Cows in Action 1 Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prof McMoo’s Timeline of Notable Events

  Chapter One: The Farmyard Fury

  Chapter Two: The Secret in the Shed

  Chapter Three: Attack from the Future!

  Chapter Four: Future Cow Paradise

  Chapter Five: Cattle Set for Battle

  Chapter Six: Bulls in a China Shop!

  Chapter Seven: Tudor Cud

  Chapter Eight: A Desperate Plan

  Chapter Nine: Tricked, Trapped and Ter-Moo-Nated!

  Chapter Ten: The Terrible, Terrible Torturer

  Chapter Eleven: The Steaks are High

  Chapter Twelve: The End of the Beginning

  About the Author

  Also by Steve Cole

  Copyright

  About the Book

  IT’S ‘UDDER’ MADNESS!

  Genius cow Professor McMoo and his trusty sidekicks, Pat and Bo, are the star agents of the C.I.A. – short for COWS IN ACTION! They travel through time, fighting evil bulls from the future and keeping history on the right track …

  When Professor McMoo invents a brilliant TIME MACHINE, he and his friends are soon attacked by a terrifying TER-MOO-NATOR – a deadly robo-cow who wants to mess with the past and change the future! And that’s only the start of an incredible ADVENTURE that takes McMoo, Pat and Bo from a cow paradise in the future to the SCARY dungeons of King Henry VIII …

  It’s time for action. Cows In Action.

  For Tobey

  With special thanks and a golden Malteser to Mini Grey

  Chapter One

  THE FARMYARD FURY

  WHAP! The pig in the boxing gloves went flying through the air and landed with a splash in the duck pond. His opponent – a small goat – gave a puzzled bleat.

  “Yay!” called Pat Vine, although he didn’t really think that punching a pig was much to shout about. Especially when the goat had only done it by accident while struggling out of her boxing gloves.

  Pat was a young, handsome bullock whose coat was light brown and covered with small white zigzags, and he was here to support his sister – a dairy cow called Little Bo Vine. She needed a bit of cheering on at her self-defence classes. The other farm animals just sat there looking dozy.

  “See, goat? You could be a brilliant boxer,” said Little Bo approvingly as she fished out the pig from the pond. She had a rosy red and white coat and was very much a cow with attitude – lately she had taken to chewing bubble gum rather than cud, and dyeing her udder bright green. “But listen, pig – if you don’t want to end up as battered bacon, you’ve got to put up more of a fight.”

  The pig stared at her blankly.

  “In fact, you all have to put up more of a fight!” Bo yelled at the animals. “You’re about as tough as a wet paper bag, the whole lot of you. And Bessie Barmer knows it. She is not just the farmer’s wife, she is our public enemy number one!”

  That’s true, thought Pat with a shudder. Farmer Barmer was nice enough, but his wife, Bessie, hated all the animals on the organic farm. She made their lives a misery, and couldn’t wait to turn them all into hamburgers, hot dogs, cutlets and chops.

  The other animals didn’t seem to understand the deadly fate that awaited them. But Bo and Pat belonged to a rare breed of clever cattle called the Emmsy-Squares, and they understood lots of things. Even so, they weren’t the smartest cattle around. The brainiest bull in the whole world lived on the farm too.

  The bull’s name was Angus McMoo. Professor Angus McMoo, to be precise. And his shed was filled with history books and science papers on subjects Pat couldn’t begin to understand.

  “Where is the professor?” Bo asked her brother. “Don’t tell me – he’s got his head stuck in a book.”

  Pat peered down the hillside to the end of the field. “Nope. He’s got his head stuck in a dustbin, actually.”

  “Again.” Bo sighed.

  Pat grinned as he watched Professor McMoo almost disappear inside one of the bins. He thought the professor was awesome.

  McMoo was stocky and sharp and in the prime of his life. He was reddy-brown with large white box-shapes patterning his hide – and had an incredible thirst for knowledge. A scientist lived in the house next door, and his garden just happened to back onto McMoo’s paddock. This scientist chucked away all sorts of high-tech gear – computer chips, cables, levers and switches … And that was exactly what Professor McMoo needed for the super-secret, super-special project he was working on. Pat was dying to know what it was, but the professor just smiled and said, “You’ll find out – in time …”

  “He should stop fiddling about and learn how to look after himself more,” Bo complained. “If Bessie Barmer catches him in the bins again she’ll go crazy.”

