Jane Blonde: Twice the Spylet

by Jill Marshall

  ‘Easter eggs!’ said Jean, holding her purple-foiled egg up to the sunlight. ‘Isn’t that sweet of Abe? I might have a little bit after breakfast.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Janey. ‘I’m saving mine until Easter Sunday.’ While her gold-wrapped Tweedledum and Tweedledee egg looked perfectly normal, she thought that she should probably open it in secret, just in case her father had tried to send her a coded message. It might even be the last spy message she would ever get, if Chloe was right.

  There was something else in the package – a small black boomerang about the size of Janey’s elbow – but by far the most interesting item was underneath the eggs. Jean Brown held up a newspaper cutting, and Janey’s eyes were immediately drawn to the large picture and article in the bottom-left corner of the front page. ‘It’s Abe!’

  Jean Brown nodded. ‘He’s obviously in Australia. Looks like he might be getting quite wealthy too.’ She squashed down a small sigh as Janey read the article:

  A local sheep farmer from Dubbo has the world of wool all of a dither with his new strain of merino sheep. They have straight hair that is more than a match in softness and usage for angora, and much easier to mass-produce. Says new farmer Abraham Rownigan of sheep farm Dubbo Seven: ‘I've a background in genetics, so I've just bred the best strain of merino together with the lesser-known Andalucian mountain sheep, and this is the result — a super-soft, super-long-haired sheep.' Experts are claiming it's so good it could almost be knitted straight off the sheep's back.

  Abe stood tall and handsome in the photograph, surrounded by his strange flock of long-haired, flat-eyed sheep. He was shading his eyes from the sun and grinning his film-star grin right into the camera. It was just as Chloe had said. Her dad was living on an Australian sheep farm, about as far away as possible, and causing a stir in the sheep world. Ice lollies, car washes and now sheep. There didn’t seem to be any connection, but her dad did always seem to make a success of his business ventures. Janey felt a little sad – firstly for her mum, who was finding it hard not to keep looking at the photo, and secondly for herself. Australia was a very long way away. A journey there by Satispy – spy satellite travel via space – would probably kill her, or at least leave her missing a few vital body parts. How on earth had Chloe managed to get here? And where the heck was she?

  ‘Well, I’m pleased he’s in business again,’ said Jean suddenly. ‘It’s certainly done me the world of good, using some of his savvy.’

  Janey stared at the picture. Why had he sent this, unless . . . ‘Directions!’ she barked suddenly. More directions. She just needed to find out where this farm was. And . . . find a way to get there.

  As soon as they had finished painting eggs, she crept upstairs and sneaked through to the Spylab, holding the Easter egg and the boomerang from Abe.

  ‘Another one. For me?’ cried G-Mamma, grabbing the chocolate package as soon as it appeared through her fireplace.

  ‘No, for me,’ said Janey. ‘It’s from my dad. I thought we should take it apart very carefully and—’

  ‘. . . eat it! Yes!’

  ‘Nooo, analyse it carefully.’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ said G-Mamma sulkily.

  They dissected the packaging as if they were carrying out a forensic investigation, with tweezers and little plastic bags for any evidence, and talcum powder for fingerprints. Running the prints on the box through G-Mamma’s computer proved that it had indeed come from Janey’s father, while the cardboard packaging revealed nothing out of the ordinary. The chocolate in the egg proved to be of very good quality, but definitely just chocolate. Only when they had pulled it apart into a series of tiny chocolate hexagons, one of which had somehow slipped between G-Mamma’s teeth, did Janey notice that there was a letter on the back of each one.

  ‘Look! Eighteen letters and a number 4. Nineteen, if you count the one you just ate, which I think was an O,’ said Janey. ‘It’s like a giant anagram. Just give me a minute or two.’

  G-Mamma wiped her mouth guiltily as Janey placed all the letters in a giant circle. She often found this was the best way to work out anagrams. ‘I’m guessing it’s four words from the number. I think I’ve got the first one. B-E-W-A-R-E. Beware. This looks like . . . on . . . this. On this. Which leaves K-I-N-G-R-O-W. King row? Not the Sun King again, surely? Oh no! I get it. It’s not that at all. It’s W-O-R-K-I-N-G.’

  ‘So what does the whole message say?’ said G-Mamma, eyeing the letter W greedily.

