Chapter 3
Al Spider Arrives At The Reserve Bank.
Louie was up at 4.00 a.m. for the big day. He was a little apprehensive about what could go wrong with the planned attack on Al Spider.
Louie soon pushed these negative thoughts out of his mind, after all, Pearl Baker-Moth would handle the situation and she always knew what to do in a crisis.
Louie stretched his wings and legs then brushed his body and washed his teeth (this is what bees do).
Next he lit the stove to make his breakfast. Because there was not much time he quickly made some over easy spider eggs, accompanied by some gum leaf toast washed down with some of Louie’s favourite tea, a special blend of tussock grass tips that he bought at the super market, known as TG Tips.
It was still dark outside. The streetlight where Pearl lived was still shining brightly and he wondered what Pearl was doing.
Pearl Baker-Moth was up and about preening herself ready for the day ahead. Pearl had decided to skip breakfast, there was much on her mind and besides she felt the preening bit was more important.
Pearl phoned each of her Cabinet Ministers and reminded them of their responsibilities for the day. B3 reported that Al Spider was making progress as expected. Pearl twittered the information to the starlings that everything was happening and it was all go.
Pearl summed up in her mind the chain of events that were about to unfold.
Firstly the mosquito force outside the Reserve Bank was to be immobilised. Next Virgil’s wasps would move in and pickup the bank staff and take them to Virgil’s hangar. Pearl thought it best if Virgil’s hangar were the HQ for the day; it was well south of the action and probably safest for all. The final and crucial action was the call for the starlings to move in and finish off the job.
Pearl Baker-Moth was ready for action. She checked her smell phone battery to ensure it would last the day; indeed the battery was a nice full round shape and unlikely to go flat over the next twelve hours or so.
Pearl phoned Louie to check that he was on the ball as indeed he was.
‘Leaving in five minutes Louie’, said Pearl. ‘I will go straight to Virgil’s and see you there as arranged at 5.30 a.m.’
‘OK Pearl, I will leave in five minutes too and see you there’, replied Louie and hung up.
The two insects made their way to Virgil’s hangar. There was a faint glimmer of pink in the eastern sky. Could mean rain later thought Pearl but at least for now it was clear and calm for the pending operation.
Louie was there when Pearl arrived. The Ten Ants had already been briefed and were lined up ready and waiting for action. Virgil already had the ten courier packs of mosquito repellent onboard and was close to doing a boarding call for the Ten Ants.
There were ten wasps waiting with wings at idling power ready to go. It was all very exciting with the buzz of activity.
First of all Virgil went over the flight plan with Pearl and Louie. ‘After take off I will fly west in a wide circle and climb to an altitude of 50,000 feet (again remember insects have small feet so about four lamp posts high). The ten rescue wasps will follow me and remain circling beyond the road to the west until I call them in’.
Virgil lowered his voice and continued. ‘The key is an element of surprise; we don’t want to wake the sleeping mosquitoes. To this end at the appropriate time and some distance away from the Reserve Bank I will cut power and glide in. The Ten Ants have been instructed to release the mosquito repellent on my call of “C.F.A.A”’
Louie trying to sound knowledgeable queried. ‘I presume this means ‘Cleared For Action Ants’’.
No replied Virgil. ‘To keep the Ten Ants focused it stands for ‘Chocolate Cake for All Afterwards’.’
‘Right’, said Virgil. ‘Action time, would passengers seated in rows nine and ten board now please’.
This happened to be Deodor(ant) and Flatul(ant). Virgil had arranged that they sit down the back of the aircraft because of the possibility they may interfere with smell phone transmissions. However let’s be fair, these were two fine capable Ants from Louie’s Team and were not to be sniffed at.
Having got Deodor and Flatul onboard Virgil announced, ‘Would the remaining passengers in rows 1 to 8 now board please’.
Everything was going well. The Ten Ants were now strapped in (or rather on) and ready for takeoff. Because the flight was of a military nature there were no cabin crew today. Normally there would have been a person bird (ladybird) looking after passengers and making the usual in-flight announcements.
