Janey shook her head, playing for time, and feeling completely out of her depth. Were her family, the Blon-Browns, into horses? She had no idea!
‘Jane’s family prefers smaller pets,’ Jack said with a smile.
Phew, thought Janey; thanks, Jack. She nodded. ‘Yes. We’re cat people,’ she said, trying to match Jack’s easy charm.
Close behind her, someone suddenly erupted with laughter. Janey turned quickly. Nobody appeared to be paying her any attention. She hoped she’d imagined it, but it sounded very much as though someone had sniggered at what she’d said.
She tugged Jack’s arm gently, and he took the hint. ‘You must come and try our stables, your honour,’ he told the Ecuadorian minister, adding ‘I’ll be in touch just as soon as the mourning period is over.’ He pulled a sad face. ‘That’ll put him off,’ he murmured to Janey.
The man stuttered his farewells as Jack waved airily and moved on to the next group. ‘Good evening. Jack – sorry, Lord Bootle-Cadogan. Yes, the Lowmount Bootle-Cadogans. Oh, thank you. Yes, we miss him sorely, of course.’ Shake, shake, shake, on he went, holding out people’s hands and inviting Janey to inspect them under cover of a greeting. Some wore many rings and absolutely dripped with jewellery, but nothing as flamboyant as the piece they sought. They all sported the official orange security tag, of course, hanging from jaunty multi-coloured lanyards around their necks, but apart from the tiny sparkle of red that shone from the centre of the letter ‘O’ in the word HOST, there was not a thing that resembled a ruby. She smiled vacantly at stranger after stranger with a growing sense of unease.
After the fourth group, she pulled him to one side. ‘This is hopeless. We’ll never find the ring at this rate.’
‘I know, but what do you suggest?’
Janey thought for a moment. ‘Well, the person wearing it must live here, so why don’t you ask to meet the hostess?’
‘Of course,’ said Jack, nodding his approval. ‘Which is exactly what I should have done anyway. Where are my manners?’
And he marched back towards the Ecuadorian minister, pulling Janey along with him.
‘Actually, Jack, I think we’ll cover more ground if we split up.’
‘Yep. Right again,’ said Jack, and he smiled cheerily as the crowd swallowed him up.
She watched his back disappear into the crowd, biding her time. What she’d said was true, of course – they would get more done if they separated. But there was something else, too. Somehow, what with the laughter that sounded as though it was directed at her and the prickle in her ribs that told her something was wrong, she couldn’t help feeling that they were being watched. Sending Jack off on his own would allow her to become the spy, checking out who was following him.
She circled back to the doorway, watching carefully for anyone who appeared to be pursuing Jack – or Janey herself. Every single person nearby had their back to her, and she took the opportunity to scan for the ring while everyone was distracted. Jack was striding towards the back of the room, obviously in pursuit of the hostess, and as Janey’s eyes charted his progress, her Ultra-Gogs flashed on something.
Not something.
Someone.
There was a girl. A girl about her own age, hiding at the room’s edges where she couldn’t be seen. Even more strangely, she was crouching on top of a large bookcase, up near the ceiling. Her eyes were trained on Jack in much the same way Trouble’s had been skewered onto him, and as Jack moved out of sight, the girl coiled back onto her haunches and suddenly sprang across the room, right over the unwitting heads of the guests standing near the balcony doorways below. She landed noiselessly on a large French bureau on the other side of the door and surveyed the room.
Pausing for a second, the girl stared down at Jack with a strange expression on her face - a mixture of admiration and pure revulsion. Then, with a smooth movement that seemed to shimmy up from her feet to her strange silver-blue hair, the girl turned her head towards Janey, and winked.
Janey gasped and looked around her. There was nobody nearby. The girl had definitely winked at her. She stared back as the girl motioned towards Jack, mouthed something, then took another flying leap onto a set of library ladders. They wobbled slightly as the girl landed deftly on the top step, then settled back against the wall. As calmly as anything, the girl then selected a book from a high shelf and climbed nimbly down the rungs into the crowd.
She was definitely watching Jack. And now she was closing in on him with a large, heavy book in her hand. What was she up to?
Jane Blonde let her instincts take over.
