by Adam Frost
“Exactly. Then one day, she lost him. Maybe someone stole it as a prank – we never found out. Anyway, she went crazy. Phoned the police. Screamed at them. Insisted they find it. Of course they didn’t take her seriously. It was a soft toy, after all. But from that day, everything changed. Klara stopped working. She came bottom in every exam. Started picking fights with the rest of us. Picked fights with the teachers, too. A couple of months later, she was expelled.”
“Are you saying she’s a criminal mastermind because of a fluffy puffin?” said Albert.
“That’s what started it,” said Wily. “But we have to work out what’s happened since then. And what she’s up to now. Did you pick up the paintings?”
Albert nodded.
“Then let’s go somewhere quiet and look at what we’ve got,” said Wily.
Albert pulled in by the jetty at the bottom of Red Square. Beside them, other animals were tying up sledges or unclipping their skis.
They parked the Vespa and started to walk towards the palace. They were crossing Red Square when they heard a familiar voice.
“Hold it right there!”
Wily looked up and saw Julius Hound, Sybil Squirrel and fifteen PSSST agents blocking their path.
“Julius … for goodness’ sake…?” Wily stammered.
The PSSST agents were all holding snowballs.
“Give up, Wily,” Sybil pleaded. “Let’s sort this out.”
“I am sorting it out,” said Wily.
“We know you’re involved, Wily Fox,” said Julius. “We tracked down Dimitri to a garage in Paris. Your paw prints were all over it. Then we investigated Dimitri’s gallery here in Moscow. Your paw prints were everywhere, too.”
“That’s because I’ve been investigating the case,” said Wily. “Listen, Julius, the villain behind this is somebody called Klara Kraftypants. I was at detective school with her. These paintings here are all the evidence I need to find her and get to the bottom of what her evil scheme is.”
“Here’s what I think of your evidence,” said Julius. He turned to his agents. “Now, FIRE!”
The agents began pelting them with snowballs. Wily quickly grabbed Albert and rolled out of the way, ducking behind a snowdrift.
“OK, Albert,” he said. “You roll ’em and I’ll chuck ’em.”
The mole immediately started rolling snowballs and lining them up next to the fox’s feet. Wily threw his first snowball, which hit a junior sergeant on the nose.
The agents threw again – snowballs landed to the left and right of Wily and Albert, but the snowdrift stopped any direct hits.
Wily poked his head over the top of the drift and a huge snowball flew between his ears.
“Julius!” Wily called out. “Klara is planning something big. We’re wasting time fighting like this.”
Julius’s reply was another snowball, followed by a dozen more from his agents. Their snowballs started to knock lumps out of the top of the snowdrift.
“We’re losing our shield, Albert,” said Wily. “Can you roll any faster?”
But Albert was running out of breath.
“Let me take another look at their position,” said Wily.
He poked his head out from behind the snowdrift again and a giant snowball caught him on the cheek.
“Give up yet?” barked Julius.
“Right,” said Wily, kneeling down next to Albert. “I’ve got a plan. They’re backed up against the palace wall. There’s a giant blanket of snow balanced on the roof.” He whispered something into Albert’s ear. Albert frowned and then nodded.
“Good,” said Wily.
He rolled Albert around in the snow until he had made a giant snowball. Then, using all his strength, the detective picked up his Albert-snowball and flung it at the palace roof. It flew through the air, soaring over the PSSST agents’ heads.
“Not even close!” growled Julius.
The Albert-snowball landed on top of the palace roof, just as Wily had planned. The mole burst out and began kicking and pushing the snow on the roof.
There was a rumbling noise and Julius glanced up. Just as he realized what was happening, a huge avalanche of snow rolled down from the roof, burying the bulldog and his agents in a two-metre-deep snowdrift.
“Chill-out time!” laughed Wily.
