Jane Blonde: Spylet on Ice

by Jill Marshall

  Abe Rownigan’s voice, filtering through the speakers disguised as a bread-maker and a microwave on either side of the fridge, was now pointing out the various features of the SPIcamp. ‘Once you’ve mastered all the units, you’ll be a fully fledged member of the SPI Academy, which entitles you to call yourself a spy. I think you’ll find it a lot of fun, and very inspiring. I’ve hand-selected the coordinators and all the students and their SPI:KEs, and you should all bring along your spy-pet, if you have one.’

  ‘All?’ said Janey. ‘How many of us do you think there’ll be?’

  G-Mamma didn’t seem to be anywhere near as excited as Janey. ‘He IS kidding, right? SPI:KE?! Me? Retraining? I don’t need a refresher, unless it’s the sweetie kind that comes in a packet.’

  ‘G-Mamma, it’ll be fun! We’ll get to meet some other spies and Spylets, get the latest SPI-buys, try out some new technology . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, and what else?’ G-Mamma put her gold fingernail against her pouting glossy lips. ‘I know! See your father again!’ she said pointedly. She knew exactly why Janey was so keen to go.

  ‘Do you think he’ll be there?’ said Janey, a little breathless with bottled-up hope.

  ‘Your father,’ said G-Mamma, popping a meat-and-potato pie into the microwave, ‘is a mystery to all of us. Only he knows where he’ll spring up next, and whose body he’ll be occupying to do it. And that is a very good thing,’ she added sternly.

  Janey avoided her gaze. There had been occasions when she had been a bit too quick to believe that someone might or might not be her dad – not realizing that Abe Rownigan was actually ‘A Brown Again’ and genuinely her father, for instance, but accepting without question a slightly odd version of Abe who had turned out to be Copernicus, arch-enemy and evil overlord, posing as her father in a fake copy of his body. G-Mamma was taking a little while to forgive her for it completely. ‘I’ll . . . um . . . just go and call Alfie – tell him about the barcode and what have you.’

  The pie blocking G-Mamma’s face nodded up and down so Janey hopped off the tall stool at the Spylab computer bench, whistled for Trouble the Spycat, and glided on her ASPIC (Aeronautical SPI Conveyor) through the tunnel that linked the fireplace in the Spylab with Janey’s own, ordinary bedroom in the house next door.

  ‘Alfie,’ she cried as he picked up the phone, ‘check your penguin photo! There’s a bar code on it.’

  ‘Well, I would, but the frame sort of seems to have melted.’

  ‘What?’

  Alfie sighed. ‘Melted. Just the little photo of the penguin left, a bit soggy now.’

  ‘But mine hasn’t melted. Why would yours?’

  ‘Dunno. Although it might be because . . .’ He sounded a little sheepish. ‘I’m on kit-washing duty this week. I put it in the bag with all the strips after the match.’

  Janey thought about the sweaty clothing and decided not to ask any more. ‘So that must mean they’re made of ice, not glass. That would explain why it felt cold, and why the code appeared after we’d put them in the freezer.’

  ‘Well, duh, obviously . . .’ It wasn’t obvious at all, but Alfie wasn’t going to let Janey get away with solving all the clues herself. ‘And why it’s melted. They’re formed to self-destruct after a certain amount of time, and he’s used steganography. Clever,’ he said approvingly.

  ‘What’s stega-wotsit?’

  Janey could almost hear Alfie preening. ‘It’s the art of hiding messages. The Greeks did it by shaving some dude’s head, tattooing it and waiting for his hair to grow back. Then the person at the other end got the message by shaving his head again. Don’t tell me you didn’t know that?’

  At this, Janey heard a scuffle on the other end, and suddenly found she was hearing Alfie’s mother, Mrs Halliday. ‘Janey, I’ve just this minute told him about steganography. Don’t let him get all superior, especially when he’s forgetting to ask you the most important part: what did the message say?’

  ‘It’s an invitation to SPIcamp.’

  ‘And your mum will let you go?’

  ‘Oh no!’

  It was a very good point. There was no way Clean Jean would believe tales of a spycamp, and even less hope that she would let Janey attend.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Mrs Halliday. ‘I’ll call your mum and say we’re going off on some hothousing week for gifted children or something.’

