Operation Bunny

  “Until we had our history lessons,” said Emily.

  “I don’t suppose she thought anything would happen,” said Buster. “After all, you are just a human girl, nothing to write to the Faerie Queene about.”

  Emily was fed up with Buster. He was so rude and unpleasant.

  “If you’re so clever, how did you come to be trapped in a birdcage?”

  Buster went as red as Ronald Dashwood’s ears. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

  Ha, thought Emily, I’ll come back to that one day.

  “I hope you stay small forever and ever,” she said, and turned on the television.

  The top story that morning on the local news network was the mysterious demolition of Arty McDuff’s junk shop in Brittle Street, Podgy Bottom. The street where the junk shop had stood was cordoned off with police tape, and officers were turning onlookers away.

  Emily and Buster stared openmouthed at the TV.

  “That’s the shop we rescued you from,” said Emily.

  “Enough of the rescue,” said Buster.

  “Enough of me not being a fairy,” said Emily.

  “Deal,” said Buster.

  “The police cannot yet confirm,” the news reporter was saying, “the cause of the explosion.”

  “Crumbs,” said Buster. “That’s bad.”

  Fidget appeared from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, his fur gleaming, his teeth shining bright.

  “What have you been doing in there?” said Buster, turning to look at him.

  “Grooming. Fur balls can be very uncomfortable,” said Fidget indignantly. “Of course, you wouldn’t understand, on account of having no fur.”

  “Look,” said Emily, pointing to the TV.

  Fidget stared at the screen. “Well, smack me with a kipper and call me haddock, isn’t that the junk shop we—”

  “Yes!” Emily and Buster interrupted.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” said Fidget. “This doesn’t look too dandy.”

  “Do you think,” said Emily, “that our shop is all right?”

  “I hope so. Come on,” said Fidget. “Leave the rabbit here. This can be the work of only one person.”

  “Harpella. I knew it,” said Buster. “She must have worked out that you’re not among the bunnies.” He climbed into Fidget’s rucksack. “Let’s go and investigate.”

  Down in the foyer they were stopped by the hotel manager.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but my colleague did tell you we don’t allow pets?”

  “Yes,” said Fidget, looking around anxiously.

  “You have a rabbit in your room, sir, and that is not allowed.”

  “He’s a dwarf,” said Fidget. “A relative of mine with the same condition as me, except he thinks he is a ticket collector.”

  “I’m afraid,” said the manager, “I’m very much afraid—”

  “With good reason,” replied Fidget, as the dreadful apparition of Harpella burst through the doors of the hotel.

  There wasn’t a moment to lose. Fidget and Emily threw themselves into the elevator. Fidget’s rucksack was trapped in the elevator doors, and Emily had to use all her strength to free it. The thunderbolt had already struck the foyer as the elevator doors closed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Once back in the suite, Emily didn’t waste a moment. She knew what had to be done. The keys had chosen her to be their keeper for a reason. She could feel them wriggling around in her pocket, eager to find the shop with the cabinets full of fairy wings. Leaving Fidget to retrieve Buster from the rucksack, she gingerly climbed out of the window and ran down the fire escape.

  The keys were nudging and pushing her along. There was no doubt they knew where they were going. Back along the small main street she went, into the square with the statue of Queen Victoria. It was quite easy to see how they had missed the shop. It was simple. Yesterday, it hadn’t been there. Today, there it stood, an old, crooked building with a crooked chimney. It looked just as Emily had imagined it would from the stories Miss String had told her. The top windows were leaning forward trying to catch sight of their belly-button bow windows. In one of them a sign read CLOSED.

  Emily’s heart started to beat faster. Something wasn’t right. The door was hanging loose on its hinges. The keys had stopped moving, they had turned to cold iron again in her pocket.

  It struck Emily that the shop was doing its level best to hold something or someone in. Then she caught a glimpse of a face at one of the top windows and a long, clawlike painted fingernail click-click-clicking on the windowpane. Harpella had broken into the shop. She was one step closer to getting her talons on the fairy wings.

