The Secret Five and the Stunt Nun Legacy (9 page)

Betty folded her arms across her chest. ‘Why me?’ she asked.

‘Erm . . .’ Amy ermed, ‘what if we forget the splitting, and all stick together.’

‘Good idea,’ said Betty. ‘Come on! Stick together then follow me! And remember, no sidling!’

‘Oh yes, like I’m going to sidle again,’ smirked Ricky.

‘Ricky!’ snapped Betty. ‘Was that irony? Hmm? Please tell me it wasn’t irony.’

‘Ironing?’ frowned Ricky.

‘Yes, she definitely said ironing,’ confirmed Amy.

‘No,
irony
,’ said Betty. ‘You know we don’t do
irony
! Get a grip! This isn’t Jane Austen! For crying out loud! Next thing, it’ll be satire and antiphrasis!’

‘Aunty who?’ Amy asked. ‘Does she do all the ironing then?’

Betty sighed. ‘Antiphrasis. Oh, never mind.’

Ricky was still very upset about the sidling / no sidling incident, and now even more upset about the accusation of indiscriminate ironing, but he thought that finding some food was far more important than having another sidling / ironing debate, whatever sidling meant, so he didn’t say anything.

Relentlessly, Betty started to creep down the moderately gloomy corridor. Then she stopped and beckoned for the others to follow her, which they did, even Whatshisname, who was keen not to be left out of any corridor creeping activity. As they passed each moderately gloomy doorway they gathered together mid-creep and discussed whether it might be the Very Very Secret Room. The corridors were getting gloomier and gloomier. The children were becoming quite tired with the effort of all this gloomy corridor creeping. Just as Betty was about to suggest an official meeting to discuss whether it was getting too gloomy for effective creeping, she started and stopped.

‘Look!’ she exclaimed. ‘The sign on that door!’

She pointed to a sign on a door and waited patiently for the end-of-chapter exclamation mark to appear!

In which Ricky has had just about enough; Old Hag reappears but may, or may not, go into a trance; Whatshisname sniffs; there is a bit of a kerfuffle with a time machine and generally things get moving at long last; maybe the book’s not such a bad purchase after all; then again, perhaps it is.

‘I’m quitting this story!’ squeaked Ricky, quite irritably for someone of his height and hair colour. ‘I’m off!’

‘Off? Don’t be silly, Ricky,’ said Betty. ‘Why?’

‘Why?’ Ricky exploded. ‘
Why?
’ he asked again, but this time in italics, which he thought would be much
much
more effective. ‘I’ll tell you
why
! There goes yet another chapter break without sufficient warning, that’s
why
! If I’d known, I could have gone off to the toilet, or gone foraging for treacle tarts, or gone for a smoke . . . no, sorry, delete that last bit . . . but can you see my point? We’re being treated as second class characters here! And I’m not standing for it! I’m walking! I’m quitting. For good!’

‘What?’ said Betty. ‘You can’t quit! We’re The Secret . . . erm, The Palpable Five – or is it Six – in the middle of an exciting adventure! If you quit we’ll be The Secret . . . The Palpable Four, or Five, again. We’d need to advertise for another Ricky, and then go through the process of interviewing the candidates. All those CVs! It’d be such a hassle.’

‘Tough luck! And yes I
can
quit,’ yelled Ricky. ‘I’ve had enough of all this sub-standard treatment
and
Daniel’s stupid urban street talk
and
Amy’s stupid girlyness
and
being accused of sidling and ironing
and
being called tremendously ugly
and
you let me miss all the stuff about privileges. Jennifer Lopez of all people! And as for you, Betty, I’ve had enough of your bossiness and your
post-adolescent boobs . . . well, actually, I’ve just had enough of your bossiness, okay? Whatever, I’m off!’

‘No, Cuz, dis am dred!’ said Daniel. ‘Am yo trippin, Cuz? Don’ be a fudge, like, innit!’

Betty nodded to Amy, who turned round and slapped Daniel quite hard.

‘Ouch,’ exclaimed Daniel. ‘Hmmm, that’s much better. Thank you Amy. Where are we?’ He felt his face. Blow! No spectacles yet.

They all watched as Ricky stalked off very grumpily down the moderately gloomy corridor.

‘But Ricky!’ Betty called, pointing her finger at the door. ‘Please stop stalking off very grumpily and come back! This is the room! Right here!’

‘But it says
Butler’s Bedroom
!’ whispered Amy.

‘No, above that old faded Victorian sign,’ said Betty. ‘There! It says
The Very Very Secret Room.
Ricky, come back! Don’t you want to rescue your Uncle Quagmire? Let’s have a meeting about it, at least! We could arrange an anger management course for you!’

