Goldwhiskers (2 page)

The British airport official looked up from the desk at the chubby boy standing in front of him. ‘Purpose of your visit?' he asked.

The boy, who was sweating profusely, prodded at the round, wire-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose. ‘Uh, I guess, uh –' he stammered, still a bit groggy from the long flight from Washington DC. Nervous too. This was his last hurdle. Once he passed through immigration and customs he was home free.

‘Purpose of your visit?' repeated the official. There was a note of irritation in his voice. Behind the boy, a long line of waiting travellers snaked through the
airport's crowded screening area. ‘Business or pleasure?'

‘Um,' said the boy. A bit of both was the correct answer, but how many ten-year-olds had business in London? He didn't want to arouse suspicion. He couldn't afford to do that. Not with what he had hidden in his shoe. ‘Um,' he said again.

‘Are you hard of hearing, lad?' demanded the man, glaring at him. ‘What's your name, anyway?' He squinted down at the passport that lay open on the desk in front of him. His bushy eyebrows shot up and disappeared beneath the peak of his uniform cap. ‘Ozymandias Levinson? Blimey, who names a kid Ozymandias?'

A blush eclipsed the boy's round moon of a face. ‘It's just Oz, actually,' he muttered. He glanced anxiously over to where his parents, whose passports had already been approved, were waiting.

Oz had never seen such a busy airport. Heathrow was a virtual crush of humanity. The corridors and waiting areas were jammed with people of all shapes and sizes and colours from every corner of the world. Europe, Asia, Africa, India. Women in bright saris. Men in business suits and turbans. Students with backpacks; parents with babies in pushchairs. Old
people, young people, all of them squeezing through the checkpoint like soda through the neck of a bottle, eager to pop out the other side and explore the great city of London that lay just beyond the airport's doors.

Oz took a deep breath. He needed to say something, and fast. He needed to say one word: ‘pleasure'. Only problem was, it was a lie. Not completely, but still a lie. And Oz wasn't very good at lying. He got red in the face. He stammered. He broke out in a sweat. Just like he was doing now.
Get a grip, Levinson
, he told himself sternly.
James Bond would lie
.

James Bond was Oz's hero. The British superspy was always rock steady under pressure. Just like he, Oz Levinson, would be when he was a grown-up secret agent some day. He was sort of a secret agent already – an honorary one, anyway. Only he wasn't very good at it yet.

The airport official tapped the end of his pen against Oz's passport impatiently.

The name is Levinson. Oz Levinson
, Oz repeated silently, steeling himself with his favourite mantra. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth and prepared to lie.

‘Excuse me, but are you nearly finished?' said a female voice.

Oz's eyes flew open. He looked up in surprise. Way up. So did the airport official. Oz's mother was standing beside them. At nearly six feet tall, she towered over the seated man. He frowned.

‘It's forbidden to return to the customs checkpoint,' he said severely.

Another official in uniform hustled over. He placed a newspaper on the desk and pointed to one of the headlines, then leaned down and whispered something into his colleague's ear. Oz caught the phrase ‘VIP'.

Oz was very familiar with that phrase. His mother was a world-famous opera star who was considered a Very Important Person wherever she went.

The man scanned the newspaper headline, then cleared his throat. ‘Lavinia Levinson?' he said, sitting up a little straighter.

Oz's mother inclined her head regally.

‘And this is your son?'

Lavinia Levinson placed a protective hand on Oz's shoulder. The airport official glanced from one to the other. ‘Ah, yes,' he said. ‘I can see the resemblance.'

Oz reddened. Was he making fun of them? Lots of people did. He and his mother were both blond and both, well, on the large side. This morning, his mother was wearing a dramatic, red cashmere cape. Oz thought she looked a bit like Mrs Santa Claus.
Who does that make me
, he wondered sourly,
Santa's long-lost son, Jumbo?

The man smiled broadly at Oz's mother. ‘The missus is a big fan of yours,' he gushed. ‘Might I trouble you for your autograph? It would be a lovely surprise to tuck in her Christmas stocking.'

