The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy

by John Lawrence

  ‘What shall we do now?’ said Amy. ‘Bartle and Clarissa must be in there.’

  ‘I think a meeting is called for,’ suggested Daniel. ‘So that we can decide what to do.’

  ‘No!’ said Ricky, quite fiercely for a boy with a hint of athlete’s foot. ‘No more meetings! I’m sick of meetings, they make me really grumpy, so I don’t think we should have any more! Ever! And certainly no privileges.’

  Amy was shocked! ‘But Ricky,’ she said shockingly, ‘if we don’t have meetings, how else can we decide what we’re going to do?’

  ‘I tell you what I’m going to do,’ said Betty, firmly taking charge. ‘I’m going to somehow get Whatshisname to distract her, then burst into the room using this master key that I just found in my hand.’

  ‘Wow!’ said the others, together, quite astonished at how utterly firm she could be when the moment calls for utter firmness.

  ‘Woof?’ said Whatshisname, quite lost for words.

  ‘Then I don’t think we need a meeting at all,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Good,’ snapped Ricky.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Amy, ‘that I like this loss of our egalitarian rights. But carry on. We’ll take a vote at the next meeting on whether we want to lose our democratic mandate.’

  ‘Now,’ said Betty, ‘how can we get Whatshisname to distract Old Hag?’

  ‘What about,’ suggested Amy, ‘if he walks past her and then pretends to pass out? For some strange and inexplicable reason, Old Hag likes him, and she’ll leave her post to go and attend to him.’

  ‘Good idea!’ said Betty.

  ‘Woof woof woof?’ said Whatshisname.

  ‘Right, boy,’ said Amy to Whatshisname, pointing down the corridor towards Old Hag. ‘Go faint!’

  Whatshisname looked at Amy quite seriously, yet quite inquisitively, as he tried to translate gofe aynt into Classic Doggish. Gofe aynt. . . hmmm . . .

  ‘Go, boy!’ said Daniel, also pointing down the corridor. ‘Go faint!’

  Whatshisname looked at Daniel quite inquisitively, yet quite seriously. Gofe aynt? Nope, me no understand. Then he looked down the corridor and saw Old Hag by Room 405. A friend!

  ‘Woof woof woof!’ he said, and bounded down the corridor. Old Hag turned to see what all the bounding and woofing was about. Whatshisname leapt up at her, she fell backwards and, with quite a resounding thump, hit her head on the very wall that was holding the very ceiling up! She lay quite still as Whatshisname stood looking down at her for a moment, pondering his next move. He looked back up the corridor to where the children stood. Ah! Go faint! Right! He fell over in a pretend faint on top of Old Hag.

  The children looked at each other. ‘Do you think he’s really fainted?’ asked Amy.

  ‘He’s not that clever!’ said Betty. ‘Come on! Before Old Hag wakes up.’

  They scampered down the corridor and stopped by the pile of bodies outside Room 405. Whatshisname opened one eye to see what was happening. Happy that his fainting ruse had worked, he stood up, shook himself, then waited for a big Thank You hug from his pals, which never came.

  ‘I’m going to unlock the door,’ whispered Betty, tiptoeing over Old Hag, the master key in her hand. The other children and Whatshisname tiptoed after her until they were all standing pressed against the door. Betty slipped the key into the lock and turned it.

  ‘Go on, Daniel, open the door,’ she whispered. ‘It’s your job!’

  Daniel pushed the door open quite gingerly, quite carefully, and quite suddenly they all fell into the bedroom and landed in a heap on the floor! How they would have laughed if they could have seen themselves, which they could, of course, but not from an audience perspective. They all managed to stand up and were forced to gasp at what they saw before them! There, lying on a big double bed, her stunt nun’s outfit by her side, was Clarissa! She looked really happy yet really sad. She also looked really naked. And, lying on his front by her side, eyes shut tight, was Bartle! He also looked really naked.

  ‘Why, hello children!’ said Clarissa. ‘What a nice surprise! This is Bartle de Lylow. Isn’t he handsome? And very nice, but . . .’

  ‘Very nice butt?’ squeaked Betty.

  ‘No, he’s very nice, but he tries a little too hard to be a caring lover,’ said Clarissa, a stunt-frown audaciously crossing her brow.

