The Hollywood Mission (5 page)

Max sat on a bench in the school playground and counted the number of days in her notebook until she'd be on her way to America. She'd thought about visiting her dad so much over the years that she wondered whether she'd wake up like all the other times and realise they were still separated by endless oceans, slimy sea creatures and a neurotic mother.

‘Hey.' Toby Jennings sat down next to her and opened his lunch box.

Max quickly closed her notebook. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘Having my lunch,' Toby answered innocently.

Max stared at him suspiciously. ‘You're not going to ask me why I'm sitting with all my friends?'

‘Why would I want to do that when you're sitting alone?' He took a bite from a hefty-looking sandwich.

‘Because that's the kind of thing you've said to me every day since I started at Hollingdale.'

Max felt as if she was talking to a Toby look-alike or a Toby who had had his memory erased and forgotten that they weren't friends.

‘Oh, Max.' He sniffed. ‘Were you writing more of those stories?'

Max tried to stop her mouth answering Toby's
questions. There was something eerie about him knowing anything about her life.

‘No. I mean, yeah.' She instantly tried to put her book in her bag. Its tattered cover, which was held together by sticky tape, was the result of Toby having fought her for it a few months ago. She tried to push it in further but it fell at Toby's feet.

‘I'll get it.' He leant down to pick up the notebook and noticed one entry written in bright red. ‘You're going to America?'

‘Yes.' Max stared at her book trapped in Toby's hands. She had to get it off him, but just as she was about to pounce, he did something weird. He handed it back.

‘Excellent. Where are you going to stay?'

‘With my dad in LA.' Now Max was really confused. Toby never handed anything back to anyone without making them beg for it. Max slipped her notebook in her bag and it was then Toby noticed the leather pouch.

Max had to get out of there. Life was creepy enough living with her mother, but suddenly that felt normal compared with how Toby was behaving.

‘Gotta go. See ya.' She pulled her bag to her chest and moved speedily away.

Toby watched her go. ‘America, eh? And I'll bet there's something special in that pouch. I think it's time to do a little investigating.'

After lunch there was sport, so every student had to put their bag in their locker. This meant Max and her bag would be apart long enough for Toby to pay a visit.

‘Ms Flagbottom, I don't feel very well.'

Toby grabbed his stomach as the sports teacher came over to see what was wrong. He'd also dabbed his face with a faint layer of powder he kept in his bag for emergencies. Toby loved sport, so he'd never be suspected of faking an illness to get out of it.

‘You certainly don't look well.' Ms Flagbottom held his chin, saw his pale complexion and fell for it.

‘No, Miss.'

‘Go to sick bay and lie down for a while.'

A kid called Grace with wild orange hair, fluoro braces and an annoying habit of skipping everywhere she went, skipped alongside Toby to sick bay. He lay on the bed and watched Grace skip her way back out the door. When she'd gone, he went to the lockers and easily picked Max's lock. He opened her bag and saw the communication
device Max had been speaking into. Up close, it looked like a mini computer.

‘Welcome to your new owner.' Toby grinned, but when he pressed the same keys Max had, nothing happened. He checked for a power switch but gave up when he saw something else: Max's notebook.

‘Now I'll find out what you've been up to.'

Toby put the communication device back in Max's bag and flicked through the pages of her book. They were crammed with stories of rescues from erupting volcanoes, escapes from menacing thugs, descriptions of flying backpacks called PFDs and flying through the sky at hyper-speeds in an invisible jet.

‘This stuff can't be real,' he muttered, but there was something about the way the stories were written that made him think they were true. He then read about her trip to Mindawarra to test the new Time and Space Machine. His face swelled into a bulging smile as if he'd been stung by an ingenious idea. ‘This machine sounds too good to waste on Max.'

He put the notebook back in her bag and reached for the leather pouch. ‘Now what do we have here?' He undid the string that held it closed and pulled out a purple box-shaped device. It had a
sensor at the top, an LCD screen above a computer-like keypad and three keys labelled
scan
,
activate
and
transport
. There was a rod at the side and a green light labelled
power
.