As Lavinia Levinson signed her name on a slip of paper, the official stamped Oz's passport and waved him on towards customs. Oz trotted over to where his father was standing, next to Oz's friend and classmate Delilah Bean, better known as DB.

‘What took you so long?' Luigi Levinson asked.

‘Can't talk now – gotta make a pit stop!' Oz cried, racing past them. He needed to be sure that the secret in his left shoe was still safe.

Oz had not been able to stop thinking about his left shoe since the aeroplane had taken off last night from Washington. He ran into the gents and locked himself in a cubicle. Bending over, he quickly removed the shoe. It was very old-fashioned. Oz
thought that it looked like something his grandfather might wear. Or like something from a museum. In fact, it
was
from a museum. The International Spy Museum in Washington DC, to be exact. Oz's colleagues had retrieved it (and its mate) just last week. It was the first time the agency had attempted to retrieve something so large. The mission had required a massive team effort. Fortunately, things had gone well. Equally fortunately, the shoes had fitted Oz.

Oz turned the shoe upside down gently. ‘You OK?' he whispered into its heel, grateful that no one could see him. He must look like an idiot.

There was no reply from the shoe. Oz grasped its heel and grunted as he tried to swivel it clockwise. Nothing happened. Oz frowned. He grasped the heel again, more firmly this time, and twisted anticlockwise. Again, nothing. Oz looked down at his feet and chewed his lip. It
was
the left shoe, wasn't it? Could he have got mixed up about something as important as that? His heart started to race as he grappled urgently with the heel. Perspiration dripped down his face, and he prodded anxiously at his glasses again. What if he couldn't get it open? What if there weren't enough air holes? What if – wait! There.
The heel budged slightly. A wave of relief washed over him. He had the correct shoe after all – it was just stuck. Oz swivelled the heel with all of his might, and this time it opened, revealing a secret compartment.

‘You OK, Glory?' he whispered. ‘Could you breathe in there?'

The contents of the shoe's secret compartment stirred, and a furry head popped out. ‘Breathing wasn't a problem,' said the small brown creature who emerged, stretching. ‘Bunsen's air holes worked just fine. There wasn't much room, though. I feel like a pretzel.'

Oz inspected her closely. ‘You don't look like a pretzel.'

Glory grinned. ‘Nope, just a mouse.'

Morning Glory Goldenleaf was hardly ‘just' a mouse, thought Oz, smiling back at her. She was an elite Silver Skateboard agent with Washington DC's Spy Mice Agency, and his colleague and friend.

‘I saved these for you,' he said, handing her a bag of airline peanuts.

‘Thanks, Oz – you're true blue,' Glory replied, tearing into it hungrily. ‘By the way, remind me to email Bunsen as soon as we get to the hotel and let
him know I'm OK. You know how he worries.'

Bunsen Burner, lab-mouse-turned-field-agent, was another colleague – and Glory's sweetheart. He'd been very reluctant to stay behind in Washington, and he'd fussed endlessly over the secret compartment in the shoe, adding extra air holes for safety and soft cotton-wool balls to cushion Glory for the journey.

‘I can't believe we're actually here!' Glory exclaimed, nibbling on a peanut. ‘Just think, Oz – we're in England!'

Oz nodded. Lavinia Levinson's invitation from the Royal Opera to sing a Christmas Eve concert had been a stroke of luck for all of them. The Levinsons had quickly decided to make a family holiday of it, and they'd invited DB along to keep Oz company. The Beans had been reluctant at first to part with their daughter over the holidays, but Lavinia Levinson's enthusiasm had finally worn them down.

‘Just think how educational it will be!' she'd pointed out. ‘Plus, you'd be doing us a huge favour. I'll be in rehearsal most of the time, and poor Oz will be bored to tears.'

