Jane Blonde: Sensational Spylet

by Jill Marshall

  Janey’s heart lurched again. So her father wasn’t alive. She desperately wanted to know more, but there was no time now. The Ultra-gogs beeped, telling them they had reached Allerton. Unfortunately the sound went off right in the horse’s ear; it reared up and pranced madly, throwing both Janey and her uncle to the ground. They landed with a crash in a hedgerow.

  ‘Uncle Sol, are you all right?’ shouted Janey.

  A voice boomed out of the darkness above them. ‘Could you make a bit more noise, Brown? I’m not sure the Sinerlesse Group has quite pinpointed where you are.’

  Alfie Halliday towered over Janey, extending a hand to help her up. Glancing nervously at Uncle Solomon, she took his brief nod as approval and allowed herself to be dragged to her feet.

  ‘Told you to be careful who you made friends with,’ he said with a huge grin.

  ‘I . . . you . . .’ Janey was staggered. Ariel’s earlier comment about Alfie was beginning to make sense. ‘I think I know what you were hiding under your stairs. It’s a SPI-lab, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, you did see that?’ Alfie looked amused. ‘Better SPI than I thought, then.’

  ‘Don’t be a pest, Al. She’s been through quite enough this evening without you provoking her as well.’ Stunned, Janey watched as Mrs Halliday appeared behind him.

  She turned to Janey’s uncle. ‘Well, Mr Brown, I’m glad you’re not a swan any more. You were very slippery to handle at that ball. Alfie nearly dropped you!’

  ‘Maisie.’ Hugging her warmly, Uncle Solomon laughed. ‘Thanks for waiting. And thank heavens Rosie told you what was happening, once she’d discovered who you are.’

  Mrs Halliday grinned, showing her jagged teeth. ‘Well, she was very surprised to see me out of retirement, and it’s all been a bit rushed. I’ve told her you alerted us as you went into hiding, but that was all. We didn’t even have enough time to jump in the Wower – we just had to grab what we could! But Rosie managed to let me know the essentials, once Janey SPIVed across the information about the ball and St Earl’s.’

  ‘We can’t have much time,’ said Alfie. ‘Let’s get going.’

  Janey watched with amazement as Alfie and his mother pulled a large square suitcase out from under a pile of leaves. Opening it up, Alfie took four wheels out of the case and attached two to one side, while his mother did the same at the other side. He then reached forward and pulled something, and a steering wheel sprang into place, bristling with instruments and camera gadgetry. At the same time, four inflatable seats unfolded themselves drunkenly, and within seconds Alfie stood back to usher them into the four-seater go-kart he had just created.

  ‘Where to?’ asked Alfie as his mother lowered her tall frame into the bucket seat next to him.

  Hesitating for a moment, Solomon weighed up a few options. ‘Let’s head for the lab near Winchester. I can refreeze there before they find me again.’

  Alfie nodded. ‘Shake a leg, Blonde,’ he said, pointing towards the back of the little car.

  She took the seat next to her uncle and they set off with a huge jolt. Janey clutched at her throat in alarm. ‘Oh no! I’ve lost my SPIV!’ she said. ‘I must have dropped it somewhere. How am I going to get in touch with G-Mamma?’

  ‘Chill out, Blonde,’ said Alfie. ‘We can protect you.’

  ‘And why would you do that? I thought you hated me,’ snapped Janey.

  ‘Nah, you’re all right. I was just trying to toughen you up,’ said Alfie.

  As they continued to career around trees and skitter through streams and brooks, Janey turned to her uncle. ‘Alfie’s a Spylet too, isn’t he? So both his parents were SPIs?’

  ‘Of course – he’s Al Halo!’ said Uncle Solomon. ‘Maisie was one of your mother’s colleagues. SPI-name: Halo. We wondered whether your mother would remember her when you went round for tea. It was a bit of a test. I’m glad to say she didn’t.’

  ‘And Alfie’s father?’

  ‘Yes, he was a SPI too. But his work has taken him away from his family . . .’

  Just like me, thought Janey. No wonder Alfie had been so snappy when Janey had asked about the postcards.

  ‘You can trust them, Janey,’ continued Solomon. ‘Maisie is the only other person who knows my secret. I have trusted her completely since the beginning. And she’s done a lot for you already – she even made you a makeshift escape kit when she found out the Sinerlesse Group had your mother on the roof.’

