by Mark Powers
The toys tried to speak but were too astonished to utter a sound.
‘Nifty, eh?’ said Dr Willows with a touch of pride. ‘The very latest thing in android bodysuits. A complete robotic outer skin to create the perfect disguise. Totally realistic. Totally undetectable.’
Flax examined his reflection. He pulled a series of funny faces and found the boy’s face in his reflection mirroring his expressions in a completely lifelike and convincing way. It was astonishing, as if a second, human skin had sprouted from his own. Then he noticed his glasses were held together with a sticking plaster. ‘Blimey,’ he muttered softly. ‘I’m a nerd.’
Arabella snorted. ‘Like that’s a surprise.’
‘If you feel the top of your heads,’ said Dr Willows, ‘there’s a small round button just under your hair. Press that when your mission’s over and the bodysuit will automatically remove itself.’ She picked up her phone and began playing her game again.
Flax fingered his scalp gingerly. Under his mop of fair hair, he could make out a firm round shape about the size of a pound coin. ‘This will take a little getting used to,’ he muttered. ‘When do we start investigating?’
‘Good question!’ said Auntie Roz, beaming. ‘Better get some rest, you three. School in the morning!’
CHAPTER THREE
SUITS ME
Water Shrew Lane Primary was a small school situated only a few streets away from the site of the missing Chimpwick’s Chocolate factory. It was early on a Tuesday morning and several children were hanging around in the playground, chatting and laughing before the school day began.
At 8:45 Auntie Roz dropped off Flax, Arabella and Dan in their disguises at the school gate. Auntie Roz herself was dressed in the T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms and dressing gown of a busy parent doing the school run.
As they stepped from the scuffed and dented car she had selected specially for the mission, she gave her secret agents a motherly wave. ‘Enjoy your first day, my little darlings! I hope you learn lots of interesting stuff!’ And with that she honked the horn and the car roared away.
The three Spy Toys trudged slowly towards the main entrance of the school, aware that all heads in the playground were swivelling to check out Water Shrew Lane Primary’s three newest pupils.
‘Yeuch,’ grumbled Arabella. ‘Kids. If any of them come near me, I’m going to flatten them. Pow! Just like that.’
‘Easy now,’ murmured Flax. ‘Let’s try not to attract attention. We’re here to do a job.’
‘I know,’ muttered Arabella, ‘but do you have to suck the fun out of everything?’
Dan was silent and glum. Arabella nudged him. ‘What’s your problem, furball? Not scared of a few ankle-biters, are you?’
Dan shook his head. ‘No. But I was built for hugging and fun. Not to sit in a classroom all day learning things. What if I can’t do the work?’
Arabella shrugged. ‘Maybe there’s a football team you can try out for. I’m sure they wouldn’t turn down a striker who can kick the ball harder than a rhinoceros.’
‘Good morning, class.’
‘Good mor-ning, Miss-us Dimp-ling.’
Mrs Dimpling removed her glasses, breathed on them, polished them on the hem of her jumper and then replaced them on her nose. Behind their lenses, her two small eyes darted like tiny fish in an aquarium. Then she took a gulp from a mug of steaming coffee and consulted a small slip of paper. ‘In his wisdom, the head teacher has dumped three more children into our already-overstretched class. The new pupils are called Arabella, Dan and –’ she squinted at the paper – ‘Flax, is that? I can never keep up with these trendy new names. Oh well. Say hello to them, class.’
She motioned at the newcomers with a bored hand while she drained the last of her coffee.
‘Hell-o, Ar-a-bell-a. Hell-o, Dan. Hell-o, Flax,’ chorused the class.
Arabella spun around in her chair, grinning, arms wide, as if challenging the whole class to a fight. Dan and Flax both turned and waved shyly at the other children.
Mrs Dimpling directed her gaze at the three new pupils. ‘Now listen, you three. Let’s get this straight from the start. There’s no messing about in my class. No gossiping, giggling or gallivanting. I want no crying, carping, fussing or fretting. I’m not your mother or your babysitter. I’m not your friend. I’m here to teach and you’re here to shut up and listen. Got it?’
Without waiting for a response, she plonked a plastic container full of pencils on the desk in front of Arabella.
