The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy

by John Lawrence

  ‘Oh, all right,’ she murmured sullenly. ‘But I’d have thought we’d have a meeting before making these decisions. Some democracy this has turned out to be. Ha! and pa! I gorra royt cob on now!2’

  ‘Okay!’ said Uncle Quagmire, ignoring the sullen murmurs and the right cobs. ‘That’s decided. Let’s go inside and find out about the tours.’

  And so they trooped into the castle, leaving Old Hag slumped forlornly on the wall murmuring to herself in her Black Country dialect and struggling to understand a word of it. But little did the children know that Old Hag was secretly hatching a secret plan that would threaten their great big adventure! Notably, she had recently abandoned both of her other pathetic smaller plans in favour of this one big threatening new plan! In fact, understandably, she was now becoming so confused about which plan she was supposed to be secretly hatching that she wished she had invested in a Personal Digital Assistant with two gigabytes of random access memory and a wireless interface, or the services of a part time secretary named Joanne, preferably without an interface, wireless or not, but with some degree of accessible memory.

  This planning was downright complicated. It wasn’t so much about working with the germ of an idea, and by golly Old Hag had more than enough germs, it was the implementation that mattered. She knew that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it windsurf. All she needed now was a horse and a sturdy surfboard, just in case her theory proved to be wrong.

  Ha! Those children, if that’s what they really were, wouldn’t know what had hit them!

  Chapter Thirteen

  In which we meet a badly-researched 1964 Austrian man; The Secret Five benefit from their close-surveillance training; Betty has an idea; Amy doesn’t ; our pals find themselves in a predicament; Daniel can’t hack it and should never have been in the story in the first place; the kangaroo enjoys the experience of a hop-on role.

  The three children, closely followed by Whatshisname and Uncle Quagmire, made their way inside the big castle which, they noted with some surprise, seemed as big on the inside as it was on the outside. They reached a big door with really big knobs on and a small notice written in Austrian.

  ‘Blow!’ said Betty. ‘It’s in Austrian!’

  ‘Gosh!’ said Amy. ‘I never thought there were other languages in the world besides English and Latin.’

  ‘Nor did I,’ said Daniel, peering through his spectacles at the notice. ‘How very strange!’

  Just then, they heard a man’s voice behind them, slightly to the left. ‘Can I help you three childs?’ it said in a kind of English. ‘Although I am Austrian by nature, I speak all sorts of languages quite fluidly and I am willing to help you in your cosy wosy little adventure, as you’re the world-famous Secret Five whose fame goes before you and a little to the side.’

  They all turned to see a middle-aged man dressed in whatever clothes a Salzburg man wore in 1964.

  ‘That’s good!’ said Amy. ‘I didn’t know we were that famous.’

  ‘Oh, everyone knows about you,’ the man said, waving his Austrian arm around him to indicate everyone. ‘Everyone,’ he repeated for dramatic effect. ‘Even across borders and in another time.’ He nodded in the direction of Uncle Quagmire. ‘And we all know deeply about your Uncle Quagmire as well. And the kangaroo, of course. Lovely. But enough of this tiresome bantam. How may I be of some helpful?’

  ‘Well,’ Daniel said, feeling quite faint from all the sudden fame, ‘we’re actually on an adventure and need to join a tour so that . . . oops!’

  Phew! Daniel stopped himself from revealing their very secret mission just in time!

  ‘What Daniel was about to say,’ said Amy, ‘was that we need to join a tour so that we can stop a con . . .’ Golly! Amy stopped herself from talking just in time!

  ‘Woof woo . . .’ said Whatshisname, happily joining in all the truncation.

  ‘What Daniel was about to say,’ said Betty, ‘was that we need to join a tour so that we can stop a conception taking place and save the w . . .’

  ‘Erm, don’t listen to them,’ Uncle Quagmire interrupted in a rather grown up way for someone with no tonsils. ‘It’s just an adventure they’re on, that’s all, and they are really stupid children beneath their sophisticated veneer. Have fun with them, won’t you.’ And with that, Uncle Quagmire stalked off, leaving the children to sort out all this mess by themselves.

  ‘Well, childs, it seems that you might need help to get on top of your secret missionary, and you have come to the right Austrian for such helpfulness,’ said the right helpful Austrian. ‘I will helpfully help you, but lonely if I can join The Secret Five.’ He leaned towards Daniel. ‘Nice spectaculars!’ he whispered.

