Golden Spy

by Jill Marshall

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Jean added some bacon to her plate of eggs and sat down at the large wooden table, adding hopefully, ‘Disney World maybe?’

  The group hummed and hawed reluctantly. ‘I think it may be a bit hot to walk around another theme park,’ said Mrs Halliday.

  ‘I vote for somewhere natural,’ said Leaf.

  Tish nodded enthusiastically. ‘Oh, I love . . . natural things. How about somewhere with a . . . I don’t know . . . a river?’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Alfie quickly.

  ‘Great idea!’ said Janey, who was quickly scanning through her mum’s collection of tourist-attraction leaflets. ‘Let’s go to the Everglades!’ she shouted a little too loudly, as she flicked past one particular leaflet. ‘It’s meant to be really interesting, Mum,’ she added more quietly.

  Everyone agreed that the Everglades would be perfect and very soon the chauffeur-driven car pulled into the driveway. Ronnie got out of the car, mopping his brow with a great yellow handkerchief. ‘Where to today, folks?’ he said breathlessly.

  ‘The Everglades, please,’ said Janey eagerly.

  Ronnie’s chubby face stretched into a smile. ‘Ah, the River of Grass,’ he said with a slow nod. ‘You’ll have a lot of fun there. Just watch out for gators.’

  ‘What are gators?’ Tish asked as she climbed into the very back seat with Leaf and Alfie.

  Ronnie held the door as Janey, her mum and Mrs Halliday got into the middle seat and G-Mamma eased herself into the passenger seat next to the driver. ‘You’ll see,’ he said with a grin. ‘It’s a real long drive, so I’ll take you to the airport instead and we’ll fly there. All courtesy of Villa del Sol.’

  Half an hour later they were boarding a small plane that bobbed on a little lake near the tiny airport. Janey glanced at the two floats beneath the fuselage. She suspected it was the same plane that had brought them from home, only with a few additions and extra gadgetry, and she saw her mother look along its length with a puzzled expression.

  ‘Cool!’ said Alfie breathlessly.

  ‘This holiday package is just . . . unbelievable,’ Jean Brown muttered.

  Janey squeezed her arm. ‘Are you having a good time, Mum?’

  ‘The best!’ Jean gave her a thumbs-up. ‘Even with Dozy Rosie from next door.’ And she smiled happily as she buckled her seat belt.

  The plane ride was uneventful, apart from a small loop-the-loop when an ecstatic Alfie was invited to take the controls by Ronnie – who it turned out was a pilot as well as a driver – and soon they were landing on a wide and murky river among the lush greenery of the Everglades.

  ‘I am seeing why they call it the River of Grass,’ said Leaf, almost disappearing from view as they disembarked on to a narrow walkway and his green SPIsuit blended with the vegetation.

  ‘Keep your toes away from the edge,’ called Ronnie from the front of the line. ‘We don’t want those gators to have them.’

  Janey looked down at the water and, sure enough, a knobbly, sinuous body was slipping away from the walkway into the reeds. Not gators. Alligators. She definitely planned on staying out of their way . . .

  Ronnie took the lead, pointing out various features.Then, as they reached a gate to a small enclosure, he stopped suddenly. ‘Sorry, folks, just got a bit hot and bothered there,’ he panted. ‘That’s better . . . and here’s your next method of transportation.’

  He pointed over the gate to a strange contraption parked at the riverside. It looked rather like a small stage with a cage at the back, balanced high above some enormous inflated tank tyres.

  Alfie drew in a sharp breath, like a backwards sigh. ‘Swamp buggy,’ he crooned, hardly able to speak. ‘Pontoon bodywork, racing engine, big flat flotation tyres, paddle treads on the rear for the forward motion, rudder steering . . .’

  He stumbled over the flattened grass towards the vehicle, but G-Mamma swiped him across the head with her large floral PERSPIRE. ‘Oi, Petrolhead!’ she barked. ‘Ladies first.’

  The swamp buggy rocked dangerously as G-Mamma climbed aboard, helped by Ronnie, then the others slotted themselves into the seats that were bolted to the floor. ‘Strap yourselves in and hold tight!’ yelled Ronnie.

