‘Oh,’ said Boo. Her face clouded. ‘I’d forgotten all about the mission. I had such a nice time last night.’ She jumped up. ‘But you’re right, Amy. We should get going. The professor’s relying on us.’
Boo’s words made Amy feel guilty. For the first time it dawned on her why it had been wrong not to tell Professor Rooster about James Pond. It wasn’t for the reason she’d thought – that the professor would find out they needed help to complete the mission. It was because although not telling the professor wasn’t exactly a lie, it wasn’t exactly the truth either. Boo was right. The professor was relying on them. And if he couldn’t rely on them to tell him the truth, he couldn’t rely on them for anything.
‘What’s the matter, Amy?’ Ruth asked. ‘You look fed up.’
‘Nothing,’ Amy lied. It had been her idea to keep it a secret. What if the professor found out? What if he was cross? It wasn’t just her who would get into trouble: Boo and Ruth would too. Amy felt all muddled and upset. She needed to do some chicken thinking.
The three chickens let themselves out of the sleeping coop. Rossiter was just coming to the end of his song. Amy heard the clank of pails being emptied and the pad-pad-pad of rubber boots retreating to the farmhouse.
‘It’s okay,’ Rossiter said. ‘The humans have gone. I’ll go and check on the grannies, then I’ll be back.’ He strutted off.
Amy trailed after the others across the farmyard to the hospital shed. Ruth had brought the Emergency Chicken Pack. She took out the hammer and squinted at the nails.
‘I’ll do it,’ Amy said. She tucked the claw of the hammer behind the head of the first nail and levered it out. Doing something practical made her feel better. She resolved that she would do everything possible to help James Pond complete the mission. And after that she would tell the professor the truth – that it was her idea to get James Pond to do the dirty work and to keep it a secret from him – at least then the professor couldn’t blame Boo and Ruth.
PLINK! PLINK! PLINK!
The three nails dropped on the floor one after the other. ‘You can open the door now,’ Amy said. She bent down to pick up the nails. She heard the door creak, then a gasp. ‘What is it?’ Amy looked up in alarm.
‘He’s gone!’ Boo said.
Amy crowded into the shed behind Boo and Ruth. She looked round in horror. The floor had been ripped up. A few duck feathers lay strewn on the hay. Vladimir’s Vampire Slayer and a torch had been kicked into a corner. A trail of something sticky led across the floor. ‘Someone must have tunnelled into the hospital shed while we were asleep,’ she said.
‘Fangula!’ Boo whispered.
‘Not necessarily,’ Ruth said in her serious voice. She put a magnifying glass to her eye and examined the floor.
‘Where did you get that from?’ Amy asked in awe. Ruth looked like a super-brainy detective!
‘The Emergency Chicken Pack,’ Ruth replied. ‘Professor Rooster must have thought it would come in useful.’
‘Oh.’ Amy couldn’t bear to think about Professor Rooster. What on earth would he say when he found out James Pond had disappeared? A dreadful thought occurred to her. What if James Pond had been turned into a zombie?
‘What do you mean it’s not necessarily Fangula?’ Boo asked Ruth.
‘This is zombie goo,’ Ruth said, pointing at the sticky trail, ‘not blood. That means Pond was snatched by Ichabod and Granny Wishbone, not by Fangula herself.’
‘Does it matter?’ Amy asked dismally.
‘It might,’ said Ruth. She moved towards the hole in the floor. ‘Hmmm, another clue,’ she said, unthreading a piece of orange fluff from one of the splintered floorboards and examining it carefully with the magnifying glass. ‘Whatever it was that tunnelled underneath the shed left this behind.’
‘What is it?’ asked Boo.
‘Take a look.’ Ruth said.
Boo took the magnifying glass. ‘Flap!’ she exclaimed. ‘Amy, you’d better look at this.’
‘All right.’ Amy peered through the thick glass at the orange fluff. She blinked. It wasn’t fluff at all. It was a tuft of orange fur.
The three chickens stared at one another.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Ruth asked eventually.
‘I think so,’ Boo replied.
The two chickens looked expectantly at Amy.
‘I think I think I’m thinking it!’ Amy said. She waited. She didn’t want to be the one who said what it was they were all supposed to be thinking in case she’d got it wrong!