Albert slid off the roof and rejoined Wily. The PSSST agents were all scrabbling through the mound of snow, trying to get out. Wily and Albert were about to leave Red Square and continue their hunt for Klara Kraftypants when Sybil Squirrel confronted them.
“I’m sorry, Wily,” she said, “but I’m going to have to take you in.”
“Managed to avoid the avalanche, eh?” said Wily.
“Saw what you were planning a mile off,” said Sybil. “Poor Albert – you’re always chucking him around.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Albert, rubbing his back. “I quite like it, really.”
“Look, Sybil, let me tell you what I know,” said Wily. “And then you can decide whether to arrest us. Come on, before your boss gets out of there.”
Sybil glanced at the pile of snow covering Julius. “OK,” she said, “but this better be good or he’ll arrest me, too.”
Wily, Albert and Sybil crossed Red Square, ducked inside a cafe and found a table near the back. Wily pulled out Klara’s paintings. There were six in total.
“These belong to Klara Kraftypants,” Wily explained. He told Sybil who Klara was and how he knew her.
“She’s been sending sketches to Dimitri Gottabottomitch,” he continued. “Dimitri locked up a young artist – Oscar Otter – at his gallery here in Moscow, and has been forcing him to turn the sketches into these paintings. Dimitri then smuggled the paintings abroad. They look like ordinary abstract paintings, so nobody suspects anything. The paintings end up in garages and workshops – to make what, I don’t know. But there are always six. And my hunch is that he’s not just sent them to Paris – they’ve gone to other places, too.”
“So how did Suzie La Pooch get one?” Sybil asked.
“Total mistake,” said Wily. “One of the paintings ended up in Dimitri’s Paris gallery. Suzie saw it and fell in love with it. Bought it on the spot. The gallery assistant didn’t realize it should have been sent to the Gallery Nouvelle.”
“So where is Klara now?” Sybil asked.
“Half an hour ago, she was here in Moscow, trying to drown me,” said Wily. “I’m sure that the answer to everything – where she is and what she’s doing – can be found in these paintings.”
Sybil and Albert stared at the six paintings.
“Is that a radio mast?” Albert said, pointing at one of the long lines.
“I’m not sure,” said Sybil. “It could be a map of somewhere?”
“Where, though?” Albert asked.
“I don’t know,” Sybil sighed. “It’s a puzzle, all right.”
Wily suddenly went very quiet and started shuffling the small paintings around.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “That’s it!”
“What’s it?” Albert asked.
“A puzzle, a puzzle,” Wily muttered. “You said it was a puzzle, and that’s exactly what it is.”
Wily rotated the six paintings and slotted them back together.
“Oh no, this is bad,” Albert muttered. “This is really, really bad.”
“Why?” Sybil asked.
“That’s a mega-torpedo,” said Albert. “Fires a huge laser beam out of that gun barrel there. It’s powerful enough to wipe out a whole city.”
At that second, the waitress appeared – a young bandicoot in a white apron.
“Is one of you three Wily Fox?” she asked.
Wily glanced up. “Who’s asking?”
The waitress handed him a note. “She said you’d know who it was from.”
Wily looked concerned.
“Well, you can’t go!” Albert exclaimed.
“Albert’s right,” said Sybil. “If she really is building thes
e weapons, she’s not going to think twice about killing you.”
“I have to go – the city is at stake,” said Wily. “I know Klara, remember. I can try to reason with her. And if that fails, I’ve got another idea. It involves an otter, some cloth fabric and running around at high speed. But I’ll need your help to make it work.”
Albert and Sybil looked at each other.
“Count me in,” said Albert.
“Me, too,” said Sybil. “What’s the plan?”
Twenty minutes later, Wily was walking up the stairs towards Apartment D in Block 17.
The detective knocked on the door of the apartment and waited. There was no answer so he tried the handle. The door was unlocked so he pushed it open.
Wily found himself in some kind of reception area. There was a door with frosted glass at one end of the room. Next to the door was a chair. On the wall opposite there were two paintings, both by famous painters: one showed a frog catching a fly, the other was of a weasel chasing a rabbit. Piped music was coming from a speaker somewhere.
