Spy Toys: Undercover

by Mark Powers

  Flax lifted his shades and gave Sebastian a friendly wink. ‘Nearly Easter. Just hiding a few eggs.’

  Sebastian reached out his black-gloved hand and grabbed Flax’s wrist. ‘You’re in big trouble, big ears,’ he rumbled.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A FORTUNATE SHEET OF A4

  DUKKA-DUKKA-DUKKA-DUKKA-DUKKA!

  went the blades of the helicopter. Inside its cramped cockpit sat Dan and Arabella, now back to their usual selves after ditching their android bodysuits.

  ‘Here!’ called Arabella, waving a hand at the pilot. In the other hand she held a mobile phone open to its map application. ‘We should be directly over the Learnatorium now!’

  The helicopter slowed, wobbling, and began to hover.

  Dan stared down at the ground and rubbed his hairy chin thoughtfully. ‘Doesn’t look much like a science museum. More like an enormous black hole. Unless it’s meant to look like a black hole – you know, the ones in space. For educational purposes.’

  Arabella groaned. ‘It’s gone, you furry fool! The whole science museum has been teleported away! Just like the Chimpwick’s Chocolate and Snaztacular Ultrafun factories! SIKBAG must have realised we’re on to them!’

  ‘That means they’ve got Flax,’ said Dan.

  He and Arabella shared an anxious look. This was interrupted when Arabella’s phone chirruped loudly. The rag doll answered it. Dan could hear Auntie Roz’s booming voice above the noise of the helicopter blades.

  ‘Chaps! Return to base immediately! We’ve just received a message from SIKBAG.’

  Auntie Roz’s tablet flickered into life. It showed a small girl with pigtails and eyes like two hard chips of ice. Standing behind her was a squat, tough-looking boy wearing a single black glove. Both stood in front of a window through which light streamed dramatically.

  ‘Now, listen here, you grown-up idiots!’ said the girl. ‘My name is April Spume and I’m the leader of SIKBAG, the Society of Intelligent Kids, Brainboxes And Geniuses. We clever kids are fed up with the way adults run the world. And we’re fed up with the way you treat us children – distracting us with trivial things like chocolate and toys when we could be ruling the planet! So the fight back starts here. You may have noticed a certain couple of factories have gone walkabout. Well, that’s just the beginning! With our teleporter we shall remove every obstacle that prevents children from realising their true potential – and then the world shall be ours!’ The girl gave an evil chuckle. Behind her, the squat boy grinned repulsively.

  The camera panned sharply to reveal Flax the rabbit bound tightly to a chair by thick ropes, a gag tied across his mouth. An indistinct furry shape was lumbering across the floor towards him.

  ‘As you can see,’ continued April, ‘we’ve found a spy in our midst. Oh, little tip, guys: if you’re going to go to the trouble of manufacturing an amazing android bodysuit disguise, don’t have a label inside it saying PROPERTY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SECRET AFFAIRS. Gives the game away a bit!’

  Auntie Roz clapped a hand to her forehead. ‘I must have words with Dr Willows,’ she groaned.

  ‘Send as many spies as you like,’ taunted April. ‘You’ll never find us now that we’ve teleported our headquarters to a new location. Oh, and by the way, that creature you can see heading for the rabbit is my toy sloth, Victor. A toy who has been modified to eat anything. Plastic, rubber, glass – you name it. He’s particularly fond of metal, however, and likes nothing better than chewing old robots to pieces.’ The camera spun back to April and she jabbed a finger at its lens. ‘So stay away! Or Victor’s next meal will be robot rabbit pie! Understand?’

  The screen went blank.

  ‘What a charming little princess she is,’ said Dan.

  Arabella growled. ‘That punk! I’d like to tie her pigtails to a runaway train. Who the heck is she, anyway?’

  Auntie Roz consulted a tablet device. ‘The girl is April Elizabeth Spume. Seven years old. Daughter of a pair of rocket scientists. A pupil at St Jim’s Boarding School for Gifted and Annoying Children but seems to spend most of her time skiving off and taking part in fiendish plots. Rumour has it she was one of the gang of kids who tried to kidnap the popular children’s TV character Callum the Halibut last year, but it was never proved. Quite the little handful. The boy standing behind her is Sebastian Rodriguez Plum. It seems he lost one thumb at a safari park, trying to feed cheese-and-onion crisps to a leopard, and had it replaced with a stainless-steel version – the thumb, I mean, not the leopard. He can do an awful lot of damage with that metal thumb, and he’s used it to vandalise everything from aeroplanes to zoos. Sebastian’s immensely strong, not very bright and just as mean as April.’

