by Paul Cooper
Brian held his throat in disbelief and croaked a hello.
‘What’s wrong with your voice, Bri?’ asked Tammy innocently. ‘I’ve got a throat lozenge somewhere.’ She fished it out of her pocket and picked the protective layer of hairs off.
‘You just tried to strangle me!’ Brian protested.
‘Huh?’ Tammy patted the medical officer’s back. ‘You’re imagining things, Bri.’ She turned to the Queen. ‘He can be a bit dramatic,’ she whispered.
Brian blinked in confusion. Tammy was acting as if she hadn’t just tried to kill him! What was going on? Was she ill? Was he ill?
Queen Baabara peered at the pigs as if she needed her glasses. (In fact, she looked at everything with this slightly puzzled gaze.)
‘If you’re quite finished,’ she proclaimed, ‘we believe there are important matters to discuss. You may take royal breakfast with us.’ She turned to leave.
Tammy elbowed her team-mate and whispered, ‘Why does she keep saying “we”?’
Brian elbowed his team-mate back and whispered, ‘The Queen never refers to herself as “I”. It’s called the “Royal we”.’
‘I might need a royal wee soon,’ said Tammy. ‘I drank too much tea this morning!’
Normally Brian would be horrified. But his mind was on other things as they followed the Queen into the Royal Breakfast Room. He rubbed his sore neck and wondered what on earth was going on.
Sitting in the window across the street from the SHEAR DELIGHT shearing salon, Pete waited.
And waited.
He looked at his watch. Then he waited some more. It had been four minutes since Curly had set off on his mini-mission, but it felt like four hours to Pete. No, make that four weeks. No wonder he felt peckish.
He lifted his binoculars again. He had seen Curly go into one of the salon’s little shearing cubicles, but nothing after that. Pete checked his watch again – he’d give the trainee five minutes to reappear.
Until then there was nothing to do apart from watch all the sheep wander by on the street. Pete stifled a yawn with the back of his trotter. He’d always wondered why some animals counted sheep to help them get to sleep. Personally whenever he had trouble nodding off, Pete liked to count all the ways that he himself was one cool pig. The list generally started:
1. Looks cool in shades.
2. Looks cool in swimwear.
3. Has never owned a cardigan.
Pete had never got beyond number 3 before drifting off with a contented smile on his chops.
But as he watched the sheep walking past now like little ground-based clouds, he had to admit that there was something about the sight that made him pleasantly drowsy. He decided to count how many sheep were walking in either direction.
One …
Two …
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
CHAPTER 5:
Blades of Grass and Blades of Steel
Curly was still in the shearing chair, but the chair was no longer in the cubicle – it had dropped into a large, open basement area. Curly looked from side to side and saw lots of other shearing chairs around him. Each one held a sheep, and all of the sheep were blankly staring forward. There was a fair bit of drooling going on too.
They were all looking at a big screen, which provided the only light in this gloomy space. It showed an ever-turning pattern of swirling spirals and, in front of this, a giant pair of glowering yellow eyes.
A booming voice was saying the same words again and again over a speaker system:
‘You are feeling very, very sleepy! Do not move. Stay in your seats, sheep!’
There was something about this voice that made Curly want to obey. It suddenly seemed a wonderful idea just to stay put here. Perhaps have a little nap?
It was only when the voice said the word ‘sheep’ that a tiny part of Curly’s brain piped up: ‘Oi, you’re not a sheep, matey! Get on your trotters and get out of here!’
Feeling as if his arms and legs weighed a ton, Curly forced himself to move. He scurried towards the only door in sight. With a bit of luck it would lead to a staircase back up to ground level. He had to run and tell Pete about this place.
He pulled the door open, and looked down at a mop and bucket inside a little closet. Curly sighed – even dangerous criminal operations had to keep the place neat and tidy, he supposed.
Suddenly from behind him came a new noise. Was it footsteps? Curly didn’t wait to find out. He crammed himself into the broom cupboard and pulled the door partly closed.
Peeking through the gap, he saw a couple of burly rams. None of the seated sheep paid them any attention; all eyes were still fixed on the screen.
