Golden Spy

by Jill Marshall

  Jill Marshall moved from the United Kingdom to New Zealand, along with her small daughter and her even smaller mad dog. Her childhood ambition was to become an author, so in 2001 Jill gave up her career at a huge international company to concentrate on writing for children. When not working, writing and being a mum, Jill plays guitar, takes singing lessons and is learning to play the drum kit she has set up in the garage. One day she might even sing in a band again . . .

  Also by Jill Marshall

  jane blonde, sensational spylet*

  jane blonde spies trouble

  jane blonde, twice the spylet

  jane blonde, the perfect spylet

  (for world book day)

  jane blonde, spylet on ice

  Look out for more

  jane blonde

  adventures

  *also available in audio

  MACMILLAN CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  First published 2008 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2008 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-0-230-71406-9 in Adobe Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-230-71405-2 in Adobe Digital Editions format

  ISBN 978-0-230-71408-3 in Microsoft Reader format

  ISBN 978-0-230-71407-6 in Mobipocket format

  Copyright © Jill Marshall 2008

  The right of Jill Marshall to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.

  so many thank–yous, as ever. to rachel, talya, dom and the technical team at macmillan. for the irst time we hit a few snags with our global writing and editing, but we got through! angie and chris, so glad you’re here –– we’ll miss you, chris! to glenys, g–mamma high–ives and hugs for your constant support and superb advisory emails. and especially for all those spylets who keep asking when the next jb’s coming . . . tpy eixj.

  for ace spylet anna m.

  contents

  1

  zoo’s news

  2

  barmy army

  3

  monkey mayhem

  4

  villa del sol

  5

  dining with helios

  6

  the river of grass

  7

  terrifying teeth

  8

  tired old tiger

  9

  supersize snacks

  10

  r–evolution

  11

  sky’s the limit

  12

  cape capers

  13

  countdown

  14

  space race

  15

  japes with apes

  16

  hand signals

  17

  tube signs

  18

  laser boy

  19

  laser beam

  20

  a ray of light

  21

  goldenspy

  It had taken all his strength, every ounce of his extraordinary intelligence, to extract himself from the Earth. Now he had to be free of it – forever. Free from the cloying cold that numbed his thoughts and his movements. Free from the pitiful, powerless race who dared, somehow, to condemn him. And free, by whatever means it took, from the SPIs who tried at every turn to stop him, irritating him like mosquitoes, thwarting even his most brilliant manoeuvres.

  As for Jane Blonde . . . the mere thought of her made his internal organs cramp with bitter rage. She was the most aggravating of all. Even more so than her conceited, know-it-all father.

  But she wouldn’t stop him this time. All the Jane Blondes in the world would not be enough to spoil this plan. He had full control, right at his fingertips – or the tips of his tentacles, since Blonde had turned him into this mutant monster.

  No matter. He laughed quietly, the full beam of his gaze taking in the scene before him, the scene he would soon destroy. It was only a matter of time now. Just a matter of time . . .

  zoo’s news

  The last week of the school year had come around amazingly quickly. And it wasn’t just the speed at which time had passed that had been amazing, thought Janey Brown as she waited in the queue for the coach, pulling her hat down further to stop the sun burning her nose. The year had quite simply been out of this world.

  ‘Don’t sit at the back,’ said her best friend, Alfie, giving her a shove. ‘Those goons will just want to wave at people out of the back window. And not there either,’ he added, shuddering as he saw which seat Janey had been about to slide into. ‘Too near Mum.’

  ‘Your mum’s coming?’ Janey was surprised. Alfie’s mum was the headmistress of Winton School, but as she didn’t have a class of her own she didn’t normally go on school trips with the pupils.

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Alfie plonked himself next to Janey. ‘Her two favourite pupils are going – that’s you and me, in case you hadn’t realized – on our last ever school trip from Winton. And where are we going?’

  ‘Solfari Lands,’ said Janey with a grin.

  No wonder Mrs Halliday couldn’t resist. Solfari Lands was the wildlife park operated by Janey’s own father, Boz Brilliance Brown, super-SPI, master of disguise and head of his own spying organization, Solomon’s Polificational Investigations – or SPI. His team included Mrs Halliday and Alfie, otherwise known as Agent Halo and Spylet Al Halo; Janey’s exuberant SPI: Kid Educator – or SPI:KE – who went by the name of G-Mamma, and various other spies and Spylets, with Jane Blonde, Sensational Spylet, proving to be the greatest of them all.

  Janey still found it hard to believe that when she stepped into the Wower, the super-charged spy shower in G-Mamma’s Spylab, as an ordinary, mousie-haired schoolgirl, she emerged as her platinum-blonde, multigadgeted alter ego, Jane Blonde. But it was true. And that was what had made the year so completely incredible – along with the various gadgets she’d employed, the friendships she’d established and the death-defying missions she’d been hurled on to protect her father, her fellow SPIs and Spylets, and even the Earth itself, from destruction at the hands of the mad scientific genius – and rogue spy – Copernicus. Who also happened to be Alfie’s father.