  ‘My PE bag!’ Janey shouted.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Janey,’ said Mrs Halliday earnestly. ‘I had no idea Miss Rale was a fake, although we thought there was something funny about Freddie from quite early on.’

  ‘I did, you mean!’ said Alfie. ‘Weirdo. Something not quite right about that boy.’

  ‘He’s not a boy . . . he’s a girl!’ said Janey. ‘A girl called Freda. But she prefers to go by another name: Ariel. Little Freddie Lear is actually the leader of the Sinerlesse!’

  ‘No!’ said Alfie and his mother in unison, before bursting into a heated spat about who had suspected what and why.

  Janey’s uncle grinned. ‘They’ll look after you, if you don’t end up looking after them! Now, it looks like we’ve arrived.’

  Ahead of them stood the enormous gates of a wildlife park. Huge models of wild animals lined the narrow country road. Alfie pressed a button on the steering wheel and a laser beam shot out, making contact with a tiny red dot at the base of the wrought-iron gates. Noiselessly the gates slid apart to let the go-kart zip through.

  Janey could hear the howls of animals calling, and her scalp prickled under her ponytail. Alfie guided the go-kart expertly along the paths of the park, but her intuition told Janey where they were heading.

  ‘We’re going to the Amphibian House, aren’t we, Uncle Sol?’

  His eyes sparking with admiration through the darkness, Uncle Solomon nodded. ‘Despite what G-Mamma may have told you, sometimes the most obvious place is the one the enemy least expects. And where else would you find North American wood frogs? Well done, Blonde. You’re doing well.’

  Inside, Janey was beaming with pride, but she tried to look as though she was in the least overawed as Alfie rocketed around a corner on two wheels and pulled up in front of a large, low building with a screeching handbrake turn.

  ‘Pest!’ said Mrs Halliday disapprovingly as she struggled, wind-swept, from the go-kart.

  Janey stood up and helped her uncle, who had been leaning on her more and more heavily as the journey progressed. In single file, the four SPIs approached the door of the Amphibian House.

  Reaching up to a picture of an Australian tree frog, Solomon pressed one of its red eyeballs and the door appeared to evaporate before them. ‘SPI-door. Only SPIs know how to get in – or out. You’re one of us now, Janey.’

  As they stepped further inside, the tropical heat of the house engulfed them.

  ‘How could anything freeze in here?’ Janey asked.

  Beckoning to them to follow, Uncle Solomon walked over to a cylindrical glass display case in the centre of the Amphibian House. It was filled with North American wood frogs, alive but lethargic in the sweltering heat. The glass slid apart before them to create an opening.

  ‘Do we have to get in with them?’ As much as she had endured lately, Janey didn’t fancy climbing into a glass cylinder with a bunch of slimy frogs.

  Alfie snorted. ‘Yep! In you go, Blonde!’ he said, and with a firm hand he shoved her inside.

  Once she was inside the cylinder Janey realized that the frogs were simply holographic images, projected on to the glass. The tube was empty – Janey had stepped on to a cushion of air and was suspended inside the glass tube like something in a specimen jar. After a long hovering moment, there was an enormous sucking sound and she shot down the cylinder into what seemed like the depths of the earth.

  She tumbled out when she reached the bottom, followed almost immediately by Alfie, Mrs Halliday and her uncle. They were in an enormous white SPI-lab, identical
in style to G-Mamma’s but about twenty times as big. There were cupboards around the outside and a Wower in one corner. Laboratory benches straddled the middle of the room, and in another corner was an enormous bow-fronted freezer.

  And there, sitting in front of the freezer on a tall stool, looking for all the world as though she was about to entertain them with a song, was Ariel. Instead of a microphone, however, she held a small bronze pistol. And it was pointing directly at Janey.

  frozen with fear

  ‘Took your time, didn’t you? No Satispy to whizz you over here, huh?’ snarled Ariel.

  The colour drained from Janey’s face. ‘But how did you know? How did you . . .’

  Ariel lifted up her other hand. From her fingers dangled a horrible chunky necklace which Janey recognized immediately as her lost SPIV. She cringed as she heard G-Mamma’s breathless voice.

