Buster and Venk must have run into trouble!
Go, Hamish!
It wasn’t just the long, rising wail of the siren that told Hamish that Starkley was in trouble.
Buster and Venk had activated the town’s Emergency Response System too. Every street light in Starkley was now quickly flashing red and blue, lighting up the sky. Whole banks of clouds above the town turned red and blue in quick succession.
‘Well, I don’t think anybody’s asleep any more,’ said Alice, as they paused for a few seconds before breaking into a run.
‘What can the matter be?’ wondered Elliot, leaping over a puddle.
‘I’m still worried about those tankers,’ said Hamish, casting a glance behind him. ‘Where were they heading? The same place as that baby, I’ll bet.’
As they got closer to the edge of town, there were more flashing lights. But these were from a police car. PC Saxon Wix was barking orders at his colleagues, telling them to put police tape up and start dusting the area for fingerprints.
Concerned residents were huddling in doorways, whispering and muttering among themselves and nervously shaking their heads. There seemed to be panic in the air.
Madame Cous Cous stood outside her shop, talking into her stick, pacing up and down and shaking her head.
Hamish and the gang ran straight to her, but she waved them away, mouthing, ‘Belasko – no time.’
She was on the phone to Belasko again? That meant Hamish and the gang could expect a call soon too.
‘Well, at least we know the emergency alarm works!’ said Clover.
Over by the town clock, other grown-ups like Mr Longblather and Frau Fussbundler pinned Belasko badges to their lapels and wore very serious looks on their faces indeed. Hamish saw Buster and Venk chatting animatedly to Mr Slackjaw about what they’d seen. Venk was doing an impression of the way the baby had run. It wasn’t bad but he’d never win Starkley’s Got Talent with it.
‘Clo, Elliot. Go and tell Mr Longblather about the lorries,’ said Hamish. ‘Then meet us back at HQ. I’m going to head back with Alice – my dad will probably call us soon.’
Hamish and Alice knew they needed clues. They dashed to the computer in Garage 5 and found the Frinkley Starfish website.
Hamish’s tummy flipped when he saw the main story.
And underneath, in the comments section, lots of people who seemed to be from Frinkley had written their replies.
YEAH! Glad somebody’s finally said it! The PDF are a bunch of ninnies!
> Reply Report
Good on ya, Harrashya, you tells it like it is.
> Reply Report
The PDF pretend they is fighting monsters. Well said, comrade!
> Reply Report
‘What’s wrong?’ said Alice.
‘Nothing,’ said Hamish. ‘Just people thinking they’re clever by being mean.’
Hamish saw that there was even a button on the website that said
CLICK HERE TO COMPLAIN DIRECTLY TO STARKLEY TOWN COUNCIL.
That would go straight to his mum. No wonder she’d been inundated lately.
Hamish clicked the page away and found the Search bar.
He typed in babies.
A few headlines came up.
RECORD YEAR FOR BABY BIRTHS IN FRINKLEY
was the first.
Then he typed in crime.
Oddly, crime had gone up in Frinkley at around the same time that they started having more babies. But they were weird, inexplicable crimes, like mysterious, unsolved burglaries where there was no sign of how anyone got in or out. Some people had started to blame each other in the comments under the articles. Neighbours now looked at one another with an unwelcome suspicion, or blamed ‘outsiders’, like people from Starkley.
A thought struck Hamish. He typed in burglary and cats.
‘What on earth are you doing, H?’ said Alice. ‘This is not the time for hilarious cat videos.’
But Hamish smiled. His detective work might just be paying off. From the stories that started appearing, it seemed that almost everyone who’d been burgled had something in common.
There was a picture of a woman named Granny Pog. She was looking sad and pointing at where her old table lamp used to be before it was nicked. And she was holding a cat . . .
Then there was Dimmock Peaknuckle. His favourite book, The History of Felt, had been stolen. He’d only turned his back for a minute. He’d had to feed his cat . . .
