Golden Spy

by Jill Marshall

  Janey looked feverishly from side to side and then down.

  She took a deep breath and turned turtle, diving for the bottom of the pool. As soon as she was out of sight, Janey grabbed her SPI Direct Energy Replenishment gadget from a concealed pocket in her gold SPIsuit and slipped the rubbery SPIder into her mouth. At least she could now breathe underwater. Helios must have entered the pool through some kind of gate, which probably led through to a holding pool. Maybe she could trap him in there? She swam away not a moment too soon as Helios sliced through the water towards her, hardly able to believe that his prey had leaped into his pool and was sitting on the bottom, practically asking to be eaten.

  Janey waited until the whale drew near and opened its jaws again. At just the right moment she planted her feet against Helios’s nose and bounced as hard as she could. Her Four-Fs detonated; Helios shot backwards, emitting a low, cow-like bellow. Janey rattled along the bottom of the pool. There was the gate! She raced up to it and clung to the close-set iron bars, but couldn’t get through. She felt her way along the side of the pool, desperately aware that Helios had recovered himself and was once more headed straight for her. She had only moments. Was she going to get eaten? Or was she going to act like a Spylet? Die or spy, she thought grimly.

  Then suddenly she saw it. An underwater window! Through it she could see some sort of restaurant and the words DINE WITH SHAMU written on an overhanging sign. The room was empty. Helios’s black-and-red mouth loomed. With not a moment to spare, Janey wrenched off her left Four-F and looked for the button that would operate the circular saw. There! A tiny ‘S’ in a circle at the point at which the straps crossed over. She pressed. She prayed.

  And she was flung backwards as the Four-F suddenly whizzed to life in her hand. Janey clung on to the strap and watched, amazed, as jagged saw-teeth appeared around the edge of the Four-F. She held it up to the glass, squinting just long enough to see in the reflective glass that the killer whale’s jaws were practically upon her . . . there was a hideous shriek of metal on glass, then a line appeared down the middle of the window, and a million gallons of water pressed against the severed glass. It shattered outwards. Water sprayed and shards of tempered glass were blasted all over the dining tables. Janey was rushed along on a gushing torrent of water, straight out under the DINE WITH SHAMU sign. When she turned around, Helios’s nose was wedged tightly in the space where the window had been. She’d been very, very close to dining with Helios.

  Janey was just picking herself up off the floor when her mother, Alfie and Mrs Halliday skidded into the room. ‘Janey!’ Jean Brown swept her up in an enormous embrace, while Alfie shouted, ‘She’s OK. She’s down here,’ to the very anxious Ben and Jeremy at the top of the stairs.

  Ben wrung his hands, his face white with fear. ‘We are so . . . so sorry! We’ve called for medical attention for you, and . . . Helios . . . We have to get him back in the other tank, and we will never, I repeat NEVER, again use a whale we haven’t trained ourselves.’

  ‘When did Helios arrive?’ asked Mrs Halliday.

  ‘His trainers brought him in a day or two ago – they said he’d been reared in captivity.’

  ‘Well, you’d better make sure you have him safely locked up,’ said Janey. ‘And don’t worry – it was just an accident. Could have happened to anyone.’

  ‘NOT,’ said Alfie under his breath.

  The four of them slopped through the puddles and out of the restaurant. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Janey?’ asked her mum. ‘You were underwater for so long. You might have suffered a lack of oxygen to your brain. How did that glass break? Why did you jump in the pool? Honestly, my heart nearly fell out of my mouth.’ Jean kept up a stream of questions and statements of horror until they were once more out in the sunshine. ‘What a bizarre, terrible thing to happen,’ she said finally, making Janey sit down on a dolphin-shaped seat.

  Funny how they always happen to me, thought Janey. She pulled her mum down next to her. ‘I’m fine. I just . . . panicked and went the wrong way. But I’m not even hurt, honestly.’

  She held up her gold-covered limbs for her mother to inspect, and finally Jean sat back, satisfied but still trembling. ‘I definitely need a cup of tea now,’ she said weakly.

  It was exactly what the others needed – a chance to get back to the Spylab and report in to Abe. ‘Good idea,’ said Mrs Halliday. ‘Let’s go back to the villas and relax around the pool.’

  All in agreement, they began the long walk back to the turnstiles and to Ronnie, who was waiting for them, as promised.

  They collapsed gratefully into the air-conditioned car interior. ‘That sun is just melting,’ said Alfie, flopping out his tongue and panting like a dog.