  ‘Blonde-girl, I’m getting there as fast as I can. You should be at the Wildlife Park by now – is he there? Have you found your uncle? Talk to me, honey-child!’

  Ariel grinned evilly. ‘I think you’ve done all the talking you’re going to do for quite a while. G-Mamma! What a fool! Your G-Mamma told me everything – and she doesn’t even know it! Now into the freezer!’ she barked. ‘All of you. Into the freezer!’

  Just before she slammed the huge door shut, Ariel cocked her head to one side. For a moment she looked like a sweet little girl. ‘Now don’t forget: as soon as you decide to tell me where Boz Brown’s frozen body is, I’ll let you out. Or at least I’ll think about letting you out. And in the meantime, I’m just going to turn this freezer up to HIGH. Help you think things through. You know how much I like to be helpful, don’t you, Janey? Shout out when you’re ready. Bye!’

  ‘I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!’ Janey turned helplessly to the three people captured with her. ‘I lost the SPIV and it was still activated. I led her to you!’

  ‘No, you didn’t, Janey,’ said Solomon carefully. ‘And your godmother was only trying to help. She was looking after you, as she is meant to.’

  As Maisie Halliday looked on, tapping her razor teeth thoughtfully, Alfie was working his way around the walls of the freezer. The whiteness of the walls was dazzling and Janey was glad that her Ultra-gogs had instantly darkened to provide some screen from the glare.

  ‘Temperature,’ she said. The Ultra-gogs screen flashed two degree Celsius. Then it flickered and changed to one degree. Zero. It was falling fast.

  ‘There’s no way out of here,’ said Alfie, not sounding in the least perturbed. ‘It’s completely sealed, apart from that tiny hole in the door which appears to be the lock.’

  ‘How can you sound so cheerful about it?’ Janey felt like throwing herself at the walls, ranting and wailing like a mad girl in a padded cell.

  ‘Well, you know, look who we’re with!’ Alfie pointed to Uncle Solomon, who had slid down the wall and was sitting with his head in his hands. ‘If you’re going to be frozen with someone, then who better than Solomon Brown? We can be frozen, then shaped into something that can get through the lock or whatever, can’t we, Solomon?’

  Janey caught the harrowed look that passed between her uncle and Mrs Halliday before he turned to Alfie and Janey with pained eyes. ‘Unfortunately, Al, all the shaping equipment is on the other side of the door.’

  Janey groaned. ‘She thinks if she threatens to freeze all of us, Uncle Sol will tell her where my father is.’

  Her uncle nodded. ‘But that’s not possible, because there is no Boz to find.’

  ‘The temperature’s falling too fast, Uncle Sol. We’re down at minus fifteen degrees already.’

  ‘We’ll die of hypothermia. So much for my ground-breaking discoveries! They won’t help us when we’re freezing at this rate. This is nothing like the other times we’ve frozen, M-Maisie.’

  Mrs Halliday shuddered. ‘No. Just l-lost some b-b-bits of my teeth that time.’

  ‘M-my guinea p-p-pig,’ stammered Solomon. ‘Bravest of SP-SPIs. And she’s kept my secret all this time.’ Janey stared in amazement at Mrs Halliday, who smiled back weakly. She was obviously losing strength by the minute.

  Janey could feel her own system slowly closing down too. Her body and right hand, protected by the SPI-suit and Ariel’s Girl-gauntlet, were managing to stay quite warm, but her face and left hand were rigid with cold. Her ears were stinging and burning as icy air bit into them, and already her lips felt as though they might seal together. Alfie was faring the best, but even he was starting to slap his arms with slower and slower movements, his head lolling forward as cold air filled his lungs. Mrs Halliday was trying to take off her coat and pass it to Alfie, but was shivering so violently that she couldn’t get her arms out of the sleeves, while Solomon remained slumped on the floor, trying to resist as little as possible to conserve his energy.

  ‘M-minus twenty. Twenty-three. Twenty-f-f-five.’ An aching coldness now churned in the pit of her stomach. ‘Keep moving! Must . . . keep moving!’

  ‘Janey, if . . .’ Uncle Solomon’s voice was barely a whisper. ‘The files . . . I told you before . . . must be destroyed, if I d-d-don’t survive.’

  ‘Don’t s-s-say things like that! We will g-get out!’ stammered Janey.