  Janey grinned. Her mum loved her to pieces but probably wouldn’t believe for an instant that she was gifted, unless, of course, somebody influential told her it was true – someone like Alfie’s mum, super-SPI Maisie Halo and headmistress of Janey’s school. ‘Brilliant.’

  It would be brilliant, she knew it. Janey’s spy instincts were all ablaze, and she really couldn’t wait to be at SPIcamp, learning new things, meeting new spies, and – hopefully – getting to know her dad better than ever. It was a chance she just couldn’t miss. Alfie had wrestled the phone back off his mother. ‘We’ll pick you up in the morning. SPIcamp – yesss!’ The phone went dead.

  Janey wandered into the lounge. Her mum was sitting like an island in an ocean of documents, working her way methodically through the accounts for the little chain of companies she now managed. ‘Sweetheart,’ she said distractedly, ‘make me a cup of tea, will you? My brain isn’t working properly. This final sum is wrong, I’m sure.’

  Janey looked at her sensible mum, doing sensible things with a calculator, and wondered how she could have truly forgotten what it was like to be a spy. ‘Not enough money?’

  ‘No,’ said Jean, shaking the calculator as if that would make it come up with a different figure. ‘No, quite the opposite. Too much. I mean, if this thing is right, we’ve made more money than I could ever have imagined. I think we might actually be . . . well, quite wealthy.’

  ‘Mum, that’s great!’ said Janey, giving her a hug. ‘You’ve worked so hard. And that means we can have loads and loads of pizza!’ It was their special Friday-night treat – pizza and a DVD, slippers on and the week shrugged off like an old coat.

  Jean smiled, a little bewildered. ‘I suppose so. And I suppose . . . well, if the accountant says this is all correct, we can do all sorts. Move to a bigger house! Imagine, Janey, I could have a proper office at home, and you could have friends over to stay!’

  Janey thought quickly. If they moved house, G-Mamma would also have to move so that the Spylab remained close by. ‘But I love this house. Anyway, this address is on all your business stuff.’ As proof she held up a piece of paper bearing the Abe ’n’ Jean emblem.

  ‘True,’ said Jean. ‘Well, even if we don’t move house, let’s have a proper holiday this summer! I’ll call the travel agents and see what they suggest. We could go anywhere!’

  Her mum looked so thrilled and excited that Janey’s heart sank as the phone rang. Little did Jean suspect that she was about to find out that not only were they reasonably well off now, but she’d also rather suddenly acquired a gifted child, who would be off to a special camp tomorrow morning. Without her.

  Janey sighed and went into the kitchen. It was definitely time for that cup of tea.

  Her mum walked in behind her, looking a little glum. ‘You’ll never guess who that was, Janey. Mrs Halliday says you’re invited to a special hothousing week for gifted children. She thinks you’ll do very well and might even get that scholarship to Everdene. I had no idea . . .’

  ‘ . . . that I was gifted? I’m not really. I think it’s just that I’m good at maths.’

  Her mother shook her head vigorously. ‘No, I’ve always known you were special, Janey. I just meant I had no idea you were growing up so fast. Off for a whole week on your own. I’m so proud of you, darling.’

  Janey didn’t think this would be a very good time to tell her mum that she’d been away for as long before; it was simply that Jean had been in the company of a Janey-clone and hadn’t realized her real daughter was away on a mission.

  Janey remembered that she was supposed to be surprised. ‘Wow!
A week away? I’ll call you lots and lots. And I’ll be back before you know it.’

  She smiled at her mum, but was suddenly rather taken aback. The expression on her mum’s face was very peculiar – sort of . . . furtive. And a little smiley, as if she was biting back some great secret.

  ‘Actually, darling,’ Jean said in a sudden rush, ‘I may be quite busy anyway. You see, I know you’re going to be doing your own thing more and more, so I’ve decided it’s time I got out and about a bit more too. I’m going to start, well, dating, I suppose you might call it.’

  Janey’s bottom jaw nearly hit the floor. Jean couldn’t! It wasn’t right! Her mum was . . . well, old. Too old for dating. And not only was Janey used to having her mum to herself, but she also knew what her mum didn’t – that Jean Brown’s husband was alive and well, and desperate for them all to be together as a family again.

  ‘Well,’ she managed to say in a strangled tone after a few moments’ awkward silence, ‘you can wait until I’m back for that, can’t you?’

