The other sheep all raised their heads in a bleating chorus.
“Yeah, we’s the Warrior Sheep, man. You’d better do the same.”
While they were singing, Tod came out of the farmhouse with a bucket of cabbage leaves. He was surprised to see the sheep gathered noisily near the paddock gate, as if they were waiting for something. He grinned to himself: if only they knew they were on their way to America! He gave them their cabbage treat, then went into the barn to feed the hens and check out Rhubarb on Gran’s laptop.
Wills stopped singing and watched Tod go into the barn. A few minutes later the boy came out again with the broken laptop in his arms. But he didn’t look crossly at the sheep. He even waved as he went back into the farmhouse. Wills was relieved.
“The sheep are fine, Gran,” Tod called as he slipped his boots off. “But I can’t check out Rhubarb. Look what the hens have done to your laptop!”
4
The Boombergs
While the rare breed warriors chomped in the paddock and Tod and Ida scurried around packing, an air stewardess was carrying bales of straw into a small private jet.
The jet was parked on a disused airfield, and its cabin had been divided into two sections. In the front section, there was a single row of se
ats. At the back, behind a partition, there were no seats at all, only a pen for animals. A man dressed in a pilot’s uniform was helping spread the straw.
“Smithy was in a funny mood,” said the stewardess, whose name was Jo. “He just took his money and ran. He looked very hot.”
“Perhaps he’s eaten something that doesn’t agree with him,” said Don, the pilot. “Is this the first time we’ve done sheep? I only remember cats, dogs, and horses.”
Jo nodded.
“Why does the customer want them in such a hurry?” asked Don.
“I didn’t ask. I never do. I suppose she’s just getting round the quarantine rules, like they all are.” Jo grinned. “What do we care, Don? She’s paying us a fortune.”
***
Animals were being discussed elsewhere too. Not in a field, but in a very secret place, way off the beaten track in the Arizona desert. Arizona, America.
In a room lit only by the glow from banks and banks of computers, a number of men and women were glaring fiercely at each other across a long table. Their angry faces looked weirdly gray in the light from the computer monitors. Most of them wore grubby white cotton coats over jeans and T-shirts.
At the head of the table, a hunched, frowning man, Professor Stanley Boomberg, was scribbling numbers on a sheet of paper and constantly referring to a mini computer attached to his wrist. He had a row of pencils slotted into the breast pocket of his clean white coat and two more stuck out of his ears. He was trying to ignore his noisy companions.
“Dogs!” a man on one side of the table shouted. “It’s got to be dogs.”
“Too stupid,” murmured Professor Boomberg.
Nobody heard. The scientists rarely bothered to listen to the Professor, even though he was their boss. Not unless his wife, prickly by name and prickly by nature, was around.
“We can’t sacrifice dogs,” yelled a woman. “They’re so loyal.”
“That’s right,” said another man. “Cats. We must use cats.”
“You only say that because you don’t like them,” replied a woman opposite.
“That’s not the point,” shouted the man. “We should use them because they’re smart. Selfish but smart.”
“Nothing wrong with being selfish,” murmured Professor Boomberg, without looking up.
“Look, we should have made a decision weeks ago,” shouted the first man. He banged his fist on the table. “Dogs!”
“Cats!” cried all the dog lovers, scraping their chairs back and standing up.
“Dogs!”
“Cats!”
The shouting went on and on.
“Pigs!” cried someone, trying to break the deadlock.
“Much too intelligent,” murmured the Professor, scrolling through the complicated figures on his wrist-top computer.
Except for the Professor, they were all on their feet now, yelling at each other, when the door suddenly burst open and the Professor’s wife, Holly Boomberg, strode into the room. She wore a smart black suit, carried a briefcase, and her red high-heeled shoes clacked in a business-like way on the tiled floor. Mrs. Boomberg was an organizer, not a scientist, and she was very pleased with what she’d just organized.
“It’s all fixed, darling,” she announced, patting the Professor’s bony shoulder.
His pencil skidded, making a thick gray line across his calculations. He sighed. Holly took the other pencils from his ears.
“I’ve just had a call from the pilot, dear. The sheep are on their way.”
“Sheep?” Everyone stared at Mrs. Boomberg and sat down, shocked.
“We can’t use sheep,” squeaked one of the women. “They’re even more stupid than dogs.”
“Not these ones,” said Mrs. Boomberg crisply. “These ones are perfect for the job. You have my word for it.” She looked round the table. “Don’t you people have other computer screens to stare at?”
One grubby white coat eventually stood up again, then the others followed. Rather like sheep, thought Holly to herself as they filed out.
As soon as they’d gone, she slammed the door behind them, turned back to her husband, and gave his bony shoulder an enthusiastic whack. He winced. Because he often forgot to eat, Stanley was thin and pale and not very strong. His wife, who took care of her health as efficiently as she took care of everything else, was super fit.
