by Steve Cole
“The alarm’s stopped now,” a gruff voice was saying. “Must have been a false alarm. Get on with the experiment, Bob.”
Carefully, quietly, Professor McMoo crept inside to see what was happening.
The large hall had been turned into a spooky laboratory – computers buzzed and whirred, potions bubbled in glass beakers and thick white smoke drifted out of test tubes. A towering ter-moo-nator looked on as bulls in white coats and surgical masks went about their work.
At the back of the huge hall was a sort of pen crammed with grumpy-looking humans. There was also a strange glass chamber in the middle of the room with a man inside. He was big, bald and fat, with a glum expression. In front of him were a table and an empty glass.
A bull in a plastic hazard suit was speaking into an electronic recorder. “This is Doctor Buffalo Bob of the F.B.I. reporting,” he said. “Subject Ron Um-Barmer has now drunk three cups of mu-mu juice …”
So that’s what happened to Sheba’s husband! McMoo thought. Kidnapped along with those other poor souls, to take part in bizarre bull experiments!
“The mu-mu juice will soon affect the subject’s body,” Buffalo Bob went on. “Watch closely, gentlebulls. Any moment now …”
Suddenly, Ron Um-Barmer’s left hand swelled up like a glove full of water. His fingers shrank into themselves and turned bright pink.
McMoo gasped – the man didn’t have a hand any more.
It had turned into an UDDER!
The professor looked more closely at the humans in the pen. Sure enough, they had grown udders too, in all sorts of weird places. “Incredible,” he gasped.
“Isn’t it just?” said a voice behind him.
McMoo whirled round – to find that Tutankha-moo had crept up behind him with two bull bodyguards.
“You have found your way into my lair,” said the evil moo-my with a wicked smile. “But you will never get out again …”
In an instant, the professor was surrounded by big burly bulls. “Sorry,” he told them. “I don’t give autographs.”
The ter-moo-nator strode up to him. “Subject identified as Professor Angus McMoo,” it droned. “You are a spy.”
“A genius spy at that,” said McMoo, trying to act unbothered. “For instance – I reckon I’ve just worked out your entire plan.”
“Oh, really?” sneered Tutankha-moo.
McMoo nodded. “If a human drinks three cups of mu-mu juice, hey presto! They grow udders. By bringing the whole population here and making them drink the stuff, you’ll give them all udders.”
The ter-moo-nator narrowed its glowing eyes. “That is only part of our plan.”
“I haven’t finished yet, tin horns!” snapped McMoo. “You also plan to pour mu-mu juice into the Nile, the longest river in the world. The people of nine countries depend on it for drinking water – it will take a while, but eventually they will all grow udders too!”
“Correct,” said Tutankha-moo. “And while humans stand helpless in milky confusion, I shall awaken my army of cows from suspended animation and conquer all of Africa in a surprise attack.” He laughed, and his bodyguards quickly joined in. “Then, instead of humans milking cows, cows shall milk humans! And we shall use that milk to feed an ever-growing army of warrior calves who will grow and take over the ancient world …”
“History will be changed for ever,” breathed Professor McMoo. “The moo-my’s curse!”
“Curse?” Tutankha-moo snorted. “Cows shall worship me for setting them free.”
“But they won’t be free, will they?” McMoo cried. “They will be forced to do whatever you say. Once they’ve fought all the humans, they’ll end up fighting among themselves. Within a hundred years, the whole world could be destroyed – and any chance of a happy future for cows in Luckyburger lost for ever.”
“Forget the C.I.A. and those fools from the future,” said the ter-moo-nator. “Why not join us, Professor? The F.B.I. could use a bull as smart as you.”
“I’d sooner take a matador out for a romantic supper!” McMoo retorted.
“Ooooh, can I come?” asked one of the bull bodyguards. He blushed as Tutankha-moo gave him a withering glare.
The ter-moo-nator advanced on McMoo. “You know, Professor, cows are affected by mu-mu juice too – much, much faster than humans. If they drink even a few drops, they grow udders everywhere.”
“Aha,” said McMoo. “That’s why you’re keeping your battle-cattle in suspended animation – so they can’t drink the water and get infected by accident.”
