Storm Chaser

by Andrew Cope

  Visitors are obviously not welcome.

  She waited until he had disappeared down the side of one of the warehouses, before skilfully freewheeling her bike across the front of the truck and landing on the ground via the top of a wheelie bin.

  Gazing around in the darkness, Lara spied a glass dome on one of the warehouse roofs. Lights reflected in the glass signalled some sort of activity down below.

  Looks like a good place to start. Let’s see what they’re so keen on protecting …

  Lara dumped her bike in the bushes and set off on four paws, aiming in the direction of the metal fire escape that zigzagged its way up the side of the building.

  A patrolling Great Dane suddenly re-emerged from the side of a building. Lara froze. He’s huge! She couldn’t recall Great Danes being particularly fierce but she knew dogs ended up being like their owners. So if he has a fierce owner? Lara shrank into the shadows. The Great Dane sniffed the air, his ears pricked. Lara watched, controlling her breathing and hoping her pounding heart wasn’t as loud as it felt. The huge animal put his nose to the floor and sniffed. He followed the scent to Lara’s abandoned bike and sounded the alert. His bark was as loud as his bite. ‘Woof woof, intruder alert,’ he began.

  Lara only had a split second to decide what to do. I could hide? But with his sense of smell, my chances aren’t great. And if he barks again it will attract people. Probably with guns.

  It was a no-brainer. The retired Spy Dog filled her lungs with oxygen and leapt from the bushes. The black and white blur spiralled in mid-air. She had recently been watching martial-arts movies on Ben’s iPad and was, on reflection, a little too enthusiastic in her attack. She let out a piercing wolf-like howl and aimed for the Great Dane’s huge legs. She missed, landing squarely on his back, and was now hanging on like a skinny cowboy on the back of a huge bucking bronco. Yeee-haaa!

  Mr Heinz was under attack. He barked louder and leapt around, trying to rid himself of his furry passenger.

  Lara fell to the dirt. Ooof! That’s a long way down. She received a kick to her nose and a stamp to her tail. She stood groggily and raised her aching head to face a dog that was at least three times her size. I can take him, she thought. But why’s he grinning?

  Lara’s theory about ‘dogs being like their owners’ was true. Pure evil stood behind her. Soop swung the baseball bat and Lara’s world went dark.

  The washing machine rumbled on, continuing its tumbling mantra. Star placed the dog bowl in the centre of the laundry room, before giving the rim three anti-clockwise twists. After a little flickering and crackling, a blue light stretched from bowl to ceiling. Shortly after, the rotund figure of Professor Cortex appeared, his hologram smiling broadly.

  ‘Greetings, children, Agents Spud and Star. I trust you’ve received your new “smart” tags, pups?’

  Ben stepped forward. ‘We’re hoping Lara’s OK, and thought you might know where she was?’

  ‘Ahem,’ the professor coughed in the slightly guilty way he often did before admitting to knowing a little more than he’d been letting on. ‘I’m sure GM451 is tickety-boo. She had been trying to track a lorry to find out where this depressing raincloud was coming from, and the disgusting chicken soup that everyone seems to be buying to make them feel better.’

  The pups looked at each other.

  ‘I knew there was something fishy going on,’ woofed Star.

  ‘Or “chickeny”,’ added Spud, rather lamely.

  ‘And …?’ added Ben.

  ‘Err … I’ve not heard anything, as yet. I’m afraid her “smart” tag doesn’t seem to be so smart …’ The professor shuffled his feet and looked a little uncomfortable. He had hoped to have had some news by now.

  ‘We’ve got to help her!’ exclaimed Sophie, already fearing the worst.

  ‘We need to find that lorry!’ added Ollie, the smile having disappeared from his face.

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us, Professor?’ asked Ben. The professor’s hologram scratched its shiny head.

  ‘The lorry had KEN SOOP’S CHICKEN SOUP written on the side. That’s all we really know,’ he added, almost apologetically. ‘This is our man,’ said the hologram, holding up a large picture of Kenneth Soop’s long face. ‘Oh – and lots of chickens seem to be mysteriously vanishing in the middle of the night. Oops … sorry … there seems to be some interference. I’m losing the signal …’

  With a couple of flickers and a sharp crack, the hologram disappeared. The children and pups looked at one another.

