Spy Penguins Series, Book 1 Page 2

  “For what?” Jackson tried not to look too excited, but his adventure detector had started to sound. He was pretty sure whatever was troubling Lily had something to do with why Uncle Bryn and the FBI had been there.

  “I’m not supposed to say,” Lily whispered.

  “We won’t tell,” Jackson said, moving closer.

  Quigley nodded and pretended to zip his beak.

  “Okay,” Lily said. “Don’t say anything, but someone’s stealing the rare fish from the aquarium.”

  “So that’s why the FBI was here!” Jackson nodded to Quigley. “It was a stakeout. I knew it.”

  Lily’s eyes flashed and her beak went up. “The police think Dad’s involved.”

  “Why?” Jackson frowned. “If your dad is a keeper here, why would he want to steal his own fish?”

  “Because he knows how valuable they are,” Lily said. “They think he’s selling them off to a private rare-fish collector. Look—watch this.…” Lily tipped one of the tubs of fish food into the pool. For a few seconds nothing happened, but then shadows began to form. Fish-shaped shadows.

  “They’re enormous!” Jackson gasped as the fish surfaced to feed.

  “And so sparkly,” Quigley added, peering over his glasses. “I wonder how they achieve that iridescent effect. It’s probably got something to do with constructive light interference—two waves of light working together.”

  “All I know is that these fish are extremely rare,” Lily said. “And very valuable. They’re giant blue Antarctic koi carp. And we’ve lost six since Sunday.”

  “Don’t you have a burglar alarm?” Quigley asked, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I could make one for you. I’ve got one on my bedroom door. If anyone comes in—”

  “They get splattered in seagull poop,” Jackson finished for him, and grinned. “Your mom told my mom that she got gunged.”

  Quigley shrugged. “She should have knocked before she came in.”

  “Of course we’ve got an alarm. And cameras,” Lily said. “But whoever is stealing the fish still gets in.”

  Jackson looked around the aquarium. If the thieves aren’t breaking in, then how are they stealing the fish? He glanced up at the sky. “Wait a minute—maybe the thieves are flying in, like I did?”

  But Lily wasn’t listening. “Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen,” she counted, peering into the fish pool. “Oh, no!” She gasped. “Another one’s gone. We had twenty fish half an hour ago.”

  Jackson crouched down next to the pond. “Maybe one of them is hiding at the bottom,” he suggested. “I could dive in and take a look.”

  “No, it’s okay.” Lily sighed. “They never miss feeding time. As soon as you drop their food in, they all surface. I’d better go tell Dad.” She sighed again. “He’ll be devastated.”

  As soon as Lily had gone, Jackson tried counting the fish. “It’s impossible,” he said. “The FBI was here. We were here. How can another fish be missing?”

  Before Quigley could reply, the FBI radio transmitter bleeped.

  “Calling all agents, calling all agents,” a voice said. “Suspicious character with a giant fish spotted at the amusement park on Windy Tail Pier. It may be the target! All units respond.”

  Jackson felt a ripple of excitement run through his feathers. This is it! Our time to shine! “Quick!” he said. “It must be the thief. Windy Tail Pier isn’t far from here. We could get there before the FBI and crack the case and prove to them that they need us. Come on. LET’S DO THIS!”

  “Great plan, Secret Agent 00Zero. Just give me one minute.” Quigley flipped over the sled and pulled a screwdriver out of his feathers. “I know a way to get us there even faster. Just need to make two or three small adjustments.”

  The rockets on the back of the sled blasted to life, skooshing stinky pond water out the back.

  “Check this out!” Quigley said, his feathers fluffing up with pride. “I’ve put the sled into hover mode.”

  Jackson looked at it and shuddered. “Thanks, Agent Q, but I think I might just use penguin power this time.” And he raced for the exit before Quigley could stop him.

  4

  Three minutes and fifteen seconds later, Secret Agent 00Zero (also known as Jackson the Sled-Crash Survivor) reached the amusement park on Windy Tail Pier. Just in time for—

  Um … not very much.

  “False alarm, everyone,” Jackson heard the long-beaked FBI penguin boss say. She and the other agents were already there, standing in a huddle in front of some colorful stalls, and next to them was a tiny, confused-looking girl penguin.

