Jill Marshall moved from the United Kingdom to New Zealand, along with her small daughter and her even smaller mad dog. Her childhood ambition was to become an author, so in 2001 Jill gave up her career as training director at a huge international company to concentrate on writing and being a mum, Jill plays guitar, takes singing lessons and is learning to play the drum kit she has set up in the garage. One day she might even sing in a band again . . .
Also by Jill Marshall
jane blonde spies trouble
jane blonde, twice the spylet
jane blonde, spylet on ice
Look out for
jane blonde, goldenspy
JILL MARSHALL
MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS
First published 2006 by Macmillan Children’s Books
This electronic edition published 2008 by Macmillan Children’s Books
a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
20 New Wharf Rd, London N1 9RR
Basingstoke and Oxford
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-47238-8 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-47237-1 in Adobe Digital Editions format
ISBN 978-0-330-47240-1 in Microsoft Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-47239-5 in Mobipocket format
Copyright © Jill Marhsall 2006
The right of Jill Marshall to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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love, thanks and g-mamma raps to glenys bean and rachel denwood for their support, enthusiasm and scary amounts of expertise; to kelly mckain, jayne sambrook smith, kathy white and my mum and dad for talking me down off the ceiling whenever necessary; and to family and friends on both sides of the globe for having faith and lending me money.
for katie, my own blonde-girl,
with all love, always
contents
1 a spectacularly bad day
2 not-so-fairy godmother
3 bikes and bashed knees
4 mad clambers
5 g-mamma tells all
6 binned
7 becoming blonde
8 fleet-feet defeat
9 the slippery slope
10 satispying
11 lost in a lolly
12 three horrid heads
13 tea and sympathy
14 truth hurts
15 the other uncle
16 an unexpected invitation
17 showtime
18 real-ization
19 tutu terrors
20 ice-capades
21 real earls
22 spi surprises
23 frozen with fear
24 revelations
25 the other brother
26 the ruler
27 brilliance
‘It really is a mouse,’ said the man to the kitten.
The little cat sniffed suspiciously. Afraid, the mouse sprang away like a jack-in-the-box, as the cat arched his tawny back and hissed.
The man laughed, then let out a long sigh. ‘I think it’s time now, little kitty. We have to go away. I’ve started something that, well, someone else has to finish.’
As he gathered up the mouse and popped it back into its cage, the cat watched him warily.
‘You’ve every right to look nervous, my friend. Part of me hoped this moment would never arrive. But it’s here. And I have no choice. Let’s go . . .’
a spectacularly bad day
‘Oh no! How could my trainers have melted?’
Just hours earlier, when Janey Brown had hung up her PE bag in the cloakroom, there had been a pair of sturdy little black running shoes nestled in the cotton sack like a couple of plump baby blackbirds. Now her bag contained two flat discs of rubber with tatty bits of cloth flapping around on the top. Her trainers had actually melted.
‘Why me?’ Janey moaned. ‘Why is it always me these days?’
She pressed a finger on to her tear duct to stop herself crying, but a small droplet still managed to squeeze out on to her nose. It always did. Anyway, today Janey felt she had the right to cry, just a bit. Her spectacularly bad day had started almost as soon as she left home that morning, when the postman tried to stop her taking her own letter.
‘But it’s addressed to me!’ Janey had pointed at the scribbled name on the large white envelope.
‘Well, I suppose,’ the postman replied unhelpfully.
She couldn’t see much of his face; his peaked cap was pulled down tight against his nose. For a moment, though, his mouth opened and closed in confusion. In fact, thought Janey, he looked a bit like a nervous goldfish. Dark rings of sweat edged from his grey armpits towards his maroon collar.
Must be his first day, she thought. Janey knew all about first days. She had started at a new school only a couple of weeks ago and it had been pretty scary.
Suddenly the postman grinned and pointed at the postmark. ‘Not paid enough for it, have they, whoever sent it? Look, it’s only got two stamps and it should have, errrr, four. I’d better take it back to the office.’
Janey looked at the envelope. It did have only two stamps, but someone had scrawled between them the number four and then two quarter signs. Janey, however, barely glanced at that as she recognized the smiley face of her uncle Solomon beaming at her from the postmark. Her uncle owned the ice-lolly manufacturer Sol’s Lols, and a drawing of his round face was the company’s logo. Even though Janey had never actually met him, her uncle Solomon did sometimes send her presents. And here was a letter from him!
‘Look,’ she said, trying to tug the envelope out of the postman’s grip, ‘those numbers must mean I owe you another four and a half pence. I haven’t got a five-pence piece, but I can give you ten.’
‘Haven’t got any change,’ smirked the postman, pulling harder.
‘You can keep the extra money!’
Janey gave the letter one last pull and at last it slipped from the postman’s grasp. She’d been pulling with such force that her fist flew backwards and she smacked herself in the face. Her eyes smarted painfully and tears spurted down her nose. The postman looked doubtfully, first at Janey and then at the letter, then abruptly scurried off, pulling out his mobile phone.
