Free Mummy Madness by Andrew Cope Page B

a minute so
     looked a bit of a mess. But it was the early hours of the morning – looking good was
     a luxury he didn’t have time for. He reached for his wallet and tucked it into
     his back pocket. ‘Just got to put my eye in,’ he shouted to the
man on the other end of the phone.
     ‘And I’ll be right with you.’
    Terror Thomas’s fingers swished in
     the water, feeling for his glass eye. His thumb and forefinger settled on
     Spud’s pickled onion and he shook the water away before ramming it into his
     eye socket.
    The man on the other end of the phone
     nearly jumped out of his skin. He had never heard a yell quite as loud or quite as
     long.
    It took a while for the police to
     understand what Sophie and Ollie were on about. The little boy was so excited that
     everything came out in one long sentence. ‘The professor is a mummy and he got
     taken away by a baddie and Lara, our pet Spy Dog, well, she’s retired now so
     isn’t actually a spy, but she is a dog, tried to save everyone and we really
     need our real mummy …’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ soothed the lady
     police officer. She was trained to remain calm and the children were obviously in
     shock. Sophie and Ollie were wrapped in foil blankets and led down the stairs, Ollie
     complaining that he felt like a roast chicken.
    Star had made a good recovery and was
doubly determined to recapture the evil
     Mr Big. Lara and the pups ran ahead, looking out for Ben. Lara led, head and tail
     down, taking the slippery floor at full speed. She careered through the main door
     and out into the night air. A paramedic was standing at the entrance, scratching his
     head. ‘Where’s my ambulance gone?’ he said. ‘And my bandaged
     patient?’
    Lara was in Spy Dog mode, fitting the
     clues together in her head
. Stolen ambulance. Man in bandages. I need to find
     that vehicle.
She assessed the situation. There were people milling about,
     but nobody seemed to be in charge. Lara remembered her training.
Then I must
     take charge
, she thought, taking a deep breath and puffing out her
     chest.
    She watched as Sophie and Ollie were led
     to a police car. A policewoman opened the back door and ushered them in.
An
     opportunity
, thought the dog as the officer walked away. Lara and the pups
     jumped aboard. The retired Spy Dog took Sophie’s phone and logged on to the
     Internet. There was a minute of silence except for some serious tapping of paw on
     screen. ‘Gotcha,’ woofed Lara, holding the map out to the puppies.
     ‘That dot is the
professor’s
     phone. The one implanted in his hand. His titchology thing.’
     

     
    ‘So we need to follow that
     dot,’ yapped Star.
    ‘Before Mr Big discovers that the
     mummy isn’t really a mummy,’ added Spud. ‘And the
     prof … you know …’ he woofed, running his paw across his
     throat.
    ‘Before the professor loses his
     head,’ agreed
Lara.
     ‘We’ve no time to lose.’ Sophie looked a little unsure as Lara
     jumped into the passenger seat of the police car. The dog patted the driver’s
     seat with her paw. ‘Come on, lady,’ she whined.
We haven’t got
     all day. Your brother has been kidnapped by an evil baddie. And you’ve got
     hands, so you have to do the steering
.
    Ollie threw off his foil wrapper and
     started jumping up and down in the back seat. ‘Cool!’ he shouted.
     ‘Lara wants you to steer the car.’
    Star tugged at Sophie’s trouser
     leg. ‘Come on, come on,’ she snarled. ‘Get yourself into the
     driver’s seat.’
    ‘This is ridiculous,’ said
     Sophie as she clambered into the front and plonked herself down. The little girl
     looked sternly at Lara. ‘I’m ten,’ she said frostily. ‘And I
     don’t know how to drive.’
    ‘But we do,’ woofed Spud and
     Star from down below. ‘We’ll do the pedals. You do the steering. Ma will
     navigate. We’re following the dot.’
    ‘That’s the plan,’
     woofed the family pet. ‘Pups, give me some revs and away