  “I won this at the sea urchin stand,” the little penguin explained, waggling a large, cuddly fish toy in the air. “I knocked six sea urchins over with the ball, and the man at the stall gave it to me.”

  “This is NOT the suspect,” the FBI boss said, pointing her flipper at the little penguin. “Repeat: this is NOT the suspect. All agents return to base.”

  “Jackson?”

  He felt a tap on his back.

  “Uncle Bryn!”

  “I told you to go home.” Uncle Bryn frowned. “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, uh … I was coming to give this back to you.” But before Jackson could show Uncle Bryn his radio transmitter, a horrible scraping sound interrupted him.

  “What is that?” Uncle Bryn turned to stare as Quigley appeared on the sled, which was now in hover mode, except it wasn’t. It was in scraping-the-ground-like-a-sled-without-any-snow mode.

  “JACKSON!” Quigley, still some distance away, waved his flippers wildly over his head. “Something’s gone very wrong with the sled.”

  Uncle Bryn sighed. “I’ve gotta go. See you over the weekend.”

  “Wait!” Jackson called. “Your radio transmitter!”

  But Uncle Bryn had already joined the other secret agents, and his boss was at his side. Jackson definitely didn’t want her to know that Uncle Bryn had lost another part of his spy kit. I’ll give it back to him later, Jackson decided as he headed over to Quigley.

  “I don’t understand it.” Quigley had his head under the sled now, a screwdriver in each flipper. “I’ve been working on the hover mode for weeks. Maybe it’s the flotsam capacitor.”

  But Jackson’s head was still full of missing fish. “Do you think we should go back to the aquarium and stake it out? Maybe we could catch the thief red-flippered. Imagine…” He made a dreamy face and pictured the headline plastered across the front page of the Rookeryville Post: HOOKED! FISH THIEF NETTED BY NEW FBI RECRUITS. Underneath, there’d be a picture of him and Quigley—wearing their dark glasses, of course, because FBI agents had to keep their identities secret. “We’d be heroes,” Jackson murmured. “The FBI would have to let us join.” He nodded to himself. This is it. Our big chance. He ran his flipper through his crest and straightened his back. “Come on. Let’s do this!”

  “Okay, sure,” Quigley said. “But first I need to fix the sled.” He looked over at the funfair. “I wonder if Sunny could help.”

  “Your cousin Sunny?” Jackson’s eyes widened and his feathers stood on end. The only person who invented madder, more dangerous gadgets than Quigley was Quigley’s older cousin Sunny. “Um, I’m not sure,” Jackson murmured, remembering the levitating toaster Sunny had made for Jackson’s mom’s birthday. It was supposed to bring your toast directly to you, but it had gone rogue one day and started chasing Jackson around the house, popping toast at him machine gun–style.

  “Sunny works here now,” Quigley said proudly. “He makes all the rides at the funfair.”

  “Seriously?” Jackson blinked in disbelief and looked over at the big waterwheel. The flying clamshell ride. The spinning bumper seals. “You mean they actually let him loose on stuff that penguins ride on?”

  “There he is!” Quigley jumped up and waved to a small rock hopper penguin carrying a large toolbox and wearing a red cap saying ROOKERYVILLE FUNFAIR.

  “SUNNY!” Quigley yelled. “Over here!”

&
nbsp; “Hey, cuz.” Sunny waddled over. “How are you? And, WOW! What is that?”

  For a second Jackson thought he was talking about him. “I’m a Jackson,” he said. “Quigley’s best friend, Jackson. The Jackson who bought your levitating toaster, which chased me out of the house and down the street and nearly got me run over by a bus sled.”

  But Sunny wasn’t looking at Jackson. “What is it, man?”

  “I made it myself,” Quigley said, picking up the sled for his cousin to see. “It’s an Ice Blaster with a hover mode.”

  “Cool. Ice cool.”

  “Only the hover mode isn’t working,” Quigley admitted.

  Sunny prodded the sled. “Want me to take a look?”

  But just then a ringtone sounded from Sunny’s cap. He shook his head and a crab claw popped out from the cap’s left side and wrapped itself around his face. “Sunny here,” he said, speaking into the tip of the claw.