‘This must be the Time and Space Machine,' he whispered excitedly. ‘It's a little daggy looking but if it's going to fly me round the world I guess I can live with that.'

With his brilliant idea whirring inside his head, Toby carefully placed the machine into his own bag and, finding Max's address book, wrote down where her father lived. Then he heard footsteps at the other end of the corridor. He had to be quick. He searched through his bag until he found a small block of timber from his woodwork class. The footsteps came closer. He slipped the wood into the pouch, tied it up and replaced it in Max's bag just in time to slip around a corner and watch Principal Peasers hum past in a haze of hippie love.

A smug smile appeared on Toby's lips as he watched her walk away. He'd be good at this spy work, and deep in his heart knew that Max would be overjoyed that he'd decided to join her. He crept back to sick bay with a warm feeling circling in his stomach, knowing life was about to get very, very exciting.

They were the best father–daughter team in Spyforce since Alex Crane and her dad. They'd beaten baddies in Botswana, fought criminals in the Pacific and captured kidnappers in Kalimantan. They were tough, smart and always knew what the other was thinking without having to say it. Max sat in the passenger side of the desert buggy with a map fluttering on her lap.

‘The hotel should be …'

‘… coming up on our right,' her dad answered above the noise of the engine.

Max smiled. ‘Yeah.'

They were in the Sahara Desert, in the sandswept and majestic country of Algeria. The temperature had reached 48 degrees Celsius and the hot dry wind was gluing itself to their skin in multiple layers.

A faint dot of green appeared in the distance and as they approached they knew they'd found it: the oasis they were searching for. Surrounded by imposing mountains of sand and sweeping stretches of dry golden plains was a lush eruption of rich green trees, shrubs and palms.

Cool air poured over them as they drove along the tree-lined road to the Hotel d'Algiers, tucked in the centre of the oasis. They stopped before a
fountain at the entrance and were offered drinks while porters scurried to unload their bags.

‘We have to keep our eyes open,' Max's father whispered through half-closed lips. ‘Malovic is very cunning and if he catches wind of our plan …'

‘… it'll put a nasty edge on our Saharan adventure.'

Max's father smiled. Her courage astounded him and he couldn't imagine a father more proud of his daughter than he was.

They'd been sent to capture the dreaded Alphonso Malovic, a wizened old man who leant over a cane and hummed as he walked, but beneath his flowing robes, wrinkled skin and off-key tunes was the most conniving racketeer the desert had ever seen. Malovic had contacts all over the world and whatever anyone needed, no matter how sinister, he could obtain it. It had taken months to organise, but they'd finally set up a meeting with Malovic to discuss a phoney business proposition they had for him.

Malovic's assistants insisted they freshen up before the meeting and took them to a private bathing room decorated in intricate mosaics. They sat on a tiled bench in their swimming costumes as steam surged from tiny jets embedded in the wall
and water trickled from fountains all around them. After a long journey through the Saharan heat, this was exactly what they needed.

Until what happened next. Several clicking sounds reverberated throughout the room as metal plates slipped across the drains. The trickling water became hissing streams, bursting into the room in angry torrents.

‘What's happening?' called Max.

‘It's a double cross,' her father yelled back as the water rose around their ankles. He raced to the door, but it had been bolted shut. The water quickly rose so high that it lifted them from their feet and floated them towards the ceiling.

Max desperately looked for a way out. The gap between the ceiling and the rising water became a sliver with barely enough room to breathe. What were they going to do? How where they going to escape? Would this be the end of Max and her dad? She'd be able to save them in an instant if only she had some

‘Drinks? Peanuts?'

Max jumped as a stewardess with bright red
lips and over-straight teeth leant in and bellowed at her.

‘No thanks.' Max reeled from being wrenched so abruptly out of the Sahara.

‘Peanuts?' Ben snapped awake from a deep sleep. Max was sure her uncle could wake up from a coma if food was mentioned. ‘Love some.'