  ‘The no-good, snot-nosed, jumped-up little monsters,’ hissed Arabella savagely.

  ‘That’s what you say about all children,’ muttered Dan.

  ‘How are we going to stop them?’ asked Arabella. ‘That nerd-palace science museum they hang out in could have been teleported anywhere on the planet.’

  ‘It’s impossible to say where they are,’ said Auntie Roz grimly. ‘Dr Willows analysed every aspect of that video message – digital stamp, file format, colour spectrum, everything – and hasn’t found the slightest clue to indicate where it was filmed. It was emailed to us from an untraceable web server, too. We’re completely stumped.’

  Dan frowned. ‘You mean you don’t know exactly which street in Paris it was filmed in?’

  Auntie Roz blinked. ‘How do you know it was filmed in Paris? Is it something to do with the type of video camera they used? Is it the precise angle of the sunlight at the time it was filmed? Or the background sounds?’

  Dan shook his head. ‘Not really. It’s more to do with the fact you can see the Eiffel Tower through the window.’

  ‘What???’

  Dan took Auntie Roz’s tablet device and scrolled back through the video until the view through the window behind April and Sebastian was at its clearest. ‘There,’ he said, pointing a paw at a familiar-looking black spire visible above some rooftops. ‘I’m no expert on geography but I do believe this structure here, jutting up over the other buildings, is the Eiffel Tower. And that’s in Paris, isn’t it? Like I say, I’m no expert. In fact, I’m pretty sure I only learned it at school this morning.’

  Auntie Roz whooped with delight. She would have picked Dan up and kissed him, had she not thought this would dent her image as a strict, no-nonsense boss. She looked around for some underling she could order to pick Dan up and kiss him, but to her annoyance there were none around. ‘Top work, Dan!’ she declared, beaming. ‘I’m amazed Dr Willows missed that. She’s quite the genius herself. Although I’m starting to wonder if she’s quite as intelligent as I first thought …’

  ‘She’d probably notice a lot more if she spent less time playing on her phone,’ Arabella said, with a smirk.

  ‘We need to get to France really fast to stop this bunch of brainy brats,’ said Dan.

  ‘And we need to be pretty sneaky about how we do it, too,’ chipped in Arabella. ‘Or our brainy bunny ends up as a swift snack for a super-savage sloth.’

  ‘Can you get us on the next flight to Paris?’ asked Dan.

  ‘I can do better than that,’ said Auntie Roz. ‘Follow me.’

  She led them to the car park at the rear of the DEPARTMENT OF SECRET AFFAIRS building. It was a cold, clear evening and a weary sun was smearing orange light across the horizon. Dr Willows was waiting for them. Once again her attention was fixed on the screen of her phone, thumbs paddling away madly.

  Auntie Roz coughed meaningfully.

  Dr Willows looked up in surprise and then hurriedly put her phone away. ‘Oh, you’re here. Great.’

  ‘What are we doing out here?’ asked Arabella.

  ‘Time is short,’ said Auntie Roz. ‘We need to get you to Paris immediately. Our fastest helicopter would take a couple of hours. But Dr Willows has created something that can get you there much faster. Dr Willows? This is your chance to red
eem yourself after your recent blunder.’

  Dr Willows flushed deep red. ‘Oh, yes. Totally. Sorry, guys.’ She opened a briefcase and took out a blank sheet of A4 paper. She handed it to Dan. ‘Take this,’ she said. ‘And look after it. It’s the only one of its kind in existence. I hope it serves you well.’

  Dan and Arabella exchanged a look. You didn’t need to be a mind reader to know they were thinking words like ‘twerp’ and ‘nitwit’.

  ‘I’m pretty sure,’ said Dan, eyeing the sheet of paper, ‘that you can get these at most high-street stationers.’

