As soon as Chloe had disappeared to the lean-to housing the laundry at the back of the house, Janey turned to G-Mamma. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Me?’ G-Mamma blinked her huge blue eyes owlishly. ‘Me smee? Of course! Never better. Never better in a sweater. Loving all this hot weather. A rap! A new rap!’ She leaped up and shimmied around the kitchen, not even stopping when Bert passed the back door, shook his head slowly and wandered off with an aggrieved expression.
‘Yeah!
G-Mamma never felt be-tter.
Never better in her swea-ter.
G’s loving this hot wea-ther.
Hot weather, all toge-ther.
‘Join in, Janey baby, Janey the babe babe, babe the Janey Zany, Blondey blonde Jane Jane baby . . .’
Janey put a hand on her SPI:KE’s arm before she could draw another breath and start raving all over again. ‘Erm, calm down, G-Mamma. I think you might have a bit of sunstroke or jet lag or something.’
‘Nonsense!’ G-Mamma threw open a cupboard and rifled wildly through the packages. ‘Just hungry, that’s all. Where are their doughnuts?’
Janey reached into the bread bin and passed G-Mamma the remains of a Victoria sponge that Bert had made the previous day. ‘Here. Could you listen while you’re eating?’ G-Mamma nodded enthusiastically so Janey carefully closed the back door. ‘There’s something funny going on. Dad’s really intent on giving up spying. Chloe’s obviously not very well; I’ve even seen him carrying her around at night. And there’s other stuff too. Chloe disappeared while she was brushing my hair the other night, and I had this horrible dream with my dad saying he despised me, but I wasn’t even asleep! Trouble sort of brought me round by jumping on my lap. Alfie’s acting all weird, like he’s too cool to be friends with me any more, and I . . . I miss my mum.’
‘Your mum’s fine. Probably doing a pensioners’ weaving course in Bognor Regis or something equally fascinating.’
‘Well, I still miss her. And Dad hasn’t even mentioned her yet.’
‘Blah blah blah,’ said G-Mamma, playing a pretend violin. ‘She’ll be here soon enough, boring us all stupid.’
Janey stopped and stared. G-Mamma had never made any secret of the fact that she didn’t like her old colleague Gina’s new Jean Brown persona, but she’d never been quite so openly hostile about her before. Taking a deep breath, she changed tack. ‘Well, what about the hair then?’
G-Mamma felt under her cork hat quickly. ‘What? Wrong colour? What’s wrong with it?’
‘No, the sheep-mixed-with-human hair.’
‘Oh, that! No,’ said the SPI:KE, shoving her hat down hard and heading out of the back door, ‘I was wrong about that. It’s, you know, that thing. The thing that Abe said.’
‘Angora? But you said it was probably human. So it is rabbit?’ Janey scooted along behind G-Mamma, finally resorting to her Fleet-fleet as the woman popped fat little wheels out of the bottom of her boots and roller-skated over to the distant paddocks.
‘Yip. Angora, that’s the stuff. I got the wrong hoppy little beastie. When you thought I said “hair”, I really meant “hare”. H–A–R–E. Easy mistake to make. Rabbit. Grab it. Grab it, it’s rabbit. Or is it hare? Oh, “hare” we go . . .
‘Grab it, it’s rabbit (dunph dunph dunph dunph)
Snare it, it’s hare (dunph dunph dunph dunph)
Eat it, it’s meat it’s . . . (dunph dunph dunph dunph)
Going nowhere! (dunph dunph dunph dunph)’
Janey slowed down as Bert became visible in the distance. ‘G-Mamma, that’s kind of sick . . .’
‘Oh, good lord above, I mean below – where is the lord in Australia?’ G-Mamma swivelled her wheels into a sliding stop. ‘What the spiky spike is that?’
Janey looked to where G-Mamma, wrinkling her nose beneath her vast sunglasses, was pointing. ‘It’s Maddy the sheep, with Trouble on her back. I think Twubs keeps the sun off her bald spot.’
Before G-Mamma said anything, Bert shouted over to them. ‘When you two ladies have finished gossiping, there are two hundred sheep to groom over here.’