  The children didn’t know what to say or where to look. And, while we’re on the subject of their woeful inadequacies, nor did they know how to write remotely acceptable poetry in trochaic tetrameter or cook a dolcelatte and watercress soufflé.

  ‘Sorry!’ said Betty, quite apologetically, proving that she did indeed know what to say after all. ‘We were just . . . just passing?’

  She started to back out of the room. The others took the hint and started to back out as well, except Whatshisname who bounded onto the bed and began to lick and nibble at Bartle’s buttocks.

  ‘Come boy!’ said Betty. Bartle opened his eyes and looked up, quite startled for a man of his age. Whatshisname, realising that he should have been backing out of the room and not licking and nibbling an American tourist’s bare buttock, jumped off the bed and happily joined in with all the backing out.

  When they were all satisfied that they were fully backed out, Betty quietly closed the door behind them. Just as quietly they stepped over Old Hag and stood in the corridor, shocked, waiting for someone to speak first. Nobody did, which was a bit unfortunate because some speech marks were ready and waiting.

  ‘ ’

  ‘Woof woof woof,’ said Whatshisname after a few moments, a marvellously reliable dog, for sure.

  ‘Well, does this mean that our adventure is over?’ asked Daniel, eventually.

  ‘I think it does,’ said Ricky. ‘This was all for nothing. All those exclamation marks wasted!!’

  Whatshisname looked up at them, willing them to call the whole thing off. Maybe this time . . .

  ‘I don’t understand,’ wailed Amy, in a sort of pathetic not-understanding way, quite thrown by the sight of people without any clothes on. ‘Why was . . . what was . . . how come . . .’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ said Daniel, solemnly. ‘It’s over.’

  ‘Woof woof woof,’ said Whatshisname, feeling a mixture of elation due to the prospect that he might be able to get his head down for a few thousand sticks, and despondency that Sampson de Lylow’s shadowy ideals, now a real possibility, had made no mention of endless supplies of meaty chunks for all fat spaniels.

  Standing there in the corridor, the others looked at Betty for guidance. But her face had turned quite pale, her cheeks the colour of Dulux Tropical Cornplaster silk emulsion1. And when they saw the glum and gloomy look on her face they knew that a literary device in the form of a central crisis had taken place! They badly needed a break!

  Chapter Nineteen

  In which Uncle Quagmire reads extracts from Sampson’s autobiography; pay attention as you’ll be tested on it later; Whatshisname reflects on Kafka’s tortured life and Tesco’s current offers; The Secret Five get a bit miffed about something really trivial.

  ‘Let’s face it,’ Betty said. ‘Chapter breaks don’t help our adventure one bit. They slow things down, we’ve just lost valuable seconds!’

  Whatshisname sighed and hung his head. Looks like she’s still in adventure mode, then. Get over it, let it go!

  ‘Come on!’ Betty said urgently. ‘We need to find Uncle Quagmire because, pitifully, he’s the closest thing we’ve got to a mentor.’

  Resisting the urge to give Old Hag a gentle kicking, they all raced up the stairs to the ninth floor and pressed the button for the lift down to the ground floor. As they waited, Amy asked, ‘Is our adventure over, then?’

  ‘Well, Amy,’ said Daniel as the lift doors opened and they all carefully stepped inside, ‘think about it.’ He removed his spectacles and sucked the curly bit that rests on an ear. ‘We haven’t actually stopped the conception, we haven’t rescued Uncle Quagmire, Ricky might have
turned, and we haven’t got ourselves back to 2010.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Amy. ‘I hadn’t thought of all that.’

  ‘I haven’t turned!’ moaned Ricky, grumpily turning away from Daniel. ‘And I hate those stupid glasses!’

  ‘Now now, boys!’ said Betty. ‘And I know you’re hankering for some spectacles like Daniel’s, Ricky, so don’t be so silly.’

  Ricky perked up at the mention of the word hankering. Hankering. Hankering. Yes, he liked that word. He would use it in casual conversation as soon as the right moment presented itself. Han-ker-ing. Hmmm.

  Betty was keen to get things moving. ‘Come on, everyone, we’ll have to find Uncle Quagmire and ask him how we get back and if we can rescue the situation. Let’s wait in the hotel’s reception, shall we? He’s sure to wander through very soon, if I’m not mistaken.’