The voice on the speaker system was saying, ‘Listen carefully, sheep. After shearing, you will be given instructions. Follow these instructions exactly. When your task is over, you will wake up. The last thing you will remember is getting a fleececut and then going straight home. Do you understand?’
There was a chorus of drowsy baas in response to this. Then the two big rams began to lead sheep one by one out of their chairs and over to the far end of the room.
Curly watched in horror. So that’s why a normal sheep like Greg had acted like a master criminal. He had been hypnotized! And the same thing was happening now to all of these sheep! They had come to get sheared, and now they were all getting hypnotized. No doubt they were being given secret instructions to commit crimes like stealing the Golden Fleece! Curly had to admit, it was brilliantly evil. Whoever was behind all this was able to create an army of slaves who would mindlessly carry out crime.
Suddenly a tinkling electronic noise filled the broom closet, playing ‘Piggy Sue’ by Buddy Hoggy and the Piglets – it was his mobile phone! He’d forgotten to set it to silent!
As he dug frantically into his pocket, his trotter bumped the Talk button. ‘Curly! How’s my favourite little PiPster?’ shouted the voice from the phone. ‘This is your nan, just calling to see if you liked the woolly hat and needles I sent you? Did you –’
Curly jabbed End Call. He quickly turned the phone off before his furious nan called back to give him a pig’s-earful.
He peeked out of the door again. Had anyone heard? The rams were still herding hypnotized sheep out of the room. Maybe he was still safe …
But then Curly became aware of a large shape approaching from the side. The outline looked like a sheep, but an enormous one. Curly jerked the door shut and held his breath in the dark.
After a few seconds, there came a gentle tap-tap-tapping on the door. The same deep voice that had been on the speaker system now cooed, ‘Little piggy, little piggy, let me in, let me in …’
Curly didn’t know what to say. After all, he didn’t have any hairs on his chinny-chin-chin.
* * *
In the Royal Breakfast Room at Flockingham Palace, the Queen took a seat at one end of a long table. Brian and Tammy sat at the other.
Normally, Brian would have been excited to be here with a real-life queen, but today was different. His mind was racing. What was wrong with Tammy? He wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible and run some tests on her.
The Queen gazed the length of the table at them. ‘Kindly explain how you intend to keep the Golden Fleece safe for us,’ she commanded.
Brian nodded, eager to do this quickly. ‘Well, you usually travel to the Opening Ceremony in the royal limousine, ma’am. Today the limo will go the same as usual, but you won’t be inside it. The car is just going to be a decoy, while the PiPs take you to the Houses of Baaliament a different way.’
The Queen appeared to be deep in thought. Finally she said, ‘We have no idea what you just said, but we are sure that will be fine.’
‘Great!’ said Brian, getting up. ‘In that case we’ll be on our way …’
The Queen raised an imperious hoof. ‘Not until you have taken breakfast, surely?’
‘But –’ Brian knew this was a great honour, but he just wanted to get Tammy out of there in cas
e she had another one of her funny spells and tried to strangle Queen Baabara.
But Tammy was already tying a napkin round her neck. ‘Brill!’ she said. ‘I’m starving!’
Brian sat down again. ‘Thank you,’ he sighed. ‘That would be lovely.’
Moments later, with a clack of hooves on marble floors, the royal servants brought shining platters to the table. They lifted the silver lids with a flourish.
Tammy looked down at her food, blinked, and then looked up, a blank expression on her face. For a horrible moment, Brian thought she was about to attack again. In fact, she was just puzzled about the food on her plate.
‘It’s grass,’ she said.
At the other end of the table, Queen Baabara was already bending and slurping grass into her mouth. With no knives and forks in sight, the pigs were expected to do the same.
‘It’s rude not to eat it!’ whispered Brian. He scooped some grass up with his tongue.
‘But … it’s grass!’ said Tammy.
‘We can’t help noticing that you are not eating,’ called Queen Baabara. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Fine, thank you, Your Majesty,’ answered Brian through a forced grin. He dropped his voice to an urgent whisper, desperate to get this meal over and done with. ‘Just EAT your breakfast, Tammy!’