  ‘I’ve never been so hot,’ agreed Mrs Halliday. ‘Those last thirty metres were torture.’

  Janey’s mum propped her head up on her hand. ‘Exhausted. Going to have to carry . . . a parasol.’

  ‘What is wrong with you all?’ Janey looked round at them all from the seat beside Ronnie. ‘I’m the one who just had a close encounter with a killer beast.’

  But that didn’t seem to matter. ‘Tea,’ said Mrs Halliday in a hoarse and longing whisper.

  And tea it was, followed by a long lie-down by the pool, and more tea and cold lemonade in the mid-afternoon. Janey paced between the sun loungers, trying to motivate the others to do something – anything – more active, but nobody was interested. How could they just relax when Copernicus was obviously so close? They had to get on with finding him, with ensuring the safety of her dad’s Revolution secret. Whatever his Revolution secret was. But it was no use. Frustrated, she went inside, then popped straight out of the French windows from the back bedroom, over the balcony and into the Villa Vanilla Spylab.

  ‘Hey, Trouble,’ she said, giving the cat a rub behind the ears. He was still a bit damp from having a paddle around the pool while they were out. Sitting down next to him at the workbench, Janey tapped into the computer and accessed G-Mamma.

  ‘Blonde,’ yelled her SPI:KE, ‘give me the lowdown.’

  ‘I’ve just been attacked by a killer whale, and Copernicus is behind it,’ she said matter-of-factly.

  G-Mamma’s round eyes doubled in size.

  ‘Whopping whales, I’ll let your boss man know immediately! In fact, I’ve just been talking to your father.’ G-Mamma leaned into the screen furtively. ‘He says Copernicus is behind the disappearance of a few other animals from Solfari Lands. It’s like he’s baiting your father, stealing from him so brazenly.’

  ‘What kind of animals?’ asked Janey.

  ‘I don’t want to say in case someone’s listening in with a SPI-Pod. But I’ll act it out for you.’ With that, G-Mamma moved away from the screen so Janey could see her in full. Then she pointed towards her waist and mimed great surprise by making her eyes and mouth very round.

  ‘Er, sorry, I didn’t get that.’

  Again G-Mamma pointed towards her waist and then looked very surprised.

  ‘Waist . . . shock.’ Janey shrugged. What on earth could that mean?

  ‘No! And don’t say it out loud, Zany Janey.’ Once more she stuck out a finger and waved it at her waist, but this time she let it come to rest just below her belt and to the side.

  ‘Ah!’ Janey got it. Hip. But what was the other bit? She watched G-Mamma’s mouth go round and suddenly it came to her. Oh. Hip. Oh. Hippo. The animals going missing were hippos!

  ‘How many?’ she said after giving G-Mamma a thumbs-up to show she’d understood.

  ‘Eleven. The entire stock.’

  Janey thought for a moment. Monkeys missing, hippos disappearing and killer whales attacking. What could it all mean? ‘It’s time we got to the bottom of this, G-Mamma. Dad’s counting on us – but everyone’s so jet-lagged at the moment, I feel like I’m on my own.’

  ‘Well, not for long,’ snapped G-Mamma as Janey left to rejoin the group by the pool.

  G-Mamma was true to her word. An hour lat
er, the Villa del Sol gates swung open and Ronnie nosed the car through. Janey, Alfie and their mothers all sat up to see what was going on just as a large figure in a florid, flouncy sundress clambered out of the front seat.

  ‘It’s me!’ declared G-Mamma brightly. ‘Goodness, what a coincidence. Fancy me and the kids landing in exactly the same holiday villas as you. We’re in the coffee-coloured one, right?’

  She pulled open the back door of the car. ‘Come on, kids! Come and meet the neighbours.’

  And to Janey’s great astonishment two children stepped sheepishly from the car: Tish, in a red SPIsuit like Janey’s, and Leaf, in green board shorts and rash shirt like Alfie’s.

  G-Mamma beamed. ‘Oh, aren’t we all going to have FUN! Now, did I see a teapot?’

  Having thrown back a flagon of tea, G-Mamma installed herself and her two Spylets in the coffee-coloured villa while Jean Brown hissed questions at Janey.

  ‘How on earth did that mad woman from next door end up here? Whose children are those? Did you hear them? They don’t even have the same accents. Do you think we should alert the authorities? And where did she find that dress?’