  “Holy cow,” cried Pat. “Here she comes now!”

  There was no mistaking the enormous woman in the dirty duffel coat as she came bustling into the paddock. She was as fat as a hay bale, with a face like a sweaty boar sucking a dirty lemon. Her legs and arms were as thick as tree trunks, and each of her fearsome fists was the size of a piglet.

  “Profess-sooooooor!” mooed Little Bo at the top of her cow lungs. “Look out!”

  McMoo ducked out of the dustbin and saw the danger he was in. He started hoofing it towards Pat, Bo and the others.

  “Oi!” Bessie bellowed. “Come back here, you big burger on legs!”

  At once, the farm animals fell into a panic, quacking, snorting and bleating like bonkers. “Don’t let her scare you!” Bo urged them. “Stand up to her! Remember what I taught you all!”

  But the sad truth was, the other animals were just too thick to learn anything. The ducks had ducked out of her Tae Kwon Do class, and the sheep were too busy guzzling grass to master even basic judo. Pat watched the goat finally pull off her boxing gloves and scarper after the pig – just as Professor McMoo charged up, Bessie hard on his heels.

  “Quick!” said the professor urgently, his voice muffled by a strange metal gadget in his mouth. “One of you hide this!”

  He spat the gadget out onto the floor and Pat flopped down on top of it.

  “What are you up to, beef-features?” squawked Bessie. “I’ve told you before, keep your snout out of those bins, or you’ll be sorry!”

  Before McMoo could react, Little Bo yawned noisily and went to the toilet right in front of Bessie.

  “Ugh!” cried Bessie, backing away as her feet got splashed. “You should show me some respect! My ancestors mixed with royalty, you know!”

  “Is that why you ended up as a royal pain in the bottom?” asked Pat – but to human ears, of course, it only sounded like a long, low mooo-oo. Bessie was always going on about her famous ancestors. But Professor McMoo was an expert on history and told Pat and Bo he had never heard of any important Barmers. Not ever.

  Apparently, being an expert on history was vital to the success of his super-secret project …

  Shaking her wet legs, her filthy mood getting filthier by the second, Bessie narrowed her tiny eyes at Pat and Bo. “What are you two looking at, you steaks-in-training?” She shook her fist at them. “Push off back to your own field. Now!”

  “Moo-oo-ooo,” mumbled Pat. He gave a sigh of relief as Bessie stomped off towards the farmhouse.

  “Sorry to break up your self-defence class, Bo,” said Professor McMoo. “But well done for getting rid of her. There’s no time to waste.” He chuckled to himself mysteriously. “Literally no time to waste. Come on! Come with me. I’ve got something to show you, and there’s no time like the present.” He paused. “Or is there?”

  Pat got up, a frown on his face. “What do you mean, Professor?”


  “Yeah, what are you going on about?” Bo added as she peered down at the device Pat had squashed into the grass.

  McMoo grabbed it in his mouth and set off for his shed, muttering to himself. “I knew that scientist would throw away a multigrade sprocket if I waited long enough …”

  “Professor, what are you up to?” Pat shouted.

  “Ha!” laughed McMoo. “Follow me and find out!”

  Chapter Two

  THE SECRET IN THE SHED

  Bo and Pat followed the professor into his shed. It was empty except for a bed of hay and a pile of textbooks hidden behind a trough in the corner.

  “I don’t know why I bother with self-defence classes sometimes,” Bo grumbled. “Everyone goes to pieces as soon as that bloomin’ Bessie Barmer shows up.”

  “The other animals aren’t clever like us,” Pat reminded her. “Well, like me and the professor anyway!” he added cheekily.

  “Watch it, small fry,” said Bo, swiping him with her tail. “At least I know the difference between a karate chop and a mutton chop – and that’s more than you and him do!”

  “You mean, ‘you and he do’,” the professor corrected her, fiddling about with his gadget from the dustbin.

  “See?” said Pat. “Brains are better than brawn!”

