The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy (7 page)

‘He’s right,’ said Ricky enthusiastically. ‘Let’s all go and explore.’

And so The Secret Five (founder members only) left Greentiles and started to walk slowly yet urgently in the direction that the road was taking. At one point they were resting on a roadside bench by the side of the road when suddenly, without any warning, nothing happened for a while. Then, in the middle of nothing happening, a strange thing happened. A policeman came riding up on a black policeman’s bicycle, but he was white.

‘Well, I’m blessed!’ he said, drawing to a halt to look at the group of children and their dog. He took off his policeman’s helmet, scratched his head, replaced his helmet, then rode on and they never saw him again.

They had just continued walking when Amy exclaimed, ‘Look, ahead of us, there’s a village. Maybe it has a cosy little teashop with a helpful lady owner who can make us some sandwiches and lend us four bicycles and tell us the way up to Lower Downs.’

‘Don’t be soppy,’ said Daniel, quite hurtfully, but they all hurried their step until they were standing right outside a cosy little teashop. They peered inside. But just as they were starting to question why they had to do all this spontaneous peering, the teashop door opened, and there stood a little old lady with an apron tied neatly around her little old lady’s waist.

‘Come on in, four lovely children with your doggy,’ she said in a little old lady’s voice and beckoning them in with her little old lady’s arm. ‘I’m the helpful lady owner of this cosy little teashop. Would you like me to make you some sandwiches and lend you some bicycles? I’d be quick, as I know you’re on an urgent adventure and are probably rushing to rescue somebody in trouble. There’s not even time to describe my teashop, although that would have been nice, to give you a sense of place, what with the tired Seventies decor and the musty carpet smell that somewhat overpowers the aroma of burnt toast and festering cheese, made somewhat more pleasant than it sounds by the stiff little silvery vases of dazzlingly gay cut flowers – dahlias, petunias, cornflowers, their faces turned upwards to the sky, shining their vibrancies to all that enter herein, making their welcome known to one and . . .’

‘Er, hello! Please stop it,’ interrupted Betty. ‘This is not Virginia Woolf! We’re The Secret Five and such silly talk only muddles us.’

‘Sorry,’ the little old lady said, brushing her pale and worn fingertips over one of the stiff little vases of dazzlingly gay cut flowers. ‘Only it’s not very often I get the chance to describe my teashop. Forgive me. Now, children, let’s move on to important matters. I suppose you’ll be wanting me to join The Secret Five as an honorary member, won’t you?’

‘Why yes!’ exclaimed Amy. ‘And how considerate, and what a nice surprise!’

‘That would be splendid,’ murmured Ricky, rather sullenly. ‘But, be warned,
apparently
you’ll have to forego all the privileges if you join.’

‘Not a problem,’ the little old lady said brightly as she sniffed her stiff little armpits in a dazzlingly gay way. ‘I can manage without the weekend with the Sugababes thank
you
very much.’ And off she shuffled to make their sandwiches out of some recently-fresh bread.

‘Sugababes?’ bleated Ricky. ‘She said a weekend with the Sugababes! But . . . how . . . when . . .’

‘You’ve only yourself to blame,’ said Betty. ‘I’m going to buy you a diary.’

Ricky sulked, staring at his shoes yet again.

Indeed, the little old lady was just as helpful as she said she was. Very soon, they had packs of sandwiches, some homemade sweets, a bottle of strangely coloured juice, a huge bone for Whatshisname, a brand new bicycle each, and handy laminated directions on how to get up to Lower Downs.

‘Thank you very much,’ called Betty to the little old lady as they mounted the bicycles outside the teashop. ‘Such kindness is rare in these days of anti-social behavioural orders. You certainly give little old ladies a good name.’

‘Not at all,’ the little old lady said, suddenly becoming quite downcast. ‘All this kindness to you is really in memory of my poor dear favourite aunty who, some forty years ago and more, died a brutal and gruesome death at the hands of her ill-tempered husband after she showed kindness to some lovely children and their fat ugly dog who were on an adventure in some distant far-off land.’

‘Oh, right,’ called Amy, ignoring the blatant foreshadowing. ‘Never mind, eh?’

