Choc Shock (8 page)

As fast as she could, EJ ran back to the storeroom and opened the door with her skeleton key. The door opened and she rushed over to the safe. Next to the safe was the package she had seen Madame Ombre take out of the kitchen. It was empty.
I bet she has put whatever was in there in the safe,
thought EJ.
I need to open this safe.

She had little time as she knew Madame Ombre would be looking for her. The safe had a keypad, a simple letter–number pad like a phone, on which to
enter a code to open it. But there were thousands of possible combinations.

Think, EJ, think,
she said to herself. And then she remembered that she and CC had watched Madame Ombre keying a code on cupcake-cam.

That's it!
thought EJ to herself.
I can watch it again on playback. Maybe I'll be able to see the code she keyed in?

She took out the cupcake-cam and pressed rewind. When she found the right footage, she pressed slow motion playback. At the same time she zoomed in on Madame Ombre's fingers as she keyed in the code.

Aarrghh,
thought EJ,
I can't see it, it's too blurry.
She pressed back, and played it again. She still couldn't see what Madame Ombre had keyed but she could see that she keyed in eight numbers. Eight numbers, but which ones? EJ didn't have a lot of time for guesses: Madame Ombre would find her any minute.

Just then EJ's phone vibrated. It was a text from Isi.

Isi, you are a genius,
thought EJ. Madame Ombre keyed in letters, not numbers. ‘Chocolate' is what she keyed in—what else would Madame Ombre have as a code?

EJ began to key in the letters but nothing happened.

Dumb! C-h-o-c-o-l-a-t-e. That's nine letters and the code is eight so that can't be it.

Then EJ heard footsteps, hurried footsteps that were getting louder. She heard Madame Ombre shouting in French.

French,
EJ thought,
that's it! Wouldn't Madame Ombre do her code in French? What is chocolate in French? What had Madame Ombre said when she greeted them? Was it
chocolat?
But how did you
spell that in French?

EJ quickly opened the translator app on her phone and keyed in chocolate. She smiled as she saw the answer.

Chocolat.
No ‘e' and that makes it eight letters. Yes! Or should that be
Oui!

EJ keyed in C-H-O-C-O-L-A-T and tried the handle. The safe door opened. EJ reached in and grabbed the small gold box and opened it. It was filled with gold—gold flakes.

‘Gotcha' said EJ.

But then she heard the footsteps again and this time they were really close. EJ hid behind the boxes, holding her breath. She waited for the door to open.

It didn't. The footsteps went straight past the storeroom.

EJ was relieved but knew it wouldn't be long before Madame Ombre checked the storeroom.
EJ needed to get out quickly but she couldn't leave without the rabbits. She looked at the bunnies huddled in the cage and knew she couldn't abandon them to be put out with the rubbish. But how was EJ going to carry six rabbits? There had to be something in the room that she could use to carry the them. EJ scanned the room. Flour. Of course a bakery had flour and what did flour come in? Bags. Big bags and they were all stacked up in the corner next to the rabbit cage. There was only one problem, the bags were, not surprisingly, full of flour.

EJ didn't have much time. She quickly flicked through her charms for something that would open the bags.
Crocodile repellent, no, penguin food, no. Maybe this,
she thought as she saw the hook from CC's rope charm.
That might work.
EJ quickly twisted the rope charm. Once it had enlarged, she grabbed the hook and thrust it into the corner of a flour bag and pulled it back towards her. The bag ripped open and flour spilled out. EJ shrunk the rope back to its charm size, then tipped the bag upside down and, as even more flour went everywhere, she opened
the rabbit cage and gently lifted each now rather white rabbit into the bag.

‘Don't worry, little ones. You won't be in there for long,' said EJ.

‘Non,
not long at all,' said a voice behind EJ. A French voice.

It was Madame Ombre.

EJ, with the box of gold flakes in one hand and a sack of rabbits in the other, froze in front of a very cross and now quite scary-looking Madame Ombre.
‘I'll take the gold box,
Emma Sekac, or should that be EJ12?' snarled Madame Ombre. ‘You won't be going anywhere.'

‘It's too late, Madame Ombre.
SHINE
already knows about
SHADOW
and S6.'

‘Do you think I care about
SHADOW
and their silly S6?
Non,
just give me my gold flakes. Now,' said Madame Ombre, glaring threateningly at EJ.

EJ looked straight at Madame Ombre and saw
the ‘First comes chocolate' on her jacket.
She will do anything for her chocolate cakes,
realised EJ,
and that gives me an idea.
She put the rabbit bag down gently and opened the box of gold flakes. She held up some of the fragile flakes.

‘You mean these?' asked EJ.

‘Be careful, you fool. They will fall out. Do you have any idea how rare edible 24-carat gold flakes are?'

EJ took out some more. She could see how much this was worrying Madame Ombre. She wanted her gold flakes a lot more than she wanted a pesky
SHINE
agent.