  Quigley’s eyes bulged. “Cool phone,” he mouthed to Jackson.

  Jackson nodded. He reckoned that Quigley was already mentally working out how he could make one.

  “Oh, hi, Ms. Belle,” Sunny said, suddenly standing up straighter, the color draining out of his feathers. “Err, I’m not sure why it’s doing that, but yes, of course I’ll be there in five minutes. Yeah, yeah, I know what will happen to me if I don’t fix it.” He gulped.

  “Oh, man,” he said, ending the call by tapping the crab claw so it shot back into his hat again. “Sorry, dudes, I’ve got to go. A big customer of mine is in trouble. I made a gadget for her new restaurant, but it’s just jammed and the restaurant is opening tonight. So I’ve got to go fix it. If I don’t”—Sunny shuddered—“I’ll be swimming with the fishes.” He set off, hopping along the pier. As he was about to disappear around the corner, he turned and shouted back to Quigley, “You can take the sled into my workshop, dude. Help yourself to anything. But watch out for the bots, okay?”

  Quigley did a little hop of excitement. “Oh, wow, thanks.” He nudged Jackson. “Sunny’s workshop! It’s like being given the keys to a treasure room.”

  “Um, okay,” Jackson said. “If you say so.” But he was imagining what sort of gadget Sunny had gone off to fix. It’s probably a freaky robot chef, Jackson thought. One that will malfunction and start chasing the guests around the dining room with a giant frying pan, trying to catch them and cook them! Jackson shuddered. Wish I knew what restaurant it was so I could make sure I never go there.

  Just then Uncle Bryn’s transmitter bleeped again.

  “Calling all agents, calling all agents,” a voice said. “There are reports of more fish going missing at the City Aquarium. All units respond.”

  “Quick!” Jackson said. “We’ve got to get back there. We’re missing all the action.”

  “Don’t worry,” Quigley said. “I just need two minutes in Sunny’s workshop to fix the Ice Blaster.”

  Two minutes? Jackson groaned. Two minutes in Quigley’s world was more like two hours in real time. And every moment they were away from the aquarium meant their chances of solving the crime were disappearing faster than—well, faster than rare fish were disappearing from the Rookeryville aquarium!

  5

  “I can’t believe Sunny let us in here.” Quigley gazed around the small room in awe. “He NEVER lets people into his secret workshop.”

  Jackson looked at the bare workbench pushed against one wall and the empty shelves with no tools or gadgets on them. “It’s very, um … tidy,” he said.

  But Quigley wasn’t listening. He was peering underneath the workbench. “It’s got to be here somewhere,” he muttered, tapping his flipper along the underside’s edge. “It’s probably a secret flick-switch mechanism. Sunny loves secret flick switches.”

  “Maybe we should just leave the sled here for Sunny to fix when he gets back,” Jackson suggested. “Then we could go back to the aquarium again.” He peered longingly out the small window. More fish were probably being stolen right at this very moment. The thief probably had pocketfuls of squishy fish by now. They HAD to get back there and stop them.

  “Maybe it’s a flipper-print quadruple locking system,” Quigley said, tapping the top of the workbench now. “With a voice-activated control panel and ident-a-beak infrared ID technology, like Sunny has on his bedroom door.” Quigley stopped tapping and peered at a small section of the bench, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Stand back, Agent 00Zero,” he said. “Things are about to get interesting.” Quigley slapped the section of workbench he’d been looking at, then jumped away as it began to shake violently.

  “What’s happening?” Jackson gasped as the floor began to shudder, too.

  “It’s a firewall,” Quigley shouted over the noise of the shaking, “to keep out intruders. I just had to find the trigger switch— Whoa,” he breathed as the wall and the bench suddenly shot down into a cavity below the floor, opening up a giant room beyond.

  No, not a room, thought Jackson, peering in at the flashing control panels and giant, complicated-looking machines. More like a major control center for an exploratory ice submarine. Or an interplanetary penguin space pod launchpad. This was definitely not a workshop for an amusement park. No way!

  “Watch it!” Quigley ducked as a tiny buzzing dart shot out from the secret room, followed by several more.

  Jackson dived behind the sled, upending it like a shield.

  “Frost-wasp bots,” Quigley said, squashing in next to Jackson. “Robotic wasps to guard Sunny’s workshop. Cool, huh?”

