The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy (4 page)

BOOK: The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy
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They sat sniffing and chewing for a while before Daniel suddenly exclaimed, ‘What’s that?’ He pointed with his finger. They all looked at his finger and Amy told him that it was a bogey, but Whatshisname jumped up and licked it off before anyone else could.

‘No, that!’ said Daniel quite crossly. He was pointing at a hedge with a gap in it.

‘It’s a gap in a hedge,’ said Betty. ‘That’s a little bit strange.’

They all went over to the gap in the hedge and looked through it. There, through the gap in the hedge, they could see another hedge!

‘I don’t like this,’ said Amy, who obviously didn’t like it. ‘It’s too spooky. I want to join another story.’

Then, without much warning, Whatshisname ran off through the gap in the hedge. ‘Woof woof woof,’ he barked as he ran, which was a jolly good trick. His ample backside disappeared from view.

‘Let’s leave him and go. Stupid dog. I never liked him anyway,’ said Amy, rather grumpily. ‘He was fat and smelled of pineapple and creosote.’

‘Look!’ said Daniel, ignoring her because he rather liked the heady combination of pineapple and creosote. ‘Through the gap in the hedge! If you look carefully through the gap and then through a handy gap in the other hedge, you can see a big spooky house with green tiles! Gosh, it must be Greentiles! What a bit of luck!’

‘Erm . . . those tiles aren’t green. They’re blue,’ said Betty, squinting at the blue tiles.

‘No, they’re green,’ said Ricky, staring at the green tiles.

‘I think they’re blue, too,’ said Amy. They all stood there arguing about it for a very long time. Eventually they agreed on a negotiated settlement – the tiles were greenish-blue, although Amy, deep down, preferred bluish-green. Then they secretly and stealthily
crept on all fours alongside the hedge, followed by Whatshisname who, having mysteriously re-appeared without any satisfactory explanation and with total disregard for a structured plot progression, padded behind them and was now busy admiring Daniel’s firm young buttocks.

Whatshisname had actually been listening from afar to the blue / green argument, and had pondered mournfully about humans and their perception of colour. Although he was a big fan of Galileo, whom he thought was one of the great non-canine thinkers, he had his doubts about the theory that colour and sound only exist in the mind of the observer. Take away the observer, dog or human, and colour and sound don’t exist. If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no dog there to hear it, does it make a sound? He thought not. And, here’s another thought, what if he were in the forest, beneath that tree, and the tree didn’t know he was there so it didn’t make a sound as it fell, he’d be in mortal danger! But then again, he thought, he’d have to not be there to not hear it, so perhaps his not being there had saved his life! Phew! That was a close one. But, hang on, if he wasn’t there, he wouldn’t hear it . . . hmmm, this was getting complicated. To be safe, he’d avoid not being in a forest in future, so that he wouldn’t not hear a tree falling on him. That seemed like a plan. This perception of the existence of sound and colour is worth more of a ponder, he thought.

He stared up at the tiles. Definitely blue. Definitely. He sat down, looked away and closed his eyes. Of course, the tiles must no longer be blue. Dare he take a peek to check? He turned his head slightly and opened one eye just a fraction. Damn it, they’d turned blue again. He closed the eye and quickly reopened it. Blue again! Those tiles were far too smart for him, he decided. He noticed through the one eye that the children were now all standing and looking strangely at him. He opened the other eye. What’s up with them?

‘Is he all right?’ asked Amy, staring closely at Whatshisname.

Betty frowned. ‘He goes like this sometimes. It’s as though he’s thinking, but that’s just not possible. He’s only a dog, after all.’

Only a dog! Whatshisname stood and glared at Betty. Only a dog indeed. He’d show them. He lifted his tail and joyfully released a loud burst of hell-gas, adding another olfactory quality to accompany the pineapple and creosote.

‘Ugh!’ squealed Amy, wrinkling her nose and backing away. ‘What a nasty dog!’

Oh
yes
, Whatshisname thought, they got that all right.
That
sound and smell obviously exists. Much more tangible results than the colour experiment. Yesss! He trotted away, wagging his tail in order to spread his joy more widely.

After a bout of wafting and nose wrinkling, the children reached the gate to the house. They stood and read a nameplate on the gate. They gasped a silent yet meaningful gasp. The nameplate said
Greenishbluetiles
and, at the bottom, it said
End of chapter alert
.

‘That’s good,’ said Betty.

