Jane Blonde: Spy in the Sky

by Jill Marshall

  As the song and the film clip finished, Janey finally remembered to close her mouth. ‘G-Mamma,’ she whispered, ‘you’re . . . good.’

  ‘I know!’ The SPI:KE packed the DVD back into its case. ‘Always told you I was, didn’t I? And what’s more, I’ve come up with some rather amazing discoveries recently, what with my Bladder, and the Cat’s Eye Collar, and of course –’ she reached over her shoulder to pull something out of a cylinder strapped to her back – ‘my wonderful SParrows.’

  Janey stared at the narrow pointed strip of wood in G-Mamma’s hand. ‘That’s not a SParrow.’

  ‘Well, I think I know what I invented, Blondette,’ said G-Mamma with a toss of her head. Her green leggings and hooded tunic shimmered from her head to her feet and she was wearing a great cowl hood, and green pointed slippers on her feet. ‘These are SParrows – SPI arrows, like I said – and here is my bow, and I . . .’ and she gave a little twirl, ‘. . . am the new super-SPI, Robin Hoodie.’

  Janey shook her head again. ‘But that’s not right.’

  ‘It so is,’ said G-Mamma with her hand on her hip. ‘I’m Robin Hoodie, good good goody, save the poor from all things cruddy. See?’

  ‘No, I mean those aren’t SParrows, are they? I thought the SParrows were the toothy birds that were chasing you and Trouble past Seacrest and Argents. If you didn’t create them, who did?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’re something to do with Trouble, I think. They only appeared after he started bringing half-dead birds into my Spylab. In fact, he’s been having a very birdy time recently, what with chasing that turkey into Solfari Lands . . .’

  As Janey listened to her SPI:KE witter on, a few things began to fall into place. ‘These prehistoric birds that have been hanging around – maybe they’re not from the past. Maybe they’ve been created from normal birds.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Bert, staring at the SPI:KE. ‘Now you mention it, Blonde, this ptera here is a bit like a hulking big cassowary without feathers. That’s an Aussie bird, prehistoric-looking,’ he explained to Janey.

  ‘What was it Tish said about those vampire birds?’ Janey whipped the PERSPIRE off her head and typed in what she could remember the red-headed Spylet saying. ‘Iber . . . Ibero . . . there! Iberomesornis.’

  And the world around her tilted on its axis. She checked ‘velociraptor’ again. ‘Predecessor of modern birds’, she read. Maybe . . . Maybe big birds, like turkeys. Janey grabbed hold of the pterodactyl-cage bars to hold herself upright. ‘I’ve got it! It’s Dad! He must have invented a new process. Like Rapid Evolution – the thing that evolved Jamie from a monkey to a boy – only . . .’ she gulped, ‘only this is the opposite. It DE-volves creatures, into what they would have been in the past.’

  And now she knew for definite – it wasn’t a gorilla she had seen. The eyes had been too intelligent; the creature still had a small capacity to speak. Not R-Evolution. Devolution.

  ‘He was a caveman,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Dad tried it on himself. He devolved himself into a . . . what do you call it – a prehistoric person?’

  ‘Neanderthal,’ said Bert.

  It was all too much to take in. Janey slumped to the floor, staring at the ptera. It gazed back at her balefully, then nudged Bert through the bars for another rabbit. ‘It’s too weird. All this happening in our Spylabs.’ The very same Spylabs that her father had wanted destroyed. It wasn’t because there was an enemy after them. It was because this process was too dangerous. He wanted it to disappear.

  Rather like he had himself. But why would he want to destroy his own labs? And why would James want them obliterated too? Was he to blame? As the thought ran through her head, Janey’s jaw dropped.

  ‘What?’ cried G-Mamma. ‘Talk to me, Blonde.’

  ‘There’s . . . There’s another Spylab,’ gasped Janey. ‘It’s still opening hours, so you haven’t destroyed it yet.’

  She leaped to her feet. ‘Jamie!’ she yelled into her SPIV. ‘Sable, leave Belle. Meet me at the gate!’

  As they raced through the dark streets of Winton, Janey SPIVed Alfie. ‘Seacrest and Argents,’ she panted.

  ‘Now?’ Alfie’s outraged face bumped around in front of her. ‘I am not buying uniform at eight o’clock at night. The footy’s on in ten minutes.’