  Emily didn’t need to see any more. She turned and ran as fast as her legs would carry her all the way back to the Red Lion Hotel. She arrived, completely out of breath, to see three fire engines, two police cars, and an ambulance in front of the hotel, all their lights flashing. Emily walked round to the back of the building and climbed up the fire escape to the suite. Now she knew where the shop was, and Harpella was locked inside. The Keeper of the Keys had a plan.

  Chapter Nineteen

  James Cardwell had had a busy morning. He had been out to the top-secret military research laboratory in Hendon where the pink rabbits from the train were being held. Every one of the rabbits was housed in its own cage, with fresh straw and carrots.

  The army officer in charge of Operation Bunny told Cardwell that they had shown no signs of becoming human again.

  “Each rabbit has only one sentence,” he said. “Each one different from all the others.”

  Detective Cardwell walked up and down the line of caged rabbits.

  One said, “I’m on the train, dear. I can’t speak now.”

  Another said, “I missed the seven forty, so I’m running late.”

  Another, “Yes, I love you too.”

  The lab technician shrugged his shoulders.

  “You can see what we’re up against,” he said. “It’s impossible to identify them.”

  “I wouldn’t bother,” said Detective Cardwell. “No one is going to be that pleased to hear his or her beloved has been turned into a pink rabbit.”

  “What are we going to do with them?” said the army officer.

  “Keep them safe until I solve this case.”

  The army officer followed Detective Cardwell to his car. “Have you any idea who is behind this?”

  “Yes, but nothing I can share with you at present.”

  As James Cardwell drove away, he remembered being taken by Aunt Ottoline to the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1851. At the time, he had been fascinated by the dodo. The day they visited, he had been bitterly disappointed to find that not only was it extinct but that the entire bird section had been closed to the public. Aunt Ottoline had been very anxious to get away.

  “Why?” he had asked.

  It was the only time he’d ever heard her say “Because. Just because.”

  To compensate for not seeing the dodo, she had promised him tea and cakes. As they left, park keepers with nets were trying to catch the dozens of orange rabbits that sat nibbling the grass.

  His mobile rang. He was to go straightaway to the Red Lion Hotel in the town of Podgy Bottom. There had been another serious incident relating to Operation Bunny.

  James Cardwell put on his blue light and drove at great speed out of London. He arrived at the hotel to find it cordoned off and the police looking uneasy. The constable in charge followed Detective Cardwell into the foyer. It was empty, apart from two purple rabbits.

  One said, “Pets aren’t allowed. It’s hotel policy.”

  The other said, “This is the Red Lion Hotel. How can I help you?”

  “We think it’s the manager and the receptionist. She’s called Joan.”

  “Well, you’d better catch them before they hop off,” said Detective Cardwell.

  “Yes, sir,” said the constable. He looked very nervous indeed. “They won’t bite, will they, sir??
??

  “I don’t suppose so,” said Detective Cardwell. Studying the register, he saw the name Mr. Fidget. “Are these the only guests staying here?”

  “Yes. We haven’t investigated their suite yet. We thought we should wait until you came. We’re slightly worried that they too might have been … well, you know … rabbitified.”

  The elevator wasn’t working, so Detective Cardwell walked up the stairs and knocked on the door to the suite. It was opened by a girl in a red coat holding a tiny purple rabbit. He guessed straightaway from the description he’d received that this was Emily Vole. At least she was all right.

  “I am Detective Cardwell,” he said. “May I come in?”

  Fidget was standing in front of a long mirror.

  “I have a rabbit’s tail. It’s pink and ridiculous, look.”

  “Hello, Fidget. Better to have the tail than be changed completely into a rabbit,” said the detective.

  “Well, hook me a codfish finger!” said Fidget, spinning round. “If it isn’t little Jimmy Cardwell.”

