Janey dropped her knife on the table and ran over to her mum. She threw both arms around her middle and squeezed as hard as she could. ‘Well, you’re obviously feeling better!’ Jean laughed, holding Janey at arm’s length so she could see her. ‘That cottage in Wales obviously did you the world of good. Thanks for organizing that for us, Abe. It was such a nice surprise finding Janey there waiting for me, even if she was looking a bit peaky and had to go to bed so early each evening.’
‘But Mum, it wasn’t . . .’
‘My pleasure,’ interrupted the Abe-clone, raising an eyebrow at Janey. It was enough to silence her, and in the pause that followed she processed what her mum had just said. The little getaway that her mum had disappeared on had obviously been set up by Copernicus. He’d even sent a Janey-clone to keep her mum company, so that she wouldn’t start to question why her daughter was away so long – not that Janey could be sure how long it had been, since day blended into night and time had become caught up in a great confusing loop around the world.
She loosened her grip on her mum a little. ‘So, are you OK?’ There was always the chance that the Jean Brown figure before her was also a clone, so she looked right into her mother’s face to check that her eyes were alight with her mum’s soul and grasped her hands carefully. They were warm and dry, exempt from the cold dampness that Janey now realized characterized the hands of the other clones.
‘Ye-es,’ said Jean, scanning Janey’s face. ‘Still OK, from when you just left me outside. And Abe – thank you again. I never expected that we’d be able to come and see you in Australia. That is where we are, isn’t it? I must have severe jet lag or something. The journey seems . . . well, I don’t remember it at all. Just Janey saying the taxi was here and the tickets had arrived.’
‘Yes, you’re in Australia, at my sheep farm – Dubbo Seven.’ The Abe-clone kissed Jean’s hand formally, and Janey had to fight off the temptation to smack her mum’s wrist away from those slimy, unnatural lips. ‘Welcome. I’m sure you’ll love it here. I hope you can stay . . . a very long time.’
‘Well, it’s only the Easter holidays,’ said Jean, unconsciously wiping the back of her hand against her thick woollen skirt. The lips must have felt as odd as they now looked to Janey. ‘Just a fortnight – I’d have to ask permission from the headmistress at Janey’s school—’
‘Granted!’ cried one of the headmistress clones, stepping smartly out from the hallway.
‘Oh! You’re here!’ Jean looked confused. ‘And Alfie too. That’s . . . wonderful. Company for Janey.’
‘Me too!’ A large shimmering figure bobbed out from the pantry, tell-tale eating tracks running like snail-slime down her vermilion top. ‘Remember me? Your neighbour.’
Jean’s semi-pleased expression quickly disappeared. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I like that! Not everybody hates me, you know, Jeany Beany Quite the Meany. Maisie is my friend! Yes, and so is Abe, and Alfie and –’ G-Mamma flapped a hand at Janey – ‘. . . your, um, lovely daughter-thing. Janey. Zany Janey. Jane the pain who should be slain. Ha! Just kidding.’
G-Mamma had just confirmed that she was every bit as mad as Jean had suspected and Janey’s mum was starting to look rather uncomfortable as she looked at Abe, hoping for some explanation. The only words he offered, however, brought a chill to Janey’s spine. ‘It’s been a long journey, Jean. Look, Janey and I were just in the middle of a very interesting discussion. Why don’t you let Maisie take you to your . . . room. And then Janey can join you just as soon as we’ve finished here.’
‘All right,’ said Jean shortly. ‘But don’t be long.’
As soon as the door closed behind the Alfie and G-Mamma clones, who also left the room, Abe-clone turned to Janey. ‘Start talking, and quickly, and no harm will come to her.’
‘You need her genes!’ said Janey quickly. ‘You can’t harm her.’
‘I can manage with the genes I’ve got.’ He leaned in close. ‘Have no fear of that. If you tell me what I want to know, I’ll send her back without a scratch. I’ll even supply her with a Chloe, so she never even knows what’s happened. It’s up to you, Brown.’
‘The name’s Blonde. Jane Blonde,’ said Janey irritably, even though right now she felt like plain Janey Brown, a schoolgirl in jeans, who had to do everything in her power to save her mother. She stared at the table.
‘Tick tock,’ said the Abe-clone in a menacing whisper.
‘All right! What do you want to know?’