‘G-Mamma,’ she said under her breath, hoping the spy master also had BATS hearing, ‘there’s a girl here trailing Jack. She might even be about to attack. Yes, I know that rhymes and will pop up one day as a rap, but please just come and do some spy stuff while I go and find out what she’s up to.’
Without waiting for a reply, she grabbed a steel platter of canapes from a nearby table, held it in front of her face, and slid through the throng towards the centre where Jack had been swallowed up.
‘Miss Blon-Brown, do join us!’ shouted the Ecuadorian minister.
Hoping she didn’t sound as panicky as she felt, Janey thrust the platter at him. ‘Thank you, Senor Litardo! Would you … mind these for me, and I’ll just go and get Jack.’
‘Delighted!’ came the reply.
She was fairly sure Jack could have eaten the whole lot in a nano-second, plate and all. Concerned for her new friend, Janey prowled onward into the thickening crowd, overhearing shards of conversation about former and current athletes and races, performance enhancing drugs, playing fair, playing polo, playing games … and suddenly she was closing in on Jack’s hoodie.
He was nodding studiously, as if he was taking in every word being uttered by the woman whose hand he was holding … a hand on which glinted a large, slightly tacky but nonetheless impressive ruby ring.
‘Jack,’ said Janey urgently, wanting to warn him, just at the moment in which a number of realisations collided in her brain.
That woman. She recognised her! It was the lady on the front of the newspaper that Gideon had sent – the one whose husband had died; the one who was part of HOST. Varley, she was called. Something Varley.
The World Community Games. Of course. That was why all these people were here - representing different countries, crowing about their polo horses and athletic achievements. It was a pre-games party, now that there were just a few more to days to go.
And then the most startling and worrying realisation of all – the girl, the one from the heights of the furniture with the silvery-blue shock of hair and a skull-crushing encyclopaedia in her hands. She was right behind Jack. Ready to attack in a horribly rhyming way. Even now she was reaching out, thrusting through the partygoers with the enormous book …
Janey ran. In one seamless movement she slid in beside Jack, gripping his elbow so that his hand fell away from the Varley woman’s grasp, moving him subtly to one side so that the silver-haired girl didn’t appear directly behind him, as she’d planned, but instead bolted into position exactly where Jack had just been standing.
Jack spluttered, confused. ‘Janey! Ah, Mrs Varley, let me introduce my friend …’
He’d been about to say ‘Jane Blon-Brown’ again, she was sure, but before he was able to say more, the other girl nudged him in the ribs so hard that Jack coughed, then said, ‘Well, I don’t know if friend is the word. More like frenemy.’
And she snorted so hard with laughter that Janey knew, beyond a doubt, that this was the person who’d giggled at her earlier.
The girl pulled herself together. ‘Hi, Mrs Varley, it’s me. Matilda Peppercorn.’ She popped the large book on the floor and stood on it so that Mrs Varley couldn’t help but see her, as she wasn’t exactly tall.
Mrs Varley looked momentarily confused, holding a finger up to her chin so that Janey could see the ring in all its glory. It was garish - a deeply carved rose-gold ring with a
clumsy mount and an obscenely large ruby set it into it. Why anyone would want to wear it, Janey wasn’t sure. Actually, it reminded her of something …
Mrs Varley’s eyes cleared. ‘Ah yes! Peppercorn. The kick-boxer.’
‘That’s me,’ cried the girl with a grin. ‘I just wanted to say thank you for making kick-boxing part of the World Community Games. About time, of course!’
‘A pleasure,’ said Mrs Varley, looking a little overwhelmed by Matilda Peppercorn’s energy. ‘We’ve received terrific sponsorship for the kick-boxing - which is how we got to hear about you, naturally - and we know it will be incredibly popular.’
‘It will if I have anything to do with it!’ The girl winked again, directly at Janey. Again. She appeared to be trying very hard to ignore Jack.
Mrs Varley extended her hand to offer it to Matilda, and she gripped it as if she was about to throw the woman over her shoulder.
‘I’m so glad you could come tonight, Miss Peppercorn. I especially like to hear of strong young female role models like yourself. It’s fitting that you should be in the Games.’