‘Yes, that’s good,’ agreed Amy, not really understanding whether it was or not.

‘Except it’s the wrong house,’ Ricky said.

‘Oh, bother,’ said Betty.

‘Oh, bother,’ said Daniel, a bit upset that Betty had thought to say it before he did. He was becoming quite grumpy because she was always stealing his best lines.

‘Let’s go on for a bit,’ Ricky suggested. ‘We might find a tea shop.’

Unaided, they all started to walk down into the village. But, extremely suddenly, they heard a big roar and a big rumble that shook the very ground under their very feet! Wisely, their very feet stopped walking. Whatshisname ran up to them. He started to whine and whimper. And so did Daniel. Our pals were all terrified! Absolutely terrified!

Chapter Four

In which they discover Greentiles; they meet a weird and highly irritating old woman; they find that their cover has been blown and decide that they should reconsider the suitability of the name The Secret Five; they hear about Uncle Quagmire’s secret mission; great, the kettle’s boiling.

To be honest, they weren’t absolutely terrified at all. In fact, they were quite happy that they had been well prepared for the chapter break. They did, however, whimper a bit when, out of a driveway ahead of them, a big red truck pulled out and drove slowly up the lane towards them. They squeezed themselves against a surprisingly damp dry stone wall as the truck roared and rumbled past them. It had big letters on the side which read
Mysterious Red Truck with Very Suspicious and Evil-Looking Driver.
On the back it read
Am I being driven well? If not, telephone 029880 993123 or stop evil-looking driver and tell him personally.

‘Did you
see
the driver?’ asked Betty when it had disappeared out of sight. ‘He looked very suspicious and evil if you ask me.’

‘Right. What did the driver look like, Betty?’ asked Ricky, helpfully.

‘Very suspicious and evil,’ said Betty. ‘And thank you, Ricky.’

‘That was spooky, wasn’t it?’ said Daniel. ‘But look! The driveway that the truck came out of. The house at the end of it has
green
tiles and it also looks very spooky and it hasn’t got a white uPVC conservatory! You don’t think that’s where Uncle Quagmire is staying, do you?’

‘Good thinking, Daniel. You’re not as stupid as we all think you are! Let’s go and explore,’ said Betty, and they all scampered
down the lane then stood in a line at the end of the driveway, looking intently at the house.

‘It
has
got green tiles,’ said Ricky. ‘Shall we go in?’

‘Yes, let’s,’ said Betty.

Blow it, thought Daniel, she’s got to a good line first again. He was going to say
yes let’s
. This was really getting too much.

Gingerly and secretly they walked backwards up the driveway, so that they wouldn’t see anyone who might see them. When they reached the house, they turned and saw a big sign on the door –
NO Vegetarian Fundamentalists, NO Children Seeking An Adventure, NO Tupperware Salesmen (unless those handy cereal dispensers are on offer).

They all gasped with intense disappointment, except Whatshisname whose interpretation of intense disappointment had dramatically changed during the surprise outing to the vet’s.

‘Bother!’ exclaimed Ricky. ‘Is that the end of our adventure, do you think?’

Whatshisname perked up and willed Betty to say yes.
Please
say yes. Pretty please?

‘Why, no!’ said Betty quite enthusiastically. ‘Let’s all go round the back. There might not be a notice on the back door.’

‘Splendid idea!’ said Daniel, who sometimes felt quite proud of his sister’s quick thinking under pressure and her occasional attempts at making macramé plant holders.

So, in single file, they went round the side of the house, as they had to do that to get to the back. Whatshisname trotted and pattered after them, eager to do some trotting and pattering at last, as he had been told that dogs in stories often trot and patter about and he did not want to be seen as a dog that couldn’t trot and patter when the situation called for it.

They all reached the back door more or less at the same time. Betty pointed at it. ‘Look! There’s no notice here! Let’s explore! Go on, Ricky, open the door.’

Ricky slowly turned the door knob with one of his free hands
and carefully pushed the door open. It creaked and creaked. Then, astonishingly, it creaked some more! They waited patiently, glancing at their wrist watches, until it had stopped all the creaking and, gingerly, almost
too
gingerly, they crept inside. They found themselves in a big spooky hallway with big spooky stairs going up to somewhere or other.

‘Well, do you think that we were being
too
gingerly?’ Amy whispered to the others. They all nodded their own heads up and down in agreement, but then decided to be slightly less gingerly in future to avoid any more authorial accusations of overgingerliness.