The ter-moo-nator smiled. “I do believe that you look thirsty, Professor.” It pointed to a red bucket inside the glass chamber. “How would you like to taste our mu-mu juice right now?”
McMoo shook his head fiercely. “You can lead a cow to water but you cannot make him drink.”
The ter-moo-nator held up his weapon. “You can if you’ve got a big gun!”
“You metal-brained monster,” hissed McMoo. He looked around desperately for an escape route, but there was none. The bull bodyguards were already herding him towards the glass chamber, where Ron still sat staring at his new udder.
“I wonder where your udders will grow, Professor,” Tutankha-moo chortled. “I shall keep you in the glass room for ever, Professor, so my subjects can laugh at you. Ha ha ha!”
The other bulls in the room joined in the laughter.
“You’re all udderly mad!” stormed McMoo.
“And soon you will be udderly all over,” said Buffalo Bob, checking his hazard suit. “Udders here, udders there, udders EVERYWHERE!”
The mad bull scientist unlocked the door to the glass chamber …
Chapter Eleven
MOO-HEM AND MADNESS
“STOP!” came a commanding voice from the lab doorway. And much to Professor McMoo’s relief, everyone did stop.
Then he saw why.
A tall, half-bandaged cow with a bright blue udder was walking into the room on her hind legs. She was covered in jewels that shone and glinted in the flickering firelight. A huge herd of ordinary cows, calves, bullocks and bulls followed close behind her, watching her with awe.
McMoo frowned. The jewels looked like those adorning Tutankhamen’s mummy. And unless he was very much mistaken, the bandages were Tutankhamen’s too.
The professor breathed a huge sigh of relief – it was Little Bo in disguise!
“Once, I was Queen Nefertiti,” Bo said in a posh, quivering voice. “Now I have returned as Queen Heffa-teaty! I have come back from the afterlife to rule kindly over all cows. And I’m here to tell you, my lad – stop being such a naughty boy and go to your room!”
“What?” The regal bullock spluttered with rage. “How dare you tell me what to do?”
Bo crossed her arms. “Because as your army of cattle here all know – I’m not just any old moo-my. I’m your moo-my-in-law!”
Pat popped out from behind Bo. “She has a point, Tutankha-moo, don’t you think?”
“She certainly will have a point!” said Tutankha-moo, tossing his head crossly. “The point of my horns in her backside. Then she will really need those bandages!”
The crowd of cows gasped in horror. They were simple cows, and shocked that anyone could talk to their mummy-in-law in that way.
Pat turned to them. “Now you see your ruler as he truly is,” he shouted. “A mean bully who uses force to get his own way!”
“Rebel bullock will remain silent!” grated the ter-moo-nator.
“Destroy him!” Tutankha-moo bellowed at his would-be army of cows. “You heard me. Squish him flat!”
“See what I mean?” said Pat triumphantly. Then he yelped as the ter-moo-nator started stomping towards him.
“Tutankha-moo must be stopped!” cried Bo. “He must be made to sit on the naughty-step pyramid until he can behave himself properly. Get him, cows! Heffa-teaty, your queen, commands it!”
All whipped up, the cows mooed ferociously and surged forward to get their ruler. Luckily, as
they did so, they trampled the ter-moo-nator into the ground before he could reach Pat. With a snort of panic Tutankha-moo turned and ran.
Pandemonium broke out in the F.B.I. lab!
The bodyguards stared round in alarm, not sure what to do – and McMoo took his chance. He shoved them aside with all his strength and sent them crashing into Buffalo Bob. Bob, in turn, went crashing into his test tubes and beakers.
“Professor!” Pat shouted, rushing over. “Are you all right?”
McMoo ignored him, staring at Bo’s bandages. “I simply cannot believe you unwrapped the priceless mummy of Tutankhamen!”
Bo’s face fell. “Sorry, Professor.”
“Sorry?” He hugged her. “It was a BRILLIANT idea. Heffa-teaty, indeed – that’s fabulous!”
“Well, you did say those cows needed a leader,” said Bo happily. “Pat helped dress me up and we led the cows here.”
“Good plan,” said McMoo.
But Pat was frowning. “Erm, that’s what I thought at first. But now I think they’re out of control!”
The Egyptian cows were running amok. All those weeks in suspended animation had left them energetic and over-excited. They chased Tutankha-moo around the room faster and faster. Scientists scattered. Beakers were broken. Notes were trampled.
