S.T.I.N.K.B.O.M.B. (4 page)

Archie turned to him and frowned. ‘What does that even mean?’

‘It’s code,’ Barney said. ‘You are the polar bear and whoever sent the message is the leopard. It means, “I don’t think they’re coming
today,”’

‘Why can’t you just say that then?’ asked Archie.

‘What if we’re overheard – or being bugged? If we use code we won’t arouse suspicion.’

‘You’re right.’ Archie smiled. ‘After all, there’s nothing suspicious about a couple of schoolboys cowering in the bushes talking about leopards and polar bears
who, incidentally, live on different continents. I bet MI6 would recruit us on the spot if we weren’t so darned elusive.’ He stepped out of the bushes and glanced left and right.
‘Polar bear to grizzly,’ he said, laughing. ‘You are clear to cease hibernation – the hunting season is over.’

Then he turned and sprinted as Barney broke his cover and chased him down the street.

A figure sat in a leather chair, dwarfed by a banked console that swept round him in a wide semicircle of dials, knobs and levers. Hunched over a keyboard, he tapped away
frenetically, muttering conspiratorially to himself.

‘Let’s see who’s going to be my next
volunteer
,’ he mused. ‘Who’s going to sacrifice their own insignificant existence to benefit humankind? When I say
humankind
I do, of course, mean me. Although, to be honest, I’m only half human and I’m definitely not kind.’ His shoulders began to rock as he suppressed a chuckle.
‘In fact I’m quite
in
human and I’m positively despicable.’ Unable to contain his merriment any longer he threw back his head and unleashed a volley of evil laughter,
each burst louder and longer than the last, like someone revving a motorbike.

Eventually, wiping a tear from his one human eye, he looked round the room like a comedian expecting to feed off his audience’s adulation. But the only other figure in the cavernous
chamber was a young man who was in some sort of trance – and cocooned inside a tall glass cylinder. The villain’s mirth was met with silence.

In a moment his laughter stopped and he sat back in his chair and sighed heavily.

‘Well, no offence, Mr Ulrik, but you’re not exactly the life and soul of the party.’

Two eyes stared out blankly from behind the glass.

‘This reminds me of the days I had to share a lab with Malcolm Battersby – possibly the dullest man ever to walk the earth. It wasn’t until a year after I’d secretly
drugged him and given him a frontal lobotomy that people began to suspect he wasn’t all there – which was true because half of his brain was in the laboratory under my house. Do you see
what I did there? They thought he wasn’t
all there
. . .’ His body convulsed with amusement but the fit was short-lived. He sighed again and blew air through his mouth, making
his scaly lips flap. ‘I might as well talk to myself for all the appreciation I get round here. It wasn’t so bad when I had Pussy Galore to talk to but she had to go when my fur allergy
flared up. I mean, it’s almost impossible to stroke a cat menacingly while your nose is running like a snotty two-year-old’s. And since we’re on the subject, I can’t imagine
anyone round here ever stops to appreciate the effort I put in to dress the part.’ He hooked a finger into the neck of his dark jacket and stuck out his hideously fat tongue as if he was
choking. I’ll have you know this bloomin’ Nehru collar is killing me but I might as well slouch around in my PJs all day for all the good it does me.’

Silence filled the vast room.

‘I don’t know what you’re looking so smug about anyway,’ he sneered at his prisoner. ‘I sent the world a pretty simple coded message that I was going to kidnap you
but no one picked up on my sinister intentions, which is incredibly disappointing for both of us, although
possibly
more so for you. After all, what’s the point of my being so
deliciously brilliant if the rest of the world is too stupid to realise that something dastardly is about to happen?’

He bent over his keyboard and started to type, his human eye staring intently at the screen while the other, a bulbous leathery orb, panned round jerkily.

‘I’m just going to give the world one more chance to join in my little game,’ he schemed. Sitting back to admire his message, he nodded smugly before pressing the
‘send’ key with an air of finality, as if he was firing a nuclear weapon. ‘Come and get me,’ he chuckled. ‘If you’re smart enough.’

Barney was in his weekly chess club meeting so Archie had wandered alone across the school playground where he was sitting on an old bench, contemplating his Facebook message
while he munched through his packed lunch.

He didn’t share Barney’s theory that MI6 might actually be trying to contact him but he had failed to come up with any alternative explanations. What if it really had come from
Newman?

‘Archie. Don’t turn round.’

The voice came from over Archie’s right shoulder. He stood up automatically and spun round to see a girl wearing jeans and a leather jacket. She was a bit older than him, with pale skin
and black hair pulled back into a ponytail.

‘Honestly,’ she said, rolling her eyes behind her long fringe. ‘Was the instruction “Don’t turn round” too cryptic for you?’

‘No,’ Archie said defiantly ‘I just wanted to see who you were before I did what you said.’

The girl gave Archie a crooked smirk. ‘That sort of defeats the object a bit, doesn’t it?’

Archie shrugged. ‘Who are you anyway?’

‘Agent X-ray,’ the girl whispered, pulling him behind the science block by the arm. ‘You were supposed to meet me earlier.’

‘Oh, that was you!’ he said, remembering the girl he’d seen at the crossroads that morning. ‘I didn’t think you looked like a secret agent.’