Alfie, Abe, Bert and Chloe were all busy with curry combs, brushing burrs out of the silky hair of the whole of the flock apart from Maddy. G-Mamma inspected her nails in an obvious fashion. ‘ONE, I am not getting my hands mucked up in there, and TWO, I don’t take orders from you, Berty Bert-Bert.’
‘He’s right, Rosie,’ called Abe from the other side of the paddock. ‘All these sheep need to look great before we ship them off this afternoon. They need to be there by sundown, or the deal’s off. All hands on deck.’
‘Now him, I take orders from,’ said G-Mamma pointedly. She picked up a brush from the pile near the gate and headed over to where Abe was working. Bert pulled his hat further down his brow and moved on to another sheep. Janey watched G-Mamma for a moment, then took a comb for herself, but before grooming the nearest silk-woolled sheep she turned to Maddy and ran the comb across her bedraggled coat.
‘There you go, girl,’ she said kindly. ‘Can’t have you all left out, can we?’ She spruced up Maddy’s head and even tried to give her a Trouble-style quiff. The sheep rewarded her with a loud paaaa.
‘She’s calling me,’ said a voice in Janey’s ear.
Her father was standing right behind her, grinning. ‘Don’t worry about that one too much. We’re not selling her.’
‘I just wanted her to feel nice,’ said Janey quietly.
‘And talking of which–’ Abe put his arm around Janey’s shoulders, a little awkwardly from his great height – ‘a little birdie tells me that you’d feel a lot nicer if your mother was here. Well, I hadn’t planned on getting her over yet – there’s such a lot to explain to a non-spy as she is now. But if it means that much to you, I’ll bring Jean here as soon as possible.’
Janey squeezed Abe hard. ‘It does! It does mean that much to me! And it means a lot to you too, doesn’t it?’
Her father twinkled his film-star grin at her. ‘More than you could know. It’s the final piece of our jigsaw, isn’t it?’
‘All our family together,’ agreed Janey. She could hardly contain her glee, and seeing G-Mamma looking at her across the paddock, she treated her SPI: KE to a huge grin and a thumbs-up. Chloe waved too, with a tired smile in Janey’s direction. The family together. Everything was going to be just fine.
And for the rest of the day, everything was. The whole group worked courageously through the blistering heat, combing and brushing and beautifying the flock until they gleamed like little Palomino horses. Grinning so widely that his face resembled a cracked leather sofa, Bert ushered the sheep on to two enormous trucks with the help of Trouble, who fancied himself as a bit of a sheep-cat and actually managed to do quite a good job of rounding up any sheep that strayed from the edges of the pack. Only ninety or so remained behind, surplus to requirements. At 5 p.m. Abe got into one truck and followed Bert out along the farm track, a weathered arm from each cab signalling farewell to the workers.
Tired, but pleased with what they’d achieved, Janey, Alfie, Chloe and G-Mamma made their way back to the house. After a quick wash-up, during which time Janey finally managed to change into some jeans again, they had tea – a hasty barbecue on the back veranda. It suited everyone just fine. Soon afterwards, however, Alfie started to look rather green.
‘Are you OK, Alfie?’ said Janey.
He put down the remainder of his pork sausage. ‘Erm, not really. Maybe these sausages weren’t quite cooked. I feel a bit sick.’
G-Mamma was also an odd shade of grey beneath her suntan and layers of blusher. ‘You could be right – I don’t feel quite the thing myself. I think I’ll turn in for the night. No disturbing my beauty sleep, you hear?’
‘No way – you need all the help you can get,’ said Alfie.
‘Rude dude!’ retorted G-Mamma.
Alfie smirked as Janey stared at him. He was being rude, and not even under his breath. ‘Truth hurts,’ he said in a loud voice.
‘Alfie . . .’ But Janey turned to Chloe as she heard a noise; her twin was also paling under the stark glare of the kitchen bulb. ‘You don’t look so good either, Chloe.’
Chloe shook her head. ‘Bed for me as well. You go in the spare room next door, Janey. I’ll brush your hair for you first, if you like.’
‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’
‘I’m off too,’ said Alfie. ‘You and Trouble can finish those off, if you’re not having a girly makeover.’ He pointed to the offending sausages and staggered off, clutching his stomach.
