Hot & Cold Read online

  ‘What is this? What is everyone doing?’ asked Emma.

  ‘Solving problems,’ said A1 in a serious voice, ‘and stopping evil plans. And you can help us, Emma. The maths competition you won was our way of recruiting new agents. We need clever thinkers, especially people who love maths, and it doesn’t matter how old they are. We need agents to help us crack enemy codes and thwart the evil missions of the SHADOW agency. We defeat SHADOW,’ A1 explained, ‘by intercepting their secret messages, getting to their locations before their own agents and foiling their dastardly plans.’

  ‘That all sounds rather dangerous,’ said Emma quietly.

  ‘Let danger be a stranger!’ declared A1 heartily. ‘That’s one of SHINE’ s mottoes—we like mottoes. We also know our agents well and we know what they can do—sometimes even before they do. SHINE needs you, Emma. We have run a complete check on you and you are exactly what we need for our under-twelve division.’

  ‘I think maybe the results got mixed up,’ suggested Emma nervously.

  ‘We never get our results mixed up,’ said A1, suddenly looking slightly less friendly and slightly more scary. ‘You are exactly what SHINE needs. Everything is organised. Your training is booked in and you are ready to go. But the one thing that you must remember above all else is that your job is top secret—only classified people can be informed about your activities.’

  ‘But what about Mum?’ asked Emma.

  ‘Don’t worry about your mother,’ said A1 with a wink. ‘We know exactly how to deal with mothers.’

  Well, thought Emma, if they can handle mums, they must be pretty special.

  And so it began. Emma Jacks became EJ12, Class A field agent and code-cracker, under-twelve division, for SHINE. Since that day, EJ12—or just EJ, as she was called when she was on duty—had foiled evil plans all over the world. She had jumped out of planes, dived into oceans and climbed mountains. She had cracked some of the trickiest codes around and beaten SHADOW time after time. In fact, EJ12 had quickly become one of SHINE’ s Shining Stars, a leader in the agency’s Spy of the Year competition.

  The funny thing was, while Emma Jacks often worried about normal everyday things, EJ12 seemed to be able to handle anything on a mission. Why was that? Emma really wished she knew. And sometimes she really wished EJ12 could come along to school in her place, just to sort everything out.

  But she couldn’t. It was quarter past eight, there was no mission alert from SHINE and there was nothing for it—Emma Jacks was going to school.

  It was just Mum and Emma in the car, as Bob had already left for football training. Emma could feel a ‘talk’ coming on. Her hunch was right. They had barely pulled out of the driveway when her mum started.

  ‘What’s really going on, Em?’ she said. ‘You’ve been out of sorts all weekend.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Emma mumbled. ‘I just had—I mean have—a really sore stomach...’

  ‘Really Em, I know that tummy,’ said Mum, as she turned off the car radio.

  Uh oh. Emma knew what that meant—Mum definitely wanted to talk and she wasn’t going to be distracted. Actually, Emma didn’t mind so much. She quite liked talking to her mum, even if she did go on a bit.

  ‘Is it something at school?’

  ‘Sort of, yes. I hate school! Please can I stay home, just today, just this once?’ Emma pleaded.

  ‘Well, where’s all this coming from? Is it something to do with your class or your friends?’

  ‘Sort of both,’ Emma squirmed.

  ‘Em! Is it someone or something?’ Now Mum had her.

  ‘It’s someone,’ Emma said quietly.

  ‘Come on then, what’s happening, little one?’

  Emma hated it if her mum called her ‘little one’ when there were other people around, but she loved it when it was just the family. It made her feel safe and protected, like a little girl—a little girl who didn’t have to deal with mean girls. Suddenly Emma felt teary. Her face reddened and the words rushed out.

  ‘Oh Mum, it’s awful. It’s Nema. She’s so mean—mean to me, mean to Elle, mean to Hannah, mean to everyone. And now she’s invited me to her movie party but she hasn’t invited Elle and Elle doesn’t think I should go, and I probably don’t think I should go and I don’t even want to go, but I didn’t say that and now Elle probably thinks I’m mean too, and today is the day I have to say if I’m going to the party, and what if I say no and Nema is mean to me and then...’

  Emma ran out of breath so her mum jumped in. ‘But I thought you and Nema were friends?’

