Golden Spy

by Jill Marshall

  She was dying. Janey knew it. This was it, for once and for all. Spinning, flipping, sailing through the atmosphere, she reached out a hand towards the beautiful blue planet beneath her. Earth. She could see it. One last time . . .

  Then there was a flash and a crushing sense of pressure. At that moment her feet whipped round over her head; she looked back through her knees and there was Planet Copernicus, brighter and more golden than ever, shimmering in the haze of the treacherous Lay-Z Beam blast reflected directly off her golden SPIsuit, straight back at the source of its evil. As she shielded her eyes from the glare there was a gathering of light, an explosion that zapped out a cloudburst of phosphorescence, and a crescent of brilliance crowned Planet Copernicus like an eclipse. At once the golden planet faded to grey.

  The reign of Copernicus was over.

  A second later there was another flash, nearer this time. And something tiny and white came into view. Something she couldn’t quite believe she could be seeing. And then Jane Blonde’s brain and the golden light blurred into one, and she knew nothing more.

  goldenspy

  Janey woke up in a hospital bed, still convinced that she was dead, with a whole team of SPIs and Spylets around her and Trouble curled up at her feet. Perhaps they were all dead too. They must be. She’d fainted.

  But seeing Janey’s eyes open, her SPI:KE threw herself on to the bed and crushed Janey to her bosom. ‘She’s ALIVE! She’ll SURVIVE! Oh, sizzling sunsets, I can’t help myself – I’m rapping even when I don’t know I’m doing it. But I’m just so HAPPEEEEEEE.’ She plastered Janey’s cheeks with sticky magenta kisses until someone had the presence of mind to pull her off.

  ‘You’re not dead then?’ said Alfie in his flat voice. Janey could see by the way he was twisting his lips that he was trying not to smile.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Janey. She checked her limbs under the sheets. Apart from being in some very scratchy singed spandex, they seemed fine. ‘Are you?’

  ‘Du-uh.’ Alfie held out his arms and spun around. ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘We’re all alive and well, thanks to you, Blonde,’ said Mrs Halliday, patting Janey on the hand.

  Memories came back to her in a flood: her mum, finally believing her; her dad, Lay-Z Beamed on the ground at Cape Canaveral; the apes, the spies, Twelve, heading off for the tube. ‘Dad . . . Mum . . .’ she croaked suddenly.

  ‘We’re here, sweetheart,’ said her mother.

  We? Did she really mean . . . we?

  The others cleared a path so that Janey’s parents could reach her bedside. To her astonishment, her father had his arm around her mum’s shoulders, and Jean Brown had a definite air of something . . . something spyish about her.

  Jean pulled Janey up from the bed and squeezed her shoulders. ‘I thought you were right behind. That tube just sucked me off Planet Copernicus and deposited me at the moon station in seconds. I thought you’d be following.’

  ‘I had things to do,’ said Janey. She looked at her father. ‘Did you know about the tubes?’

  He sighed. ‘There’s been talk for many years of tubes in space that we could travel through. Wormholes . . . gravitational corridors . . . Whatever you want to call them, they form a network of invisible tunnels. What I can’t believe is that Copernicus learned to harness their power before anyone else did.’ He leaned over and kissed her cheek, adding quietly, ‘These NASA scientists are very keen to talk to you about it.’

  ‘NASA? We’re still at Cape Canaveral, then?’

  Tish leaned over Abe’s shoulder. ‘Blonde, you discovered an unknown planet. Oh, and destroyed it. Of course we’re still at Cape Canaveral.’

  ‘That’s what woke us all up,’ said her father with a grin. ‘That, and Ronnie dropping Trouble on my stomach with his sabre claw out.’

  Janey still didn’t understand.

  ‘I . . .’

  It didn’t seem possible, somehow, but she remembered now the golden beam ricocheting off her golden suit, the flash of light behind her . . . ‘Did I blow it up? Is Copernicus dead?’ And Leaf, she thought. It saddened her. Leaf had been duped by Copernicus, but he’d looked as though he might just be reaching the point of changing his mind about his allegiances . . .

  ‘Titian’s exaggerating,’ said her mother. ‘You didn’t destroy it. You just put it to sleep. Come see.’

  Like a travelling circus troupe, a dozen SPIs and Spylets accompanied Janey as she levered herself off the bed and made her way gingerly along the corridor. They passed a couple of burly security guards – who looked nothing like gorillas, Janey was glad to see – and found themselves at the end of a corridor. Two doors faced each other, both with another security guard outside with NASA emblazoned on their uniform.

  At a nod from her father, Janey opened the door to her right. On a starkly made-up bed lay a crumpled body, snoring rudely. Leaf’s SPIsuit lay on a chair nearby, and Janey picked up the tattered Lycra with its layers of green and gold. ‘That’s what made me realize I should jump in front of the Lay-Z Beam,’ she said slowly. ‘I hadn’t been affected by the rays like everyone else, and Leaf said he was OK too because of his suit. It had to be the gold. There was that man at Disney World in the yellow shirt, and the lady in the yellow sundress – they seemed protected too.’

  ‘That’s right. Copernicus must have worked it out when you weren’t being affected, and then Leaf went into overdrive to get you to do anything where you might get changed.’

  ‘Volleyball! Swimming!’ It made sense now.

  Abe nodded. ‘The scientists think that because he was wearing it when the beam blasted back at the planet, he might not sleep forever. He could wake up in a while.’