‘Oh, no!’ called Ricky over his favourite shoulder. ‘I’m off, stalking and sidling and ironing out of here. I’m gone. History! Byeeee!’ And with that, he disappeared round a moderately gloomy corner and was gone, possibly and hopefully forever
¹
.

‘Isn’t this a problem for our adventure?’ moaned Amy in a rather soppy voice. ‘We’re now The Secret Four.’

‘Woof woof woof,’ said Whatshisname, slightly sorrowfully but really hopeful that the adventure might end here and now due to a significant deficiency in the quota of available adventurers.

‘Actually,’ said Daniel, now quite recovered after the slapping,
‘I think we’re The Palpable Eight at the moment, if you count Uncle Quagmire and the medium-sized man with the spare head and the Old Hag . . .’

‘You mentioned me?’ said a voice from behind them. There, at the end of the voice, stood the Old Hag! The children decided to gasp yet again. And well they might, for she had changed out of her long white nightgownie thing and was now clad in an orange and purple Lycra tracksuit, lime-green cardigan, dark glasses perched on her wrinkly old nose and the same old West Bromwich Albion bobble hat on her rather old grey head.

‘When? How? Where?’ spluttered Amy.

‘There she goes again with her spluttering adverbs,’ said Old Hag who, as a result of her relentless crusade to become a major character, had now gained capital letters and lost her definite article.

‘Where did you come from?’ asked Betty. ‘And what
are
you wearing?’

‘Ha! You think I’m yampy? I followed you!’ cackled Old Hag. ‘Did you think I wasn’t going to take full advantage of my Secret Five membership? Ha! And again I cackle, ha!’

‘Ricky!’ Amy called down the corridor. ‘Come back! We’ll let you sidle all you want to!’

‘Ha! Rocky’s buzzed off, and you’ve got
me
now!’ said Old Hag. ‘Anyway, did I overhear you fretting about chapter breaks? Listen, I have the ear of you-know-who, you know, and I can see to all that stuff.’ Then she added, a little too furtively, ‘I’m old, you know.’

‘Ricky!’ the three children called. ‘
Please
come back!’

‘Woof woof woof!’ called Whatshisname.

But Ricky had gone, disappeared right out of their lives. They stared down the corridor, expecting him to come back, but he didn’t. After a while, they stopped all the staring as it was making the inside of their eyes ache. Even though their lifelong pal Ricky had only been gone a few seconds, and absence is supposed to
make the heart grow fonder, everyone found that they didn’t miss him at all and their super adventure could carry on just as well without him, probably with lower operating costs, thus increasing efficiency which would show itself in greater bottom line profits.

But before Betty could initiate a vigorous fiscal debate, they heard some distant voices. Someone was coming!

‘I hear distant voices,’ said Betty, quite unnecessarily.

‘And me!’ whispered Amy. ‘Quiet everyone!’

‘Woof woof woof,’ whispered Whatshisname.

‘Let’s go into the Very Very Secret Room!’ whispered Betty. ‘That will get us away from the distant voices. Old Hag, you stay out here and get caught and then ruthlessly tortured. We don’t want you messing up our super adventure.’

But Old Hag had other ideas. One was to open up a while-u-wait hairdressing salon for gay or undecided pensioners, if she could get the initial capital outlay, and another was to start up a home collection service of the unwanted dust from vacuum cleaner bags and sell it on to organic muesli manufacturers.

‘Ha! But oy knows mower – sorry, I know more about your Uncle Quagmire’s secret mission than I let on!’ said Old Hag. ‘So, I’m coming with you. Dandy, or whatever your name is, go and open the door, and don’t make it too gingerly.’

Daniel didn’t take too kindly to being called Dandy and having limits set to his level of gingerliness by a colour-blind old hag in a gaudy tracksuit but, after a bit of reluctant shrugging, he carefully yet diligently opened the door and stepped inside. No-one else was in the room! Except, of course, Daniel.

‘There’s no-one in here . . . except me,’ Daniel said, infuriatingly telling us what we already know. ‘I did wonder if Uncle Quagmire would still be here.’

Cautiously, they followed him into the Very Very Secret Room. Whatshisname sniffed around the room, as he knew that that sort of behaviour is perfectly acceptable for dogs, but not for humans, although on a literary note he did feel somewhat uncomfortable
with two adjacent
thats
and thought that
that that
sounded really silly.

