by Andrew Cope
Everyone else was sleeping, intoxicated by too much of Margaret’s drugged champagne. She tottered to her feet and picked up her walking stick. She swayed down the aisle, a little tipsy after a midday sherry and her hip playing up. She plonked herself down with the first group of sleeping passengers.
‘Hellooo!’ yelled the pensioner. ‘Mr Baxter, can you hear me?’ The family snored on. Margaret took her walking stick and prodded the man in his chest. Still nothing. It was fiddly trying to undo Mrs Baxter’s necklace so the old lady reached into her handbag for her nail scissors. She snipped the thread and the diamonds poured off. One or two fell to the floor, but Margaret caught what she could and spread them out on the table.
‘Oh, the Past Master will be pleased,’ she purred. She unscrewed the bottom of her walking stick, turned the stick upside down and, one by one, dropped the diamonds inside. It took an age but she didn’t mind. After screwing the end back on, she checked Mr Baxter for valuables, just in case. He had 3,000 euros of spending money in his wallet, a £5,000 watch, a 24-carat gold wedding ring and emerald cufflinks. The old lady tutted. ‘No diamonds – useless.’
She leant on her stick and raised herself to her feet. She tottered to the next group of dozing passengers and her search for diamonds continued.
4. Posh Nosh
The day was over. Shakespeare had avoided the paddling pool and had absorbed every piece of news he could. His overworked iPad was recharging, as was he, curled up at the foot of Sophie’s bed. His body twitched and his eyelids flickered as a nightmare ripped through his sleep.
It had started as a strange slow-motion dream. He was floating in space, a fishbowl on his head, trying to grab pieces of satellite as they floated past. ‘The world is depending on you, space puss,’ said Ollie’s voice. Then, to Shakespeare’s horror, the fishbowl started filling up. The water was up to his mouth, then his nose. Shakespeare twitched in his sleep. ‘I can’t breathe,’ he gurgled as a goldfish swam past his eyes …
The next moment his nightmare brought him back to earth with a bang. There was no spacesuit, just a huge man leering at him. ‘No, please. Not me,’ he meowed as the man bent down and caught him by the scruff of his tiny kitten neck. Shakespeare’s body kicked in his sleep as the man scooped him into the sack, where he wriggled for freedom with his brothers and sisters. Then it all went dark, and hot, as the sack was tied and slung over the man’s shoulder. The eight kittens kept still, trying to stay comfortable as the man marched across the fields. Then he stopped.
Shakespeare could smell water. His nose twitched. Flowing water. Probably a river? And there was a terrible moment when the sack was thrown through the air before splashing in. It took a few seconds before water started seeping into the sack. There was panic among his brothers and sisters as they struggled in the darkness. Shakespeare could feel the sack being dragged by the current. We’re flowing with the river and sinking, he thought as the water got higher. He had no choice but to stand on his brother’s head to claw at the top of the sack. Shakespeare could hear his siblings meowing for their lives. It was hot. And dark. And getting wetter by the second. He clawed again and daylight broke through. The sack was half full by now, and he reached down and pulled his baby sister out of the water at the bottom of the bag. He lifted her to safety. She was mewing very quietly. Probably in shock.
‘Don’t give up,’ meowed Shakespeare, leaping at the top of the sack and creating a hole large enough to scrabble through. He hauled himself out and lowered his paw. One by one, his brothers and sisters were heaved out and they leapt for their lives, plunging into the river, paddling frantically. ‘Swim for it,’ he meowed, his eyes scanning for the best way to ensure his own survival.
Seven cats were struggling through the water towards the bank on his right, but the sack had drifted and he calculated that the left bank might be a better bet. His mind was working overtime. It’s less steep so, if I make it, I’ll have a chance of clambering on to dry land. Shakespeare had no time to think any more. Kittens’ ears were bobbing about to his right. They can’t swim! I just hope they learn fast!
If I stay put, I’ll drown. His brothers and sisters were paddling for their lives, ears and noses just about staying above water. If I go right, I’ll drown. If I swim left, I might drown. All the options were bad.
