Survival Camp

by Andrew Cope

  ANDREW COPE

  Spy Pups: Survival Camp

  Illustrated by James de la rue

  PUFFIN

  Contents

  1 The Beast

  2 Brake Time!

  3 Litter Lout

  4 ‘X’ Marks the Spot

  5 Honey, I Shrunk My Shorts

  6 Kaboom!

  7 The Three Dinners

  8 Over the Edge

  9 The Beast Arrives

  10 Dogfish

  11 ‘What Could Possibly Go Wrong?’

  12 The Haunted Village

  13 Proof!

  14 Captured

  15 Mud Monsters

  16 A ‘Brief’ Encounter

  17 Showdown

  18 A Chilling End

  19 Balaclava Bling

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  SPY PUFS SURVIVAL CAMP

  I grew up in a family that always had pets. My little sis had a rabbit called Rosie and a guinea pig called Benji. And we had a dog called Bruce. And then another called Jasper. We had a pink cat called Monty. None of them could ride a bike, send an email, play the piano or do ballroom dancing.

  And then we adopted a black and white dog called Lara. To be honest, she’s not the best-looking canine in the world. She’s got one silly sticky-up ear and a sort of vacant expression. But I could have sworn I saw her driving my car? And I’m pretty sure she was wearing shades?

  I can only assume I was imagining it.

  If you want Lara or her puppy to visit your school, please email her at lara@artofbrilliance.co.uk. They’ll probably have to bring Andrew Cope along too, but don’t let that put you off. Or you can find out more about the Spy Dog and Spy Pups books online at www.spydog451.co.uk, where there are pictures, videos and competitions too!

  Books by Andrew Cope

  Spy Dog

  Spy Dog Captured!

  Spy Dog Unleashed!

  Spy Dog Superbrain

  Spy Dog Rocket Rider

  Spy Dog Teacher’s Pet

  Spy Pups Treasure Quest

  Spy Pups Prison Break

  Spy Pups Circus Act

  Spy Pups Danger Island

  Spy Pups Survival Camp

  Spy Dog Joke Book

  1. The Beast

  Gaz Guzzler waddled into the biggest room in his mansion and got ready to sit down. For him, this was not an easy task. The seat of his favourite armchair was extra wide, but his massive bottom was even wider. He backed into position and then squatted with his hands on his knees like a sumo wrestler.

  ‘Ghaahh!’ he grunted, pushing his enormous left bum cheek down first. The chair shuddered. Gaz took a breath and got to work on his equally enormous right bum cheek. ‘Neeyaaghh!’

  The chair groaned. Gaz turned red in the face. Finally his backside settled on to the cushion. He was in! With a contented sigh, he opened the fridge built into the left arm of his chair, pulled out a slice of triple chocolate cheesecake and took a huge bite. In front of him, three floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on to a beautiful lake surrounded by forests and mountains, but Gaz Guzzler was not interested in the view. He pressed a button on the control panel in the armrest of his chair and a monitor screen rose up from beneath the floor. It showed a rocky chamber, filled with dust and noise and men in hard hats.

  Gaz Guzzler chomped on his cheesecake as he watched the on-screen activity. He wasn’t sure whether his smile was because of the cheesecake or the fact that the men were all working very hard. Two were hacking chunks from the chamber wall, and more were hauling the rubble to a workbench, where a man with ‘Pete’ written on his helmet was checking every rock.

  Suddenly, Pete gave a yell and all work stopped in the chamber. Gaz stuffed the remaining cheesecake into his mouth and leant forward as far as his belly would allow. For a few seconds, everyone was still. Pete stared at the rock in his hand, the men stared at Pete, and Gaz stared at the screen. Then Gaz ran out of patience. He gave an impatient snort, causing slimy blobs of chewed-up cheesecake to shoot out of his nose, and pressed the intercom button on his control pad.

  ‘Report!’ he spluttered.

  Pete looked up at the camera on the chamber wall. ‘Just let me make sure, Mr Guzzler.’ He poured water over the rock to wash away the dust. A fat vein of gold gleamed up at him. ‘Yes,’ he said, with a relieved smile. ‘It’s here, Mr Guzzler. Exactly where you said it would be.’