  Janey thought for a moment and rearranged the words. ‘I can’t be sure, but I think it says: “Beware. Working on this”.’

  ‘Working on what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Janey looked around. ‘Something to do with chocolate? He’s made ice lollies before. Maybe he’s moving on to different food. Or maybe . . .’ Suddenly she smacked her fist down on the counter. ‘Of course! He didn’t send a Tweedledum and Tweedledee egg for nothing! What are they?’

  ‘Eggheads? Weird? Alice in Wonderland characters? Maybe Trouble’s really the Cheshire Cat!’ G-Mamma popped the letter K into her mouth. ‘Don’t worry, your father would approve. I’m just doing what every good spy does and eating the evidence. Yumptious.’

  Janey watched her for a moment, then selected a few letters for herself. ‘They’re twins,’ she mumbled through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘Mum reminded me today that there are already twins in the family – my cousins Edie and Fen. He’s warning me to be careful as he works on getting me and Chloe – and Mum, I suppose – back together again.’

  ‘Twins do run in families,’ agreed G-Mamma, peeling off her false eyelashes. ‘Just dust this box off again,’ she said, casting baby powder all over it. ‘Yep. Abe again. Well, I think you should go and investigate your own twinette, in Australia. Down under cover. Ha! Get it?’

  Janey swallowed hard. ‘G-Mamma, I don’t think the Satispy is ready for that kind of journey yet. I’d end up in bits.’

  ‘There must be some way. Let’s try that boomerang.’

  Holding the boomerang aloft, G-Mamma peered at it this way and that, then drew back her arm and flung it across the lab. It spun around in a wide arc with a curious choop-choop sound, until it landed back in G-Mamma’s hand. ‘Really is a boomerang,’ she said.

  ‘I think it’s those sandal things,’ said Janey. ‘He said “Directions” in the package, and now he’s sent me some idea of where to go.’

  G-Mamma studied the footwear curiously. ‘They remind me of a prototype I tried ages ago, only they were boots with long laces that looked like Doc Martens.’

  ‘Mum says these are called “espadrilles” or something.’

  ‘That’s it!’ cried G-Mamma. ‘ESPIdrills – that was the name. Earthmover SPI Drills!’ She placed them resolutely at Janey’s feet. ‘I’ve not seen this type in action before, but your father obviously intends you to use them, so go and Wow and take them with you.’

  Janey dashed into the spy-shower cubicle.

  G-Mamma was foraging around in a cupboard under the computer bench, but Janey could still hear her voice through the misty particles that transformed her from Chloe-lookalike Janey Brown to Sensational Spylet, Jane Blonde. ‘Oh. You’ll need this too.’

  Janey stepped out of the Wower, self-consciously patting her high, sleek blonde ponytail into place as she saw what G-Mamma was holding. ‘What is that? Some ancient diver’s helmet?’

  ‘It’s not ancient at all,’ said G-Mamma. ‘Cutting edge, in fact. And when you get those eSPIdrills working, you’re going to be very happy you put this on. It’s a SPIFFInG – that’s SPI Furnace/Fire/Incinerator Gear to you. Go on. Helmet on, sandals at the ready.’

  Mystified, Janey followed G-Mamma down the spiral staircase and out to the back garden, putting the enormous helmet over her Ultra-gogs as she went. As she wedged it down against her shoulders, a curtain of fine fabric fell down around her body, leaving only the eSPIdrills exposed.

  earth-mover

  And spin Jane Blonde did. As she whipped round and arou
nd with ever-increasing speed, Janey found that she was sinking down into the flower bed. Daffodils and clods of earth flew in all directions, spat out by the long ribbons of her eSPIdrills as they spun like helicopter rotors, churning up the earth and forcing Janey down into it.

  She was spinning so fast that the whole garden was just a blur of colour, and G-Mamma’s face no more than a smudge of white and blue. Now she was on a level with G-Mamma’s fluorescent pink wellington boots, which appeared like an occasional fuschia blip on a radar screen, and then there was nothing, only soil swirling around her. The feeling of nausea that had overcome Janey to begin with had gone, replaced by a light-headedness that prevented her from thinking straight. She wished she’d had some ballet training so she knew how dancers did dozens of pirouettes on the spot without either falling over or throwing up, but there’d been no time for any of that. Now she just had to allow her gadgets to do the work for which they were intended, and try not to think too much about it.