  Her mum looked at her sideways again. ‘Um. Well, Joy from the office is quite keen to join me. She’s coming for lunch tomorrow to, you know, plan our attack. We thought we’d try speed-dating.’

  Janey gaped again. So that was what the posh cheese and nibbles were for! She felt as though she’d just paid for her own funeral. And what on earth was speed-dating? Jean had seemed happy enough on her own for so long, but now she wanted to find someone in double-quick time! It was even more critical that her dad was at this SPIcamp. She didn’t just have him to save from whatever evils befell him, it seemed that now she had to save her mum too.

  And for the first time she realized that, while being a spy could be pretty testing, being a daughter could be tough too. Grabbing a handful of the grapes she had so carefully selected, Janey stomped out of the kitchen and headed for the Spylab. At least in there she knew where she stood.

  spicamp spirit

  By the time the alarm went off the next morning, Janey had been ready for two and a half hours. Her little suitcase was standing to attention beside her bed, packed with jeans, T-shirts and hooded sweatshirts, underwear and toiletries. G-Mamma had been left in charge of packing Janey’s SPIsuit and SPI-buys separately, in case Jean insisted on looking through her daughter’s case. Janey hoped her SPI:KE had done better than the last time she’d packed for her, when all she’d put in were Trouble, some babyish pyjamas and a bunch of Day-Glo jewellery.

  Janey hadn’t heard her mum get up, so she crept across to her bedroom and pushed open the door. The room was empty, and the bed didn’t even look slept in. ‘Mum?’

  ‘Morning, darling.’ Her mum, looking pale and tired, peeked out from behind a tower of towels on the stairs behind Janey.

  ‘You must have been up a long time,’ said Janey suspiciously. She looked pretty much the same way herself when she’d been out on an all-night spying mission.

  ‘I didn’t go to bed,’ said Jean, smothering a yawn. ‘By the time I finished off all that accounting and stopped wondering what I was going to do without you for a whole week, it was dawn.’

  ‘You’d better get some sleep before your . . . special dating lunch.’ The words came out all hard and brittle, as if her mum was going out torturing puppies instead of having Brie and walnut crackers with a friend from work.

  ‘Oh, Janey, I will, but . . .’ said Jean, nodding briskly to hide the tears in her eyes. ‘Oh, they’re here. Got everything? Come on then, let’s go.’

  Janey clambered in next to Alfie in the large eightseater people carrier. ‘Not blubbing are you, Brown?’ said Alfie.

  ‘No, but I think Mum might be,’ she whispered back. ‘Can we get it over with?’

  ‘Off we go then!’ called Mrs Halliday cheerily, shoving the car into gear. ‘Don’t worry about a thing, Jean. I’ll have her back to you in one piece in a week, and Janey will call every day.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Jean, waving a little forlornly. ‘Enjoy yourself, Janey. You too, Alfie.’

  ‘Bye, Mum!’

  Now that she was actually going, Janey was horribly sorry at leaving her mum that way. She waved furiously until they turned the corner and drove out of sight. Moments later they were screeching to a halt at a temporary bus stop, where a chubby hand in fingerless gloves and a collection of glittering rings was flagging them down. G-Mamma looked as if she was wearing a duvet, so padded and layered was she. On closer inspection, Janey realized that she was wearing all her clothes at once, and Trouble the cat was wrapped around her neck like a fox-fur, just as he had been when Janey had first seen him.

  Mrs Halliday sighed as she pulled over. ‘I thought you were travelling light?’

  ‘This is light!’ G-Mamma hauled herself into the very back seat, manoeuvring herself with difficulty past Janey and Alfie and shoving two small silver suitcases over towards the boot. ‘Look at the size of my bag – it’s teeny. And the other one’s got Janey’s spygear in it, so don’t blame me for that one.’ She sprawled across the seat, panting.

  Alfie had to reach over to do up her seat belt. ‘We’re going to need a crane to get her out again,’ he muttered.

  ‘I heard that, Alfie Ralfie. I’m also wearing a SPI-Pod, you might like to know.’ She pointed her chins at the SPI listening/tracking device strapped to her arm.

  Janey changed the subject to keep the peace. ‘So where is this SPIcamp? Shouldn’t we Satispy our way over?’