  Safely in the reception, they waited and waited, which made Ricky quite grumpy because it had been ages since he last ate anything of any substance and the others kept on glancing at him suspiciously, waiting for him to give secret signals to secret accomplices. Whatshisname was also quite grumpy, as he still had the taste of Bartle’s buttocks on his long shiny tongue, and was desperate to lick something more savoury, like his own backside, so he did.

  Suddenly, and extremely predictably, Uncle Quagmire wandered through the hotel reception. He had a book under one of his arms, probably his left one.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, unable to think of a less boring expression of greeting. ‘I was wondering where I’d got to. Or maybe I was wondering where you’d got to. Anyway, never mind, I’ve finished wondering now. There you all are. I’ve been trying to find Clarissa, to explain all about the danger of canoodling with Bartle.’

  The children looked quite glum and quite mournful.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Uncle Quagmire asked. ‘I’ve rarely seen you all looking so glumful. Not since the day your very favourite pet hamster let me down big time in my daring experiment with the turbocharged hamster wheel.’

  ‘It’s Clarissa and Bartle. We think it’s too late,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Yes, they’re upstairs,’ said Betty.

  ‘On the bed,’ added Ricky. ‘Together. Looking happy. And tired. Might be a sign of something, or other.’

  ‘Woof woof woof,’ said Whatshisname, woefully.

  ‘But . . .’ said Amy.

  ‘Oh dear,’ moaned Uncle Quagmire, sinking down into a handy armchair. ‘Oh dear oh dear.’

  ‘But . . .’ said Amy again.

  ‘It does look as though you’ve failed miserably. Mediocrity has always been your forte. However . . .’ said Uncle Quagmire. He stopped, and the children all thought that he was thinking, as his little ears were wiggling and waggling, a sure sign of thinking. They watched him for a while.

  ‘Are you thinking?’ asked Ricky, eventually.

  ‘I certainly am,’ said Uncle Quagmire.

  ‘Erm . . . shall we just stand here while you think?’ asked Betty.

  ‘Shush!’ said Uncle Quagmire. ‘I’m thinking.’

  So the children just stood there, thinking, while Uncle Quagmire was thinking. Whatshisname had finished all his licking and looked up at them, keen to know what they were all doing, standing there. He had never felt comfortable with the concept of thinking, and had always thought that it was overrated compared to not thinking. Anyway, there was all the debate about the notion that animals may not think, and that muddied the polemics a little, and he couldn’t cope with muddy polemics.

  ‘Woof woof woof?’ he whispered, but they all shushed him so he just stood there, trying not to think, looking up at them. He really wasn’t quite sure if they were all thinking or not thinking. It was hard to tell, but his money was on not thinking. Then he thought that he’d better start thinking again, quickly but discreetly, just like the great thinkers used to do in times of crisis and, come to think of it, at all other times as well. Gently, he started thinking, then lifted his tail and quickly passed a discrete amount of hell-gas.

  Uncle Quagmire glanced suspiciously at Whatshisname and wrinkled his nose. He turned to the children. ‘Now, it might surprise you but I’ve been thinking. Listen to me. You’ll have to crowd around me for this, because it could get quite complicated, especially for you Amy.’

  The children crowded around Uncle Quagmire’s armchair, as did several inquisitive hotel guests who happened to be passing and wondered what all the crowding was about. One of them looked very much like the typical village postman from chapter one, standing proudly in his lederhosen with his hands on his very own hips.

  ‘What I’ve been thinking is . . .’ began Uncle Quagmire.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Daniel, looking around him. ‘Who are all these people?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, apparently they’re just several inquisitive hotel guests,’ reassured Uncle Quagmire.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Daniel. ‘I wasn’t paying attention. Carry on.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Uncle Quagmire. ‘Now, from what you’ve said, the modern world is still not safe from the terrible evilness that is Sampson de Lylow. I’ve been thinking very hard indeed, as you know, and I have a stunning brand new plan that will save the world.’

  The children gasped, and so did the several inquisitive hotel guests.

  ‘What do you mean, brand new plan?’ asked an inquisitive lady hotel guest.

  ‘It’s . . .’ said Uncle Quagmire.

  ‘Erm, excuse me!’ said Daniel, looking up, seemingly into thin air. ‘Why did that dialogue go to her? Hmmm?’

  The others looked at Daniel as if he were quite mad. ‘He’s doing it again,’ whispered Amy to Betty.

