‘That’s great, Mum, but I’d like to –’
‘We’ve been having an early breakfast meeting to discuss some exciting projects the network has in mind for Georgio.’
Max lifted an eyebrow. What was it about lying on the floor with a crumpled ego and dripping bedclothes that her mother didn’t get?
A tingling vibration shook beneath Max’s leg. ‘Aah!’
Her mother leapt forward and began patting her daughter down like she was on fire. ‘What’s wrong, sweetie? Are you okay? Where does it hurt?’
Max felt it again and knew it was her palm computer, which meant Spyforce were trying to contact her. She had to get her mother and Mr Bound-for-Stardom out of her room.
She leapt up, making sure the blankets concealed her miniature computer. ‘I’m fine. I’ve just noticed the time. I should have been up ages ago. Thanks for popping by.’ She hustled her mother and Georgio out of the room. ‘I’ll see you for breakfast in ten minutes. I’m famished. Great. See you then. Nice to meet you, Georgio.’
Max slammed the door, turned the key in the lock and sank to the floor. She fossicked through the covers, blankets and pillows until she finally found it.
All spies working for Spyforce were issued with a palm computer. It was fingerprint sensitive so could only be operated by the agent it had been issued to. It held information about the Force, including previous missions, training manuals, a complete list of gadgets and was also the most secure way to contact other agents.
Max activated her computer and a smiling face appeared on the screen.
‘Mr Harrison! You’re back.’ Max’s excitement gave way to shock at seeing a bandage circling her boss’s head. ‘What happened to your head?’
‘What? Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s not my whole head, just my ear after a small accident with a paintbrush and rather fiddlesome art easel. I was told to take it easy, and see where it gets me? I’m lucky I’ve got any ear left at all.’
Mr Harrison was the more-than-a-little clumsy Chief of Spyforce, who had been ordered to take a break after his almost fatal encounter with Mr Blue and his deadly Heart Stopper Device1.
‘Doctor says I can have the stitches out in a few strays.’ Harrison winced. ‘I mean a few days.’
He also had a tendency to mix up his words.
‘Is there something you’d like me to do, sir?’
‘This is really a hello to let you know I’m back in traction … oh, I mean of course, back in action, and that we’re preparing a mission I think you and Linden will be perfect for.’
‘A mission?’ Max sat up straighter. ‘What kind of mission, sir, and when?’
‘We can’t say anything yet, but it will be very nude …’
Max gave him a half smile. ‘You mean, soon, sir?’
‘Yes, yes. Soon. And it will, of course, be a fully clothed mission. Better be off. I just wanted to let you know to be prepared.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Max smiled. ‘And, sir? It’s good to have you back.’
‘Thank you, Max,’ Mr Harrison mumbled through an embarrassed blush and signed off.
Max deactivated her computer and let it fall into her lap. ‘Another mission.’ There was a hint of hopelessness in her voice as she stared at the computer. She’d been on a mission to Venice only weeks before.2 How was she going to get away to complete another one so soon?
‘Max, sweetie, are you ready?’ her mother called from downstairs.
Ready? Max thought. Ready for what? A life full of breakfast cereal, orange juice and school or the world of agents, daring escapes and Spyforce?
‘Coming.’ Max was about to stand up when her palm computer vibrated again. She looked down at the screen. It was Linden. Her heart did a weird, panicked thump, like it was a bird trying to get out of her chest. ‘Remember,’ she warned herself. ‘The kiss was a dream.’
Max took a deep breath and activated the connection.
‘Looks like I’ve caught you at your finest,’ Linden joked.
Max didn’t even bother trying to tidy herself up. ‘I’ve had a rough morning, and it’d be better if you didn’t push it.’
‘Threat heard loud and clear. Did you hear from Harrison?’
‘Yeah, just before you called.’
‘Think you can you handle another mission so soon?’
Max’s heart was slowly resuming normal speed. ‘I don’t know if I can get away. Mum has something planned for the two of us every night this week. Shopping, the theatre, even a special screening of a new show at the station that will be filled with peasized finger food and so much bright new talent I’m going to need super-strength sunglasses to survive.’ She tried to laugh, but it came out more like a whine from a toothache. ‘You might have to go on your own.’
