Cows In Action 9

by Steve Cole

  Pat swallowed hard. “What if our best isn’t good enough?”

  “It’ll have to be,” McMoo declared. “Whatever the risks or the dangers we face – the F.B.I.’s time-crime must be stopped!”

  Chapter Five

  TRAIN OF DANGER

  Within the hour, two more horse-drawn carriages had pulled up outside the Green Thumb Club. McMoo, Pat and Bo eagerly jumped into the first and Eliza Barmer staggered down the steps into the second, helped by two of Sir Lawrence’s footmen. She had packed two giant suitcases, one green and one yellow, each almost as big as she was. The carriage groaned as she heaved them on board.

  “What’s she got in there?” Bo wondered. “Can’t be beauty products!”

  “Don’t be mean,” said Pat. “She seems quite nice for a Barmer.”

  The queen and Prince Albert led Sir Lawrence and Dicky Hart down to their unmarked horse and carriage. Once they’d climbed aboard, their driver set off, leading the procession of coaches to Euston station.

  McMoo leaned out of the window as they rattled along, enjoying the sights and sounds and smells of the bustling Victorian streets. Bo, on the other hand, sat holding her nose from the stink of oil and smoke and sewage.

  “Professor, what if the ghost of the Black Cow attacks Prince Albert on the way to Sir Lawrence’s house?” asked Pat.

  “Bud der F.B.I. don’t dow wad drain dey’ll be gedding,” said Bo still holding her nose.

  “The F.B.I. might know very well which train they’ll be getting,” McMoo pointed out, “if Sir Lawrence Pwee is working for them!”

  “Pulsating parsnips!” Pat gasped. “I suppose it is a bit strange that the victims so far all belonged to his club – and that only his house can keep the ghost away.”

  Bo let go of her nose. “It could also explain why he’s got a rotten old Barmer as his housekeeper. But he seems such a nice geezer!”

  “We’ll keep an eye on him and Eliza,” said McMoo. “And guard Vicki and Albert especially closely.” Their carriage pulled up outside what appeared to be a massive, old-fashioned temple. “Aha! Here we are, the way into Euston station. Time for a real-life Victorian railway experience!”

  While Dicky hurried off to buy tickets, Sir Lawrence escorted Victoria and Albert into the station’s grand hall – a gigantic space lined with archways, offices and galleries, with a high, ornate ceiling. McMoo, Pat and Bo hurried after them, followed by Eliza and the footmen who wheeled the luggage on funny wooden trolleys. The royals wore big hats and long black cloaks to disguise themselves, and though the hall was teeming with people no one spared them a glance as Sir Lawrence led the way to a shining green steam engine. It stood beside the platform, spitting steam and smoke.

  McMoo beamed at Sir Lawrence as the footmen heaved the bags and boxes into the train’s luggage compartment. “So, who’s sitting where? Bagsy I ride with my back to the engine!”

  “As a gentleman, McMoo, I’m sure you’re aware that a first-class coach seats four people on each side,” said Sir Lawrence. “Therefore, to make sure we have privacy, you and your young companions may join Dicky and I in sitting with Her Majesty and Prince Albert.” He looked at Eliza. “Mrs Barmer, while my footmen travel in second class, I will let you take the remaining seat to be sure a stranger does not join us.”

  Eliza gasped. “Why, thank you, sir!”

  “Travelling with other people’s servants!” The short queen gave a regal sigh. “If the Prime Minister could see me now!” She took Albert’s hand and climbed up into the carriage. Dicky and Sir Lawrence followed and the C.I.A. agents pushed on board after them.

  The first-class compartment was made of polished wood and had thickly padded seats, carpet on the floor and shutters on the windows. Eliza gasped in wonder. Then a loud whistle sounded from the platform. With a hissing noise, the mighty locomotive pulled away from the station. It picked up speed, chuffing and rattling and bumping along.

  McMoo looked as happy as a pig in mud as the towers and chimneys of town slowly gave way to green countryside. Eliza cooed quietly, her fingers playing with the brooch on her coat.

  “That’s a very pretty little thing,” Queen Victoria remarked. “For a servant to wear, I mean. May I see it?”