Virgil started up. Running at about 1,500 r.p.m. he slowly moved out of the hangar. The large powerful blue dragon fly was a magnificent sight in the darkness of the early morning. As Virgil moved out, the ten pickup wasps followed and lined up with military precision behind Virgil.
Virgil idled for a minute or more, checking wind direction, power settings and advised the Ten Ants to remain seated during takeoff.
Then it was full power, Louie and Pearl found it hard to hold on to the ground with the wash of air from the powerful wings. Virgil lifted off and headed west as planned, the Ten Ants were waving to Louie and Pearl in absolute excitement.
Immediately after Virgil had gone, the ten wasps, at full power lifted off and flew in a Vee formation behind Virgil.
Pearl and Louie just stood and looked in awe. It was like something out of Star Wars.
All went quiet again.
‘Right’, said Pearl. ‘Louie, you and I, back to my place where we can observe what is going on’.
The pair took off in the early dawn and headed to Pearl’s street light apartment.
It was now five minutes to six, about four minutes before Virgil would move in for the drop.
Pearl put her smell phone on speakerphone so Louie could hear as well and opened up communication with Virgil.
‘This is operations, come in ZK 10NANA’, said Pearl.
‘Roger, this is ZK whatever’, said Virgil who couldn’t quite remember what his registration number was, let alone see it in the dark.
‘In position now’, continued Virgil. ‘Will be proceeding for the drop in two minutes, over and out’.
Pearl and Louie went to the window and could just make out Virgil and the wasps circling in the west. The pair waited in silence.
‘There he goes’, exclaimed Louie. ‘He’s heading in the direction of the Reserve Bank’.
Sure enough, the large dragonfly with the Ten Ants and the mosquito repellent onboard were making a power off gliding descent towards the Reserve Bank.
As Virgil made his approach he could see the top of the Reserve Bank ahead, just visible in the early morning light. Virgil made the glide path low enough to prevent being spotted by the mosquitoes asleep out the front of the bank.
Virgil spoke to the Ten Ants over the intercom. ‘This is your Captain speaking; we are now one minute away from the drop. Stand by for a count down to ground zero. A fifteen second count down will commence shortly’.
The Ten Ants readied themselves as instructed; they had been drilled many times earlier in the morning on the procedure. Nothing could go wrong now. They were ready for action immediately they heard the code C.F.A.A.
‘Here we go’, said Virgil over the intercom. ‘Count down starting now; zero minus fifteen seconds, fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one - C.F.A.A. and go!!’ yelled Virgil.
The Ten Ants immediately let all the courier packs go. Bull’s eye! Right on target, the sleeping mosquitoes didn’t know what had hit them. The mosquito repellent spread everywhere with each impact of the courier packs.
The mosquitoes didn’t stand a chance. Within less than a minute all were lying dead on the ground outside the Reserve Bank.
The Ten Ants and Virgil cheered. The operation had been a complete success. Virgil had timed the operation beautifully.
Virgil now had another small job to do before he called in the ten wasps. Power on agai
n, he turned remaining low over the eastern side of the stream and headed back across to the Reserve Bank. Once Virgil was over the bodies of the dead mosquitoes he hovered then blasted with full power. He blew all the mosquitoes into the stream and dispelled any remaining mosquito repellent. Yea!
Having now cleared the area, Virgil instructed the ten wasps to move in to pickup the bank staff. They sure would be relieved to be free again!
Mission completed!
A short time later, Virgil called up operations and reported in. ‘Operation a success, the bank staff are on their way back to the hangar now. Remaining in the Reserve Bank area, will advise when Al Spider and the Gang emerge. Over’.
Pearl and Louie were overcome with relief. ‘Phase three now’, said Pearl and looked out the window towards Mr McFarland’s place. It was about a quarter to eight. As planned the starlings were gradually gathering on the roof of Mr McFarland’s shed. By the numbers that were there it appeared as though there could be more to come.
Pearl called up the chief starling (the darling starling she had spoken to the day before) on her smell phone. Yes there were a few more to arrive.
‘Give me a call back in five’, said the chief starling.
Pearl and Louie continued to wait while looking out the window of Pearl’s apartment at the growing number of starlings on the shed roof.
Then horror of horrors! Mr McFarland had heard the noise of the starlings on his shed roof and had come out to see what was going on.