She blew some of the flakes out of her hand. Madame Ombre dropped to the floor and picked them up. ‘Don't do that again, you fool, you will ruin them. Now give them to me.'

‘What, like this?' This time EJ turned away from Madame Ombre, then grabbed a whole handful of flakes and threw them high up into the air, hoping her plan would work.

It did. Madame Ombre moved like a shot from
the door past EJ to where the flakes had fallen at the back of the room. She dropped to her knees to pick them up. As she did, EJ took another handful of gold, put the lid on the box, picked up her bag of bunnies and sprinted for the door.

But would she make it to the escape route?

‘Come back with my gold!' yelled Madame Ombre.

EJ had never run so fast and, as she ran, she scattered more handfuls of gold flakes on the floor.

That should slow her down,
she hoped.

EJ reached the toilets. She turned back and could see Madame Ombre behind her but the chef kept stopping to pick up the gold. EJ pushed open the toilet door, went straight to the last cubicle and climbed up on the toilet. She pushed the fan out of the way with the toilet brush and threw the box up into the shaft. EJ re-activated the climbing rope charm then threw the climbing hook through the
opening, just as CC had, and pulled on it to check it had caught. Quickly but carefully tying the other end of the rope around the rabbit bag, EJ pulled herself up into the shaft.
Thank goodness for gymnastics,
EJ thought.
I need every arm and tummy muscle I've got.

Once she was up, she pulled up the rabbit bag and the rope. Just as she lifted the bag into the shaft, she heard the toilet door crash open. Madame Ombre appeared in the cubicle. Now she looked very scary.

‘Give me my gold!' she shrieked.

EJ poked her head through the opening. ‘Enough chitty chatty, must fly,' said EJ.
‘Au revoir!'

With Madame Ombre's furious screams ringing in her ears, EJ crawled along the ventilator shaft towards the roof, pushing the boxes in front of her and pulling the bunnies.

‘Not long to go now, guys,' she said soothingly.

At the end of the ventilation shaft there was a door. EJ pushed it open and climbed onto the roof of the bakery. In the distance, she could see
the lights of the
SHINE
chopper, waiting for her. EJ waved her arms and it sped towards her. As it hovered above the roof, a rope was lowered from the chopper. EJ first tied the gold box securely and gave the thumbs up. The rope was raised and then lowered again, this time for EJ. And her precious cargo.

‘Hold on,' she said to the rabbits. ‘Going up!'

EJ was winched up to the chopper. At the door was CC, shouting at her.

‘Way to go EJ! Take my arm.'

EJ did and CC pulled her into the chopper. As she got her breath back, she smiled as she saw Agent LP30 was once again the pilot.

‘Good job, EJ12,' said LP30. ‘It's time to go home.'

With the chopper door shut, EJ opened the bag to let the rabbits have some air. Six little heads cautiously popped out, their noses twitching nervously.

‘EJ12, can't you complete a mission without bringing home animals?' exclaimed LP30.

‘It's not my fault, I couldn't leave them there,' explained EJ. ‘Madame Ombre was going to throw them out with the rubbish.'

‘You did the right thing,' said LP30. ‘I am sure we can find them good homes.'

EJ rather hoped one of those good homes would be hers.

‘EJ and CC, I have A1 on speakerphone,' said LP30. ‘Go ahead A1.'

‘Hello there Agents EJ and CC, and well done. If you look at the screen in front of you, you will see the announcement of Junior Choc Chef on TV.'

The girls watched as a very angry-looking Madame Ombre declared Chloe the Junior Choc Chef winner: she had turned her cupcake into the Sydney Opera House, complete with a seagull on top.
And,
EJ wondered as she looked closely,
was that a little bit of grated carrot on the white chocolate?

‘Bad luck that you didn't win,' said CC.

‘I think we did,' said EJ. ‘Oh, and,' she added as
she passed a charm to CC, ‘thanks for the loan of the rope.'

‘You certainly did win,' broke in A1. ‘Thanks to the cherry homing device, a
SHINE
team is following Madame Ombre's delivery truck as we speak. Not only do we have S6 but we will soon have all the delivery addresses of the
SHADOW
agents. I call that having your cake and eating it!'

‘A1, could I ask a favour?' said EJ. ‘You know the whisk-o-matic?'

‘Yes,' said A1 guardedly.

‘Well, I know we are not supposed to use mission charms in normal life, but I was just wondering if you might make an exception just once, for a really good cause.'

‘I know about your fundraiser, EJ, and yes, I think just this once that might be possible.'

‘Thanks A1,' said EJ. The fundraiser reminded her about Isi. She hadn't really used her BESTie that much this mission but Isi had been there for her.

EJ took out her phone. As she went to text her friend she noticed the little heart charm. She hadn't
used that either. She gave it a twist and the inscription appeared

That could have been Isi's motto. EJ texted her friend.

EJ showed CC the text and the two girls giggled for most of the ride home.