  The engine whined, spluttered into action and then burst into life with a roar like a caged animal released from its prison. Janey clutched Alfie’s arm as they skated across the surface of the river at forty miles an hour, flattening reeds and shooting out a frothy wake like milkshake.

  ‘I have got to get one of these!’ said Alfie, his face radiant with joy.

  Janey took in as much as she could while Ronnie whipped them around the river, screaming as if they were on a roller coaster. It certainly looked tropical enough for hippos. Suddenly the engine note changed and the buggy slowed down.

  ‘We’re right in the heart of gator land now,’ said Ronnie softly, bringing the swamp buggy to a stop for a moment. ‘Look around, folks.’

  They all did as they were told. At first the river looked uninhabited, calm even, but then Ronnie tossed a lump of meat over the side and the water below them began to boil. One, two . . . many sets of long, evil-teethed jaws broke the surface, like monstrous baby birds snapping for food, and all around, glinting in the sunlight that danced through the treetops, was a writhing, thrashing mass of reptilian killers. One even managed to reach up to the edge of the platform, snapping ferociously. Janey stared in horror at the long, clawed foot, so like a deformed human hand . . .

  G-Mamma leaned forward and hissed in Janey’s ear: ‘Compared with this lot, old Copper Knickers is a pussycat! I think I’m a gator-hater.’

  Janey just nodded, then she glanced back at Ronnie, urging him to move on. The sweat was running off his forehead and down his cheeks, but after wiping his face on his sleeve he revved up the engine again. ‘That sun’s a scorcher,’ he said, ‘even through the trees. Let’s head for one of the camps and grab ourselves some lunch.’

  ‘Before something grabs us for lunch,’ said Tish with a cheery, gap-toothed grin.

  The sun beat down on them as they found their way to the picnic tables, safely fenced off from the riverbank with the odd cypress tree creating scant shade. Everyone fell upon the picnic with gusto, tearing into the fried chicken legs and great chunky sandwiches with as much fervor as the alligators had greeted the meat. The meal was rounded off with more doughnuts than even G-Mamma could manage and washed down with gallons of fresh, cool water.

  Jean stretched. ‘That was lovely. Funny how it’s so relaxing even with those alligators so close by.’

  ‘It’s a real holiday, isn’t it, Jean?’ agreed Mrs Halliday, lying down full length on one of the blankets they’d spread on the ground. ‘I could do with a nap.’

  Ronnie looked delighted. ‘If you folks all want a siesta, that’s fine by me. This heat’s got me beat today.’

  ‘Sticky buns, sweaty suns . . . heat’s got me beat . . .’ yawned G-Mamma. ‘I’d make up a rap if I had the energy. Hmm, sticky bu—’

  She stopped abruptly. Janey couldn’t believe it: G-Mamma had simply fallen asleep. Alfie had been sketching swamp buggies on his napkin, but his head was now nodding towards the table. ‘Five minutes,’ he mumbled incoherently. ‘Power nap . . .’ Everyone had decided to take full advantage of siesta time, apart from Leaf, who was packing up the picnic hamper.

  Well, Janey wasn’t going to waste any more time. She had a plan. ‘I’m going to take another look around,’ she said to Leaf.

  His eyes followed hers down to the riverbank. ‘Take care,’ he said. ‘I will keep lookout for everyone here.’

  Janey grabbed some meat from a bag and approached the edge of the river cautiously.

  ‘OK, gators, let’s get you out of the way,’ she whispered, before lobbing the meat towards the far bank of the river as far away as she could. Almost instantly, three or four alligators emerged from the water, lured by the scent of the blood, and swam away from Janey. She made her way carefully into the ree
ds, looking for clues of some kind. Hippo poo? She wouldn’t be able to tell it from alligator poo. She’d been searching for over half an hour before she came across something that might be significant.

  It was a footprint: a wide, splayed, four-toed impression the size of a dinner plate. Janey studied it carefully. It certainly didn’t look like a print made by the shrivelled claw of an alligator . . .

  Then she remembered a way she could find out. She took off her PERSPIRE, turned it over and pressed the tiny button at the centre of the cap.

  Instantly a touch-screen keyboard was projected on to the underside of the cap’s peak, and the inside glowed white like a ghostly television screen. ‘OK.’ Janey typed in the words ‘hippo foot’ and waited.

