15
“Are you sure this will work?” Lily whispered as they stood in the shadows next to the refrigerated truck.
“It’s got to.” Jackson peeped around the side of the truck sled. The driver and his helpers had just carried in two more of the ice sculptures, and the truck was nearly empty now. “Ready, Quigley?”
“Sure.” His buddy nodded. “Just wanted to check—what’s the backup?”
The backup! Jackson groaned. He’d broken the most basic FBI rule: ALWAYS have a backup plan. Jackson sighed. Uncle Bryn would never make that mistake. Wait—of course! Uncle Bryn! “The backup is my Uncle Bryn,” he told Quigley. He glanced at Lily. “He—um—well, he knows some penguins who work for the FBI,” he told her. No way could he blow Uncle Bryn’s cover.
“Oh, yeah,” Quigley said, winking at Jackson. “His Uncle Bryn works in the FBI gift shop.”
Huh? Jackson did a double take at his buddy.
Lily smiled. “The FBI ‘gift shop’?”
“Sure,” Jackson said, not quite looking Lily in the eye. “But Uncle Bryn knows how to get in touch with real FBI secret agents.”
“Yeah, because they’re always popping in and out of his gift shop,” Quigley explained, “buying spy sweaters and secret-agent stationary and, um, little boxes of FBI candy.”
Lily looked like she was trying not to laugh. “Okay, so how do I get in touch with your uncle who works in the FBI gift shop?” She made little quotation marks in the air when she said gift shop.
Jackson considered this for a moment. He definitely didn’t want to give her Uncle Bryn’s top-secret cell number. Then he remembered something. “Inside my backpack, under my sardine suit, there’s a transmitter. It belongs to Uncle Bryn.”
Lily lifted up the back of Jackson’s suit and began to rummage around in his backpack.
“It’s in the top pocket,” Jackson said. “Yep, that one. When you find it you’ll see an emergency button on the side of the transmitter.”
“That’s the secret-agent locater button,” Quigley added. “If you press it, the FBI will come and find us.”
“So, if we’re not back in”—Jackson glanced at his ice watch—“say, thirty minutes, press the button, okay?”
Lily held the transmitter up to the light. “Wow, the FBI ‘gift shop’ really looks after its staff. By the way, why have you got a bowling ball in your backpack?”
“Huh?” Jackson reached around and patted his backpack under his sardine suit. He felt something hard—the egg! He’d forgotten all about it. It had been so quiet in his backpack, probably snoozing (the egg slept a lot), that he’d forgotten it was still in there. He was just about to ask Lily to take his soon-to-be sibling out and look after it for him when the driver and his helpers suddenly reappeared through the restaurant doors. The friends shrank back into the shadows as the restaurant staff clambered up into the refrigerated truck, reappearing seconds later with two more ice sculptures on wooden boards.
“This one weighs more than Coldfinger’s earrings,” Jackson heard one of the waiters laughing.
“Watch it, buddy,” the other one muttered. “If she hears you, she’ll feed you to her sharks.”
Jackson shuddered. Did she really have sharks inside the restaurant? I guess we’re about to find out, he thought.
As soon as they’d gone, Jackson nudged Quigley. “Quick!” he whispered. “Let’s do this!”
There were only a few ice sculptures left now. As Jackson hoisted himself up into the back, he spotted a pile of wooden boards propped up against the side. “Grab one of those,” he whispered to Quigley.
“What sort of pose shall I do?” Quigley asked, stepping onto his board. “Teapot? Starfish? Diving seabird?”
Before Jackson could reply, they heard the footsteps of the returning driver and his helpers. Jackson just had time to take up his own position—a surfer pose, with both flippers held out to the sides—before the waiters climbed back up into the truck.
“Quick, guys,” the driver called. “The guests are about to sit down in the restaurant. We’ve got to hurry.”
Jackson hardly dared breathe as the waiters dragged his board toward the truck doors. Then, “One, two, heave!” and moments later he found himself being carried aloft, through the restaurant doors. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lily in the shadows. She gave him a flippers-up as he passed, but Jackson could see the worried expression on her face.