  ‘How do we know where to start?’ asked Ben.

  No one said anything for a minute, as they desperately tried to come up with a plan for helping Lara.

  Sophie broke the silence, her grin lighting up the laundry room. She beamed at Star and Spud.

  ‘Pups,’ she said, ‘I have a cunning plan.’

  11. Prison

  Lara’s beanie had been pulled down over her eyes. Her head was pounding as she lifted a paw and revealed her left eye. The professor’s invention might stop negative thoughts, but it doesn’t stop a sore head! Her bloodshot eye caught sight of the baseball bat standing in the corner and suddenly it made sense. She had enough energy to groggily assess her prison. A burnt-out room that smells of chicken. Black walls and soot on the floor.

  It was a struggle, but Lara raised herself and limped to the small window that was set into the door. She tried the handle. Locked. Obviously. The strain was almost too much but she stood tall on her hind legs and wiped the soot off the window. Wow!

  A tall, skinny man dressed in black was inspecting a series of dials and levers attached to an assortment of containers and machines.

  Kenneth Soop!

  He drifted between the controls like a daddy-long-legs, administering the faintest of touches before moving on. Every now and then, Lara noticed he would to stop to unscrew a tall silver flask, taking several sips before wiping his moustache with his sleeve.

  Trailing the daddy-long-legs around the warehouse were two Great Danes. Shuffling between them all was … the headmaster I saw on Professor Cortex’s old school photograph! Lara’s blood boiled and her head throbbed harder.

  In the centre of the room was what looked like a satellite dish, pointing towards the glass sunroof. Lara’s eyes weren’t what they used to be and she didn’t have her contact lenses in today; the rain usually played havoc with them. Spotting the various dials and read-outs, she squinted through her bloodshot eyes, trying to work out what they controlled. She didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  The very old man fumbled with a remote-control device, examining it closely before pulling a lever very precisely. The glass dome began to shudder and vibrate, retracting from the middle in two halves. Soop then plunged the big, red button on the control panel. Lara watched in amazement as crackling streaks of black lightning shot out of the centre of the satellite dish, filling the sky with a thick, dark smog.

  Soop clapped enthusiastically. He approached Lara’s window; his face so close to Lara’s she could count the lumps of gristle between his rotten teeth. His voice was eerily muffled behind the triple-glazed window.

  ‘New, improved, darker clouds,’ she lip-read. ‘More sadness. And more demand for my special-ingredient chicken soup,’ he gloated.

  Lara tried to stare him down but she wasn’t sure what was more menacing, Soop or the thunder that rolled overhead.

  Lara retreated to the corner of the burnt-out room and slumped down against the walls. The strain of opening her eyes was too much. Her chin rested on her paws and she sighed wearily.

  This Spy Dog needs saving. In fact, the world needs saving. I hope Spud and Star are on their way.

  12. Winging It

  Sophie had needed a minute to run the plan through her head before she dared announce it out loud. She turned from looking out of the window. ‘Find Kenneth Soop and we might be able to shed some light on that pesky cloud. Find him and I bet we’ll find Lara.’

  Ben nodded his he
ad in agreement. ‘But how do we find him? If Lara’s in trouble, we need to help her – and fast!’ As the oldest of the children, he tried to stay calm so as not to worry the others, but he was feeling increasingly concerned. There was a pause, while everyone considered their next step.

  ‘Maybe we don’t have to,’ suggested Sophie. ‘Find him, that is. Maybe Ken Soop will come to us …’

  Everyone turned to look at Sophie quizzically.

  ‘Don’t you see? Everything’s to do with the chickens! The cloud arrives and everyone feels miserable. Sales of Ken Soop’s Chicken Soup rocket. More chickens mysteriously disappear and at the same time the cloud gets bigger and bigger! Grey clouds, grey moods and grey soup. It’s more than just a coincidence.’

  Ben tilted his head to one side, ‘But I still don’t see how we’re going to find Soop?’