‘I feel fine. I wonder why the bangers haven’t affected me. Anyway, looks like it’s just you and me, Twubs,’ said Janey, peering out into the fading light. One thing Janey had noticed in Australia was that it got dark very quickly – no long dusky evenings; just light one minute, and dark the next, almost as if a switch had been flicked. There was still no sign of her father and Bert returning with the trucks, and she was glad it was them and not her having to drive the great lorries back along the farm tracks in the blackness.
Janey was just throwing the sausages away, not even daring to give them to Trouble, when the phone rang. She skipped to it, hoping for a friendly voice, but the person on the other end was anything but. ‘Get that mongrel Rownigan, will ya!’
Janey nearly dropped the phone. It felt hot with the anger pouring down it. ‘I’m s-sorry, Mr Rownigan’s out delivering sheep at the moment.’
‘Well, you tell him as soon as he gets back that those sheep of his are useless,’ barked the man. ‘They’ve all run off. Can’t find a single one of them! He won’t be getting a blasted cent – you can tell him from me.’
The man banged down the receiver just as Abe and Bert came through the door. ‘Oh no. That was your customer. He says all the sheep have run off and you can’t have your money.’
Bert exploded. ‘Well, that’s his fault! If he hasn’t got dogs that can keep a couple of hundred sheep together, he’s a fool to himself! Let me get him on the phone . . .’
‘Leave it, Bert,’ said Abe quietly. He looked . . . not exactly worried, but rather more as if he was trying to work out some fractions, thought Janey. ‘We can’t do anything now. I’ll sort it out later. In the morning. He’ll have his sheep.’
‘How, exactly?’ said Bert, mopping his brow with a great red handkerchief. ‘We only left ninety behind, and he wants two-twenty.’
‘I’ll manage,’ Abe snapped.
‘Well, it’ll be an early start,’ Bert said eventually. ‘I’ll hit the sack.’
Janey put her hand on her dad’s arm. ‘I’ll help, Dad. I’m not tired. I’ll go and comb sheep or whatever.’
Abe rubbed a hand across his face. ‘Just go to bed, Janey.’
‘But don’t you want—’
‘No, I don’t!’ Abe drew in a deep breath, then looked at Janey apologetically. ‘No, thank you, Janey. Sorry. There’s nothing anyone can do right now. I’ll work it out myself. Get yourself off to bed.’
Janey kissed his cheek quietly and stepped into the corridor. When she turned to say goodnight, her father was staring after her, that same odd look of calculation on his face. ‘Night, Dad,’ she said. He just nodded. Janey walked away, and after a moment she heard a footfall and the back door swing to as Abe went back outside.
He was tired, she told herself as she crept past the room where Alfie slept. He was worried about the sheep contract. She gave herself as many reasons as she could why Abe should be so short with her, almost unpleasant, but in the end her spy instincts rattled her sufficiently to make her stick her hand through Chloe’s open door, grab the Wower-head from her bag and keep walking, or rather creeping, out of the front door.
Something was not right. Her dad was being peculiar. Maybe years of spying had made him extra-secretive, but he didn’t need to hide things from Janey. He was in more trouble than he was allowing her to know. That message on the email hadn’t just been a general warning, Janey was sure. He needed Jane Blonde. There was something going on, and she was going to find out what.
nifty nostrils
Slinking through the shadows, Janey pressed herself against the walls of the Spylab. The familiar square of light illuminated the courtyard, and once more the wind was creating a froth of flotsam and jetsam that swirled around Janey’s head. It was so gusty that she found it difficult to move along the wall to the window to take a peek inside the lab, but after much pushing and gasping she finally made it. Had she been Wowed already, Janey might have been tempted just to hold her Ultra-gogs up to the windowpane to register what was going on inside. As it was, she was in jeans and a scratchy wool jumper that Chloe had offered her, so after a moment or two Janey poked her nose above the window sill, and at that moment the wind subsided a little so that she didn’t have to struggle against it and risk making any telltale noises.
It was no great surprise to see Abe inside, dressed in safety goggles and a white lab coat. Janey thought at first that he was examining the sharp tip of the metal cone, which was once more poking down towards the floor. When she looked again, however, she could see that his lips were moving. She followed the angle of his face; it led up, past the cone, to the top of the metal staircase leading up to the little platform on which G-Mamma had appeared just a short time ago, through the door from the outside where the SPIral staircase stood. It wasn’t empty. Abe was definitely talking to someone.