  “Er . . .” Eliza blushed scarlet. “Of course, ma’am.” She carefully removed it and passed it over. “Sir Lawrence gave it to me.”

  “Merely a bauble,” said Sir Lawrence quickly. “To celebrate Mrs Barmer passing twenty years in my employment.”

  Bo whispered to Pat: “Someone should give him a medal for sticking with the old bat for so long!”

  “That was a fine evening.” Dicky Hart turned fondly to Eliza. “Remember what you cooked for us at the club that night, my dear?”

  “Um . . .” Eliza shrugged. “Parsnip stew?”

  Dicky frowned. “It was clear turtle soup followed by roast goose with all the trimmings!”

  “Oh, yes! Sorry, sir.” She meekly accepted the brooch back from Queen Victoria. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling quite myself. This dreadful cow business . . .”

  As if on cue, a ghostly, all too familiar wailing started up over the frantic chuffing of the engine.

  “Uh-oh,” said McMoo as a dark, shadowy figure with glowing red eyes and two trembling horns swam into sight in the middle of the coach.

  “The Black Cow!” yelled Dicky as Albert and Sir Lawrence cowered in fear.

  “What? Oh, my!” Eliza dropped the brooch in fright. “It will moo-der us all!”

  “Back again, huh?” Bo struck a fighting pose as the ghost began to swirl about the compartment, roaring and hissing. “Well, you won’t get away from me this time!” She lunged towards the ghostly cow but again she went right through it, this time accidentally punching Pat! He sank back in his chair in a daze.

  “That vile phantom must be after my lovely Albert!” Victoria cried. “It knows we are on our way to safety, and seeks to strike first. Don’t let it get him – that’s a royal command!”

  “Then there’s only one place to go,” said McMoo. He charged straight through the ghost, yanked Albert to his feet and threw open the carriage door! A smoky, sooty gale rushed in as McMoo dragged the alarmed Prince outside, balancing on the footboards and clinging to the windowsill.

  “This is madness, Professor!” spluttered Albert.

  “Nah. Bit of fresh air, lovely!” McMoo cried. “Ghostly cows can really fog up a carriage.” Even as he spoke, the phantom of the Black Cow followed, spiralling out through the door, reaching for them with dark, shadowy hooves. Albert whimpered with fear, but McMoo edged away along the footboard, pulling the prince after him.

  “Help!” Albert shouted, keeping a tight grip on the windowsill. “If the Black Cow doesn’t get me, you most surely will!”

  “I just want to know if that ghost is for real, or just some sort of parlour trick,” McMoo explained. Suit flapping in the gale, he leaped across and perched precariously on the footboards of the neighbouring carriage. “If it is real, it should be able to follow us wherever we go.”

  Albert gulped as he wriggled across to the next coach too, pressing himself flat against the woodwork. “Follow us and moo-der us?”

  “Probably,” McMoo agreed cheerily.

  By now, Bo, Pat and Queen Victoria were leaning out through the door of their carriage – Bo swiped uselessly at the still-hovering ghost with her hooves and the queen shook a royal fist. “Save my husband, Professor!” she hollered. “Or I will NOT be amused!”

  “Oh, no!” Pat cried. “Here comes a tunnel!”

  With a stab of fear, McMoo saw Pat was right. The train was plunging towards a deep black hole in the hillside up ahead. And while the Black Cow was making no attempt to chase after Albert, he supposed it hardly needed to. “If we’re still holding on outside when the train enters the tunnel,” he muttered, “we’ll be scraped across the walls like strawberry jam!”

  Chapter Six

  COWNTRY HOUSE

  Clinging on b
y the tips of his hooves, McMoo watched helplessly as the train thundered ever closer towards the beckoning blackness of the tunnel. He and Albert had maybe thirty seconds before it roared inside.

  With red eyes glowing and its ghostly udder trembling, the Black Cow started spinning in the air faster and faster outside Sir Lawrence’s carriage, roaring as though laughing its horns off.

  And then suddenly it vanished.

  “Ha!” shouted Bo, as Sir Lawrence appeared at the window with Eliza just behind him. “I scared it away!”

  “The phantom simply knows its work is done, foolish child,” moaned Albert. “It has doomed me!”

