The dogs went straight for the policemen’s most vulnerable area.
‘Arrgghh! My trousers,’ cried all three Officer Grivases who were manning the reception.
But their protests were in vain. The sound of shredding trousers echoed through the building.
Meanwhile Adam and Anna rushed behind the main desk. Even though Private Mandible could work the mechanism in a padlock, Adam guessed that a proper lock with a huge bolt would be too much for him.
‘Look for the keys that will open the cells!’ Adam reminded Anna.
They ransacked the desk, finding papers, handcuffs and pots of red paint. But no keys.
‘Aiieeee!’
The policemen were trying to wrestle themselves free, but as soon as they got one dog off their trousers, another tore at their sleeves. There were ripped clothes everywhere.
‘Got it,’ said Adam, opening the final drawer and finding two big keys. One was marked ‘Cells’, the other was marked ‘Code’.
Adam grabbed the first. Anna grabbed the second.
‘Keep them occupied,’ Adam told Sniffage.
The dogs needed no encouragement.
There was only one other door that led out of the lobby. Adam and Anna charged through it. They found themselves in a grey corridor with closed doors on either side. But the door at the end of the corridor was different. It had bars. It could only lead to one place: the cell block.
They hurried through and down a set of stone steps. As they descended they felt the temperature cool. The thick walls of the basement prevented the heat from getting in and the jail was one of the coldest places in Buenos Sueños.
Their arrival caused a great deal of excitement. The prisoners rushed to the front of their cells just like the dogs had done in the pound.
‘Ciao,’ shouted one.
‘Chico! Chica!’ cried another, waving his hands through the bars.
Instinctively, Adam backed away. But Anna showed none of Adam’s caution. She had lived in Buenos Sueños all her life and she knew that you didn’t need to do much wrong to end up in the cells. She reached out and shook the hand of the prisoner. Adam felt ashamed.
Down the line of cells they went, more hellos, more hands. But no Calico Jack.
‘Is there another jail?’ Adam signed to Anna.
The dark girl shrugged to show she didn’t think so. There were only two more cells to go. The next one didn’t hold Calico Jack.
‘Hey!’ shouted the man inside it, obviously recognising Anna. ‘I’m Fidel Guavera, the Mayor’s chief political strategist.’
Adam looked at Anna, who nodded. The man was telling the truth.
‘Has he sent you to free me?’
Adam vaguely remembered the Mayor complaining about the arrest of his political adviser, but he had no time to think about that now. There was only one more cell to go. It had to hold Calico Jack . . .
And it did. When he saw them, Calico Jack’s mouth dropped wide open.
‘What are you doing here, young ’un?’
Adam allowed himself a little pause of satisfaction. He no longer felt like the lost young boy Calico Jack had first met on the Ark of the Parabola. He’d done a lot of growing up in the past few days.
‘We’ve come to rescue you,’ he said proudly.
‘Who gave you the right to do that?’
Adam was taken aback. Calico Jack was furious.
‘Nobody,’ he stammered.
Anna punched Adam on the shoulder.
‘What was that for?’
‘Don’t let him talk to you like that,’ she signed.
She’s right, thought Adam. Why should I? He met Calico Jack’s angry glare.
‘It was my decision,’ he said. ‘And maybe if you hadn’t got caught so easily, we wouldn’t have had to.’
Calico Jack’s face was still dark with anger.
‘Did you ever wonder why I got caught so easily, young ’un? Calico Jack, a legend among criminals, a man who has spent most of his life escaping the clutches of the world’s most sophisticated police forces, caught by that fat fool of a Chief of Police.’
‘Why?’
‘Because of what you said about the double helix,’ his grandfather replied. ‘It’s been nagging at me like an infected tooth. There’s something linking all these things and we need to know what it is. And since we hadn’t managed to find out from the outside, I thought we might stand a better chance from the inside.’
A few days ago, Adam might have accepted this explanation and told himself that Calico Jack knew what he was doing. But the new Adam wanted a better answer than that.