They all waved a cheery goodbye as they rode away from the teashop. The little old lady stood in the doorway waving back at them, wondering what she would tell her little old husband when he found out that she’d given away yet another set of bicycles and most of the week’s supper, and that a fat spaniel was now probably gnawing at his much coveted sixty-five-million-year-old rare dinosaur bone from the Mesozoic Period – the very
bone, as it happened, that held the much-sought-after reason why the dinosaurs became extinct; the very bone that would have helped scientists discount theories of asteroid strikes, super-volcanoes, climate change and deadly radiation from an exploding supernova, and placed the blame fairly and squarely on the fact that the dinosaurs became so clinically depressed due to all the speculative talk about asteroid strikes, super-volcanoes, climate change and deadly radiation from an exploding supernova that they no longer felt up to any form of procreative activity and, between them, agreed a pact for a worldwide bout of mass dinosaur-suicide on August 10
^th
64,997,993 BC, a pact that included the crocodiles who, in a rather sneaky move that was unknown to the dinosaurs, had secretly agreed amongst themselves to fake their suicides and then open their greedy crocodile eyes to the mother of all meals.

Anyway, the four children cycled happily along the country lanes in the sunshine, keeping at least one eye out for signs of wild ponies or shy deer so they could say
ah!
and tilt their heads. Whatshisname trotted alongside them, stopping occasionally to sniff something dubious in the hedgerow or about his person, or to gnaw on his bone which, he thought, tasted as though it was a little past its gnaw-by date and hardly worth the effort. He thought that they don’t make bones like they used to. No wonder they’re a poor second to peanut butter.

After cycling for what seemed like miles and miles, but was in fact miles and miles and miles, they reached a place where they stopped for a rest. Phew! They were really glad of the rest.

After they had been glad for a while they went on their way again, huffing a bit and puffing quite a lot, especially down the hills, which were unbelievably steep as hills go. Eventually, they rounded a bend in the lane and were confronted by a sign!

‘Look!’ said Betty, dutifully pointing at the sign. ‘The signpost for Lower Downs!’

‘Yes,’ said Daniel as he cycled up to inspect it. ‘It says
Really
Top Secret Government Establishment ahead. All unauthorised authors and their one-dimensional characters please keep out!
’

‘Bother,’ said Ricky. ‘Does that mean that we can’t go in?’

‘Yes,’ said Betty rather decisively for someone who doesn’t floss her teeth regularly. ‘I think that includes us.’

‘Oh!’ said Daniel.

‘Then, this time, do you think it might really be the end of our adventure?’ asked Amy.

Yes! thought Whatshisname.
Yes!!

In which Daniel gets a bit irate with the author, which he may live to regret; we’ll see, shall we; Whatshisname saves their bacon, or is that the next chapter; anyway, they find an unexpected window to sneak through, and unexpectedly sneak through it.

Unfortunately it wasn’t the end of their adventure. To everyone’s surprise, except his own, Whatshisname suddenly dropped his bone and grabbed Ricky’s sandwiches! He scampered off past the sign, down the lane and up over Lower Downs, until he was out of sight.

‘Gosh, he can scamper fast, for his size. I suppose we’d better go after him at some stage,’ suggested Betty half-heartedly.

‘Must we?’ moaned Amy.

‘My sandwiches!’ cried Ricky in a pathetic girly voice.

‘Never mind that. Look over there!’ said Daniel, pointing over there somewhere. ‘In the direction Whatshisname ran! I can see a castle!’

And indeed, up on the top of Lower Downs, there was a castle sticking up out of the ground. It wasn’t a big castle, nor was it a small castle. To be brutally honest it wasn’t really a castle, it was just a big old house with tall chimneys but the previous owners had been named Mr and Mrs Castle and since then, to the local folk, it had been known as The Castle’s Place and subsequently, over a period of time, shortened to . . .

‘Stop it!’ cried Daniel loudly, glaring up at the sky. ‘Can’t you see that you’re boring the pants off us?’

The others stared at Daniel very strangely.

‘Daniel, who are you shouting at?’ asked Amy, looking very hard around her.

‘Never mind. Sorry Amy. I’ve finished shouting now,’ said Daniel. Then he pointed a finger upwards and shouted, ‘But watch it!’ The others glanced up and then give Daniel the benefit of a long stare and a short frown.

‘Honestly,’ murmured Amy to Daniel. ‘Sometimes I do wonder about you. Will you see someone about your mood swings? Promise?’