‘Oh.’ Linden did a lousy job of hiding his disappointment. ‘You don’t think you can find a way out?’
‘No, but I guess it was going to happen one day. As international spies still living with our parents, we’re not always going to be able to save the world when it needs us to.’ She was trying to joke, but it wasn’t cheering her up. ‘Can you go?’
‘Yeah. Dad’s going to a farm about four hours away to do some harvesting work for a friend. He’ll be gone for at least a week. I’m staying with Ben and Eleanor until he gets back.’
Ben and Eleanor were Max’s uncle and aunt. They lived on a farm next to Linden and were also brilliant scientists and spies with the Force.
‘Maybe you could figure out a reason to come to the farm too?’
One thing Max loved about Linden was his ability to always see the positive side. Even when there wasn’t one.
‘You’ll work out a way.’ Linden brightened. ‘You have to. I’ll miss you too much if you don’t.’
Max felt her heart kick into high speed again. Linden wasn’t like other boys she’d met. He never laughed at her or made fun of her and always said how he felt, even if it sounded a bit soppy.
‘So I’ll see you soon, boss.’
‘Don’t call me …’ But before Max could finish, Linden had gone.
Max closed the connection on her palm computer and sat in the mess of her bedroom. Even though she’d survived plane crashes, tarantulas and deadly pulverising cells and escaped from giant vats of jelly and frozen ice-cream, figuring out how to get away from her mother seemed a much harder mission than any she’d ever had.
‘What’s all this?’
Max stood in the doorway of the kitchen and looked at the table set out before her. Georgio had left and her mother had reset the table with her best plates, expensive napkins, fresh juice, pancakes and berries. And instead of her mother’s usual moaning whale song music surround-sounding them so that Max felt as if she’d been dropped into the middle of the ocean, there was Max’s music.
‘Just a little breakfast,’ her mother chirped like an overly happy canary.
Something was wrong. The last time her mother went to all this trouble was when she announced she was getting married to her onetime, try-hard boyfriend, Aidan, but she luckily escaped marrying him by being kidnapped at the last minute by Spyforce’s arch enemy, Mr Blue.3
‘Come on or you’ll be late, pumpkin.’
Pumpkin? Now Max was really nervous. Her mother hadn’t called her pumpkin since she was a little kid. She watched as her mother presented her with a jug of maple syrup and a bowl of freshly whipped cream.
‘I know it’s not normally what we have for breakfast but I thought you deserved a treat.’ Max’s mother snapped her napkin into the air like a celebrity TV chef after having prepared a gourmet meal.
This is it, Max thought, my mother has gone mad. After all these years of working with egomaniacs and over-pampered stars, she’s finally lost it. That Georgio guy must have pushed her over the edge.
‘Pancake?’
‘Er … thanks.’
Max’s mother picked up a pair of tongs and laid a large golden pancake onto her daughter’s plate.
‘Syrup?�
� she cheeped.
‘Please.’ A never-before-allowed generous helping swirled onto Max’s plate.
‘And we can’t forget the berries and cream.’ Her mother giggled girlishly. ‘Isn’t this nice?’
It’s weird is what it is, Max silently complained, but she couldn’t let her mother’s strange behaviour put her off her mission. After Linden’s phone call she’d come up with a plan to get to the farm and then to London. She’d rehearsed what she was going to say so it would sound just right, but now she was here, her stomach felt squeezed, like it’d been caught in a revolving door.
‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ both Max and her mum said at the same time.
‘You first,’ Max said quickly.
‘Well, sweetie, you know how we had lots of things planned for this week?’
‘Yes?’ Max asked warily.
‘Well, I was wondering if … if maybe … if it wouldn’t be too terrible to …’
‘Yes?’ Max’s hands clenched her knife and fork. Her eyes scanned her mother’s face, trying to work out if she was about to receive good or bad news.
‘You remember Georgio?’
