Alex Crane stood against the long, metal beam bound by titanium rope as the ragged jaws of chained crocodiles leapt towards her, missing her by centimetres.
But it wasn’t the crocodiles that worried her most.
It was the spit-firing, giant Echidna that posed her greatest threat. The pink-haired, evil overlord, Sugarlips, had lured Alex to her dungeon hideout during a mission to save the world from another of her harebrained plans. This time Sugarlips had, Pied Piper-like, enticed the children of some of the world’s richest people into her lair by means of a giant mountain of fairy floss that floated sweetly above the bedrooms of the children as they slept. Their dreams became filled with images of sweet mounds of sugared heaven which drew them, sleepwalking, towards the overlord’s hideout. What the children didn’t know was that once they were in her sugared palace, she would place them at the mercy of the spiny-backed Echidna, until their parents paid the hefty ransom she demanded of them.
Or else …
‘Ms Crane, time is almost up. If those parents don’t deliver that ransom soon, I’m afraid some pretty nasty things will happen,’ Sugarlips said with a voice like melting ice cream on a hot day. ‘And this lovely bell here will tell us when that time comes.’
Alex flinched at the sounds of Sugarlips’ sickly words as she pointed to a large brass bell.
‘It’s no use struggling either,’ she advised. ‘I assure you the titanium rope that binds you is as strong as any substance the world knows and you’re wasting your time if you think you can get free. Besides,’ and at this her voice became syrupy and thick, ‘if you could free yourself, you would be making my precious baby very happy.’
At this, the Echidna sent a soaring spitball through the air. When it landed against the opposite wall of the dungeon, it spawned a fiery explosion and once the smoke cleared, a gaping, terrible hole could be seen. If the spitfire had hit a human there was little guessing how much of them would be left.
Alex was trapped. Caught in a world where she didn’t belong with one of the most sweetly vile people she had ever met, one of the most evil of pets and a bell set to ring out the terrible fate of innocent children. Her choice was to stay and be mauled by hungry crocs or resist and become the main course for a freakish, oversized pincushion.
Would she manage to escape and save herself from certain doom? Would she be able to free the children who had been tricked into entering this grotesque world? How was she going to stop the bell from tolling certain doom?
Brinnnggggggggggg.
‘Aahhhh!’
Max shot up in bed like the mattress had been spring-loaded. One minute she was dreaming about a terrible overlord and her pet, the next she was … she was … it took her a few seconds to realise where she was. Then everything became clear. The phone was ringing downstairs. She was in her bedroom. It was the morning of another school day. Then she remembered the worst bit. She was still the girl who was doomed to spend her holidays with her mother.
Max sat there while the phone rang and watched her life fall into a tragic heap. There was nothing good about it. Nothing to look forward to. Everything was against her.
But then something happened.
‘Max?’
It was her mother knocking at the door.
‘Yeah?’ answered Max, turning and falling into her pillow face first, hoping this would make the world go away.
It didn’t, so her mother kept talking.
‘Max?’ She was now at close range sitting on her bed. ‘I’ve had a call from work.’
She paused like she was getting ready to say something difficult. ‘There’s a new show we are launching much earlier than expected and they want me to do it.’
Max closed her eyes even tighter waiting for what calamity it would mean for her. The world had better be careful, she thought. There’s only so much bad news an eleven year old can handle before terrible things happen.
‘Now I know this is going to be disappointing for you, sweetie, but I’m afraid we are going to have to postpone our trip to Queensland.’
Max opened her eyes. Did she hear right? Not going to Queensland? She was so happy she wanted to jump out of bed and swing from the light fitting.
Her mother watched as Max continued to lay face down in her pillow.
‘I’m so sorry, darling. I know it was going to be so wonderful with just the two of us, but I will book another trip as soon as I can. I promise. For now though, it will mean spending your holidays at the farm.’
