On The Ball

by Susannah McFarlane

  ‘Blackie!’ called EJ. ‘Come!’ She blew the whistle again, this time twice, and the puppy came back and began to play.

  ‘Did you see that?’ EJ asked CC.

  ‘See what?’ replied CC.

  ‘Watch this,’ said EJ and she called Blackie’s name then blew her whistle three times again. Sure enough, Blackie ran back into the dog yard and sat by the fence looking out.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ asked CC.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said EJ. ‘It’s strange that Blackie looks towards the tree house when I whistle three times.’

  CC shrugged. ‘Maybe she’d just had enough.’

  ‘She did it twice, so I don’t think so,’ replied EJ. ‘Let’s tell BRK9.’

  BRK9 looked worried when EJ told her what had happened. ‘Hmm, we haven’t taught them a three-whistle command yet. And Blackie has seemed out of sorts for the last little while but I haven’t been able to work out why.’ She bent down and scratched Blackie behind the ears. ‘Thanks, EJ. I’m not sure what it means but it might be important,’ she said, straightening up again. ‘But now it’s time for your spy charm session with IQ400. You’ll be seeing the puppies again later.’

  The girls gave the puppies a goodbye cuddle and walked past the dog yards towards the hall. As they were walking, EJ noticed a hole in the wire of the puppy yard where Blackie had sat, a hole big enough for a puppy to get through.

  That was a strange thing, another strange thing. There were lots of strange things. The tree house and the extra dog-tag, Blackie’s strange behaviour and now this hole. Were they all connected? EJ12 was starting to think they were.

  When the girls walked into the dining room, IQ400 and A1 were standing behind a table. On the table was a row of metal boxes.

  ‘These are charm chests,’ said A1. ‘You three are very lucky today. You are among the first SHINE agents to see the latest charms being developed in our laboratories. IQ400, what do you have for us?’

  ‘I have a few charms which are just about to go into production. This first one is a personal favourite,’ said IQ, taking out a charm in the shape of a dolphin. ‘It is a dolphin-trainer charm and it allows agents to work with dolphins. I am excited about this one: it could be an important breakthrough for us in underwater missions.’

  EJ’s eyes were nearly popping out of her head. A dolphin-trainer charm, how amazing was that? Although EJ wasn’t so sure that she would like an underwater mission. She loved swimming but she was a little bit nervous about deep water. She guessed that would probably rule her out of a marine mission, but you never could tell with SHINE.

  ‘Daydreaming, EJ12?’ asked IQ400, but not in an angry way.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ said EJ blushing.

  ‘Perhaps you need this?’ IQ400 was holding a little bottle of a murky-coloured liquid.

  EJ didn’t like the look of the drink. ‘Um, thanks, but I’m not thirsty.’

  ‘But are you thirsty for knowledge?’ asked IQ400.

  ‘To drink?’ EJ was confused.

  ‘Yes!’ exclaimed IQ400. ‘A knowledge drink, a brain energy drink, a think drink! I call it TD1000. Just as some drinks can deliver instant energy to our bodies, TD1000 will deliver energy to our brains.’

  EJ was still confused. ‘You mean a drink to make us think better?’ she asked.

  ‘Exactly!’ cried IQ400 excitedly. ‘Can you imagine the great things we could do if we could use more of our brains, more quickly, more of the time? That is what TD1000 is going to do. We have been experimenting with different combinations of foods we know to be good for the brain, foods that help boost your memory.’

  EJ was hoping chocolate was going to be one of those.

  ‘Cabbage, liver, egg yolks,’ continued IQ400. ‘These are some of the key ingredients. We haven’t got the taste right yet.’

  ‘Can we try some?’ asked KM, who was always interested in doing things more quickly.

  EJ and CC looked at her. Was she serious? KM wanted to drink that?

  ‘Oh no,’ exclaimed IQ. ‘It’s not ready. There are still problems, too many kinks still in the drinks!’

  ‘What do you mean, IQ?’ asked CC.

  ‘Well, at the moment the TD1000 seems to be having the exact opposite effect when you drink it. When someone drinks it at the moment they act like a little child. The effect wears off after a while but it is very perplexing. We have a lot more work to do. The next batch, however, is almost ready.’