How could Max forget? Her twisted pyjamas, wild hair, total disaster. ‘You mean the man from ten minutes ago? Yeah, I remember.’
‘Well, he’s had a very important offer to go to London to perform in a pantomime.’
‘A pantomime? Wow, he’s really going places.’ Max raised her eyebrows.
Max’s mother sipped on her glass of aloe vera juice. ‘It really is an amazing opportunity for an actor at this point in his career.’
Max was wary. Her mum knew she wasn’t a fan of anything to do with actors, TV shows and future stars, and she rarely went on about it unless it was going to affect Max. Usually badly.
‘The network want someone to take care of him, make sure everything goes smoothly, and have asked me to go with him.’
Max waited for the next bit that would begin something like, ‘And here comes the part where your life turns to mud.’
‘I’ve asked Ben and Eleanor to look after you. At the farm. If that’s okay with you, of course.’
Now Max knew something was really wrong. Her face hardened into a look of confusion. She must have misheard. This was all too easy. She flinched and looked behind her, sure that any minute now the roof was going to fall in or she’d find herself on the floor again and realise this was another dream.
‘I’m sorry. I know we had lots of things planned,’ her mother apologised.
Maybe this was going to be okay after all. Max relaxed her shoulders a little.
‘I was especially looking forward to showing you off at the premiere.’
Showing me off? Max thought. My mum wants to show me off.
Max’s mum stroked her cheek. ‘It’ll only be for two weeks, and I’ll arrange for your teachers to give you work so you don’t fall behind. And when I get back, we can make fresh plans to be together.’
Max’s smile was buoyed by images of Spyforce headquarters, Personal Flying Devices and a brand new mission to an exotic location. ‘That would be great.’
Her mother leaned in with smooched-up lips and planted a giant kiss on her. It echoed in Max’s ears and left a sloppy red kiss smeared on her cheek.
‘You deserve one very impressive present when I get back.’ Her mother cut into a pancake with renewed vigour. ‘Oh, and what was it you wanted to say before?’
‘Just …’ Max resisted the urge to wipe the kiss away. ‘Thanks. For the pancakes.’
A shiver ran through Max’s body.
She was going on another mission.
‘We’ve made some improvements to the Time and Space Machine.’
Max’s Uncle Ben stood in the underground lab at their farm in Mindawarra, gulping down the last of a cheese and chutney sandwich.
‘Improvements?’ Max tried to subtly slide away from Linden, who was sitting just that little bit too close to her on a bench. Each time she’d looked at him since arriving at the farm, all she could see was his diving lips and sudden kiss.
So she concentrated on her uncle instead. ‘What’s to improve? I thought it was perfect as it was.’
‘Yeah, after you fixed Max’s slimy landings so she stopped smelling like the back end of a cow, I thought you’d done everything.’ Linden smiled as he recalled Max’s troubles with the early version of the Time and Space Machine. ‘Remember, Max? There was your landing in Larry’s feed trough, the garbage compactor outside that London restaurant, the compost bin, the pile of cat poo … boy, did you stink!’
Max suddenly forgot about the kiss and turned towards Linden’s chuckling face. ‘What part of my irritated expression aren’t you seeing?’
Linden stopped laughing and focused instead on finishing his ham and alfalfa roll.
Ben made a sloppy attempt at stifling a smile. ‘Science never stands still, Max, you know that. And since Eleanor had a big hand in this, she’ll take over from here.’
A series of loud banging sounds thundered from outside.
‘What’s that?’ Max threw her hands over her head and ducked.
Linden pulled an apple from his pocket. ‘Larry.’
Larry was Ben and Eleanor’s pig. The banging continued.
‘What’s he trying to do, break in?’
‘No.’ Linden took a bite. ‘He’d use the door if he wanted to come in.’
‘Is it …’ Max knew she’d regret asking but went ahead anyway, ‘about the weather?’
Ben, Eleanor and Linden were convinced they could predict the weather from Larry’s behaviour.
‘No, Morse code,’ Ben answered as if that somehow explained everything.