  Daniel frowned, then pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and smiled. He liked this man.

  ‘Not another member!’ said Amy. ‘At this rate we’ll have to do another production run on the badges.’

  ‘Maybe he can join us as an honorary member?’ sighed Betty. ‘Sort of a European wing. After all, this could be our big chance to pioneer globalisation. Shall we have a meeting to decide?’

  ‘We’ve no time!’ urged Daniel. ‘We have to do those secret things we have to do, and do them rather quickly!’

  ‘But I can help!’ the right helpful Austrian said. ‘Let me and my extended familiar join. Please?’

  ‘Is that with or without the privileges?’ enquired Betty.

  ‘Erm,’ ermed the man. ‘Without, I think. I have no time for the week’s holiday with Kylie, that’s for sure. Whoever she might be. Now, if it was Cilla, oooh, chook, that’d be very differential.’

  Despite not having a clue who Cilla was, Betty was certainly grateful that Ricky wasn’t there to hear about the Kylie privilege, which had taken ages to arrange, what with all the Secret Five commitments. And they all thought that yet another request to join the secret organisation was taking it a bit too far, with or without privileges. But after a brief informal meeting (in which passwords and secret signs were strictly voluntary) they agreed that the right helpful Austrian and his immediate family could join for a limited trial period of twenty-eight days, full refund guaranteed.

  ‘That’s good. Right,’ said the right helpful Austrian, ‘you are in need to join a tower? Well, I am your man. I am the tower guide for today, tomorrow and the day before yesterday. And as you are members of the British harm of my secret European club, you can join the tower for free, and what is more, at no cost.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Daniel.

  ‘There’s my group of towerists over there,’ said the right helpful Austrian, pointing to a group of tourists over there. ‘Come on, follow me, three childs and your fateful fat spanner.’

  The three childs and their fateful fat spanner followed him, but then stopped quite suddenly and quite urgently when they saw that Uncle Quagmire was now amongst the group of tourists and behaving rather oddly, even by his standards.

  ‘Look,’ said Betty spontaneously. ‘Uncle Quagmire is amongst the group of tourists over there!’

  ‘And he’s pointing at someone!’ said Amy. ‘I wonder if it’s Clarissa!’

  And indeed, Uncle Quagmire was standing behind a lady, pointing at her with his finger above her head.

  ‘She doesn’t look much like a stunt nun,’ all the children thought very quietly to themselves.

  ‘,’ Whatshisname thought to himself even more quietly, as he’d recently suspected that, in fact, animals don’t actually think.

  The lady was dressed in what could be described as normal everyday clothes, but won’t be, for she was wearing a very posh short-sleeved green flowery cotton frock that hung from her two shoulders and reached down past the both of her knees at the same time. She looked quite pretty for a stunt nun, not having the knobbly elbows that we normally associate with the dreadful side effects of that demanding and dangerous profession.

  The children watched as Uncle Quagmire wandered over to a man who was standing on his own feet nearby. The man
was bald, and quite thin from the waist down, yet very fat elsewhere, and he was dressed in a pair of tourist’s shorts and a tourist’s shirt. Uncle Quagmire pointed at the man from above his bald head. Instantly the children knew exactly what to do.

  ‘That must be Bartle de Lylow, the conceptor!’ said Betty. ‘I know what to do! We’ll join the group!’

  But as she said it, Whatshisname trotted off and stood by the man whose name must have been Bartle de Lylow. That very man bent down to stroke Whatshisname’s head! Whatshisname looked at the children and winked, as if to say, ‘I can wink, you know!’

  ‘Let’s go and say hello to Mr Bartle,’ suggested Betty. ‘Come on!’

  The children carefully hurried over to the man. Betty grabbed Whatshisname by his tail and dragged him away. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘He’s very friendly.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that, kid,’ said the man. ‘And very ugly as well, it must be said. But I do like the heady aroma of creosote, so it’s okay, I guess.’

  Whatshisname sat down and, for a couple of sticks, waited for the mention of pineapple but none came. In truth, he was quite disappointed because, if he had to choose between the two fragrances, pineapple would win paws down.

  ‘Can we join you in the group?’ asked Betty.

