by Paul Cooper
The PiPs captain made his way up to the next ridge, and he continued to follow the sure-footed sheep. This second roof had a skylight as well. As he passed it, Pete peered into the warehouse below. There was a sign on the wall here too:
FUNTIME BOUNCY TRAMPOLINES
If he did fall, at least he might bounce his way to safety.
Pete glanced ahead and saw that the runaway sheep was picking up speed once more. The gap to the next building was even wider, but again the sheep didn’t hesitate. It calmly leapt across and continued its escape.
Pete knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer – it was now or never. He threw all of his energy into a final sprint, leaping across the gap. But he was moving too fast to control his landing. Arms flailing wildly, he high-stepped madly across the next rooftop. Before his legs gave out from under him, he flung himself at the sheep.
He managed to catch its back leg with one trotter and both animals tumbled towards this building’s skylight. They crashed through it in a shower of glass.
As they plunged downwards, the sign on the wall was just a blur to Pete. He had only a moment to wonder at what was inside this large building. Pillows? Foam packing? Inflatable dinghies?
Then they landed and Pete found out the hard way what the sign on this wall said:
COLIN’S CACTUS WAREHOUSE
A few minutes later, following the sound of all the yelping, Brian and Curly made their way to the cactus warehouse.
‘Are you OK, Pete?’ asked Curly anxiously. ‘We heard you from three blocks away.’
Pete yelped as he plucked another cactus needle out of his bum. As the PiPs medical officer, Brian was usually responsible for all medical emergencies, but he decided to let the captain get on with the task himself on this particular occasion.
‘That sheep got even more prickles than me,’ said Pete, ‘but he never even made a sound. It’s as if he didn’t feel any pain, like he was some sort of robot or something. He just got up and raced off before I could grab him.’
‘I imagine he took the Golden Fleece with him?’ asked Brian, taking care to keep his eyes above waist level.
Pete grinned through the pain. He reached up behind him and pulled a sparkly object from the cactus limb it had snagged on to. Close up, it looked a bit cheap and shiny, but it was definitely the Golden Fleece.
‘You’ve got it!’ cried Tammy, joining the other PiPs in the cactus warehouse. ‘What happened?’
Pete explained quickly, skipping over the bit about needles in his backside.
‘How about you?’ he asked. ‘Did you find anything in the stairwell?’
Tammy thought for a moment, as if she was trying to remember something. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there was nothing there … Nothing there at all.’
CHAPTER 3:
No More Mr Nice Pig
Pete couldn’t walk too fast, so it was really late when the PiPs got back to the parked SkyHogs. They radioed Peregrine to let him know the Fleece was in safe trotters.
‘Good work,’ said the Wing Commander. ‘But you can’t fly home and go to bed just yet. Your mission isn’t over. As you know, the Golden Fleece is usually kept safe in a vault at the Royal Tower.’
Pete glanced at the golden wool hanging over the nose of Tammy’s jet and sniffed. ‘They should probably take it to a launderette every so often,’ he whispered.
‘However, once every year, the Queen of Sheep Island must wear it for the official opening of Baaliament,’ continued Peregrine. ‘That ceremony takes place tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Er, what’s Baaliament?’ asked Curly.
‘It’s the sheep’s government building,’ said Brian. ‘Every year there’s a big royal procession and ceremony when the Queen re-opens it after a break.’
‘Quite so,’ said Peregrine. ‘Which means that the Fleece cannot go back to the Tower until after the ceremony. But … we believe the same gang of ruthless criminals may try to steal the Fleece again. PiPs, your mission is to keep the Fleece safe at all costs. The first robbery attempt may have been an inside job, so assume that you can trust no one. Brian and Tammy – I want you to keep the Fleece safe and take it to Flockingham Palace first thing in the morning.’
Peregrine went on to explain the plan in detail, but Brian wasn’t really listening. He was too excited.
‘We’re going to meet the Queen!’ he cried.
Tammy rolled her eyes. ‘Great!’ she moaned.
* * *
Pete was pacing around the parked SkyHogs trying to think of any leads that might help him find the sheep he had chased across the rooftops.
‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’ Curly asked, as the captain passed him for the ninth time.
Pete rubbed his chin. ‘He’d had his fleece completely sheared off, and that makes it hard to tell sheep apart. Of course, there is one identifying feature … He got quite a few cactus prickles in his backside.’ He smiled grimly. ‘But a hardened, top-level professional criminal like that wouldn’t pop along to the hospital just to have a few prickles pulled out, now, would he?’
He continued to pace around the planes. When he’d completed another circuit, he saw that Curly was talking into his mobile phone. ‘OK, OK, thank you …’
The young pig looked up proudly. ‘I just called the local hospital. They say a sheep came into their Emergency Ward half an hour ago with a load of cactus prickles sticking out of him.’
It was the middle of the night when Pete and Curly got to the hospital. The suspect was still in an examination room. He had given his name to the nurse as ‘Greg Dagley’, but Pete was sure this had to be a fake name. He called Lola quickly.
‘Sorry, were you sleeping?’ he asked.
‘No, what, YES … why?’ mumbled Lola, who never left her desk during a mission.
‘It’s just that you were still snoring when you picked up the phone,’ said Pete. He asked her to run a computer check on the sheep’s name.
After he hung up, Pete peeked through the blinds into the examination room. That was the same sheep all right, the one that had leapt from building to building so fearlessly.
‘Better let me do the talking,’ Pete told Curly.
As usual, Curly was eager to help. ‘Ooh, can I have a go at asking questions, Pete?’ he asked. ‘Can I? Huh?’
‘I don’t know, kid. This is one tough customer, a ruthless professional. He won’t crack easily.’
‘I can do it, I know I can!’ said Curly.
Pete looked into the young pig’s eager eyes. ‘OK, kid. You can give it a go. But listen – you’ve got to be tough. Don’t show any sign of weakness.’
Curly gave a determined nod. He had never interviewed a suspect before, but he had watched lots of films. He’d show Pete he could do it – he’d be the toughest investigator ever!
When the two pigs entered the room, ‘Greg’ did a good job of pretending to look confused.
‘Can I go home now?’ he began. ‘My bum’s all better.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ barked Curly in his best tough-pig voice, ‘until you start squawking!’
‘Squawking? Er …’
Curly tried again. ‘Um. You heard me … Spill the beans!’
Greg the sheep blinked. ‘I don’t really like beans. I prefer grass …’
This wasn’t going very well for Curly. He tried one more time. ‘We need information so just … start singing!’
Puzzled, the sheep cleared his throat and, in a wobbly voice, began to bleat the first line of a recent pop song, ‘Flock ’n’ Roll Star’.
Pete put a trotter on Curly’s shoulder. ‘That’s terrific,’ he whispered to the trainee, ‘but maybe you’re being a bit too tough. Take it down a little, eh?’
Curly nodded – acting tough didn’t really come naturally to him; he was much happier being nice. He smiled at the sheep now. ‘So anyway, Greg? I hope your bum is feeling better now. They said you looked like a giant hedgehog when you first got here.’ He reached in
to his pocket. ‘Would you like a sweetie? It’s my last one, but you can have it. What are your hobbies, by the way? I like knitting, watching cartoons and playing football … Not all at the same time, obviously.’
Pete took hold of Curly’s arm and whispered into his ear again. ‘I think maybe you’ve gone a bit too far the other way. Actually, can I just ask him a quick question?’
Pete turned to the sheep. Over the years the PiPs captain had learnt to trust his gut instincts, and right now his gut was telling him that it was time for breakfast. And also that this sheep was not the criminal sort.
‘Can you tell us how you got all of those cactus prickles?’ he asked.
‘I … don’t know,’ Greg bleated.
‘OK, then just tell us what happened yesterday.’
Greg nodded. ‘It’s shearing time, so I went to get my fleece cut. Then I went straight home. After that, I can’t remember anything. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the street. It was late at night and I had loads of cactus needles in my behind!’
It made no sense, and yet Pete found himself believing this sheep’s story. He just couldn’t imagine someone like Greg leading him on such a high-speed, high-danger chase.