‘This fur belongs to a fox: Thaddeus E. Fox, if I’m not very much mistaken,’ Ruth said finally.
‘Are you sure?’ Amy asked in a small voice. She didn’t know whether to be pleased or disappointed that she’d guessed right.
‘It’s the only logical explanation,’ Ruth replied. ‘Professor Rooster told us that there were no foxes on the moor in winter. He said they went to ground. So we know it’s no ordinary fox we’re dealing with here. That leaves Thaddeus.’
Amy felt worse than ever. Fangula and Thaddeus E. Fox! Even James Pond won’t stand a chance against those two! Suddenly she burst into tears.
‘Amy, what’s wrong?’ Boo put her wing round her.
‘This is all my fault!’ Amy howled. ‘I wish I’d never asked James Pond to help us. I wish I’d told the professor the truth. He’s going to be so cross with me when he finds out what’s happened.’
‘It’s not your fault, Amy,’ Boo said firmly. ‘We agreed to it, didn’t we, Ruth?’
Ruth nodded. ‘Of course we did. It was all of us, Amy, not just you. None of us wanted to slay Fangula. That’s why we asked James Pond to do it.’
‘But you were going to tell the professor,’ Amy sniffed. ‘It was me who said we shouldn’t.’
‘We didn’t tell him, though, did we?’ Boo pointed out. ‘We went along with it. Which makes us just as much to blame for what’s happened as you.’
‘Really?’ Amy smiled tearfully. She was so lucky to have such good friends.
‘Really.’ Boo and Ruth gave her a hug.
‘Anyway, Amy,’ Ruth added, ‘it’s not your fault Thaddeus E. Fox decided to put in an appearance. None of us were expecting that.’
That was true, Amy thought. Professor Rooster couldn’t blame her for Thaddeus showing up.
Ruth took off her specs and polished them with her scarf. She had that brainy detective look on her face again, Amy noticed. She decided to forget about her own problems for a minute and concentrate.
‘The question is, why did Thaddeus get the zombies to snatch James Pond?’ Ruth said thoughtfully. ‘Why didn’t he and Fangula just eat him when they had the chance?’
‘You think James Pond is still alive?’ Amy cried, her heart filling with hope.
‘I reckon there’s a good chance that he is,’ Ruth said. ‘Fox planned this specially. I mean why go after James Pond at all? Why didn’t the villains just raid the sleeping coop?’
‘Maybe Thaddeus got the wrong shed?’ Boo suggested.
Ruth shook her head. ‘Thaddeus won’t be here alone,’ she said. ‘The rest of the MOST WANTED Club will be in on the plan too. My guess is Thaddeus would have got the Pigeon-Poo Gang to check out the lie of the land before he started digging so he didn’t get the sheds mixed up.’
‘Maybe he was frightened we’d be waiting for him?’ Amy said. ‘Fangula must have told him we rescued James Pond from her coffin yesterday.’
‘I don’t think it’s that either,’ Ruth replied. ‘We didn’t even know Fox and his gang were here. He could have taken us by surprise.’ She scratched her head. ‘He chose the hospital shed deliberately. He wanted Pond and he wanted him alive. I’m sure of it. I just don’t get why!’
Amy thought hard. ‘Know your enemy,’ she said suddenly. It was something the chickens had learned when they had been training to become chicken warriors.
‘Amy’s right,’ Boo said. ‘We’ve got to get inside his head. We’ve got to th
ink like foxes.’
The three chickens screwed their eyes tight shut.
Amy tried to imagine she was Thaddeus E. Fox. What could be so important to him that he would sacrifice raiding a chicken shed – killing the three of them, even! – to snatch James Pond instead? Pond must have something Thaddeus E. Fox wanted more than anything else in the world.
There was only one thing she could think of …
Amy’s eyes flew open. ‘Professor Rooster!’ she cried. ‘That’s why Thaddeus E. Fox wanted James Pond alive: he’s the only one of us who knows where the professor lives.’
Boo and Ruth stared at her, shocked.
‘Pond won’t tell him, though,’ Boo whispered. ‘Will he?’
‘He might not tell Thaddeus,’ Amy said grimly, ‘but I don’t think even James Pond could stand up to Granny Wishbone, especially now she’s a zombie.’
