The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop (5 page)

Even if Demerara had got the wrong witch, Caydon was extremely useful. He knew exactly the right buses they
should take down to the huge, modern MI6 building beside the Thames, which Oz had only ever seen in one of the Bond films.

“I know the one,” Caydon said. “He smashes through the wall in a speedboat.”

It turned out that Oz and Caydon had a lot in common. They sat together on the bus, talking about computer games, the basketball hoop that Oz’s dad was going to put up in the yard when the weeds were cleared, and the enormous toy car track they could build on Oz’s bedroom floor if Caydon brought his track from across the road. In between, Oz filled Caydon in on the story of the Spoffards and the magic chocolate.

Lily sat behind them with Demerara. Caydon wasn’t taking any notice of Lily; whenever she spoke he looked at Oz, as if she didn’t exist. She would have felt left out if she hadn’t had the cat to talk to.

“But you mustn’t say anything—it’ll freak out the other passengers to hear a cat talking.”

“Oh, all right,” Demerara sighed, from the depths of the pet carrier. “But it’s so hard—I haven’t had a refined conversation since 1938.”

They were on the top deck and it was nearly empty. Lily looked round carefully before she asked, “Can’t you have one with Spike?”

“No,” said Demerara. “I try to make allowances—I know Spike hasn’t had my advantages in life—but a rat
from the sewers is no companion for a posh animal like me.”

Lily didn’t like rats, but she felt sorry for Spike; it couldn’t be much fun spending all those years with a cat who despised you. “How did he get to be immortal, anyway?”

“By mistake—it started when Pierre left some of the talking-chocolate out overnight.” The voice floating out of the pet carrier was scornful. “Next morning, we woke up to the horrible sound of a rat’s drunken singing. For some reason, Pierre thought it was FUNNY”—she spat this word out—“and he decided to keep Spike for experimental purposes. Rats never mind being experimented on. Unfortunately, when Pierre died, I was stuck with him.”

“We’re here,” said Caydon.

They were in the middle of the city, beside the wide, gray-green river. The MI6 building was huge and modern, made of slabs of pinkish stone. Lily, Oz and Caydon stared at it. The gleaming entrance hall was full of smartly dressed people with plastic IDs hanging around their necks, all looking very busy and important. Two policemen stood outside the main entrance.

Oz, who was carrying Demerara, bent down toward her and asked “What do we do next?”

“Obviously, we go inside!” Demerara hissed impatiently.

“I don’t think three kids with a pet carrier are going to get very far.”

“Just show them my card.”

“What card?”

“I have it with me inside the carrier.”

Lily opened the door—and there was a small, plastic-covered card sitting under one of the cat’s front paws. “Where did this come from?”

“Never mind where it came from. It’s my secret ID.”

They all looked at Demerara’s ID, which was nothing but a bar code and a paw mark.

Caydon said, “I’ve a feeling this is going to be embarrassing.”

The policeman outside was nice, but obviously thought they were messing about. He took Demerara’s card and chuckled.

“Where did you get this? It’s a pretty good imitation of one of our passes—except for the paw mark.”

“Kindly swipe it at once and let us in!” an angry voice mewed from inside the pet carrier.

The young policeman raised his eyebrows, automatically thinking Lily must have said it.

Turning red as a brick, she said, “Er—please.”

“Oh, all right, if it will make you go away.” The policeman swiped Demerara’s card and his face immediately changed. “Oh—it says here—I’d better take you to the sergeant.”

The three kids made faces of surprise at each other. The young policeman was actually leading them into the MI6 building. They followed him across a long polished floor to a desk, where they were handed over to another, older policeman.

He looked at the card, and at them. “Oh, yes, this lot are on the priority list. Come on.”

It was like some mad dream. Oz asked, “Are you—are you sure we’re the right people?”

“Course I am—not many people bring their pets in here.”

“Pets!” hissed Demerara. “How DARE he? Do I look like someone’s PET?”

“Sorry, ma’am.” The second policeman was amazingly unsurprised by a talking cat. He took them to an elevator, and then to an office, where there was a man in a gray suit drinking coffee.

“Something for your department, sir,” the policemen said.

“Yes,” the man in the suit said calmly, “the desk called me. Thank you, Sergeant; I’ll take it from here.”

