Spy Cat by Andrew Cope Page B

through. He’d always considered that while dogs have owners, cats have ‘staff’.
    I could recover the loot and live life as a moggy millionaire, lying on a sheepskin rug, doggy servants attending to my every need.
    He imagined Lara bringing him a whole salmon on a silver platter. He’d seen movies and quite fancied Paris. And he was rather taken with some leather boots that he’d seen a cat wearing in
Shrek
.
Maybe I could use the cash to buy a couple of pairs? Or a James Bond Aston Martin?
But, as he looked round at the family, and Sophie stroking his tummy, he considered that maybe he already had everything he ever needed.
    ‘And, ahem, what about y-your mum and
dad?’ stammered the professor. Mum was scowling. Dad’s medication meant he was snoring gently, a bit of slobber dripping from his bottom lip.
    ‘Me and slobber chops drove to the tent, in the dead of night,’ mumbled Mum through her puffed-up face. ‘Like any parent would do if there was a dangerous criminal on the loose. And we drove a little too fast.’
    ‘And we’d woken up and noticed Ben and Jess were gone,’ smiled Ollie, ‘so were being big and brave and walking back to the farm. And they nearly ran us over!’
    ‘I see,’ nodded the professor nervously. ‘Nearly run over by your own parents! So not such a bad ending after all.’
    Mrs Cook raised her upper body from the bed, about to argue, but the professor cut her off. ‘I mean,’ he said, ‘it could have been an awful lot worse. In fact,’ he added, feeling brave in the knowledge that Mrs Cook was unable to get out of bed, ‘my translating collar has actually saved the day. Without Shakespeare here, there would have been nobody to rescue young Benjamin.’
    Mrs Cook lay down again, for once too
exhausted to argue. The scientist pressed on, delighted to have the upper hand. ‘Let me tell you about the collar,’ he said, beginning to hop from foot to foot in what Sophie called the ‘Mad Professor Dance’. ‘It’s exactly like scrambled eggs.’
    Mum’s hand went to her brow which she shook gently in despair.
    ‘No, no, Mrs Cook. Don’t be like that. Think about it. What do you get if you
unscramble
scrambled eggs?’
     

     
    The pregnant pause was broken by Ben. ‘Er, whole eggs?’
    ‘Exactly!’ beamed the scientist. ‘And that’s the principle behind my translating, or should I say
life-saving
, pet collar. It’s deadly simple, you see. It uses neuro-gamma rhythms to unscramble the linguistic variables that enable the user to unpick the code in the pre-frontal cortex …’ The professor stopped hopping and looked at the various human, cat and dog furrowed brows. ‘I’m doing it again, aren’t I?’ he said.
    The children nodded. ‘Keep it simple, Prof,’ smiled Ollie. ‘I got the scrambled eggs bit.’
    ‘Well done, young Oliver,’ nodded the professor. ‘Unscrambling. That’s the most important concept.’ He fixed his eyes on the cat in double plaster casts. ‘I guess the very simple question is what happens to puss-in-boots?’ The scientist clasped his hands and looked expectantly at the family. ‘If he joined the team he’d need a code name, of course.’
    Shakespeare felt five pairs of human eyes burning into him. ‘Can we keep him, Mum?’ chirped Sophie. ‘He needs looking after. And he’s a stray. Just like Lara was. And he saved our lives. Just like Lara has … several times over.’
    Mum closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Joining the team?
She could remember the old days, pre-Lara, pre-the pups (who were at home awaiting their return and probably creating utter chaos) when life was quiet and ordinary. A Spy Dog was bad enough. But a Spy Cat too?
    ‘We’re not a team, we’re a family,’ she reminded them wearily.
    ‘Pleeeease?’ droned Ollie, all eyes now on Mum. ‘A family’s a kind of team.’
    Shakespeare had stopped purring. This was too tense. He had a chance of being adopted. By a family that he hardly knew but