  “Little?” interrupted Emily. “There’s nothing little about the detective.”

  James Cardwell laughed. “When I knew Fidget, I was little, but I have grown up. I’m just the same but older. Fidget, if you don’t mind my asking, what is Emily Vole doing here?”

  “Emily,” said Fidget proudly, “is the new Keeper of the Keys.”

  “How did that happen?” said Detective Cardwell, looking closely at Emily.

  “I’ll tell you later,” said Fidget.

  Detective Cardwell dropped his gaze to the small purple rabbit Emily was holding. “Who was that, then?”

  “This is Buster,” said Emily.

  “Are you sure?” said Detective Cardwell.

  As if to prove the point, the rabbit said, “I am Buster Ignatius Spicer.”

  “He must have been struck before I was able to free the rucksack from the elevator doors,” said Emily.

  “Does he say anything else?” asked Detective Cardwell.

  “No, thank goodness,” said Emily. “He’s very full of his name, which is long and quite hard to spell.”

  Detective Cardwell laughed. “No change there, then.”

  He saw there was another rabbit, larger and pink, hopping about. “Tickets, please,” it said.

  “The train conductor,” explained Fidget. “Emily rescued him.”

  James Cardwell sat down heavily in an armchair. “It’s Harpella, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Emily. “She has a spirit lamp, and this is what she likes to do best, change people into rabbits.”

  “Except for the Dashwood triplets,” said Fidget, “whom she zombified rather than bunnified.”

  “Look,” said Emily, sitting down. “I have a plan.”

  Fidget and James stared at her.

  “A plan, James. She has a plan,” said Fidget proudly. “You can see why your Aunt Ottoline chose to leave the shop to Emily.”

  “His aunt?” said Emily, taken aback. She turned to James. “Your aunt? Oh no, that means you are—”

  “A fairy,” said James Cardwell. “A fairy who handed in his wings to the detective agency and has been stuck at fifty for as long as he can remember.”

  “Oh dear,” said Emily, “and there I was thinking you might be able to help me with my plan. I mean, I must have someone to distract Harpella while I try to grab the lamp. Now, who else could help? It has to be a human, because Harpella can’t kill humans, only change them into bunnies—and zombies of course … oh!” Emily jumped up. “I have it! My ex-adoptive-mother-slash-employer. She’s fierce and frightening, and she would do anything to have the triplets dezombified.” She paused. “Only I don’t want to ever go back and live with her again.”

  “You won’t,” said Detective Cardwell. “I give you my word.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Ever since the interview with Detective Cardwell, the Dashwoods had been as jumpy as a couple of crickets.

  “Ronald,” whined Daisy, “you’re not in any trouble, are you?” Her gold card had been refused at Fancy Pants Boutique. “I mean, we have a million in the bank, don’t we?”

  Ronald didn’t answer. He was gray. Only his ears remained red, and one of them was stuck to his mobile phone.

  “I’m busy, Smoochikins.”

  “But, Ronald—”

  “You’re just going to have to cut back a bit, that’s all. STOP SPENDING!” he shouted.

  Never, in twelve years of marriage, had Ronald ever raised his voice to Daisy. Not once.

  “You don’t love me anymore!” she screeched.

  The landline rang.

  “Later, Smoochikins, later,” said Ronald, going into his study and closing the door.

  Daisy let out a high-pitched scream. Ronald quickly reappeared.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to … oh,” he said, seeing his three daughters standing in a row like clockwork dolls.

  “They gave me a terrible fright, that’s all,” said Daisy.

  “They give me the creeps,” said Ronald, returning to his call and shutting the door again.

  The zombies smiled. Everything they did was in perfect unison.

  “Father,” they said, “is up to his neck in horse poo.”

  “That’s not a nice way to speak about your daddy.”

  “You see, Mother dear,” they all said, “the truth is, his money isn’t his money. It’s other people’s money.”

