Agent Q, or the Smell of Danger! Read online

  “He says,” Drgnan reported, “that after the battle he reached the docks of Winterthur . . . and stumbled out of the ship’s cockpit . . . smoking and covered in laser burns. . . . The ship never flew again.”

  “That’s a pity which could make a robot weep,” Jasper lamented. “Why didn’t she fly again? The lasers had burst her balloons?”

  “No,” Drgnan said. “When he got out of the ship alive . . . he kissed the ship in thanks for her service to him . . . for getting him through safely.”

  “Ah,” exclaimed Jasper, rapt, “for she was ‘yare’!”

  Drgnan listened to Dnny for a minute, nodding sympathetically. “He says,” Drgnan explained, “that it is not a good idea for a man with tusks to kiss a helium balloon he loves.”

  “Oh,” said Jasper.

  “Yes,” said Drgnan sadly. “He tells me there was a loud pop—which, brother, was no more resounding than the pop of his breaking heart. The balloon burst. And then his ship shot up into the air, over to the side, over to the other side, and boom. She fell down to the bottom of the cliffs. He cried her name . . . squeakily . . . in a really high-pitched voice . . . because of the helium.” Drgnan shook his head. “It was not an easy time for him.”

  Dnny was looking out sadly at the night sky.

  “So then,” said Drgnan, “he joined the crew of this ship, the Snow-Bow. He’s been sailing with them ever since.”

  As if the freighter had heard her name being called, there was a jolt.

  Her engines had picked up. Outside, the lights of Elsmere began to shift and pass. The Snow-Bow had started her voyage through the night sky toward Wilmington and whatever dangers lay there.

  As the ship rose, Lily and Katie sat side by side on the row of stained chairs that looked out over the benighted city.

  The two girls gazed out at the spindles and arches of light cast by the flying palaces. It was beautiful to watch the half-seen structures rise and rotate. In the darkness, the festive airborne town was like a whole mythology of constellations come to Earth to celebrate some holiday or great conjunction: Gemini, the Twins, bringing two pizzas, one veggie, one meat; Capricorn donating a cheesecake; Aquarius carrying a vat of ginger-ale punch served by the Big Dipper; and Cancer, the Crab, with Pisces, the Fish, whispering over in the corner, worried they’ll encounter seafood dip near the chips.

  Um, that was kind of a long simile. All I’m really saying is that the lights were pretty.

  After a long silence, Katie said to her friend, “You’re lucky. You got to fight in the same pile of rice as Drgnan.”

  Lily was a little confused. “I’m not really sure I’d call it ‘lucky.’”

  “You got to have bullets shot at you, and he was all worried about you.”

  “It, you know, it wasn’t so great, Katie. The bullets.”

  “Okay. So maybe the bullets weren’t the best thing, but you have to admit, you got to beat up Mrglik together. That was fun, wasn’t it?”

  “No,” said Lily. “Not really.”

  “How could beating up a spy not be fun with Drgnan?”

  “It’s nothing against Drgnan. If I have to beat up a spy with anyone, it would—”

  “I know. It was probably scary. But I’m jealous that you got to fight in the same rice cart as him. I guess that’s what I’m saying. I wish it was me in the rice cart.”

  “Maybe,” said Lily hopefully, “maybe you’ll get shot at with him the next time.”

  She heard what she had just said, and she couldn’t help smiling to herself.

  Katie saw her smile.

  “Thanks,” said Katie sarcastically. “Thanks for wishing the big wish: Me. Drgnan. Gunplay.”

  The two girls grinned, then started laughing. The dark hills swayed beneath them, and the ship rose toward the sky.

  Don’t you love it, in books, when wishes come true?

  THE WASTELAND

  For breakfast they had microwave sausage and microwave pancakes. The ship’s captain even lent them some of his syrup. Everyone ate looking out over the landscape.

  They had just passed to the north of Mount Minquadale. Now they were flying over huge gouges in the hills, and gray, smoldering slag heaps. There were cranes on the roads, and the rivers ran black.

  Lily had the same feeling she’d had when she saw the people struggling up to the lower city of Elsmere from their rice paddies: the feeling that not everything was wonderful in this mythical country.