Max tried to stop her mouth from asking anything more, but it didn’t work. ‘Morse code?’
‘Yes,’ Eleanor filled in. ‘He’s trying to improve himself, so we’ve been teaching him Morse code. He’s a very quick learner.’
Max squinted in a mental fog, not quite understanding. ‘So instead of acting strangely to predict the weather he can … tell you?’
‘Yes, that and other things. He’s just tapped out “hello”.’ Eleanor smiled proudly. ‘He’s always had such lovely manners.’
There was a drawn-out silence as Max stared at her uncle and aunt. For brilliant scientists who were part of the world’s most elite intelligence agency and were responsible for the invention of some of science’s most advanced devices, they had the habit, at times, of sounding a bit mad.
‘So.’ Max took a deep breath. ‘Tell me about these improvements.’
A scratching sound came from the door of the lab, followed by a muffled bark.
‘Can I let Ralph in?’ Linden asked Ben.
‘He’ll only sit out there and whine if you don’t.’
Linden jumped up and opened the door to let in a great furry mountain of a dog. ‘Now, you be good with Max,’ Linden warned.
Ralph, whose enthusiastic hellos used to fall just short of almost killing Max, calmly walked over with his smelly dogness and climbed onto the seat beside her. Linden gave him a vigorous rub on the back. ‘You don’t want to miss out, do you, boy?’
‘No, we wouldn’t want that,’ Max snipped. ‘Maybe now we can get on with the demonstration?’
Ralph barked in agreement and breathed great doggy breaths all over her.
Eleanor stepped up to a platform in the centre of the lab where the Time and Space Machine sat in a perspex frame beside a leather belt specially made to carry the device. ‘Spyforce asked us to do a little fine-tuning of the machine, and after months of experimenting we’ve successfully installed a mapping and surveillance tool. It operates much like before, but now it can produce images of the world that are so sharp that geographic coordinates can zoom in to reveal what brand of chips someone on a street in Sweden is eating.’
‘From anywhere in the world?’ Max asked.
‘Anywhere.’ Ben reached into his pocket. ‘Jube, anyone?’
Lin
den finished the last of his apple. ‘Yeah, thanks.’
‘Me too,’ Eleanor added.
Max sighed. No matter what important scientific discovery was being unveiled, Ben, Eleanor and Linden could always be interrupted for food. Max knew she’d have to wait until they’d all had a good chew before science could move forward.
‘When you switch on the Time and Space Machine,’ Eleanor continued, ‘a virtual picture of the earth will appear on the screen. Simply type in where you want to go and the machine will zoom in to find it: a city, a street or even someone’s house. All supported by extremely high-resolution imagery. It’s like a massive surveillance camera with a powerful optical zoom lens.’
‘And that’s what we do when we want to travel too?’ Linden asked.
‘Exactly the same. When the image of where you want to go appears on screen, press or say “transport”, just like before, and you’ll be there around fifteen seconds later.’ Eleanor’s face filled with a cheeky smile. ‘Come and try it out.’
Max, Linden and Ben walked up to the platform.
‘Max, where would you like to search?’ Ben asked.
Max’s eyebrows wriggled across her forehead, before she looked up. ‘Venice.’
‘Venice, eh?’ Ben nudged Max and gave her a wink.
Venice was the location of their last mission and the home of Luca Cavello, the very Italian and very good-looking spy they worked with.
Max blushed and looked away.
‘Simply type in the word “Venice” and the screen will immediately display the coordinates of the city before revealing your chosen destination. And …’ Eleanor paused, ‘there she is.’
The magnificent city of canals appeared before them, gleaming in the early morning light.
‘I wonder if Luca’s home?’ Linden asked.
‘We can see,’ Eleanor said. ‘Where does he live?’
‘Rio della Verona canal. I can’t remember the number, but it was around the middle. Wasn’t it, Max?’
Before she could answer, Max watched as the Cavello Family Palazzo appeared before them, and on the top balcony, reading a book in the early light, was Luca. Max momentarily stopped breathing.
Mission In Malta Page 2