‘Hey!’ called Janey. ‘Please don’t report me to the post office. I wanted to pay you the extra money, honestly!’
It was too late. He had already disappeared round the corner.
Janey stuffed the letter into her bag. There was no time to read it now – she was already in danger of missing the school bell. Which would mean more bad luck. Janey just couldn’t believe how much of it she’d had since moving house and starting at the new school. She’d never been unpopular at her last school. In fact she’d had quite a few friends – even though she was pretty shy – but here no one wanted to get to know her. Everyone seemed confident and clever and happy with the people they had already paired up with.
Maybe if she hadn’t started one term into the year she’d have had a better chance. But no. None of the other kids was interested in Janey, and she was beginning to feel she might as well have ‘Boringly normal and normally boring’ stamped across her forehead.
And someone obviously agreed with her. They’d even said so, though not to her face. After only a few days at Winton School, little notes in distinctive rounded handwriting had started to appear in her bag, or on her chair, or even pinned to the back of her jumper.
POOR OLD JANEY – BROWN BY NAME
AND BROWN BY NATURE.
IF JANEY BROWN WAS ANY MORE BORING
SHE’D BE INVISIBLE.
JANEY BROWN WILL NOT BE IN SCHOOL TODAY.
THE UGLY-POLICE HAVE HER LOCKED UP FOR
THE SAKE OF THE REST OF US.
Janey had no idea who was writing the notes, or why. She only knew that they were making her hate the idea of getting up in the morning. And they didn’t exactly help her cause with the other kids. The notes were so embarrassing, like Janey’s very worst nightmare, the one she had when she was feeling really anxious. It was pretty much a nightly event at the moment – she opens her eyes, it’s dark, and then suddenly a spotlight falls on her and she’s standing on the school stage, alone, singing the national anthem, but she’s in fancy dress, and not just any old fancy dress but the fairy outfit she wore when she was five years old, and as her eyes adjust she can see that everyone is sniggering at the straining seams of the pink tutu, at her voice which sounds like a cat in yowling, terrible pain . . .
Janey reached the school, bile rising in her throat. It was tempting to continue past the wrought-iron gates and not go in at all. With a sigh, she hoisted her bag on to her shoulder and stepped across the threshold into the school grounds, just as a small body cannoned straight into her, sending her flailing on to the floor.
‘Watch out, idiot!’ The small boy in slightly too-short grey trousers glared at her indignantly.
‘It wasn’t . . . I didn’t . . . sorry!’
‘You should watch where you’re going, dreamy,’ said the boy gruffly, shoving one of Janey’s books back into her bag for her.
Janey felt terrible, even though she was fairly sure that it hadn’t been her fault. ‘I know. I was in a bit of a dream. Well, more of a nightmare really. Hope I didn’t hurt you. Look, you don’t need to do that.’ She grabbed her belongings together hurriedly. ‘Better go. Don’t want to be late as well as . . . everything else.’
‘Yeah, whatever.’
Hands in pockets, the boy turned away from the school gates and wandered down the street, trying to look very grown up with his shoulders back and his feet stepping away in a steady saunter. Janey couldn’t help smiling at the little boy, trying to act like a big man and not quite getting it right. Feeling slightly more cheery, she took a deep breath and walked into school.
There were no nasty notes that day but still Janey didn’t have a single conversation with anyone. No chats about what she’d done last night (mostly some puzzles in one of her beloved books of dingbats). No worrying together about homework. No offers to swap her disgusting ketchup sandwiches for something less, well, disgusting. But at least it was peaceful.
Until that last lesson of the day, when Janey reached into her PE bag and discovered that the Someone-Who-Had-It-In-For-Her had got there first.
She pulled the liquefied trainers out of her bag and peered underneath. Nothing had escaped her enemy’s attention. Janey’s navy shorts looked like they had been put through a shredding machine and now lined the bag like hamster-bedding. Her regulation white aertex top had been wodged into a sticky ball with what appeared to be treacle.
Her whole PE bag was a disaster area.
A bit like Janey Brown’s entire life.
not-so-fairy godmother
‘Brown! Are you in here?’
Janey winced. It was Alfie Halliday, Class Superstar. Most of the other kids made Janey nervous, but Alfie was so horribly capable that he made her feel even more of a klutz than ever.
He strode into the changing rooms towards her.
‘So you are here. Why didn’t you answer me? Miss Rale wants you out on the field right now, or you are in real trouble. Even more than usual,’ he added.
‘But I can’t!’ Janey gulped. ‘Someone’s melted my PE kit!’
Alfie’s eyebrows shot up as he stared at Janey. ‘What? Try giving that excuse to the teacher – I’m sure it’ll go down brilliantly. Not.’
It’s all right for you, Mr Popular! thought Janey poisonously as she slunk after him. Alfie was clever and sporty, with brown eyes and thick hair that gleamed like a conker, quite the opposite of Janey’s thin, rat-coloured locks. On top of all that, he was the headmistress’s son and therefore Untouchable.