  ‘Not like this,’ said Dr Willows with an intriguing grin. She took what looked like an ordinary pencil from the briefcase and passed it to Arabella. ‘Dan, put the paper on the ground. Arabella, write something on the paper with the pencil. Anything – it doesn’t matter what. It’s all about the reaction between the two substances.’

  With a sigh, Dan placed the sheet of paper on the ground. Arabella knelt and wrote DR WILLOWS HAS THE WIT AND INTELLIGENCE OF A DISCARDED CRISP PACKET on it in bold letters.

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘Stand back,’ said Dr Willows, ‘and watch!’

  Dan and Arabella stepped back, folding their arms and shaking their heads.

  There was a sudden rumbling noise. The sheet of A4 paper began to bulge and burp and burst, and then with startling speed it split itself in half like the layers of a tissue being pulled apart. These two layers then divided into four layers, then eight, then sixteen. Within a few moments there were hundreds of sheets of paper covering nearly the whole car park. At some crucial point the sheets of paper all bulged and burped and burst as one and folded themselves neatly together into a sleek, dart-like object that was slightly bigger than a family car. It glowed pinkly in the warm light of sunset.

  Dan and Arabella’s eyes popped in astonishment.

  ‘It’s a paper plane!’ they cried in unison.

  Dr Willows nodded. ‘A super-smart, cellulose-fibre, hexi-silicon paper plane, to be precise. Hop in. You’ll find the controls a doddle to use.’

  ‘I call pilot’s seat!’ cried Arabella, and raced to clamber into the paper plane’s cockpit. Dan followed and slid into the seat next to her. As he did so he noticed the words Arabella had written – DR WILLOWS HAS THE WIT AND INTELLIGENCE OF A DISCARDED CRISP PACKET – etched on one wing of the plane.

  ‘Don’t forget this,’ called Dr Willows, and tossed the pencil into the cockpit. Arabella caught it. ‘At the other end is an eraser. Rub out the words you wrote and the plane will unfold into a single sheet again. Good luck, guys.’

  Arabella swiped a touchscreen on the cockpit instrument panel. The plane’s engines began to whine.

  ‘Just enter the required destination into the navigation computer,’ said Dr Willows.

  ‘Got it!’ called Arabella, and speedily typed the word ‘PARIS’. ‘Then what?’

  ‘You see that big button marked FLY?

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’

  CHAPTER SIX

  PLANE STUPID

  ‘Hold still!’ cried April Spume at the crowd of unhappy children assembled before her in the Learnatorium’s main hall. ‘How can I program the exact details of the next cargo to be teleported when people keep shuffling about and fidgeting? Honestly, you’re like a troop of naughty chimps.’ She twisted a dial on the teleport machine, which looked a little like a large metal dish, and gave a satisfied grunt. ‘Right. Good. Listen up, everyone. You will shortly be transported directly to the new SIKBAG secret base, from which we shall begin our reign of terror over the adult world. You will find the new base elegantly designed, fully equipped and filled with countless stimulating activities for young minds, making it the perfect venue from which to rule the planet. Oh, and I hope you’ve all brought jumpers and scarves because it’s in Antarctica. Bit nippy there, I know, but it’s a heck of a good hiding place. See you later, guys!’

  Before anyone could respond, April twisted the dial and the crowd of children vanished in a flash of blue light.

  April gave a satisfied nod. All she had to do now before she joined the other SIKBAG members was sort out a couple of tiny problems …

  Like a shining white arrow, the paper plane streaked through the hazy air above London.

  Dan stared down in wonderment. ‘Wow! I’ve never travelled this fast in my life!’

  But when he turned to Arabella, he found her scrolling through a list of commands on the touchscreen, engrossed in some task.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘This ain’t that fast,’ she snorted. ‘I don’t trust that Dr Willows chick. Wouldn’t surprise me if she’s put some kind of safety limiter on this plane’s speed and manoeuvrability. If I can find the manual override for the automatic pilot and take control myself, I bet I can get us to Paris in half the time.’

  ‘But if there’s a safety limiter, it’s there to keep us safe,’ reasoned Dan. ‘Which means turning it off could be very DANGEROOOOOOOOOOUS!’

  The plane suddenly lurched violently and shot forward with a massive burst of speed.