The sack had finally sunk and, the decision made for him, his legs were kicking and he could feel the cold water chilling his tiny body. I hate water! Shakespeare’s back legs kicked out for the left-hand bank …
… and the huge effort woke him with a jolt. The cat gasped for breath and he came to his senses. His fur was standing on end. His heart was pounding and his breathing quick.
Water! It’s no wonder it’s my worst nightmare.
He’d survived being thrown into a river, but he wondered if his brothers and sisters had made it.
Gordon Blooming-Whittingstall was bellowing at his staff. ‘It’s celebrity night at Numero Uno,’ he yelled. ‘And we’ve got a restaurant full of top-notch A-listers. These people are dripping with fame and wealth. They are used to the best. They expect the best. And tonight, you muppets, we will give them the best meal they’ve ever had.’
The head chef’s hat was sagging under the strain. Gordon Blooming-Whittingstall spent all his time cooking on TV and had actually forgotten how to cook in real life. If his wife wanted him to make beans on toast, she had to follow him around with a camcorder while he explained how to heat the beans. But that didn’t stop him shouting. He noticed the pile of washing-up was getting bigger. ‘You’re daydreaming again, Reg!’ he bellowed to the oldest person in the kitchen, a man of about forty who was up to his elbows in soapsuds.
‘Sorry, boss,’ said the man, plunging his hands back into the dirty water.
Washing pots was the lowest level of the food chain. The washer-upper had nobody to shout at. Most kitchens used young people as pot-washers. But Gordon Blooming-Whittingstall had driven all the youngsters away. The only person who he could get to stick at the job was Reg. Reg had lasted almost a week, reliably (and very slowly) washing the dishes.
Reg didn’t mind. The Past Master had sent him on a mission and he didn’t care how he was being treated because tonight was going to be his night. He loved washing up, especially the old-fashioned way with rubber gloves and suds. But it was hot in the kitchen and his disguise was melting. His wig was itchy and his make-up had begun to run down his neck. He was thankful that all the staff were too busy to look very closely. If they had, they’d have noticed signs of his real age. The big ears, extra-long nose hairs and the fact that his trousers were pulled up almost to his nipples.
He was glad of the bright yellow gloves. Not only did they protect his hands from the boiling water, they also hid his eighty-four-year-old fingers. His bony knuckles were almost impossible to disguise so the best thing was to keep them hidden. Nobody would employ an eighty-four-year-old so he was doing his best to act like a man half his age. He stood as tall as his bent spine would allow.
Reg studied the craziness of the kitchen. A small colony of workers scurrying around like ants under a rock.
The old man looked at the plates of food that were ‘ready to go’ to table 16. Why is modern food always arranged in towers? he thought. And why no gravy? And why do they have such huge plates with hardly any food on them? And what on earth is ‘couscous’? He thought back to his day. A large plate of piping-hot meat and two veg, swimming in gravy. Always with potatoes. No fancy pasta or rice. And certainly no couscous. We had proper food, he thought, and it never did us any harm. Reg was motivated by the thought that it wouldn’t be long before those days returned.
‘I said stop daydreaming, Reg!’ bellowed the restaurant owner. ‘There’s no slacking in my kitchen. We need two hundred clean glasses because I’m about to do a toast to our wonderful customers to thank them for attending our celebrity night.’
Reg smiled a wry smile. His moment had almost arrived. He’d seen to it personally that
each bottle of bubbly had been injected with a sleeping potion. Trays of the stuff were being sent into the restaurant. Reg slipped off his yellow gloves and listened while Gordon proposed a toast and all the customers raised their glasses. ‘To Numero Uno,’ sang Gordon. There was a loud chant of ‘Numero Uno!’, lots of clinking of glasses and then Gordon reeled off a terribly cheesy speech. There was a round of applause and then all the celebrities rekindled their conversations, bragging about their latest reality TV projects.
Reg took charge of the kitchen staff. ‘Ladies and gents,’ he beamed. ‘We have pulled it off. We’ve served two hundred minor celebrities the most overpriced meal they’ve ever had. And Gordon’s never going to thank us. So I propose we have a sip of his best champagne and toast ourselves.’
