The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy (3 page)

‘Okay,’ said Betty, who could be a bit bossy at times, as well as being slightly susceptible to an excessive production of earwax. ‘Secret Five regulations dictate that we need the password from you all first. Daniel?’

Daniel frowned quite a big frown, the first of several hundred highly irritating frowns. ‘I hate passwords,’ he moaned. ‘Can’t we just have a PIN number? Anyway, you
know
me! Why do I always have to say the secret password?’

Betty sighed. ‘Because this is a secret club and all secret clubs have secret passwords,’ she said. ‘We can’t risk outsiders and gatecrashers and spies getting into our secret club, can we now?’

Daniel had another frown, slightly bigger than the previous one but with crinkly bits around the edges where his ears were firmly attached to his head. ‘But I’m your elder brother! I helped change your nappies and tenderly wiped your dirty bottom with bits of recycled cotton wool, remember? One particular time, I recall . . .’

‘Er, thank you, Daniel. That may have been so,’ Betty insisted rather insistently. ‘But you can never be too sure these days, what with face transplants and all that.’

Daniel twitched. ‘Hey! Yo Sis,’ he said. ‘Yo, random! Diss am well shabby, woo-man. Innit? Like.’

The others groaned. ‘Betty, did you have to mention face transplants?’ Amy scolded. ‘Look what you’ve done to him now.’ She reached out and slapped Daniel with the spatula again. He rubbed his cheek and thanked her.

‘Sorry everyone, but we do need passwords,’ said Betty relentlessly. ‘It’s in The Secret Five Constitution, so it would take a convention, hours of vigorous debate, secret ballots, and a special committee to formulate and agree any amendments. And then there’s the subsequent ratification process.’

‘Or we could just use Tipp-ex?’ suggested Ricky.

‘That is a reasonable alternative,’ said Betty. ‘But for now . . . er, Amy, you say the password, then Ricky, then Daniel.’

‘But if I say it, then it won’t be a secret,’ Amy moaned. ‘Anyway, I’ve forgotten it. We change it so often I get confused. We should have it pasted up on the wall.’

Betty huffed, then puffed. Whatshisname, attracted by all the huffing and puffing, stood up. He sidled over to Amy’s side.

‘Aha!’ Amy exclaimed. ‘Thank you Whatshisname! He’s reminded me of the password! It’s
testicle
!’

The others giggled quite a short giggle then stopped because they weren’t too sure why they were giggling. Whatshisname lay down again and whimpered, no doubt recalling the surprise outing to the vets when he was but a puppy, in the days before everyone forgot his real name.

‘It’s
not
testicle!’ said Betty. ‘You’re so stupid! That was the password before the previous password.’

‘I thought it was testicle as well,’ Daniel said, now quite calm and fully recovered from his bout of street-talk. He snorted out a Sugar Puff at Ricky.

‘And me,’ said Ricky, picking up the Sugar Puff and popping it into his mouth. ‘I thought it was testicle.’

Whatshisname whimpered again, and licked his vacant area. Not only were they planning another adventure, but they just had to keep on and on about
that
fateful day.

‘It’s ovum!’ said Betty. ‘Remember?’

They all nodded, paused, looked at each other, then shook their heads.

‘Right,’ Betty said. ‘Amy, what’s the password?’

‘Ovum,’ said Amy.

‘Correct. At last!’ Betty said.

The other two repeated the secret password then Betty declared the meeting open. ‘Now, I vote we go and find Uncle Quagmire,’
she said. They all nodded and Betty declared the meeting closed. They stood up and Daniel snorted the rest of the Sugar Puffs at Ricky, who scooped them up and dropped them back into the box.

‘Maybe we can all go for a hike to where he is,’ suggested Ricky. ‘Can we take some food with us, do you think?’

‘Ricky!’ scolded Betty. ‘You’re
always
hungry! But it’s quite a good idea that is worthy of consideration. Let’s take Marmite and rhubarb jam sandwiches! I’ll go off and find my John Prescott’s Hip and Thigh Diet Cook Book, Volume II, unabridged illustrated pull-out edition, and see what I can rustle up.’

‘What about something to eat for Whatshisname?’ asked Daniel.

‘Woof woof woof,’ said Whatshisname, extremely enthusiastically for a dog with his medical history.

‘Yes, we simply must take something for Whatshisname,’ said Amy. ‘How about a big bone that he can chew and chew.’

Whatshisname tried to frown at Amy. Bones? Bones! Dogs’ preferred liking for bones is a misconception conceived and perpetuated by humans intent on disposing of their unwanted food scraps. Peanut butter, please! Bones come in at a very poor second to peanut butter!