  Janey held up her hands as if in defeat. How could she explain it all to her mum?

  ‘Rosie Biggenham!’ said Mrs Halliday, stepping into the breach. ‘Fancy her turning up like that. She used to be a teacher at one of my old schools, you know, Jean. The kids all loved her – she left to start fostering children. Those must be two of her foster children, back with her for a holiday. Very big . . . um . . . heart that woman has.’

  Alfie headed off for a dip in the pool, hissing, ‘Very big everything.’

  Jean Brown shook her head, blinking rapidly. ‘Well, to be honest I see quite enough of her at home, without her turning up on our holiday like this. I’m sure she’s very nice and everything . . .’

  ‘She is very nice,’ said Janey. ‘You should try to get to know her a bit more.’ And I should be able to get on with my mission, now that I’ve got some more back-up, she thought.

  But Janey was sadly disappointed. The new arrivals emerged from the coffee-coloured villa in their sun and swimming gear, G-Mamma sporting a large floral swimming cap that made her head look like a sea anemone. Grabbing a lounger each, they stretched out to have a chat with their new neighbours, tipping suncream over themselves, only for Janey to find that the conversation had stopped within fifteen minutes. Everyone except Leaf had dropped off and lay sprawled out like cats in the sunshine. ‘I know we’re meant to relax,’ she said softly to Leaf as she looked at the sleeping forms around them, ‘but this is just pathetic.’

  He shrugged. ‘They are just not used to sun this strong. Where I come from, in the summer it is bright sunshine until three o’clock in the morning, so I am very used to it.’

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ said Janey, ‘but I seem to be OK.’

  ‘They are just not as strong as we are, Blonde,’ said Leaf. ‘Volleyball?’

  The Spylets batted a ball around in the pool while Leaf explained that they had gathered their spygear together as soon as Janey had spoken with G-Mamma, and then had Satispied over to the Florida Spylab. Then they’d had to sneak out the back of the villa, climb into the car and make their official entrance through the front gate. ‘Father is still working with Mr Rownigan on this Revolution process, and we have left the protection of Solfari Lands to the Bird family.’

  ‘Is that safe?’ said Janey, who still couldn’t fully trust Blackbird.

  Leaf shrugged. ‘How much of this is ever safe?’

  ‘True.’ Leaf was right. Theirs was not a safe world. And she’d dragged her mum right into the middle of it. Blackbird was definitely not the only one who made ‘errors of judgement’.

  As twilight fell, the two Spylets finally managed to wake up the other members of their party, and they all sat around the barbecue trying to make polite conversation while Mrs Halliday and Alfie assembled hot dogs and passed them around.

  ‘One or two?’ said Mrs Halliday to Tish.

  ‘Four, please,’ called G-Mamma before Tish had a chance to open her mouth. ‘All that travelling has worn me out. In fact,’ she said with a gigantic yawn that rather reminded Janey of being chased around the pool by Helios, ‘I must have jet lag. Straight to bed after this snack.’

  Straight to bed. Janey almost smirked. G-Mamma was making an excuse, covering for them so that they could all get off to bed early, meet up in the Spylab and begin a serious search-and-destroy campaign on Copernicus. A little thrill ran through her; soon the mission would be properly underway.

  G-Mamma was as good as her word. As soon as the last onion shred had been scooped off the plate, she nodded at Tish and Leaf. ‘Beddy bye-byes for weary travellers. Come on, kidlets – you snooze or you lose.’

  Janey stood up quickly.

  ‘Me too!’ she stretched her arms. ‘I’m pretty tired – didn’t have a long nap like the rest of you. I think I’ll go up to bed as well.’

  Everybody else levered themselves off their chairs at the same time. ‘I’m still quite tired,’ said Jean, rubbing her eyes.

  ‘Yes, today was quite . . . challenging,’ agreed Mrs Halliday. ‘We can wash up in the morning.’

  Alfie stared. ‘Are you feeling all right?’ he said to his mother. ‘We never leave the washing up.’

  But Mrs Halliday just waved her hand. ‘We’re on holiday, Alfie. I can’t summon up the energy to care about it.’

  They all said goodnight and sloped off to their respective villas. Janey hopped around in her room until she was sure her mother would be asleep, then sneaked out on the balcony to vault across to the Spylab. Apart from Trouble cleaning his paws on the computer bench, the place was completely empty. To fill the time while she waited for the others, Janey chatted to Trouble as she stroked his tawny head before sending him into the Wower. ‘We’re off on a mission,’ she told him as she stowed a fresh SPIder in her pocket, got her new ASPIC ready and added a golden Girl-gauntlet to her summer SPIsuit. After twenty minutes, however, there was still no sign of anyone else.

