Cows In Action 9 Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  The C.I.A. Files

  Prof. McMoo’s Timeline of Notable Historical Events

  Chapter One: A Victorian Venture

  Chapter Two: Gone Clubbing

  Chapter Three: Moo-der Most Foul

  Chapter Four: A Right Royal Visit

  Chapter Five: Train of Danger

  Chapter Six: Cowntry House

  Chapter Seven: The Trap is Sprung

  Chapter Eight: Twin Troubles

  Chapter Nine: Thinking Big

  Chapter Ten: A Clash of Giant Udders

  Chapter Eleven: Chaos at Cow-rystal Palace

  Chapter Twelve: Mooooooooool Britannia!

  About the Author

  Also by Steve Cole

  Copyright

  About the Book

  MOO-DER MOST FOUL . . .!

  Genius cow Professor McMoo and his trusty sidekicks, Pat and Bo, are 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 . . .

  There’s DANGER in Victorian England! Important gentleman gardeners are VANISHING one by one – moo-dered by a mysterious GHOSTLY cow. McMoo, Pat and Bo RACE back to the time of soot, steam and AMAZING inventions to find out why . . . but can they save QUEEN VICTORIA from the most terrifying TER-MOO-NATOR ever built?

  It’s time for action. Cows In Action.

  For Peter Sharpe

  THE C.I.A. FILES

  Cows from the present –

  Fighting in the past to protect the future . . .

  In the year 2550, after thousands of years of being eaten and milked, cows finally live as equals with humans in their own country of Luckyburger. But a group of evil war-loving bulls – the Fed-up Bull Institute – is not satisfied.

  Using time machines and deadly ter-moo-nator agents, the F.B.I. is trying to change Earth’s history. These bulls plan to enslave all humans and put savage cows in charge of the planet. Their actions threaten to plunge all cowkind into cruel and cowardly chaos . . .

  The C.I.A. was set up to stop them.

  However, the best agents come not from 2550 – but from the present. From a time in the early 21st century, when the first clever cows began to appear. A time when a brainy bull named Angus McMoo invented the first time machine, little realizing he would soon become the F.B.I.’s number one enemy . . .

  COWS OF COURAGE – TOP SECRET FILES

  PROFESSOR ANGUS MCMOO

  Security rating: Bravo Moo Zero

  Stand-out features: Large white squares on coat, outstanding horns

  Character: Scatterbrained, inventive, plucky and keen

  Likes: Hot tea, history books, gadgets

  Hates: Injustice, suffering, poor-quality tea bags

  Ambition: To invent the electric sundial

  LITTLE BO VINE

  Security rating: For your cow pies only

  Stand-out features: Luminous udder (colour varies)

  Character: Tough, cheeky, ready-for-anything rebel

  Likes: Fashion, chewing gum, self-defence classes

  Hates: Bessie Barmer; the farmer’s wife

  Ambition: To run her own martial arts club for farmyard animals

  PAT VINE

  Security rating: Licence to fill (stomach with grass)

  Stand-out features: Zigzags on coat

  Character: Brave, loyal and practical

  Likes: Solving problems, anything Professor McMoo does

  Hates: Flies not easily swished by his tail

  Ambition: To find a five-leaf clover – and to survive his dangerous missions!

  Chapter One

  A VICTORIAN VENTURE

  “Get a move on, you useless idiots!” A screeching voice echoed round the farmyard. “I could’ve built that tower myself by now with boxing gloves on both hands!”

  In his nearby field, Pat Vine, a young bullock, put his hooves in his ears. Bessie Barmer’s voice was as horrible as the rest of her! She looked like a cross between a hippo, a baboon and a battleship in dungarees, but in fact she was the farmer’s wife. Normally she passed time by shouting at the animals, but today some burly builders were getting an ear-bashing.

  “How dare you want a tea break? You’ve only been working for nine hours!” She put her huge hands on her even huger hips. “My Victorian ancestors lived in a fine old mansion with a marvellous view, and I want one too!”