  ‘Of course you can,’ said the man. ‘I will now introduce myself for clarity purposes. My name’s Bartle de Lylow. I’m an American tourist, from America, on vacation here in 1964 Salzburg, near Austria.’

  ‘Yes, we k . . .’ said Amy, but stopped when she realised that she would seem really stupid if she continued, but not as stupid as stopping speaking on the silent ‘k’ in know.

  It was then that the children noticed that Uncle Quagmire was busy talking to Clarissa!

  ‘Look,’ said Amy. ‘Uncle Quagmire’s talking to Clarissa!’

  ‘We know that!’ said Betty. ‘Pay attention, Amy!’

  Amy frowned a rather girly frown. But behind the frown she had noticed that the guide was now leading the group down some stairs that, she deduced, went downstairs somewhere. She was about to say something very incisive indeed but didn’t want to be forced to frown again, and couldn’t think of anything to say, so she didn’t.

  ‘This is the way to the dungeons, towerists,’ the guide called loudly in his best guide voice. ‘Follow me, everyone, including the three childs and their painfully ugly spanner who are all busy on a secret missionary to savour the world.’

  The three children and Whatshisname, keen to savour the world, followed the guide and the tour group. They each kept an eye on Bartle as they toured the dungeons, making a total of four eyes in all, which was well within The Secret Five procedural guidelines for this type of low-level close surveillance.

  The dungeons were really dingy, dull, dark, dank, dreary, dingy (again), and quite horrid. They discussed at some length how deeply depressing it must have been for the prisoners not to be able to see the cerulean spread of the sky, the yew tree and her spire, the flowers that with one rosy gleam covered a thousand leagues and seemed to set the hills on fire, and the neighbouring convent’s outdoor shower block with its rather dilapidated and ineffective screening.

  Suddenly, out of the blue, Betty had a truly marketable idea! ‘What if we lock Bartle in a cell? They’ve all got bolts on the outside!’

  ‘Good idea, Betty!’ said Amy.

  ‘Hmmm,’ hmmmed Daniel thoughtfully. ‘I admire your out-of-the-blue idea, but how on earth will we get him in there?’

  ‘Good question,’ Betty said. ‘Here’s a plan. You all go into one of the cells and make some very strange noises. Then I’ll persuade and entice Bartle to investigate the strange noises in the cell and you’ll all rush out and we’ll bolt the door with him inside!’

  ‘Why can’t I do the enticing?’ asked Amy sulkily.

  ‘Or me?’ said Daniel strangely.

  ‘Woof woof woof?’ said Whatshisname.

  ‘Look,’ Betty insisted, ‘I’ll do the enticing this time, and you can take it in turns next time.’

  ‘Good plan,’ said Daniel.

  Whatshisname looked quite forlorn because he hadn’t done any serious enticing since – well, a long time, obviously.

  After the group had passed the cell doors, Amy, Daniel and Whatshisname obediently sneaked into the cell, and Betty went over to talk enticingly to Bartle.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Bartle, sir,’ she said in a disappointingly unenticing way. ‘I heard some strange noises coming from one of those cells back there, and thought that you look like a brave and very strong man, and might want to investigate.’

  ‘Me? Brave and very strong?’ Bartle snorted. ‘Huh! Lily- livered, spineless, pusillanimous and pathetically feeble I’d agree on, but brave and very strong? No way! Get lost, kid.’

  ‘But . . .’ butted Betty.

  ‘Anyway,’ Bartle went on, ‘I’m also lustful, lecherous and prurient, and there’s a rather tasty broad over there in that posh short-sleeved green flowery cotton frock that I’ve got my lecherous eyes fixed upon. At the moment she’s talking to that scruffy bearded mad scientist guy with mightily small ears, but I fancy taking her out to dinner later and, if all goes well, enticing her into my bed for some serious unprotected canoodling tonight. Is she in for a rare treat? The answer to that is yessir!’

  ‘No sir, you can’t!’ said Betty, tugging at his shirt. ‘Please, Mr Bartle! It sounded so scary in there. Someone might need help. Desperately. You could be a hero! An all-American hero! Just like, er, Forest Gump, or George W. Bush!’

  Bartle frowned for a few seconds, then sighed quite a big sigh for a man with his taste in shorts. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Just this once, pesky kid. Where is it?’