Daniel didn’t answer. He was in one of his moods. But in an effort to progress the plot, they decided to cycle a little closer to the castle. They were soon within spitting distance of the castle gates, and Betty persuaded Ricky that it was a really bad idea to try and prove it. She suggested that they abandon the bicycles and cover them with some handy bracken, just in case.

‘Just in case of what?’ asked Amy, who was secretly afraid that covering something with handy bracken suggested that, later in the adventure, they would need, very quickly and very urgently, to uncover the something in order to avoid some potentially gruesome fate from a blunt instrument-toting ruffian or a grumpy shotgun-wielding farmer or an alien with six . . .

‘Oh for goodness’ sake!’ said Betty, glaring up at the sky. ‘You’re right, Daniel. I thought it would be quite difficult to bore the pants off The Secret Five, but he’s doing a fine job of it!’

‘What? Who? Pants?’ squeaked Amy. ‘All I asked is
just in case of what
?’

Betty sighed. ‘Amy, just in case, that’s all,’ she said, rather grumpily. ‘Trust me on this. Always expect the unexpected.’

They all quickly agreed that
just in case
was a very good reason, so they carefully and obediently hid the bicycles with the handy bracken that had earlier been placed on the hillside by some desperate writer. Then, silently and very secretly, they crept up to the gates of the big old house / castle (trying hard to ignore Whatshisname, who was dashing about outside the gate barking and woofing loudly). They hardly dared breathe, in case the guard heard them and wondered what all the breathing was about. But, as
they crept nearer to the gate, they heard a familiar sound! It was a big roar and a big rumble! They dived behind a tree that, unknown to them, had conveniently grown from a seed that fell on that spot eighty-two years ago that very day! What are the chances?

Whatshisname scampered over to huddle with them, thinking it was a hastily-convened official meeting and not wanting to miss it in case the agenda included a vote on another surprise outing to the vets.

‘I recognise that sound,’ whispered Ricky. ‘That roar and rumble.’

‘Me too,’ whispered Betty. ‘Look! It’s that big red truck, and it’s leaving! The gate is opening for it.’

‘Yes, you’re right! Let’s sneak inside when it’s open,’ proposed Daniel, quite cleverly for someone of his glove size.

‘Yes, let’s,’ Amy said, unable to think of anything of a more philosophical nature.

The gate opened as the big red truck roared and rumbled up to it. It stopped by the gate. The guard walked over in an extremely guard-like manner to chat to the evil-looking driver. The children strained to hear what was being said but, from where they were hiding, it sounded just like
mwmnfudmbgbo-o-ohha-hamsandwichmmmmomwl
.

‘What on earth are they saying?’ Amy asked inquisitively.

‘I don’t know,’ said Daniel. ‘To me, it sounded something like
mwmnfudmbgbo-o-ohha-hamsandwichmmmmomwl
.’

‘Gosh,’ said Amy, wondering why she wasn’t clever like the others.

‘Never mind all that,’ said Betty. ‘Let’s sneak gingerly through the gateway and secretly head for the side of the house! Wait for my secret signal.’

‘What’s the secret signal?’ enquired Daniel.

Betty thought for a while, then said, ‘The secret signal will be when I say
go
.’

The others all thought that it was a bit of a boring secret
signal, as secret signals go. Indeed, Daniel was about to suggest having a meeting to democratically decide the secret signal, as it was quite an important aspect of any adventure, but he didn’t feel like arguing, so he didn’t, thereby allowing yet another opportunity for dramatic conflict to pass. Nevertheless, he made a scribbled mental note to ensure that the deplorable standard of secret signals was to be included on the agenda at the next meeting and then robustly discussed. He had been thinking a lot about introducing more robust discussions to Secret Five meetings. He felt very strongly about such matters as secret signals but, it must be said, in recent times he had felt even more strongly about the fact that his character didn’t wear spectacles. It just wasn’t right. He would need to address that issue before very long, he knew that. He’d have to choose the right time to raise it, obviously, and not wait until the end of the adventure, when it might be too late for a spectacle request.

‘Are you all right, Daniel?’ Betty asked, staring curiously at him.

‘Hmm,’ nodded Daniel, now thinking hard about what type of spectacle frame he’d like. Thin wire frames might make him look even more intelligent.

Betty frowned.

‘The signal, Betty?’ Amy whispered.

‘I do worry about Daniel sometimes,’ Betty murmured to Amy.

‘Me too,’ agreed Amy. ‘But I worry about you even more.’