The Further Adventures of Aardvark Jenkins

"Come on. I need some ice cream otherwise I might get so weak in the head I start blabbing all sorts of things."

  Richard looked horrified.

  "Put on what?" repeated Thomas.

  "Nothing! Come on then, if we must." Richard pedalled off rapidly, with Henrietta behind, grinning to herself, and Thomas in the rear calling out, "Put on what?"

  But ten dollars' worth of ice cream later the ideas well was still dry.

  Thomas licked his spoon clean. "My brain's worn out and my body's worn out too."

  "Oh we can't stop now." Henrietta held her head and shook it. "It's tomorrow. One more day. Please."

  Richard looked at Thomas. "What do movie heroes do at this point then, Tee?"

  "Don't know." He thought about it for a while. "Call in the CIA or something."

  Henrietta stood up. "Well let's at least go and look at the place."

  "Yeah," said Thomas. "Case the joint. That's what James Bond would do. You've been watching some good films, Hal!"

  Sime Road was its usual quiet self as they cycled past the cemetery and coasted down towards the bridge under the expressway. The three stopped and clustered round the map. Simpson trotted off to explore an exciting new lot of smells.

  Henrietta turned the map to match the road layout. She pointed. "That's where this lorry, A, is to stop across the road. There's another one marked just off Lornie Road. So the main action must be over there." She pointed to a rather derelict building standing back from the road. A number of equally derelict old buses stood around.

  They cycled over and parked by one of the buses.

  "Let's see. The armoured van will come from down there." Thomas pointed towards the bridge. "According to the map, the other van overtakes it just before that bend, and then cuts in here. So the hold-up will be right in front of us."

  "Hey!" Richard's face lit up. "If we can't get the police, we can at least be here. We could hide in there." He pointed at the derelict old house.

  "Hey!!!" Henrietta waved her hands about excitedly. "Better. Even better. My dad's got a video camera. We could video the robbery! Then the police would have to believe us."

  "Yeah," Richard was getting over his lack of sleep. "There could be a reward. What's ten per cent of thirty million?"

  "Three million. Even you don't need a calculator for that, surely." Thomas was looking at the building.

  "If I had a calculator I could work out how many tons of Hagen Dazs you could get for three million." Henrietta said in a dreamy voice.

  Thomas walked over to the building and turned to look at the road. He looked up and down. Then he looked at the old buses. An idea began to form. And this one was his own - not from any movie.

  "The buses!" he said aloud.

  "Buses?" Richard turned to look at the old vehicles. "So?"

  "What we do ... What we do is ..." Thomas hugged himself. "What we do is hide inside one of them until the raid starts. Then we let off the handbrake!"

  He looked at the others. They looked back at him in blank astonishment.

  "The bus will run down onto the road. Right into the getaway van! Just when they're about to make off with the money!"

  "Okay!" Richard jumped up. "The brainbox has done it again."

  Henrietta closed her eyes and leant back. Then she opened them again. "Totally, totally brilliant. Thomas Tan, I award you the order of the rum and raisin."

  Thomas did a little unself-conscious dance. "Come on, let's go and pick a bus. We'll catch them!" He started forward, tripped over the kerb and fell, quite hard. He sat up, holding his nose and grinning from ear to ear. "Red handed!"

  1.Chapter Twelve

  The next morning Sime Road looked much the same as it had always looked. There were some smart houses, and some rather shabby ones, the concrete of the expressway bridge was as drab as ever; the birds and insects went about their business as usual. The road was its usual sleepy self, especially near the old derelict house with the rusty buses outside.

  But inside one of the buses, under a large black plastic sheet, three children and one dog lay in wait. Henrietta had her father's video camera with her and had already tested it a dozen times. Thomas had made her switch it off in case the battery ran out just as the raid began. Richard had arrived complete with his roller blades and hockey stick - like some gladiator of old. He said he wanted to be ready to whack any robber who escaped from the stricken van.

  Thomas hadn't brought anything with him except a lot of worry and nervousness. Simpson was the only one who wasn't consumed by nerves, and even he sensed that something was up and it wasn't time to fool around. He lay quietly with one eye open and one closed.