  ‘Of course it is, you idiot!’ said Gaz. ‘I’m never wrong. Now stop wasting time and get Project Midas underway!’

  ‘But – we can’t go any further, Mr Guzzler. Not without the beast.’

  Gaz gave a roar of frustration. He was not used to waiting. In the seven years since he’d won the lottery with the first ticket he’d ever bought, he had always got exactly what he wanted, exactly when he wanted.

  Pete flinched but stood his ground. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Guzzler, sir, but we must wait. If we go on alone without the beast to protect us, we might die.’

  ‘Oh, you’re such big babies!’ huffed Gaz. ‘All right, keep your nappy on. The beasty-weasty is on its way. It’ll arrive tomorrow night. Until then, you lot can make yourselves useful by cleaning every single one of my fifty cars, trucks, quads and motorbikes.’

  He hit the button and Pete was cut off in mid-thanks. As the monitor screen sank back into the floor, Gaz’s stomach gave a volcanic rumble. Good news always made him hungry. So did bad news, sad news and funny news. He opened his fridge, pulled out a sandwich box and looked inside. His face darkened.

  ‘Mum!’ he bellowed. ‘MUMMEEEE!!!’

  The door flew open and a thin, worried-looking woman hurried in. ‘Yes, son?’

  Gaz threw the lunchbox at her, scattering salad leaves across the room. ‘Salad!’ he roared. ‘You gave me salad!’

  ‘It’s good for you, Garry,’ quavered Mrs Guzzler, picking a spring onion out of her hair.

  ‘How many times?’ growled Gaz. ‘I don’t do green. Get it?’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Gaz. ‘We’re going out.’ He pulled a lever on the side of his chair and, with a groan of springs, the seat tilted forward, pushing him up on to his feet.

  ‘A nice walk, maybe?’ said Mrs Guzzler timidly, eyeing his enormous belly. ‘I saw an otter down by the lake earlier. And the forest is looking lovely.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t do green. Have my newest monster truck brought round to the front of the house. I fancy a deep-fried pizza.’

  2. Brake Time!

  Lara gave Professor Cortex an anxious look. Her old friend had been trained by MI6 to resist interrogation, but she could see that he was near to breaking point. Sweat was trickling down his face and his hands were shaking. For hours, he had been strapped to a seat and pinched, poked and battered, while his interrogator asked him the same question over and over again.

  Strapped in tight beside him, Lara could do nothing to help. ‘Hold on, Prof!’ she barked. ‘You’ve lasted longer than most!’

  Professor Cortex gasped as his interrogator doused him in icy liquid and then leant in close to his ear. He gritted his teeth, waiting for the question that would surely follow.

  ‘ARE WE NEARLY THERE YET?’

  ‘Careful with that cold lemonade, Ollie,’ said Mr Cook from the front passenger seat of the car. ‘You’ve spilt it all over the professor! Sit properly, please.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Ollie, elbowing Professor Cortex in the ribs as he flung himself back into his seat. ‘But are we –?’

  ‘Yes, Ollie. We’re nearly there,’ said Mrs Cook, checking her driver’s
satnav. ‘Only another five miles to Clearwater Village.’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ groaned Professor Cortex, prising popcorn out of his ear. He was one of the world’s top scientists and the head of the British Government’s animal spying programme, but a few hours in a car with six-year-old Ollie had nearly finished him.

  Lara gave him a sympathetic lick. ‘I did try to warn you,’ she woofed, remembering the scene outside the Cooks’ house earlier that day.

  Professor Cortex had arranged an all-expenses-paid long weekend in the Lake District for the whole family. It was his way of saying sorry for repeatedly putting the three Cook children, Ben, Sophie and Ollie, into danger.

  Not to mention my pups, thought Lara, turning her head to gaze fondly at Star and Spud, curled up in a nest of blankets in the back of the car.

  As instructed, the Cook family, along with Lara, Spud and Star, had been packed and ready to go by the time the Secret Service van pulled up outside the house. Agents T and K, the professor’s personal bodyguards, had been dressed, as always, in black suits and shades, but Professor Cortex had clambered out of the van wearing a pair of ancient, baggy hiking shorts.

  Star had giggled, nudging her brother. ‘Whoa! Look at those mushroom-white legs!’