  ‘Not uniform – Spylab!’ Janey seized James’s hand and steered him around a tight corner on to the high street.

  There was a stunned silence and then, ‘Be there in five. Shall I bring Mum?’

  ‘And mine,’ said Janey. There were a few goodbyes to be said, and what was left of her family needed to be there.

  Janey grabbed James’s hand to speed him up. ‘It’s you, isn’t it? The someone who’s after something in the Spylabs.’

  James took in a deep breath, then nodded, ducking away from Janey, fearful that she’d be angry.

  ‘I knew I recognized those feet – in what I thought was my “dream”, and in the video from Sol’s Lols security. You’ve been going to Spylabs to find a machine. And Dad’s been trying to stop you.’

  They reached the glass doors to the department store, so Janey skidded to a halt and pulled her brother around in front of her. ‘Just tell me if it’s true,’ she said gently, panting.

  James paused, and then nodded again.

  Janey threw her arms around him. ‘It’s OK. Everything will be OK.’

  They turned to face the Seacrest and Argents doors and pushed. Nothing. Janey had only been there once before as a SPI, and G-Mamma had handled it all. She’d had some kind of swipe card to get through the doors. Janey didn’t have one, so she ran around the side of the building to the window near the shoes.

  ‘Biff it,’ she said to James. He stared with surprise at his Boy-battler, then covered his eyes and smashed straight through the window.

  ‘Good boy.’ He was a good boy. And a great brother. Janey smiled at him as they bounced through the hole in the glass, then crouched down below the rails of Work Skirts for Women. ‘Now I don’t know where the lab is,’ she said, ‘but I’m guessing it’s in the basement.

  Hard as they looked, however, there was no sign of an entry tube like the ones they’d used in the other labs. Janey became more and more frustrated, shoving rails of clothes out of the way, pulling food off the shelves, even checking under the tills that all lay open like mouths with the tongue sticking out. ‘It’s just a shop,’ she said bitterly.

  James shrugged. He couldn’t find anything either.

  ‘But I’m sure it’s here.’ She sighed. ‘Let’s try the lift.’

  Checking her watch, she pressed the button to call the lift up from the basement. Alfie should be here any moment, and so would her mum. ‘Hurry up,’ she said to the lift doors, willing them to open more quickly. They were enormous concertina doors like those in a warehouse. Not a very subtle way to get in and out of a Spylab. What if she was wrong?

  But then the doors finally opened, and Janey discovered that her spy instincts had been absolutely spot on. ‘Aah – mind out!’ She pushed Jamie behind her and tried to work out what to do as three tiny, vicious birds shot through the doors, followed by eleven or twelve more as the concertinas folded back, revealing not one, but three velociraptors and what appeared to be . . . ‘a mammoth?’ whispered Janey.

  James had frozen behind her. The prehistoric sparrows were buzzing and snapping at their heads like a swarm of enormous mosquitoes, and as Janey tried to fend them off, one of them tore through the skin on the back of her un-Gauntleted left hand, and she cried out. The velociraptors, each of which had been taking its time to leave the relative safety of the lift, turned their fanged heads towards the Spylets and bobbed through the doors. They were only metres away. The mammoth blundered past them, head down, clothes and sensible shoes scattering around it, various coloured blouses speared on its enormous tusks.

  ‘Argh!’ Another iberomesornis had attacked, and one of its partners made for James, aiming straight for his eyes. Janey flicked open her tit
anium blade and jabbed upwards. ‘See how you like it!’ she yelled.

  Mistake. Now the velociraptors had them well within their sights. James seemed completely incapable of moving, and for a second Janey was reminded how he was never intended for a spy life. Or even for a human life. Though quite who would be OK with fighting off velociraptors in their local department store, she couldn’t really say.

  The nearest one was baring its vicious teeth just centimetres from her nose. Janey grabbed Jamie’s right hand, dragged it through the crook of her arm and used it to smack the creature under the chin with his Boy-battler. The brick-weight glove sent the monster soaring across menswear; hangers and shelves crashed to the floor, trapping the first velociraptor underneath, its slashing claws flailing helplessly.

  ‘One down,’ said Janey. ‘Oh no.’