  Betty led him to the cell and stood outside the door. From inside, there was a curious whining sound, which sounded just like a dog having his ears enthusiastically pinched by two eager children.

  ‘You’re right. What a strange noise! Almost inhuman!’ said Bartle. Quite carefully and not very bravely he pushed open the door with his fingers. ‘I can’t see anything in there, kid,’ he said. ‘It’s too darned dingy, dull, dark, dank, dreary, dingy . . . again.’ He sighed and turned to Betty. ‘Do I have to say all this stuff?’

  Betty shrugged. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  He shook his head and continued. ‘It’s dingy and dark, and it’s even more scary in there than you said. I’ll, erm, yes, that’s it, I’ll go and find some matches or a handy torch.’

  And with that, he walked away!

  ‘No, Mr Bartle!’ Betty shouted. ‘Come back! Your country needs you!’

  ‘Won’t be long,’ Bartle called back. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  ‘Bother!’ said Betty, knowing that he wouldn’t be back, as he was such a grumpy man. She stepped inside the dark cell, where she could just about see Daniel and Amy. They appeared to be pinching Whatshisname’s ears.

  ‘Where is he?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘What?’ yelled Betty.

  ‘I said,’ Daniel shouted, ‘where is he? Shut up Whatshisname!’

  ‘Yes, where’s he gone?’ Amy yelled.

  ‘Yowmmmmouchmmm,’ Whatshisname howled1.

  ‘He’s gone,’ yelled Betty. She pointed to Whatshisname. ‘You can stop pinching his ears now.’

  ‘What?’ yelled Amy.

  ‘Huh?’ yelled Daniel.

  ‘I said,’ shouted Betty, ‘that you can stop pinching his ears now!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Daniel, releasing their faithful dog’s ears. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Wooooof,’ croaked Whatshisname.

  Just then, with the four of them inside the dark cell, they heard hurried footsteps outside. ‘I hear hurried footsteps outside,’ said Amy, in an ingratiating effort to prove that she’d been paying attention this time. ‘I think someone’s coming! How mysterious!’

  ‘I wonder if it’s . . .’ Daniel said.

  ‘Ha!’ said a voice from outside the cell. ‘Wonder no more, Dandy! Got you!’

  Instantly,
at that very instant, the door slammed shut and they heard the bolting sound of the bolt being bolted!

  ‘Got you!’ cackled the voice again, just in case anyone had missed it the first time. ‘Ha! Rot in there, why don’t you?’

  ‘That’s Old Hag’s voice!’ said Betty. She started banging on the door with a handy fist. ‘Let us out!’

  ‘Ha! Never! Never in a million years!’ cackled Old Hag through the door. ‘Well, maybe not never. Maybe later. Ha! Later in a million years!’

  ‘Please!’ begged Amy. ‘It’s so dark, dingy, dull, dark, dank . . .’

  ‘Amy!’ pleaded Betty. ‘Enough!’

  ‘Okay, sorry,’ Amy said. ‘It’s just dark in here. But let us out! Our dog smells horrid!’

  ‘Woof woof woof,’ agreed Whatshisname.

  Daniel decided to be a man about this and stand up for his inalienable bespectacled rights. ‘Old Hag! I demand and insist that you let us out this instant!’ he said insistently, and with a flurry of italics to reinforce his demands.

  ‘Ha! Shut up Dandy!’ Old Hag shouted in a cackly way.

  ‘Yo, fo’ sho, innit,’ said Daniel, and he began to cry.

  ‘This is just what you interfering children deserve!’ shouted Old Hag through the cell door. ‘I’m going now, to complete my very own secret mission and my significant part in this clever plot. Ha! You didn’t know about my secret mission, did you? Well, it’s a secret, so there.’

  Betty pressed her ear to the door and listened for precisely twelve seconds. ‘She’s gone!’ she said to the others. ‘To complete her own secret mission! What did she mean, part of a clever plot?’

  ‘Ha! I’m still here, brats!’ shouted Old Hag. ‘And I’m not going away until the end of the chapter!’

  ‘She’s really milking this,’ whispered Amy.

  ‘What do you want with us, Old Hag?’ called Betty. ‘We’re just a group of harmless children and their faithful dog seeking an adventure, never afraid to explore places where less brave children would never go, fearlessly righting wrongs and wronging rights.’