A moment later Lola texted to say that all of Greg’s details checked out. He didn’t work for a ruthless gang of criminals; he worked in a sweet shop. But Pete didn’t need Lola to tell him this. His gut was letting him know that this sheep was telling the truth. But how could that be?
A thought popped into his head. ‘Where did you go to get your fleece cut off?’ he asked.
‘It’s a new shearing salon, called SHEAR DELIGHT,’ said Greg. ‘It’s not too far from the palace.’
Pete stroked his chin. ‘Maybe we need to check out this salon, Curly.’
‘Like a real investigation?’ Curly asked eagerly.
‘Yep.’
‘Brilliant! Should we radio Brian and Tammy to let them know?’
Pete glanced at his watch. It would soon be sunrise. ‘Let’s see if we find any clues before calling them,’ he said. ‘Anyway, pretty soon they’ll be on their way to the Palace to visit the Queen.’
The sun hadn’t been up long when Tammy and Brian arrived at Flockingham Palace. They followed a royal servant down one of the many long corridors, past all the portraits of old sheep monarchs in their finest robes of wool. Although the PiPs hadn’t had much sleep, Brian could hardly contain his excitement at being here.
Tammy was less impressed. ‘How many bedrooms has this place got, anyway?’
‘Three hundred and sixteen,’ said Brian dreamily.
‘And how many members of the royal family live here?’
‘Two … The Queen, and her son, Prince Larry.’
Tammy thought this over. ‘Bet he has some killer sleepover parties.’
The servant opened a door at the end of the corridor and waved the pigs inside. ‘Her Majesty will be with you shortly,’ he said.
The room was full of valuable antiques and there were priceless paintings hanging on the velvet flock wallpaper. Brian allowed himself a gigantic smile. ‘I’ve always been a bit of a royal spotter,’ he confessed.
‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ said Tammy. ‘You put up a calendar of the Royal Families of Animal Paradise in the common room … AND you got miffed when someone threw a dart at the King of Cow Island’s picture.’
‘It hit him right in the eye!’ said Brian.
Tammy grinned proudly. ‘Exactly – bullseye!’ She went to sit in one of the plush armchairs.
‘Erm, I don’t think you should sit there!’ cried Brian.
Tammy straightened up. ‘Why not?’
‘Well … you might get it mucky.’
Tammy raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you saying my flightsuit is dirty?’
‘Er … yes,’ said Brian. ‘Obviously.’
Tammy peeked back at the mix of engine oil, floorwax and popcorn butter on the back of her flightsuit. ‘Oh right … Good point.’
CHAPTER 4:
A Pig in Sheep’s Clothing
‘How do I look?’ Curly asked.
Pete walked around the trainee PiP, carefully studying the fleece he was now wearing on top of his flightsuit. They were in an alleyway round the corner from the SHEAR DELIGHT shearing salon.
‘You look …’ Pete knew Curly would spot brilliant or even good as outright lies. ‘… OK?’
‘But do I look like a sheep?’
‘You look sheepish.’ Pete crossed his arms. ‘I mean, to you or me, you look like a pig wearing a cheap fleece. But, as you now know, your average sheep isn’t so bright. They’ll never notice, so long as you throw in a few baas here and there and look like you’re chewing something! Just get in there, have a good look for anything suspicious, and then get out. Shouldn’t take more than about fifteen minutes, tops.’
Curly’s expression was a mix of determination and anxiety.
‘You’ll be fine, kid,’ said Pete. He patted his own ample belly. ‘I’d do it myself, but I’m too big-boned to pass for a sheep.’ He pointed to a window on the first floor of the building opposite the salon.
‘I’ll be right up there, watching everything. If there’s a problem, I’ll be over like a shot.’ He winked. ‘Don’t worry, Curly – Captain Peter Porker never sleeps on the job!’
By the time Curly reached the front door of the SHEAR DELIGHT salon, he was feeling better about his disguise. He had passed several sheep in the street, and none had given him a second glance.