‘Dream come true!’ cried Matilda Peppercorn.
‘Wonderful! And are there any other wishes I can grant you while you’re here?’
Mrs Varley laughed heartily, as did all the people around her, and Janey held her breath.
For some reason, the atmosphere had changed. The chatter of the crowds seemed to quieten to a distant whisper – the tinkle of a stream dancing through woodland – and suddenly the crystals dangling from the chandeliers felt as if they were exploding with blinding starlight.
Matilda Peppercorn was still holding the woman’s hand firmly between her own sturdy fingers, her eyes fixed resolutely on Mrs Varley’s. The girl’s eyes were vast and hypnotic, and Janey found herself having to look away.
Jack, of course, was mesmerised.
Then the girl spoke, in a strange lilting manner which seemed to match her pulsating eyes.
‘Well, Mrs Var-ley, since you ask - it would be ver-y VER-y nice if you would …Ohhhhh … GIVE me this BEAUTiful ring?’
The woman blinked slowly, then nodded. ‘Take it, dear,’ she said robotically, as if a ventriloquist was throwing her voice into her body.
Matilda Peppercorn, smiling from ear to ear, slid the ring straight off Mrs Varley’s gnarled finger, and pocketed it.
Then, with one last wink at Janey, she ran up the library ladder, bounded gracefully across the tall furniture, and disappeared through a sky light.
Chapter 9 – Cat Burglars and Other Thieves
As the window at the apex of the ceiling closed behind the thief, Jack burst out of his trance.
And do did Mrs Varley.
‘My ring!’ she screeched, staring at her hand. ‘It’s gone! Who took it? Was it you?’ she spat, glaring at Jack.
‘Certainly not,’ said Jack, deeply offended and sounding more than a little cross. ‘I wouldn’t dream of taking someone’s ring. Anyway, I’ve got a museum full of them at home.’ He was becoming increasingly flustered, and Janey could just see the tips of his ears developing a fine black fuzz of fur. If he got any more annoyed, his dog head would pop up in full view of everyone. ‘Didn’t you see—'
‘I saw who it was, Mrs Varley,’ she interjected quickly.
Security guards were moving in from all directions as the woman wrung her hands, shouting, ‘Precious! It’s precious beyond words! Find it! And activate security protocols.’
Janey was pretty sure she was shouting to the security guards rather than herself and Jack, but they needed to make their escape and find the ring first. Gideon was still waiting for it.
‘We’ll find it,’ she said, with a firm nod at the approaching uniformed guard, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder and pressing down as it began to stretch towards the ceiling. ‘Come on, Jack; she went that way. We’ll be back in a jiffy, don’t worry!’
It wasn’t a second too soon. Jack was so upset at being accused of stealing a ring right off someone’s finger that his head was blackening from the neck up. It probably wasn’t the moment to remind him that he had actually come here to steal a ring – and someone had got there ahead of them.
‘Stay calm, Jack,’ she whispered, and he let out a small, unhappy yelp as they raced towards the doorway. ‘G-Mamma, the girl took the ring,’ she muttered, ‘then she disappeared out onto the roof. And Jack’s about to reveal himself to everyone in here.’
‘Copy that, Blonde. Keep running and I’ll improvise.’
Ahead of them, G-Mamma moved into position, placing an enormous ladder across the passageway with her can of paint balanced precariously on the top. The duo spurted forwards, aware of the confusion behind them as Mrs Varley screamed about the loss of her prized possession and the guards looked around helplessly for a thief.
Of course, the most likely candidates were the two people running away as fast as they could.
‘You two, hold it!’ shouted a guard.
‘Stop them!’ cried Simone Varley.
The Ecuadorian minister made a grab for Janey as she ran past, no longer looking quite so keen to get to know her. ‘Hold your horses, Blon-Brown!’ he cried rudely.
‘No can do, sorry,’ hissed Janey under her breath, not least because Jack was now a full half metre taller than her and about to burst out of his hoodie. ‘Head down, Jack,’ she warned him.
Senor Litardo shouted after them. ‘And don’t bother refreshing your mother’s memory about me, Lord Bootle-Cadogan! She always preferred dogs to horses anyway!’