Don’t move, he told himself as he was carried along a gloomy hallway. Don’t blink. Don’t breathe! They passed through two sets of double doors and down another dark corridor into the belly of the building, until—
Oh, my gosh. Jackson gulped, trying not to blink in the light. This is it. The Shark’s Pit Restaurant.
16
Jackson’s eyeballs ping-ponged around the enormous dining room. Giant ceiling-to-floor glass tanks containing real, live great white sharks the size of bus snowmobiles surrounded the room. The sharks swam toothily past, their giant tails slapping against the glass as though they were trying to smash their way into the restaurant so they could gobble up the guests when they came in for dinner. No way could I eat with them licking their lips at me, Jackson thought. He noticed that the ice sculptures had been laid out between the dinner tables. They sparkled in the candlelight from the glittering chandeliers. But where are the fish? Jackson wondered. If they’re not in the kitchen and they’re not in here, then— Jackson gulped. Maybe he was wrong. Perhaps Coldfinger had had nothing to do with the missing fish. If that was the case, then he’d need to come up with a pretty brilliant escape plan, pronto! Otherwise, Lily would call the FBI and he’d have a lot of explaining to do.
“Put it on there,” said a familiar voice. It was the flappy penguin with the pens around her neck. She gestured to a plinth next to the largest table in the room. “Put that other one next to it,” the flappy penguin added, pointing out a place for Quigley, too. She stood back and peered at them both. “Gee, I guess the ice sculptor was having an off day when she made these two.”
Jackson felt his face burning. Is she onto us? He glanced at Quigley out of the corner of his eye and his heart missed a beat. No way! Quigley had gone for a running-penguin-on-one-leg pose. Jackson groaned inside. Admittedly, Quigley held the school record for the penguin who could stand on one leg the longest, thanks to his having figured out the mathematical equation for the angle at which to lean to ensure the best balance, but still … Was this the place to show off your one-leg standing skills? Jackson didn’t think so. Mind you, his own surfer pose wasn’t much better. His outstretched flippers were already beginning to feel like he was holding a snowmobile truck on each wing. He gritted his beak. Do not move, he told himself. No matter how much your flippers hurt, you cannot move.
Just then the restaurant doors opened and the dinner guests began to come in and sit down. Across the room he caught Hoff Rockface staring at him. Uh-oh! But seconds later, Hoff’s attention was taken by a passing waiter carrying a basket of krill buns, and Jackson could breathe again.
“Ladies and gentle-penguins!” the flappy penguin shouted as the last guest took their seat. “Thank you so much for coming to the grand opening of the exclusive Shark’s Pit Restaurant. Please put your flippers together to welcome your host for tonight’s gala dinner, the owner of this exciting new restaurant, Ms. Chilla Belle!”
The guests burst into applause as Coldfinger shuffled out of the shadows, her blingy jewelry sparkling under the lights and her foul, sickly-sweet perfume wafting around the room. Jackson held his breath as she came and stood right next to him. “Good evening, friends,” she barked. Her voice was rough and deep, like she’d been gargling with gravel. Jackson felt a hot wave of fear pass through his sardine suit. He hoped it wouldn’t melt the snow. “Tonight you are in for the treat of a lifetime,” Coldfinger growled. “You will experience food that no other penguins have ever tried before!”
As she spoke, Jackson felt a sudden thump in his backpack. Oh
, no! Coldfinger’s voice must have woken the egg. Please go back to sleep, he willed his soon-to-be sibling.
“These spectacular dishes will be prepared by the most exceptional chefs from around the world.” Coldfinger snapped her flippers and six penguins wearing aprons and tall white hats marched into the room, bowing to the guests. “They will cook the most unusual delicacies for your delight.” Jackson glanced briefly at Quigley. The “most unusual delicacies”? She had to be talking about the stolen fish. But if she was, where were they?
“In my restaurant, we serve exceptional food for exceptional penguins!” Coldfinger grinned at her guests, who roared their approval, clapping and whooping.
The egg did a complete flip at the noise, nearly unbalancing Jackson. STOP MOVING! he wished he could yell, OR YOU’LL BLOW MY COVER! He made a mental note NEVER to bring a junior agent on a mission again.
