Blackout (8 page)

The morning sun glittered on the Thames. The plan was for the family to enjoy breakfast on board the boat and then do some sightseeing in the capital city. Mum and Dad had a lie-in so Ben, Sophie and Ollie skipped into the restaurant, only to find Professor Cortex slumped at the breakfast table, snoring like a tractor.

‘He's been here all night,' explained the waiter. ‘He must have got very drunk.'

‘He doesn't really drink,' said Sophie, picking up his empty champagne glass and sniffing it.

Ben slapped the professor on the back. Then again, much harder, and the old man grunted. ‘Prof,' he said, aware that the other diners were looking their way, ‘it's morning.'

The professor raised his head from the table,
a piece of last night's pepperoni stuck to his cheek and the pattern of a napkin imprinted on his forehead. ‘What morning?'

‘Our final morning. Before we go sightseeing,'
said Ollie enthusiastically. ‘And it looks like there was no diamond thief.'

‘You look terrible,' remarked Sophie. ‘Where's Shakespeare?' She lifted the tablecloth and looked under the table.

The professor's head hit the table once more and he groaned. ‘Oh dear. She's cleverer than I thought. I think something terrible has happened to Agent CAT,' he announced into the tablecloth.

Shakespeare wasn't sure how to play it. The diamond collar had been removed from his neck, but his translating one was still intact. He'd spent ten minutes sulking under a table, hissing at the pensioners. But he'd cleared his head and come to his senses.
What would a Spy Cat do? I need information
.

He'd peeped from his hiding place and had counted fifty-five old people, mostly sitting in comfy armchairs, chatting or doing crosswords. One group of old ladies was engrossed in a jigsaw. A couple of elderly gentlemen were gluing model aeroplanes together. Maude, the old lady who had snatched him, was brewing some fresh tea.

None of them look very dangerous
, thought Shakespeare.
I have a big advantage over them. They don't know that I'm a ginger ninja. They don't know that I've got a translating collar. I can be the professor's eyes and ears. I'm sure my family will have noticed I'm missing and are on their way. A Spy Cat would mingle, eyes peeled and ears alert. A Spy Cat would find out what the plot is. I've heard them talking about ‘Mission GoD' which is taking place at midday today
.

Shakespeare glanced at the grandfather clock ticking loudly in the corner.

8 a.m. Exactly four hours to save the world
.

Sophie was the one who'd brought the professor to his senses. Three strong black coffees had dilated his pupils and his brain was groggy but functioning. ‘We are going to find my cat,' she ordered. ‘And we're going to find him now.'

All of a sudden the professor could see Sophie as a young Mrs Cook. Resistance was futile. He nodded wearily. Sophie had rummaged in his pockets and found his mobile. ‘His translating collar,' she reminded him, ‘has a tracking device. So track him!'

Professor Cortex stabbed at a few buttons
and a map appeared. ‘Agent CAT is close,' he said, a note of surprise rising in his voice. ‘Within half a mile in fact. That way.' He pointed across the river. ‘But it's very strange,' he said, shaking his mobile to see if he could get a different reading.

‘What's so strange, Professor Calamity?' urged Sophie.

‘Agent CAT is three-hundred metres above sea level.'

‘On a plane?' panicked Sophie. ‘Someone's catnapped poor old Shakespeare and they're flying him out of the country!'

‘No, Sophie,' said the professor, looking at the tracking device and shaking his head. ‘Agent CAT isn't moving. He's three-hundred metres in the air, that-a-way.' The scientist turned and pointed towards the red dot. The children followed the line of his finger.

He was pointing at the Shard.

The
children had decided not to ask Mum and Dad. ‘They'll just say no,' decided Sophie, ‘and “no, you can't go and rescue Shakespeare from the diamond thief” is absolutely the wrong answer.'

They had marched the confused scientist off the boat and along the Thames embankment. Ben had Googled ‘the Shard' and was checking the details on his mobile phone. ‘Viewing platform on level seventy-two. But there are eighty-seven floors. Wikipedia says the top two floors are residential,' he read. ‘But it doesn't say who owns them. Three-hundred metres. That must be the very top floor.'

Sophie led the way. She marched forward, a frown fixed on her freckled face. Ben, Ollie and the professor scampered behind.