‘What did we do to him?’ whispered Jack, his canine teeth protruding over his upper lip.
‘Take no notice of him and follow me,’ said Janey, and they sprinted together beneath the ladder.
At the same moment, G-Mamma faked a surprised backward step and toppled the stepladder directly into the ballroom. Paint spattered across athletes and diplomats from countries of all kinds, and the two guards spear-heading the chase slithered on the wet floor before crashing headlong into the tumbled ladders.
‘Paints preserve us, I’m SO sorry!’ yelled the strangely dressed painter and decorator. At the same time, she accidentally fell on top of the ladders and bent them around so that they seemed to form a metal barrier across the open doorway. More guards crashed into it as the uproar rose among the gathered crowds. ‘So abjectly and totally sorry! I’ll go and find my supervisor,’ Janey heard G-Mamma telling the rows of angry party guests, and then she ran after Janey and Jack.
They assembled in the downstairs loo, Jack now completely dog-headed and enormous. He shook his canine head miserably. ‘I just can’t seem to control it at the moment.’
‘Can you control your powers, though?’ said Janey. ‘Only we need to escape through this wall before the ladders give way.’
‘Yes! Sorry. Right on it.’
‘I’ve got the sitar,’ cried G-Mamma. ‘Go, go, go!’
Turning them around to avoid the loo and small basin, Jack planted a hand on each of their shoulders. Breathing in deeply, he sped them through the wall and out into the passageway beyond. Outside the house, he paused.
‘Where did the girl go?’
Janey pointed upwards towards the roofline. ‘Didn’t you see her?’
‘No. It was like I was hypnotised or something.’
‘It was exactly like that, actually. Maybe my Ultra-Gogs saved me.’
‘So what do we do?’ Jack sounded utterly miserable. ‘I’ll never get paid now. We’ve lost the ring, and the girl.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ said a familiar voice.
It came from beyond a gate in a high wall. Janey zoomed her Gogs onto it, and could see that the gate led into a small park behind the house.
‘Gideon, where are you?’
‘Come through to the park, quickly – they’re about to storm out through the doors. Meet me in the ring of laurels in the centre.’
The gate wasn’t locked, so Janey, Jack and G-Mamma coursed through it, eas
ing it shut behind them. Security officers were surging out onto the street at the front of the house, imagining that they had escaped that way. All along the road, they were checking limousines and waking snoozing drivers.
For the moment, at least, they were on their own in a park that was amazingly spacious, considering that it was really just an extension of the gardens for the houses backing onto it. Passing a series of water features rather like the ones at Jack’s castle, they threaded their way through a circle of benches to the laurel thicket beyond.
Shaded beneath their branches, Gideon Flynn struck a casual pose, hands in pockets.
Beside him was the girl.
‘Who … who’s there?’ growled Jack, looking the two of them up and down, every bit as agitated as he’d been when Janey and G-Mamma had first met him. ‘What are you up to?’
What was wrong with him? ‘Jack, this is …’ Then Janey realised something. ‘Oh. You haven’t met before.’
Jack’s eyes flickered from Gideon to the girl and across to Janey. ‘You see them too?’
‘Yes, of course I see them.’
‘Sometimes I see people who aren’t … there,’ said Jack with a shrug.
‘They’re here. This is your boss, Gideon Flynn, and …’
The other girl grinned heartily. ‘Matilda Peppercorn. Tilly P. Living Legend. Take your pick on what to call me!’
‘Some juicy names spring to mind,’ said G-Mamma.
Janey shot her a warning glance, but Tilly laughed, unconcerned.
‘Don’t worry. I get that a lot. Usually for talking … or getting into trouble … or interfering where I shouldn’t … or … You know,’ she said with a shrug. ‘All sorts. Having blue hair! That’s a good one. They love that at school.’ And she guffawed again as she had from her vantage point on top of the bookshelf.
Gideon’s dark eyes observed them all closely, taking everything in although he remained silent.
What was going on? They appeared to be working together – but Gideon had sent them on this mission, hadn’t he? Had he changed his mind? Didn’t he think they were up to it?
S*W*A*G*G 1, Spook Page 9