‘What do you think it means?’ said Alice, confused when Hamish pointed them out to her. ‘That there are . . . cat burglars?’
‘No,’ replied Hamish. ‘I’m saying that everyone who was burgled had a cat. Which means there’s a very good chance that everyone who was burgled . . . had a cat flap.’
Alice remembered what they’d seen earlier that night and realised what Hamish was trying to say.
‘Baby burglars?!’
Was this why the police were in Starkley tonight? Was that why Buster had sounded the Only in an Emergency! siren? Had they all seen a baby burglar escaping the scene of the crime tonight?
‘Hey, look at that,’ said Alice.
At the bottom of the page, in a tiny story almost hidden away, was the headline:
OLD PETROL STATION BEING REDEVELOPED BY FRINKLEY NEWSPAPER GIANT
‘GUYS!’ yelled Clover, suddenly bursting into HQ, closely followed by the others.
‘What happened?’ said Alice. ‘Buster, why the alarm?’
‘Was it the baby?’ said Hamish. ‘Did they find out a baby had disappeared?’
Clover took a step forward.
‘It’s all the babies, H,’ she said, her face now pale and scared. ‘All the babies have gone!’
Eyes on
the Prize
‘This is bad, H,’ said Hamish’s dad, pacing up and down the room with his arms folded.
At least, he appeared to be in the room. The gang had fired up the Holonow when the call had come in, meaning it was as if Agent Angus Ellerby was actually there.
‘How many babies are we talking about?’ asked his hologram.
‘All of them,’ said Hamish. ‘And I suspect something similar might have happened in Frinkley.’
‘Frinkley?’ said Dad. ‘Why Frinkley?’
Hamish explained his thoughts. He told his dad exactly what had been happening from the start.
The strange babies in Frinkley Hospital.
The fact that all the babies born there seemed a little . . . unusual.
The one they’d just chased through the fields outside Frinkley.
The curious case of massive Boffo and his strange DNA.
Their suspicions about his growing influence on other babies.
The recent rise in burglaries. The baby monitors facing the street.
Hamish’s dad listened intently, but, when Hamish mentioned the strange petrol tankers carrying Formula One, he clicked his fingers and looked alarmed.
‘Formula One?’ Dad said. ‘How much Formula One?’
‘Lorries of it,’ said Alice. ‘Litres and litres and litres.’
‘Baby advancement formula,’ he replied. ‘Speeds up the development process. Give babies enough of it and they’ll be doing crosswords by the time they’re two weeks old!’
Hamish’s dad suddenly seemed to be talking to someone they couldn’t see. He made furious gestures and mouthed things like Code Grey and Return Ship Now.
‘Kids,’ he said, turning back to them. ‘I think we may be heading for a BABY BOOM.’
‘A Baby Boom?’ they all said at once.
‘Yes. A cataclysmic event. A once-in-a-generation moment. A point of no return. One in which the babies rise up against us. If these babies can communicate their rage to each other, and if they’re big enough to attack, just imagine what they could achieve!’
Hamish thought about it. What his dad was describing sounded like Baby Mayhem. Bayhem!
It would be like the Viking invasion they’d seen on the Holon
ow, but in real life! Or hordes of marauding Spartans! Ninjas on every corner!
It was all becoming clear. Boffo had been chosen by some evil higher power to become some kind of King Baby – he could certainly influence the others. And if they were full of Formula One . . .
PDF were suddenly under. ‘I’ll be there as fast as I can!’
‘How long?’ said Hamish, relieved. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m about a hundred and sixty-three thousand miles away,’ he said.
‘Is that in another county?’ asked Venk, stunned. ‘Are you anywhere near Milton Keynes? My uncle Anil could give you a lift back.’
Dad pressed a button on his watch. The whole room filled with stars and planets and galaxies.
‘I’m at a space hotel called the Andromeda Star. I’ve been looking out for Scarmarsh,’ he said. ‘But it seems he knew I was coming. He’s in hiding. I haven’t been able to find him anywhere.’
Hamish and Alice swapped glances.