  ‘We used to be, and sometimes we still are, but mostly now she just wants to do hairstyles and dance routines—and make fun of everyone who doesn’t.’

  ‘Can’t you just play with some of your other friends?’ Mum suggested, trying to be helpful.

  ‘But Mum, it’s not that easy. Nema’s everywhere. She breaks up games and tries to be the boss of everything. She’s so mean that most people just give in so that she’ll stop being horrible. And of course, that just makes her worse. And what will I do about the party?’

  ‘What do you think you should do?’ asked Mum.

  ‘I probably shouldn’t go.’

  ‘Then just say, ‘‘thanks a lot but I can’t go’’,’ Mum smiled.

  Aaaaaaaaaaargh! Emma knew her mum was really trying but she just didn’t get it. If someone said something to Nema that she didn’t like, then Nema would say something really mean back. She would stare at you, daring you to say something, and if you did come up with something she would flick her hair, raise her eyebrows and say, ‘Whatever. Who cares what you think?’ And then no one felt brave and everyone went quiet and Nema would win. Again.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Emma.

  ‘Oh Em, it won’t be as hard as you think,’ said Mum as they pulled up on the street outside the school. ‘Off you go. Love you!’

  As her mum drove off, Emma took a quick, hopeful look at her phone. Nothing. Oh well, at least she had a phone, she thought, even if it wasn’t flashing. Before joining SHINE, she didn’t have a mobile phone at all.

  ‘Let’s talk about it again next year,’ Mum had said, and mobile phones looked set to join the growing list of things that Emma and her mum were going to discuss when she was older; pierced ears, more pocket money, getting a puppy and using on-line chat rooms. Emma and her mum were going to be talking a lot.

  But when Emma had received a really cool phone as part of her new agent welcome pack, after her visit to the SHINE light shop, her mum had agreed she could keep it. This was rather unexpected, but Emma put it down to A1’s mother-management skills, and she certainly wasn’t about to complain.

  Emma’s stomach did a little backflip as she turned into the school gates. Please, please let me see Hannah or Elle before I see Nema. Please let me see Louisa or Grace or Catherine before I see Nema. Please let me see Isi or even Madison—or anyone else before I see Nema!

  But there was Nema, hanging around in the corridor near the lockers. Emma couldn’t possibly get past without Nema noticing her. And then she would ask Emma about the party...

  EJ reached for her phone and was relieved to see the screen flashing, a nice aqua, aqua being Emma’s favourite colour and the colour for the SHINE mission alert. Saved by the flash! At last, thought Emma. Something is going my way.

  ‘Hey Emma,’ cried Nema. ‘Where are you going? We need to talk about the party.’

  ‘Um, sorry,’ called Emma as she skipped down the corridor. ‘I have to go to the toilet.’

  ‘Gross,’ said Nema, wrinkling up her face. ‘Too much information!’

  If only you knew, thought Emma, hurrying towards the girls’ toilets with a grin.

  Once inside the girls’ toilets, Emma turned on the hand-dryers, headed for the last cubicle on the right and pushed the door.

  ‘Hey,’ cried a voice from behind the toilet door. ‘I’m in here!’

  ‘Oh sorry,’ replied Emma. ‘No problem, take your time.’ />
  Emma waited, feeling slightly fidgety. She needed to get to the Mission Tube—quickly. The Mission Tube was the secret network that took SHINE agents to the Code Room and then on to SHINE HQ for mission briefings. It was very clever—and very fun—but Emma wished it didn’t have to start in the toilet block. It was a bit gross.

  The toilet flushed and then an older girl came out. At last!

  ‘Thanks!’ said Emma.

  ‘What’s wrong with the other six toilets?’ asked the girl. ‘They’re all empty.’

  ‘Yes, but ... but...’ But what? ‘But I like this one.’ Groan.

  ‘Er, okay,’ said the girl, looking at Emma as if she was a bit strange. ‘Whatever.’

  Whatever indeed! Emma rushed into the cubicle and locked the door. She put down the toilet seat, sat down and flipped open the toilet roll holder—and Mission Tube access pad. Emma pushed her mobile phone into a small socket on the side of the toilet roll holder and waited. There was a beep then Emma entered her pin code and removed her phone. Another beep and then the usual message flashed up on her phone screen.