Max thought for a minute. If she was clever, she could really play this to her advantage. She sat up next to her mother, ready to lay it on as thick as she could.
‘That’s okay, Mum. You couldn’t help it. Sometimes your job must come first. There’ll be lots of other times you and I can spend together later.’
Max’s mother was impressed.
‘You really are the sweetest kid a parent could ever hope for. Now, how about I make you some breakfast and we get you off to school.’
She kissed Max on the forehead and sprang out of the room.
It worked! Yesterday, Max was the pebble in the shoe of her mother’s life, condemned to weeks of punishment, today she was the sweetest kid a parent could ever hope for. She leapt out of bed and got ready for school like it was the best day of her life.
The Easter holidays were only four days away. Max woke every morning and struck the days off her calendar like they were layers of wrapping paper hiding a present. Nothing could upset her. Even Toby’s teasing about her mother’s performance at school didn’t bother her. All she could think of was seeing Linden again and going to London.
Finally the day arrived. The last day of school before the break. Max was waiting at the school gate for her mother to pick her up. Toby tried one parting shot before he left.
‘Waiting for your mother, Max? After trying to strangle innocent children, I’m surprised she hasn’t packed you off to reform school with all the other social misfits.’
Max wasn’t biting and besides, she could see her mother’s car driving towards her and with only seconds of Toby left in her life, she didn’t even bother coming up with anything nasty to say to him.
‘Bye, Toby. Have a great holiday,’ she said brightly as she opened the car door.
Now this did two things for Max: first, it totally freaked Toby out and, second, it looked good in front of her mother that she was being nice to the boy she was trying to strangle only days before.
Max got in the car and kissed her mother hello. As they drove off, she watched Toby, his mouth gaping wide open in shock, get smaller and smaller in the rear-vision mirror. She thought, today is a good day.
As they drove through the rickety front gate that was only just managing to stand up (Ben and Eleanor were brilliant scientists, but they knew nothing about being handy around a farm), Max could see them all there: Ben, Eleanor, Francis and Linden. Her heart slammed in one enormous leap against her chest. She’d missed them so much since the Christmas holidays, but it wasn’t until she saw them again that she knew how much. The last few days blew away in a trail of dust behind her and Aidan, Peasers, Hollingdale and Toby went with it.
When they pulled up, the following few minutes were pretty awkward and went something like this.
After the usual routine of Eleanor asking Max’s mother to stay, her mother’s eyes darted all over the place while she offered a few lame excuses of why she couldn’t. Ben stood by not saying much as a few more awkward pauses made their way into the conversation before Max interrupted them all by saying goodbye to her mother and everyone waved her off. After that the car window was quickly wound up (so none of the country could creep in and dirty the polished leather seats) and Max’s mother breathed a sigh of relief as she headed back to the city.
They all watched the car disappear down the dirt drive and Max wondered why her mother always had to make a quick exit when it came to her own family. She didn’t even say hello to Linden or Francis.
‘Let me
look at you,’ said Eleanor, turning towards Max with a smile plastered all over her face.
She leant down and put her hands around Max’s cheeks, the folds of her dress sweeping around them like sails and they were both on the high seas. ‘You’re even more beautiful than I remember from the last time.’
No one had ever said that to Max before and she’d never thought of herself as beautiful. Ben saw that Eleanor’s words made her feel uncomfortable and stepped in to save her.
‘Now Eleanor, Max doesn’t need you embarrassing her in the first few minutes she’s here.’ He put his arm around her and swooped her into the air.
‘Yeah,’ said Linden. ‘There’s plenty of time for Max to embarrass herself later.’
Linden! It was so good to hear his jokes again. Only Max would never let him know it.
‘Good to see you haven’t done anything about improving your sense of humour. Wouldn’t want you to change just because I’m back.’
Linden smiled, glad to see Max could still be funny when she wanted to be.