The Abe-clone’s eyes gleamed momentarily. ‘The first time you arrived here, you didn’t come in the SPIral. How did you get here?’
Janey stared at him. ‘The . . . you didn’t send . . . ?’
STOP! Janey screamed at herself. He hadn’t sent the ESPIdrills. The fake Abe had been planning that Chloe would bring Janey to him, which could only mean that the eSPIdrills really were sent by her father. He had wanted her to come to him . . .
‘Your father supplied your transport method – that much I know. He thinks he’s got some advantage over us because of that. Some clue to what he’s been working on. Obviously he’s not going to tell us himself, so his dear little girl will have to spills the beans.’
‘Airline tickets,’ said Janey, folding her arms. ‘That’s what he sent me. I came by plane and then helicopter, like I told Bert when I first arrived.’
‘Don’t underestimate me, Brown.’
‘It’s true.’
With an exaggerated sigh, Fake-Abe stood up. ‘Well, if you’re not prepared to tell me, I’ll just have to deal with your mother . . .’
‘No! All right, I’ll tell you!’ Janey’s throat closed up with fear. Her mum was totally innocent in all of this. She’d have no idea what was happening, and it was so unfair to her. She had to protect her! She had to confess. ‘It was these shoes – eSPIdrills. Earth-moving SPI drills.’
There was a gasp. ‘You came through the centre of the earth?’ Fake-Abe stared at her for a long moment, then his eyes moved off her to stare into the corners of the kitchen with that same strange look of calculation she had noticed before.
‘I’ve told you now,’ said Janey. ‘Let Mum go free.’
Abe-clone pondered for a moment, then nodded. ‘She’s no loss. I can extract Jean’s genes without her even being aware of it and send her back home where she will continue to be no trouble at all. You, on the other hand . . .’
Janey tried to back away as the tall figure stood and gripped her by the shoulders. ‘What? What do you mean?’
‘I could do with a little army of Jane Blondes,’ he said softly, spinning her towards the hall door. ‘What am I saying? Of course, I mean a big army. I’ve only made Chloes from Janey Brown genes so far, and a few Blonde experiments with DNA we’ve garnered from your SPIsuit and so on.’
‘That’s why Chloe washed it!’ Janey could have kicked herself. ‘And why you wouldn’t let me de-Wow.’
‘And now I won’t let you leave at all. We’ll have the original Jane Blonde. Stronger copies, you’ll recall. I’ll keep you here, extract your genes and keep you completely safe, and turn a Jane Blonde battalion against her own father’s organization. Superb.’
‘You’ll do that? Don’t you mean Copernicus will?’ cried Janey, trying to wriggle out of the ever increasing pressure of the Abe-clone’s long fingers.
He gave a shrug of the shoulders as he pushed her towards Chloe’s bedroom. ‘We are so close, my dear – he will definitely approve. Come. It’s time for a little more hair-brushing.’
Bewildered, whipping her head left and right as she looked for her mother, Janey found herself pushed through Chloe’s door, passed from hand to clammy hand along the row of G-Mamma-clone, Halo-clone, Alfie-clone and finally her very own clone, Chloe, who pushed her bottom lip out as her eyes filled with tears. ‘Sorry, Janey. But you won’t feel anything.’
‘No!’ she screamed as the five clones shoved her on to the stool before the dressing table and Chloe picked up the
hairbrush. Suddenly memories flooded back to her: the sick and woozy feeling that had come over her there before, the horrible voice like her father’s pronouncing that he despised her, Trouble’s sabre-claw slicing through her leg . . .
‘This dressing table –’ she cried, ducking to evade the hairbrush for as long as she could – ‘it’s . . . haunted or something!’
The Alfie-clone rolled his eyes. ‘Haunted? Is that the best you can do? It’s not even a dressing table, Brainless. It’s a DeSpies-U.’
Janey gasped. Not ‘despise’ – it wasn’t her father telling her he hated her. It was even worse than that! A DeSpies-U! She would be de-spied, stripped of all her spying past and training and knowledge, left like a shell to be drained of DNA, to be used whenever it was needed to create a SWAT team, or a battle battalion, or a complete hideous army of killer Blondes. The hairbrush was on her head. A chant was starting up: Jane Blonde, Despies-U. Jane Blonde, Despies-U. She had to think, to get out . . .