  An image popped up on to the screen – a four-toed foot, with toes splayed left and right and two facing forward. She looked at the footprint next to her. It was an exact match.

  ‘Where do hippos live?’ she tapped in next.

  ‘“Hippos are found in sub-Saharan Africa”,’ she read, ‘“where they are largely considered to be the most dangerous wild animal of all, weighing up to 3,600 kilograms and capable of running at speeds of twenty miles an hour.’’’ Janey glanced at her Fleet-Feet-Flip-flops. ‘Well, I’m faster than that.’

  She popped her PERSPIRE back on and returned to the picnic area where Leaf, still the only one awake, was whittling a piece of wood into the shape of an alligator.

  ‘Dad was right,’ said Janey quietly, straining to be heard above the cacophony of snorts and snores that filled the air. ‘There are hippos here, and they aren’t usually found living in the wild in America.’

  Leaf looked around at their sleeping companions. He shrugged. ‘There is not much we can do at the moment.’

  But Jane Blonde wasn’t used to waiting when there was a mission at hand. ‘There is something we can do. Cover for me,’ she said, and took off into the thickly knotted mangroves.

  terrifying teeth

  Janey found her way back to the hippopotamus footprint, hoping to find another – a neat, obliging little trail of prints that would lead her directly to the stolen hippos. What she did find was rather more alarming: two sets of claw marks, raked into the mud, with a sweep of mud between them. An alligator had been on this bank since her last visit and had slid back into the water, perhaps even dragging a hippo with it. And if it could drag a hippo, it could certainly topple Jane Blonde. Topple her, seize her in its jaws and crunch her to Blonde-dust. She had to be quick.

  Janey scanned the area. ‘Where are they?’ she muttered.

  Suddenly she thought of something – a way to find the footprints easily without having to rummage around in the alligator-infested mangroves looking for them. Pulling off her PERSPIRE, she brought up the image of the four-toed hippo print, then focused her Ultra-gogs on it. ‘Match,’ she said firmly. ‘Match and find.’

  She put her hat back on and turned slowly on the spot, allowing her Ultra-gogs to scan the area for footprints. Suddenly her spy glasses gave a beep and zoomed in on an image. Janey examined it excitedly. ‘It worked!’ she cried. ‘And again. Match and find.’

  As she scanned further along the bank, the Ultra-gogs whirred, clicked into focus and then emitted a loud BEEEEP.

  ‘Perfect!’ Janey slithered along to the next footprint. It was still only a single print, but if the Ultra-gogs could keep ‘matching and finding’, she’d be bound to come across a whole hippo soon . . .

  She lurched from one footprint to the next. Occasionally she would find two prints and imagine hopefully that the hippo was just beyond the next mangrove tree, only to find the next print half submerged in water much further on.

  Eventually, as Janey looked upwards for the first time and noticed that it was getting dark, she started to feel worried. Perhaps she was never going to find this hippo. Maybe someone – some enemy spy – had laid a trail for her and was luring her further and further away from her spy team. She looked back the way she had come, and her heart sank. How far had she travelled? What if she got lost?

  ‘Match and find,’ said Janey once more, trying to gather her courage by focusing on the job in hand.

  She turned her head this way and that, waiting, hoping for the bright BEEP that signified a new footprint. But the Ultra-gogs were completely silent. And then Janey saw them.

  Four alligators were swinging their monstrous bodies through the mangroves, their flat heads parting the grasses like chainsaws, evil green-gold eyes glowing in the gathering gloom. The colour of their skin was so mud-like that were it not for the glint of their eyes, Janey would hardly have seen them . . .

  Then they opened their mouths, and Janey realized the beasts were moving in for the kill. For a moment she was too stunned to do anything. Then she jumped.

  Flinging herself up in the air, Janey brought her knees up to her chest and slammed her feet back down against the ground, hoping that she wouldn’t slip in the mud and deliver herself into the nearest cavernous mouth. Her feet made contact only briefly, and she staggered slightly as the Four-Fs detonated beneath her and launched her towards the sky like a firework.