‘What can you learn stuck in a jail cell?’
‘My, my,’ said Calico Jack. ‘Someone’s been learning to talk back. You’ve got more cheek than the back end of a pig.’
‘Don’t talk to me about pigs,’ said Adam. ‘Answer the question.’
Calico Jack reached into his coat and pulled out a key. He waved it in Adam’s face.
‘I’ve not been stuck in here,’ he told Adam. ‘I picked the guard’s pocket as they were locking me up. I’ve been sneaking round the headquarters. I’ve found out one or two interesting things, let me tell you. And I’d have found out a whole lot more if you hadn’t come busting in here with Little Miss Fireball to rescue me.’
Anna deserved Calico Jack’s nickname, for her dark eyes were indeed blazing.
‘What did you find out?’ Adam asked.
‘Not as much as I would have liked,’ admitted Calico Jack. ‘But the most interesting thing happened when a man called Señor Le Blacas arrived.’
‘I know him,’ said Adam. ‘I’m responsible for staining his trousers.’
‘He and Chief Grivas seemed to be in cahoots. Le Blacas was congratulating the Chief on declaring martial law, but the more I listened, the more it sounded like it was his idea in the first place, not the Chief’s. If you ask me, our next port of call should be Le Blacas. My guess is, now the Mayor’s no longer running the city, he is.’
‘But what about –’ Adam began.
There was a crash and the door to the cell block smashed open. The three policeman, stripped of all their clothes bar their pants, tumbled down the steps into the room. Nineteen dogs came barking gleefully after them. Seeing their captors so humiliated, the prisoners let forth a great cheer.
‘Please,’ pleaded the policemen, throwing themselves at the mercy of Adam and Anna, ‘lock us up. Throw away the key. Anything, but get these dogs off us, please.’
Calico Jack unlocked his own cell and stepped neatly out.
‘You’re very lucky,’ he informed the officers. ‘A cell has just become free. I can highly recommend it: bare cold walls, one lumpy bed and a plague of cockroaches.’
‘We’ll take it,’ shouted the policemen, rushing in.
The prisoners clanked their metal mugs against the bars at the front of their cells, delighted to see the policemen under lock and key. The dogs joined in the celebration with a chorus of joyful woofing. It was almost time to . . .
BANG!
A shot echoed in the cell block.
Standing at the top of the stairs, holding two huge rifles, one in each hand, was Chief of Police Grivas.
.
CHAPTER 28
‘Man, boy, girl or dog, the first to move towards me will be blown to smithereens.’
The rifles were huge, well capable of carrying out the Chief of Police’s threat, and he wielded them expertly.
‘Now, chicos and chicas,’ said Grivas. ‘Some people are going back to their cells. And some dogs are going back to the pound.’
‘You don’t need to do this, Grivas,’ said Calico Jack. ‘We know it’s Señor Le Blacas who is pulling the strings here. Now, if
you’d just let us talk to him . . .’
At the mention of Señor Le Blacas, the colour drained from the Chief’s face.
‘Señor Le Blacas is a friend of Buenos Sueños,’ he said. ‘He is advising me during this difficult time.’
‘He’s not advising you,’ said Calico Jack. ‘He’s telling you what to do. I heard him.’
The Chief tightened his fingers around the triggers of the rifles.
‘Nobody tells me what to do! Now release those officers and get into that cell,’ he shouted. ‘Take the dogs in with you. There’s no time to take them to the pound. And this time there will be no mistakes. I will station armed guards in front of every cell, with orders to shoot to kill at the slightest hint of an escape attempt.’
With the barrels of the Chief’s rifles pointing straight at them, Adam, Anna and Calico Jack began to back towards the last cell. Tails down, the dogs followed them.
‘This is terrible,’ said Adam. ‘If we’re all imprisoned, then there’s no one left to free my mother and the Doctor and save Buenos Sueños.’
