Spyforce Revealed (3 page)

I got one too! It just arrived. A secure file. Is it really about a Spyforce meeting? What do you think they want to talk to us about? Do you think they want to send us on a mission? What are we going to tell them? How are we going to get there? This is going to be the wildest thing ever!

 

Max read Linden's reply three times and each time her eyes got wider and wider as the truth sank in. The first email was from Spyforce! What did they want? Max and Linden hadn't heard from them since the end of last summer when they received a telegram thanking them for their help in uncovering Blue's crooked scheme. Maybe they wanted help with a secret mission. Maybe the world was in great danger and only they, Linden and Max, could save it. Whatever it was, Max was ready. And no matter what it took, she'd get to that meeting on 20 April.

Her heart beat against her chest like it suddenly didn't have enough room to keep beating. She thought about what to say in her reply. About how she was poised on the brink of possibly the most important meeting she'd ever have in her life. About how she'd probably offended a member of Spyforce. About how if only she could keep her big mouth shut …

‘Ha ha ha.'

The laughter from downstairs cackled around her room like a squawking crow had been let loose
near Max's head. It was full of coy, girlish giggling and macho try-hard bellowing that sunk into Max's shoulders like quick-drying glue, cementing them into what felt like hardened armour. She looked towards the door, wishing the laugh back downstairs and out of her life. She didn't care how much her mother was trying to impress fashion boy, she wasn't fooled one bit by his smarmy ways. He was as interesting as dry grass on a hot day and if her mother couldn't see it then she was in desperate need of a major spring clean of her senses.

Max put on her headphones and wrote back to Spyforce.

 

From Max Remy

 

She then emailed Linden and said she'd accepted the invitation for both of them and would get in touch when she heard more.

And this time she knew how to sign off.

 

From Max Remy, Superspy.

Sometimes life has an annoying way of trying to be as difficult as possible and Max was just about to be landed in the middle of one of those times. Hoping for a quiet, painless day at school with as little to do with the other students as possible, she arrived the next day as the fire siren was screeching around the schoolyard like a sick rooster gone mad.

‘Brrurrp! Brrurrp! Brrurrp!'

‘Great. A fire drill,' she mumbled to herself as she walked through the school gate. She saw two teachers race out of the staffroom with bright yellow fire hats that kept falling down over their eyes. One teacher was looking through the fire manual trying to work out which exit she was supposed to direct the students through to escape the imaginary fire that was engulfing their school. If it was up to Max, she'd let the whole place go up in a huge technicolour bonfire that all the fire manuals in the world wouldn't be able to stop.

‘Just what we need,' she said under her breath. ‘To be herded around like cattle while the fire wardens, who just five minutes ago were ordinary teachers, direct us to who knows where as the sun beats down making sure we get a good dose of UV rays and my life flashes before my eyes in one giant wasted blur.'

‘Talking to yourself, Max? You know that's one of the first signs of madness. Any day now you'll start seeing your very own imaginary friend.'

Toby Jennings. Of course. When days started badly, you could pretty much guarantee he'd be there to make sure it got even worse. Max was never in the mood for Toby and today was no different.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, determined not to let him get away with being a jerk. ‘You must have mistaken me for someone who actually cares about what you have to say.'

‘Now, Max. I'm just worried about your welfare,' said Toby in his best fake sympathetic voice. ‘That's why I've organised this little outing, so you and I can share some quality time together.'

So Toby had set off the fire alarm. She should have guessed it was him. Being in school was bad enough, but at least in class she could be distracted from the world of losers she was surrounded by with her books and computers. Why couldn't Toby find someone else whose life he could make miserable?

‘My welfare would be a whole lot better if I didn't have to share this planet with you.' Max flicked her head back and walked towards the fire warden who was directing students across the
street. Why, she wondered, did her life at Hollingdale seem like some terrible and mysterious punishment for a crime she never committed?