  As she turned to speak to James she noticed the mammoth rolling its head from side to side in a rather threatening fashion. Its mean little eyes were fixed on her ponytail – it looked as though it intended to spear it with its tusk. Janey didn’t know a lot about mammoths (although she did suddenly understand why the elephants at the zoo had been so quiet – they weren’t actually there any more). She was fairly sure, however, that getting caught beneath a running mammoth would not be pleasant. She spun round. The other two velociraptors had tired of nosing through the frozen chickens and were heading back in their direction. Mammoth behind, velociraptors in front – it wasn’t much of a choice.

  ‘Up!’ yelled Janey as the mammoth trumpeted deafeningly and then charged. James Fleet-footed on to her shoulders. The nearest velociraptor had hold of her Girl-gauntlet. Squeezing her finger, she injected a heat-seeking missile straight down the creature’s gullet, then she took a firm hold of Jamie’s knees and bounced on to the balls of her toes. Thwump! Her Fleet-feet detonated and the two of them shot upwards like a human totem pole, Jamie’s head brushing the sprinklers on the ceiling. The mammoth shot beneath Janey’s feet, careening into one exploding velociraptor and almost flattening another.

  The remaining velociraptor was now extremely fed up. Limping badly on a crushed leg, it stumbled across the store floor towards them, screeching venomously. The mammoth had slid into piles of shopping baskets and was shaking them off as it started on the return path towards the Spylets, and half a dozen of the needle-toothed sparrows were also tearing towards them.

  They were surrounded, being pushed into the centre of the store, where the quadrangle of tills sat under a ‘Please pay here’ sign. Janey pulled James over the nearest desk and they cowered together on the floor. Close, far too close, they could hear the baying of the velociraptor and the steady thud of the paws of whatever was coming up the stairs. They were going to be torn apart by a bunch of prehistoric monsters, in a downtown Seacrest and Argents. Nobody would ever believe it – even if the creatures left anything for them to find.

  But this . . . this wasn’t just any Seacrest and Argents! ‘Oh!’ She couldn’t believe it. Janey had been behaving as if the store was an ordinary shop, when all the time she knew it was a spy store. She leaped up on to the top of a till, spotted a sprinkler and shouted as loudly as she could, ‘Wow me!’

  The next second the whole floor was cloaked in a fine, damp mist, sparkling against the dark sky outside. Through the glitter Janey saw Alfie and his mother peer through the window followed immediately by the sound of shattering glass. The two Halos and Gina Bellarina tumbled into the store, dropping into combat positions. ‘You don’t scare me,’ growled Mrs Halliday to the velociraptor. ‘I’ve got nasty teeth too.’

  Most of the creatures had turned their attention towards the trio who had just entered. Alfie was already shouting ‘Bring it on, you big Dumbo,’ to the mammoth, preparing his Boy-battler for a mighty great thump, and Janey’s mum had leaped on to its back, wrapped her SuSPInder around its tusks and was attempting to steer it into the ladies’ changing cubicles.

  But Janey had forgotten that she and James were already in their spy gear when they entered the store. Going through the store-wide Wower had transformed them from their spy gear into their everyday outfits of jeans and a T-shirt. There was nothing to protect them from the vicious onslaught of the squadron of killer sparrows, and Jamie cried out as two attacked him from either side. Janey tried jumping down to help him but a beak caught at her elbow and she screamed, pain searing through her arm. They were going to be ripped to shreds, but if she Wowed again then the others would find themselves in their ordinary clothes, unprotected, vulnerable . . .

  Suddenly there was a thunderous roar above their heads. Janey looked up through the skylights to see the undercarriage of a familiar plane, except that now it had been Wowed and Welded. It had two enormous wheels – Janey could see that one was her old inflatable paddling pool, and the other was now painted white with daisies on it. Last time she’d seen it, that tyre had been in G-Mamma’s garden, cushioning Trouble’s bottom. The Pet Jet touched down lightly on to the solid store roof, and out jumped G-Mamma and Bert. They crashed through the skylight, a loud cawing sounding from above their heads.

  ‘Ptera!’ She cringed and dropped down automatically, but to her amazement the beast swept by her and jabbed at the velociraptor, which was rather getting the upper hand of Agent Halo.

  ‘Get off my mum, Pterodactyl!’ screamed Alfie, leaping straight over the tills, but then a voice called out, ‘No worries, mate, she’s on our side now. Aren’t you, PTerror?’ Bert raced around the outskirts of the store, shouting directions and lobbing bits of meat into the air.