‘What do secret agents look like then?’

‘I don’t know . . .’ Archie thought for a moment. ‘I suppose if I knew what they look like, they wouldn’t be very secret.’

‘Clever boy.’ As the girl laughed Archie noticed a single dimple on her left cheek.

‘And you’re a girl,’ Archie added quickly.

‘Brilliant.’ The girl clapped loudly. ‘With those powers of observation you’ll do well.’

‘Look, I don’t know who you are,’ Archie said firmly, ‘but I don’t think for a moment you’re a secret agent. I did come to the crossroads this morning but
only because I was curious to see who was winding me up, so instead of waiting in the open I observed the meeting point discreetly.’

‘I see.’ The girl clicked her fingers. ‘
That’s
what you were doing crouching in the bushes like a toddler playing hide and seek! Here’s a little tip for you
– even though you can’t see anybody when you close your eyes, everyone can still see you.’

‘You saw us?’

‘Of course I saw you. And I could hear you. I could practically smell the crisps one of you was scoffing.’

‘That was Barney,’ Archie admitted sheepishly. ‘He likes to keep his energy up.’

When the girl leaned past Archie’s shoulder to peer round the corner of the science block, a waft of strawberry soap filled his nostrils. He turned to follow her gaze. About a hundred
metres away a group of boys was crossing the playground towards them, passing a football among themselves.

‘Listen, I haven’t got time to chat,’ said the girl. ‘Those boys are coming our way and I can’t be seen with you here. Just listen to this message.’

Archie nodded obediently, observing tiny toffee-coloured flecks in her blue eyes.

‘Her Majesty’s Secret Service needs your help.’ The girl’s voice was grave. ‘MI6 has a brand new team of undercover kids ready to undertake covert surveillance
missions. SPADE – the Secret Potential Agent Data Evaluator – has chosen you to join the team, to become a secret agent. It could be dangerous but you will be helping to protect your
country. Think about it. When you have made up your mind, text the word
IN
or
OUT
to this number.’

The girl handed Archie a card with six digits scrawled on it.

‘Why me?’ he asked.

‘To be honest, before I met you I thought the computer had made a mistake,’ the girl admitted. ‘But now . . . I’m sure of it. Anyway, I’m just following
orders.’

‘L-look,’ Archie stammered. ‘I’m really sorry about turning round . . .’

The girl held a finger to her lips. ‘Memorise the number then destroy the card,’ she instructed.

‘Shouldn’t it self-destruct in ten seconds?’ Archie joked.

The girl didn’t smile.

Archie blushed and cursed himself silently.

As the crowd of boys rounded the corner of the science block, Archie stood up straight and tried to look innocent – which only made him feel guiltier.

‘Wassup, Nerd?’ asked Josh Bellamy tucking the football under one arm. ‘What are you doing skulking round here?’

‘He’s probably doing something embarrassing,’ suggested someone, ‘like reading.’

Ignoring the jibe, Archie glanced round to see where the girl had got to, but she was gone – as if she’d disappeared into thin air like a twist of smoke. Maybe she really was Secret
Service after all, he thought. Only someone with genuine MI6 training could vanish like that. Then one of the boys moved his head slightly and Archie saw the girl scrambling up a muddy bank about
fifteen metres away.

‘I know what you’re up to,’ laughed someone else. ‘You were having a sneaky look at your plane-spotter’s handbook, weren’t you?’

‘No,’ said Archie defiantly. Momentarily he considered the wisdom of explaining that he was talking to an actual spy, then he grabbed a book from his rucksack and held it up.
‘I was just brushing up on my Spanish grammar.’

The boys laughed mockingly and pushed past Archie.

‘See you around, Swot,’ someone called over his shoulder and the other boys chuckled some more.

Archie stayed where he was and studied the card in his hand.

‘So she said you should text the word “in” or “out” to this number?’ asked Barney.

‘Uh-huh.’ Archie nodded.

‘What do you think that means?’

‘Well, it is quite a riddle,’ said Archie earnestly, ‘but I think I’ve cracked it. I have to text “in” if I want to be “in” the team and
“out” if I’m “out”.’

‘Ahh.’ Barney nodded sagely. ‘The old straightforward cipher trick. A classic double bluff.’

The boys were changing for their after-school swimming lesson and the excited chatter of twenty budding Olympians was echoing off the changing room’s tiled walls. Barney studied the card
the girl had given to Archie, running his thumb over the six digits and holding it up to the light.

‘What are you looking for exactly?’ asked Archie.

‘A secret message of some sort – maybe a code. MI6 could be using the card as a cover to pass on some sort of information, like a microfilm.’

‘The chances of this being from the actual MI6 are about as slim as a microfilm,’ said Archie. ‘It’s got to be some sort of elaborate hoax. Somebody is waiting for me to
send a text offering my services to MI6, then they’re going to show it to the whole school and make my life a misery.’

‘Who would want to ridicule you like that?’

‘Barney I’m not exactly one of the in-crowd,’ stated Archie, snapping on his goggles. ‘I love reading and learning, I don’t play football, I don’t answer
teachers back and I have a slightly nerdy obsession with aeroplanes.’