It was Alfie and Chloe. Not ill. Not suffering with food poisoning. Looking completely fine.
Janey slumped back against the wall, swallowing hard. The stab of betrayal seemed to go up through her stomach, piercing her diaphragm and her lungs and making its way under her ribcage and straight into her heart. How could her father refuse her help and send her to bed, yet arrange to meet Alfie and Chloe immediately afterwards? How could her best friend and her twin pretend to be sick from sausages and then sneak out behind her back? How could they all leave her out like that?
Barely able to look, yet oddly incapable of stopping herself, Janey peeked over the window sill once more. Alfie and Chloe were walking down the stairs and behind them the door was opening. Janey wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see G-Mamma appear on the platform – the final betrayal – but at that moment there was a plaintive bleat from just in the main doorway and all three pairs of eyes inside the Spylab barn swivelled round to focus on whatever had made the noise. Janey ducked quickly.
‘Paaaaaaa,’ came the mournful cry again.
Maddy! The call sounded distressed, but she felt unwilling to help. She was neither wanted nor needed, it seemed. And though that wasn’t Maddy’s fault, Janey was so angry that she didn’t even particularly care about her favourite sheep. She heard heavy footsteps walking over to the doorway and then a sharp ‘Paa!’ from Maddy as someone – Abe – clearly grabbed her and started dragging her towards the cone.
Right then, Janey knew just how Maddy felt. Left out. Friendless. Picked on. The feeling of hurt sat inside her chest like a heavy, undigested supper. She only wished she could cough it up and get rid of it. It felt far too much like the old Janey to be at all comfortable. And suddenly Janey realized something. It was like the old Janey. The old Janey had not discovered her spy instincts, and now this nervous energy was masking them, sitting directly over the point under her sternum where she felt things most keenly. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself and listened to her subconscious. It held her back, stopped her walking into the barn and confronting everyone. The only reason they’d go behind her back was to protect her from something . . . wasn’t it? What else could they be up to? And with poor Maddy, hunched up like the victim in a ring of school bullies . . .
She badly needed to Wow. Reaching into her pocket, Janey veered off towards the first sheep pen.
A creaking tap stand stood at the end of each long water trough, and it was to the first of these that Janey now ran. The portable Wower-head she’d taken from her bag screwed on to the tap after a little wiggling and pushing. Unfort
unately it was very low down, just above waist height for Janey, but she quickly up-ended four of the metal water troughs to create a Wower cubicle, crouched under the dripping faucet and turned the tap on.
Instantly Janey’s mood lifted as the enhancing power of the Wower went to work. A small metallic hand detangled her sticky, greasy hair and smoothed it into her trademark slick blonde ponytail. Her long limbs, aching from grooming several dozen sheep, were soothed and wrapped in the wisps of fresh silver Lycra that flowed out of the Wower-head, and suddenly her vision cleared as her Ultra-gogs were popped on to her nose. She was Blonde again. It felt great.
Janey tipped the troughs back into position urgently and ran on, little knowing that she had left behind a luxuriant patch of grass that would thrive through the toughest droughts and mystify farmers for decades to come. Fleet-footed and Blonded, in just a few moments she managed to make it to the far paddock, where the sheep had been corralled that afternoon. ‘Weird,’ said Janey, looking around. It seemed that the customer’s sheep weren’t the only ones to have run away. None of the ninety they’d kept back were here either. The field was completely empty.
‘Long distance,’ said Janey, instructing her Ultra-gogs.
It made no difference; she turned fully through three hundred and sixty degrees, trying to spot sheep in the bush, in the outer-lying paddocks, even on the neighbouring farmer’s land several miles away – but even though she could definitely see the odd one, they were not the distinctive long-haired sheep of Dubbo Seven. She sighed, but just as she turned back to her original position, she happened to look down.
At her feet was a little slick of the vomit-like dissolved sheep food. Janey knelt down to inspect it more closely, noticing as she did so that there were lots of pools, dotted all over the field. Once again she felt that sharp reminder in her chest that something wasn’t right. She bent over further to inspect the puddle. It certainly did have a strange smell . . .
Jane Blonde: Twice the Spylet Page 9