by Adam Frost
“As quickly as possible, then. Meanwhile, I’ll do what I can.”
Wily scrambled up the rope and into the Forbidden City.
He was in a side chamber in the eastern wing of the Emperor’s old palace. All the lights were off, but he could still see mirrors glinting on the walls and chandeliers twinkling on the ceilings.
Wily breathed in and then remembered he had earplugs in his nostrils. Should he take them out? No, too risky. He’d have to forget his sense of smell and use his eyes and ears instead.
Wily listened and heard a scuffling sound in the room straight ahead. He darted forward and poked his head round the door. He could see a narrow balcony overlooking a large interior courtyard. The balcony was full of outfits and trinkets celebrating the Year of the Dragon. There were flags, banners, dragon costumes, drums, cymbals and more.
Down in the courtyard, Duncan and the skunks were prising open a cabinet that contained the world’s biggest emerald.
Wily listened.
“We’re going to get caught, boss. I know we are,” gibbered Sam.
“No, we’re not,” snapped Duncan.
“I’m going to spray, I’m going to spray,” stammered Sam.
“Spray all you like,” said Duncan.
So Sam ejected a puff of white fizzy liquid out of his bottom.
Duncan pulled out his bottle of Utopia and poured a couple of drops on to the ground.
“All gone,” he said.
“Why were you nervous, anyway?” asked Simon. “All the guards are gone.”
“It’s … it’s … it’s the ghost, OK? It’s the ghost!” exclaimed Sam.
“What ghost?”
“The Ghost of the Jade Dragon. Everybody knows it protects the Beijing Emerald. Maybe we shouldn’t steal it, after all.”
Duncan glanced at the emerald. “There are no such things as ghosts,” he hissed.
“Yeah, there are,” said Sam. “After my great-great-grandmother died, she came back to me in the form of a wasp and stung me on the knee.”
“That was just a wasp,” said Duncan, wrenching the front off the cabinet and grabbing the jewel.
“Yeah, that was just a wasp,” said Simon, but now he looked frightened.
Duncan put the emerald into a sack and moved on to the next cabinet.
“Please, put it back,” said Sam. “Let’s steal something else instead. There are lots of other jewels here.”
“We’re going to steal those, too,” said Duncan. “We’re going to take everything.”
Wily moved silently to the other side of the balcony as Duncan started to crowbar the front off another cabinet. He had to stop them. By the time Julius arrived, Duncan and the skunks would have taken everything in the Forbidden City and vanished.
What could he do? There were three of them – and Duncan had a heavy crowbar. He also wasn’t sure how good the earplugs were. They were protecting him from Utopia and skunk spray up on the balcony, but what about at close range?
Wily closed his eyes, desperately trying to think of a solution.
“The dragon’s ghost is here, I can sense it,” Sam stammered. “I’m going to spray again.”
And then Wily had an idea. He began rummaging through the trinkets on the balcony. Behind him was a huge papier-maché dragon costume, complete with bulging eyes, flappy mouth and long tail. If one of the skunks was scared of a dragon ghost, perhaps Wily could take advantage of it.
But that wasn’t all. Wily was still in his baggy red costume. Strapped to his back was a fire-eater’s torch. If he positioned everything correctly, maybe his dragon could breathe fire, too.
He looked around for other props. Drums, cymbals – they could be useful. He picked up a waste-paper basket from the corner of the room, emptied it and knocked out the bottom. Now he had a megaphone.
In less than a minute, Wily was inside the dragon costume, holding the torch in front of his mouth. He held the megaphone in his other hand and attached the cymbals to his knees.
The skunks had opened a second cabinet and Duncan had removed the jewel – a giant diamond.
This was Wily’s chance. He shouted through his megaphone: “Who dares remove my treasure?”
Sam Skunk immediately sprayed, yelling: “I told you! I told you! It’s the ghost! It’s the ghost!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Duncan, “we must have missed one of the guards. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
He held up his crowbar and the bottle of Utopia.
“I AM one of the guards,” said Wily, and he brought his legs together, making the cymbals clash. “I guard the Beijing Emerald. And I protect it with fire!”
He leaped down from the balcony, the dragon’s tail snaking behind him.
He opened the dragon’s flappy mouth and turned on his fire-eater’s torch.
“Sam, you were right!” cried Simon Skunk, and he sprayed, too.
“Calm down, it’s one of the guards,” said Duncan and he opened the bottle of Utopia, waving it at the dragon.
Wily couldn’t smell anything – the earplugs in his nose were still working.
“Why do you wave perfume at me?” shouted Wily. “Is this any way for a skunk to fight?”
For the first time Duncan looked afraid. “B-but … it should knock you out…” he stammered.
At that moment, Wily breathed on his fire-eater’s torch and a huge flame shot across the room.