Coldfinger held up her flippers for silence. “Everything will be prepared fresh at your table,” she rasped as more chefs marched in, pushing large hot plates on wheels. “And now, to reveal the ingredients.” She clapped her flippers three times and a large circle in the middle of the floor began to slide back.
The guests craned their necks to see what was happening. So did Jackson. He blinked in wonder as a wide, water-filled glass cylinder at least ten feet in diameter began to rise up and out of the floor. And inside—Jackson’s eyes boggled, and he felt his feathers stiffen and his beak fall open—were the missing fish!
They were all there. The koi. The lobster. The crabs and the seahorse. And others, too. Iridescent jellyfish. Rainbow-colored rays. And the stink-ink squid with the neon-yellow legs that was glaring out miserably from the bottom of the tank.
“Take your pick!” Coldfinger cried, pointing to the tank. “Choose your favorite unusual ingredients from my tank, and my chefs will fish them out and create the most exclusive finger foods you’ve ever—”
But before she could finish her sentence, there was an enormous Achoooo! and Quigley fell off his plinth.
17
The whole room froze.
“It’s her perfume,” Quigley explained. “I’m allergic!”
“Don’t worry, Agent Q,” Jackson said, hopping off his plinth. “We’ve seen enough.” He flipped off his hood and pointed at Coldfinger. “I’m Secret Agent 00Zero. On behalf of the FBI, I’m arresting you for theft of endangered species.”
The guests gasped. The chefs began to back out of the room. But Coldfinger wasn’t beaten. She started to erupt. First her flippers waggled, then her belly shook, and finally her beak snapped open, frothy spit spluttering out when she said, “HOW DARE YOU!”
“We’ve got the evidence,” Quigley said, pulling out his Blink Cam Goggles. “Or we soon will have. Smile for the camera!” He began taking pictures of Coldfinger and the guests and the stolen fish.
“You’re going down,” Jackson told Coldfinger. “For a long time.”
“LIES! All lies!” Coldfinger spun around to the guests, her furious face softening a fraction. “These fish aren’t stolen. These horrible hatchlings are intruders. Sneaky paparazzi trying to get pictures of you, my lovely, famous friends, so they can sell them to celebrity gossip magazines.”
The dinner guests began to boo and shout at Jackson and Quigley.
“Hey!” Jackson cried as a krill bun bounced off his head, followed by several more.
“I know them,” Hoff Rockface shouted, firing more buns at them. “They’re the loser patrol from school.”
“SECURITY!” Coldfinger bellowed. “Get them out of here!”
“Code Red, Agent Q,” Jackson shouted as four muscle penguins appeared from the shadows. “Run!”
They raced across the room, guests screaming, krill buns flying, and Coldfinger’s security guards chasing after them.
“Through here!” Jackson headed down a corridor full of stacked dining chairs. “Hey, take a seat,” he shouted to the guards behind him as he pulled a few piles down, blocking their path. It worked—for about a heartbeat. But the security penguins just charged over the chairs, cursing and yelling, and were immediately back on their tails.
“It’s a dead end,” Quigley puffed out as they reached the end of the corridor. “We’ll have to go up the stairs.”
Jackson hesitated. They needed to get OUT, not go up!
“Don’t worry,” Quigley said, already halfway up the first flight. “If we end up on the roof, I’m wearing parachute underwear—two pairs.”
Jackson grimaced. He did NOT want to borrow Quigley’s underwear. “I guess there might be a fire escape.” He crossed his flippers and dived after Quigley.
“GET THEM!” The biggest security penguin was right behind them now. He lunged. “Gotcha!” He grabbed Jackson’s sardine suit.
“No way!” Jackson put his head down and powered forward. There was a loud r-i-p-p-ing sound and Jackson slipped from the guard’s clutches, leaving him holding half a sticky sardine suit.
“Grrrr!” The guard tried to flick it off his flippers, but it was stuck fast. The other guards pushed past him.
“I don’t think so,” Quigley muttered, fiddling with his watch’s strap. He shook his wrist and a jet of black oil splattered onto the steps below him. “Octopus ink—super-slidey!” He grinned at Jackson as the guards began to slip. And slide and—
“Arghhh!” The guard in front lost his footing altogether and fell backward, crashing into the three guards behind him like an enormous black-and-white bowling ball.
