Drama Queen Page 2

  Emma took her phone from her pocket and looked at the screen. The alert was flashing.

  ‘Oh Mum, I’ve forgotten,’ said Emma, trying to make her voice sound light and casual. ‘I was going over to Isi’s place today. I’m supposed to be there now. Will you drive me?’

  Emma’s mum smiled. ‘Oh yes, so you are, Em! We’d better get going.’

  ‘That’s great, thanks. I’ll just get a few things from my room.’

  Emma got up, put her bowl in the dishwasher and ran to her room, shutting the door behind her. She went to her desk and opened the second-from the-top desk drawer. She then felt under the righthand side of the desk and pressed a small button that dropped down when the drawer opened. Immediately, a book in her bookshelf popped out onto the floor. Emma picked it up and opened the cover to reveal a small safe with a keypad. Emma keyed in 3-8-1-20-13 and opened the safe.

  Inside was a charm bracelet but, just like her phone, this was no ordinary charm bracelet. It was a SHINE-issue CHARM bracelet, with the letters standing for Clever Hidden Accessories with Release Mechanism. Each little charm on the bracelet was actually a spy gadget. A simple twist of the charm and it would convert to a piece of spy equipment. There were charms for listening devices, charms to repel dangerous animals, charms to attract animals, charms to help you climb, charms to help you see in the dark—there seemed to be a SHINE charm for everything and more were always being invented. Who would ever suspect that a simple charm bracelet held such a store of secret equipment? It was perfect. However, when Emma put on her bracelet she saw the lock was loose. Without the bracelet locking properly, all the charms might fall off. That was not good.

  ‘Mum!’ yelled Emma.

  Her mum rushed in. ‘Is everything alright? We need to hurry.’

  ‘I know,’ said Emma and then she began to whisper, ‘but look, the lock on my bracelet is loose. What happens if it falls off when I’m OM?’ OM was short for on mission. Emma’s mum knew that.

  ‘Keep calm, I think I might have something,’ whispered Mum. ‘Come on, let’s go to my bedroom.’

  ‘Your bedroom?’ Then Emma remembered. ‘Oh right, got you.’

  Emma took off her bracelet and put it in her pocket. She then put the book back on the shelf and pressed the button under her desk. As she closed the drawer again, the book locked into the shelf. Emma then followed her mum down the hallway. They looked back into the kitchen where they could see Bob had moved on to eating a stack of toast. He wouldn’t notice them. They walked on into Emma’s parents’ bedroom. Mum opened her wardrobe door and pressed a small button on the hinge. The back of the cupboard slid back revealing a secret room. A room with a desk and laptop and wall covered with certificates, lots of certificates—all of them with the SHINE logo. It was SJ45’s office.

  ‘Okay, let’s see,’ said Mum. She too reached under her desk, opened the second drawer down and went to the bookshelf, opened a book safe and took out a bracelet. ‘It needs a bit of a polish but otherwise it is in perfect working order. Here.’ She unlocked the bracelet and slipped her charms off then handed the bracelet to Emma, who then threaded her charms on. Luckily, her mum’s bracelet fitted her perfectly.

  ‘Well done, Mum, or should I say SJ45.’

  It was certainly handy having an ex-secret agent for a mum.

  Emma would normally report to SHINE HQ via the Mission Tube, a secret underground transport system that took agents to key SHINE locations. Each agent had their own access point and the access point for EJ12 was at her school, in the girls’ toilets of her school to be exact. But today was Sunday and the school was locked. It was exactly for moments like these that SHINE had the Light Shop, a small ordinary-looking shop in a small, ordinary-looking shopping village. What was less ordinary was that underneath the shop, twenty floors down, was SHINE HQ. As her mum drove, Emma switched on the radio just as another news report was beginning.

  ‘Continuing our earlier story about the strange changes to the water in a city reservoir, it seems another reservoir has also been affected. Authorities still have no clues as to what has happened but fear if more reservoirs are shut down, the city’s water supply will be in danger.’