‘Faster!’ shouted the Chief.
‘Can’t anybody think of something?’ said Adam desperately.
Calico Jack shook his head. Anna shrugged. They were beaten. They unlocked the cell and the policemen sidled out, glancing nervously at the pack of dogs.
‘Get upstairs and find new uniforms now,’ Chief Grivas yelled. ‘And you lot, get inside that cell and shut the door behind you!’
This was it. One by one, they filed reluctantly into the open cell. Adam was the last one in. He prepared to shut the door on hope.
And then he saw something move behind the Chief of Police.
‘Hurry up!’ Grivas snapped.
Sausage the dachshund!
His little legs had meant he’d taken much longer to get across the square, and then the other dogs had charged off after the policemen and he’d got lost looking for them. But Sausage had learnt one thing in his life. If you had little legs, you had to make up for it with massive determination. He hadn’t given up looking for the rest of the pack and now he had found them.
But would he understand what was going on?
‘I think your cell door needs oiling,’ said Adam, desperately trying to delay things to allow Sausage to understand the situation. ‘Listen to that squeak!’
‘You’ll be squeaking if you don’t shut that door,’ said the Chief menacingly, aiming his rifles right at Adam.
Meanwhile, behind the Chief of Police, Sausage surveyed the scene in the cell block, noted the sad, lowered tails of his fellow dogs and decided to act. He trotted forwards and sank his teeth as hard as he could into Chief Grivas’s calf muscle.
‘Aiiieeeeeee!’ screamed the Chief of Police.
The surprise attack sent him staggering forward. He teetered for a moment on the edge of the step and then plummeted down the staircase.
BANG! BANG!
The two rifles fell from his hands and immediately discharged themselves, the bullets echoing in the cell block as they ricocheted from wall to wall. Adam and Calico Jack instinctively ducked at the sound. But Anna didn’t hear it, and even if she had, the daring girl knew that there was no time to look for shelter. What mattered was to be the first person to pick up the fallen shotguns.
She raced across the cell block. At the same instant that Anna reached one rifle, Chief Grivas stretched out and grabbed the other. A moment later, both of them were pointing guns at one another.
Nobody in the cell block moved.
‘Chica, put that gun down!’ ordered the Chief of Police.
Anna shook her head.
‘It’s dangerous. You aren’t trained. You might make a terrible mistake.’
Anna shrugged to show that she was prepared to risk an accident.
‘Now, now, chica,’ smiled Chief Grivas. ‘Let’s me and you be friends. You put the gun down and I’ll let you and your friends go.’
Anna stared unblinkingly at him. His finger tightened on the trigger.
‘We’ve got to break the deadlock somehow, little chica,’ he said, ‘and I know you don’t want to get hurt.’
If he was hoping that fear would break Anna’s resolve, he had picked on the wrong girl.
But it wasn’t the Chief of Police who broke the deadlock. And it wasn’t Anna. Padding down the stairs, unnoticed on his little legs, was Sausage the dachshund.
‘I’m going to count to three,’ said Grivas. ‘One . . . two . . . owwww!’
Sausage sank his teeth into the Chief of Police’s other calf muscle. His rifle clattered to the floor and Anna grabbed it.
Adam and Calico Jack charged across the cell block to join her.
‘That was brilliant,’ said Adam to Sausage.
‘Little legs, big heart!’ woofed the dog.
‘Get into the cell!’ Calico Jack ordered the Chief of Police, taking one of the rifles from Anna.
Glaring at them with seething hatred, Chief of Police Grivas backed reluctantly into the empty cell. Calico Jack locked the door behind him.
‘So what now?’ he said. It was meant to be a rhetorical question – one that he asked with the intention of providing the answer himself. But Adam, filled with a new sense of self-belief, had other ideas. He answered immediately.
‘We’ve got to free the Doctor.’
‘What about Señor Le Blacas?’ said Calico Jack, a little taken aback. ‘He seems to be the one running things. We should try to find him.’