“Help me,” cried Tutankha-moo, jumping up onto a lab bench beside the glass room, scattering potions and powders in all directions. “Somebody help me!”
And then the ter-moo-nator rose up stiffly from the floor, its green eyes blazing with anger. It strode over to the lab bench and aimed its enormous gun at the hyperactive herd. “Stop,” it droned. “All running cows will be ter-moo-nated!”
“Don’t think so, mate!” Thinking fast, Bo whipped off one of her bandages and turned it into a lasso. With an expert flick of her hoof, she managed to hook it over the ter-moo-nator’s huge horns. “Professor, Pat – help me!”
At once, Pat and McMoo saw what she was planning. They grabbed hold of the bandage with her – and pulled with all their strength.
The ter-moo-nator made a rude electronic noise as it was yanked off its feet and smashed into the lab bench. Tutankha-moo lost his balance and fell into the creature’s robotic arms. The ter-moo-nator staggered back under his weight, smashed through the wall of the glass chamber and collapsed in a heap at Ron Um-Barmer’s feet.
Ron grabbed his chance. “Time for a taste of your own mu-mu medicine!” he cried – and with his good hand, he emptied the big red bucket of mu-mu juice all over their heads!
The ter-moo-nator glubbed and spluttered. Tutankha-moo wiped his lips in a panic.
But it was too late.
Almost at once, an udder grew out from the top of Tutankha-moo’s head. Another soon sprouted from his back, and yet another dangled down from his neck. “Help!” he cried. “Udder attack!”
The Egyptian cows stopped charging about at last, transfixed by the strange sight. The mu-mu juice was already working on the ter-moo-nator too. The grey robo-bull snorted with rage as bright pink udders ballooned from his cheeks. Even the robotic panel on his side grew a small clockwork udder.
Ron Um-Barmer laughed and jeered at his former captors, and all the other kidnapped people joined in from their pen at the back of the chamber.
“A fitting fate for a fake pharaoh and his friend,” McMoo declared. “Victims of their own wicked scheme!”
“Mission abort!” snarled the ter-moo-nator miserably, his unwanted udders wobbling like pink jellies. “Repeat, mission abort. F.B.I. Command, get us out of here!”
With a last flick of their unlikely udders, Tutankha-moo and the ter-moo-nator faded from sight in a haze of dark smoke. The dazed Buffalo Bob and his fellow scientists all vanished too. F.B.I. Command always recalled its agents if their plans were ruined.
For a few moments, Pat, Bo and Professor McMoo stood still in silence. The only sound was the mooing of the baffled Egyptian cows.
“We did it,” said Bo slowly. “We really did it!”
Pat whooped. “We beat the F.B.I.!”
“Good work, you two.” Professor McMoo beamed at his young friends. “Thanks to us, the moo-my’s curse has been lifted – while the moo-my himself will be cursing all the way back to the twenty-sixth century!”
Chapter Twelve
THE FINAL SQUIRTS
There was no time for Professor McMoo and his friends to sit back and enjoy their victory. They had too much to do.
While McMoo worked on a potion that would reverse the effects of mu-mu juice, Pat and Bo rounded up all the confused Egyptian cows in the Great Pyramid. “I’m sorry you were kidnapped and told those stories about taking over the world,” Pat told them. “But one day, all cows will enjoy a better paradise than the one Tutankha-moo promised you – a paradise built on kindness, not cruelty.”
It was an impressive speech. But the cows were too busy mooing and eating the gigantic stockpile of grass and hay left in the pyramid to bother listening.
Someone else wasn’t listening either. She never did. “Oooooh, my head!” groaned Sheba Um-Barmer. “What happened?”
“Sorry, Sheba,” said Bo. “Your F.B.I. bosses have pushed off and left you with nothing.”
‘But we have found your husband,” Pat added.
“WHERE IS HE?” Sheba bellowed, and steamed out of the chamber like a wobbling juggernaut to find him.
“Uh-oh,” said Pat, and he and Bo raced ahead of her back to the lab. To their surprise, Mr Um-Barmer was standing beside McMoo outside the glass room.