  The monstrous little sparrows were still intent on dissecting Janey and James, however, and Janey turned back to swat at one that was about to take a chunk out of the boy’s ear, only to find that it turned on her and clamped its teeth around her finger instead. She screamed, the pain unbearable . . .

  ‘Robin Hoodie brings the goodies!’ The cry came from somewhere over Janey’s head. She looked up, batting away another bird, blood dripping from both arms, to find G-Mamma in her green outfit, bow in hand, shooting from the top of the Bladder on which she was bouncing around the store. Trouble, Wowed but minus his tail, was lashed to a lower step of the Bladder, having huge fun lashing out with his sabre claw, exacting his own sweet revenge on the evil sparrows. Maddy and PTerror circled above, driving the birds back into the centre of the room to be dispatched by the SWAT team of Robin Hoodie and her merry cat.

  Janey jumped down beside Jamie. He was nursing his head, and blood flowed from a gash behind his ear. ‘The Wower will sort that out,’ said Janey, giving him a hug.

  But then she remembered that the boy needed more than a Wower to help him. ‘Let’s go,’ she said, and she pushed him down the first entry tube behind the tills and jumped down the second herself.

  It was time.

  The dimly lit Spylab was the biggest Janey had ever seen, stretching the whole length of the Seacrest and Argents building. Advanced spy equipment lay the full length of the centre of the room, lined up like exercise bikes at an upmarket gym – a DeSpies-U mirror and chair, a Crystal Clarification unit, a Wower that looked big enough to take a whole football team (or an elephant), and some items that Janey didn’t recognize. The whole of the end wall was covered in shelves groaning with SPI-buys of every nature, ready to restock the Secret Agent displays upstairs.

  ‘First things first,’ said Janey, and she pushed James gently into the Wower cubicle, swapping places with him as soon as he emerged dressed once more as Spylet Jimmy Sable. ‘Don’t move,’ she told him.

  The Wower did a good job of soothing Janey’s jagged nerves as it fitted her in fine Lycra and gadgetry, and she walked back out into the S&A Spylab feeling much more perky. Much more Blonde, in fact.

  ‘Now, what we have to find is . . . Jamie? I mean, Sable?’

  Janey tutted. That boy was impossible to pin down. Every time she asked him to stay somewhere he ran off. But that just made it all the more clear to her that she was in the right place at the right time. The roo
m was completely silent. Janey turned up her SPI-Pod. There. She could hear him breathing. On tiptoe, not wanting to disturb any stray prehistoric creatures that might still be close by, she made her way down the lab.

  ‘Jamie,’ she whispered, ‘don’t worry. Everything will be all right. Just come out, wherever you are.’

  His breathing, amplified in her SPI-pod, grew more rapid. He was starting to panic. Spylabs reminded him only of bad things – of being R-Evolutionized and separated from his sister, or fleeing from a building just as it was exploding. ‘It’s OK,’ she crooned soothingly, like she did to Trouble when his fur was on end. ‘I’m here now. It’s OK.’

  Reaching the loaded shelves, Janey pulled down a Back-boat and a pile of ASPICs as the breathing in her ear became ever more laboured. He was somewhere nearby, she knew it. Then she saw a flash of white to one side. The stripes on his SPIsuit. Somehow he’d snuggled down in the corner between two sets of shelves, and only his hairy foot was sticking out. Hairy?

  Jamie wasn’t alone. Wrapped around his waist was a great pair of hair-covered arms. and over his shoulder loomed a hairy face with a broad nose, a bulging forehead and two bright blue eyes. Eyes that flashed with puzzlement and concern.

  ‘Dad,’ whispered Janey. She dropped to her knees and put out her hand. ‘You’re here. You’re alive!’

  But to her shock, her father shook off her hand and tightened his grip around Jamie, shaking his head and grunting. Drawing up his knees, he gathered Jamie into his lap and sheltered him from Janey.

  ‘I’m not going to hurt him,’ said Janey, although she was rather hurt herself. Her own father was barely recognizable – but surely he was still capable of normal human emotions, like being pleased to see his daughter?

  And again the Neanderthal version of her father threw his great head from side to side, guttural gnashing sounds coming from his mouth.

  ‘Dad, you . . .’ Janey paused, her heart sinking. She had to check. ‘You are my dad, aren’t you?’