Despite doing her best to get rid of him, Toby followed closely behind Max, eager to get in another jab of his brain-dead wit. But he didn't have to. As Max reached the fire safety area, she tripped up the curb and fell face forward onto the grass in front of the entire school. She covered her head as the contents of her bag flew into the air before raining down on top of her. Now this alone would have been embarrassing enough, but Max had fallen near a leaking hose which had turned the surrounding grass into a kind of lumpy, green and brown milkshake. Max lay in the oozing mess with her eyes closed, knowing no matter how she looked, it wasn't going to be pretty.

As the first peels of laughter drowned out the fire siren, she opened her eyes and things instantly got worse. Worse than she ever could have imagined.

Toby had found her Spyforce book and was getting ready to read it out loud.

‘Well, well, well. What have we got here?' he announced to the audience of laughing faces that were gathering around him.

Max wiped mud from her face and said in as threatening a voice as she could, ‘Give me that book now.'

‘Now Max,' Toby said in a sarcastic voice that made her want to scream. ‘You and I both know that's not going to happen. Remember? I'm the bad guy and you're the one who I have to pick on. That's the beauty of our relationship — it's so simple.'

Max could feel the anger inside her heating up like a stick of dynamite about to explode. She imagined herself on the end of a giant plunger, loading Toby headfirst into a cannon that would send him all the way to the other side of Australia in one soaring blast.

‘Now where were we?' he asked the kids standing near him who were happy to be entertained during something that was usually really boring. ‘I know, I was just about to read something from Max's secret spy book.'

Max cringed as she lay in the mud. A wall of legs and feet gathered closely around so that none of the teachers could see her, penning her in and making it impossible for her to get up.

Toby began to read like he was a narrator at a very bad and overacted school play.

 

The rope dug into Max's and Linden's wrists as they were tied to the suspension bridge high above the vat of slimy, green jelly. The evil Mr Blue's laughter rang out around the chrome-grey room as he told them of their fate. A slow, sticky doom awaited them and if they didn't give him the secret code to the Time and Space Machine, they would find themselves on the night's menu as dessert. Would this be the end of Max Remy, Superspy? Would Spyforce, the secret spy organisation she worked for, be able to save her? Would she be able to thwart the sinister plans of the evil Mr Blue? Would the world be forever doomed to live without her?

 

‘Oh no!' Toby stopped reading from the book and looked around him, getting more melodramatic by the second. ‘This is terrible! What are we going to do? The world won't cope without Max Remy …' and the next part he said like he was enjoying every syllable, ‘Su-per-spy.'

Never before in her life had Max so badly wanted to disappear. She wished now she had her uncle's Matter Transporter control panel, so she could zap herself as far away as possible from the crush of faces leaning in and laughing. Some of the kids were laughing so hard they were crying. Others
had to hold their stomachs from laughing so much.

‘I hope lying in the mud wasn't your secret weapon for outwitting the evil Mr Blue?' asked Toby like nothing was ever going to shut him up. ‘Because I can give you a hint, it's not going to work.'

He relished the laughter that swirled around them like a whirlpool and made him feel as though he was leader of the world. He got ready to read another piece. Max watched him turn the pages and knew she had to get the book off him fast. She lunged forward from where she lay and grabbed the book at the top and bottom. Toby held onto the sides and pulled it back towards him. Max wasn't going to let go until she had her book back and was surprised at how strong her anger made her feel.

‘Give it back!' Her teeth were clenched as she pulled the book towards her.

‘No! Not until I've read out a bit more of your amazing spy adventures,' he wheezed as he tugged the book against his chest.

That was when Max found herself doing something she'd never done before. She hadn't even had time to think about it before she realised she was surrounded by excited faces screaming, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!'

Mr Fayoud pushed his way through the students and pulled Max off Toby.

‘And just what is it you think you're doing?' he shouted. His face was twisted into a purplish mix of anger and shock.

Max looked at Mr Fayoud's oversized face leaning into her and knew she had no explanation. She rubbed her hands together which seconds before had been around Toby's neck. This time she was in for it. She was never going to be able to explain what she'd done. She could hardly explain it to herself.

Toby ran his hands over the deep red marks on his neck.

‘I don't know what I did, sir,' he said, putting on his best pathetic act. ‘One minute I was standing here obeying the fire drill, the next she tried to strangle me.'