And following one of the strongest instincts that she had – one that had existed within her long before she’d ever known she was a spy – Janey allowed the floodgates behind her eyes to open and burst into noisy sobs. ‘Stop!’ she wailed. ‘At least let me say goodbye to my mum. You pro-ho-mised!’
Chloe’s hand halted in mid-air. The chanting subsided, and Janey found herself staring into the cold eyes of Fake-Abe in the dressing-table mirror. How could she ever have believed that this was her father? He belonged in Madame Tussaud’s, in the section for hideous murderers. ‘Honour among spies,’ he said suddenly, with a vicious twist of his lips. ‘I don’t remember your father having much of that, Blonde. But you’re right. I did promise. And I, at least, know how to do the right thing. You lot,’ he said to the clone team, ‘back away. I’ll go and get the Brown woman. We’ll be back on track in just a couple of minutes.’
Janey watched slyly, being careful to sob from time to time as the two Halliday-clones moved off to either side of the bed and pretended to be straightening the duvet and the G-Mamma-clone busied herself with the curtains. Chloe slid under the bed, and was completely out of sight by the time Jean was led into the room by the man she thought was Abe Rownigan.
‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said. Janey patted the seat next to her and her mother sat down and hugged her. ‘Abe tells me you’re a bit tired and going to have a lie-down. I can’t say I’m surprised, what with you disappearing to bed at sunset each night in Wales.’
Janey stared into her mother’s eyes, and now the tears flowed for real. Unless her plan worked (and there was no saying that it would) this could be the very last time she would see her mum. Jean would go back home, assuming the Abe-clone kept his other promise and allowed her to live, and would never know that the Janey who was sleeping in the next room and eating at the same table was not her Janey at all, but just a sad, thin, heartless copy. She held her mother as tightly as she could. ‘Love you, Mum,’ she whispered.
‘I love you too,’ said her mum, perplexed. ‘What’s the matter?’
Janey shook herself and smiled at her mother. ‘Nothing. Hey, do you remember what we used to do when I was really, really little?’
‘What, sweetheart?’
‘This,’ said Janey and, picking up the hairbrush, she stood up and ran the bristles across her mother’s smooth brown hair. Fake-Abe looked puzzled, and Janey smiled at him brightly. ‘It’s a mother–daughter thing,’ she said, brushing harder, then harder still as she saw her mother’s eyes closing, heard the faint whisper from the dressing table starting up, getting louder and louder as Jean Brown’s head began to nod against her chest . . .
And just as Jean began to snore and the woozy feeling was beginning to consume Janey, she jumped back out of range of the creeping, insidious sounds and, remembering that it was only Trouble’s sharp claw in her thigh that had made her come to, she dropped the hairbrush on to her mum’s crown with a loud crack.
Jean sat up with a start and scanned the mirror quickly. ‘Well, well,’ she said with narrowed eyes, hazel and glowing as a cat’s. ‘What have we here?’
jean genie
Janey looked her mother up and down quickly. Her mum hadn’t been Wowed, so she still looked like ordinary, sensible Jean Brown, but as Janey had hoped would happen, the DeSpies-U had worked in reverse on someone who had already been de-spied in the past . . .
Gina Bellarina was back in force.
The immediate problem was that Gina Bellarina recognized all of the spies around her as her friends and allies. Janey had to put her straight quickly. Brandishing the hairbrush, Janey spun around to face the Abe-clone. ‘These are enemies, Mum. They’re all clones. There’s one of me under the bed, and that Abe one there –’ she poked the brush in his direction – ‘is working for Copernicus. I don’t know where the real spies are, but we have to help them. Quick!’
‘He cloned you? Are you saying that that was a feeble Janey clone in Wales? How corrupt. Leave this to me, Blonde.’ Gina Bellarina allowed herself a small, steely smile and clapped her hands briskly. ‘I’m going to enjoy this. You go and find the others – let’s hope we’re still in time. Yaaaaa!’
With a blood-curdling war cry, Gina whisked into action. The Halliday-clones headed straight for her so she stood on the dressing-table stool and bounced neatly over their heads, kicking each of them at chest height at such an angle that they clanged heads in the middle and collapsed in a heap on the carpet. Gina landed on the bed, sprang up and somersaulted, then immediately launched herself over the Abe-clone to the curtain pole, hanging from it like a long-limbed spider as she twirled her legs around and around, capturing G-Mamma in a curtain cocoon. The G-Mamma-clone blundered around, mummified and rapping like a broken record, as Gina Bellarina gripped the curtain pole firmly in both hands, swung back through the open window in a high arc, then swept down and back inside, both feet in front of her.