“Aaargh!” cried Duncan and, in spite of himself, he sprayed.
Wily breathed fire again, sending a column of flame up towards the ceiling.
“Put back what you have stolen!” he yelled.
“OK, w-we w-will,” stammered Duncan. He tossed the diamond into the cabinet behind him. Then he sprinted across the room, took the emerald out of his sack and put that back, too.
“Now leave this place and never return!” boomed Wily, clashing the cymbals together again.
As Duncan scrambled towards the door, he knocked against the doorframe and his nose peg fell off.
“Oh no!” he cried, breathing in Utopia. “Sam, give me your peg!”
He grabbed Sam’s nose peg, but Sam swiped it back and before long, all three skunks were coughing and stumbling and fighting for each other’s pegs.
“It’s … too … much…” coughed Duncan, and sank to his knees.
Sam and Simon coughed for a second and they too fainted, then they began to grin and dribble.
Wily took off his dragon costume and looked at the three burbling skunks.
“Solving crime in record time,” he murmured, with a smile.
He grabbed the cord from a pair of curtains and tied up the skunks. Then he reached inside the pocket of Duncan’s jacket and pulled out a slip of paper.
The recipe for Utopia.
In Milan, Wily Fox was visiting Adolfo Aroma in his office. He handed back the recipe.
“Thank you, Mr Fox,” said Adolfo. He crumpled the paper into a ball, popped it in his mouth and swallowed it. “Goodbye, Utopia, forever.”
“A wise decision,” said Wily.
“Now, tell me about your friends,” said Adolfo, “the little squirrel and the mole. Have they recovered?”
“They’re OK,” said Wily. “The doctors found you can get Utopia out of your system quickly if you sit in a wind tunnel for a few hours. Blows it out of your lungs and nostrils and ears. Their hair looks weird, but they’re fine.”
“And those horrible skunks?”
“All in prison. The guards wear gas masks so they can’t get knocked out by the skunks’ spray.”
“Very sensible,” said Adolfo. “You know, I can’t thank you enough, Mr Fox. This case could have destroyed my business. Ruined my life.”
“All part of the service,” said Wily.
“Well, if there’s anything I can do for you, just name it,” said Adolfo.
Wily thought for a few seconds. “Hmm. I guess there is one thing.”
“There is? What?” asked Adolfo.
/>
“Can I have some of that Smellissimo aftershave?” asked Wily. “You know, ‘for the fox-about-town’. You see, my fur is still covered in skunk spray and I have to meet my next client in two hours.”
“Of course!” Adolfo pressed a button on his desk. “Is it going to be an exciting case?”
“Just the usual saving-the-world-in-twenty-four-hours stuff. Nothing I can’t handle,” said Wily.
“I look forward to reading about it in the papers,” said Adolfo.
“Oh no, this is a top-secret mission,” said Wily. “It won’t be in the news.”
“That’s a shame,” said Adolfo. “Well, maybe you can write a book about it. When it’s all over.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Wily. “If it’s like this one, I should have quite a story to tell!”
It was nine o’clock in the morning and the Wily Fox Detective Agency was open for business. Already there was a long queue of animals waiting outside – sheep, mice, owls, ocelots, ostriches and more.
Inside, Wily was sitting at his desk, polishing his favourite magnifying glass with his bushy tail. He glanced up at the clock, put his magnifying glass in a drawer and pressed a button on the desk.
“Send in the first client, Mrs Mongoose,” he said into a small microphone.
“Certainly, Mr Fox,” replied a crackly voice.
“I hope something good turns up today,” Wily murmured to himself. “If I hear another case of a squirrel who can’t find his nuts, I’ll—”
At that moment, there was a loud scream followed by an enormous…
Wily leaped to his feet and sprinted across the office.
Outside in reception, it was chaos. There was smoke everywhere and animals were scrambling up the walls, leaping out of windows and sprinting down the stairs.
Mrs Mongoose was flapping her arms, shouting, “Please leave the building in an orderly fashion.”
Wily was about to dash downstairs when the smoke parted, the screaming stopped and a slinky silhouette came slowly into the room.
The detective rubbed his eyes and blinked twice. The silhouette became an elegant young poodle with large brown eyes and soft black fur. She had a red beret perched on one side of her head.
“Fireworks can come in very handy,” she purred in a French accent, waving an empty box of bangers. “I hope you don’t mind me – how you say – pushing in,” she added.
Wily gave a half-smile. “No problem. That was quite a neat trick. I might use it myself some time.”
“Dogs like to do tricks,” said the poodle. “Perhaps I will teach you some others. But for now, the show is over.”
She walked through the empty reception, smiling at a surprised-looking Mrs Mongoose, and passed into Wily’s office.