Max's mouth fell open. She looked at Toby and then down at her book. The cover had been torn off in the fight and was lying in the mud.

‘You two can both go to Ms Peasley's office. I'm sure she'll have a few things to say to the pair of you about bullying and violence. As for the rest of you, the fire drill is over. Form two lines and follow your fire warden back to your classes.'

There was a general moan of disappointment as everyone realised this was probably as exciting as the day was going to get. Mr Fayoud walked behind Max and Toby as they made their way to Ms Peasley's office. That was never a great experience, mostly due to the floral wall hangings she painted herself out of a cheap monthly magazine. The place was full of them and other puke-inducing stuff like embroidered signs that said, ‘A school that learns together loves together', and cushions on an old lounge that were shaped as love hearts. The entire place should have been condemned as a health risk for having so much phoney love it could choke someone.

Either way, being marched to the principal's office was never a good thing no matter how much stuff it had in it. Max held her breath and prepared herself for the worst.

Alex Crane took a deep breath as she faced one of the most fearsome monsters of her life. It writhed before her like a hungry ogre, ready to feast on anything in its sight. Only this was no ordinary, foul-smelling ogre but the two-headed perfumed princess of the fabled land of Taraxakum, which, like Atlantis, was believed to be completely mythical. That is until Spyforce uncovered a time slip that had for centuries kept Taraxakum hidden from the world and which the fragrant princess was using to steal precious energy reserves to power her overly aromatic land.

Taraxakum was once a prosperous land but when the princess ascended to the throne after her father had been eaten by a freakishly big fly, she declared that all the land's energy be employed in the making of perfumes that would be sprayed across the land in a constant sprinkle of delicate rain. Even the simplest of Taraxakumanians could see that the princess was missing a couple of floors in the brain department, but as she was the ruler, her orders were to be obeyed. This soon resulted in the running down of the economy and an extraordinary oversupply of sweet-smelling stuff. She also decreed other ludicrous laws. Flowers were to be strewn at ten-minute intervals throughout the
capital and she had three Taraxakumanians with her at all times to throw rose petals at her feet so she walked across an unending bed of colourful scents. Slogans were to be written across the sky reminding people to love each other. Schmaltzy, hideous, idiotic, mind-numbing, trashy

‘Max, are you listening to me?'

Max had been doing her best to avoid listening to Ms Peasley for the last twenty minutes by thinking about another Alex Crane adventure. Why couldn't she just disappear into Alex's world forever? She was sure she wouldn't be missed and life would be a lot more pleasant than it was right now.

And it was about to get much worse.

‘Yes Ms Peasley.' She frowned, trying to look like she'd heard every word.

Being in Ms Peasley's office was as painful as Max expected. Toby stood next to her in front of the flower-filled desk, rubbing his neck and acting in pain and as innocent as he could. There was a small trickle of blood from a scratch on his brow but apart from that Max was sure Toby had never felt better in his life. Especially now that she was in such trouble.

She couldn't tell what was more annoying,
Toby's lame attempt at acting or Ms Peasley's speech about how ‘the world is a place full of strife and turmoil and how it was up to each and every one of us to do our part to fill it with love'. She said lots of other pukey stuff too that sounded like it came straight out of one of those corny self-help books displayed at supermarket checkouts. Books like,
How to Make the World a Better Place in 10 Easy Steps
. Max tried not to listen to most of it for fear her brain would seize up in protest and never want to work again.

After the positive-guide-to-life sermon was over, Max was sent to sit in the corridor and did her best to block out Ms Peasley's sugar-sweet voice that was still ringing in her ears like a lovesick mosquito. She was picking a piece of dried mud from her hair when through the congealed strands she saw her mother marching down the corridor towards her to pick her up. And to see Ms Peasley so they could have ‘a word about Max's behaviour'.

The way her mother's footsteps echoed off the walls, it wouldn't have taken a genius to see she wasn't happy. From the other end of the corridor she looked quite small, but each footstep made sure that soon she'd be towering over Max like a crazed giant with a sore head.