At that moment, or it might have been the moment immediately before, or even after, a figure suddenly appeared in the big spooky hallway! It was a ghostly apparition with a long white robe, ragged grey hair, and skin as grey as the grey of a reasonably grey thing. It seemed to float towards them, making a
oooooh
sound. They all stepped back warily, their faces quite pallid, except for Whatshisname who bravely trotted forward, his tail wagging and his face a fat spaniel colour.

The figure ooooohed again. ‘Oooooh! Issa doggay!’ it said, and bent down to stroke Whatshisname, who wagged and wagged his tail at the back, and growled and growled at the front, proof positive that he was two written-off small dogs welded together to make one fat one.

‘Phew!’ said Ricky. ‘It’s only an old lady.’

And it was indeed only an old lady, a haggish old lady, still with that ragged hair and skin as grey as the grey of the grey thing we mentioned before. But it seemed that she was not pleased at being called an old lady. Not pleased at all.

‘Ole lady?’ the old lady yelled. ‘Ha! I ay chuffed at bin called an ole lady
1
!’

‘I don’t think,’ muttered Daniel to the others, ‘that she’s pleased about being called an old lady.’

‘Any road up
2
, what am yow kids doin’ ‘ear?’ the old lady yelled in some strange Midlands dialect.

The children cowered quite a lot.

‘Oy, yow!’ the old lady said, pointing at Betty’s chest. ‘Yes, yow! What am them? Them big boobies? Tek yer eye out, them ’ud. Them cor
3
be real. Blimey, Bab
4
!’

Betty looked down at her chest. In fact, everyone looked at Betty’s chest, even Whatshisname, who sat at Betty’s feet and looked up at one, then the other, then back again several times, as though he were at a Wimbledon final.

‘I can’t help it!’ Betty said, clutching her hands to her chest. ‘Stop looking, everybody!’

‘She can’t help it!’ said Ricky to the old lady. ‘Don’t look, you’re not a member! Leave them alone, she can’t help it. Anyway, what sort of silly dialect is that, you old hag?’

‘Ole ’ag?’ the old hag cried, taking up a position that conveyed minor indignation. ‘Oyl ’ave yow know, om fram Doodlay near Wullvramtunn, Black Countray born an’ bred, an’ oy bin at the Greentoiles Sunset ’ome for The Terminally Biwildered for sum toime, an’ no-wun,
no-wun
, ’as ever called me an ole ’ag!’

‘Really?’ said Ricky, frowning. ‘Are you sure? It seems so appropriate. Anyway, I don’t really think we can all keep up with your rather silly dialect for long.’

‘That’s true. Is there any chance you could tone it down a bit?’ asked Betty.

The old hag looked pensive, scratching her haggish chin with her haggish finger. ‘Oy s’pose . . . I suppose I could drop it if it’s too
much. I was finding it hard to follow myself. But I was quite looking forward to being mysteriously indecipherable as well.’ She looked disappointed. ‘All those hours listening to Noddy, wasted! Ha!’

‘Noddy?’ queried Betty. ‘
The
Noddy? Toytown and Big Ears Noddy?’

‘Ha!’ harred the old hag. ‘No, silly big-chested girl. Noddy Holder! He’s
the
Noddy, stupid child. Remember Slade? Eh? The four piece glam rock combo?’ The old hag wiggled her haggish hips. ‘Cum on feel the noize!’

The children looked at each other and seriously thought about frowning, or calling for a nurse or two.

‘Ha!’ the old hag said. ‘Wasted on you kids, ain’t it? But maybe I could use the dialect occasionally, for dramatic effect, to save wasting it altogether? I could say
bostin!
now and again. Is that all right?’

The children reluctantly agreed, and the old hag once again took up a position that conveyed minor indignation, but this time it was bordering on major. ‘Ha!’ she said. ‘I’ve never been called an old hag!
Never!
Well, thinking about it, maybe a few times, but
never ever
by a bunch of no-hopers like you lot!’

‘No-hopers?’ exclaimed Daniel. ‘Cheek! I’ll have you know that we are the famous Secret Five!’

The old lady, startled, looked at them through her very own haggish eyes, then shrieked a shriek that rang around the hallway, up the stairs, in and out of a handy broom cupboard and back down the stairs again. The children politely waited for it to return. When it did, Ricky was the first to speak.

BOOK: The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy
3.99Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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