  “What is all that down there?” she asked.

  “The Brandywine Hills,” said Brother Grzo sadly. “It is one of the most beautiful places in all of Delaware. Ah, that is to say, it was. (Sorrow take me.) Once, it was beautiful. Lakes and forests. The little towns of Arden and Claymont. Bobcats and pheasants. But now the lakes are thick with brown grime and the forests are chopped down to stumps and the hills are stripped for mining.”

  “By who?” asked Katie, aghast.

  “The Governing Committee of Wilmington. They rule all you see beneath us. They are powerful men and women, friends and business partners of the Autarch. They make their fortunes by plundering the hills. They serve the Autarch. They do not care if this land is despoiled. They never leave Wilmington Castle. There they sit, reaping the profit of this smoky harvest.”

  “That’s awful,” said Lily.

  “Alas, who are we to complain?” Grzo mused. “We too wish to have our roads, our van, our metal beds and lamps and flying ships. Where shall these metals come from, or the timbers for our houses?” He gestured with his hand to the rubble of the hills below them. “What we ask for must come from places like this.”

  “It is true about us wanting our flying ships,” said Jasper ruefully. “Flying ships are extremely keen.”

  Columns of smoke rose past the windows.

  After breakfast, they all went down to the freighter’s hold, where they spray-painted the van red. It was extremely satisfying. Lily loved watching the white disappear in stripes and strokes. Katie, Drgnan, and Jasper loved threatening to color each other’s hair. Katie shrieked and ducked. Drgnan pointed out that he didn’t have any hair. Jasper said he’d paint some in, and Katie said she’d give him a center part.

  Lily wondered why she was always too timid to join in when the others knocked each other around. It looked fun. But she felt more like someone who watched than someone who joined in.

  By the time they had finished with the first coat of paint and gone above-decks for lunch, the airship had reached the outskirts of Wilmington. Its factories and housing blocks lay as far as the eye could see. Trains moved sluggishly on tracks.

  Very little of the old city of Wilmington survived. Though there were a few enclaves where the houses were made of stone and the streets were quaint and narrow, most of the city was now a great industrial center. The most prominent reminder of the city’s past, that age of fable when the purple-sailed ships of Wilmington plied all the trade routes of Delaware Bay, their navy bringing fear even to the savage barbarians of Broadkill, Slaughter Beach, and Hazzard Landing, was the castle that still stood on a rocky hill above the city, commanding a view of all the tenements, mills, and chemical vats for miles around.

  Jasper, Katie, Lily, and Drgnan looked down at Wilmington Castle. Immediately they hated it. Its battlements and conical roofs were black with soot. Something about its jagged turrets spelled doom.

  If only they had known what dire interrogations were about to happen there.

  CRAZY HAY

  In ten minutes or so, the freighter anchored at an air dock. The hair-dryer blasts that held the ship aloft gradually diminished from high to medium. A winch cranked in the anchor cable, pulling the ground upward toward the Snow-Bow.

  The ship landed gently on a wide sheet-metal platform scored with rocket blasts and acid burns. Men ran out to secure the freighter with chains.

  Grzo came into the ship’s lounge to watch the preparations with the kids. He was dressed in khaki pants about an inch too short, old running sho
es, and a T-shirt that said,

  I SURVIVED

  THE FIFTH ANNUAL

  ELLENDALE

  OFFICE SUPPLIES

  BONANZA!

  FEBRUARY 1989!!

  “Disguise,” he explained.

  Katie asked, “Where did you get the shirt? I mean . . . where?”

  “The monastery rummage sale, child. We must hide our monkishness under a bushel. Or behind a veil. The Ministry of Silence knows to seek seven persons in a white van—four monks, three children from out of the state. So we must deceive them. We shall dress like people of the world and shall travel separately to the safe house. You four shall walk with Bvletch. Bvletch shall guide you. Us two, the adults, shall go to a garage and finish disguising the van. This coat of paint is nearly dry. We shall fix the window and add a sign on the doors to further mislead the border police. Then we shall join you at the safe house, most likely on the morrow, when the new morn breaks over the radar dishes of the east.” He handed parcels to Drgnan and Bvletch. “Your costumes,” he said.