McMoo grinned at his friends. “I’ve come up with the cure!” he informed them. “It won’t take long to work. Then Mr Um-Barmer and the other people kidnapped for those F.B.I. experiments can go back home.”
“RONNNNN?” came a thundering voice from outside the lab.
Pat gulped. “I’m not sure he will want to!”
“Where have you been?” Sheba demanded, marching up to her husband. “There’s tons of housework for you to do, you still haven’t put up those shelves and that garden doesn’t irrigate itself, you know. And don’t think having a dodgy hand will get you out of anything …”
Ron sighed as she went on and on, and turned to the professor. “If I’m cured, will my hand go back to normal?”
“Oh, yes,” McMoo assured him.
“Pity,” said Ron. “Reckon it could come in useful!” So saying, he squeezed his fingers – and sent a squirt of milk into Sheba’s eye! “See what I mean?”
“Ugh!” Sheba scrunched up her face, but it was so crumpled anyway you could hardly tell the difference. “Leave off!”
“Leave off yourself, woman,” said Ron, and gave her another squirt in the face. Then he ran off quickly before she could clobber him.
“I’ll get you for this!” she promised, thumping out of the chamber in pursuit.
“Whoa!” came a rough, familiar voice. “Think I’d sooner tackle a ter-moo-nator than face that woman on a dark night!”
Bo beamed. “It’s Yak!”
“The director of the C.I.A. in person!” McMoo declared. “What are you doing here?”
Yak strutted inside. “When F.B.I. Command recalled their agents, we homed in on their time signal. It led us here in our time machines.” He stared around. “Looks like you had quite a fight on your hands.”
“You could say that!” Pat looked around the trashed lab. “There will be a lot of clearing up to do.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Yak promised. “There won’t be any trace left behind. This was a big victory for the C.I.A., troops. Well done, all of you!”
Pat grinned. “C.I.A.: eleven out of ten. F.B.I.: nil.”
“Don’t you mean Nile?” said McMoo. And he laughed as the sound of his friends’ groans filled the echoing chamber.
Working together, the Cows in Action soon tied up all the loose ends.
Queen Heffa-teaty made her one and only public appearance on the steps of the Great Pyramid. “I’ve sent Tutankha-moo back to
the gods for being a naughty boy,” she told the gathered crowds. “He was making up that stuff about mu-mu juice – there’s no such thing.” She winked at Pat and the professor, standing beside her. “And now I’m off too. I command you all to follow Pharaoh Ramses, just as you did before.”
Ramses pushed his way out of the crowd and climbed the steps of the pyramid, whooping for joy and kicking his heels in the air. “Thank you, young Bo,” he said. “And you, Professor, and you too, Pat.” Then he turned to face the enormous crowd. “Hello, everyone, it’s good to be back. I would like to celebrate with an ENORMOUS feast for you all!”
The crowd went wild. Leaving the happy Egyptians to plan their super-supper, Bo slipped away with Pat and McMoo to the back of the pyramid. “Heffa-teaty’s in retreaty,” she said, pulling off her grubby costume. “And good riddance! Those bandages were well itchy.”
“Well, I doubt Tutankhamen will complain!” McMoo smiled. “We’ll wrap him back up with his jewels, drop him off in his tomb, hop inside the Time Shed and be on our way!”
With everything safely taken care of, the three cows travelled back to their quiet, sleepy farm in the twenty-first century. The Time Shed landed in the exact same spot just a split-second after they’d left. To anyone watching, it seemed to have gone nowhere at all.
McMoo stuck the kettle on. “Time for a fresh cuppa to celebrate our return!” he said.
But someone didn’t sound in the mood to celebrate. “Oi!” came a fierce shout from outside. “Where did you get to, you crummy cattle?”
Pat gasped. “It’s Bessie Barmer!”
“After seeing Sheba, I’ll almost be glad to deal with Bessie again,” said Bo.
McMoo whipped off his glasses, hid the kettle under some straw and pulled on the big, bronze lever. The futuristic controls and computer screens folded back into the walls, floor and ceiling – just as Bessie barged in.
“Hmm,” she said, looking at each of the cows in turn. “Well, at least in here you can’t get up to any mischief …”
“Moo,” said McMoo in agreement.
Bessie turned and stomped out of the shed. The moment the door closed, Pat, Bo and McMoo burst out laughing.