Once Glory heard that Oz and DB were heading
to London, she had decided to hitch a ride and visit her new friend Squeak Savoy. Squeak was an agent with MICE-6, the British equivalent of the Spy Mice Agency. The two mice had become friends on a recent mission battling Roquefort Dupont, the supreme leader of Washington's rat underworld, and Glory's arch enemy. Just last month, in New York, they had soundly defeated Dupont and the other rats of the Global Rodent Roundtable, including London's own Stilton Piccadilly. The rats had last been seen floating out to sea in a hot-air balloon, and they hadn't been heard from since.

Glory's trip to London wasn't just a holiday, though. She had an appointment with Sir Edmund Hazelnut-Cadbury, head of MICE-6. She reached down into the shoe's secret compartment and pulled out her backpack. Made from the thumb of a mitten, it contained her skateboard, a letter to Sir Edmund from her boss, Julius Folger, and a brand-new acquisition from the Spy Museum's collection. Anglo-American mice relations were strong, and the two agencies freely shared intelligence, gadgets and mousepower as they worked to keep their world safe from the likes of Dupont and Piccadilly.

Glory shouldered her backpack. She had high
hopes for this visit. A holiday, yes – but possibly a little more than that too. If she played her cards right, Christmas in London could herald the beginning of a glamorous overseas posting. And Glory dearly wanted a glamorous overseas posting.

‘We'd better go,' said Oz. ‘They're going to wonder where I disappeared to.'

Glory climbed on to Oz's waiting palm. He lifted his hand to his chest, and she somersaulted expertly into the pocket of his shirt. Oz put his shoe back on and went to rejoin his parents and DB.

‘Everything OK?' whispered his classmate as Oz's parents whisked them through customs and outside to the waiting limousine. Oz gave her a thumbs-up and pointed to his shirt pocket.

The limo's smooth, sedate pace quickly lulled Oz's mother to sleep. Her head slumped back against the bear-like arm her husband had draped round her shoulders, and her mouth fell open. The world-famous diva let out a gentle snore. DB giggled.

‘I still can't believe my parents let me come,' she said to Oz, bouncing in her seat. The profusion of tiny braids that covered her head bounced too. ‘This is so awesome.'

Oz stared at his classmate. He'd never seen DB this excited – or this happy. Usually she had no problem finding something to complain about. This new and improved DB was a little unnerving.

As they drew closer to the city, familiar landmarks began to appear.

‘Look!' squealed DB. ‘There's Big Ben!'

Oz craned his neck for a better view of the enormous clock tower atop the Houses of Parliament. Luigi Levinson smiled. ‘Excited, kids?'

Oz and DB both nodded.

‘We'll get some breakfast at the hotel, then go exploring,' Oz's father promised. ‘I think the folks at the Royal Opera have some kind of tour planned for us while your mother is in rehearsal.'

‘I can't wait to see the Crown Jewels!' said DB. ‘Do you think we could go there first?'

Oz grunted. DB hadn't shut up about the Crown Jewels since leaving Washington. ‘What's so special about a bunch of jewellery?'

DB gaped at him. ‘Oz, this is hardly “a bunch of jewellery”,' she snapped, sounding much more like her usual self. She flipped open a guidebook and thrust it under his nose. ‘We're talking crowns worn by centuries of kings and queens here. We're talking
diamonds and sapphires and rubies bigger than you-know-who.' She gave a significant nod towards the small lump nestled in Oz's shirt pocket. ‘Plus, they're kept in the Tower of London, where they used to chop people's heads off.'

Oz shrugged. ‘I guess I wouldn't mind seeing that,' he said grudgingly. Personally, he was looking forward to the James Bond walking tour. He'd read about it in one of his mother's guidebooks. London was Agent 007's home base.

Crown jewels, castles, walking tours – whatever they did, London was going to be great, Oz thought happily. After all, London was 3,000 miles away from Washington DC, and Chester B. Arthur Elementary School. London was 3,000 miles away from the sharks.

That's what Oz called the bullies at his school – including Jordan Scott and Sherman ‘Tank' Wilson, a pair of sixth-formers who lived to torment younger and weaker kids like himself. And now he'd left them far, far behind.