  Is the mission something to do with this water disappearing? Emma wondered as her mum slowed down and stopped the car.

  ‘Okay sweetie, I mean Agent EJ12, here we are.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Emma, opening the door.

  ‘Good luck and don’t forget to give the new password to the lady,’ called her mum as she pulled out from the kerb and drove away.

  Emma stood outside the Light Shop. ‘We shine a light!’ said the sign in the window and Emma smiled at that as she pushed the door open. A buzzer went off. She looked around but no one seemed to be there. Strange. She walked around, ducking under all the lights hanging from the ceiling and then, seemingly from nowhere, an elderly lady appeared.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘Hello,’ replied Emma. ‘I hope so.’ And then she remembered the new secret password exchange. ‘I am very interested in lava lamps, do you have any?’

  ‘Oh, yes we do, please follow me,’ said the woman. She led Emma to the counter at the back of the shop. The woman went behind the counter and took out a small black box. ‘Would you be so kind as to put your hand on here?’ said the lady, smiling as she placed the box in front of Emma.

  Emma put her hand on the pad, which buzzed for a moment then stopped. A small green light on the side of the box glowed.

  ‘How lovely!’ said the lady. ‘You are cleared for access, Agent EJ12. Please take the lift to level 20 and await further instructions.’

  EJ went to the lift and the doors opened. She walked in and looked at the lift buttons. There were buttons from 0 to 8 but that didn’t worry EJ. She simply pressed 2 and 0 and waited as the doors closed. There was a sudden whoosh and EJ’s ears popped before the lift stopped. EJ was at level 20, actually-20 to be precise—she was now twenty floors below ground level.

  ‘Welcome, Agent EJ12,’ said a digital voice as the doors opened. ‘Exit lift and turn left. Continue until you come to the Code Room.’

  EJ walked until she came to a plain metal door with a small keypad and screen next to it. She keyed in her pin code and another digital voice spoke.

  ‘Security test commencing. State your name.’

  ‘Emma Jacks,’ said EJ in a clear, loud voice.

  ‘State your favourite ice-cream flavour.’

  EJ didn’t have to think about that one. ‘Double choc-chip with caramel crunch,’ she said.

  ‘Welcome, EJ12. Door opening.’

  EJ12 had reached the Code Room.

  The Code Room at SHINE ‘s HQ was a very small, simple, yellow-painted room with a chair, a table with paper and a pen, and a long, clear tube coming from the ceiling and ending directly over the table. The messages came via the tube and EJ expected a small canister to come whizzing down with a coded message for her to work on. She was, therefore, a little taken aback when a very large canister slowly pushed its way down the tube before being squeezed out on to the table. There was a large label on the outside.

  EJ took the canister and unscrewed the lid. She pulled out a thick wad of paper stapled three times down the left-hand side. It had a bold heading on the front page and some numbers were scrawled across the top in pen.

  FOR CAST AND CREW ONLY

  SHOOTING SCRIPT

  SPY MOVIE 2

  SCENE 4

  It is a foggy night. Agent White, in a black trench coat, collar up, is standing under the dim light of a street lamp. Agent Black, also in a black trench coat, appears from out of the shadows. She approaches the first woman cautiously.

  BLACK (whispering)

  The first geese fly backwards tonight.

  WHITE (turning)

  No they don’t.

  BLACK (in whisper)

  Don’t turn around. It’s the password.

  WHITE (now also whispering)

&
nbsp; Right I get it, sorry. Start again.

  BLACK (sighs)

  The geese fly backwards tonight.

  WHITE (slowly)

  I hope they don’t hit anything.

  BLACK

  Agent White confirmed. We are ready to go. You can’t drop the ball on this one.

  WHITE

  Drop what ball?

  BLACK (crossly)

  It’s an expression.

  WHITE (coughs)

  I knew that. No sweat.