It seemed to be a conventional office in an ordinary apartment block. Was this really Klara’s headquarters?
Wily tried the door with frosted glass but it was locked. He would have to wait.
The detective sat on the chair next to the door. At once, he knew he’d made a mistake. He heard a loud click. Leather cords whipped round his body and legs, pinning him to the spot. Then the ground gave way and he was falling.
Wily tried to stay calm but within a couple of seconds, he was yelling. He looked down and saw the ground approaching fast. Then the chair appeared, somehow, to slow down and it dropped with a clunk on to a stone floor.
The detective found himself looking down the nose of a gigantic metal mega-torpedo.
“Hello, Wily,” said a voice by his shoulder.
Klara walked round to face him.
“I knew you’d come,” she said. “I only had to mention that I’d blow up the city, and off you trot, trying to stop me.”
Klara was tall and slender with narrow green eyes. She was holding a remote control in her paw. She leaned over and grabbed the paintings from Wily’s paw.
“Mine, I believe,” she said. “Now it’s time to try out my new toy.”
“Klara, let’s talk about this,” said Wily.
“We are going to talk,” said Klara. “I’m going to tell you all about my plan for world domination. I’ve got five of these beauties. One here and four others in Rio, Sydney, New York and Beijing. The one in Paris would have been number six. Until you spoiled things.”
Wily stared up at the torpedo that was pointing at his snout. “I’ll fix things,” he said. “Let me work for you.”
“Nice try, Wily,” said Klara. “You’re forgetting that we went to detective school together. ‘Pretending you’re on the villain’s side’ – we learned that in the first week! No, I’m now going to test setting one on my mega-torpedo. This will blow up you and part of the wall behind you, but leave everything else intact.”
Wily looked at Klara and up at the underground vault that he was in. He knew his only chance was to keep Klara talking and hope his back-up plan would work.
“Why do you need six of them? Isn’t one enough?” he asked.
Klara paused. “Oh, now we’re on to week two. ‘Buy yourself time by flattering the villain with questions about their plan.’ This is why I hated detective school. Not challenging enough.”
“OK, I’ll tell you, then,” said Wily. “If you link six together, you give yourself a weapon capable of blowing up the whole world. Is that it?”
Klara blinked. “Very good, Wily Fox. If you point all six at the Earth’s core, you can create a blast of energy strong enough to destroy the entire planet.”
“That’s why you’ve been so careful. Breaking the plans into six sketches. Using paintings to smuggle them.”
Klara grinned. “I couldn’t risk being stopped until I had all six. Other ways of transporting the plans were all problematic. Put them in a suitcase? I get searched at customs all the time. Email them? The government scans everything I send. But I’ve always collected paintings. And I noticed that no customs official ever looks at the paintings I buy. When I met Dimitri, the rest of my plan fell into place.”
As Klara talked, Wily was fumbling in his pockets. It was hard because his paws were strapped to his sides, but eventually he managed to grab his magnifying glass.
“Then Suzie La Pooch messed that up,” said Wily.
“Too right,” said Klara. “When she got hold of that painting, things spiralled out of control. Dimitri was too heavy-handed and I KNEW Suzie would contact you. What with your so-called ‘reputation’ for ‘helping’ other animals. I sent Dimitri a photo – telling him to look out for you – but he messed that up, too. I’m SURROUNDED by bunglers.”
Wily lowered the magnifying glass on to his lap. “But why are you doing this, Klara?” he asked. You used to be … well … a laugh.”
“I still am,” she said. “I just find different things funny.” Klara pressed a button on her remote control. “Goodbye, Wily,” she chuckled.
The mega-torpedo started to shudder and hum.
Wily managed to twist his arm so that the magnifying glass was angled down by his knees.
“What’s it all for?” he shouted over the noise of the mega-torpedo. “Money? Fame? Power?”
