Max and Linden heard none of Ben’s talking. All they could see were their hopes of going to London spelt out in the chaos of the Time and Space Machine ruins. Max had never felt so sad in her life and apart from a total reality flip or being transferred into someone else’s life, she didn’t know how she’d ever be happy again.
Max and Linden sat at Eleanor’s computer and wondered what to write. They’d been staring at the screen for ten minutes and nothing had come to them.
‘Maybe start with a joke,’ Linden suggested. ‘Make them feel relaxed.’
Max took her eyes away from the screen briefly just to show Linden how unwelcome his suggestion was. ‘They’re a major secret spy agency,’ she said. ‘I don’t think feeling relaxed is a priority.’
She turned back to the screen as she thought of the Time and Space Machine spread out across Ben’s laboratory floor like a scarecrow with all its stuffing pulled out. Her body slumped over the keyboard, feeling the same.
‘We just have to tell them the truth,’ she said sadly as she started to write.
From:
Max Remy and Linden Franklin
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
Spyforce meeting
Dear Mr Steinberger,
Please accept our sincerest apologies for not being able to attend the meeting at Spyforce on 20 April. Due to unforeseen circumstances (like our uncle dismantling our mode of transport) we are unable to come to London at this time.
Regards,
Max and Linden
‘What do you think?’ she asked.
‘I’m not sure. You don’t think it sounds a little too casual?’ he asked sarcastically.
‘I want to show them we aren’t kids.’
‘But we are kids,’ said Linden, not under-standing why Max found it so hard to be herself sometimes.
‘You know what I mean,’ she snapped and pressed send. The message was gone.
They both sat staring at the empty screen.
‘What do you think they wanted to meet us for?’ asked Linden.
‘I guess we’ll never know.’ As Max said this, she felt even sadder than she did before.
Outside, Ralph whined like he was just as disappointed as they were.
‘Coming, fella,’ said Linden as he leaned towards the window and waved. ‘Better go. It’s my turn to have Ralph and he doesn’t like getting home after dark.’
Linden stood up from the desk.
‘Don’t worry, Max. My mum used to say when one door closes another opens. You’ll see, something will happen next that will be great.’
He waited for Max to say something but she didn’t.
‘See you tomorrow then,’ he said and left the room.
Linden’s words floated around Max’s head like flying ants she wished would go away. When doors closed in Max’s life, other ones locked ever tighter. When her dad went away, her mum became bossy and never seemed as relaxed as she used to be. When she left her last school and best friend, she ended up at Hollingdale where no one liked her. She wanted to believe Linden but she knew her life too well to know things worked any differently.
She shut down the computer and went to the kitchen to say goodnight but stopped when she was met with the three backsides of Ben, Eleanor and Francis, whose heads were poking out the kitchen window into the yard.
‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s Larry,’ said Eleanor. ‘He’s been building a haystack out here for an hour.’
Larry was a pig who predicted the weather. Or at least that’s what Max had been told. She wasn’t convinced this wasn’t just Ben, Eleanor and Linden nursing a mild dose of lunacy.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Max, curious despite her scepticism.
‘Means there’s going to be a wind storm,’ said Ben, without a skerrick of doubt in his voice. ‘A big one judging by the size of that stack.’
Max stared at all three rear ends as they continued to poke their heads out the window.
‘Why a haystack?’ asked Max, not sure why she even asked.
‘He likes to see them tumble down when the wind comes up,’ said Ben, chuckling. ‘Gets a real kick out of it.’
That was all Max needed to know about Larry and his haystack for now. She suddenly felt tired and didn’t want to talk any more.
‘Night then.’ She turned to leave them to their staring.
‘Would you like me to come and tuck you in?’ asked Eleanor, bringing her head in from outside.
‘No, I’ll be right,’ said Max and dragged herself to bed.
When she woke up the next morning, Max didn’t open her eyes straightaway. The sound of Ben and Eleanor singing a soppy love song filtered into her room like the smell of rotting fish in the sun. Max loved Ben and Eleanor, but if they could sing in key it wouldn’t have been quite as terrible. To add to that, the morning was hot and steamy with a warm breeze blowing directly onto her face, which nearly made her pass out with the smell of the farm it carried with it.
‘Country life stinks sometimes,’ she mumbled, referring to the smell and her memory of the broken Time and Space Machine. But when she opened her eyes she was met with something even more terrible. Two bulging, bloodshot eyes she was sure belonged to a weird, psychopathic alien.
Her heart pounded as she faced the fierce creature and remembered something.
She remembered to scream.
‘Aahhh!’
The alien eyes became bigger and even more bloodshot before disappearing under the bed as Ben and Eleanor rushed into the room.
‘What is it?’ they asked, pushing their faces into hers.
‘It was … I saw … I think …’ said Max, not knowing what it was.
‘Take your time, Max. Tell us what happened,’ said Eleanor gently, just as a whimper was heard from beneath the bed.
Max’s eyes narrowed. ‘Ralph,’ she whispered, as she saw images of the ragged mutt being packed off to the other side of the world on a very, very, slow boat.