There was one person left. Francis. When Max and Linden first met him in London a few months ago, he was scrawny and bent-looking, with hardly enough fat on his bones to count as anything. Now he looked fit and healthy, with his cheeks full of colour, his chest filled out and it seemed he stood a whole ruler length taller.
‘Hi, Francis.’ Max suddenly felt very shy.
‘Hi,’ he said quietly, looking down and not knowing what to do with any of his lanky body.
A silence sat between them like a giant clump of cow manure, until something happened to get rid of it. A great leaping sack of fur burst from the verandah, jumped down the steps and crash-landed on Max.
‘Aahhh!’ she yelled as her body flew through the air like a splattered pancake. This was followed by a lot of muffled cries as a mini dust storm rose around the confusion of fur and what were once Max’s upright limbs.
Ralph!
It took a few moments for everyone to realise the affectionate mutt had escaped from his lead and was so excited by Max’s return he’d forgotten all the rules of how to say a proper hello.
‘Gerr ’im orff meee!’ they thought they heard Max cry.
Ben and Linden charged towards the dusty muddle and pulled Ralph away, but not before he’d done a good job of covering her clothes in a solid coat of dirt and fur and her face in enough dog slobber to fill a bucket.
‘I forgot about you,’ she growled, as she wiped her sleeve across her mouth.
Ralph whined, suspecting perhaps he’d overdone his welcome.
‘Sorry about that, Max,’ said Eleanor. ‘We tied him up but ever since he heard you were coming he’s been falling over his own tail with excitement.’
It wasn’t that Max didn’t like animals, she just liked it better when they kept away from her. Ralph, unfortunately, never got the hint, no matter how hard she tried to let him know it.
‘Linden, would you mind taking him out the back?’ Eleanor asked. ‘You can tie him to the peach tree. Make sure he has plenty of water. We’ll go inside and welcome Max in a more pleasant way.’
Linden led the down-hearted Ralph away as Max followed Eleanor, Francis and Ben inside. Before she closed the door, Max stopped and looked around the farm. When she first arrived here last Christmas, she was determined to hate it, but now she was back, it filled her with a warm, soft feeling in her stomach.
It was good to be back.
But as she turned to walk through the door, a squawking cackle of feathers exploded in front of her face like a feather pillow put through a shredder.
Max pulled her head back and only just avoided the soaring, screeching attack. The chicken! she thought angrily, realising she’d only just avoided having her eyes plucked out.
‘You think you’re clever, don’t you? Waiting until everyone has gone before you make your move,’ she said to the clucking lunatic who was acting all pure and sweet and pecking seed from the ground like it hadn’t done anything.
‘Don’t think I’m not onto you,’ Max warned.
The bird cackled quietly like it was smugly mumbling to itself.
‘Next time you pull a stunt like that there’s going to be fried chicken all round.’
The chicken pecked and clucked louder, which made Max even more angry.
‘And don’t think I don’t know what you’re saying either,’ she hissed.
‘I didn’t say anything.’
Max cringed as she turned around and saw Linden standing by the verandah.
‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ she said frowning, annoyed that she’d been caught talking to a chicken.
‘Well who were you talking to?’ he asked, acting as innocent as the chicken.
‘No one.’ Max hoped he’d accept that for an answer.
‘You were talking to Geraldine, weren’t you?’
Max laughed. ‘As if I’d be talking to a chicken.’ She tried to look convincing but even Geraldine stopped pecking and stared straight at her.
‘You were talking to someone,’ he said persistently.
Why didn’t Linden ever know when it was time to let something go?
‘Are you two coming inside?’ asked Eleanor, popping her head out the front door.
Saved! Max thought. ‘Yep. Just having a look at the farm.’
‘A pretty close look,’ said Linden, as he picked a chicken feather from her hair.
‘Let’s go inside,’ Max said quickly, wanting to change the subject and suddenly remembering the other animal that had smudged itself all over her. ‘I need to de-Ralph myself.’