‘So that was Fox’s plan all along!’ Ruth said. ‘To find out from Pond where the professor lives and chicken-nap him!’
Just then Rossiter Brown appeared in the doorway holding a scroll of paper. His face was grave.
Now what? thought Amy.
‘It’s the grannies,’ Rossiter said, ‘they’re not in the juice shed.’
‘I found this.’ Rossiter Brown held out the paper.
Ruth took it. She uncurled the scroll and began to read.
‘Flap!’ said Amy. ‘You mean the grannies fell for that?’
‘I fear they must have,’ Rossiter Brown replied. ‘I think they sneaked out when the rest of us were asleep.’
‘That means Fangula will have turned them into zombies by now!’ Boo wailed.
Amy shivered. Fangula’s zombie army was back. Only this time it was made up of Granny Wishbone and her cronies. The idea was horrible: the grannies were bad enough even when they weren’t zombies. She dreaded the thought of what they would be like now. ‘How did they get out?’ she asked, although she thought she already knew the answer.
‘Through a tunnel,’ Rossiter said. ‘It goes under the shed through the farmyard to the other side of the dry stone wall, where the path to Bloodsucker Hall begins.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘I didn’t know Fangula could dig.’
‘Fangula didn’t dig the tunnel,’ Amy told him. ‘It was Thaddeus E. Fox. He and his MOST WANTED Club of villains have teamed up with the countess. James Pond has disappeared as well.’ She filled him in on their news as quickly as she could.
‘The professor!’ Rossiter gasped when she got to the bit about Professor Rooster being chicken-napped.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Boo said solemnly. She put a wing round his shoulder to comfort him.
‘But what are we going to do now?’ Rossiter flapped. ‘I mean it’s only a matter of time before the villains attack the sleeping coop.’ He put his head in his wings. ‘We’re finished.’
‘No we’re not,’ Amy tried to sound brave. ‘We’ll rescue the professor. He’ll know what to do.’
‘What if you’re too late?’ Rossiter said. ‘What if Fangula has already turned him into a zombie?’
Amy’s face fell. She hadn’t thought of that.
‘We won’t be too late,’ Ruth said.
‘How do you know?’ asked Rossiter.
‘Maths.’
‘Maths?’ Amy echoed.
‘Yes. What time did we go to bed last night, Boo?’
‘About nine o’clock, I think.’
Ruth took out the pencil from the Emergency Chicken Pack and jotted down some numbers on the back of the invitation. ‘Let’s say Thaddeus waited an hour after we went to bed before he started digging … and it took him another hour to dig the first tunnel and deliver the invitation to the juice shed …’ She scribbled something on the paper ‘… that means the grannies must have escaped at about eleven o’clock last night.’
Amy listened carefully. She’d never been much good at maths, or telling the time, for that matter. It was a good thing Ruth was so good at numbers.
‘Then he had to dig a second tunnel to the hospital shed and send Ichabod and Granny Wishbone down it to get James Pond and make him quack. That would take us to, say …’ Ruth chewed the pencil, ‘… midnight!’ She scribbled more numbers down. ‘Then one of the MOST WANTED Club had to run twenty miles across country to fetch the professor …’
‘That would take ages if you didn’t have flight-booster engines,’ Amy remarked.
‘Exactly my point,’ Ruth beamed at her. ‘By the time whoever it was made it back to Bloodsucker Hall with the professor …’
‘… it would be dawn!’ Boo exclaimed.
‘And Fangula would be back in her coffin!’ Amy cried. She got it now. Of course the professor was still alive. Fangula and her zombies only operated in darkness. And it had taken the villains until dawn to chicken-nap Professor Rooster. ‘Oh, Ruth, you are clever!’ she sighed.
‘Thanks!’ Ruth blushed.
‘So you’ve got until sunset to rescue the professor and save the roost,’ Rossiter Brown said, sounding more cheerful.
‘How long is that?’ Boo asked.
‘About four hours,’ said Ruth.
Four hours! Amy wished it didn’t get dark so early on the moor and that they hadn’t slept in. Four hours didn’t seem a very long time to do all those difficult things. But it would just have to do. ‘That should be plenty,’ she said brightly, crossing her tail feathers behind her bottom so that Rossiter Brown couldn’t see.