  Unfortunately, her slight stumble at take-off meant that she’d been launched at an angle, an angle that had directed her away from the bank towards the murky middle of the river.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Janey. She had no Girl-gauntlet, no ASPIC – in fact, no way of escaping the alligators’ jaws of death as she fell into the Everglades. And she’d brought it all on herself, assuming once more that Jane Blonde, even on her own, could do anything.

  The water rushed up to meet her, her feet hit the surface . . .

  And stayed there.

  She opened her eyes. I’m walking on water, she thought.

  Janey couldn’t believe what she was seeing – it was a miracle. She seemed to be standing on something solid, yet she could feel water all around her feet. Meanwhile, the alligators had noticed that their supper was standing only metres away from them; with a flick of their loathsome tails they headed straight for her.

  Janey ran, her feet splashing as quickly across the surface as her Four-Fs would allow her. It felt like she was leaping across a strange causeway until, with a sob of relief, she hit dry land on the far riverbank.

  ‘Zoom,’ she said, her heart beating wildly. The alligators had not given chase – but something was close by. An eye blinked malevolently from the water, reflecting the shimmer from the rising moon. Janey zoomed in once more with her Ultra-gogs. To her astonishment a round ear, rather like a teddy bear’s but without the fur, had risen up above the water near the eye. Then she spotted another set of eyes . . . and another.

  Janey swallowed hard as the nearest pair of eyes moved closer. She peered into the water, hardly able to believe what she was seeing.

  The causeway she had run across was breaking up. Parts were paddling downstream, while other bits of it were lining up and approaching the riverbank. Fast. She hadn’t been walking on water after all. Jane Blonde had simply had the good luck to land on the back of a submerged hippopotamus and had run right across the river on a walkway of hippos, lurking just under the surface of the water.

  But now they were coming for her. What was it the PERSPIRE had told her? Hippos were known as the most dangerous African animal? They looked so cute at the zoo, but as one clambered purposefully out of the water, lowered its head and opened its enormous mouth wide, Janey suddenly remembered the rest of the information. They weighed 3,600 kilograms, and ran at twenty miles an hour. She was about to be chased by . . . she counted quickly . . . eleven of the world’s most deadly animals. Then, just as she felt the ground shudder beneath the weight of the attacking hippos, Janey heard a sound that lifted her heart – a splutter and a roar of engines, then the cry of her best friend and fellow Spylet: ‘Blonde! Get ready to jump!’

  The swamp buggy blasted around the bend through the gathering darkness, lights blazing and engine roaring. Tish and Leaf were leaning off the front of the buggy, Gir
l-gauntlet and Boy-battler at the ready. Alfie, meanwhile, was hanging on to the rudder with both hands, zig-zagging across the river.

  ‘Three . . .’ he hollered so loudly that Janey realized he must be shouting into the MIC setting on his SPI-Pod. ‘Two . . .’ The buggy swerved into its final lunge towards Janey. ‘One . . . NOW.’

  Just as the swamp buggy slid sideways towards her, two more hippo heads emerged from the water. Taking off from the slippery riverbank, she planted a foot on each head, right between the teddy-like ears, and vaulted off them towards the boat. Tish and Leaf each reached out to grab one of her hands, and in the next second Janey was lying in a crumpled pile between the buggy’s seats.

  ‘Blonde!’ Alfie pulled away, dodging hippos and alligators. His face was alight with joy and excitement.

  ‘What?’ asked Janey, who was more than a little dazed.

  ‘This baby,’ he said, patting the rudder beneath his hand, ‘drives like an absolute dream.’

  Janey rolled her eyes. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Nice to see you too.’

  tired old tiger

  They arrived back at the Villa del Sol sometime after midnight, Janey holding her mother’s hand all the way. Jean had woken up to find her daughter had disappeared; convinced she had been dragged away by alligators, she had screamed so loudly that everyone woke up. Leaf quickly explained that Janey had just gone to the toilet, and when Tish and Alfie had realized what was going on, they insisted that they needed to go too. The Spylets had made straight for Ronnie’s swamp buggy. While they were gone, Mrs Halliday and G-Mamma calmly packed the picnic gear and fielded Jean Brown’s questions.

  Now Janey wished for the millionth time since she’d become a Spylet that she could just tell her mother the truth. Instead she settled for making sure Jean was asleep, then getting across to the Spylab and telling the others about her discoveries.