‘Bones, yes! He’ll love that! His favourite! But I bagsy carry the sandwiches,’ Ricky said.

‘Shall we go, then?’ asked Amy, rather impatiently.

‘Yes, but we’ll need to look at a map first,’ replied Amy patiently. Then she realised that she’d answered her own question, so she felt rather silly and stood there looking down at her feet in embarrassment.

Ricky went off to put on some clothes, and to go to the toilet for a sneaky stream of consciousness. He returned with The Sunday Sport Concise World Atlas (revised & updated to exclude Cornwall, which had been bitten off by a giant alien). They gathered around to look at the atlas, except for Ricky who was not
very good at directions and had gone to clean up the bathroom floor.

Very soon Betty had made their lunch, changed out of her Barbie dressing gown and into jeans and an
I ♥ McFly
¹
a-line v-neck x-factor t-shirt, and they were ready to go.

‘Right, we’ll take the
little
lanes and
little
paths,’ said Daniel, who obviously knew about such things.

So off they set, looking for little lanes and little paths. Whatshisname kept trotting down big lanes and big paths but came back when Daniel cheerily called
Here Boy!
and threw a lump of rock at him. Together they hiked along a riverside path which ran alongside a river, although there was some discussion about whether the river actually ran alongside the path and was therefore, in truth, a pathside river. But after a while the conversation, rather predictably, degenerated into a discussion on the doctrines of the sixteenth century Reformation and its effect on religious supremacy in Scandinavia, so they agreed to set aside the pathside / riverside issue for now, to be fully investigated by Ricky who would present his findings to members at an extraordinary meeting with a buffet lunch included.

But they were now a bit lost, so they stopped walking and gathered round to discuss exactly how lost they might be. The world atlas proved to be a bit confusing to them all.

‘Are we here?’ asked Daniel, pointing at the map.

‘No, silly!’ said Amy. ‘That’s Ethiopia! If we’d have turned right at our gate we would be there, but we turned left, didn’t we! Boys! Huh!’

Daniel was a bit upset at Amy’s free and easy use of exclamation marks, so he pointed a finger at her.

‘Where did you find that?’ Amy asked.

‘On the path, back there,’ Daniel told her, and he put it into his
pocket for later, just in case there was an acute finger shortage at some point in the story.

They moved on and then, suddenly, as the path turned left without indicating, they came across a man with a hat.

‘Woof woof woof,’ said Whatshisname, for no reason whatsoever except to help maintain his status as a key character.

‘Let’s ask this man with a hat,’ said Betty.

‘Oh, yes, let’s,’ said Amy.

Ricky hailed him with his hand. ‘Man With A Hat! Is this the way to Stunning Bottom?’

‘Aaar,’ said the Man With A Hat, nodding his head. His hat nodded too.

‘Does that mean yes?’ Daniel asked the Man With A Hat.

‘Aaar,’ the Man With A Hat said.

‘Oh, jolly good,’ said Daniel.

‘Thur be strrraaaange a-goin’s on at Stunnin’ Bo’um, yunguns. Stay away frum thur,’ the Man With A Hat growled.

‘Gosh,’ said Daniel. ‘Really? Truly?’

‘What did he say?’ asked Betty.

‘No idea,’ said Daniel. ‘Let’s ask him again, shall we?’

But the Man With A Hat had gone on his way, eager to exit stage left and resume his day job as an assistant alchemist (which, incidentally, barely funded his acting career so he was now forced to take a part-time job at a call centre, circulating around desks playing Greensleeves on his violin to help soothe the nerves of customers on hold).

‘That’s queer,’ said Amy. ‘Why was he only wearing a hat? And why did his donkey have five legs?’

‘Why, it’s because he’s stupid!’ said Ricky, and they all laughed except Betty. And Amy and Daniel. And Whatshisname, to whom laughing and panting were so closely allied that he didn’t see why he should give the impression that he was panting at the sight of a donkey.

Then Daniel said, ‘Wait! Do you know what I’m thinking?’

In which our pals encounter an unexpected hedge, of all things; Amy, typically, wants to join another story; Whatshisname philosophises about sound and smell; nothing much happens in an extremely short space of time, then the chapter ends a little too abruptly.

‘Honestly! I wish he wouldn’t do that!’ said Amy. ‘We need far more warning!’

‘Yes!’ said Daniel. ‘I was just saying . . . erm, what was I saying, before the unexpected chapter break?’