Immediately Mr McFarland started picking up stones off his driveway and throwing them at the starlings. This was by no means the normal behaviour of Mr McFarland who loved animals. It was just that there were so many of them. He was really quite frightened.
Pearl’s smell phone rang; it was the chief starling. He was no longer in a mood to be a ‘darling starling’ oh deary me no!
‘What the hell is going on – you didn’t tell me about this!’ the chief starling yelled. ‘Unless something can be done we are off!’
‘Just hold on’, said Pearl. ‘We will think of something’.
‘Well hurry up’, said the chief starling. ‘This is worse than flying in hail stones!’
‘Dam!’ said Pearl and her feelers stood straight up again.
Louie was a bit taken aback with this utterance from Pearl as she usually just said ‘bother’, ‘golly’, or ‘gosh’ when things went wrong. It must be serious he thought.
‘Right’, said Pearl. ‘This requires drastic action, Louie I am going to have to make a private call and sort out this business with Mr McFarland, I am sorry but it is hush-hush stuff, I can’t involve you in it’.
Pearl went into another room and closed the door leaving Louie wondering what Pearl was up to.
Louie could just hear an urgent conversation between Pearl and someone else on the phone. There was something about ‘don’t touch the blue wire’, a red and a green wire.
Pearl emerged from the room and her feelers were in the curled position again. Louie was humming a tune to himself pretending that he hadn’t heard anything.
‘Right’, said Pearl. ‘Let’s have a look out the window’.
Louie was dumbfounded. Sure enough, Mr McFarland had disappeared!
Pearl got straight on the phone to the chief starling and said. ‘You should be OK now’.
‘That’s a relief’, said the chief starling and went on to say. ‘All of our numbers are in position now; we are awaiting further instructions’.
‘Will be calling you shortly’, said Pearl back in control of the situation.
By now it was just after 8.00 a.m. and Pearl hadn’t heard from Virgil.
The pair waited another couple of minutes. Louie was wondering how on earth Pearl had sorted out the issue with Mr McFarland, there was no sign of him.
At four minutes past eight the call they had been waiting for came from Virgil. It was confirmed that Al Spider and the Gang were out in the open in front of The Reserve Bank.
Pearl thanked Virgil who was now heading back to the hangar at maximum certified airframe speed.
Pearl phoned the chief starling and just shouted over the phone, ‘Go!’
Pearl and Louie watched. The starlings lifted from the shed roof in a speckled swirling cloud and headed north to the Reserve Bank where Al Spider and the Gang were trying to gain entry. It was a moving sight, so many birds flying in close formation under one instruction from the chief starling.
Pearl and Louie rushed over to the north facing windows of Pearl’s apartment and watched the starlings. It was a minute or so and then they saw the starlings dive. It would be all over for Al Spider and the Gang!
Al Spider and the Valley Barn gang were taken by complete surprise. The hungry starlings consumed most of Al Spider’s gang and hopefully Al Spider. A few escaped badly injured and were likely to be months being nursed in a nursery spider hospital.
Well the two much relieved insects, Louie and Pearl, shouted in unison. ‘Yea we did it!’
It was an emotional time; the insect community had been saved from a very grave situation.
Pearl and Louie sat in silence for a moment taking it all in.
‘What are we waiting for Louie?!’ said Pearl. ‘Let’s get down to Virgil’s hangar and celebrate before the Ten Ants eat all the chocolate cake!’
Pearl and Louie laughed with relief.
The question remains, how did Pearl Baker-Moth stop Mr McFarland from throwing stones at the starlings, what was all this red wire, blue wire, green wire stuff that Louie had overheard?
Well what had happened was that Pearl had phoned her Cabinet Minister B2. What she had done was get B2 to connect the necessary wires in the cabinet to make Mr McFarland’s phone ring all the time. Naturally Mr McFarland had stopped throwing stones at the starlings; he had gone in to answer his phone!
Every time Mr McFarland answered the phone there was of course no one there and every time he hung up it started ringing again! This kept Mr McFarland preoccupied in a rage for sometime, well enough time to at least remove the threat to the starlings!
Pearl Baker-Moth is one clever lady, don’t you think!