  Sophie smiled, removing a stray feather from Ollie’s hair. It was time to get crafty.

  Mum and Dad were somewhat bemused: pleased, but also a little puzzled. The children had been camped in Ollie’s room for hours along with the twins, apparently helping to tidy up. Mum had sneaked a look not long ago, and the floor was already looking considerably tidier.

  Dad looked up from his newspaper and shrugged. ‘I suppose they’re finally getting the message.’

  Mum wasn’t so sure.

  ‘Well, I’d like to think so,’ she replied, not entirely convinced by their sudden enthusiasm for housework.

  Behind the bedroom door, the carpet was certainly looking clearer. Ollie’s craft set was being put to good use. Agents Spud and Star sat perfectly still on a pair of upturned crates that usually contained a wide assortment of dressing-up clothes. Ben and Sophie were just putting the finishing touches; there’d been a few alterations. Their shiny new ‘smart’ tags reflected each other’s faces.

  ‘How do I look?’ barked Spud out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Honestly?’ woofed Star, her eyes resting on her brother.

  ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Flapping great,’ she replied, deadpan.

  ‘Oh … err, cool,’ woofed Spud. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good thing.

  Brickfield Farm’s chickens were free-range chickens. They were also the only remaining ‘free’ chickens for miles around, those from neighbouring farms having mysteriously disappeared over the past week. If Soop needed more chickens, then this was where he’d come to.

  Even in the dead of night, the hens enjoyed stretching their legs in the fresh air, gazing at the moon and thanking their lucky stars. Life didn’t get much better than this for a chicken. It was luxury living: chicken supreme.

  Two particularly large chickens perched in the shadows of one of the numerous sheds, both looking a little self-conscious. One of them started to type on their mobile.

  ‘What are you doing?’ hissed Star, elbowing her brother sharply.

  ‘Ouch!’ yelped Spud. ‘Playing it cool – just like you said!’ he retorted.

  ‘Chickens don’t surf the internet!’ Star barked with a chicken accent.

  ‘Oh – don’t they? What do they do?’

  Star paused. ‘Cross the road a lot? I don’t know …’

  The pups had had a makeover. They were now working undercover. Ben and Sophie’s handiwork with Ollie’s craft set had transformed the pups into fully fledged chicken operatives – albeit a very unusual breed. A pair of Sophie’s old fairy wings had been customized with red, yellow and green feathers, disguising Star’s front legs. She tried a half-hearted flap, hoping nothing fell off.

  Ollie’s cuddly bumblebee costume had been similarly adapted for Spud. The children had needed to source some extra feathers from one of the pillows out of the spare room, but the overall effect seemed to work OK. Each dog sported one of Ben’s brightly coloured pair of goalie gloves on the top of their head. Half a chocolate-orange wrapper moulded around the dogs’ noses completed the look.

  The other chickens continued to go blissfully about their business, pecking the ground and clucking. Occasionally one would strut over to take a closer look at the pups, before shrugging and resuming their search for scattered feed. The rain started again, the ever-present cloud giving no let-up from the miserable weather. Star shivered, and hugged her wings a little tighter. She looked down the road, but there was still no sign; she kept her wings crossed that this was going to work.

  13. Spy-jacked

  Mr Dewitt trundled the lorry along the outskirts of Brickfield, the only vehicle on the road at that late hour. His wipers smeared the windscreen, as they had done last night and the night before that. Classical music blared out of the stereo.

  The ‘runaway pensioner’ had been given the job of finding more chickens to keep up with the demand for soup. The headmaster knew about chickens – children and chickens. They both required direction and firm discipline. On the top of the hill was a free-range farm, where the chickens pretty much wandered about doing as they pleased. Mr Dewitt thought it would be a doddle; open up the back of the truck and simply bung the birds in the trailer: job done.

  Star spotted the dull headlights meandering up the hill and nudged her brother.

  ‘Eh, what?’ spluttered Spud, pretending he’d been awake all along.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ woofed Star, nodding in the direction of the approaching truck. Ollie and Sophie’s hunch had been right. Chickens had been mysteriously going missing all over town every night for a week now – everywhere, that is, apart from Brickfield Farm. Tonight it was their turn.