The worker ants cheered. ‘Great idea, Reg,’ grinned the chef, sweat dripping into the saucepan he was stirring.
Reg led by example. He raised a glass of fizzy water, his ancient hand shaking just a little. ‘To us,’ he pronounced. ‘The best kitchen team in the world, ever.’
‘To us,’ chorused thirty-six staff, quaffing their well-earned drugged champagne.
Five minutes later Reg was having the time of his life. He had removed his wig and wiped the make-up from his face, revealing his eighty-four years with pride. He noted that most of the sleeping celebrities were very heavy on make-up. Some were orange. And none of them have wrinkles, he noticed, not even the old ones. How odd. He took a small magnifying lens from his pocket and approached a sleeping lady, marvelling at her sparkly necklace. He bent down and snipped it, catching the weight of it in his hand. Feels heavy, he thought. Always a good sign. He put the small lens to his eye and examined the jewels. ‘Nope,’ he said, blinking a magnified eye. ‘Fake diamonds. That’s modern celebrity for you. In my day, film stars would only wear real diamonds. That’s another example of standards slipping.’
Reg spent a happy hour examining the celebrities’ sparkly jewellery. He’d chosen the job with this night in mind. He was in pursuit of diamonds and it was a fair bet that there would be celebrities dripping with them at an event like this. He was pleased with his evening’s work. But the first orange people were beginning to rouse themselves, all woozy-headed, so he thought it best to leave.
His rucksack was satisfyingly heavy. His best haul had come from a young lady whom he’d seen on a daytime soap opera. Two diamond earrings and a marvellous belly-button diamond. Nice, he’d thought, easing it out with a toothpick. And he couldn’t resist Gordon Blooming-Whittingstall himself. The restaurant owner had been snoring on the floor. Reg had struggled to get the diamond ring off his bloated finger, but he’d applied some of his washing-up liquid and managed it in the end. Plus Gordon’s fabulous diamond-encrusted watch. What a bonus, thought Reg, popping that into his bag and slipping out into the London night. The Past Master will be pleased with me.
5. Great Expectations
The best thing in the world was when the children and animals got to visit Professor Cortex in his lab. But today they’d had to settle for second best, watching as the professor’s black van swept on to the drive. He was visiting them.
Ollie jumped down from the sofa and started tearing round the lounge. ‘He’s here, he’s here …’
Spy Pups, Spud and Star, were so excited that their whole bodies wagged. Shakespeare watched Lara. She’s what I aspire to be, thought the cat, learning fast. Fully qualified secret agent. Baddie-catcher extraordinaire. He noticed that even the coolest dog on the planet was failing to control her enthusiasm, her tail batting hard against the table, her bullet-holed ear standing higher than ever. And what a silly doggy grin, noticed the cat.
Shakespeare was good at noticing things. He observed his newly adopted family with pride and reflected on his first month with them. Mum seems to be in charge. Dad does as he’s told. At twelve, Ben was the oldest and therefore the leader of the children and Lara seemed to be this little man’s best friend. Ollie was the youngest, a whirlwind of innocent trouble, always asking questions and always a whisker away from breaking something.
And then there was Sophie. My beloved Sophie, thought Shakespeare, his eyes fixed adoringly on the little girl. He loved her freckles and her warmth. Her grin lit up the room as the white-coated Professor Cortex swept through the door. Ollie hurled himself at the scientist, burying his face in his tummy.
‘Quite,’ fussed the elderly man, patting Ollie on the head and shaking Ben’s hand at the same time.
The professor was, as always, flanked by black-suited, sunglass-wearing minders. Ollie was always intrigued, trying to engage them in conversation when he knew they weren’t there to chat. He had no idea what was going on behind their dark glasses, but he could imagine their eyes swivelling right and left, always alert. There was a curly wire sneaking out of the top of Agent P’s jacket and into his ear so Ollie knew he was listening. ‘Is that an iPod?’ asked the little boy, pointing at the wire. ‘Have you been downloading?’
Agent P looked straight ahead, his lips sealed.
‘Can you speak?’