Max closed her book. She'd started writing to take her mind off her convulsing stomach, which was threatening to fly out of her mouth and leave her body forever at any second. She wasn't sure if her queasiness was due to the flight, the foil-covered trays with what she suspected was food, or the fact that she was going to see her dad again.
And
his new wife. Max's …
stepmother
. She'd never faced the word before, even in her head. Other kids had stepmothers and stepfathers — kids from books and TV — and they hardly ever got a good rap. What was she going to be like? What if Max didn't like her? Or what if she didn't like Max?

She held her stomach as a new wave of sickness rolled over her.

‘Nervous?' Ben munched on his peanuts as he studied the scowl on Max's face. ‘I am too. Never was a big fan of flying.'

‘The flying part's okay,' Max answered quietly.

‘Oh.' Ben nodded, then held out his arm. ‘Pinch me.'

‘Sorry?'

‘Pinch me. Go on. I can take it.'

Max's aunt and uncle could be odd and sometimes it was better not to question what they said. She reached out and pinched him.

‘Ouch!' Ben rubbed his arm. ‘See?'

Max was confused. ‘See what?'

‘You really are on your way to see your dad.'

Max laughed. Ben was sweet in his loopy kind of way. He looked around conspiratorially. ‘I'm nervous about who we're meeting too.' He lowered his voice even further. ‘Can I tell you a secret?'

Max's eyes widened. ‘Yeah.'

‘We're having a meeting with Harrison to show him the new Time and Space Machine.'

‘Harrison?'

‘Shhhh. It's a secret. At least I hope it still is.' Then he added guiltily, ‘Hope the machine treats Harrison better than it treated you.'

‘It wasn't the machine's fault, it's brilliant.' She paused. ‘Like you.'

Ben smiled. ‘We'll be there soon.' He rubbed his arm where Max had pinched it. ‘You've sure got some grip.' He ruffled her hair, put on his
headphones and began flicking through the channels on the screen in front of him.

Max felt the pouch in her bag for the hundredth time since she'd left home to make sure the original Time and Space Machine Ben and Eleanor had given her was still there. A voice then announced they were beginning their descent. Ben grabbed Max's fidgeting hand to reassure her that everything was going to be okay but also to stop her from picking the end of her jumper to bits. She'd already pulled a packet of tissues apart which lay around her feet like a mini paper snowstorm.

Before much longer, they were in the terminal of the airport being pushed around by waves of people frantically moving in all directions. Eleanor and Ben grabbed Max's and Linden's hands and made their way to the luggage carousel. After they'd piled their bags onto trolleys, Max and Linden stood on a seat and searched the crowd for Max's dad.

‘What's he look like?' Linden asked.

Max fished a photo out of her pocket. ‘It's a bit old but he probably hasn't changed much.'

The terminal was a frenzy of announcements, flight calls, trolleys of food and luggage, and all sorts of people from footballers to holidaymakers, businesspeople and a group of Tibetan monks.

‘Is there anyone
not
in this terminal today?' Linden shouted to Max over the noise, but then he noticed a man caught in a tangle of schoolkids who had flooded around his legs. ‘Is that him?'

Max looked to where Linden was pointing and saw the man dancing through the kids as if they were baby chicks he was trying not to squash.

‘That's him,' she breathed.

The man looked up, stopped dancing and let out the same big smile Max remembered. He wore a floppy jumper, baggy trousers and his hair fell in mismatched waves above red-rimmed glasses.

‘Max!' he called out above the chaos.

Max had pictured meeting up with her dad so many times that now it was really happening it seemed so … so … normal.

He ran towards her, scooped her off the seat and swung her through the air like he did when she was a kid. Linden stood back as two men in business suits ducked and scowled, only narrowly avoiding being slugged by flying shoes. Max held onto her dad so she wouldn't fly into the crowd but mostly so she could make sure he was real.

He stopped twirling and pulled her in tight. ‘Boy, have I missed you.'

‘Ahem,' Ben interrupted after even more
hugging. ‘When you two are finished, we'd like to say hello as well.'