  “She wants something, all right,” one builder muttered, picking up his tools. “No one talks to us like that,” he told Bessie. “We’re off!”

  “Fine – I’ll finish the tower myself!” Bessie looked scarlet with rage as the builders hurried back to their van. “And I’ll make it twice as tall as you were going to. I’ll be able to see for miles!”

  “Uh-oh,” Pat murmured to himself. “That means she’ll be able to look out over the whole farm.”

  Bessie glanced over in his direction. Pat quickly stood on all fours like a normal cow. If the bullying old biddy ever found out that he belonged to a special breed of cattle more intelligent than she was . . .

  Just then, Pat’s big sister, Little Bo Vine – another clever cow – came striding towards him on her hind legs, chomping on bubble gum. “Wotcher, bruv!” she said.

  “Get down,” Pat hissed at her. “Barmy Barmer’s on the warpath again.”

  Bo yawned and blew a gum bubble the exact same shade of purple as her brightly painted udder. “When isn’t she?”

  “I’ll do the job better than them anyway,” Bessie muttered, stomping away as the builders drove off. “I’ve got loads of tools in the garage . . .”

  “Actually, she hasn’t.” Bo grinned. “I borrowed them to use as weights for my daily workout behind the chicken coop!”

  “You can forget your work-out once Bessie’s built her stupid tower,” said Pat. “She’ll be able to spy on us all day long. We’ll have to act normal the whole time!”

  Bo frowned. “Perhaps I should biff her one?”

  “That won’t stop the tower getting built.”

  “But it would make me feel better!”

  Pat sighed. He was very different from his sister. While Bo enjoyed a punch-up, Pat preferred puzzle solving. Where Bo rushed blindly into danger like a mad cow, Pat planned ahead. But aside from their both being bright, they had one very important thing in common . . .

  They were members of a top-secret squad of time-travelling cow commandos known as the C.I.A. – the Cows In Action!

  Pat still couldn’t quite believe it. As a calf, he had never expected to join up with a world-saving band of cows from five hundred years in the future. But when you shared a field with a daring, slightly overbearing, brave, bold, bright and a bit bigheaded genius-inventor bull named Professor Angus McMoo, anything was possible . . .

  “Hey, you two! Come quickly!” Pat’s heart leaped at the urgency in the deep, familiar voice behind them. He turned to find Professor McMoo – a stocky, sharp-horned, glasses-wearing figure with white squares patterning his reddy-brown hide – in the doorway of his shed. “The C.I.A. are sending an emergency signal from the future.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Bo was off in a flash, haring towards the professor with Pat close behind. “Action, here we come!”

  McMoo ushered them impatiently into the cool and shady shed, where a strange frothing, bubbling noise could be heard.

  “What sort of a signal is that?” Pat wondered.

  “The evaporated-milk alert,” McMoo explained. “It’s like a red alert, only with added vitamin A and D and sixty per cent of the water taken out.”

  Bo held her purple udder protectively. “I p
refer my milk the way it is, thank you very much.”

  “That’s quite udder-standable.” The professor kicked away a hay bale to reveal a large bronze lever. “Pat – do the honours, will you?”

  Pat beamed. “You mean, pull that lever to transform this rickety old shed into a super-special Time Shed, ready to zip off through time on a new mission?”

  “No, I mean put the kettle on so we can have a nice cuppa,” McMoo told him with a grin. “Then pull that lever!”

  In a blur, Pat switched on the kettle, chucked tea bags into three mugs and leaped onto the lever. At once, a rattling, clanking sound started up as the timely transformation of McMoo’s most amazing invention got underway! A bank of controls, shaped like an enormous horseshoe, rose up from the muddy ground fizzing with strange energy. Power-cords and cables snaked into sight and planks in the wall swung round to reveal futuristic controls. A large computer screen glided down from the rafters.