  ‘What do we do?’ hissed Spud.

  ‘Run around like headless chickens – I think,’ barked Star. Which was exactly what the rest of the brood were doing. Panic had set in among the farm’s residents, unsettled by this sudden, unexpected visit. Chickens raced around in every direction, colliding with each other and generally getting into a flap. Star was tempted to tell them all to calm down but resisted, recognizing that a little fuss might help distract attention from them.

  Mr Dewitt brought the lorry to a halt, switched off the engine and eased his creaking body down from the cab. He was very tired but all he needed to do was chuck the chicks in the back. He shuddered at the thought of the retirement home.

  Mr Heinz and Mr Campbell jumped down and got to work. The stupid birds were milling around everywhere, tripping over each other and apologizing repeatedly.

  ‘Shhhhh! This is our chance,’ cluck-woofed Spud, realizing that Mr Dewitt’s back was turned. ‘Careful of those huge dogs!’

  He grabbed his sister by the paw and they joined the crowd of chickens.

  ‘Keep your head down,’ warned Star. ‘These disguises were the best we could do, but they won’t stand up to close scrutiny. And those dogs have a keen sense of smell. However good the disguises are, we don’t smell like birds!’

  The tailgate had been lowered and hens were being herded aboard, single file. Mr Dewitt was at the bottom of the gangplank, flexing his cane, counting them in. ‘Ninety-seven … ninety-eight …’ He always was good with numbers.

  Spud and Star shuffled forward, nervously awaiting their turn. Star’s heart was hammering inside her chest. ‘Ninety-nine,’ counted the old man as the puppy hopped by.

  It was Spud’s turn. His large belly meant he was the biggest chicken by far. He hopped on to the gangplank, overacting terribly. His sister heard him attempt a cluck.

  For goodness’ sake, bro, she thought. There’s no need! She cast her eye behind and watched her bother attempt to flap his wings. His left wing fell off. Oops!

  ‘Hold it right there,’ shouted the old man. He approached the chicken-pup. Spud decided not to attempt another cluck. He hopped one more time and pecked at the plank with his fake beak.

  It was dark and rainy, so the man came in for a closer look. He bent over until his nose was level with Spud, squinting at the pup before unfurling a piece of paper.

  ‘Kenneth said one hundred,’ he muttered. ‘So you, big fatty, are the last one.’

&
nbsp; A relieved Spud fell into the back of the truck with ninety-eight hens and one other puppy.

  The back door was slammed and locked.

  ‘Big fatty?’ laughed his sister.

  Spud snorted. He wasn’t cut out to be a chicken.

  14. Chicken Run

  Ken Soop was ecstatically unhappy. Everything had gone according to plan. The town was turning utterly miserable. People expected the worst and he delivered the worst. He, Ken Soop, was finally in control. Sadness ruled and Mr Dewitt had been right all along; it was only the winning that mattered. It felt so good! He wondered what people would pay for a dose of sunshine. One million? Seaside resorts would pay a lot more. Maybe I can sell sunny days as ‘buy one get one free’? he considered.

  A droplet of snot teetered on the end of his whistling ski-jump nose, before being wiped away with the back of his sleeve. The silvery trail glistened for a moment before soaking in. Unscrewing the cap of his flask, Soop drank deeply, eyes closed, savouring the special ingredients. Several sticky lumps snared in his moustache; something for later.

  Ken Soop paraded down the endless rows of birds, congratulating himself for being so clever; it took a genius to create such misery. And soon he’d be in a position to put the final phase of his master plan into action. When the constant black clouds were so depressing that everyone had had enough, he would sell ‘sunny days’. An auction, he decided. A sunny day for the highest bidder. Priceless!

  It was after midnight. The children were hoping that Mum and Dad would be sound asleep as they rose from their beds and padded downstairs. Sophie quietly closed the door to the laundry room. Ben gave the rim of the dog-bowl three anti-clockwise twists and stepped back. It wasn’t long before Professor Cortex’s hologram crackled into view again.

  ‘We’re wondering if you’ve heard anything?’ hissed Sophie.