  IQ400 went to the end of the table. ‘Now where is that other charm?’ she said as she looked on the bench. As she continued to search she explained. ‘It’s a soccer-ball charm. With the huge success of cupcake-cam, we are rolling out, if you will pardon the pun, ball-cam.’ IQ400 looked worried. ‘That’s strange. I am sure I left the charm here...’

  ‘Perhaps you left it back in the lab at HQ?’ asked A1, who now also looked worried.

  ‘No, I am positive I packed it in a charm chest,’ said IQ. ‘It was right here last night.’

  EJ watched as IQ looked at A1 who looked at IQ. Both now looked worried. That made EJ worried. What was going on? Was this another strange coincidence? Was the ball-cam just missing? Or had it been taken? And, if it had been taken, who had taken it?

  A1 finished the CHARM session early and cancelled the afternoon training sessions on the dirt bikes. The girls were disappointed but they realised that this was no longer a training camp: it had become a mission.

  EJ, KM and CC spent the afternoon searching the entire camp ground for the missing charm chest. They looked everywhere, in all the cabins, in all the bushes, even in the dog yards, but it was nowhere to be found.

  EJ was walking around the perimeter fence line near the dog yards. Looking up she could, again, make out the tree house. Once you knew what to look for it was easy to spot. But then, as EJ came closer, she saw something else. There in the camp fence, almost directly in line with the hole in the dog yard fence was another hole, another puppy-sized hole. EJ knelt down by the hole and there clearly, in the dirt on the other side of the fence were prints, paw-prints. Puppy-sized prints.

  It was early evening, after dinner, and EJ, CC and KM had snuck back into the dining hall to see what they could find for their midnight feast. They might be secret agents but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have some fun, and they wouldn’t have been very good secret agents if they couldn’t organise a secret midnight feast. They were just opening the pantry door when they heard barking. Puppy barking.

  ‘The puppies should be asleep,’ said CC. There was more barking.

  ‘Well, they’re not asleep. Come on,’ said EJ. ‘We’d better check it out.’

  The three agents left the dining hall and dashed across to the dog yards. The barking was getting louder.

  EJ shone her torch into the puppies’ yard but could only see Bella and Bessie, who barked again. ‘Where’s Blackie?’ she whispered to the others.

  ‘She must be here,’ replied CC.

  ‘Perhaps we just can’t see her because her coat is so black,’ suggested KM.

  Then EJ remembered the hole in the fence. ‘Quick,’ she whispered to the others, ‘come around here.’

  EJ ran around to the back of the pen where the hole was and shone her torch around. Blackie wasn’t there and EJ didn’t expect her to be. After watching her that morning during soccer training, she knew something strange was happening with the puppy and now she had gone.

  CC and KM crept up behind her.

  ‘EJ,’ CC whispered, ‘what have you found?’

  ‘There’s a hole,’ said EJ.

  ‘Blackie must have gone through it,’ said KM.

  EJ nodded.

  ‘But where to?’ asked CC.

  ‘Let’s check the camp fence,’ said EJ, turning away from the puppy yard. Then she stopped, as straight ahead of her a light began to flash. It wasn’t CC or KM’s torch because they were beside her with their torches still pointing at the hole in the puppy yard. This light was in front of her, a long
way in front. It seemed to be coming from outside the camp.

  ‘Hey, CC, KM, look at that light,’ she whispered. ‘Up in the trees.’

  KM and CC turned around.

  ‘It’s flashing on and off,’ said KM, ‘and hold on, isn’t that where the tree house is?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said EJ.

  ‘Quick, turn your torches off or whoever it is will see you,’ said CC, turning off her own. The other girls did the same.

  Luckily, the person outside the camp didn’t seem to notice them because the torch kept flashing.

  ‘See how sometimes it flashes quickly and sometimes it stays on for a while?’ EJ told the others.

  ‘Yes,’ said KM.

  ‘Well,’ said EJ, ‘I think that someone is flashing a code.’

  ‘What sort of code?’ asked KM.

  ‘Morse code,’ replied EJ.

  ‘A code?’ cried CC. ‘But who would be sending it and, actually, who would they be sending it to? We are the only ones out here.’

  ‘No we’re not,’ said EJ.

  ‘We’re not?’ said KM a little nervously.