‘Ha! There’s the time machine!’ said Old Hag, uncertainly pointing one of her wavering hag fingers at something in the room. The children looked around. All they could see was a king-sized bed with Queen Anne legs, a wardrobe with Prince Charles legs, an electronic alarm clock showing 1964, and a set of drums complete with cymbals and a handy used earplug rinse bowl. Nothing unusual there, then.

‘What?’ asked Betty.

‘Where?’ asked Amy.

‘Which?’ asked Daniel.

‘Woof?’ said Whatshisname.

‘You really must stop all that stuff,’ said Old Hag. ‘It’s so irritating.’

‘Then tell us about the time machine,’ demanded Betty. ‘Tell us, or we’ll withdraw your membership of The Secret Five . . . Four . . . Eight . . . whatever.’

‘Ha! You can’t!’ cackled Old Hag. ‘Once a member, always a member. A bit like Reader’s Digest and Facebook.’

‘Then tell us, where is Uncle Quagmire, Old Hag?’ asked Daniel. ‘And where is this stupidly impossible time machine?’

Old Hag stepped over to the king-sized bed, which stood uncertainly in the middle of the room. On it, there was a big pink duvet and big pink pillows. Resting on the bed was a single Brussels sprout, which was green.

‘Ha!’ Old Hag exclaimed. ‘I knew it. He’s left a clue, see?’ She held up the sprout with both hands as though it were an FA trophy, then she pointed at the bed with one of the fingers on one of those hands. ‘And this bed is his time machine!’

‘The bed?’ asked Betty. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Am I sure?’ spat Old Hag, ignoring the No Spitting sign on the wall. ‘Ha! Kids! What do you take me for? Eh? Am I sure indeed! He told me all about this stuff. I sit on the bed, shut both of
my eyes, then think of the year I want to go to, then it whisks me away there. Just you watch.’

She sat on the bed, the pink of the bedclothes instantly arguing ferociously with the colours of her tracksuit. Then she closed her eyes. The children watched for a while, or it might have been slightly longer, before speaking.

‘What is supposed to hap . . .’ began Daniel.

‘Sssssshhhh!’ said Old Hag, opening one eye and pointing it at them. ‘If you’re patient, like, you’ll see what’s supposed to hap.’

They waited for another while, a marginally shorter one this time, before daring to speak.

‘I don’t think it’s the bed that’s the time machine,’ whispered Daniel to the others. ‘Look at the alarm clock!’

The others obediently looked at the alarm clock. ‘There’s a wire running from the alarm clock into the wardrobe!’ whispered Betty.

‘It’s the wardrobe that’s the time machine!’ whispered Amy.

‘Woof woof woof,’ whispered Whatshisname.

The children crept carefully to the alarm clock. They saw that it was not an alarm clock at all!

‘It’s not an alarm clock at all!’ confirmed Amy, making commendable use of the copy-and-paste functionality. ‘It’s a homemade . . . thing.’

And, sure enough, it was indeed a homemade . . . thing.

‘Gosh! It’s not four minutes past eight o’clock after all!’ whispered Betty. ‘The 1964 isn’t the time, it’s a year!’

This, of course, came as no surprise to anyone but the children, who gasped a little but not loudly enough to disturb Old Hag, who appeared to have gone into some sort of trance.

‘I’m not in a trance!’ spat Old Hag, a little irritably for some reason. ‘I’m just concentrating!’

Old Hag was concentrating, apparently.

Carefully, Betty tried hard not to disturb Old Hag’s trance as she examined the homemade thing that wasn’t an alarm clock.

‘I’m not in a trance!!’ yelled Old Hag, her eyes still closed as though she were in a trance.

‘Look,’ whispered Betty, still trying not to disrupt Old Hag’s really good impression of a trance. ‘There’s a switch at the side with a label that reads
Send in Twenty Seconds.
’

‘I reckon,’ reckoned Daniel in a whispered voice, ‘that Uncle Quagmire got into the wardrobe after setting the homemade thing that isn’t an alarm clock!’

Just then, Old Hag’s eyes jerked open. ‘Ha! It worked! I’m back in time!’ She looked at the children and Whatshisname.

‘What’s happening? What year is it, dear children and your fat doggy?’ she asked. ‘Tell me, has Sandie Shaw won the Eurovision Song Contest yet?’

Betty spoke firmly to her. ‘Unfortunately you haven’t gone anywhere, Old Hag. You’re still here. And who’s Sandie Shaw?’

Old Hag looked quite sullen, even by old hag standards, and closed her haggish eyes again. The children glanced at each other. After years of developing a close bonded friendship in which words were often unnecessary for communication and social interaction, that one quick look was enough to tell each other exactly what they had to do in such a situation.