  “Are not!” Bo replied.

  “Are too!” said Pat fiercely.

  “Stop squabbling!” cried the professor. “Give me a round of applause instead.”

  “Why?” asked Bo.

  “Because I’ve finally come up with a way for us all to escape that dratted Bessie Barmer for ever – that’s why!” He crossed to a particular patch of straw on the floor and spat the sprocket into it. “Put the kettle on, Pat – this calls for a celebration cuppa!”

  Pat smiled and did so. Professor McMoo loved his cups of tea. He had fixed a broken kettle he found in the scientist’s dustbin, and now, each week, Bo sneaked into the farmhouse kitchen to “borrow” tea bags.

  Bo raised her eyebrows as McMoo got on with warming the teapot. “So you’ve finished this super-secret project then, Professor? Where is it?”

  McMoo chuckled. “You’re standing in it!”

  Standing in things was often unavoidable for cows and those around them, but Little Bo could see nothing on her hooves. “What?”

  “This whole place is my super-secret project!” cried McMoo. He perched a pair of glasses on his nose, ran to the other end of the shed and kicked away an old sack to reveal a big bronze lever.

  Bo frowned. “So. Big whoop. You built a lever.”

  “That’s so cool,” said Pat loyally.

  “It’s not just any lever,” said McMoo with pride. “It’s the CHURN lever. Watch!”

  He gave it a hard yank – and a loud, rattling, clanking sound started up.

  Pat threw tea bags in the air as part of the wooden wall behind him spun round to reveal switches and buttons and flashing lights on the other side. A large computer screen swung down from the rafters. Bo was bumped on the bottom by a horseshoe-shaped bank of controls rising out from the hay-covered ground, filling the middle of the shed.

  McMoo laughed with glee – and Pat and Bo stared in amazement – as hidden panels, covered in cables and levers and read-outs swung round into view on every wall. In ten seconds flat, the ordinary, empty cow shed had changed into an incredible futuristic control centre, throbbing and glowing with a strange power.

  “Wow!” Pat exclaimed. “What just happened?”

  “The CHURN lever works!” McMoo beamed at his two young friends. “Blimey, I’m brilliant. CHURN, you see – stands for Controls Hidden Under Revolving … um, Nanels.”

  “Nanels?” echoed Bo. “What are nanels, then?”

  McMoo sighed as he picked up the tea bags. “Well, really it should be ‘Panels’. But that would make it a CHURP lever, and that sounds silly.”

  “Who cares what it’s called?” cried Pat. “It’s incredible!” He trotted about in excitement, staring at the different “nanels”. “But what do these controls actually do, Professor?”

  “You are no longer standing in an ordinary cow shed,” said Professor McMoo. “I have turned it into … a time machine!”

  “A time machine?” Pat whispered, wide-eyed.

  Bo snorted. “You’ve been eating funny grass again.”

  “It’s true, I tell you,” said McMoo. “With the Time Shed we can escape this boring old farm and Bessie Bloomin’ Barmer, and go anywhere on Earth. We can pop off to the past or fly into the future.” His brown eyes sparkled as he looked at his two friends. “So! Ready for the test-drive?”

  “Yes! Yes!” said Pat, jumping up and down.

  “Is it going to blow up?” said Bo cautiously.

  “Only if I press that big blue button there,” said McMoo with a grin. “Don’t worry, we’re perfectly safe. This is the finest technology money can buy.”

  “But you didn’t buy it!” she argued. “You found it in a bin!”

  “True,” McMoo agreed, filling the teapot with hot water. “But it was a very fine and expensive bin.”

  “Come on, Bo,” said Pat. “It’ll be an adventure!”

  “I suppose I better had come along,” said Bo, looking between McMoo and her brother. “You’ll need me to keep an eye on you.”

  “As if!” Pat snorted.

  “Enough chat!” McMoo strode into the horseshoe of controls, set down the teapot and hit some switches with his snout. “I’ll just set the controls to take us back a hundred years, to see what the farm was like back then. Rolling fields, no Bessie Barmer, nice cup of tea. Perfect combination!” He curled his tail around a big red lever. “Here we go, then …”

  But before he could pull it down, a strange cloud of black smoke appeared from nowhere behind him.