Oz and Lily caught sight of each other’s stunned faces: why did everyone seem to be expecting them? It seemed that the show-off cat had been telling the truth; she really was working for the government.

The man in the suit said, “This way, please.”

He took them to another lift, which he worked with a key. It whisked them right up to the top floor. The man in the suit knocked on a door opposite the lift.

A woman’s voice said, “Come in.”

Oz was nearest the door, so he opened it, and the three of them walked into another very white and tidy office, with walls of filing cabinets and a large computer.

The woman was about Emily Spoffard’s age, wearing a smart navy suit. She looked up from her desk, smiling. “Hello, Demerara.”

“Hello,” said Demerara. “Let me out, someone.”

Oz put down the pet carrier (which was a relief; the cat was no lightweight, and the smell of the body glitter was making him dizzy) and Demerara trotted out onto the carpet.

“Lovely glitter,” the woman said kindly.

“Thank you, B62. As you can see, I’ve brought the children.”

B62 looked at them. “You said they were triplets.”

“The rat who works for me made a mistake—but I managed to draft in this witch, Caydon Campbell.”

B62 pressed a few keys on her computer. “Oh yes, that’s all in order.”

“I’m not a witch,” Caydon said.

“Of course you are. You’re in the system.”

“That’s the first I’ve heard of it!”

Demerara absently licked her paw, then spat crossly. “Ugh—I forgot! Is J ready for us?”

“Go right in.” B62 stood up to open a polished wooden door. “They’re here, sir.”

Oz, Lily and Caydon walked into a grand office dominated by a big antique desk. The whole thing was so peculiar, they had to keep glancing at each other to remind themselves this was not a dream.

A tall man with gray hair stood in the window with his back to them, reading a file.

“Well, Demerara—you’ve put us through a lot of trouble. You’d better be right about this emergency.”

“Of course I’m right!” The glittery cat was indignant. “Here are my three helpers.”

He turned round to face them. “Hello. My name is J. Please sit down.”

There were three chairs in front of the desk. Oz, Lily and Caydon sat down while Demerara made a graceful leap onto the desk.

J pressed a buzzer. A moment later B62 came in holding a pile of papers. Caydon nudged Oz’s foot with his and mouthed, “Moneypenny!”

“I’m glad you know about James Bond,” J said. “It might make this whole business a little easier for you to understand. The first thing I must ask you to do is sign the Official Secrets Act.”

Oz, Lily and Caydon exchanged looks of bafflement—was the man joking?

B62 laid three sheets of paper and three pens on the desk in front of them.

“I signed it ages ago,” Demerara said proudly.

“Nothing to worry about,” B62 said. “You’re just promising never to tell anyone about this place.”

“I won’t say a word,” Lily said. “Nobody would believe me, anyway. I bet this is the part of the government that deals with magic.”

J chuckled. “Not quite—but close enough. Officially my department doesn’t exist. Officially I’m not here and this room is a broom closet. I can’t tell you more until you’ve signed.” He leaned across the desk toward them. “We’re trusting you with some highly sensitive information.”

Suddenly, this was all looking serious. Oz, Lily and Caydon signed the pieces of paper.

“Caydon R. Campbell,” Caydon said. “The R stands for—”

“Robert,” J finished for him. “Yes, we know.”

“What—you know about me?”

“Oh, yes,” said B62. “You support Arsenal, hate spinach and play the saxophone.”

“Wha—but—” Caydon was flabbergasted. “MI6 have been spying on me?”

“We’re not MI6,” J said. “This is the SMU—the Secret Ministry of the Unexplained. We deal with anything—er—unexplained that might be a threat to national security. You’re probably wondering why the SMU needs the help of three eleven-year-olds. I must admit, I wondered myself.”

“But I insisted!” Demerara spat. “We MUST have the children, or the spells won’t work—and we won’t have a HOPE of retrieving the mold.”

J sighed and shook his head. “It wasn’t easy; I had to get clearance from the prime minister.”

“Wow,” Oz said. “The prime minister knows about us.”

“Not officially, of course,” J said. “Now, pay attention. We have reason to believe that Isadore Spoffard is trying to sell his immortality chocolate again. Last time it was to the Nazis. This time we think he’s working for a group of terrorists known as the Schmertz Gang. We have reason to believe these very dangerous people are planning a major attack, probably in London. Their leaders want to rule the world, which they think will be possible if they live forever. That’s why they need Isadore’s chocolate.”