‘What do you mean?’ said Hamish. ‘He’s in hiding?’
‘Well, all my information has led me to a dead end.’
Hamish’s mind was racing. Could it be that Dad was mistaken? Scarmarsh had tricked them all before – why couldn’t he be tricking them now?
What if Scarmarsh had fooled Dad?
Got him out of the way?
Sent him 163 thousand miles away on some wild goose chase?
Leaving Starkley vulnerable to a BABY BOOM!
‘Dad,’ said Hamish, with a sinking stomach. ‘On your trip to find Scarmarsh, did you pass a planet called Screed?’
‘Yes,’ said Dad. ‘He’d been spotted there, but then we were told he’d pushed on further so we gave chase. How do you know about Screed?’
And then Dad’s eyes widened, turning from shock, to realisation, to anger.
‘Screed!’ he said, finally putting it all together. ‘There’s a huge F1 plant there!’
‘It’s Scarmarsh, Dad!’ said Hamish. ‘He must have gone to Screed, but doubled back and paid people to give you bad information!’
Scarmarsh with the glare . . .
Scarmarsh with the Starkley obsession . . .
Scarmarsh who Hamish knew would never be far away . . .
‘I’ll be back as fast as I can, H,’ Dad said, getting out his Andromeda Starpoints loyalty card and signalling to someone that he needed to pay his room-service bill and pronto. ‘A few days. Do what you must. Get to Madame Cous Cous. I’ll call her now and fill her in. She’ll be able to help you until I get back.’
As the PDF jogged to the International World of Treats, Hamish came up with a battle plan.
‘We need to go to Frinkley,’ he said to his friends. ‘We have to find out where those tankers were going.’
Where would petrol tankers even be going at this time of night?
Wait.
‘What was that in the paper about a petrol station?’ said Hamish.
‘Just that the newspaper people had bought it?’ said Alice, before realising something. ‘That’s a very weird combination of businesses, isn’t it? Why would a newspaper buy a petrol station? That’s like starting a shop that sells books about railways and combining it with gentlemen’s haircuts.’
‘Might I remind you that our official vehicle is both an ice-cream van and a mobile disco,’ said Buster. ‘So I’m not sure we’re ones to judge. Talking of which, I have a few modifications to make . . .’
‘I’ll come with you so I can start researching petrol stations,’ said Elliot, which was a first.
‘Wait for me,’ said Clover. ‘I’ll pack a few disguises!’
The team was pulling together once again.
‘Time for Cous Cous,’ said Hamish, which was both accurate and also sounded like the name of a really terrible recipe book.
Madame Cous Cous looked deadly serious when they walked in. There was no time for small talk any more than there was time to make an origami pelican or wallpaper a church. So Hamish launched straight into it.
‘I was under the impression Axel Scarmarsh worked for the Superiors?’ he said. ‘I thought the Superiors were like . . . well, his superiors?’
‘They were,’ replied Madame Cous Cous, folding her stick in two. ‘But they lost interest in Earth when we sent them packing the last time. It was too much like hard work! I’ve been talking to some of my contacts and it seems Scarmarsh has done a deal with the Superiors. He agreed to forever leave Part A of the galaxy alone in return for Part B.’
‘Part A and Part B?’
‘A is the “Awesome” part. The Superiors took Nebulous, Imperia, the tropical twin planets of Thrust, plus Go-Getta and Ultra-500.’
‘And what about B?’ said Hamish.
‘B,’ she said. ‘Aka the “Bobbins” part.’
‘Hang on,’ said Hamish, looking a little offended, if I’m honest. ‘Earth is in the Bobbins part? The bad part?!’
Madame Cous Cous nodded.
‘Scarmarsh was given Earth, Burf, Mundania, Klaxon, Polyfill, Harrumph and Turd.’
Hamish clenched his fist.
He hated Scarmarsh, ever since the day Scarmarsh had tricked him into breaking into his evil lair at the top of the Post Office Tower in London. Scarmarsh was always one step ahead. And, if he had indeed parted ways with the Superiors, he’d be free to do whatever he liked. Hamish knew Scarmarsh loved Earth and was fixated on Starkley.