  Mrs Halliday clambered up the coach steps and clapped her hands. ‘Well, boys and girls, here we are . . . Your very last trip before you all go your separate ways after the summer holidays. Let’s make the most of it. And, Jake Bell,’ she said loudly to one of the ‘goons’ on the back seat, ‘if you even think of sticking your tongue out at people, I’ll make you stay with me at Winton for another year.’

  Nothing gets past Agent Halo! thought Janey.

  She smiled at her head teacher as she walked by, counting heads. Mrs Halliday’s hand paused over Janey’s hair, then she dropped her hand in a sudden, furtive flick and moved
on down the bus. Janey looked down to find a note in her lap.

  She opened it eagerly and read it to Alfie in a whisper. ‘Lunch for you and A with your father. 12.30. Usual place. I’ll cover.’ Mrs Halliday had signed off with a flat oval shape – a halo.

  Janey was so excited she nearly jumped out of her seat. Instead she settled for grabbing her friend by the elbow. ‘Alfie! My dad’s here!’

  ‘So it seems,’ said Alfie. ‘Wonder who he’ll be this time?’

  ‘Hmm. Good question.’ Over the course of the missions that Janey had completed, her father had turned up either as himself (dark-haired, blue-eyed Boz Brown) or as the version of himself he’d created by going through the dangerous Crystal Clarification Process – tall, sandy-haired, brown-eyed Abe Rownigan. And he had yet another alter ego: Solomon Brown, his own completely invented brother. Janey gave herself a little squeeze. She didn’t care which body he turned up in. It was enough that he was going to be there.

  The sun beat down on the coach windows as they meandered their way further into the surrounding countryside. The usual place, thought Janey, fanning herself absently with the note from Mrs Halliday. She must mean the Spylab hidden away beneath the Amphibian House, under the holographic North American wood frogs that had inspired her father’s first experiments. Only true SPI members would know its location, and Janey could hardly stop herself from running straight there as the coach pulled up in the car park.

  ‘Steady,’ said Alfie, seeing how excited she was. ‘It’s only eleven o’clock.’

  ‘I know,’ moaned Janey. ‘It’s so frustrating. Imagine having your dad so close and not being able to see him . . . oh. Sorry.’

  Alfie shrugged at the mention of his father. Last time he’d seen him, Copernicus had been Satispied, SPInamited and Wowed by Jane Blonde, pretty much all at the same time – and the results had not been pretty. Alfie’s evil father was now a revolting squid-like creature, whom the SPI team had sent to his death in the depths of the earth. ‘Not seeing my father is a very good thing, believe me.’

  ‘Oh, look,’ said Janey, changing the subject. ‘Monkeys! Aren’t they cute?’

  The class stood back and watched as several cages were unloaded from the back of a gigantic truck. There were tiny marmosets and lemurs, furry black chimpanzees and two vast crates, each containing a bored-looking, marmalade-coloured orang-utan. ‘Don’t touch,’ warned one of the men as the class gathered around. ‘Some of these can give you a nasty bite.’

  Janey looked at the nearest chimp. He was cuddled up against a slightly bigger chimpanzee and didn’t look capable of hurting a fly, let alone a person. Her heart went out to him and, unthinkingly, she gave him a tiny wave. ‘Hello, little chimp.’

  The chimp looked back at her with shiny round eyes and suddenly moved his hand in a circle. Janey gasped. ‘He waved at me!’ She grabbed Alfie’s arm and pointed at the cage. ‘That one! I waved at him and he did a . . . a circle thing back at me.’

  ‘A circle thing?’ Alfie looked closely at the two chimpanzees. ‘I think he was just lifting his . . . what is it, a hand or paw? Anyway, look, he was just picking out the other one’s fleas. That’s disgusting,’ he said loudly to the chimp, who blinked at him solemnly and then carried on combing through his neighbour’s coat.

  ‘You’re probably right,’ said Janey, a little disappointed. ‘Oh well. Let’s go and look at the rhinos.’

  They wandered around the wildlife park, ambling in the sunshine in a great loop that took them past hippos, rhinos and tigers, past enclosures of deer, impala and zebra, then down a hill into the tropical-bird aviary. The next stop was the Amphibian House. Janey checked her watch. 12.20. Not long now before she could see her dad.

  Sure enough, Mrs Halliday shot her a quick, knowing glance before calling all the children to her. ‘It’s about time we had some lunch. The picnic area’s just behind those trees.’ She stood like a traffic warden, arms out, waving the class through the gap in the trees until Janey and Alfie were the only ones left. ‘Back here in forty-five minutes,’ she muttered out of the side of her mouth, before marching across the grass towards the picnic area.

  As Janey pushed through the doors of the Amphibian House her heart began to thud with anticipation. Last time she had been here she’d been trapped in the Spylab by the evil Sinerlesse leader, Ariel. Janey was now ten times the Spylet she had been on her first mission. She pressed the red eye of a model tree frog and stepped on to the cushion of air at the top of the entry tube that led down into her father’s Spylab.

  Janey and Alfie scrambled to their knees in the stark light of the lab and looked around for her father.