  “You what?” said Daisy, staring openmouthed. “You’ve lost me.”

  “It’s simple, Mother dearest. Unless Father can wash all the horse poo off him, he will never smell of roses.”

  “You’re talking double Dutch. I don’t understand a blooming word. Oh, my days, why should this be happening to me? Me, of all people,” she cried. “Me, who has always been so kind, so generous, to everyone.”

  “Not to Emily Vole,” said the triplets. “Remember? You want to kill her when she comes home.”

  Daisy ran to her bedroom.

  The zombies looked at one another and smiled again.

  That evening, Daisy found Ronald packing a suitcase with files and computer disks and little else.

  “Where are you going?” wailed Daisy. “You can’t leave me.”

  “I have an important business meeting in Brussels,” said Ronald. “A private plane is going to pick me up.”

  “Can’t I come with you?”

  “No,” said Ronald firmly. He was on all fours, feeling under the bed.

  “What are you looking for?” asked Daisy.

  “Nothing,” said Ronald. “There was a shoe box under here. You haven’t moved it, have you?”

  “No. Why would you keep a shoe box under the bed when we have two walk-in wardrobes?”

  Ronald didn’t reply. He looked at his watch and tried to shut the suitcase.

  “Please,” said Daisy. “Please may I come with you?”

  “No, you can’t. Someone has to look after the children.”

  “They aren’t our girls,” wept Daisy. “They’re ruddy zombies.”

  “That’s not my fault,” said Ronald. “You should never have let that Doris woman into the house.”

  “So I’m to blame? Oh, my days, don’t you want to help find out where our daughters are?”

  “They’re right outside, listening to every word we’re saying. Now, Smoochikins, be good. I’ll be back soon.”

  The zombies were lined up by the front door, waiting for their father to come down the stairs.

  “Good-bye, Father,” they said. Ronald ignored them and made a dash for the waiting car.

  “Ronald!” Daisy cried. But Ronald and the car were just a blur of taillights.

  * * *

  Very early the next morning, there was a loud knock on the Dashwoods’ executive front door.

  The triplets, who hardly ever slept these days, had been up since crow’s fart, playing Scrabble. They answered the door to find several police officers standing there, all
wearing bulletproof vests. Among them was a very elegant young woman. She flashed her badge at the zombies. It said FRAUD SQUAD.

  “Hello, I’m Penny. Are your mummy and daddy here?”

  “Father ran away last night,” said the zombies.

  “Can we come in?” asked Penny.

  The little girls showed no signs of emotion when, a few minutes later, their mother was brought down the stairs screaming. “I can’t leave my darlings—what will they do without me?”

  “What we always do, Mother dearest,” said the triplets, and they waved a cheerful good-bye to her.

  Penny was about to ring the Social Services’ child protection team when she felt a little hand resting on her back. She turned round to see the three girls standing there.

  “If you want us to help you, we suggest you put down the phone.”

  Penny thought these children were most decidedly weird. More than weird, they looked zombified.

  “If you let us stay here,” they said, “we will give you the shoe box you are looking for. If you call Social Services, we won’t. We will just pretend we don’t know what you are talking about. After all, we are only little children.”

  Penny felt a shiver go down her spine. Feebly, she agreed and the girls went to fetch the shoe box that Father had been so keen to take with him.

  * * *

  Daisy Dashwood sat in the police car, handcuffed to a woman police officer who turned up after the Fraud Squad had left. That nosy copper Cardwell had sent for her. She was still in her dressing gown, and to add insult to injury, they hadn’t even let her put on her war paint. She hadn’t slept a wink, worried sick as she was about Ronald. She had tried his mobile phone about a thousand times, but there was no answer. And those creepy little girls most definitely weren’t her babies. Her babies had been snatched from her.

  If that Doris woman is responsible, I will blooming well kill her when I next lay eyes on her, thought Daisy Dashwood as the police car, light flashing, sped up the motorway toward the Red Lion Hotel.