‘You said,’ said Betty, casting an irritable glance in the direction of the reader who, not for the last time, had been unfairly lumbered with the blame, ‘at least I think you said,
do you know what I think?
’

‘Oh yes,’ Daniel said. ‘Right . . . ahem . . . Do you know what I think?’

The others crowded round, closely, there and then, on the riverside path by the pathside river. Daniel lowered his voice. ‘I think that he’s . . .’

‘Why has your voice lowered?’ asked Ricky, frowning.

‘What?’ squeaked Daniel.

‘It’s lower. Sort of . . . well, lower,’ said Ricky.

‘Yes,’ said Betty. ‘I didn’t like to mention it, but now you have . . .’

‘Look,’ said Daniel, quite tetchily, ‘I don’t control this stuff, you know. Just accept that my voice went lower, okay?’

‘Okay,’ they all said, glancing at each other, obviously unconvinced. Then they all gathered closer, even closer than they were before, which pleased Ricky as he could sneak a look down Betty’s top.

Daniel started again. ‘I think that he’s . . .’

‘What are you doing?’ Betty snapped at Ricky.

‘Nothing,’ replied Ricky, rather too quickly.

‘Please listen to me!’ whined Daniel.

‘Yes you were. You were looking down my top!’ Betty snapped back.

‘I wasn’t!’ said Ricky. ‘And stop all this snapping!’

‘I saw you!’ said Betty, unsnappily.

‘Erm,’ ermed Ricky, ‘yes, maybe I did, just a little peek, but I’m at that stage in life. I can’t help it . . . or so it seems. And I’m only a young adult, apparently, and have been for years, so it can’t be classed as too peculiar, can it now?’

‘You two! Can I
please
continue?’ Daniel pleaded. ‘Could you have this discussion later, much later? Maybe in an appendix?’

‘Okay,’ Betty said, clasping her palms firmly to her chest. She kept one eye on Ricky and, to be sure, the other eye on Ricky as well. Ricky shrugged, and they gathered closer, even closer than the even closer from before.

‘Right! I was saying . . .’ Daniel said, and paused, waiting for an interruption, looking around the close group one by one. After a couple of very quiet minutes looking at his friends, with no interruptions on the horizon, Daniel continued.

‘I was saying that I think that the man with a donkey might have escaped from the prison which is not far from here and from which people escape sometimes and are usually caught by a group of very clever children with their faithful dog but only after the local village policeman doesn’t believe them and they accidentally come across an old spooky house where the rogues are hiding in the hidden cellar with their stolen treasure. That’s what I think. Do you?’

‘No,’ the others said in unison, together.

‘Woof woof woof,’ agreed Whatshisname.

Daniel looked at them all again. ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said.

They all stood up straight and continued to walk along the path.

‘You were looking more than a bit,’ Betty muttered to Ricky. Ricky tried his best to ignore her sharp words but, nevertheless, felt that love was beginning to blossom between himself and Betty, which was a crazy thought when you stop to think about it because he’s tremendously ugly and, after all, they are cousins, which might present difficulties in the form of a nursery full of drooling half-wits should they ever get it together and produce an offspring without the precaution of signing up for a course of genetic counselling.

Shaking their heads at all the drivel about drooling half-wits, Betty and Ricky wondered what sort of adventure story they had got themselves into, both of them finding it far too far-fetched to associate half-wits with The Secret Five.

‘Er . . .’ erred Ricky, scratching the side of his forehead.

‘Erm . . .’ said Betty, doing the same, but to her own forehead, as scratching Ricky’s forehead and saying
erm
would have been downright silly. ‘It’s probably best to move on, eh? Come on everyone, we need to find this Stunning Bottom.’

They all walked on for a while and then, all of a sudden, they found themselves on a long narrow lane that went somewhere one way and, they thought, somewhere else the other.

Referring carefully to their world atlas, and after a rather heated discussion about which way they should go, they decided to take the direction that was signposted
To Stunning Bottom
. Eventually, after walking for what seemed like quite a long way (although, to be fair, it was nothing compared to the immense distance between Planet Earth and the Andromeda NGC224 Galaxy), Betty started complaining about her feet. To be fair, the others had started to complain about Betty’s feet a long time ago. Ricky also started complaining about feeling really hungry, so they stopped and sat down on a bench to eat their sandwiches. But, alas and alack, they found that Ricky had mislaid them somewhere! Clumsy Ricky! He still had the wrapper, though, and they all sat around sniffing it while Whatshisname sat at their feet,
chewing the bone that had been thrust under his nose and that he felt under contractual pressure to chew with some fervour.