Ben plunged under the bed as Eleanor winced. ‘Sorry, Max. We told him to stay outside. Normally he’s very obedient but he’s taken such a liking to you he doesn’t seem to listen to a word we say.’
‘Come on, Ralph. That’s your fun for the day over,’ Ben wheezed as he pulled the reluctant canine out. ‘It’s the doghouse for you, sunshine.’
Ralph looked over his shoulder at a scowling Max as he crept outside after Ben.
‘Why doesn’t he get that I don’t like him?’
‘He can’t help it. It’s that magnetic personality of yours.’ Linden was standing at the door munching on a capsicum.
Sometimes Linden did that. It was like he never walked into a room but would somehow just appear.
‘How about some breakfast and you can try out more of your eagerly awaited humour then?’ said Eleanor, looking at Max and smiling.
Linden opened his mouth to say something else but before he could, the phone rang. ‘Maybe I’ll just get that.’
‘You’d be doing the world a great favour,’ said Max. ‘Or at least this part of it.’
Eleanor sat down on the bed next to Max.
‘I’m sorry about Ralph. He’s usually so shy. Looks like you’ve brought out the wild side in him.’
‘Great. I won’t be chalking that up as one of my talents.’
‘Max!’ Linden called from the hall. ‘Phone for you.’
Max froze. Maybe it was Spyforce ringing with a plan to get them to London. Or maybe they were going to bring the meeting here. Or maybe it was …
‘It’s your mum.’
My mum! she thought, as she got out of bed and walked to the phone. What does she want?
Linden put his hand over the receiver and almost in answer to her thought said, ‘She wants to know how you’re doing.’
‘How I’m doing?’ Max asked incredulously. Her mother never called to see how she was doing. ‘She must have cooked up some other way to ruin my li
fe.’
Linden handed her the receiver.
‘Hello,’ she said, warily.
Pause.
‘Yep, I’m fine,’ she said, not sounding fine at all.
Another pause. Longer this time.
‘Sounds great.’ But the way Max said it, whatever her mother said didn’t seem great at all.
An even longer pause and then, ‘Okay, bye.’
Max hung up and stared at the phone. ‘Peasers! That speech of hers really worked its way into Mum’s head and I’m the one who’s going to have to pay for it.’
‘What did she say?’ asked Linden.
‘She wants to spend a lot more time with me when I get back. Wants to sit with me while I do my homework. Make quality time every afternoon to talk about our days and share our feelings.’
‘Are you sure it was your mother?’ asked Linden.
‘Sounded like her. And she wants us to share time with Aidan.’
Linden had heard all about Aidan from Max’s email.
‘So the forecast is bad?’
‘Couldn’t be worse.’ Max turned and made her way to the kitchen.
But after breakfast, something happened to change everything. Max and Linden were sitting at Eleanor’s computer when an email from R.L. Steinberger arrived. It had one simple message:
Don’t worry about transport problems. All will be taken care of. Be in the back paddock at eight o’clock tonight.
And that was it.
‘What does it mean?’ asked Linden.
‘Not sure, but I guess we better be in the paddock at eight o’clock to find out,’ Max said slowly, letting the message sink in. ‘And that we’re going to be at that Spyforce meeting after all.’
Max and Linden stared at the screen before turning and smiling at each other.
‘Aaaahhhh!’ they both screamed excitedly.
Eleanor rushed in to see what was wrong.
‘What happened?’ she asked, worried it was another animal attack.
Max and Linden looked at each other. They couldn’t let Eleanor know what they were planning. She’d think it was too dangerous and try to stop them. Max had wanted to be a spy all her life and she couldn’t risk anything spoiling it now.
‘Nothing,’ she said, trying to think of a cover. ‘Linden just told another one of his jokes.’ She smiled, pleased she could have a dig at his humour.
‘Maybe you could hold over on being funny for the rest of the day, Linden. I think my heart has had about as much as it can take of it for one morning.’ Eleanor gave a half smile, half frown as she left the room.
Max was chuffed. ‘Sorry. Just had to get that in.’
‘It’s okay. It’s your way of coping with being in the presence of great comedy.’
‘So that’s what they’re calling it these days, are they?’ she asked.
‘You better believe it.’ Linden smiled. Max did have a sense of humour when she wanted to.
They both turned to the screen. After all Max had been through in the last few days it felt like the world was finally going her way. She’d have given anything to go to London. Even spending more time with fashion-tragic Aidan didn’t seem so bad now.
A smile trickled onto her lips as she knew her life was about to change forever.
Alex Crane looked out from her precarious position balanced on the tip of the mast of the sailing ship Inferno and knew that now help had arrived, her life, which was teetering on the edge of oblivion, would be saved.
‘Max! Thank heavens you’re here,’ she called through the panicked squall of wind and rain that lashed against them.
Max was new to the business, but even with little solid experience, she was proving to be one of the best spies Alex Crane had ever come across.
Brilliant. Clever. A natural.
‘We’ve only got minutes before this whole ship is blown into the sky and us with it,’ Alex spoke into her lapel transceiver in her usual direct and unflappable manner.