  ‘Ha ha!’ chortled Arabella, clutching a joystick control, which had just slid out of a small hatch in the cockpit display panel. ‘Found it!’

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ whined Dan as the world blurred around them.

  ‘’Course I do, furbag. We’re flying nearly twice as fast we were!’

  Dan pointed through the cockpit windscreen. ‘Er, yeah. But I can’t help noticing that we’re also now flying directly towards the sea.’

  Arabella frowned and checked the view through the windscreen.

  The sparkling blue waters of the English Channel were approaching at high speed.

  ‘Oh, that’s the sea,’ said Arabella with a guilty laugh. ‘I thought it was the sky. They’re both blue, you see, so no wonder I got a little –’

  ‘Pull up now!’ screamed Dan. ‘Quickly!’

  Arabella yanked hard on the joystick. ‘Controls aren’t responding. We’re going too fast. Gimme a minute here …’

  ‘Turn the automatic pilot back on,’ yelled Dan. ‘Now! I don’t want to swim to Paris!’

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Arabella, the choppy, churning surface of the sea thundering towards them at terrifying speed. ‘I’m pretty sure I can do this …’

  Dan reached over and swiped a paw across the cockpit touchscreen.

  Immediately the plane pulled out of its nosedive and the joystick control retracted back into the display panel. The paper aircraft continued peacefully on its way. Dan let out a long, relieved sigh.

  Arabella shrugged. ‘Fine. We’ll do it the boring way.’

  Not long later, the paper plane touched down on a wide, tree-lined avenue in the centre of Paris, much to the surprise of the many tourists ambling along it. The two toys hopped out. Dan took the pencil Dr Willows had given them and carefully erased the words Arabella had written on the wing. There was a swish, a whir and a flap and the plane rapidly unfolded itself into what looked like a sheet of ordinary A4 paper. Arabella folded it up and stuffed it the pocket of her dress for safekeeping.

  She and Dan dashed off along the avenue. Looming ahead of them was the Eiffel Tower, whose massive tapering form surveyed the busy Parisian streets like a friendly giant. Dan waved a paw at a huge, elegant-looking building. ‘There,’ he said. ‘That’s where they must have filmed the video. The top floor of that building is the only place in Paris that gives the correct view of the Eiffel Tower.’

  ‘You think those SIKBAG creeps teleported the entire Learnatorium inside that place?’

  Dan gave a shrug. ‘There’s no other explanation.’

  They pushed open the tall glass door of the building and rushed inside. It turned out to be a vast shoe shop, with footwear of every imaginable sort displayed on beautiful metal stands and lit dramatically with spotlights.

  The toys raced to a door at the back of the shop. They opened it, ran up a flight
of stairs, pushed open another door and finally emerged on to the roof of the building. It was flat, made of greyish concrete, dotted with dirty puddles of rainwater – and completely empty.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Dan. ‘This is the place. It has to be. Where are they?’

  Arabella shrugged. ‘Looks like we’re too late. They must have teleported away.’

  Dan shook his head. ‘Something’s not right. We’re at the correct angle to see the Eiffel Tower, but the tower itself looks different, much thinner and darker in colour. Almost as if …’ He gasped and snapped his fingers. ‘Of course!’

  ‘What?’ asked Arabella.

  ‘They were never here!’ cried Dan. ‘They weren’t in Paris at all! That April Spume’s as sneaky as a sockful of snakes!’

  ‘How can that be true?’ said Arabella. ‘Where else do they have an Eiffel Tower?’

  ‘I know where!’ said Dan.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN

  Flax’s eyes snapped open. He found himself wedged in a tight space with pink, sloping walls lined with sticky slime.

  ‘Yuck,’ he muttered. He tried to move but his limbs were stuck fast in the gloopy substance. ‘Jack? Jack? Are you there?’

  ‘I’m right here, Flax,’ replied Jack. His voice was muffled and seemed to come from the other side of one of the sloping pink walls. ‘In the other nostril.’

  ‘In the other what?’

  ‘After she used you in the video message, April asked Sebastian to stick us both somewhere to keep us out of mischief. So he bunged us inside the interactive model of the human nose in the Learnatorium biology exhibit. You must have hit your head and passed out.’