Max headed straight for the bathroom and after a complete scrub-down she went to the kitchen to find a ‘Welcome Back Max Feast’. Eleanor, Ben, Francis and Linden, all wearing big hats, stood around a table so packed with food there was hardly any room for plates. There were streamers and balloons, and candles on a chocolate-covered cream-and-strawberry-filled cake, and above it a bright red banner strung across the length of the kitchen that read, ‘We Missed You Max’.
It was another of those times in Max’s life when she was looking at one of the best things ever done for her and the only thing she could think to say was, ‘Thanks.’
As if that was the signal to start, everyone sat down and dug in. Plates were passed over heads, gravy was poured over sausages, corned beef and vegetables, spoons clanged against bowls as mashed potato was scooped out and piled high next to beans, peas, beetroot, broccoli, pumpkin, yellow squash and honeyed carrots, making everything look like giant tubes of paint had been squirted everywhere.
Eating was so quiet in Max’s home. There was the correct amount of matching knives and forks, small portions of food carefully arranged on plates and her mother always had on what she called her ‘dinner’ music. Something classical or something filled with tiny bells and the sound of dolphins or whales. She’d read that it helped digestion, which Max could have told her wasn’t true because it always made her want to throw up.
At the farm, dinner was filled with clanging and laughing and excited talk that flew around the table. Max was burning to know the most important thing.
‘Is the Time and Space Machine nearly finished?’
There was a brief silence as Francis and Ben looked at each other.
‘We’ve been busy lately and haven’t been able to spend as much time on it as we’d have liked,’ said Ben, shovelling another spoonful of peas and mash into his mouth.
Everyone kept eating but Max had to know more.
‘So it’s only a little more ahead than when I was here last?’
‘In some ways, yes,’ stuttered Ben, shooting a quick look across at Francis.
More clanging and silence and eating. This was getting frustrating.
‘In which ways?’ Max was feeling a little nervous about how quiet everyone was being.
‘Well, you see Max …’
Max was instantly wary. When sentences started with ‘well, you see Max …’ people were usually tryin
g to avoid telling her something she wasn’t going to like.
‘… there’s been a slight hitch,’ Ben continued.
‘What kind of hitch?’ she asked slowly.
‘When Francis got back to Australia it wasn’t long before people found out he was here and were keen to get him working again,’ explained Ben. ‘We’d started work on the machine but had to stop because Francis kept getting called away for other projects.’
‘So how far did you get?’ asked Max, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.
‘Maybe it’s best if we just show you.’ Ben wiped his mouth and pushed back his chair.
When they got to the shed and Max stood in front of the machine, a few things happened. First, she felt numb and tried to focus on what she was seeing, then she felt confused, which was followed by a swift feeling of anger and finally panic.
And all of this in about one minute flat.
‘What happened?’ she asked when her mouth finally worked after the shock.
‘In order to get the machine right, we decided that we had to start from scratch. Especially as we had the Time and Space Retractor Meter Francis brought back from London.’ Ben was speaking calmly, like it was no big deal and he wasn’t ruining every chance Max had of getting to London for her Spyforce meeting. ‘And this is how far we got.’
In front of Max and spread from one end of the shed to the other, was the Time and Space Machine but in so many pieces, she wondered that they would ever go together again. It was like a huge asteroid belt of boulders and space junk, with bits of the machine strewn everywhere.
Linden was just as shocked.
‘I knew they’d had a setback but I didn’t know it was this far back.’
Ben looked at their disappointed faces and tried to cheer them up.
‘In a few months, things’ll calm down and the world will know the Time and Space Machine. Just not yet.’
Max and Linden sagged like two paper dolls left in the rain. All the colour and shape washed away.
Ben tried again to lift their spirits. ‘We have made one discovery that is very important. Francis is great at desserts and has made an enormous sticky date pudding he needs help demolishing. So who wants to help us out?’
Spyforce Revealed Page 4