  “We’re not doomed yet!” McMoo yelled back, his mind racing. Could he and Albert jump for it? No, the hillside behind them was steep and littered with sharp rocks – if they struck one at this speed . . .

  Suddenly, the sound of screams carried from inside the carriage McMoo and Albert now clung on to, as a gaggle of terrified old ladies caught sight of their two unexpected visitors. Albert started wailing too, rigid with fear as the speeding train tore ever closer to the tunnel. With only seconds to go, the professor knew he could never manhandle the panicking prince through the door in time . . .

  So he lowered his horns and smashed his head through the carriage window!

  The ladies screeched louder. Albert joined in with their discordant cries. Then, fighting against the gusting wind, McMoo grabbed Albert and propelled him through the hole in the glass with a power-packed punt up the princely posterior . . . delivering him safely into the old ladies’ carriage!

  “Hurrah!” Queen Victoria cheered from the other compartment.

  “Moooo-ve it, Professor!” Bo bellowed. The tunnel’s dark and smoky mouth seemed to widen, ready to swallow the speeding locomotive – and to squash the unusual passenger holding on outside. The driver sounded the whistle.

  Desperately, McMoo struggled to squeeze his bullish bulk through the carriage window . . . and tumbled inside just as the train burst into the tunnel. The professor shut his eyes as deafening echoes and thick sooty smoke blew in through the broken window for half a minute or more. Finally, he opened his eyes to find the train had passed right through the tunnel and was back in the sunlight, chuffing serenely on its way. Prince Albert was sitting in a daze beside him, while four white-faced old ladies peered down at them anxiously.

  “Sorry to drop in on you like this.” McMoo scrambled to his feet and grinned. “Don’t suppose there’s any chance of a cup of tea . . .?”

  The professor didn’t get any tea, but he did get some fruitcake and sympathy once the ladies accepted his story that Albert had sleepwalked out of his carriage and McMoo was trying to save his life. Luckily, they didn’t recognize Albert as the husband of the British queen. “Good job there’s no Victorian version of Hello! magazine,” McMoo noted.

  In another few minutes, the train stopped at a station and McMoo and Albert staggered unsteadily outside.

  “You saved my Albert!” Queen Victoria ran out onto the platform and embraced her husband. Then she flung her chubby arms around the professor too. “I shall make you a knight.”

  “Been there, done that.” McMoo grinned cheekily. “I’d sooner you made me a majestic cuppa . . .!” But Victoria had already turned away, leading Albert back to their carriage.

  While Dicky and Eliza took a brisk stroll to calm their nerves and Sir Lawrence tried to clear up the matter of the broken carriage window with the station master, the C.I.A. agents conferred on the platform. “I thought you were both goners for sure, out there,” said Pat. “That Black Cow ghost is horrible.”

  “I don’t believe it is a real ghost,” McMoo revealed. “Tunnel or no tunnel, it couldn’t follow Albert to the next carriage.”

  “Then what is it?” asked Bo.

  “I don’t know,” McMoo admitted.

  “Well, I’m going to search the train for F.B.I. agents,” Bo declared, marching off down the platform.

  Pat and the professor went with her. But there was no sign of anyone remotely suspicious on the train.

  “If the F.B.I. are around,” said Pat, “they’re staying well-hidden.”

  McMoo nodded moodily. “But sooner or later, when we least expect it . . . they’ll strike!”

  The rest of the journey to Sir Lawrence’s passed quietly. As the train approached Commoner’s Halt, the last station on the line, eight sighs of relief filled the first-class compartment.

  Hidden once more beneath hats and cloaks, Victoria and Albert followed Sir Lawrence and Dicky to where cab drivers stood waiting beside their coaches and horses. Eliza helped the footmen load the luggage onto a second coach, and the C.I.A. agents hopped into a third. The horses pulled away and the intrepid gang braced themselves for the final leg of their journey.

  “That train was slower than a hedgehog with one foot,” Bo complained. “This investigation’s going nowhere!”

  “I think you’ll find it’s going to a very big house in the country,” McMoo corrected her. “And everyone’s come here because that faked parchment said a house with three fountains and pomp lilies will give protection from the Black Cow,” said McMoo. “But what if the reverse is true?”