  EJ loved what was coming next. She held on to the edge of the toilet seat in preparation. Suddenly, the wall behind the toilet spun around, with the toilet and EJ still attached. EJ slipped off the toilet seat and onto a beanbag at the top of a giant tunnel slide. A protective shield lowered itself down and clicked into place over the beanbag. EJ was about to enter the SHINE Mission Tube. The wall spun back and EJ could hear the click as the toilet door unlocked. No one would ever guess she’d been in there. EJ typed ‘go’ into her phone...

  EJ slid down a giant pipe, shiny and brightly lit, just one of the many secret underground tubes in the SHINE network. It was like a toboggan ride with no snow and a beanbag instead of a toboggan. EJ giggled as she whizzed through the pipe but all too soon it was over and she stopped at a small platform with a keypad. First stop—the Code Room. A code-cracking room. If the agents cracked the code before they arrived at SHINE HQ, it gave SHINE time to read the decoded message and help prepare the mission briefing. That meant the agent could get going quicker on her mission. It was clever, but then SHINE was clever, very bright. EJ flipped back the protective shield of the key pad, keyed in her pin code and waited for the security check.

  The check changed each time EJ arrived at the Code Room. Sometimes it was fingerprints, sometimes eye scans or voice recognition. You never knew what it would be—and neither did anyone trying to break into the SHINE network.

  ‘Stand up and look straight ahead. Then poke your tongue out,’ requested a digital voice.

  EJ grinned. Tongue scan—very mature. As she poked out her tongue, there was a short sharp flash.

  ‘Tongue scan complete. Agent identity confirmed. Please drop in, EJ12.’

  There was another beep then EJ did exactly that. The floor underneath opened and both EJ and the beanbag dropped gently down into a small chamber. EJ had entered the Code Room, a small room with nothing in it except a table and chair and, above the table, a clear plastic tube protruding from the ceiling. Keeping her eyes on the tube, EJ sat and waited. She knew what would happen next, and soon enough she heard the familiar whizzing noise. She cupped her hands, put them under the tube and caught a little capsule that popped out of the tube. It was the code capsule.

  EJ opened it and took out a small piece of paper and a little pencil. She could feel the butterflies starting to flutter inside her. She always felt a little nervous opening the code but it was a good, excited nervous as she got ready to crack the code. It was a little like waiting for a race to start. EJ unfolded the paper. It felt crisp and clean between her fingers. EJ smiled with anticipation as she read.

  Codes, EJ just loved them. They were confusing at first because they looked liked one thing and then turned out to be something else—a bit like Nema really. But once you understood how they worked, they were easy to handle. She wished Nema was like that too. If only I could crack the Nema code!

  Back to the code, she thought and then smiled as she looked at it properly. This has to be the easiest code yet. It looks more like a text message than a code. Or should that be a txt mssg? EJ remembered one of the main rules of code-cracking in her agent training. Look for what’s there—or for what’s missing. And what’s missing here is the vowels. Too easy! She had decoded the message in no time at all.

  Well, nearly all the code. Everything except the first word. EJ couldn’t work out what letters could be missing from VLPL. VALPAL? VELPAL? VULPAL? Nothing seemed to make sense, to make a real word.

  The rest of the code was not much better: it was one thing to crack the code but it was quite another to understand what the decoded message meant. Some messages were actually much more puzzling than the codes.

  EJ frowned, as she often did when she was thinking hard. She was still frowning and thinking as she folded the paper, put it back in the capsule and put the capsule back into the tube. Within seconds, it was sucked up and away, on its way to SHINE HQ.

  And I’d better get there quick smart too, thought EJ12. It was time for the mission briefing.

  After another trip on the Mission Tube, EJ was at SHINE HQ. And, as always, A1 was standing there ready to greet her.

  ‘Good to see you, EJ12. Things are really hotting up. The message we intercepted—and the code you have just cracked—is an important breakthrough.’

  ‘What do you mean, A1?’

  ‘For the last few months, we have suspected that something was happening at a polar ice cap. But up until now we didn’t know what, we didn’t know which polar cap—the south or the north—and we didn’t know who. Now, thanks to you, we know all of those things.’

  ‘Um, what do we know?’ asked EJ, feeling slightly bewildered by A1’s whats, whichs and whos.