‘You, lady. Stop daydreaming about butterflies and ponies. Give these out. In silence. One each. And then give me back the box.’
Flax and Dan both winced. They had never known anyone to speak like this to Arabella before.
‘And I know how many are in there, in case you’re thinking of pinching any,’ continued Mrs Dimpling.
Arabella was out of her seat before Flax or Dan could stop her. She picked up the box of pencils and with all her strength threw it at the floor, where it shattered with a bang, scattering pencils in all directions.
The class let out a gasp.
Mrs Dimpling spun around, tiny eyes blazing behind her thick glasses.
Flax and Dan put their heads in their hands.
‘Now you listen here, missy,’ growled Arabella. ‘I might be as mean as a scorpion who’s just stubbed her toe, but one thing I am not is a thief! Got that?’
An icy silence descended on the class. No one dared breathe. Mrs Dimpling’s fingers tightened around her pen. She took a deep breath and adjusted her glasses. ‘Please wait in the corridor, Arabella,’ she said in a quiet voice that sounded like the first gentle rumbles a volcano makes before it blows its top. ‘I’ll deal with you later.’
‘Suits me,’ retorted Arabella, and she stalked from the room, kicking the spilt pencils out of her way and sending them skittering along the floor.
‘Jack!’ called Mrs Dimpling. ‘Clean up this mess. Quick as you like.’
A small terrier-like boy with wiry hair sprang from his seat and began to scoop up the pencils.
‘Now,’ said Mrs Dimpling, turning back to her board, ‘ahead of Friday’s trip to the WORLDLAND MODEL VILLAGE, where they recreate great cities in miniature, we’ll continue with our project on capitals of the world. Take out your capital cities worksheets, please.’
The class began rummaging in bags.
Dan raised a nervous hand. ‘Miss? Miss?’
Mrs Dimpling glared at him. ‘What now, boy?’
Dan’s words came out in one long gabble. ‘Miss, we’re new and we don’t have worksheets because we’re new, and we can’t do the work because we’re new, and we haven’t got any worksheets so we can’t do the work, and we haven’t got any worksheets … ?’
Mrs Dimpling rolled her eyes. ‘Fine, fine. Wait a minute.’
She stumped to the back of the classroom, unlocked a door leading to a small storeroom and went in.
Flax raised his eyebrows at Dan. ‘Look at how she keeps that place locked up,’ he whispered. ‘If she’s hiding anything suspicious, I bet it’s in there.’
‘What might she be hiding?’
Flax shrugged. ‘Plans for a giant crane that can lift an entire factory? Or some kind of shrinking ray, maybe? Who knows? But we’re going to find out.’
Dan tugged at the sleeve of his pullover nervously. ‘What do we do if she hasn’t got any worksheets?’
Flax groaned. ‘You need to calm down, Dan. Seriously. We’re here to carry out a mission. That’s all. You’re not really a schoolkid.’
A few moments later, Mrs Dimpling emerged from the storeroom brandishing two spare worksheets. She handed them one each. Dan let out a sigh of relief.
‘Right,’ said Mrs Dimpling. ‘Today we’ll look at European capitals. Let’s start with France. Who can tell me its capital city? As a clue I can tell you it’s famous for having a very tall tower.’
The class let out a burst of laughter.
‘Did I say something
funny?’ asked Mrs Dimpling. Her tone made it very clear what answer she expected.
To her amazement, the class erupted in laughter again.
‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.
The boy called Jack pointed at the classroom door with a look of disbelief. Frowning, Mrs Dimpling turned and saw Arabella with her nose squished up, piglike, against the window, pulling funny faces.
When the lesson ended, Dan, Flax and the other children pulled on their coats and filed out into the playground for morning break. On their way out they passed Arabella, who was leaning against the wall with her arms folded, doing her best to look bored. ‘Oh, great,’ she said, seeing them, her mood brightening. ‘Playtime. Cool!’
‘Not you, Arabella,’ called Mrs Dimpling’s voice from the classroom. ‘Come here. I want a word.’
‘Oh, what now?’ groaned Arabella, and trudged back into the classroom.