  ‘There you are,’ said a deep voice, and suddenly Janey was wrapped in a warm hug, her nose pressed into a salmon-pink Solfari Lands polo shirt.

  Her father held her at arm’s length, and Janey looked up at the crinkly brown eyes and flashing grin of Abe Rownigan. ‘You look well,’ he said gently.

  ‘So do you,’ said Janey, her smile so wide that her eyes had become slits and she could hardly see.

  Abe reached over and shook Alfie’s hand. ‘Al, good to see you.’

  ‘You too. Thanks for inviting me for lunch,’ said Alfie. ‘Sir,’ he added as an afterthought, going slightly pink.

  ‘Ah, yes. Lunch.’ Abe looked around the laboratory, rubbing his hands through his hair so it stood up in curls. ‘I forgot about that. I could check the fridge. G-Mamma might have filled it up last time she was here.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ve got our sandwiches with us.’ Janey jostled her backpack around so he could see, and Abe smiled.

  ‘Great. Sandwiches it is. You eat,’ he said, leading them to one of the workbenches, ‘and I’ll talk.’

  Janey knew that her father put himself in danger whenever he came out of hiding. He must have something very important to share with her and Alfie. Abe was pacing around the bench, and the atmosphere was electric. What was on his mind?

  ‘Sandwich?’ Janey offered.

  ‘Did your mum make them?’ Abe grinned. Jean Brown’s lack of kitchen skills was legendary in their family. Of course, she had other legendary skills, namely the ones she’d used as super-SPI, Gina Bellarina, before she’d been brain-wiped into a dull but worthy existence as Jean Brown: cleaner, businesswoman and mum.

  ‘I made them,’ Janey said with a smile.

  Abe shook his head anyway. ‘I’m too fired up to eat, to be honest.’

  ‘Has something happened, sir?’ Alfie opened his lunchbox and rusltled a packet of crisps anxiously. ‘You don’t think that my da—’

  ‘No,’ said Abe, looking directly at Alfie. ‘There’s no evidence that Copernicus has resurfaced. But I’m going to need your help guarding this Spylab.’

  Janey and Alfie both sat forward eagerly. Something was afoot, and that meant one thing – a new mission.

  Abe paused, staring at his feet as though the enormity of this mission weighed him down. ‘I’ve discovered something – something enormous. A . . . process, I suppose you’d call it.’

  ‘Like Crystal Clarification?’ said Janey breathlessly. Her blood was racing through her veins, nervous excitement mounting with every word.

  Her father nodded. ‘Yes. But bigger. Bigger than Crystal Clarification and the Nine Lives theory and the cloning process.’ He ticked off his scientific discoveries on his fingers. ‘This is . . . extreme. It could affect the whole of mankind.’

  Janey held her breath, eyes shining. Alfie gasped, a crisp halfway to his wide-open mouth.

  Abe leaned in close. ‘This has to remain top secret. It’s a Revolution.’

  Janey’s gaze faltered for a moment. The only revolutions she’d ever heard of involved guns and battles. ‘You’re starting a war?’

  ‘No, no,’ said her father quickly. ‘That’s the name of the new process I’ve discovered.’

  ‘Revolution,’ whispered Janey.

  She exchanged glances with Alfie. Even before they’d heard more, the
y both knew the truth.

  This mission was going to be their biggest yet.

  barmy army

  The second Janey got home, she muttered an excuse to her mum and charged up the stairs to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her and made straight for the fireplace. As soon as she pressed the wall at the ten-past-two position, the panel at the back of the hearth slid upwards and Janey dropped to her hands and knees and crawled, army style, through the opening. Going through this secret passage to G-Mamma’s Spylab next door was now second nature.

  She found G-Mamma hard at work, painting a portrait of Trouble. He’d clearly been through the Wower. His eyes gleamed like bright emeralds, go-faster stripes glistened along the sides of his body and his tail bristled thick and glossy like a great golden feather. G-Mamma had also draped a yellow feather boa around his neck and garbed him in a neat leather waistcoat. They both glanced up as Janey entered the Spylab, Trouble looking rather pleased with himself, and G-Mamma daubed in a rainbow of paint. ‘Whaddya think, Zany Janey?’ she said, spinning the portrait around.

  It was surprisingly good in a completely crazy kind of way, and Janey had to stifle a laugh. ‘It’s . . . er . . . great. But listen: you’ll never guess what happened at Solfari Lands.’

  ‘Well, let me try . . . your father turned up and told you about a meeting at midnight tonight with some of the other SPIs and Spylets?’ G-Mamma pointed to the pineapple-sized SPI Visualator around her neck. ‘Agent Halo filled me in.’

  ‘It’s so exciting!’ said Janey. ‘He’s made a new discovery and it’s enormous and we’re going to have to patrol Solfari Lands and guard his secret lab!’

  G-Mamma looked down at her lilac ballgown and huge, specially made glass slippers. ‘Your father had better not make us wear that revolting uniform. A polo shirt? In prawn pink? Not for me, no sireee!’