  “Sure,” Jackson muttered, flapping his flippers above his head as a frost wasp buzzed his crest.

  “Wonder if Sunny would let me borrow them?” Quigley said. “I could take them to school.”

  Jackson snorted. “Hoff Rockface would flip.”

  Hoff Rockface was Jackson and Quigley’s archenemy. He never missed a chance to get them into trouble. His only weakness was a fear of frost wasps.

  “Hey! That stung!” Jackson flicked a bot off his foot. “Um—Agent Q, how exactly do we get rid of them? Bug spray?”

  “Nah.” Quigley peeped round the side of the sled. “There’s probably a robo-wasp Jell-O trap somewhere. Sunny loves jokes like that. I’ll go look.” He rolled out from behind the sled, but his path to the control room was instantly blocked by a dozen blue laser beams that shot out in front of him, cutting off the secret room.

  “Wow, that was lucky,” Quigley said. “One more step and I’d have been ice sliced.”

  Jackson puffed out his cheeks. “Your cousin really doesn’t like having people in his workshop.” What was Sunny thinking, putting all this crazy stuff in here? He had to be THE most dangerous penguin in the entire universe.

  “There’s probably a central power-down switch,” Quigley said, swatting frost wasps away so he could look through the beams. “We just need to reach the control desk.”

  “I could try the dive-and-roll move,” Jackson said. “It worked yesterday.”

  Jackson and Quigley had built their own laser beam obstacle course in Jackson’s bedroom. Laser beam booby traps were standard bad-guy death traps. And if they wanted to be part of the FBI, they knew they’d need practice in dealing with them. Their practice course didn’t actually have deadly laser beams, of course. They’d planned to install some, but Jackson’s mom had flipped when she’d found out—it had scored at least a Tiger on her Shark Scale of Crossness.

  So they’d used a ball of Jackson’s dad’s yarn instead of laser beams. Jackson’s dad liked to knit egg cozies for Jackson’s soon-to-be sibling, so there was always plenty of yarn lying around. The only downside with Jackson and Quigley’s woolly laser beam practice course was that it didn’t really matter if you got yourself tangled up in it. And that wouldn’t be the case this time.

  “Okay,” Jackson said, ruffling his feathers and taking a deep breath. “Let’s do this!”

  “Want me to film it?” Quigley shook the wasp bots off his backpack and pulled out the icePa
d.

  “Sure, but if I end up iced and sliced, you’ve got to wipe it,” Jackson said. “Or Mom will go Great White!”

  “Okay, Secret Agent 00Zero, I’m recording.” Quigley tried to keep the icePad still, which was tough with a wasp bot crawling up his beak.

  “Hi, I’m Agent 00Zero,” Jackson said, staring into the camera, “and I’m about to show you, the bosses of the FBI, how me and my best buddy, Agent Q, can not only dodge deadly frost-wasp bots”—he paused to wave away three buzzy robotic bugs that had settled on his crest—“but also survive this lethal laser-beam booby trap. Let’s do this!” He gave the camera a flippers-up, then turned to face the beams. Hope I CAN do this, he thought. No way will the FBI want me if I’m iced and sliced like a shrimp cocktail. Jackson took a deep breath then dived over the first beam. Whoa, he breathed, steadying himself so he didn’t crash straight into the next one. He crouched down low and rolled under the next, then immediately dodged across the third, which was super-close to the one before.

  “Watch it!” Quigley shouted. “That one nearly got you.”

  Jackson gritted his beak. Three more to go. He stood on tiptoe to dive over the next one, then shrank down into a tiny ball to roll under the one after, before belly flopping across the last one. “I’m in!” he yelled.

  “Awesome!” Quigley called back. “You did it! Oh, wait—you almost did it.” He pointed to Jackson’s head. “I think one of the beams sort of sliced off half your crest.”

  But Jackson was already distracted by some large drawings laid out on the table in the middle of Sunny’s secret workshop. He stared at the pictures, his heart beginning to beat faster, his beak dry. “What the— Quigley!” Jackson shouted. “You’ve got to see this. That gadget Sunny was talking about—the one for the restaurant … I don’t think it was a robot chef!”