  Drgnan bowed. “I render thanks for the disguise that shall preserve me.”

  Bvletch unfolded his parcel and looked down at his new clothes. “What,” he said, “you’ve entered me for Prom King at the Dork Ball?”

  Grzo said gently, “They are such clothes as fine people of leisure wear when vacationing in seaside towns to ease their troubled minds and refresh vexed spirits.”

  Bvletch pulled out a pair of green shorts with a repeated whale and cocker spaniel pattern on them. “It’s never too late to get beat up on the playground,” he said.

  Katie said, “Wow. Whales. That brings back memories.”

  Bvletch protested, “Even the starlings will mock me.”

  “Away with you,” said Grzo lovingly. “Change. Return. You shall not be recognized.”

  In a minute Bvletch and Drgnan came out of their cabin dressed in their new togs. Bvletch wore the spaniel-and-whale shorts and an Izod shirt with the collar up. Drgnan was dressed in plaid shorts, flip-flops, and a Tyrant Splash T-shirt (THE GREAT TASTE OF DELAWARE!).

  Lily watched Katie’s eyes widen. As much as Katie had thought Drgnan was dreamy-esque in monastic robes, she clearly thought he was even more dreamy-esque in an old cotton tee.

  Drgnan saw her staring. “How do I look?” he asked.

  “Great,” said Katie. “I mean . . . yeah . . . great.”

  “What matters is not how you look,” Grzo cautioned. “Appearances are but shadows.”

  “Fine for my renowned master to say,” grumbled Bvletch, slipping on his penny loafers. “He isn’t wearing embroidery whales.”

  Brother Grzo gave them instructions on how to get to the town’s main market. “Once there, find a fishery called Wilt’s. Go into Wilt’s and ask for table seventeen, by the bay. They shall lead you to the safe house. Be alert. No one must know where you go or from whence you come.”

  The kids repeated the instructions back. They bid a fond farewell to the captain of the Snow-Bow and to Dnny. They said good-bye to the two adult monks.

  Grzo embraced each of them. “I shall see you tomorrow. I hope that by this time, the spy shall have made himself known, and we shall set off either on the ferry or across the border just north of here. By tomorrow evening, my children, lights of my soul, we shall be in the state of New Jersey. Is that not cause for rejoicing?”

  “It’ll be nice to get home,” said Katie. “Our parents must be really worried. Thank you for everything you’re doing to get us back to them.”

  Grzo bowed. “I do nothing. I, too, eagerly anticipate the day that I can return home to my Scriptorium in Vbngoom and take up my quills again. The swamp rat, washed to sea, longs for its own special burrow.” He smiled sadly.

  Soon the five kids were shown out of a hidden door. They walked through the docks, past crates and pallets and cranes, and made their way through the great thoroughfares of Wilmington.

  Everywhere there was suspicion in the air. People looked both ways before stepping out of their front doors. Men in long coats whispered to one another. Figures stood on old, baroque bridges, pretending to watch birds with binoculars. A fishmonger watched two old women in head scarves pass, then muttered a report into the mouth of a trout.

  “I wonder how the spy from Washington, DC, shall possibly find us,” said Jasper, peering around and adjusting his pith helmet. “And how will we know him when he appears?”

  “We must be as watchful as falcons,” said Drgnan. He looked suspiciously at a dachshund.

  A little girl hopscotching on the pavement stopped one-legged near six, goggled, smiled a big, toothless smile, and said, “Hello!”

  Katie smiled and said, “Hello, there!” back.

  This was a mistake.

  Once they had passed, the little girl watched them for a minute, then spat some chewing tobacco on the pavement. She slowly put her other leg down and went over to make a telephone call.

  “Five of them,” she said in Doverian. “I heard them. They were talking English. They’re not from around here.” The voice on the other end asked her something. She answered, “Yup. . . . Yup. . . . Nope. No monks. They were mostly in shorts. But two of them didn’t have hair. . . . Yup. . . . Yeah. . . . Ummmm, I want Z-347. The Precious Moments figurines. . . . Either ‘You’re My Sunshine’ or ‘Best Friends Are Forever.’ . . . Okay. And I haven’t gotten the hockey stick I ordered for turning in Mrs. Lpnzski. What are you people running, a secret police or a pizza party? Get on it—pronto!”