  ‘And get turned into SPI-group soup? I don’t think so, Zany Janey,’ said G-Mamma. She had a point – the SPI satellite transporter did have a nasty habit of mixing up people’s cells as it beamed them off via a dish in space to reassemble them somewhere else. ‘It’s not far, anyway. We’ll just head up the motorway a bit and we’ll be there in no time. Watch out for the weather front.’

  ‘What’s a weather front?’ asked Janey.

  ‘It’s a front made of weather,’ said Alfie. ‘Duh.’

  Mrs Halliday tutted. ‘Well, sort of. It’s a boundary between two air masses with different characteristics.’

  ‘Easier my way.’ Alfie stared out of the window, but there was no weather front to be seen, so he settled down with his games console as Janey pressed her nose against the glass.

  Before too long they turned off the motorway and made their way through a string of little villages. It was a glorious early-summer day, and the shops selling ice creams were already busy. Only the fact that she couldn’t get out of the car very easily prevented G-Mamma from leaping out to grab a Magnum or two. The hum of the engine and the whirr of the air conditioning were just lulling Janey off to sleep when suddenly she noticed something.

  ‘It’s raining,’ she said, pointing to a droplet of water on the glass.

  ‘So it is.’ Mrs Halliday looked through the windscreen up at the skies, then turned her head left and right, scanning the fields around them. ‘There’s the weather front,’ she said, ‘behind that paddock with the horses. Hold on, everyone.’

  With that, she yanked the steering wheel hard left and took off across the fields, much to the puzzlement of the farmer who had been about to drive his tractor out on to the road. G-Mamma peered at him through the back windscreen. ‘It’s OK, Maisie. Keep going. He’s too busy digging his tractor out of the hedge to watch us.’

  Janey hung on as they bounced across the furrowed ground. This didn’t seem like a very sophisticated method of transport for spies. Satispying might be risky, but at least it was cool. This was just painful – and about to become more so for the horses in their way.

  ‘Look out!’ she yelled. ‘You’ll hit them! Look, wow – isn’t that the horse my dad and I rode to escape the Sinerlesse?’ It seemed a long time ago now, but the horse looked very familiar – ever more familiar as the people carrier bludgeoned its way across the field, straight towards the horse and the driving rain which enveloped it.

  ‘Ah yes, well done, Janey. That’s the one.’ And Mrs Halliday pressed down on the accelerator.

&
nbsp; ‘What are you doing? You’ll kill it! You’ll kill us! Stop!’

  Janey closed her eyes as the horse’s muzzle loomed at them through the windscreen, and waited for the bump. Instead, all she heard was Alfie tutting and a slight slurping sound as the car seemed to stick for a moment, then blast off again with all its previous speed and more.

  She opened her eyes cautiously. ‘Is the horse OK?’

  Alfie was shaking his head at her. ‘I know my mum’s a bit mad sometimes, but do you seriously think she’d point the car at a real live horse? It’s a hologram, you loon, to hide the SPIcamp.’

  ‘Well, technically,’ piped up G-Mamma, ‘the horse is just the key – a SPIRIT, or SPI Retinal Image Transfer. It’s the WUSS that hides the camp; that sucking feeling was us passing through the Weather-Using Site Shield.’

  ‘The rain!’ Janey registered that there was only bright sunshine around them now, and they were slowing down as they approached a series of military-looking buildings.

  ‘That’s right, Janey,’ said Mrs Halliday, sweeping expertly into a parking space between two other identical people carriers. ‘There’s an enormous force field all around the camp, which looks to all intents and purposes like an isolated shower – to the untrained eye. You can only get through by driving straight at the right horse, or at whatever SPIRIT has been chosen as the key. And here we are!’

  Janey clambered down from the car and helped G-Mamma out. Trouble jumped across to her shoulder, and together they looked around, unsure which way to go, until Alfie raised his arm to point at someone, and she knew instantly what to do.

  ‘Dad!’

  There stood her father, just in the doorway of what seemed to be the administration block. He looked as he had when she’d seen him last – tall, crinkle-edged brown eyes and a flashing film-star grin. Abe Rownigan spread his arms wide. ‘Welcome to SPIcamp! Welcome!’

  ‘Dad, you’re here!’ Janey let Trouble drop to the ground and took off at a run, racing Trouble towards her father’s embrace. Trouble was faster and flung himself at the open arms of his beloved master, but Janey didn’t slow. There was room for them both in that hug.