“These are exceptionally bright sheep, Stanley,” she bubbled. “I remember seeing them on TV in England, last time I visited Mother. They saved a boy’s life by stopping a train.”
“No kidding?” said the Professor, trying to sound interested. He was interested, of course. He needed animals for B-Day, and these sheep sounded perfect, but he wished Holly would just go and get them without bothering him.
“Absolutely true, darling,” said Holly. “They’re amazing animals. We’ve got five coming, so you can choose the two you want and dump the rest.”
“Great, great…”
“I’m afraid their owners are coming too, which is annoying. But I have a plan for them.”
“I’m sure you do, honey,” said Stanley, flinching to avoid another whack or, worse, a kiss. “Uh…how come we’re getting them so quickly? Aren’t there laws about bringing animals into the States?”
“Oh yes,” said Holly breezily. “You can’t. Not without permission. And they’re supposed to go into quarantine for ages to make sure they’re not carrying any nasty germs or worms or whatever.” She smiled reassuringly. “But we haven’t got time for all that, so I found a little firm in England that transports things privately, no questions asked.”
Stanley gulped. “That must be costing you a lot of bucks, honey.”
Holly shrugged. “It’s only money,” she said. Then she smiled. “With my money and your brains, we’re a force to be reckoned with, Stanley Boomberg.”
Stanley nodded. His eyes suddenly gleamed and his thin lips stretched into a smile. “And soon the world will know it.”
“Indeed it will,” said Holly. “We shall be rich and famous.” Then she turned and her red high heels clacked briskly toward the door. “Now, they’ll be arriving at dawn,” she said, “and we must both be there to meet them.”
Stanley opened his mouth to protest. He didn’t want to meet the owners. He didn’t like people. And there were so many calculations still to do before B-Day. But it was too late. His wife had gone, pulling the door firmly shut behind her.
***
Back across the Atlantic, a small truck pulled up outside Eppingham Farm. Oxo lowered his head, ready to batter the paddock gate open to get to it, but before he could charge, Tod hurried out of the farmhouse and unhooked the catch. Oxo was surprised and a bit disappointed.
Tod watched the sheep trot through the gateway and up the plank into the back of the truck, then he shut the tailgate and the truck drove away. Minutes later, a car drew up for Gran and himself. They squeezed in with their luggage.
“The sheep were so docile,” Tod said, as they settled down for the journey to the airport. “It was like they were expecting to go for a ride.”
“You’re letting your imagination run away with you,” said Gran. Then she pinched his arm. “Are we really off to a convention in America?”
“We’re Rhubarb’s guests,” giggled Tod. “Maybe they’ll call me custard.”
“And what about me?” asked Gran.
“You can be crumble.”
Tod laughed and ducked to avoid Gran’s pretend slap.
“Cheeky boy,” she said.
After an hour or so, the car turned off the main road into some lanes, then into a huge field with a grass runway at the far end. A small jet airplane was waiting for them.
“Doesn’t look much like Heathrow,” said Tod, peering out of the car window.
The truck had stopped close to the plane and the sheep were al
ready trotting up the ramp into the rear section of the cabin. Tod and Gran hurried across and waved until the door closed behind the sheep, then they turned to the front end where the stewardess was waiting for them. She didn’t even glance at Gran’s tickets as she ushered them up the steps.
“Are we the only passengers?” asked Tod, staring at the single row of seats.
“Yes,” smiled the hostess. “This is a very exclusive airline. My name’s Jo and you’re traveling first class with us today. Now, if you’ll fasten your seat belts, we’re ready for takeoff.”
On the other side of the partition, the warriors didn’t have seat belts but they did have plenty of straw and a big trough of fodder.
“How kind of Tod and Ida to see us off,” said Sal.
“Yeah,” agreed Oxo. “But how did they know we’re going West to butt Red Tongue’s butt?” He lowered his head and got stuck into a mouthful of greens from the trough. “Have I missed something?”
Wills had been worrying about the same thing. “Maybe they saw a message on the laptop,” he said. “A note from Desert Air.”
“No way,” said Jaycey, pleased to have thought of something Wills hadn’t. “Oxo killed the laptop, remember?”
“Maybe Tod mended it,” persisted Wills.
He couldn’t think how else Tod and Ida could have found out.
Just then, the plane, which had been moving slowly, accelerated down the runway.
“Ohmygrass…” wailed Jaycey, forgetting her little moment of triumph.
Engines roared and lights flashed past the windows as the plane raced along. Then its wheels left the ground and it climbed sharply, sending the sheep rolling in the straw.
“Wicked!” shouted Links.
“Bye bye, Tod and Ida,” shouted Wills.
“Keep growing the cabbages,” called Oxo.
“Bye bye, rain,” squealed Jaycey.
Sal was all of a flutter.
“Fly us to the West!” she cried. “Where the hottest winds blow!”
The Warrior Sheep Go West Page 2