‘Soph,' yelled her big brother. ‘We need a plan.'

‘I've got a plan,' she thundered, marching faster. ‘I'm going to the top of that building to rescue my cat.'

The small gang approached the foyer. A guard in a peaked cap looked them up and down. ‘We've got a booking at one of the restaurants,' fibbed the professor, regaining some composure. ‘Me and my, erm, kids?'

‘Your name, sir?' asked the guard, his eyes scanning a computer screen.

‘His name is Professor Cortex,' snorted Ollie. ‘And we're here to get to the top floor to rescue our cat. It's all of our's cat really, but Sophie's the most. We've got some dogs too,' he offered, smiling. ‘But they couldn't come to London because we've been on a boat and so we only brought our puss. We've tracked him down to here. Well, up there actually.' Ollie pointed his finger skywards. ‘He's got a translating collar, you know.'

The professor saw that the security guard was confused. ‘We're here for Shakespeare,' he explained.

‘Then you'll need a theatre, sir,' advised the
guard, feeling one of his headaches starting to pound.

‘If you could just let us up to the top floor, we'd be very grateful,' said Professor Cortex, pressing a £20 note into the guard's hand.

The man pocketed the crisp twenty. All of a sudden he looked interested. ‘The top floor, sir,' he said, ‘is out of bounds. It's reserved. To be honest, sir, even I don't know what goes on up there. But there have been some strange goings-on,' he confided, lowering his voice.

‘Such as?' asked the professor, rummaging in his wallet for another £20.

The security guard waited for the note to land in his palm before continuing. ‘The top two floors, sir,' he said, ‘are residential. The most expensive apartments in the world.'

‘And with the best view,' suggested Professor Cortex, attempting to hurry the man along. ‘So what kind of
strange
goings-on?'

Another £20 was pocketed. ‘There's a special lift that goes up to the very top floors, sir. Highly restricted access. I've never been up there personally. I can only go as far as the restaurant, that's the thirty-third floor. But there have been a lot of people using the
private lift. Strange people, if you know what I mean?'

Sophie's cat had been abducted and she couldn't wait any longer. She snatched the professor's bulging wallet and wafted it in front of the security guard's wide eyes. ‘What kind of strange people? We want to get up there.'
The little girl waved the wallet around and the man's eyes tracked it, like Spud did with a chocolate éclair.

‘Old people,' he said, mesmerized by the chunky wallet. ‘Loads of very old people. They go up and they never come back down. A community of pensioners.'

‘There, told you,' said Sophie, turning to the others. ‘Shakespeare has been catnapped by a bunch of evil diamond thieves who just happen to be pensioners. And somehow they're intending to destroy the Internet. It makes perfect sense.'

‘It does?' asked the guard, his eyes still on the professor's fat wallet.

‘Get us up there,' ordered Sophie.

‘I c-can't,' stammered the guard, fearing his easy cash bonus would disappear before his very eyes.

‘Can't or won't?' frowned Sophie.

‘I can only get you as far as the restaurant,' he said. ‘After that, you'd have to take the, ahem, secret stairs.'

In pride of place, in the middle of the room, sat a strange-looking contraption. Shakespeare eyed it curiously.
The bottom half looks like the
lawnmower that Dad keeps in the shed. And then there's a series of pipes and tubes. And what on earth is that sparkly thing swinging above it?
He cast his mind back to the school disco when he'd popped by to fetch Sophie.
It looks like a glittery disco ball
, he thought, remembering the one that had been suspended from the school ceiling.
How odd. Maybe the old people are going to be doing some disco dancing
. Shakespeare gulped as the realization hit him.
The glittery things on the disco ball are diamonds!

A man was kneeling next to the contraption. He had opened the panel on the lawnmower and seemed to be fixing the diamond –
my diamond
– inside. He closed the panel and dusted his hands together. ‘Precision engineering,' he announced. ‘Everything is sorted, right down to the last thousandth of a millimetre. The satellites are nearly aligned. Our time is coming.'

Shakespeare hoped his family were tracking him through his translating collar. He glanced at the grandfather clock ticking its way past 11.30 a.m.
Whatever's going to happen is going to happen soon!
Shakespeare's previous scrapes had used up a few of his nine lives.
I just hope I've got enough left to save the world
.