Outside it was a bright, cold morning. A few small white clouds trundled across the blueness of the sky. Flax and Dan peered through the window into their classroom, where Mrs Dimpling sat at her desk giving a lengthy lecture to a stroppy-looking Arabella.
‘Not quite mastered this blending-in business, has she?’ remarked Flax.
Dan shrugged. ‘I guess a naughty pupil is just as good a disguise as a well-behaved one.’
‘I was hoping Mrs D would nip off to the staffroom or wherever it is that teachers go at breaktime,’ said Flax. ‘Then we could search her storeroom. Maybe we can do that at lunch? In the meantime, let’s split up. Speak to the pupils. Maybe someone’s noticed her acting suspiciously.’
Dan sauntered through the playground, looking for someone to speak to. Most children were playing together in small groups, kicking balls and chasing one another, laughing and screaming with delight. Despite Flax’s reminder that they were here purely to gather information, Dan couldn’t help wanting to join in with the games, half hoping one of the boys playing football would run up to him and say they were a man short in their five-a-side match. Then, suddenly, he heard the sound of someone crying. In the corner of the playground, near a climbing frame, he noticed a small girl with frizzy hair pleading desperately with a tall, heavily built boy, who was holding a fluffy brown school bag above his head and cackling.
A hand tapped the boy on the shoulder. He swung around to find a squat, red-haired boy facing him. ‘Hi!’ said Dan brightly. ‘You’ll be returning this girl’s property now. Right now. Understand?’
The tall boy laughed splutteringly. ‘Oh yeah?’ He jabbed a finger at Dan’s chest. ‘And you’re going to stop me, are you? Little boy?’ He squared up to Dan, trying to make himself look as big and threatening as possible.
‘Please don’t,’ the frizzy-haired girl hissed at Dan. ‘You’ll only make things worse.’
‘No,’ laughed the tall boy, ‘please do. I could do with a giggle.’ He jabbed Dan in the chest again. ‘Go on. Little boy. I –’
He had meant to say ‘I dare you’, but when Dan suddenly pulled the climbing frame out of the ground and twisted it around the tall boy, forming a tiny metal cage, trapping him firmly inside it, he forgot how his sentence was supposed to end. ‘Whhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?’ he said instead, peering out meekly through the bars.
Dan plucked the girl’s bag from the boy’s hands.
Smiling, he leaned down and whispered in the boy’s ear, ‘You ever steal anything from this girl again – or try any nasty foolishness to get your own back – and the next thing I bend out of shape won’t be this climbing frame. You with me, pal?’
The tall boy nodded dumbly. ‘Yes,’ he mumbled. ‘Yes, sir.’
With astounding speed, Dan quickly unbent the climbing frame and replaced it in the ground where it had previously stood. He’d been so quick that no one else in the playground had noticed the climbing frame vanish and reappear again. The tall boy blinked and wandered away on unsteady legs.
Dan handed the furry brown bag back to the girl, noticing with a small smile that it was shaped like a teddy bear. The little girl hugged the bag to her.
‘Thank you!’ she cried. ‘That was amazing! I owe you a big favour. If you ever need anything, just ask.’
‘Actually,’ said Dan. ‘There is something.’
‘Yes?’
He drew a crumpled worksheet from his pocket. ‘I’m still having trouble remembering all these capital cities. Can you test me?’
At the rear of the playground, Flax noticed a rickety wooden building resembling a large garden shed. There was a sign taped to its door saying SCIENCE CLUB. He peered through its window. A small group of boys and girls were fussing around some object laid out on a long table, poking and prodding at it with screwdrivers and other tools. Flax recognised one of the boys as Jack, the wiry-haired kid whom Mrs Dimpling had ordered to pick up the pencils. The boy dropped his screwdriver, and as he bent to retrieve it, Flax finally got a good look at the object on the table. It was an odd furry creature about the size of a dog, with a short stubby snout and extremely long limbs that ended in hook-like claws. A panel in its head was open, revealing a mass of electronic circuits. Flax pushed open the door of the shed. The children looked up at him with wide, wary eyes. ‘Nice robotic sloth!’ he said in a friendly voice.