‘Affirmative,’ snarled the man from the corner of his mouth.
‘Affirmative?’ repeated Ollie. ‘Cool. That must be a foreign language. Are you from Belgium? Or Swindon? Have you got a gun?’
Ollie thought he saw Agent P twitch. ‘And, when you kill baddies, do their guts explode?’ he asked, shooting the bodyguard with an imaginary gun.
‘Enough questions, Master Oliver,’ chirped Professor Cortex. ‘Agents P and Q are my personal bodyguards. We go everywhere together.’
‘Even the toilet?’ gasped Ollie. ‘What if there’s only one toilet and there are three of you? How does that work?’
‘We go almost everywhere together, Master Oliver. And do you know why?’ He moved on before the little boy had the chance to jump in. ‘Because my science experiments are the most advanced in the world. And because the graduates of my Spy School training programme –’ he paused, nodding at the wagging dogs – ‘are some of the most highly trained secret agents in the world. One can only imagine what would happen if enemy agents got their hands on my technology. Or my brain.’ He shuddered. ‘Unthinkable.’
Ben considered this rather big-headed so he thought he’d bring the professor down a peg. ‘But,’ he reminded him, ‘some of your inventions are rubbish. That automatic hair-cutter that almost took Dad’s head off, for instance.’
Dad was nodding vigorously. ‘That was a close shave,’ he agreed. ‘Literally!’
‘Or those pants you invented. The ones that you tested on Agent Q. The ones that were supposed to heat up in the cold and cool down on warm days. The ones that you wired wrong.’
‘Well, yes,’ agreed the professor, glancing at Agent Q whose body language had sagged a little at the traumatic memory. ‘A good idea. Just badly engineered.’
Agent Q shivered. It had taken three days for his private parts to defrost.
‘Theory and practice are sometimes different,’ suggested the scientist. ‘And I have had plenty of successes,’ he reminded them, regaining his mojo. ‘Plus, I’m pretty sure you’ll find some of these rather thrilling.’
The children and dogs crowded round, eagerly awaiting some of Professor Cortex’s latest inventions, keen to give them the thumbs-up or down. The professor glanced at Agent Q and was passed a small rucksack. ‘This,’ he said triumphantly, ‘is a little bag of gadgets that I call my Cat Kit.’
Spud grinned a silly doggy grin. ‘That sounds like my fave chocolate,’ he woofed, slobber dribbling from his chops.
‘And I call it a Cat Kit because it’s got gadgets aimed at our newest secret agent,’ the professor said, glancing at Shakespeare. ‘The world’s finest feline and, I have to say, the world’s top ginger secret agent.’
Shakespeare liked it when Lara sometimes called him a ginger ninja. He sat tall, his translating collar flashing and his eyes shining. Less chat, Prof, he thought. I can’t wait to see what’s in the Cat Kit.
‘Is that for real?’ asked Ollie, holding out his arms and pulling at his armpits, hoping to see little wings.
‘One hundred per cent real,’ nodded the professor, beginning to hop from foot to foot as his excitement mounted. ‘These squirrels have evolved. They have loose skin so that when they raise their arms and legs it increases their body surface area. They can’t fly as such. They glide. And,’ he said, his smile turning into a full-blown beam, ‘if we wait four million years, cats might have evolved to do the same. But I’ve taken a short cut. Basically, I’ve trimmed evolution by four million years to create this,’ he said, pulling a small Lycra suit from his briefcase.
‘It looks a bit small for you,’ giggled Sophie.
‘It’s not for humans,’ continued the professor. ‘It’s a catsuit!’
Shakespeare gulped. He felt everyone’s eyes turning in his direction. A what suit? he thought, patting his translating collar to check it hadn’t mistranslated.
‘I haven’t tested it yet,’ admitted the professor. ‘But I’ve run various computer simulations that seem to show it’ll work purrrfectly well,’ he jabbered. ‘Did you see what I did there, Agent CAT? I added an extra-long “urrr” to turn “perfect” into “purrrfect”. Because cats …’
‘We get it, Prof,’ sighed Ben. ‘If you have to explain your jokes, that basically means they’re not funny.’