  ‘Ignore him,’ suggested Betty. ‘He has rather a strained relationship with you-know-who.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Amy.

  ‘You know!’ said Betty. ‘You-know-who!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Amy, and looked up, bewildered, into the same bit of thin air that Daniel had looked up into.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Daniel sternly, ‘I demand to say What do you mean, brand new plan?’

  ‘Go on then,’ said Betty. ‘And hurry up!’

  ‘Okay!’ said Daniel. ‘Here goes. What do you mean, brand new plan?’

  Daniel glanced up into the thin air and smirked a little winning smirk, unaware that revenge is a dish best served hot enough to burn the roof of his mouth quite badly when the opportunity next arises.

  ‘Well,’ said Uncle Quagmire, flicking through the book, ‘I’ve found something interascinating in Sampson de Lylow’s autobiography My Plan Is To Dominate The World, available at all good booksellers, and subsequently The Works, in forty-six years from now. My new plan means that you children will have to travel forward to 1980. And I can’t come with you.’

  ‘1980?’ gasped an inquisitive man hotel guest. ‘Isn’t that when Sebastian Coe will win the 1500 metres at the Moscow Olympics in an amazing 3 minutes 38.4 seconds?’

  ‘Look!’ Daniel yelled into thin air. ‘Enough!’ Then he frowned a knowing frown. ‘Aha! How does he know that? Hmmm? Getting too clever for your boots, now, aren’t you?’ He prodded a finger into the air. ‘Caught you out!’

  The others edged away from Daniel. Betty, being a caring sister, took the precaution of kicking his shin before she edged away. ‘Honestly, Daniel!’ she scolded. ‘If it isn’t your stupid urban street talk, it’s all this talking to you-know-who! You’ve got to get a grip. You’re supposed to set an example to a younger sibling!’

  ‘But . . .’ said Daniel, rubbing his shin.

  ‘Children!’ snapped Uncle Quagmire. ‘Enough! Pay attention instantly!’

  Heavily influenced by all the snapping, they instantly paid attention. Uncle Quagmire held up the book at page 125 and said, ‘Let me read something from page 125 to you, then you’ll understand. Or, from bitter experience, you may not.’

  ‘This is so exciting!’ exclaimed another inquisitive hotel guest. Daniel glared at him, then decided that his best strategy would be
to look quite grumpy for a while.

  ‘You know,’ said Uncle Quagmire, ‘that Sampson de Lylow wrote in his autobiography that he was conceived in Salzburg and that his mother is Clarissa and his father was a fellow named Bartle, whom you’ve already met.’

  Amy started to ask a question but Uncle Quagmire held up his hand to stop her. ‘Amy! Shush! Defer your incisive questioning, and let me read what he wrote about an incident that happened to him in 1980. Now, just to warn you, he writes in a rather modernist style, with a surfeit of temporal juxtapositions and parenthetical statements, which I’m sure you children will notice straight away. Nevertheless, Sampson writes: Until that fateful day in 1980, which I am about to relate, the sun shone on my life as the sun shines on a waiting nocturnal flower in the desert or on a colourful humming bird in the light-trimmed foliage of a jungle treetop . . .’

  Uncle Quagmire paused. ‘I forgot to mention that the writing is not only modernist in its style but it’s downright crass as well. Personally I prefer Blyton at her best. But I shall continue, as he goes on – and on that day a vast cloud from an indifferent world came and blotted the sun [silencing my natural humanity and kindness] which emptied my agreeable soul to make room for the person I am today, an idealist, a man driven into the arms of the Devil himself, a man whose conscience is heavy with the deeds that I feel obliged to perpetrate against the evils of Mankind and against the seemingly endless buy-one-get-one-free offers on shower-gel at Tesco . . .’

  There were murmurings amongst the inquisitive hotel guests, and a couple of them disappeared in search of the nearest Tesco store. The children, however, looked positively bewildered, yet again. Whatshisname sat nodding his head, obviously deeply moved by the emotional narrative, the Kafkaesque evocation of a world in which personal viewpoints often fail, and the complex ontological notion that Chappie Variety 10-Pouch Packs might be on a BOGOF offer at Tesco as well.

  Uncle Quagmire went on: ‘It all seems so inconsequential now. So, so absurd. So deeply absurd. How foolish I was . . .’