  ‘Agghh! The glare!’ Spud had yelped, slapping his front paws over his eyes.

  ‘Shorts, Professor?’ Ben had said, in a strangled voice.

  ‘I thought they deserved an outing,’ Professor Cortex had said, pointing at his legs. ‘The poor things spend most of their time in secret underground laboratories. Not much sun down there.’

  ‘Not much sun in the Lake District either,’ Sophie had pointed out. ‘My geography teacher says it’s one of the rainiest places in England.’

  ‘Not this weekend,’ Professor Cortex had said cheerfully. ‘On the way here, I connected to one of our satellites. According to our van monitor screens, there’s not a single cloud over the Lake District.’

  Ben had looked enviously at the sleek, black Secret Service van. He was twelve and fascinated with technology. ‘Monitor screens with satellite connections? I wouldn’t mind riding up to the Lake District in that.’

  ‘Me too,’ Sophie had chipped in. ‘I always get sick in the back of the car.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Professor Cortex had said, waving them towards the van. ‘There’s plenty of room for both of you in the front, alongside my agents. I’ll ride in the back of your car with Oliver and Lara. How about that, young man?’

  ‘Yes!’ Ollie had cried, bouncing along the pavement and falling into the hedge.

  ‘No!’ Lara had woofed. ‘Don’t do it, Prof!’ She had pointed at Ollie and then given an Oscar-worthy impersonation of a karate fight, a tap dance and a tornado, all rolled into one. Four hours! With Ollie. It’ll be torture!

  I couldn’t have been any clearer, Lara thought now, still slightly hurt that Professor Cortex had not understood her warning about Ollie. Oh well. At least his act of self-sacrifice should make Mrs Cook thaw out a bit. She glanced hopefully at the rear-view mirror, but Mrs Cook’s eyes were looking as frosty as ever.

  Poor Professor Cortex, thought Lara. I understand why Mrs Cook is so angry; after all, I’m a mum too. But it’s not all his fault. Last time we got into danger, the prof wasn’t even there! Her eyes grew serious as she remembered their family summer holiday on Pleasure Island. They had run into some old enemies – Jimmy Tartan and Mr Big – and Spud had nearly died as a result. Not good!

  Lara sighed. The truth was that when the Cook family had adopted her a few years ago, they had adopted danger too. Back then, she had still been in active service as the world’s first ever Spy Dog, trained by Professor Cortex. ‘Lara’ had stood for Licensed Assault and Rescue Animal, and her code name had been GM451. Now she was retired. And not a moment too soon, she thought, looking at herself in the rear-view mirror. The bullet hole clean through the middle of her sticky-up ear was a chilling reminder of the dangers of being a Spy Dog.

  Unfortunately, her pups seemed determined to follow in her paw prints. Spud already had a matching bullet hole through his ear from an earlier adventure, and now he and Star had both just qualified as fully fledged Spy Dogs. Lara was beginning to realize that she could not stand in their way, but she had insisted that they be given more specialist training before they began active service. Professor Cortex had agreed, starting with some survival training this weekend. While Mr and Mrs Cook enjoyed a luxury spa hotel, and she kept an eye on the Cook children at the Tall Trees Outward Bound Centre, her pups would be camping out in the forest with a former SAS man known only as ‘X’. That should give them enough adventure to keep them happy for a while, thought Lara.

  ‘Nearly there, Ma!’ yapped Spud, standing on his hind legs and putting his paws on the back of Lara’s seat. ‘Clearwater Lake should be just round this corner. I can’t wait! Come on, Sis! Shake a leg!’

  Star took off her headphones and jumped up from their nest of blankets to join her brother. She had spent the journey learning to speak Otterese.

  ‘I hope we find an otter,’ said Star, scrambling up next to Spud.

  ‘I hope we find a good cake shop,’ replied Spud, with a doggy grin.

  ‘I don’t think there are many cake shops in the forest,’ woofed Lara.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Spud, laying a paw on his bulging rucksack. ‘I’m well stocked with food supplies.’

  Lara looked proudly at her pups as they hung over the back of the seat, tails wagging furiously. Star was black and white with one sticky-up ear, just like her. She was very hard-working and had done well in all her Spy School studies, especially fitness training, where she had proved that she could run as far and as fast as a fully grown dog. Already, she was losing her puppy fat and developing the slim build of an athlete. Just like me, thought Lara, sitting up straighter and sucking in her tummy.