  BLACK

  The first stage is complete. But that was only small. Only the start. Now we move to the next, bigger stage (then loudly, too loudly) Mwah ha ha! (coughs, embarrassed, then whispers again) All is ready.

  WHITE

  But what if they find our stuff? Should we move it? It will be easy to, it would only take a second.

  BLACK

  No, location is secure. Stand by.

  WHITE Stripe,

  I mean check. I’m on my way. (Agent Black turns but walks into lamppost.)

  EJ read the script and read it again but she couldn’t see any code. But there had to be one and she had to find it, fast.

  EJ looked again at the hand-written note across the top.

  If there is a code here, and there must be, she thought, then there has to be a connection between this writing and the script. EJ knew from her SHINE code-cracking training that codes had keys and once you found the key you could unlock the code. Was this handwritten note the key? EJ looked at the first part.

  SM2, what is that? EJ asked herself. It wasn’t a code, at least not one EJ recognised so what was it? Then EJ looked to the top of the page and read SPY MOVIE 2. Is SM2 simply short for Spy Movie 2? And if it is, what is S4 short for? EJ read down and saw ‘Scene 4’. Was S4 Scene 4? ‘Too easy!’ cried EJ out aloud.

  But then she looked at the next bit of the note and thought perhaps it wasn’t so easy. There were no more letters, just numbers. EJ realised that the code had changed.

  These numbers have to stand for something and they have to stand for something to do with the script for Scene 4 of Spy Movie 2 but what is that? They probably don’t stand for letters because none of the numbers are the same. EJ looked hard at the numbers again.

  Then she noticed something. The numbers were in order, starting with the smallest number and getting bigger.

  I wonder, thought EJ. She looked at the script and began counting the words from the start, writing the number above the word. ‘It’ was 1, ‘is’ was 2, ‘a’ was 3, ‘foggy’ was 4 ... When she got to 48, she circled the word ‘first’. If she was right, that was the first word of the message. She kept on numbering each word and got to the 106th word and wrote that down, then did the same for 111, 131, 173, 179, 185 and finally the 188th word.

  SCENE 4

  EJ circled and then wrote down the 48th word of the script.

  First

  She kept on numbering each word and got to the 106th word and wrote that down.

  First ball

  And then the same for 111, 131, 173, 179, 185 and 188, writing each word down.

  SCENE 4

  When she had finished, EJ looked at what she had written.

  That had to be the secret message. It was clearly an instruction but for what and for whom? And what did it all have to do with Spy Movie 2?

  EJ needed to get this back to SHINE and fast. She rolled the script back up, tucked in the paper with the decoded message and put it all back into the canister and the canister back up the message tube. It was sucked away towards the SHINE Operations Room where the head of SHINE, A1, would be waiting for it.

  When EJ12 walked through the two sliding metal doors to enter the SHINE Operations Room, she was surprised to find all the lights were off. Had there been another SHADOW attack on the SHINE energy plant? But then EJ noticed that the Light Screen was glowing in the centre of the room. The Light Screen was like the SHINE brain, or at least how you could see into the SHINE brain. You could call up any of the SHINE files, access the Internet, look at photos and maps from the SHINE space satellite, track agents, make video calls and, it seemed, watch movies.

  As EJ moved further into the room, she could see that A1 and everyone else in the Operations Room was watching a movie on the Light Screen. She saw some other agents from the under-twelve division. Even from the back, EJ recognised the dark, wavy hair of GP12, one of the fastest transport agents, along with KM12. EJ always wondered if her name stood for Grand Prix. Next to GP with dark-blonde shoulder-length hair was NW11, the current SHINE rock-climbing champion and next to her, with her shiny straight blonde hair, lighter than EJ’s, was GH12, trampolining expert. But why were they all watching a film? Is that appropriate? wondered EJ. I mean, it is an awesome screen but shouldn’t everyone be working? After all, there has been a mission alert. Then EJ saw that they were watching Spy Movie. Suddenly she heard a familiar voice.

  ‘Light Screen, pause movie, lights up.’