  “Um, is that meant to happen, Professor?” asked Pat.

  McMoo whirled round. A huge, dark, menacing shape could be seen inside the smoke.

  “Looks like a bull,” said Bo uneasily. “A very big one.”

  The smoke faded and the figure stepped forward from the large silver plate it stood on. It was no ordinary bull. It had steel-grey horns, and eyes glowing green. Robotic parts had been added to its legs and body. Its tail was a metal spike.

  And it was pointing a large ray gun straight at Professor McMoo!

  Chapter Three

  ATTACK FROM THE FUTURE!

  “Aaagh!” yelled Pat. “Where did you spring from?”

  “I am a ter-moo-nator,” said the mysterious bull in a low, grating voice. “I have come from hundreds of years in the future. I have been sent to destroy Professor Angus McMoo.”

  Bo frowned. “You what?”

  “No!” Pat shouted, his legs trembling. “You can’t hurt the professor!”

  The ter-moo-nator smiled nastily. “Can too!”

  But McMoo himself seemed delighted. “This robo-bull has heard of me!” he cried. “In the future, I must be famous. Imagine that!”

  “You will be destroyed,” the ter-moo-nator repeated.

  “Ah. Yes. Hmm.” McMoo’s smile dropped. “I’m less happy about that bit.”

  “Why do you want to destroy him, anyway?” asked Pat.

  The ter-moo-nator stalked towards Professor McMoo. “Because he is going to become the greatest enemy of the F.B.I.”

  “The F.B.I.?” McMoo scratched his head. “Those American law-enforcers?”

  “No, not that F.B.I.,” said the menacing creature. “This F.B.I. stands for the Fed-up Bull Institute!”

  “I’m getting pretty fed-up myself,” said McMoo, folding his arms. “You barge in here, waving a big gun about, going on about destroying me—”

  “YOU SHALL BE DESTROYED!” roared the ter-moo-nator, and both Bo and Pat took a step backwards in alarm. “I shall turn you into beef-flavoured mush!”

  “Mush, you say?” Professor McMoo frowned. “Oh dear, dear, dear Mr Ter-moo-nator, please hold your horses. Or your cows, or chickens, or whatever
it is ter-moo-nators hold. You’ve travelled several hundred years to squish me, haven’t you? You must be worn out. How about a nice cup of tea before you blast me into steak atoms, eh?”

  Pat and Bo stared at the professor, flabbergasted.

  “Tea?” the ter-moo-nator repeated suspiciously.

  “I’ve just brewed a fresh pot,” said McMoo with an innocent smile. “Try some!”

  And suddenly he hurled the teapot at the ter-moo-nator, conking him right on the head.

  “Bull’s-eye!” cried Pat.

  “Well, bull’s-lower-forehead to be precise,” the professor corrected him.

  The robotic bull staggered back with an angry snort, raising its gun.

  But Bo sprang into action with her own special brand of self-defence. “D’you want some milk to go with that tea?” She reared up and blasted the monster with milk from her day-glo udder. The ter-moo-nator glubbed and blubbed and dropped its gun as the milk splashed into its mouth and eyes.

  Pat gazed in astonishment at his brave sister. Maybe brawn was OK as well as brains – and maybe if he applied one to the other …

  Taking a deep breath, Pat charged up to the stricken bull. “And now – sugar!”

  “Don’t call me sugar,” growled the ter-moo-nator.

  “One lump or two?” said Pat, whacking the ter-moo-nator twice on the head with his front hooves. Sparks crackled around the monster’s silver horns.

  “Nice one, Pat,” yelled Bo, running forward. “But three lumps will make him even sweeter!”

  “Aim for the central flange unit housed in his rump!” McMoo instructed.

  Bo paused, mid-charge. “You what?”

  “Kick the controls in his bum!” Pat translated.

  Bo did as she was told, landing a hefty kick to the round metal machine in the robotic bull’s butt. The controls sparked and smoked and the ter-moo-nator went cross-eyed. “Mission abort!” it warbled, covered in milk and tea, jerking back to its silver plate. “Malfunction! Recall! Mission abort!”