That always seemed strange to Hamish. If Scarmarsh wanted, he could strike anywhere in the world. Bogota. Berlin. Burton-on-Trent. Yet he was choosing the one place he knew was packed with Belasko operatives and where he’d met resistance before. He was choosing the very place Belasko Agent of the Year, Angus Ellerby, called home.
There must be a reason for this obsession, thought Hamish.
And Hamish was right. Handing the Superiors the more attractive part of the galaxy was just a cunning part of Scarmarsh’s plan. He’d been studying their weaknesses, and one day he knew he would overthrow his weird lizard masters (he already had a few ideas how). But, for now, he just needed them out of the way – along with Belasko – and distracted by what they thought was the main prize.
Of course, the Superiors had no idea about the truth behind Scarmarsh’s actions. But now, in this sweet shop, Hamish was starting to work things out. And he was getting closer to the truth . . .
‘I think that quite often,’ he said, softly, ‘the most dangerous person in the world is not the person who’s in charge. It’s the one who’s second-in-charge.’
‘How come?’ asked Alice.
‘Because you’re not looking at them,’ said Hamish. ‘And they’re quietly biding their time before they strike.’
Madame Cous Cous nodded, wisely.
Then, just as all that slotted into place for Alice and her friends, the whole town shook as an almighty BOOM! rocked the skies . . .
Where When How
What Why?!?
In the skies over Starkley, it was like someone had unleashed a zillion fireworks.
A streak of fire hung in the air, a bright orange against the ink-black of the cosmos.
‘What was THAT?’ yelled Venk, utterly startled.
After the BOOM had come a ROAR.
The screech of metal came after that, as something huge and hulking spun and twisted in the air, disappearing past the trees before anyone could see what it was.
The gang ran outside and stared up at the sky.
‘Something big just entered the atmosphere,’ said Elliot, adjusting his glasses. ‘And I’d say it was headed towards Frinkley.’
‘Good!’ said Buster. ‘We always get the trouble. Monsters, aliens, massive snapping plants. Let Frinkley deal with something for once!’
But Hamish knew better. ‘Scarmarsh,’ he said, darkly.
The gang began to panic but Hamish needed to focus. Dad was 163 thousand miles away, and space traffic at this time of night was terrible. This was up to Hamish. And things were starting to make sense.<
br />
If Scarmarsh was here, it was because of the babies.
Find the babies, find Scarmarsh.
Find Scarmarsh, stop the BABY BOOM.
‘This isn’t a time for panic!’ said Hamish, clapping his hands together, then pointing importantly in the air. ‘This is a time for action!’
As the ice-cream van tore down a country lane, the fire in the sky had all but disappeared. It had left a smell in the air like the one you get after a particularly enormous intergalactic bonfire. And, as the PDF arrived in Frinkley, they found much the same scene as they had left in Starkley.
Confused parents wandering around, holding hands and comforting each other.
Police cars and flashing lights and people searching bushes and outbuildings.
Houses with their doors wide open and their lights on and blaring tellies.
People staring upwards and pointing out where they’d seen the fire in the sky.
Posters saying, Beautiful Baby Competition: Postponed Until Further Notice!
A few people glanced suspiciously at the PDF’s van as it whispered through town. Hamish knew the people on street corners and staring from the pavements were probably saying mean things about them. Maybe they thought the PDF had made all this happen so they could step in and pretend to save the day, just like the Starfish was always saying they were doing.
There had obviously been a baby break-out here in Frinkley too. Babies running for the hills as their parents dozed on sofas. Babies leaping over fences, crawling under bushes or diving through cat flaps. They even heard people talking about one baby who had apparently escaped by riding a dog. Hamish would bet his last Chomp that they’d all headed to the same place, as if guided. But the baby exodus had happened before the fire had raced through the sky to announce Scarmarsh’s arrival.