  Their nervousness had risen to fever pitch by nine o'clock. Whole squadrons of butterflies fluttered around in all three stomachs. Thomas felt physically sick and had to keep on sticking his head out for fresh air. They didn't talk much, just took it in turns to listen to Henrietta's walkman. It had two sets of headphones, so two people could listen at once. But one person had to be on watch at all times, listening for suspicious noises and checking the time.

  Every five minutes they risked a quick look out of the bus windows. At 9:20 they switched off the walkman and the strain grew even more intense.

  "Take deep breaths, that's what my dance teacher says," Henrietta whispered.

  Richard peered at her in the dim light under the plastic. "What?" He couldn't work out how the dance teacher had got into this.

  "When you're nervous. Take deep breaths."

  They practised taking breaths for a few minutes, and found that it just made them red in the face. But it did distract them for a while.

  Then, just after half past nine, it began to happen. SQUEAAAAAL.

  "That's it!" Thomas's teeth were chattering from such an attack of nerves he could hardly speak.

  They held their breath. Henrietta had the knuckles of both hands stuffed in her mouth.

  BANG! BANG!

  "Goｨ!"

  They threw back the camouflage and eased themselves up until their eyes were above window level, terrified they'd see gunmen just the other side of the glass.

  But what they saw exactly matched the plan they'd found in the office. It looked just like the rehearsal Henrietta had seen.

  A van was in the middle of the road, with another one in front. A man was pointing guns at two men lying on the ground. Another man was transferring bulging sacks.

  "Right!" said Thomas, climbing into the front seat. "All systems go!"

  Henrietta followed him to the front of the bus, her camera in her hand. Richard began strapping on his roller blades now Thomas was too busy to stop him.

  BANG! One of the men fired his gun in the air.

  Henrietta and Thomas both ducked down. Then, as they heard the sound of the van doors slamming, they sat up again.

  "Now!" cried Henrietta, and Thomas grabbed hold of the brake. He heaved at it, but it wouldn't budge.

  "Come on!" cried Henrietta. "Quick!" She lifted the video camera and began shooting.

  Richard took advantage of the hiatus to nip out of the passenger door. Simpson wanted to go and explore, but he knew his duty lay in being with his mistress.

  Thomas stood up and grabbed the brake in both hands. He heaved for all his might, and just as the getaway van started to move, the brake shot off.

  But the bus remained exactly where it was.

  Thomas stared at the brake, open-mouthed. "But ..." He looked at the van - it had covered half the distance to the bus now, and was accelerating.

  "In gear!" screamed out Henrietta.

  "What?"

  "In gear. My dad. Parks in gear. On a hill." She jabbed her foot on the clutch. "Help. Push!"

  Thomas leant his weight on the clutch pedal and the bus started to roll forward.

  "Go, go, go GO!" He encouraged it. It rolled slowly across the road towards the path of the speeding van. At the last minute the van driver seemed to realise what was going on, and swerved madly to one side.


  CRUMP! The two vehicles collided, but the van skidded away, leaving only it's rear bumper lying in the road.

  It was crushed beneath the bus's wheels, but the getaway van had got away!

  Then the bus was rushing towards the trees on the other side of the road.

  "Brake! Brake!" Henrietta was trying to get her foot on the brake pedal now. She grabbed at the handbrake too. Her legs got hopelessly entangled with Thomas's, and she toppled over backwards.

  BOOMP! The bus was halted in no uncertain manner by the trunk of a rain tree on the far side of the road. There was a small avalanche of branches and leaves.

  Thomas just sat there stunned, not by the crash, but from the shock of failure. He just sat there, staring blindly into space. He didn't see Richard pelting down the road, hockey stick at the ready. He didn't see Henrietta rubbing her head and trying to sit up. He didn't see the man in the funny hat jumping about in the middle of the road, waving his arms and shouting, "CUT! CUT!"

  He didn't see the big movie camera that was pointing directly at the bus.

  "Shazam is a film? You mean you're making a movie?" Thomas accepted an ice cold Coke from the man in the hat.

  The man nodded. "Sure are. Or were!"

  "It's not a real hold-up at all?" Henrietta didn't really know whether she was happy or disappointed.

  "A brilliant movie." He smiled. "Okay, forget the bus thing, s'not the end of the world. Reckon you'd like to meet the stars, eh?"

  "Yeah!" Richard looked round at the others. "Yeah!"

  "Don'tcha go away now." The hat drifted off.

  Henrietta patted Simpson on the