Jack smiled. ‘Thanks. It’s a Snaztacular Ultrafun Sleepytime Sloth. A friend asked us to make some modifications to her favourite cuddly toy. Thinks he’s too soppy! It’s our project. Mum lets us work on him at breaktimes.’
‘Your mum?’
‘Mrs Dimpling,’ said Jack.
Flax shuddered. Tough break, kid, he thought. But then he realised Jack could be a valuable source of information for the mission. He examined the motionless form of the sloth with interest. ‘So what are these modifications?’
‘Replacing his flimsy metal skeleton with a mega-tough plastic one. Adding extra-sharp teeth. Souping up his personality program to heighten his aggression.’ Jack chuckled. ‘Basically, our friend wants us to make him into the baddest sloth you ever saw!’
‘Wow! That’s really advanced stuff! You lot must be geniuses!’
The children blushed modestly but did not contradict him.
Flax took a screwdriver from the table and poked it gingerly into the complicated electronics visible within the robotic sloth’s skull. He bent down and peered inside. ‘I reckon that if you wire the emotion chip directly to the mouth control, you could increase his aggression by over seventy-five per cent.’
Jack’s eyes widened. ‘Cool idea! You know about robots, do you?’
Flax gave a shrug. ‘Teeny bit.’
Carefully, he removed several wires from tiny sockets in the sloth’s head and plugged them into new locations. Then he flicked the POWER ON switch located just behind the sloth’s right ear. Immediately, the sloth let out a blood-curdling roar that would have given a tiger the heebie-jeebies.
Flax quickly flicked the switch behind the sloth’s ear to POWER ON but it had no effect, and the angry sloth suddenly leaped off the table and began advancing on the children, growling like a fierce dog. Someone screamed.
‘Oops,’ said Flax. ‘Think I accidentally overrode the power coupling. No problem.’ He rummaged in his school bag and drew out a device that looked a little like a stubby torch. He pointed it at the snarling sloth. There was a loud buzzing noise and the mechanical sloth suddenly fell silent and froze.
The children gasped with relief.
‘It’s an EMP emitter,’ explained Flax, brandishing the device. ‘Sends out a sharp burst of energy that interferes with electronic circuits. Very handy for stopping runaway technology.’
Jack stared at the device in wonder. ‘I thought only the government had access to technology like that! Where did you get it?’
Flax hesitated for a second and then shrugged. ‘Car boot sale. Amazing what you can pick up if you get there early.’
The bell rang, signalling the end of break. When Dan and Flax re-entered the classroom they found Arabella sitti
ng in her seat, quietly filling in a worksheet. Flax tapped her arm.
‘I’ve made an important contact,’ he whispered. ‘The boy Jack is Mrs Dimpling’s son. I reckon I can get plenty of good information about his mother out of him.’
Arabella waved a dismissive hand. ‘I’ve been chinwagging with the lady herself at breaktime. Turns out the old battleaxe ain’t so bad when you get to know her. She hates kids, too! She told me everything.’
‘Great going!’ said Dan, impressed. ‘So what’s the story, then? Is she involved in the disappearance of the chocolate factory?’
The rag doll shook her head. ‘She ain’t involved at all. She told me she left the chocolate factory because they wanted everyone working there to dress like elves to make it seem magical. How embarrassing is that? She hated the idea, of course, so she quit, and this was the only job she’s been able to get in the meantime because she has such lousy people skills. She’s no fan of the bosses at Chimpwick’s, but she loves the chocolate itself and the idea of the world running out of it makes her mighty itchy. So it looks like coming to this dump full of brats has been a complete waste of time.’
The frizzy-haired girl whose bag Dan had returned came into the classroom and gave him a beaming smile as she passed their table.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Dan.
The school day wore on. At lunchtime, Flax wanted to discuss some new theories he had about the missing chocolate factory, but Dan and Arabella just rolled their eyes, called him a ‘boring bunny’ and ran off to play with the other children, much to his annoyance. In the afternoon, their class had a PE lesson. Dan thought this might be his chance to impress his classmates with his super-strength, but unfortunately neither he, Arabella nor Flax had brought any PE kit with them, so they had to spend the lesson sitting on a wooden bench watching the other kids have a good time playing rugby.