‘But … it’s … GRASS!’
While the Queen was bending her head for more, Brian grabbed a mound of grass from Tammy’s plate and shoved it into his mouth. He began to chew. And chew.
It was a long, hard meal.
Finally Brian swallowed his last mouthful. ‘Delicious, Your Majesty! Now we really must –’
Again, the Queen raised a hoof in command. ‘The meal is not over until we have ruminated.’
She began to stare vacantly into space. The only sound came from outside, as the marching band continued to make a terrible din.
‘What’s she doing?’ hissed Tammy, nodding at the Queen.
‘She’s ruminating,’ replied Brian.
‘What, thinking?’ asked Tammy.
‘No, actually ruminating – it’s what sheep do with their food,’ said Brian. ‘Once they’ve softened the grass up in their stomachs, they bring it up again and chew it some more.’
‘Gross,’ sniffed Tammy.
For Brian the minutes seemed to crawl by. Finally the Queen swallowed for the last time. ‘Yummy,’ she declared.
The PiPs medic leapt to his trotters, grateful that they had reached the end of the meal without any terrible incidents.
‘Well, we must be going now, Your Majesty –’
Suddenly the door was flung open and a young ram charged into the room. Brian recognized him immediately – it was Prince Larry, the Queen’s son and heir to the throne. The prince’s large and stylishly fluffy fleece fluttered with indignation.
‘Mummy!’ he cried. ‘Is it true? Are you really getting pigs to conduct important sheep business?’
‘The Pigs in Planes are assisting us, yes.’
‘But MUMMY!’ whined Prince Larry. ‘We can take care of it! I could lead a troop of GrassEaters! I was in the army, remember? OK, I dropped out after three days, but I did a lot of training in those three days.’ He pointed a hoof at the two pigs. ‘I don’t care if they’re Animal Paradise’s “finest crime-fighting team”. They’re pigs! Smelly, dirty pigs!’
‘Oi, who are you calling dirty?’ said Tammy. ‘I had a bath two weeks ago, matey.’
‘You will refer to me as “Your Royal Highness, Prince Larry”!’ screamed the prince, stamping his hoof. ‘And you must refer to my mother as “Your Royal Majesty, Queen Baabara”!”
Brian didn’t know what to say to this. Outside the marching band had turned their attention to ‘Baa, Baa, Royal Sheep’. It wasn’t any better than their last song. Brian edged towards the door. ‘Well, OK, we’ll just leave you and Prince Larry to it, Your Majesty. Come on, Tammy.’
But Tammy didn’t reply. Instead she strode across the room and reached up to where two crossed swords were mounted over a shield on the wall. She pulled one curved sword down and began to slash the air threateningly. It made the sort of WHOOSHING noise train doors might make if they could chop your head off.
‘Get away from me!’ bleated Prince Larry, running to hide behind his mother. ‘I’ve had army training, you know.’
But Tammy didn’t care about the prince. She was looking only at Brian. When she spoke, her voice sounded flat and lifeless:
‘Kill the pig!’
CHAPTER 6:
Who’s Afraid of the Big Baad Sheep?
As a fully trained PiP, Brian knew how to keep his head in a crisis. He took one glance at the sharp look in Tammy’s eyes and the even sharper sword in her trotter, and yelled ‘WAH!’ As Tammy charged towards him, he ran around the long table in the middle of the room.
‘Look!’ scoffed Prince Larry, shuffling out from behind his mother. ‘This is who you want to trust!’
‘Um, it’s all OK, Your Majesty!’ Brian cried desperately, managing to keep one step ahead of Tammy and her flashing blade. ‘Just … a demonstration of what we can do!’
Behind him Tammy slashed with the sword again. This time she sliced open the back of Brian’s flightsuit. Realizing that he couldn’t outrun her much longer, Brian whirled round and grabbed a platter lid from the table. He used this as a shield and blocked the sword’s next two thrusts. Tammy just pressed her attack harder, slashing in time to the music from outside, which got faster as it neared the end of the song.