Janey shuffled towards Miss Rale. Her new teacher looked at her kindly.
‘What’s up, Janey?’ she asked, wrinkling her nose. Janey thought how young and kind her teacher looked in her PE skirt, with a whistle on a string around her neck. She was new to the school too, and seemed to be the only person with any interest in Janey.
‘Someone’s melt . . . er, I can’t find . . . I mean, I’ve brought the wrong bag with me and I haven’t got my PE kit. I’m really sorry.’
Miss Rale sighed gently. ‘OK, Janey, don’t worry. Look, it’s nearly home time. If you sit on the bench near the gates I can keep an eye on you, and you can be first out at the end of the day.’
‘Oh! Thanks, miss.’
With a sigh Janey fetched her PE bag from the cloakroom. She almost cried again as she folded herself on to the hard bench at the gate. She felt ashamed: ashamed that she couldn’t do anything about the horrid notes; ashamed that she was so boring and unattractive that she hadn’t made a single friend in over a fortnight; and ashamed most of all because right at that moment, more than anything else in the world, she really, really wanted her mum.
‘Pity your mother’s not here right now, isn’t it?’
Someone had taken the words right out of Janey’s head. Swivelling round, her eyes fell upon a woman standing on the other side of the railings. With a grin as wide as Janey’s whole head, she looked like a cross between a hugely friendly auntie and a completely scary maniac.
‘Wh-what did you say?’ asked Janey, taking in the enormous wobbling body squeezed into a stretchy pink miniskirt, clinging leopard-print top, tied-up headscarf and long black wellies. Mottled flesh frothed around the woman’s knees like a milkshake, and a heavily made-up face beamed out from beneath an explosion of bubbly fair hair.
The woman waggled her ringed fingers at Janey, booming away in her loud, twangy voice. ‘I was just thinking, what a shame it is that your mother’s not here right now. She’d know how to deal with all of this, wouldn’t she?’
Janey thought about it. It was true: her mum was very ordinary, but she did always know how to make Janey feel better.
‘Erm, yes, I suppose so. Mum would be able to help.’
‘Thought so!’ replied the woman brightly, pulling a fluffy brown scarf from her bag and swirling it around her neck. The scarf had dangly strips hanging off it at intervals and a little face attached to the end of it like an old-fashioned fox fur. It looked uncomfortably lifelike, as if at any moment one eye would open and stare malevolently at passers-by, and especially at Janey. ‘I knew it. Always top of the class, your mother, Janey. Quite the star.’
‘You . . . you know her? And me?’
The woman stared at Janey very hard for a moment, a curious expression on her face.
‘Indeed I do, Janey. Hot diggety dog, I do! I know you’re zany Janey because I’m . . . well, I’m your godmother.’
Mouth wide open, Janey mentally rattled through the sorry straggle of relatives that had turned up over the years. There was Uncle James, who worked ‘in the City’. Janey had met him only a few times. And then there was Uncle Solomon, the brother of her dead father, who sent fabulous gifts and letters on odd occasions but whom
Janey had never ever seen. Nobody had mentioned a godmother of any kind, particularly one who looked like a crazy bag lady.
‘Never heard of me, have you, babes? Not heard of your lovely groovy godmother?’
Dubiously, Janey shook her head. The woman shrugged her bag up on to her shoulder and peered seriously left and right along the street.
‘OK. But you’ve heard of Solomon’s Polificational Investigations.’
‘Er, no. No, I haven’t. I’ve got an uncle called Solomon, but he makes ice lollies. Not . . . polly-wolly wotsits.’
The woman shook her head with irritation, jowls wobbling like a bloodhound’s.
‘Well, I’ve got to say, girly-girl, that it’s a shifty old shame you understand so little. Because it’s going to make the next bit a who-o-o-le lot more difficult to explain. You see, I was just coming to find out what Solomon had to say to you when he got in touch. But there’s been a bit of a hiccup. I’ve now been directed to let you know that right now your dear mother’s in a bit of a pickle. In fact, it’s bigger than a pickle. More like a great green gherkin. Yes indeedy. So you’re going to have to rescue her. You have to come with me, zippety split. R-r-r-r-right now.’
Janey almost fell to the ground, so eager was she to get off the bench and run back to Miss Rale. This woman was clearly nuts. ‘I can’t! I’m not allowed! We’ve had lessons about stranger danger and . . . and all that!’
‘Sweety, I am not a stranger! I’ve told you! I’ve been sent by your dear uncle’s organization, Solomon’s Polificational Investigations. Call it SPI, saves time. And I’m your godmother! Although, being the young groovster that I am, I’ve come up with something a little less boring. Call me . . . G-Mamma.’
‘G-Mamma?’
‘Yeah, G-Mamma. You know, like, jiving, hip-hopping street-talk.’
‘Er. Sorry. I don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘Rapping! You know, like:
Jane Blonde: Sensational Spylet Page 1