  ‘S-save your strength, Janey.’ Mrs Halliday nodded over to her son, tears freezing instantly on her lashes. ‘You and Alfie might make it.’

  Tears burned behind Janey’s nose. It was hopeless. The only way out was through the locked door. And the key was on the other side, in Ariel’s hand. Yet, even though her mind felt caged by icicles, Janey refused to give up. And suddenly she remembered something.

  Shaking violently, she made her way over to the door. It was coated with a thin layer of ice. By feeling around with her Girl-gauntleted hand, she located the tiny lock. It was minuscule, barely big enough for a key any larger than a darning needle.

  ‘Wh-what are you d-d-d-doing?’ asked Alfie.

  ‘Un-l-locking the door.’ Janey hoped she’d managed to sound confident enough to give her friends and her uncle some hope.

  Breathing heavily, Janey reached across with her numb left hand and removed the Girl-gauntlet. Then slowly, aware they might shatter with cold if she dropped them, Janey reached up to her solid ponytail and drew out the keys to her suitcase and to the en-suite bathroom at Uncle James’s. The door key was much too big. But the other was tiny, though not tiny enough.

  Janey laid the Girl-gauntlet on the icy floor and gently placed the little key on top. Then, using the bigger key as a chisel to grind the edges of the smaller one, Janey forced her rigid hands to chip away. One wrong move might snap the brittle metal completely. No matter how much Janey wanted to rush, she had to force herself to be slow, take her time.

  ‘Focus, Janey!’ she told herself.

  It seemed to take forever, and while she worked Janey could hear her fellow SPIs’ breathing growing irregular, more laboured. Finally she held up the suitcase key. It gleamed like a shard of glass in the harsh refrigerator glare.

  ‘Tiny,’ said Janey. Now it just might fit.

  Rising stiffly to her feet, Janey pressed one Ultragogged eye to the lock, trying to make out the shape of the grooves within. She made a couple of tiny adjustments with the laser in the Girl-gauntlet, and took a deep breath.

  Her uncle lifted his head just enough to see what she was doing.

  ‘Let me!’ he mouthed. ‘If it works, she m-might shoot straight away.’

  But Janey shook her head. He was close to death. The others were not much better. The only one with enough strength to face the enemy was Jane Blonde.

  Shivering, she put the key into the lock and turned.

  revelations

  As the key turned the lock mechanism, there was a tiny noise like a mouse gnashing its teeth. Janey slid silently to the floor so that she lay outstretched. Then, reaching out both her hands, she made contact with the door and shoved.

  The door creaked open. With a cry of astonishment and rage Ariel reali
zed what was happening, but she was too late. Janey gave another firm push and there was a clunk as the heavy door ploughed into Ariel’s stool, sending her clattering across the laboratory. Grabbing the stool from where it had fallen, Janey wedged the freezer door open and flung herself across the open space. She managed to roll behind the laboratory bench just as Ariel recovered herself and let loose with her pistol. A shot whistled past Janey’s ear; she looked around desperately as Ariel got to her feet.

  The shrill little voice echoed around the laboratory. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Brown. I’m not wasting any more bullets on you. I’ll save these for your uncle.’

  Janey poked her head around the bench and saw Ariel brush herself down, then make her way deliberately towards the freezer door. What should she do? Leaping to her feet, she stepped out from behind the bench.

  ‘Why my uncle? It’s me you should be after!’ Amazed at how strong her own voice sounded, Janey took another step forward. Ariel spun round and pointed the pistol directly at her. She was no more than ten metres away, as terrifying and vicious as a cornered mink.

  ‘I just said it’s Solomon I want, not you. You were only ever a way to entice him out of hiding,’ said Ariel.

  Janey shook her head. ‘No. You want Boz. You think he’s been frozen, preserved somewhere cryogenically until Sol works out how to thaw him out. And you want to make sure Boz is dead, like your parents. You think you’ve discovered Sol’s great secret. But –’ and she tried a scornful laugh – ‘do you really think it would be something as old hat as cryogenics? I mean, everyone knows about cryogenics. You must be as dumb as you look, Goldilocks. That’s not what my uncle’s secret is. It’s much, much bigger than that.’

  ‘No, Janey!’ Solomon cried from within the freezer. Ariel swivelled towards the freezer door and then back to Janey, two hands on the pistol now. She steadied it and took aim.