‘OK, I think that’s enough, Tammy!’ cried Brian, still trying to convince the royals that nothing was wrong.
‘We agree! Those lids are the property of the Crown,’ said Queen Baabara.
Tammy slashed again, knocking the lid out of Brian’s hand. He had no way of protecting himself now. And he’d backed himself into a corner – there was nowhere to run. Tammy drew her arm back, ready for another thrust. Brian shut his eyes and –
‘We said that is ENOUGH!’ declared the Queen. ‘We are NOT amused!’
– nothing happened.
Brian opened his eyes. Tammy was looking at the sword in her trotter in surprise. ‘How did this get here?’ she said casually. She shrugged and put the weapon down on a chair. ‘Come on, Bri. Let’s go!’
Both royal sheep just watched as she left the room.
‘Well, I … er, hope our little demonstration has convinced you that we’re the pigs for the job,’ Brian said.
‘We believe we got the point,’ replied Queen Baabara haughtily.
As he followed Tammy, Brian thought to himself: It was nearly ME who got the point – the point of a sword right through my bellybutton! It seemed it was no longer just the Golden Fleece that needed protection.
In the basement beneath SHEAR DELIGHT, the huge sheep with the deep voice and the piercing yellow eyes studied Curly with a wolfish grin.
It was certainly an odd-looking sheep. Its snout seemed much longer than usual; its teeth were too long and pointy to be much good at chewing all the grass that sheep loved so much. Its eyes were a shade of yellow that might look quite nice on the walls of a small downstairs bathroom but which was a bit scary when staring straight at you.
‘Let me introduce myself,’ the gigantic sheep growled. ‘The name is Wolfie T. Wolfman.’
‘What does the “T” stand for?’ asked Curly.
‘It stands for The … It’s an old family name.’
Wolfman tapped his unusually long snout. ‘Big noses run in my family. All the better for sniffing out pigs who creep into my salon in disguise.’
A terrible thought was beginning to tickle Curly’s brainbox. Something seemed out of place here. He was a PiP now, and it was a PiP’s job to look beyond ordinary appearances, to spot the clues other animals might not see.
‘Wait a minute …’ he said. ‘You’re …’
‘Ye-es?’ said Wolfman patiently.
‘You’re not a real …’
‘Spit
it out!’
The truth hit Curly. ‘You’re not A REAL HAIRDRESSER!’ he accused. ‘Are you?’
‘Oh, good grief!’ snapped Wolfie T. Wolfman. ‘And I thought sheep were stupid …’ He reached down to a zip on the side of his fleece and began to pull.
‘Your fleece isn’t real either!’ The truth hit Curly (again). ‘So … you’re BALD! Is that why you want the Golden Fleece? Because you have no wool?’
Wolfman stepped out of his sheep costume and the real, actual one hundred per cent truth hit Curly!
‘You’re a WOLF! A wolf in sheep’s clothing!’ he cried. ‘Well, actually a wolf in a top-of-the-range, zip-up sheep disguise. And you’re using this salon as a front to hypnotize sheep and make them commit crimes!’
‘How intelligent of you … eventually!’ Wolfman turned the full glare of his yellow eyes on Curly.
Curly looked away. ‘You’re not going to hypnotize me!’
Wolfman’s grin grew even wider. ‘Why would I need to hypnotize you? I’ve got other plans for you, little pig.’
Pete was just waking up from his nap. He’d been having a great dream in which he’d been on the beach, playing volleyball in his cool Speedio trunks and even cooler mirror shades. Then the dream had turned bad when some of the pigs had started laughing, and Pete had looked down to see that he was now wearing a big woolly jumper with a teddy bear on the front.
He came awake with a start.
He looked at his watch – oh no! It had been over an hour since Curly had gone undercover into SHEAR DELIGHT. He ought to have come out by now.
Pete rushed down the stairs and across the road. Moments later he was pushing the salon door open. There was nobody on the reception desk now – in fact, there was nobody around at all.
‘Curly?’ he called, moving along the rows of empty shearing cubicles.