  The movie stopped and, as the lights went on, a woman with long white hair, curled up into a rather messy bun with two pencils and a pen sticking out, got up and walked towards EJ smiling broadly. It was A1, the head of SHINE.

  ‘Welcome back, EJ12,’ said A1. ‘I suppose you thought we were just watching a movie?’

  How does she do that? wondered EJ. A1 seemed to have this knack of knowing what her agents were thinking, as if she were reading their minds. It was extraordinary, and also, at times, a little embarrassing.

  ‘But, as you can see,’ continued A1, ‘we are watching Spy Movie, studying it closely to see if we can learn anything. And it is an excellent opportunity for Agents GP12, NW11 and GH12 to develop their clue-finding skills. You know the SHINE motto, “Look for the clue in front of you,”: connections are often right in front of our eyes.’

  ‘Connections between what?’ asked EJ.

  ‘We are not completely sure,’ replied A1, ‘but we think there is a link between the filming of the new Spy Movie and what has happened to the city’s water. Through our sources, we have found out that the storyline of Spy Movie 2 is about an evil agency trying to poison a water supply and now there is the message from a known SHADOW agent on the script of Spy Movie 2.’

  ‘It does seem too much of a coincidence,’ agreed EJ, ‘but what does that message mean?’

  ‘What indeed?’ said A1. ‘We will look at that in a moment but first I need to show you all something we received a few days ago.’ A1 turned back to the screen. ‘Light Screen, show SHADOW video message.’

  ‘ SHADOW sent us a video message?’ asked EJ, hardly believing her ears. ‘In code?’

  ‘No, this message they wanted us to understand,’ said A1 as a grainy image came on screen. ‘I think you will see why. Light Screen, play video.’

  The video was very dark, all EJ could make out was a silhouette, a shadowy figure. I suppose that’s appropriate, EJ thought, smiling.

  ‘Yes, very funny, EJ12,’ said A1, ‘but watch closely now.’

  Did I say that out aloud? thought EJ but then she focussed as the figure began to talk. Although EJ thought the voice belonged to a woman, it hardly sounded human. It must have been put through a voice scrambler, thought EJ.

  ‘Correct,’ said A1. ‘The voice has been scrambled. All we can confirm is that it is a female voice.’

  This is getting ridiculous, thought EJ. And now I have missed the first part of the message.

  ‘Light Screen, replay video,’ said A1.

  This time EJ tried not to think about anything else as she listened.

  ‘SHINE,’ the voice began, ‘you have something that belongs to us and we want it back. We want you to hand over Dr Caterina Hill. If you don’t do as we say, you will find things might dry up a bit. We want your answer in twenty-four hours.’

  And then the screen went black. EJ was stunned. Dr Caterina Hill was one of SHADOW’s cleverest and most evil scientists and she would do anything to make money. She had already tried to melt the polar ice cap an
d had stolen SHINE inventions. But EJ had caught her twice and Dr Hill was now in SHINE detention. It was unthinkable that SHINE would give her back so she could start more evil schemes.

  ‘We can’t give her back to them, can we?’ NW11 asked A1.

  ‘No, of course not, NW,’ replied A1, ‘but I am extremely worried about what SHADOW will do when we don’t. We received this message two days ago. We ignored it. We didn’t want SHADOW to think they could do what they want but then this happened.’ A1 turned to face the screen again. ‘Light Screen, show eastern reservoir.’

  Two photos flashed up on the screen. On the left was a reservoir nearly full of water and on the right was a photo of the same area but now looking like a reservoir of pink jelly.

  ‘Is that the reservoir that was on the news?’ EJ asked.

  ‘It is,’ confirmed A1. ‘The picture on the left is the reservoir last week and the one on the right is the same reservoir today. And look at this, EJ12. Light Screen, zoom right photo.’

  The photo on the right enlarged and EJ could see that there were hundreds, no thousands, of small pink balls.

  ‘They turned the water pink?’ asked EJ. ‘That’s weird but is it bad?’