  Further and further into the Earth she drilled, cocooned in a tunnel of soft brown dirt, then wet dank earth . . . harder clay . . . rocks, solid rock. Janey glanced upward as far as the SPIFFInG would allow her head to move; through the squashed worms and insects splattered on the clear dome of the helmet, she could just make out a tiny disc of starlit sky, no bigger than a pinprick. The top of the tunnel. G-Mamma’s garden. Now she was buried many thousands of metres inside the Earth, with no clear idea when or where she would stop and how she would get out.

  The SPIFFInG shifted slightly as Janey bore on through the layers of rock and took occasional plunges through water. The layer of material dangling from the helmet edge closed in around her and she shot through the Earth like a shrink-wrapped jelly baby, arms held rigidly at her sides and head enclosed in an enormous glass bubble. The SPIFFInG certainly stopped her from getting wet or dirty, while the eSPIdrills covered her up to the ankles so that her feet were protected too.

  ‘Why was G-Mamma talking about fire?’ Janey wondered after a few moments. Her silver SPIsuit would have done a good enough job, and if she’d needed more water protection, she could have put on a wetsuit.

  But just as this thought bounced into her head, Janey noticed her feet warming up, and suddenly the dark earth strata she was whipping through were interspersed with layers of liquid red. Her feet and calves were now exceedingly hot, and the trickles of red were getting wider and more frequent, joining together until Janey was plunging through gleaming scarlet molten rock.

  ‘Aaarghh!’ screamed Janey. ‘It’s lava. Like in a volcano! G-Mamma, help me!’

  But G-Mamma couldn’t help, and neither could anybody else. Janey was trapped, searing her way through the ground, throwing up earth, rock, molten rock, then some kind of melted metal. Janey realized that the SPIFFInG was not only protecting her from intense heat; it was also withstanding monstrous pressure, millions of times what the body normally had to deal with. Janey would have been crushed into powder were it not for the brilliance of her SPI-buys.

  ‘What now?’ moaned Janey. The eSPIdrills emitted a low hum, as though they were changing gear, and suddenly Janey wished she could put her hands up to her ears to take away the horrific shriek of metal drilling through solid iron. She must be at the centre of the Earth. And it sounded like the scariest ever trip to the dentist. Barely daring to open her eyes, she chanced a peek at her surroundings. There wasn’t much she could make out through the grime on her SPIFFInG, but all around her was an amethyst glow, deepening here and there to a lustrous pewter grey. Metal. Glowing, solid metal. Janey closed her eyes and tried to think of Easter songs to sing as, rotating at a steady pace, the eSPIdrills sliced their way through the Earth’s core.

  Then in one horrible, terrible moment, the straps stopped turning and Janey came to an abrupt halt. Her breath came out in a great spurt, misting the SPIFFInG’s dome. So that was it. She was buried at the centre of the Earth. Soon to be dead, in an iron coffin from which she could never be lifted. It wasn’t the first time Janey had faced death, but it was probably the most hideous. Panic rose through her chest, making her gag, wishing she could claw at her throat, scream for help. But somewhere in her foggy brain, something clicked. Jane Blonde had to get to her twin and her father. She wasn’t going to just wait for death to creep up on her. So Janey stamped her soles against the rigid iron of the Earth’s centre and held her breath.

  ‘Hallelujah!’ she cried as suddenly, with a small jolt, the ties started to whip around again, and she resumed her thousands-of-revolutions-per-minute spin. She was on her way to see her dad. And her sister. And now it seemed as though she was speeding through the Earth, feet first, shooting through the rest of the iron core then the molten metal, and the lava, the rock, sand, water, more sand, until eventually she was whooshing through layers of soil and tree roots and insect life, and finally, with a slight smacking sensation against her feet, she broke through into the atmosphere.

  Unfortunately Janey was upside down, with the top half of her body still buried in the ground, so she couldn’t see who it was that grabbed hold of her feet and hauled her out of the earth. Hastily she dragged her hands across the side of the earth cylinder from which she was about to pop and pulled some scratchy grass as far as she could across the hole; it wouldn’t hide the tunnel completely, but it might stop anyone from discovering just how deep it was. To the untrained eye, it would appear to be just a shallow hole. Then, with a bone-crunching yank, Janey landed on her bottom on the warm ground and looked, dazed, at the tall figure looming over her.