“No,” said Klara. “It’s worse than that – I actually want to destroy the world. And when you’re out of the way, I’ll build my sixth mega-torpedo in Madrid and finish the job.”
“But you’ll die as well!” protested Wily.
“I don’t care about that,” said Klara. “I haven’t since one of you lot stole Captain Snuggles and left me alone in the world. Now I want to take every animal down with me.”
Klara pressed another button on her remote control. “Starting with you.”
A huge blast of energy shot out of the end of the mega-torpedo. But Wily’s idea worked. He’d hoped his magnifying glass would change the path of the laser beam. And it did – the laser hit the glass and curved round, blasting apart the leather straps that tied his legs to the chair.
Wily leaped up and ran, the chair still strapped to his back.
It took Klara a couple of seconds to realize what had happened. She tapped frantically on her remote control, growling and snarling. The mega-torpedo swivelled round and kept blasting at Wily, taking chunks out of the walls and floor.
Wily was darting from left to right, not really knowing where he was going, trying to wriggle free of the chair.
“Fire! Fire!” shouted Klara.
Wily thought about Albert and Sybil. Maybe his other plan would work, but at this rate he might not live to see it.
“Fire!” shouted Klara again, and a blast of purple fire whistled past Wily’s head.
In desperation, he tried to run behind the mega-torpedo, but the chair on his back shifted round and tripped him up. As he fell to the floor, he could hear the mega-torpedo spinning round.
“Fire!” said Klara.
“Wait!” said a voice above them.
The mega-torpedo had been making so much noise that they hadn’t heard the Vespa tunnelling through the earth above Klara’s underground vault.
The scooter dropped through the hole and landed on the ground with a crunch.
Sybil Squirrel was driving it. Albert was hanging on to the back. He was holding a fluffy puffin in his right paw. He raised it into the air like a trophy.
“C-c-captain S-snuggles,” stammered Klara.
“That’s right,” said Sybil. “And if you don’t let Wily go, we’ll rip him to shreds.”
“H-how? Wh-where?” Klara stammered.
“We went back to your detective school and searched every room,” said Albert. “He was stuffed behind a locker in Room 2C.”
“My old room,” said Klara. “Let me see his eye.”
Sybil held up the soft toy and the vixen stared at it
s face. Its eye was hanging by a thread.
“It’s him,” Klara whispered.
“Now, let Wily go and hand yourself in,” said Sybil.
“Let me cuddle him first,” Klara pleaded. “Just for a second.”
Wily had clambered to his feet and wriggled free from his bonds.
“No,” he said. “First, you will shut down your mega-torpedoes. Then you will give us a list of all of the animals that helped you put this plan into action. If you do as we ask, you can have Captain Snuggles back. Forever.”
Klara paused for a second and looked down at the remote control. She shrugged. “Who cares about a bunch of silly torpedoes?” She threw the remote at Wily.
The detective started tapping at the controls. The mega-torpedo in the centre of the room groaned and shut down.
Klara took a memory card out of her pocket. “Here are all my agents and their locations. Right, NOW can I have my puffin?”
“Handcuffs first,” said Sybil.
Klara held out her paws and Sybil cuffed them. Then Albert gave Klara the soft toy.
A few seconds later, a squadron of PSSST agents came pouring into the vault. They abseiled down the shaft inside Apartment D, they leaped out of the hole that the Vespa had made, they sprang out of every door and hatch.
Julius Hound led the charge.
“We got reports of explosions under this building,” said Julius. “What in heaven’s name is going on?”
“Hello, Sarge,” said Sybil. “I was just about to radio you. We’ve solved the Painting Plot. The mega-torpedoes have been shut down and the criminal is secure. It’s another great day for PSSST.”
Julius looked suspiciously at Wily and then at the deactivated mega-torpedo.
“Hmph,” he said. “It does look like everything is under control. Stand down, everyone.”