  ‘Ah, it’s more a case of what we still don’t know,’ sighed A1. ‘We know where and who but not what or why. And now I think of it, we don’t know when either!’

  ‘I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,’ replied EJ.

  ‘But of course, I’m rushing ahead,’ smiled A1. ‘Let’s go back to the decoded message.’ A1 turned to look at the ceiling. ‘Light Screen lower. Show code.’

  EJ loved the Light Screen. It was kind of like the SHINE brain—a giant, voice-activated plasma screen that accessed the Internet, all SHINE’ s classified files, radio and television channels and GPS technology too. If only I could have a light screen at home, thought EJ. It’s so much better than any ordinary computer. Very cool. The decoded message that EJ had just cracked flashed on to the screen.

  ‘Okay, so what do we know now?’ said A1.

  ‘We know someone likes the letter P?’ said EJ.

  ‘Yes, indeed EJ, but we also know that there is some kind of pipe called something like Velpil or Volpal Pipe and it is connected to something called Polar Tap. We know Dr C Hill is behind it and, because we intercepted this message on its way to SHADOW, we also know that SHADOW is the customer.’

  ‘But who is Dr C Hill?’ asked EJ.

  ‘Ah, Dr C Hill, we know her well,’ said A1 quietly. ‘Profile Caterina Hill.’

  A picture of a woman appeared on the Light Screen. She was beautiful but in a pointy, cold, unsmiling kind of way. With straight blonde, almost white hair, Dr Hill had a long, narrow face and small lips with a slash of blood-red lipstick across them. Her eyes were black and her eyebrows arched in a thin jet-black line. She was wearing a white laboratory coat with a foxtail cape draped over her shoulders, and EJ was fairly sure it was not fake fur. Her fingers were long with black painted nails.

  ‘Meet Dr C Hill,’ said A1.

  ‘I think I’d rather not,’ said EJ.

  ‘She does look a bit threatening, doesn’t she?’ agreed A1. ‘Glamorous I suppose, but I can’t imagine how she gets anything done with nails like that.’

  EJ glanced at A1’s nails and they were exactly as she expected—short, neat, clean, no polish. Nononsense nails.

  ‘However,’ A
1 continued, ‘Dr Hill is one of the world’s cleverest scientists and inventors. In fact, she used to work here at SHINE, leading the way in temperature control and inventing ingenious ways to use natural hot and cold power sources. Indeed, she had been working on a number of top-secret projects that could have done wonderful things for the world. She was experimenting with using the heat in volcanoes to make energy and was testing ways to freeze water. These things could help slow the effects of global warming. Can you imagine how that could have changed things, EJ? But then, just as it seemed she had made an important breakthrough, she disappeared.’

  ‘Where? Why?’ asked EJ, enthralled by the story of this fierce-looking woman. ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘She became greedy, I think,’ sighed A1. ‘She wanted more and more money and more and more control. She was becoming impossible to work with, always needing to be the one in charge, and would not listen to anyone else. She insisted on working alone, never sharing any results or information. You’re too young to know this, but there are some very mean people in this world.’

  ‘Oh, I think I’m old enough to understand,’ said EJ.

  ‘Caterina spiralled out of control,’ continued A1. ‘She demanded ten million dollars for her latest invention. We had to say no and she was furious. You could say she had a complete meltdown.’ A1 paused and chuckled at her own joke. ‘The next day, she simply disappeared—taking her entire laboratory with her.’

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘Up until now we weren’t sure, but this message solves that little mystery. She’s invented the Pipe, which has something to do with a Polar Tap—and SHADOW wants to buy it. And I see the price has now doubled—she’s asking for twenty million dollars! And if SHADOW is in the market for it, then you can bet it is not good.’

  EJ nodded in agreement.

  ‘This message also makes sense of other information we have been collecting in the area. Watch the screen, EJ.’ A1 turned to look at the screen again. ‘Show charts,’ she said. A whole lot of graphs appeared on the Light Screen, many of them flashing red. ‘As you can see EJ, in the region of the South Pole, where she is, we have been recording very strange temperatures and water level increases lately. They are much, much hotter and much, much higher than they should be, even allowing for global warming. Something or someone is causing the polar temperatures to rise and, if I’m not mistaken, that someone is Dr Caterina Hill.’