  Then Bo yelped as a large cupboard, crammed full of costumes from a thousand different times and places, shot up from a pile of straw and banged into her bottom. She went whizzing through the air and grabbed hold of the screen – which now showed the image of a black, burly bull. It was Yak, the devoted Director of the Cows In Action.

  “I just got a bump on the bum,” Bo cried, dangling from the monitor. “But it was worth it to see you up close, Yakky-babes!”

  Yak scowled. “As one of my agents you should call me Director, young lady.”

  “Whoops!” Bo winked. “Sorry, Director Young-Lady.”

  Pat sighed. “I’ll finish making the tea!”

  “What’s up, Yak?” asked McMoo, polishing his glasses. “Apart from Bo up on the computer screen, that is.”

  “Trouble is brewing in the year 1851,” said Yak grimly.

  “1851!” McMoo put his specs back on his nose and rubbed his hooves. “We’re well into Victorian times by then – what a great year! Two moons discovered around Uranus! Napoleon the Third formed the second French Empire! The Great Exhibition opened in London!”

  Bo let go of the screen and dropped down to the floor. “What was so great about it?”

  “Everything!” McMoo declared. “Six million people came to see the latest inventions from all over the world. Everything from farm tools to false teeth, steam-engines to envelope-makers—”

  “Calm down, Professor,” Yak interrupted. “Like I said, we’ve got trouble. F.B.I. trouble.”

  “The Fed-up Bull Institute?” Bo scowled. The F.B.I. were criminal time-twisters, always trying to change history so that cruel cows would rule the planet. “Whatever they’re up to, we can handle it.”

  “But let’s handle this cup of tea first,” said McMoo, as Pat passed him an extra-strong brew. “Go on, Yak – what’s occurring?”

  “Our spies here haven’t found out much,” Yak admitted. “But it seems the F.B.I.’s targets are a bunch of brilliant botanists.”

  “What-a-nists?” Pat frowned as he passed Bo her tea.

  “Botany is the study of bottoms,” said Bo, rubbing her own backside ruefully.

  “It’s the study of plants,” McMoo corrected her. “The Victorians were very big on it. Explorers travelled all over the world in search of rare plants to bring back home to study.” He drained his cup and smacked his lips. “They did a lot of work growing tea plants, as it happens . . .”

  “Yes, well, these botanists were all members of a gentlemen’s club called the Green Thumb,” Yak went on quickly. “And they’ve all met with a sinister fate . . .”

  “Why would the F.B.I. target plant experts?” Pat wondered.

  “There’s more,” said Yak. “From what our spies have overheard, it seems that Queen Victoria herself might somehow be involved.”

  “Queen Victoria!” McMoo laughed with delight. “Imagine meeting her!”

  “You don’t have to imagine it – just go! I’m beaming over the place-and-date details of your mission right now . . .” Yak leaned forward, his grim, hairy face filling the screen. “It’s time to quit with the chit-chat, troops, and hit the past – fast!”

  Chapter Two

  GONE CLUBBING

  The journey back through history seemed to take no time at all. Professor McMoo’s trusty shed blazed purple as it landed in a quiet leafy corner of London parkland.

  “Moo-vellous!” The professor checked his controls. “It’s April 29th, 1851, and we’re in Hyde Park – the site of the Great Exhibition. It’s due to start the day after tomorrow!” A dreamy look stole into his eyes. “I hope we’ve solved this case before the grand royal opening What a spectacle! What a sight!”

  “Remind me to set my alarm clock,” said Bo with zero enthusiasm. The costume cupboard had just spat out a pile of clothes and she was staring at them suspiciously. “These outfits look rubbish.”

  “They’re the height of Victorian fashion!” McMoo told her. “Quickly, let’s get dressed. And don’t forget your ringblenders!”

  Pat picked up one of the shiny metal gadgets from the bank of controls and smiled. Ringblenders looked like ordinary nose rings but they were a billion times better. When worn through the nostrils they projected optical illusions that made cows look just like humans – and even translated cattle-speak into any language on the planet.