Max knew she had to think, and fast. The wind buffeted against her like an overzealous bully as she dangled by a rope from the battered helicopter overhead. The aircraft swayed above them like a cancan dancer, its blades kicking out against the blue-black sky, lit by the angry flare of lightning.
She operated the helicopter by remote control, trying to manoeuvre herself closer to the mast and Alex before the lit fuse inside the vessel ignited the cargo of deadly explosives.
All she had to do was expertly guide the helicopter closer, making sure a sudden updraft didn’t spin it out of control and send it spiralling into the sea. Just a little closer towards Alex and she would
‘Max?’
The voice behind her made her jump, sending her pen sliding across the page and her backside bouncing off the log she was perched on so she landed unglamorously on the ground. Legs splayed, head hurting and her fingers softly nestled in a warm cushion of chicken poo.
‘Sorry,’ Eleanor apologised. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘That’s okay.’ Max glared at Geraldine who clucked loudly and pranced away like she’d just laid a golden egg.
‘I didn’t hear you coming.’ Max pulled herself back onto the log and looked for something to wipe her hand on. She never understood why she ended up on the ground more times than the average eleven year old did.
‘I just wanted to tell you that we’re so happy to have you back.’
Max looked through her book to find a blank page to clean her fingers with. Also to avoid further embarrassment because she could feel herself blushing at what Eleanor had said.
‘The place didn’t feel the same when you left.’
Max looked up. Eleanor had this smile that was like a big, warm doona that made her want to crawl in and curl up inside.
‘How’s Sydney?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Good,’ said Max. She’d been concentrating so much on Alex Crane that she’d totally forgotten about everything in Sydney. The farm had a way of doing that.
‘And your mum?’ Eleanor was twisting a ring on her finger. Max’s mum had one exactly the same that she kept locked away in a silver box. Max knew that because she’d take it out and wear it when her mother wasn’t home. It had a red stone and was set in a gold bed of interlinked roses.
‘She’s good.’
‘That’s good.’ But the way Eleanor looked away when she said this made Max think something wasn’t quite right.
‘Where did you get the ring?’
Eleanor noticed she’d been playing with it and stopped.
‘Just before your gran died she gave identical ones to me and your mother, asking us always to look out for each other.’
Eleanor sat quietly staring at the ring.
‘Why don’t you and Mum get along?’ Max asked.
‘Now there’s a question.’ Eleanor clasped her hands and looked at the horizon. ‘Even when we were little girls we weren’t very close. It’s just always been that way. I think that’s why Gran gave us the rings. She hoped it would bring us closer together.’
She drew the colourful layers of her skirt around her knees so she looked like the inside of a kaleidoscope. Her face creased into a sad frown.
‘She has a boyfriend now,’ Max informed her.
‘Really?’ Eleanor was curious to know more and Max was happy to tell her, but she wasn’t going to sugarcoat anything. She was going to tell it exactly like it was.
‘But he’s a real jerk who spends a lot of money dressing like he hasn’t got any, stays in the bathroom so long he might as well move in there and wears so much aftershave there should be a pollution warning put out whenever he leaves the house.’
‘So you’re not a fan?’ Eleanor asked in a serious tone, making Max think she may have overdone it a little.
‘Not much.’ She looked at her fingers and wiped off the rest of the chicken poo. Max was disappointed. She was hoping Eleanor would be on her side.
They sat in silence for a few seconds.
‘Even thoug
h he does sound like a real jerk.’ Eleanor smirked and tried to stop herself from laughing.
Max looked up from her fingers and smiled too. Then Eleanor started to laugh. So did Max. They laughed even harder until they were holding their stomachs and giggling so loudly that crows in the trees nearby swooped away in fright. They rocked back and forth with laughter until they toppled backwards and fell off the log straight into another fresh batch of chicken poo.
This time Max didn’t care and didn’t see Geraldine as she scratched in the dirt like she was doing a victory dance. They just kept laughing and lying on the ground.
‘Were you thinking about something funny I said earlier?’ An upside-down Linden was staring at them from overhead.
‘Yep, that’s exactly what happened,’ Eleanor chuckled, catching her breath and sitting up before helping Max to her feet. ‘And now that we’ve got that out of our systems, I better go and give Ben a hand with dinner.’
She laughed to herself as she walked away, the layers of her skirt creating a trail of dust behind her with each cheeky giggle.
‘What was that all about?’ asked Linden.
‘I told Eleanor a joke and she thought it was the funniest one she’d ever heard.’
‘She doesn’t get out much,’ explained Linden.
Max smiled. Linden was good.
‘Let’s go and eat. We’ve got an appointment to keep.’
After dinner, Max and Linden excused themselves and walked towards the paddock. It had been arranged that they’d stay at Linden’s house for the night and would make their way back the next day, which gave them lots of time for their meeting. Except that when Ben and Eleanor said goodbye, there was something about the way they said it that felt a little more important than usual. Like they knew something. Max thought she was probably being paranoid and they headed off into the dusk.
‘Have you done your hair?’ Wild strands of Linden’s hair were ballooning into the air like towers on miniature jumping castles. ‘We are about to go to a very important meeting after all.’
Spyforce Revealed Page 5