‘I’ll go and tell the others.’ Rossiter Brown hurried out of the hospital shed.
‘Er … just one small problem, Amy,’ Boo said. ‘How are we going to get the professor out of Bloodsucker Hall without Thaddeus and his gang catching us?’
‘I don’t know,’ Amy admitted. ‘Maybe we should have a look in the Emergency Chicken Pack and see if there’s anything in there we can use.’
Ruth emptied out the contents onto the floor of the shed.
The magnifying glass fell out, followed by the Mite Blaster Grease squirt, the hammer, the pencil sharpener and a spare garlic tube for the garlic blaster.
‘Is that it?’ Amy asked, disappointed.
‘No, there’s something else.’ Ruth gave the pack another shake.
A short round cylinder with holes in one end rolled along the floor, leaving a trail of black powder behind it.
‘Aaaaaaa-shoo!’ Amy sneezed.
Ruth picked up the cylinder. ‘It’s a pepper shaker,’ she said.
‘What’s it for,’ asked Amy, ‘apart from to make you sneeze?’
‘That’s exactly what it’s for’ said Ruth. ‘Animals don’t like pepper. Humans use it to keep them off their land. I think it’s meant to be a weapon.’
That was useful, thought Amy. She stored the information away in her little chicken brain. ‘Anything else?’ she asked.
Ruth gave the bag a final jiggle.
CLANG! A flat square tin tumbled out onto the floor.
Amy picked it up and examined it. The tin had writing on the side.
‘What’s that for?’ asked Ruth, baffled for once.
‘A disguise!’ Amy said gleefully. She’d once been to a Halloween party at Perrin’s Farm where all the chickens had dressed up in different scary costumes and gone round the barn asking for sweetcorn from the other farm animals.
‘How does that help us?’ Boo asked.
Amy smiled happily. She might not be much good at maths but she’d just had one of her occasional flashes of chicken genius. ‘We’ll use it to get past Thaddeus E. Fox and the MOST WANTED Club, of course!’ She flipped open the tin lid. Three sets of yellow rubber teeth grinned back at her. She picked up a sponge and dabbed it in green make-up. ‘Now, who wants to be first?’ she said.
Down in the kitchen at Bloodsucker Hall, Thaddeus E. Fox sat in a moth-eaten armchair with his back paws in a bowl of hot soapy water. It had been hard work digging the tunnels to the chicken sheds and his feet were sore. But it had been worth it. His plan had worked perfectly. He had captur
ed Pond. He had captured Rooster. The countess had an army of granny chicken zombies. And there was nothing that Professor Rooster’s pesky chicken squad could do about it. Thaddeus E. Fox let out a contented sigh. One last raid on the sleeping coop at Fogsham Farm tonight and they would finally be ready for the banquet to begin.
‘How’s the barbecue, Claude?’ he asked.
Kebab Claude was bending over the fireplace with a pair of iron tongs. ‘Nice and ’ot,’ he said, turning over the burning logs.
‘What about the carving knives?’ Thaddeus said. ‘Are they sharp?’
‘Sharp as my own claws,’ Tiny Tony Tiddles looked up from beside the fire. A silver carving set lay beside him, glinting in a box on a bed of faded blue velvet.
‘Excellent.’ Thaddeus E. Fox felt so relaxed he was even prepared to be nice to Tiny Tony. The cat and the poodle had done well last night, he thought, carrying Rooster all that way across country in a sack. The professor was big and surprisingly heavy for a bird. It had taken three of them to clap the cockerel in irons when Kebab Claude and Tiny Tony Tiddles finally made it back to the hall at daybreak. Rooster had struggled and flapped. Thaddeus had been tempted to bash him over the head with his silver cane and eat him there and then. He was glad that he had been patient, though. What a pleasure it would be to see his good friend, the countess, sink her fangs into Professor Rooster’s neck while he, Thaddeus, tucked into James Pond and the three members of the professor’s elite chicken squad for his hors d’oeuvre. It was he, Thaddeus E. Fox, who would have the last laugh. PHWA HA HA HA HA!
Kebab Claude had prepared a menu. Thaddeus read it again.
Starter
Chicken
Main Course
More Chicken
The Curse of Fogsham Farm Page 7