Max looked above her at the Gold Clock of Peace (it was actually called that) hanging from the ceiling by gold tinsel and realised class was just about to finish. This was going to be embarrassing. Not only because the whole school was going to witness Max's mother in one of her tirades but because that same mother was being followed by Aidan! Now everyone was going to know her mum was going out with someone who was young enough to be her son!

Why does everything in my life have to be so hard? thought Max, and almost in answer to her question, the school chime echoed around them like an invisible, cloud-like cotton ball bouncing against the walls.

‘Great,' Max whispered into her muddy uniform.

As the corridor filled with the multitude of arms, legs and eyes that poured out of every class like a volcano, the once small image of her mother now loomed over her like a huge storm cloud about to burst.

Which it soon did.

‘Have you anything to say for yourself for having me dragged away from a very important lunch so that I can spend my time listening to how you've been misbehaving?'

The excited titters of the other kids flew around Max like sparks from fireworks. This was going to be even better than they expected.

Max's mother stared at her with eyes so wide they looked like two bugs under a magnifying glass. Aidan finally caught up to Max's mother and stood like a stuffed dummy behind her. Max sunk as low as she could onto the bench wishing she could disappear into the polished wood as her mother's dressing-down was only just getting started.

‘And why every time I come to pick you up from school do you seem to be covered from head to toe with slime or mud or some other repulsive goo?'

What was Max supposed to say to that? She'd had a few ‘accidents' with slimy substances in the past. Nothing out of the ordinary though, and besides, even if she tried to defend herself, her mother wouldn't listen. She wouldn't have wanted to know about how Max had fallen into the mud or how Toby had stolen her book and humiliated her by reading her secret story to the whole school. She could have been kidnapped by a pack of sumo wrestlers in front of a hundred witnesses and it still would have been Max's fault. No excuse was ever good enough for having dragged her mother away from work.

Max looked at her mother's new exclusive salon haircut and expensive designer suit as she stood there waiting for an answer. What she wanted to say was, ‘Stop yelling at me in front of everyone. Don't you know how embarrassing it is? And what is
he
doing here? Only family members are supposed to come and pick kids up from school. You spend more time with him than me and if it wasn't for Ms Peasley calling you to school you wouldn't have spent more than ten minutes with me all week.'

But what she ended up saying was, ‘I don't know.'

From the look on her mother's face, Max knew this wasn't the right answer and that she was in even more trouble than she was before.

‘If you think for one minute that is any kind of reasonable explanation for your behaviour, young lady, then we'll see how the next week without television alters that opinion of yours. Now wait here while I see what Ms Peasley has to say about you.'

Max wanted to warn her to sneak away before old Peasers had a chance to sprout her hippie love babble all over her, but just then the door opened and Max's mother's already over-big eyes nearly
rocketed out of her head when she saw a sore-looking and very bandaged Toby come out with Ms Peasley. Toby was gently sent on his way with Peasers cooing all over him before Max's mum and Aidan were invited inside.

Phew, thought Max, relieved to have a break from her mother's flip-out, but before the principal's door closed, her mother leant down and whispered, ‘Make that two weeks without television!'

Toby was instantly surrounded by kids wanting to see his bandage and hear what Peasers had said. Others were role-playing the goggle-eyed frenzy of Max's mum and only just managing to stand up at how funny they were. The sounds swirled around Max like she'd been dumped in a cement mixer on maximum speed.

After what felt like an hour, Max's mother came out. She took a hanky from her purse, dabbed her cheeks and with barely a look towards Max said, ‘Come with me.'

The words sounded innocent enough, but as Max peeled herself off the bench, she knew they meant big trouble.

The corridor that day seemed longer than it ever had been as Max followed her enraged mother and a quiet Aidan outside. She thought about her
punishment and the fact that she'd only have to wear it for a few days as the Easter holidays were coming up. This meant she was only days away from escaping the smirking faces of the kids she was passing, escaping her mud-splattered life and most of all, escaping her mother.

Max had been invited back to Ben and Eleanor's farm and the holidays couldn't come soon enough.