The sound of Isadore’s name chilled Oz’s spine, and he knew Lily had the same feeling. “He’s still alive?”

“Very much so; the SMU has been keeping tabs on him since 1938.” J tapped a key on his keyboard and the painting of the queen on the wall behind him changed to a photograph of a dark-haired man with a narrow black mustache and a thin, sour face. “Isadore Spoffard, just before he killed his brothers.” He clicked rapidly through a series of photographs of the same sour face with different hairstyles. “He’s a master of
disguise. Over the years he’s used all sorts of names—Tom Dribway, Quentin Cobbler, Heinz Schmidt, Professor Pillick and Mrs. Harriet Wong.”

“We haven’t seen him in Skittle Street yet,” Demerara said, “but it’s only a matter of time. He wants the recipe for immortality.”

“And I’m sure I don’t need to tell you,” J said, “how dreadful it would be if such a thing fell into the hands of wicked people no bomb or bullet could stop.”

This was scary—and incredibly exciting. Their wicked great-great-uncle was still alive.

“What do we have to do?” Oz asked.

J and B62 looked at each other. “I don’t like it,” J said. “But there’s no other way. The immortality chocolate can’t be made without all three of the golden molds. Isadore still has his moon, of course. Pierre’s sun is safely sealed in Demerara’s flat. But Marcel’s star isn’t nearly so well protected. We need to find it and get it to a much safer place—in a special government vault—because it’s better to keep the molds in different places. We need your magical powers to find it.”

“I never knew we had magical powers; does it mean we can do spells?” Lily asked.

“Yes, in theory,” J said. “But you don’t need to do anything complicated now; you just have to be there.” He broke off to sigh, “I must be honest; this could be dangerous, and it was quite a problem getting clearance.”

“There’s no other way.” Demerara was firm. “The immortality chocolate can’t be made without all three of them—and Marcel’s mold has been lost since 1938. My personal opinion is that he had it with him when he died in the accident.”

“That means it must be at the bottom of the river,” Oz said. “Why do you need us to find it? Couldn’t you just send down some divers?”

“We’ve tried all the ordinary methods.”

“But—hang on—” Oz was trying to get the complicated story straight. “All three brothers were on the tram—right? So why didn’t Isadore just grab the mold from Marcel while he was drowning?”

“That’s a very good question,” J said. “And the truth is, we don’t quite know. It’s possible that the mold had some sort of inbuilt resistance to wickedness. We do know that Isadore has searched the riverbed at least twenty times since 1938, but he never found a thing. This department—which, of course, doesn’t exist—has been assigned a special unit of river police. They will contact you.”

“What should we tell our parents? Are they included in the Official Secrets Act?” Oz asked.

“Ah.” J was a little uncomfortable. “Thank you for reminding me; it’s rather important. I’m sorry, but your parents must know absolutely nothing about this. We’ll provide you with excellent cover stories.”

“I don’t think I’m that good at lying,” Caydon said. “My gran can see through walls.”

“That won’t be a problem. We’ve taken certain steps to stop your parents from noticing anything. They won’t be asking any awkward questions.”

“Are you sure?” Caydon was doubtful.

J and B62 exchanged smiles. “Not even your gran, I guarantee it.” He stood up. “Thank you all very much—and jolly good luck.”

He shook hands with them, and shook Demerara’s paw. A few minutes later the three children and their pet carrier were being escorted out of the building.

“Incredible,” said Oz. “We’re secret agents! What do we do now?”

Caydon glanced at his watch. “This secret agent had better get home—before his gran finds out he hasn’t picked up the dry cleaning.”

The government agency that did not exist was very efficient. Next morning, Dad said, “Why didn’t you two tell me you’d signed up for this diving course?”

“Diving? What’re you talking about?” Lily began. Oz nudged her. “We—we forgot.”

Dad was reading an official-looking letter. “Well, it’s a very good course, run by the river police. They’re sending someone to pick you both up this afternoon.”

“It sounds a bit dangerous,” said Mum.

“I think it’s great,” Dad said firmly. “What with moving houses and the new baby coming, Oz and Lily aren’t having much of a summer holiday this year—they deserve a bit of fun.”