  ‘No. Look straight ahead.’

  CC and KM turned and looked. There was a little light, flashing by the camp fence.

  ‘What is that?’ whispered KM.

  ‘Look closer,’ said EJ.

  ‘I can just make out the shape of something...’ said KM.

  ‘What on earth!’ gasped CC. ‘It’s Blackie.’

  ‘Yep,’ said EJ, ‘the little light is on her collar. And notice that it’s flashing with exactly the same pattern as the light from outside the camp.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said CC.

  ‘Blackie is receiving a message,’ said EJ. ‘I’m sure of it. We need to copy down the flashes. We write a dot for a short flash and a dash for a long one. We have already missed some of the message but we can still get the end. CC, can you please shine your torch on my notepad so I can write?’

  ‘You carry a notepad?’ asked CC, cupping her hand over the end of her torch so whoever was in the tree house wouldn’t see it.

  ‘Yes,’ said EJ, ‘don’t you?’ She continued to write until the torch in the tree house suddenly stopped. ‘And now let’s see what we have.’ EJ looked at what she had written.

  EJ opened the code app on her phone. She scrolled to Morse and pressed OK. The alphabet appeared on the screen.

  ‘Now all we have to do is decode the message,’ said EJ. ‘Look at the first bit.’

  EJ checked the Morse code table.

  ’Two shorts, they’re the two dots and one long, that’s the dash, and then another short. I check the table and, see, that’s an F,’ she said. ‘Then we do the next one, and it’s just one dot, see?’ EJ pointed to the part of the code.

  ‘I think I get it,’ said KM. ‘The next one is just one long dash, so that’s a T?’

  ‘There are only two more letters to this first word, look,’ said EJ.

  ‘Long, short, long, short is C,’ continued EJ, ‘and the last one is four shorts. An H.’

  ‘So that makes F-E-T-C-H FETCH’ said CC.

  ‘Exactly,’ said EJ. ‘You could join the code-cracking division.’

  CC smiled.

  ‘That was cool, EJ,’ exclaimed KM. ‘What does the last bit say?’

  EJ quickly matched the last letters and showed her paper to KM and CC.

  ‘FETCH BOX,’ said CC. ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘And why would you send a code message to a dog?’ said KM. ‘It doesn’t make any sense. You might be able to crack the code, EJ, but a puppy couldn’t.’

  Then the girls heard something. A voice, and it was coming from where Blackie was sitting near the camp fence.

  ‘BLACKIE, FETCH BOX.’

  ‘I know that voice,’ said EJ.

  ‘So do I,’ said CC.

  ‘Me too,’ gulped KM.

  And the girls all felt a sudden chill down their spines. Or should that be a CHill? The voice was that of Dr C Hill, Dr Caterina Hill, the evil SHADOW scientist. EJ had met her once before, and so had CC and KM. Caterina was scary and Caterina was mean, very mean. None of the agents fancied going head to head against Caterina again.

  The girls might have heard her voice but Caterina wasn’t there.

  ‘Where is she?’ whispered KM.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said EJ, ‘but look, Blackie is running towards the dining hall, and listen.’

  ‘Blackie, Fetch Box.’

  ‘That’s Caterina again,’ said CC.

  ‘No,’ said EJ, ‘it’s Caterina’s voice and it’s coming from where Blackie is.’

  ‘And now look,’ whispered CC. ‘Blackie is going into the dining room.’

  The girls watched, stunned, as the puppy pushed the dining room door open and went in, coming out seconds later, with a little black box in her mouth. The puppy ran to the fence and then disappeared from view. The girls ran to the dining room.

  ‘One of the charm chests is gone! That’s what Blackie was carrying,’ cried KM.

  ‘Blackie is the spy? That cute little puppy is a spy?’ asked CC sadly.

  ‘No, not Blackie,’ said EJ. ‘It’s Caterina, she’s making Blackie do it. Somehow she is sending Blackie messages remotely.’

  ‘And now, Blackie’s coming back,’ said KM, shining her torch out the dining room door. Sure enough the puppy seemed to be making her way back towards the dog yards. She was no longer carrying the charm-chest.

  ‘Blackie,’ called EJ. ‘Come here, that’s a good girl.’