Inside the shop, the ewe on the reception desk didn’t look up from her magazine – GrassLovers’ World, with its lead article ‘101 Easy Grass Recipes for the Sheep on the Go’.
‘Cubicle sixteen,’ she told Curly in a lifeless voice.
As the PiPs trainee made his way to the shearing cubicle, he looked for clues. He didn’t have much idea what these might be. All they knew was that a normal, average sheep had come here the day before, and something had turned him into a fearless criminal.
Curly could see shelf after shelf of fleece-care products – shampoos and dyes, curlers, crimpers and straighteners, sheep-tick powder, and so on. It didn’t look as if these received much use – there was a layer of dust on them all.
On the wall, there was a poster showing all of the different fleece styles available. At different times, various styles had been the ‘in’ look on Sheep Island – the Poodle, the Lightning Strike (in which the fleece was made to stand on end), the Mr Whippee Ice-cream Scoop – but these cuts had all been crossed off. The only item remaining was:
No. 1 Buzz Cut
Hmm, thought Curly. You’d think a proper salon would offer more than one cut.
Once he went into the narrow cubicle, a heavy door closed behind him. Inside there was nothing more suspicious than a large shearing chair. Curly sat, knowing he’d have to leave before it was time for his fleececut.
But, as soon as his backside hit the chair, there was a click and a whirr, then a violent jerk as the chair tipped backwards. It began to roll back and down, but it didn’t hit the floor, because part of the floor was missing – it was a trapdoor! And Curly and the entire shearing chair were dropping right through it!
At Flockingham Palace, Brian stood at one of the room’s tall windows.
The Queen’s massed marching band were outside practising. They had played ‘Mary was a Little Lamb’ umpteen times, but they still hadn’t made it all the way to the end without mistakes.
Even Brian, who had a wide collection of military brass music, found it hard to listen to.
‘They’re not much good, are they?’ he said.
‘Not much good?’ echoed Tammy. ‘They’re complete and utter –’
‘Shh!’ hissed Brian. ‘We’re in Flockingham Palace! You have to be on your best behaviour! And that also means no burping or tooting …’
Suddenly the door handle rattled. The two pigs looked expectantly at the door, but it didn’t open.
‘We are having some diff
iculty with the handle!’ came an astonishingly posh voice from the other side of the door.
Tammy rolled her eyes. ‘Try turning it, missus!’
‘Who’s there?’ asked Brian.
‘Our Royal Majesty, Queen Baabara of Sheep Island,’ replied the voice regally.
‘Let me get the door for you!’ cried Brian. He started across the room, but Tammy was moving to cut him off.
‘Er, what are you doing, Tammy?’ the medic asked. ‘I’ve got to let the Queen in.’
Tammy lifted her trotters and grabbed Brian round the neck. She began to squeeze.
‘Erm, Tammy, that thing about burping and tooting … it was just a friendly reminder!’ choked Brian.
Tammy tightened her grip.
‘Steady on!’ exclaimed Brian, trying to pull her off. ‘If it’s about your dirty flightsuit, I’m sorry –’
Tammy still didn’t speak. She stared forward blankly and continued to throttle her team-mate.
Brian was aware of the awful music still playing outside and the rattle of the door handle, but spots were beginning to appear in front of his eyes. What had got into the PiPs mechanic? Who knew that Tammy was so sensitive? Then again, who knew that Tammy was so strong?
Suddenly the handle caught and the door swung open. A small sheep with a huge fleece of fine wool and a prim little handbag swept regally into the room. It was Queen Baabara. A small crown was perched on top of her head.
The Queen didn’t seem to notice that one of her guests was trying to kill the other – or she was too polite to mention it. She looked crossly at the door handle. ‘We are NOT amused,’ she declared. Then she turned to the pigs: ‘We are delighted to make your acquaintance.’
As soon as the Queen appeared, Tammy jerked back as if she’d been given an electric shock. She let go of Brian’s neck and turned to the Queen with a smile. Curtsies weren’t really Tammy’s style, so she gave the Queen a thumbs up and said, ‘Wotcha, Maj!’