  Spud had shiny black fur, the same as his father, Potter. He could never be called slim or fast, but he was strong and good at martial arts. He was a natural with gadgets and his curious nature meant that he was brilliant at solving mysteries. He loves a good puzzle, thought Lara. Again, just like me.

  The car turned a corner and, suddenly, there were Clearwater Village and Clearwater Lake spread out before them. Everyone gasped.

  ‘Oh, it’s beautiful!’ cried Mrs Cook, slowing the car to get a better look.

  ‘Windsurfers!’ Ollie yelled at the top of his voice, making Professor Cortex wince. ‘Watch me, Prof!’ He yanked his sweatshirt off and pretended to windsurf with it.

  ‘Wow!’ yelped Star, watching the bright sails skim across the lake. ‘I can’t wait to try that!’

  ‘And I can’t wait to try that!’ woofed Spud, spotting a pizza restaurant just ahead.

  ‘There’s your luxury spa hotel, Mr and Mrs Cook,’ said Professor Cortex, pointing to a stylish building on the water’s edge. He was hoping it might earn him some brownie points.

  ‘Very nice!’ said Mr Cook, rubbing his hands together.

  ‘Look, Mum!’ yelled Ollie. ‘Look at the hotel pool!’

  ‘I can’t look just now, Ollie,’ said Mrs Cook. ‘I’m driving.’

  ‘But it’s massive!’ Ollie flung his arms apart and his sweatshirt flew from his hand. It landed on Mrs Cook’s head, covering her eyes. As she fumbled with her blindfold, a bright red monster truck drove out of a side road right in front of her and then stopped dead outside the pizza restaurant.

  ‘Look out! We’re going to crash into it!’ barked Lara.

  ‘Leave this to me, Ma!’ yelped Spud, shooting between the front seats like a puppy cannonball. With a second to spare, he landed bottom-first on the brake pedal.

  Thud!

  The car screeched to a very sudden stop.

  ‘Spud! What on earth …?’ began Mrs Cook, pulling the sweatshirt off her head and blinking down at him. Then she looked through the windscreen. ‘O
h, my …’

  A metal tow bar glinted in the sun centimetres from her nose. Behind the tow bar, a number plate loomed.

  GUZZLER50

  The monster-truck cab sat so high on its huge wheels that the bonnet of their car had slid underneath the back bumper. Spud had hit the brake just in time before the truck’s tow bar smashed through their windscreen.

  ‘Well done, Spud!’ yapped Star, poking her head over the back seat. ‘You really slammed that brake pedal!’

  ‘It’s my secret weapon,’ woofed Spud, waggling his plump bottom. ‘The rear to fear!’

  3. Litter Lout

  Mrs Cook backed out from underneath the monster truck and reversed down the road to the spa hotel. The Secret Service van pulled up behind them and everyone jumped out.

  ‘That was close!’ cried Ben. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Mr Cook. ‘Spud saved the day.’

  ‘Well done, Spud,’ said Sophie, crouching down and giving him a hug.

  ‘I only sat down hard,’ wagged Spud modestly.

  ‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Ollie, looking at his feet.

  Mrs Cook ruffled his hair. ‘Not your fault’ she soothed.

  Just then, the monster truck’s front passenger door opened and a thin, anxious-looking woman climbed down the steps from the cab and hurried into the pizza restaurant.

  ‘Look at those massive wheels!’ said Ollie, staring excitedly at the monster truck. ‘That lady had to use a ladder to get out!’

  ‘Want me to run a check on the number plate, sir?’ asked Agent K.

  ‘If we find anything, we could arrest the driver,’ added Agent T.

  ‘No!’ said Mrs Cook hastily. ‘This is meant to be a peaceful holiday, remember?’

  ‘Go for it!’ growled Lara. ‘Lock him up!’

  Professor Cortex gave Lara a sympathetic look. ‘I can guess what you’re saying, GM451, but I’m afraid Mrs Cook has a point. You’re supposed to be three perfectly ordinary pet dogs on holiday with their perfectly ordinary family. Ordinary families do not have Secret Service minders on hand to arrest anyone who happens to bother them.’