  With a sigh, Janey Four-F’d her way across the back balconies to get to Alfie’s room. Through the French windows she could see him sprawled at an angle across the bed; it looked as though he’d barely made it into the room before collapsing.

  ‘Alfie!’ Janey tapped on the window. ‘Wake up!’

  He didn’t stir, so she moved along the balcony to the next windows. ‘Holidays are bad for spies,’ Janey whispered to Trouble. ‘They just relax too much.’ Mrs Halliday was also fast asleep, and no amount of door rattling was going to wake her.

  The picture was very much the same at G-Mamma’s. It looked as though the SPI:KE had fallen asleep halfway through taking off her make-up, spreadeagled at the dressing table. Janey knocked on the glass. ‘G-Mamma!’ There was a brief snort as G-Mamma shifted in her seat, but that was all.

  Janey had had enough. ‘Trouble, sabre-claw your way through this window,’ she instructed, pointing to the little pane of glass directly below the door handle. Trouble didn’t need to be asked twice, and he flicked open the biggest claw on his front paw. It curved towards the door like a pirate’s cutlass, and in seconds Trouble had stripped out the putty holding in the glass so the pane dropped out in one piece on to Janey’s outstretched, Girl-gauntlet-protected hand.

  Janey ran to G-Mamma’s side. ‘Wake up,’ she said urgently, shaking her SPI:KE’s shoulder. ‘Come on!’ Nothing seemed to stir her. Janey changed tack and crooned directly into G-Mamma’s ear. ‘I’ve got doughnuts.’

  G-Mamma sat up with a start, one eye still surrounded with Perfect Purple eye-dazzle, the other clean, small and beady. For a second Janey was reminded of Copernicus’s mismatched eyes – one human, one yellow and monstrous. ‘Whaddya . . . where?’ said G-Mamma blearily.

  ‘Come on,’ said Janey. ‘We’ve got to track down Copernicus.’

  ‘Does he have the doughnuts?’

  Janey nearly stamped her foot with f
rustration as her SPIK:E’s eyes closed again.

  It was no use. Janey couldn’t believe it. Another night wasted. ‘Perfect,’ she said bitterly. ‘On my own again.’

  Except I’m not, thought Janey as she logged into the Spylab computer. Her dad would know what to do. It was time to ask him directly. Then tomorrow she’d be able to start the search – with or without help.

  the river of grass

  ‘Do I look like a hippo-hunter?’ G-Mamma yawned.

  Janey looked at the tired faces grouped around the Spylab. She’d managed to wake the team at dawn after she’d received an email from her dad. He wanted them to locate the missing hippos – immediately. ‘My dad said we have to,’ she told them firmly. ‘Find a river, find the hippos.’ It was a clear directive and the snoozing spies were not going to wriggle out of it.

  Once the grumbling spy team had agreed to meet for breakfast in five minutes, Janey jumped over the balcony and into her bedroom just as she heard her mum come out of her bedroom.

  ‘Up already?’ Jean’s tousled head appeared around the door. ‘Janey, I think you should change out of that gold swimsuit thing. And take that hat off. You’ve been wearing them non-stop since we set off.’

  Janey looked down at her SPIsuit. ‘But . . . it’s really comfy,’ she said pleadingly. ‘And I do keep swimming in it, so it’s clean and everything.’

  ‘You know, I’m just wondering,’ said her mother, staring at Janey’s golden outfit, ‘where you got it from anyway. I don’t remember buying it for you.’

  ‘Mrs Halliday got it when she bought Alfie’s swimming stuff.’ Janey smiled to cover up yet another lie she had told her mother. Inwardly she sighed. It would be so nice to be able to tell her the truth.

  ‘OK,’ said Jean. ‘Well, let’s see if Mad Rosie’s managed breakfast this morning.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure she has.’

  Janey pushed her mum ahead of her along the landing, and together they made their way out into the bright morning sunshine. It was already warm, and G-Mamma was glowing as she flipped fried eggs on the barbecue griddle. ‘Sunny side up,’ she carolled as Janey took a plate. ‘Just right for Florida. Although, jeepers, it’s hot! Next time I do breakfast we’re having ice cream.’