  “You mean, Cow Black the from protection gives lilies pomp and fountains three with house A?” Bo joked. “Doubt it.”

  McMoo pulled a face. “I mean, those lilies and fountains could be part of an evil F.B.I. plan to make the Black Cow stronger and more dangerous, somehow. We must check them out as soon as we can!”

  Before long, Sir Lawrence’s fine country house came into sight – a grand, towering slab of stone and ivy. The impressive grounds were crammed with a thousand different plants, all in full bloom.

  Pat pointed. “There are the fountains!”

  Three circular pools stood in a neatly mown lawn. A huge stone trout, spitting water from its mouth, balanced in each.

  “Let’s hope that’s the only fishy thing about these fountains,” said McMoo. “Bo, check them out – carefully – and stand guard by them till we join you.”

  “Gotcha, Prof,” cried Bo. She leaped from the moving carriage and hurried away.

  “As for you, Pat, I’d like you to search Sir Lawrence’s house from top to bottom,” McMoo said. “But do it sneakily. If there is an F.B.I. agent here, our best hope is to catch them off guard.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Pat promised. “What are you going to do?”

  The professor smiled. “I’m going to find out if a pomp lily a day keeps black cows away!”

  As their carriage arrived outside the house, McMoo and Pat jumped down to join the others.

  “One is tired,” Queen Victoria announced. “One is going to bed.”

  Pat stretched. “I’d like a lie down too, please.”

  “Of course,” said Sir Lawrence. “Mrs Barmer, kindly escort Her Majesty to the main bedroom, and Pat to one of the guest chambers.”

  Eliza curtseyed. Then she noticed one of the footmen struggling to shift her two enormous cases, and she rushed over to help. “May I lie down as well after that, sir? I am feeling quite under the weather.”

  “Very well,” Sir Lawrence answered.

  “I say, McMoo,” Dicky said, watching as Eliza plodded off with her luggage, the queen and Pat in tow. “Where’s your niece?”

  “Oh, just taking a stroll in the grounds,” McMoo told him airily. “She does like a bit of nature. Speaking of which, Sir Lawrence, I’d love to see one of your pomp lilies . . .”

  “As would I,” said Albert. “I want to be sure they are still here to protect us!”

  “Then let us go at once,” declared Sir Lawrence. “Come along!”

  Over by the fountains, Bo was getting bored. She’d checked out the trouts, tasted the water and even had a quick paddle. But there seemed nothing remotely trap-like about them.

  Then suddenly, Bo heard a rustle from the bushes ahead of her. A wisp of steam rose up from their depths. “Professor?” she called.

&
nbsp; A top hat peeped out from the vegetation, then vanished back inside with a choking cry.

  “Prof!” Bo charged towards the bushes, hooves raised. “Hang on. I’ll save you!” She leaped headfirst into the greenery . . .

  And straight into a cast-iron hoof. CLANG!

  “Oof!” Bo cried, collapsing in a leafy tangle. She caught a blurred glimpse of a broad metal face staring down at her with glowing green eyes . . .

  “A ter-moo-nator!” she breathed. “Got to warn the others . . .”

  “It is too late, my dear,” hissed a scary, metallic voice as blackness overwhelmed her. “Far too late . . .”

  Chapter Seven

  THE TRAP IS SPRUNG

  From the window of a luxurious guest room in the sprawling mansion, Pat watched Professor McMoo vanish into the leafy gardens with Sir Lawrence, Prince Albert and Dicky Hart. Beyond a row of fir trees he could see the fishy tips of the three fountains – but no sign of Bo.

  “She’ll be OK,” he told himself. “Probably just off clobbering something.” He crossed to the door and peeped out onto the deserted landing. “I hope the queen’s a heavy sleeper . . .”

  It was time to start searching the house.

  Pat started by checking several rooms along the landing. Then he quickly hid as the footmen came up to do some dusting.

  “This is Eliza’s job,” he heard one grumble.

  “I quite like it!” said the other happily. “Besides, it’s plain to see that poor dear Eliza is really worn out . . .”

  Pat decided that this would be a good time to search the servants’ quarters. He crept down a large curving staircase and started sticking his snout into the poky, musty rooms below stairs where Sir Lawrence’s servants had to live.