“Strike!” Jackson shouted. “Ten-pin takedown! Great work, Agent Q.”
They hopped up the last few steps and along the landing.
“Through here?” Jackson pulled open the first door they came to and they slipped inside. “I can’t see much,” Jackson whispered, his eyes blinking in the strange blue light. “Whoa—look at the glass floor. I think we’re above the shark tanks.”
Quigley peered down through his toes at the large, dark shapes swimming underneath.
“Urgh,” Jackson groaned. “Check this out.” He pointed to a bucket of disgusting chum next to a hatch in the middle of the floor. “I guess this is where they feed them. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“Too late,” said a cold voice across the room, and Coldfinger stepped out of the shadows. In her flippers was a long, sharp pole. The fish-grabber claw!
18
“But how did you get in here?” Jackson said.
Coldfinger snorted. “First rule in the bad-guy handbook: always have a back door.” She gestured behind her. As she spoke, the other door burst open and the disheveled muscle penguins barged in. “Sorry, boss, we nearly had them.”
“Silence!” Coldfinger extended the grabber claw to poke the front guard in the chest. “I’ll deal with you later.”
“N-n-not the shark tank,” he gasped.
“We’ll see,” she hissed. Then she moved the claw to point at Jackson and Quigley. “So you worked it out, did you? I should have known. You smelled like trouble the first time I saw you.”
“WE smelled like trouble?” Quigley pushed the Blink Cam Goggles onto the top of his head. “You should smell yourself sometime—poooo-eeeee!” He held his beak with his flipper. “That perfume is worse than seal pee. Mind you, it’s not really your fault. Older penguins lose their smell receptors, you see. They decrease with age. That’s why grandma penguins always put on too much perfume—”
“Quigley,” Jackson whispered, “I don’t think this is helping.”
Coldfinger’s face had ballooned with fury.
“Not that you look like a grandma penguin,” Quigley added. “Well, apart from the earrings. My grandma has the exact same pair.”
“Quiet!” Coldfinger poked Quigley’s belly with the grabber claw. “Give me that camera!”
“What? These?” Quigley reached for his Blink Cam Goggles. “No way. It took me six months to make them.”
Jackson stepped in front of his buddy. “And the goggles are FBI evidence no
w. As soon as they get here, we’ll be handing the pictures to them.”
Coldfinger rolled her eyes. “‘As soon as they get here’? Oh, yes, right—because the FBI is always on speed dial for pesky little hatchlings.” She shook her head. “Now give me those goggles or I’ll feed you to my sharks.”
Jackson grabbed the glasses off Quigley’s head and jumped forward, snapping open the shark-feeding hatch with his toes. “By the time you’ve fished them out of here,” he said, dangling them above the hole, “the FBI will have arrived to arrest you.” Flippers crossed the sharks don’t eat them first!
Coldfinger smiled a strange, cruel smile, which made her eyes almost disappear into the creases of her face. “Before you do anything stupid,” she said quietly, “I think I might have something you’d like to trade for. Small hatchlings love to trade, don’t they?”
Jackson scowled at her. Did Coldfinger really think he was going to swap the Blink Cam Goggles, which had proof of Coldfinger’s crimes that they could show to the FBI, for a few rare flipper-ball collector cards? She obviously didn’t know who she was dealing with.
“Look over there,” Coldfinger said, gesturing to one of her security guards. “I think you might have dropped something on the stairs.”
Jackson followed her gaze and his heart stopped. “Nooooo!”
The guard was holding what looked like—
“The egg,” he whispered. “But that’s impossible.” Jackson reached up to feel for his backpack. But it was gone. He gritted his beak. The guard must have ripped it off when he’d torn Jackson’s sardine suit.
Coldfinger let out a long, low cackle that made her earrings jangle. “Whoever hired you as an egg-sitter is going to be so disappointed. I’m not sure you’ll get hired again. Now give me those goggles or I’ll feed you AND your little eggy friend to the sharks.”
Spy Penguins Series, Book 1 Page 7