  ‘You digging for gold?’ said a rough voice. ‘Don’t think you’ll find any in these parts, mate. Best go and get your breakfast.’

  ‘Breakfast? But it’s . . .’ Janey stopped short. She’d been about to say that it was night-time, but when she looked around she could see that it was anything but dark. She was sitting in a field, surrounded by sheep, with glorious sunshine glancing off her SPIFFInG helmet so that the stocky man had to shield his eyes.

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said, grabbing Janey’s arm and hauling her to her feet. ‘It’s the holidays and you just want to play. But this is a farm. Don’t make a nuisance of yourself, Chloe, love. Just an hour, and then you can play rabbits or whatever it was you were doing.’

  Janey couldn’t stop a huge smile breaking out all over her face. ‘I made it!’ She took the helmet off and popped it under her arm so that the man could see her Jane Blonde ponytail. ‘I’m not Chloe. I’m . . . I’m Janey, her twin.’

  ‘Right, and I’m a day old,’ said the man, giving Janey a gentle cuff around the ears. ‘Go on, your dad’ll be waiting for you.’

  ‘No, it’s true! I’ve just come here by . . . by helicopter, to see Chloe and Abe, who’s obviously my dad as well. Look, my hair’s a different colour and everything.’

  The man cocked his head to one side.

  ‘Look, I’ll only be able to prove it to you when you see Chloe and me side by side. I know we’re very alike, but there really are two of us.’

  ‘All right,’ said the man with a sigh, taking off his leather hat and wiping his forehead with a vast striped handkerchief. ‘Let’s take you to your father, if you’re going to insist on playing your silly games. I’ve five hundred sheep to sort out, and frankly I don’t have time to deal with you as well. Now move it.’

  Janey walked alongside the man, trying to match his long, vigorous strides. The sun blazed down on them and there was no shade to speak of. After a moment or two of staring longingly at the man’s hat, Janey put her SPIFFInG back on again. It might look peculiar, but after all, it was intended to keep out the heat, and it certainly did the trick quickly. Within a minute, Janey was feeling much cooler and could look around her through the glass filter of the helmet to take in her surroundings. Hanging back so that her new companion wouldn’t see what she was up to, Janey fed her SPIV – her SPI Visualator – up past the lip of the SPIFFInG and held it close to her face.

  ‘G-Mamma, are you there?’ />
  G-Mamma’s upside-down face appeared in the small screen on the SPI Visualator. ‘Hello! Or should I say, “G’day”?’

  ‘Yes, I made it,’ giggled Janey. ‘Right through the middle of the Earth and out the other side. This man is taking me to see my dad – he thought I was Chloe.’

  ‘Right, give me a visual,’ said G-Mamma. ‘I’ll check him out.’ Janey turned the SPIV on her guide, who was striding out in front of her. ‘Okey-dokey. Not sure how much I can tell from his back view, but you can update me later. What else can you see?’

  Janey scanned her surroundings quickly. ‘I landed in a field of sheep like the ones in that photo. There are hundreds and hundreds of them, and there are some other fields too. I think I can see some sheds and barns – might be where they do the shearing or something. We’re walking towards a house, a wooden bungalow. It’s really big. Hang on, we’re just going past the barn nearest the house.’

  Janey checked that the man wasn’t looking and skipped off to one side. ‘X-ray,’ she muttered to her Ultra-gogs. It only took one glance, right through the huge barn doors, to recognize the glittering white furniture. This Spylab was the biggest she’d ever seen, with gleaming benches and large wheeled cabinets all around the edges of the great shed, and a huge space in the middle into which Janey’s whole house – and G-Mamma’s – could have slotted. ‘It’s a Spylab,’ she said excitedly into her SPIV. ‘Oh, and there . . .’

  She stopped, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun. It hadn’t been that long since she’d seen the person who was now standing on the veranda of the house, but still she felt joy fill her from the feet up. ‘There’s Abe. My dad’s right there. Over and out, G-Mamma.’

  Barely hearing G-Mamma’s response, Janey let her SPIV fall and ran over to the two men standing on the wooden veranda. ‘Here she is,’ the stocky man was saying, ‘doing her astronaut impersonations.’