  EJ picked up the little puppy, who looked up into EJ’s eyes and gave her a little lick. EJ stroked Blackie’s head and tickled behind her ears and it was then that she noticed the dog-tag.

  ‘Hey guys,’ said EJ, ‘look at this.’

  ‘It’s a dog-tag,’ said KM.

  ‘Yes,’ said EJ, ‘but this tag is different from the others. It’s thicker and heavier. We need to show it to A1 and IQ400. We need to tell them everything.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed KM, ‘but perhaps we should leave out the bit about the midnight feast?’

  EJ, KM, CC and Blackie were in the camp office with A1, BRK9 and IQ400. IQ400 had been looking at Blackie’s collar.

  ‘It’s clever, very clever,’ she said. ‘This may look like our standard-issue dog-tag, but it’s anything but standard. Behind the SHINE logo, Caterina has hidden a device that can not only receive and process light flashes as Morse code, it can also then convert that Morse code into simple voice commands. The same simple voice commands that Blackie has been trained to obey. Listen.’ IQ400 pushed a button inside the tag.

  ‘Blackie, Fetch Box’. It was Caterina’s voice again.

  EJ shuddered. ‘I thought Caterina was in SHINE prison, A1?’

  ‘She was until a month ago,’ explained A1. ‘She managed to escape and then she disappeared. We couldn’t find her anywhere.’

  ‘But how did she find the SHINE camp?’ asked CC. ‘You said you moved location every month.’

  ‘I think I know the answer to that,’ said EJ. ‘The huskies we rescued from Caterina’s polar plant have microchips. I bet Caterina also implanted homing devices within the chips. So when Caterina escaped, the first thing she did was locate the dogs. If she could find the dogs, she could find SHINE.’

  ‘I’d say you’re right, EJ12,’ said A1.

  ‘But what I don’t understand,’ said EJ, ‘is why Caterina didn’t use her huskies. Why did she use Blackie?’

  ‘I can help there, A1,’ said BRK9. ‘The huskies might be too obvious, who would suspect puppies? As you know, we found the puppies outside the camp a month ago. We thought they had been abandoned but now I don’t think that’s the case. I think Caterina had already trained them and then left them for us to find.’

  EJ was angry. ‘She just left the puppies? What if we hadn’t found them? They would have starved.’

  ‘But we did find them,’ said A1. ‘Unfortunately, by taking them in we also let Caterina
into the camp. But one thing still puzzles me: we know that Caterina goes to the tree house but how does she call Blackie?’

  EJ remembered what had happened that morning. ‘She whistles three times. That’s Blackie’s instruction to come first to the hole in the dog yard and then to the hole in the camp fence.’

  ‘How do you know that, EJ?’ asked A1.

  ‘Because when I blew my whistle three times by mistake, Blackie went straight to the fence.’

  ‘Well done again, EJ,’ said A1 approvingly.

  ‘And once Blackie is there,’ continued CC, ‘Caterina uses a torch to flash the message. The special dog-tag converts the flashes into commands for Blackie.’

  ‘And the command is FETCH BOX,’ said EJ. ‘That must mean the charm box.’

  ‘Yes!’ cried KM. ‘And then Blackie brings the charm box to Caterina.’

  ‘And last night she took the TD1000 charm box,’ said A1. ‘Well done, girls.’

  ‘But where did she go?’ asked EJ. ‘Where is Caterina now? She knows where we are but how will we find out where she is?’

  ‘I wonder...’ said A1.

  ‘I’ll get those fences fixed,’ said IQ400.

  ‘No,’ said A1 suddenly, ‘don’t fix anything. I have a better idea. I think we will lay a little trap for Caterina.’

  A trap? EJ, CC and KM suddenly brightened. They were going to set a trap for Caterina.

  ‘This will be an extremely difficult mission,’ continued A1. ‘I wonder if we can get one of the older divisions back in time?’

  ‘No!’ EJ cried.

  ‘You can’t!’ cried CC.

  ‘We can!’ cried KM.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said A1, clearly taken aback.

  ‘Sorry, A1,’ said EJ. ‘I mean, we mean, we can do this. After all I’ve stopped Caterina once before and we did discover what she is up to. We can stop her too.’

  A1 looked at her three youngest agents and smiled. ‘Well, the other agents are a long way away...’