‘Go, Blonde!’ she called out to an admiring Janey, as she caught Fake-Abe full under the chin in a doublebarrelled foot assault that left him sprawled across the bed groaning. The Alfie-clone had managed to get up again – Janey just had time to see her mother crack her fingers in readiness for a renewed attack before she pelted down the hallway towards the front door.
On her way past, Janey flung every door open and hollered for her spy team, dropping on to her knees to check under the beds. There was nothing to see apart from the odd patch of clear gloop – dissolved clones, she now knew. That was why they’d faded each night, feigning food poisoning in order to avoid disappearing before her very eyes. She moved on as quickly as she could, but felt severely hampered by her jeans and ordinary trainers. Running through the front door, she leaped on the quad-bike that Chloe had driven, tried to remember what she could about driving and turned the key in the ignition.
To her joy, it burst into life and soon she was careering between gates and trees and launching herself off banks of packed earth to sail, whooping merrily, across the Dubbo Seven pastures. It only took a couple of minutes to get where she wanted, and she knew that what she would achieve would more than make up for the journey time. Slithering off the seat, Janey hauled the four metal water troughs into position and turned the temporary Wower on full.
The blissful feeling of power was instantaneous, and Janey threw her head back in relief as the transformation to Jane Blonde took place. It was unusual to be able to see blue sky above her head through the sparkling moisture, and she gasped at the fabulous rainbow arcing in a fairy-tale roof over the Wower. Multicoloured droplets shimmered all around her, caught in the prism of light. The effect was startlingly beautiful, and Janey almost laughed aloud as the robotic hand styled her hair. Through one of the gaps between the troughs, she suddenly noticed two pairs of eyes, one above the other. Just as she was about to cry out, the top set jumped down and ran towards her, and suddenly there was Trouble, whisking around her ankles, enjoying being Wowed every bit as much as Janey. All signs of his strange caution had gone, and all at on
ce Janey understood just what he had been through.
‘Oh, Trouble! You’ve known all along! That’s why you didn’t like Abe, and why you stabbed me in the leg – to get me away from the DeSpies-U. Clever cat!’
The Wower stopped abruptly, and Jane Blonde stepped out into the sunshine. ‘Trouble, go and find Gina. She might need back-up. Take Maddy with you,’ she said, quickly identifying the other pair of eyes near the Wower. ‘Don’t let her get hurt, OK? I’m going to find the others.’
Her search of the house had revealed no sign of any of them, so now Janey dropped her head to avoid the sun’s glare and scanned the horizon through her Ultra-gogs. ‘Err, detect!’ she said, a little unsure how to phrase what she was trying to say. ‘Detect body heat.’
It was a new instruction, but evidently one that the Ultra-gogs were able to comply with. Within seconds the image in her narrow band of vision had turned black, and every now and again she could see a little glowing outline. Each body had its own little prism of light, she realized. ‘OK, now I see. Zoom – through the bedroom window. Two tall, one wide, two shorter, all very still – that’s all the clones who were attacking Mum. She must have tied them up.’ She turned her head. ‘Ah, there’s Mum, checking the bedrooms. And Bert with his sheep.’
The SPI-cloned sheep were still ambling around behind the Spylab, as Janey could see by the faint glowing outlines in the nearby paddock. Fainter still – in fact, only just visible even when she peered at them really closely – were four rounded outlines nearby. She couldn’t work out what they were, or even where they were, and it was not until she lifted her gaze above the top edge of her Ultra-gogs that Janey realized exactly what she was looking at. There were four very slight pools of body heat somewhere within the Spylab. With a gasp, Janey took to her Fleet-feet.
It was the obvious place to keep them – right where they could be trundled under the SPI-clone in moments. Janey pounded across acres of grass at a staggering speed, hurdling fences as though they were only ankle height. A few minutes later she was skirting the silky sheep, wondering how Bert would feel if he knew the truth about their freakish origins. No wonder they all bleated the same note! She arrived at the Spylab door, panting only slightly, and ordered her Ultra-gogs to ‘detect’ again.
Jane Blonde: Twice the Spylet Page 13