  It was only then that Janey noticed the figure to the other side of Leaf’s bed. Ivan stood up with his head bowed and reached out to shake Janey’s hand. ‘I can only apologize for my son’s behaviour, as I have done to your father a million times.’

  ‘Two million and counting,’ shouted G-Mamma from the back of the crowd.

  ‘I will stay here with Leaf until he wakes up, and then we will consider our future.’ Ivan shrugged pitifully. ‘At least it is a future on this planet. Thanks to you, Blonde.’ He raked his hands through his thinning hair and sat down again.

  ‘There’s something else to see,’ said her father gently, and they all shuffled out of the room, making way so that Janey could get to the door of the ward opposite. ‘This person was dressed in black, so he didn’t have the golden-spy protection. It’s believed that he will sleep for a long time. Perhaps forever – if we’re lucky.’

  Janey pushed open the door. There was no bed in this room. Instead there was a specially created tank, and sealed upright inside was the drooped and sleeping figure of a strange half-squid, half-human figure, with one eye huge and yellow, and the other human eye closed tight shut. Jets of water were spurting over him, keeping his foul skin moist. Despite being sound asleep, the expression of the bleak squid eye still managed to look shocked, outraged.

  ‘That eye’s golden,’ said Janey quietly. ‘It might wake up.’

  ‘It’s blind,’ said her father. ‘And we’ll never let him out of our sight again.’

  Janey closed the door. Suddenly she felt exhausted. ‘How long was I asleep?’

  ‘About a week,’ said Mrs Halliday as they walked back towards Janey’s room. ‘You might have had the golden SPIsuit, but you still took the entire blast from the Lay-Z Beam yourself.’

  ‘But how did I . . . I was just floating around in space, and then I saw this flash and a little white . . . a little white . . .’

  At exactly that moment she spotted again what she had seen in space. A small white hand. Waving to her. Beckoning. This time it was waving from the doorway of her own ward.

  Jean Brown hugged her. ‘It was Twelve, although we’ve decided to call him James. We can’t go on calling him by a number forever.’

  ‘Forever?’

  ‘It’s too dangerous to try to D-Evolve him,�
�� said her father softly. ‘And I never want to use R-Evolution again, so we can’t change his sister for him. We’re all the family he’s got – and he did save you, after all.’

  ‘We’re . . . adopting him?’ Janey looked from her parents to the little boy with the dark solemn eyes, gazing at her from the bedroom door. ‘How did he save me?’ she whispered.

  ‘Well, it was hard to work out what he wanted,’ said her mother. ‘None of us know sign language. But he got me to grab his ankle, then he dangled out into space and grabbed you as you went by. Brave boy.’

  ‘True spy material,’ agreed her father.

  As the other spies fell silent, Janey walked over to James. He raised his eyebrows, and Janey just knew, instinctively, what he was asking.

  She nodded, a tear spilling over on to her cheek. ‘Yes, I’m OK. Thanks to you.’

  He gave a small smile, and then started tapping out sign language.

  ‘Oh, you’re too fast for me. I’ll have to learn . . . hang on. You’re telling me you’re called James.’

  With a huge grin he nodded enthusiastically. Janey crouched down in front of him. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  His rapid sign language contained at least an A, an N and an E. ‘Janey. Yes, but not just that.’

  And on her knees in front of him, she pointed at herself and then at the boy and lifted up her hands.

  Both pinkies linked together.

  The index finger of the right hand tapping the middle finger of the left.

  Both pinkies linked again.

  A time-out sign.

  The index finger of the right hand tapping the index finger of her left hand. Finally, her right index finger crooked against her left palm.

  ‘Sister,’ she whispered.

  James’s eyes became bright with tears and he flung himself into Janey’s arms. When she turned around to look at the others, Janey noticed that she and James weren’t the only ones looking a little teary. Even Alfie was clearing his throat and trying to look very interested in a placard about the misuse of mobile phones in technical areas.

  Janey grinned. She was the luckiest girl in the world. And as if on cue, G-Mamma held up her hands and rotated slowly to gather attention.

  ‘A little rap to celebrate,’ she said. ‘Alfie and Rook, do this: Dum dum chich. Dum dum chich.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Alfie.

  ‘Baby Halo . . .’ warned G-Mamma.

  With a scornful roll of his eyes, Alfie said in a monotone, ‘Dum dum chich. Dum dum chich.’

  ‘Great! Now Blackbird and Titian, you can go BADA in between the dum dum chiches.’

  Tish and Blackbird looked at each other, shrugged and joined in with enthusiasm. With the dum dum chich BADA, dum dum chich BADA rhythm going on behind her, G-Mamma swayed hypnotically.

  ‘The goldenspy, she did survive,

  She stayed alive, now gimme high five;

  The goldenspy is Blonde all through,

  It’s what she do, lemme hear ya OO OO;

  Goldenspy! Taking out the yellow eye.

  Goldenspy! Through the heavens she can fly.

  Goldenspy! Brown and Blonde rolled up in one.

  Goldenspy! And she only just begun . . .’

  G-Mamma and her little backing group hopped away down the corridor, and Janey watched them leave. She stretched happily and yawned. This had been the most exhausting holiday ever. Which reminded her of something . . . ‘Am I ready to leave hospital yet, Mum?’

  Her mother tilted her head suspiciously. ‘It’s much too soon for another mission, Jane Blonde.’

  And Janey smiled back at her mum, taking in her parents and her new little brother in a golden glow all of her own. This was going to be a completely different kind of mission. A new adventure.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ she said.