  The five friends walked briskly through the streets, seeking Wilt’s Fishery. They were in one of the few old sections of town. The streets, though they had once been painted bright colors, were now dark and grim. The old plaster of the crumbling rococo facades was cracked and blackened. Streaks of grime ran down from windows that had once been grand.

  Many of the oldest houses were built around courtyards, with few windows at all on the outside—just huge, carved doors. It was as if even the architecture didn’t trust people, and turned inward rather than showing things freely on its face.

  Bvletch led them along watchfully. He no longer acted sour and sarcastic. He had dropped all pretense of irony. He clearly knew he was responsible for their safety, and he took no chances. He was careful to look nonchalant, but at the same time, his eyes were shifting around to notice whether anyone was following.

  When disaster struck, however, there was little he—or anyone else—could do.

  The five were walking down a narrow old street when a truck bumbled along behind them. The bales of hay on the back were stacked precariously, preposterously, leaning out over the sides. The driver couldn’t get past the kids. He honked.

  They flattened themselves against the wall. The truck inched forward.

  When it was beside them, it idled. The engine puttered. Diesel smoke drifted around them.

  “Watch,” said Bvletch. He clearly didn’t like what was going on.

  Lily and Katie tried to sidle backward so they weren’t trapped.

  Drgnan and Jasper waited patiently.

  Then bales of hay slid out from the stack—pushed from within. They tumbled into the gutter. And hands shot out to grab the kids.

  “Great time to stay where you are!” shouted Bvletch, which was his way of suggesting they run.

  Jasper and Drgnan struggled with the hands. Katie and Lily pulled themselves backward, stumbling out behind the truck.

  The hands fumbled with our heroes’ elbows. They held out torn pieces of cloth. At first Jasper assumed they were to bind his arms—but then he realized, “Chloroform! They’re trying to knock us out!”

  He reached up, grabbed a block of hay, and yanked it violently down. It struck two of the spies on the head, and they collapsed forward—just as Drgnan leaped up, striking their foreheads with his knees and knocking them silly.

  Three hands had clamped onto Bvletch. A fourth hand passed a chloroform-soaked rag to a fifth hand. The fifth hand moved it toward Bv
letch’s mouth, which was raving, “This is great. You’re the best hay I’ve ever met. Wow, you guys are my favorite crop. My spirit lights up like—ow—ow!”

  Katie and Lily looked around them to see if there was any way they could help. Jasper and Drgnan were tangling with their spies. Bvletch was being dragged toward the holes in the hay.

  “Bvletch!” Katie shouted in alarm—not so much to get his attention as to point out his predicament to Drgnan. She pointed and screamed, “No! Look! Bvletch!”

  Drgnan turned and saw his fellow monk being lifted into the thatch. He delivered a final swipe and wriggled along the stone wall to try to catch hold of Bvletch’s penny loafers before they disappeared forever.

  Then the hands grabbed Drgnan himself.

  And Jasper found himself overwhelmed.

  There were too many of them in the truck.

  The girls were panicked. They plunged back toward their friends, plucking at baling wire and trying to topple the straw.

  There’s no way we can fight this many adults, Lily thought in terror. Jasper was beating at a hand that clenched a rag against his nose and cheek—but he was clearly getting weaker.

  Lily saw Jasper and Drgnan lifted off their feet, both of them reeling with fumes. They were about to be pulled inside.

  And as they hung there, suspended in the arms of their abductors, the truck began to drive away.

  HAYRIDE OF HATE

  “Stop! Halt!” somebody yelled in English.

  The arms in the hay paid no attention.

  “I said, Stop!” the voice repeated.

  Now the arms slowed down for a second.

  Drgnan and Jasper, struggling faintly, both hung with their shoes dabbling in the gutter. Their heads rolled on their shoulders.

  Bvletch was already gone, disappeared into the fodder.

  The new speaker was a boy, perhaps about fifteen—older than Lily and Katie. He had a stern, commanding face and excellent hair for stunts. Instead of a weapon, he held in front of him a Megaluxe Game Wedge™.