“It’s OK, Mrs Mongoose,” Wily said. “I’ll take it from here.” He sat down at his desk and the poodle started to speak.
“My name is Suzie La Pooch. I own one of the greatest art galleries in Paris. Inside there are some of the most famous paintings in the world. See for yourself…”
“Fascinating, Mademoiselle, but I am a detective, not an art critic,” Wily said, snapping the catalogue shut. “Why should this interest me?”
“Because I have fallen in love with the wrong painting,” said Suzie.
Wily blinked. “OK…”
“Two weeks ago, I bought a painting from a gallery owned by a brown bear from Russia called Dimitri Gottabottomitch. The picture was small, a bit strange-looking, but I LOVED it. A day later, I got a phone call.”
“From who?” Wily asked.
“It was Dimitri. He said the gallery assistant had made a mistake. The painting wasn’t for sale. He wanted it back.”
“So – let me guess – you refused?”
“Of course I did. I’d fallen in love. I offered him more money – ten times what I’d paid – but he kept saying it wasn’t for sale. Then he called me rude names. Well, that did it. Nobody is rude to Suzie La Pooch. I hung up.”
“That’s odd behaviour for a businessman,” Wily muttered. “Refusing ten times the asking price.”
“Yesterday, this arrived,” said Suzie. She handed Wily a note:
Wily looked at the handwriting. Then he smelled the paper. He thought he recognized the scent – there was brown bear, but also something else…
“I must admit, this note unsettled me,” Suzie said. “I closed my gallery to the public. Locked the door. Turned on the alarms. Flew straight to London and came here.”
Wily looked up. “I assume giving the painting back is not an option.”
Suzie shook her head. “First, he is rude. Now, he is making threats. I may be a poodle on the outside, but inside I am pure Rottweiler.”
“And you don’t want to contact the police?”
“What if they take Dimitri’s side? Tell me to give the painting back,” said Suzie. “Besides, police officers are not very clever. I want to keep the painting and I want to know why Dimitri wants it back so badly. It seems that there’s something rather strange behind it all.”
“True,” said Wily. “OK, I’ll take the case. Return to your gallery at once and I’ll follow on. You may have locks and alarms, but Dimitri will have crowbars and drills. We need to make the place a fortress. Then we’ll work out why the painting is so special.”
“Merci, Monsieur Fox,” said Suzie, “I knew I could count on you. See you in Paris this afternoon.”
The poodle picked up her catalogue and walked out.
Wily pressed another button on his desk. The speaker crackled. “Did you get all that, Albert?” he asked.
A squeaky voice replied, “Of course.”
“Good,” said Wily. “I’m on my way down.”
He walked over to a bookcase and pulled out a copy of Fantastic Mr Fox. The bookcase slid across to reveal a fireman’s pole that was at least a mile long.
Wily put on a pair of gloves and thigh pads that were hanging on the wall. Then he leaped on to the pole and started to hurtle downwards. After a couple of minutes, Wily gripped with the thigh pads to slow his pace. He landed with a soft pouf on a crash mat in the middle of an underground laboratory.
“Morning, Albert,” said Wily. “What have you got for me today?”
A small mole with huge glasses emerged from the shadows.
“So, I hear you’re going to Paris…” He yanked a piece of rope that was under his arm, and a curtain whipped aside to reveal a moped.
“This is called a Vespa,” he said. “Everyone there has one. However, yours is slightly different.” The mole pulled a lever on the side of the bike and a gigantic rocket slid out of the back.
“It can fly,” Albert said proudly.
He pulled another lever and a large corkscrew popped out of the front. “And it digs tunnels.”
He pointed at a third lever. “And if you pull that, it turns into a submarine.”
“Wow,” said Wily. “Anything else?”
“Actually, there is,” said Albert. “If you whistle, it will come to you. Within a distance of a hundred metres. And if you tap that screen, you can talk to me at any time.”
Wily smiled. “Does it serve coffee, too?”
“Er, actually, no,” Albert apologized. “I didn’t, er, think about that…”
“I’m only joking, Albert,” said Wily. “It’s brilliant!” He climbed on. “Now, show me how this rocket works. I have to be in Paris by midday.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam Frost writes children’s books full of jokes, animals, amazing gadgets – and ideally all three! When he was young, his favourite book was Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox, so writing about fantastic foxes all day is pretty much his dream job. His previous books include Ralph the Magic Rabbit and Danny Danger and the Cosmic Remote.
www.adam-frost.com
Copyright
STRIPES PUBLISHING
An imprint of Little Tiger Press
1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,
London
SW6 6AW
First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2015
Text copyright © Adam Frost, 2015
Illustrations copyright © Emily Fox, 2015
eISBN: 978-1-84715-659-4
The right of Adam Frost and Emily Fox to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively 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.
www.littletiger.co.uk