Max's father laughed and put her down. The two men threw their arms around each other so vigorously it looked as if they were going to wrestle each other to the ground. He then hugged Eleanor whose face creased into a half smile, half frown.

‘Still as beautiful as ever,' Max's dad said. ‘Beats me how you got stuck with Ben.'

‘She could have done worse,' Ben shot back. ‘She could have married you.'

The two men laughed while Eleanor lit up in a bright blush. She wriggled out of the hug and placed her handson Linden's shoulders. ‘And this is Linden.'

Max's dad's smile got bigger. ‘You have no idea how this lot rave about you.'

Linden looked away self-consciously. ‘I have a rough idea.'

Max nervously scanned the area around them. Her dad instantly knew who she was looking for. ‘Mee Lin had to work today and will join us later. For now, let's go home and start the party.'

He gripped Max's hand tightly as he led them to his chauffeur-driven car. ‘Don't worry,' he whispered so no one else could hear. ‘She's going to love you.'

In the car, Max's dad, Ben and Eleanor chatted noisily about lots of old and mostly funny times. Max and Linden listened and laughed at their wild stories as they crisscrossed LA through a labyrinth of highways and flew past its billboards and people and music and traffic. They didn't notice any of it.

The city fell away into the background as the car threaded its way along a winding, tree-lined road and when the house finally appeared, it was as if they'd all been driven into a movie.

Linden stared at the multi-storeyed mansion. ‘If I open my eyes will I wake up?'

‘It's not as big as it looks,' Max's dad said modestly as he showed them inside.

But it was. Set on a hill surrounded by a forest of trees, flowers and fountains, the house had twelve bedrooms, five bathrooms and a garden with a lagoon and waterfall nestled in the middle.

Linden whispered to Max, ‘Are you sure this is your dad?'

Max looked admiringly at her father as he laughed with Ben and Eleanor. ‘Yep. I'm sure.'

‘Excellent,' Linden replied thankfully. ‘I was worried that someone would tell us we'd been picked up by the wrong guy.'

There weren't many things that could do it, but
the sight of Linden's room made him go completely silent. He looked at the enormous bed, the windows overlooking the lagoon and his own bathroom with spa. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

‘You're welcome, Linden.' Max's dad smiled. ‘It's great to finally meet you.'

Max was shown to her room last. Before he left her to settle in, her father squatted in front of her. ‘I've been looking forward to this for so long I was beginning to think it would never happen.' His eyes moistened as if he was about to cry, something Max usually ran from, but as he gently pulled her in for another hug, she could have stayed there forever.

‘I've got to do some work for tomorrow's shoot.' He strode towards the door and turned. ‘I want you to treat this as your home, Max. I'll be in the study if you need me.'

He raised his fingers to his lips and blew her a kiss. Max caught it and put it in her pocket, just like she used to do when she was a kid.

‘For later,' he said and gave her a wink as he turned away.

Max sank onto her bed, her body a mixture of tingling and fatigue. Her dad could always make even a normal day seem like a party. When they lived together, the house was always full of people
and even when they'd just moved into a new house, it'd be filled that evening with music, food and new neighbours. The parties ran long into the night, while Max lay on the lounge slipping in and out of sleep. She'd refuse to go to bed in case she missed the fun, but every time she'd wake up in her dad's arms as he carried her to her room. Her mother would complain about the chaos but secretly Max could see she loved it. Her dad would grab her and twirl her and within seconds her parents would be laughing and kissing like two people who would always be in love.

‘Must be hard having your parents live so far apart.'

Max sat up. It was Linden. He had this ability of always knowing exactly what she was thinking. She looked away as she realised there were tears on her face.

She was about to give him a well-crafted and witty reply but something caught in her throat and she couldn't say anything. Linden saw her reddened eyes and knew exactly what she needed. ‘Swim?'

Max nodded.

‘Excellent. The lagoon's heated and has a slide and a floating stereo.' Linden grabbed Max by the hand and pulled her to a standing position. ‘We're
only here for a short while so we can't waste a second.'