Adam shook his head. ‘The Doctor first,’ he repeated firmly.
Anna walked over and stood resolutely next to Adam. Then Sniffage went and stood next to him. Then Sausage did the same. At least, Sausage set off to do the same, but all the other dogs overtook him, so in fact he got to stand next to Adam last of all.
‘Curse these little legs!’ woofed Sausage.
Calico Jack looked at the children and the pack of dogs ranged against him. ‘Looks like I’m outvoted,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘You’re in charge, young ’un.’
They were about to go, when there was a cry from the cell next to Chief Grivas’s. It was Fidel Guavera, the Mayor’s chief political strategist.
‘Hey, amigos,’ he cried. ‘Don’t leave us behind.’
‘We’ve got to go and save Buenos Sueños,’ said Adam.
‘We can help you if you take us with you.’
Adam didn’t know what to do. He knew where he was with strange animals. With strange people it was a different story.
‘Rattle your mugs if you’ll help,’ cried Fidel Guavera.
There was a tremendous crashing as the prisoners bashed their mugs against the bars of their cells.
‘I am an official opinion poll collector,’ said Fidel Guavera, ‘and I conclude that the prisoners are a hundred per cent behind helping you and saving Buenos Sueños.’
Anna pinched Adam.
‘You would have been in this jail too if it hadn’t been for me,’ she signed furiously. ‘It’s their city. You have to let them save it too.’
Adam knew she was right. He nodded and she rushed to unlock the cell doors.
‘If we’re going to rescue the Doctor we’re going to need everybody,’ Adam barked to Sniffage, while the prisoners were being released. ‘Take the other dogs and go back to the Ark of the Parabola to get the rest of the Arkonauts. Then meet us at the bus stop for Tibidabo!’
The dogs rushed out of the cell block, yapping excitedly. Calico Jack was looking at Adam with a mixture of amusement and amazement.
‘It’s your show, young ’un,’ he said.
Adam realised that everybody was waiting for him to give orders. ‘We will take the bus up to Tibidabo and go into the forest and rescue the Doctor,’ he announced.
He looked at Anna, Calico Jack and the recently freed prisoners.
‘Are you with me?’ he called.
‘Yes!’ they shouted.
Adam issued a rallying cry. ‘To the bus stop!’
.
CHAPTER 29
Bus Pilot Torres almost crashed when he saw the crowd that had assembled by the bus stop. Since the Dreadful Alarm had come to Buenos Sueños, almost nobody travelled anywhere that wasn’t necessary.
But today the bus stop was packed. And not only with people. There were animals too.
Torres stopped the bus. The door opened with a whoosh. Adam leapt on board.
‘I want tickets for fifteen adults, two children, twenty dogs, a cat, two parrots, a bat, a monkey and a troupe of army ants,’ he said.
‘Remember to ask for a group discount,’ shouted Calico Jack.
But Torres shook his head. ‘I am not authorised to carry animals until they have spent six months in quarantine.’
‘That’s only on planes,’ insisted Adam. ‘This is a bus.’
Torres grimaced. However, he had to grudgingly admit that Adam had a point.
‘Well, they can’t travel inside the cabin,’ he said. ‘They’ll have to go in the hold.’
‘Where’s the hold?’ said Adam.
‘I haven’t got one,’ said Torres.
‘Where can they go, then?’ demanded Adam.
‘On the roof?’ suggested Calico Jack.
Bus Pilot Torres looked incredulous.
‘We will be cruising at over 30,000 feet,’ he said.
‘No, we won’t,’ Adam reminded him. ‘We’ll be cruising at zero feet. All the animals on the roof!’ he shouted. ‘All the prisoner . . . er . . . er, I mean, all the free friendly nice people who have never been in a prison cell in their lives on the bus.’
The animals either flew up or were helped up on to the roof by the ex-prisoners. Then the people got on to the bus.
Adam and the Arkonauts Page 17