  Bo shoved in her own ringblender, then struggled into several petticoats and a pink gown with a bell-shaped skirt. A white lacy bonnet finished off her disguise. “Gross!” she complained.

  Pat put on checked trousers, a fancy waistcoat and a loose-fitting frock coat then checked his human reflection. “Very dashing,” he decided.

  Bo snorted. “It makes me want to go dashing to the toilet!”

  “You’ll have a job,” McMoo told her. “The first on-street public toilets don’t open till next February – and they’re only for gents!” By now he was looking quite the gent himself in his tall top hat and dark brown suit. A black cravat was smartly tied beneath the high collar of his starched white shirt. “Now, come on. Victorian London’s waiting outside!”

  Bo sniffed. “What’s so great about Victorian stuff?”

  McMoo stared at her, open-mouthed.

  “Maybe we’d better ask the computer,” said Pat hastily. “The Victorian file, please!”

  Information appeared on the big screen.

  * * *

  ++Victorian Era. ++Queen Victoria ruled Britain and its empire – about a quarter of the planet’s population – for 64 years, from 1837 to 1901. ++During this time Britain became the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world. ++ Millions of people stopped working the land and started working machines as new-fangled factories sprung up. ++Thousands of miles of railways were built, allowing high-speed travel all over the country. ++Many world-changing new inventions appeared, including cameras, bicycles, steamships, electric light, postage stamps, radio, motorcars, underground railways and flushing toilets.

  * * *

  “There!” cried McMoo. “What do you think of that little lot?”

  “Pardon?” Bo popped up from behind a hay bale. “I was just getting a snack!” She held up some fleshy leaves. “Look, I found some of that nice twenty-sixth-century clover that Yak sent us the other day . . .”

  With a groan, McMoo pointed to the shed doors. “You can eat it later. Now, moooove!”

  The cows hurried out into a bright spring morning and found themselves in the shade of a large weeping willow. Looming over them was some kind of a gigantic greenhouse, stretching up into the sky. Workmen swarmed around its lower storeys.

  “The Crystal Palace.” McMoo strolled towards it happily, with Pat and Bo beside him. “Made with 293,655 panes of glass! Ten storeys high and longer than five football pitches placed end to end.”

  “Um, what about those botanists the F.B.I. are after?” Pat asked, aware that the professor was easily distracted. “Where is this Green Thumb Club anyway?”

  “According to Yak’s data, it’s on a posh street called Pall Mall,” said M
cMoo, raising his top hat to a group of workmen.

  “Then let’s check it out!” cried Bo, hitching up her dress and racing through the park. Pat and McMoo hurried after her.

  Bo made for a large white stone arch that led on to a wide, busy street. But as Pat looked around he saw that it was very different from the streets in his time. The tall grand buildings were similar – shops and houses and theatres – but a thick smell of smoke and muck was in the air. Dozens of horse-drawn carriages and buses clopped and rattled over filthy cobblestones. Old women sold soup and hot potatoes from barrows, blocking the pavement and shouting about low prices in high voices. Men in tall hats and long coats with enormous moustaches strode briskly through the din. A boy in rags swept a path through the dirt in the road so that grand ladies carrying parasols could cross cleanly, and was given a coin for his trouble.

  They walked on through the hubbub and before long had reached a quieter, swankier street. The carriages that rattled along here were smarter, as were their horses.

  “Aha!” McMoo declared, peering at a brass plate on the whitewashed wall of a tall, imposing house flanked by marble pillars. “The Green Thumb Club. We’ve arrived!”

  “And so has someone else,” Bo observed as a spotless black cab pulled up beside the posh building and a tall, bearded, bony old man dressed all in black jumped out.

  “Good day,” he said politely. “I don’t recognize you – are you visitors to my club?”

  “Your club?” McMoo beamed. “What a stroke of luck! I’m Professor Angus McMoo, this is my nephew Pat, and Bonnie, my niece. We’re just visiting.”