Chop-Chop, Mad Cap! Read online

  JULIETTE SAUMANDE

  ILLUSTRATED BY SADIE CRAMER

  CHOP-CHOP, MAD CAP!

  Published 2012

  by Little Island

  7 Kenilworth Park

  Dublin 6W

  Ireland

  www.littleisland.ie

  Copyright © Juliette Saumande 2012

  Illustrations copyright © Sadie Cramer 2012

  The author has asserted her moral rights.

  ISBN 978-1-908195-21-0

  All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owner.

  British Library Cataloguing Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Design by Paul Woods | www.paulthedesigner.ie

  Printed in Poland by Drukarnia Skleniarz

  Little Island received financial assistance from

  The Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaíon), Dublin, Ireland.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To the two AO’Cs

  May they be super

  May they be fun

  May they eat their veg

  (Not necessarily in that order)

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Sadie Cramer, from Teignmouth, Devon, studied Fine Art Sculpture at the University of Ulster in Belfast. After graduating in 1993, she moved to London, where she worked in art departments for film and television. For the past 16 years she has lived in a top secret hideout on the shores of Lough Corrib near Galway with her husband, Mark Hand, and their four children. Much of her work involves teaching and coordinating children’s art projects. Sadie loves singing opera very loudly, a good story and the colour pink.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Juliette Saumande is French. That means:

  she knows two hundred and thirty-one words for ‘cheese’ (and a few more for ‘smelly’)

  she speaks French to her two cats (though they usually pretend to only understand English) and

  she believes warm summers are for real, somewhere.

  Now, though, she lives in Dublin where she has learned:

  two hundred and thirty-one words for ‘rain’

  the art of climbing on the top deck of the 40 bus and

  the delights of toasted sandwiches.

  She’s written lots of picture books in French and she has also translated novels for young and younger people. She has a website (www.juliettesaumande.com) and a blog (www.juliettesaumande.blogspot.com). Juliette lives with her better, more bearded half and her Best Boy and Girl. She loves liquorice, but she thinks Crunchies should be banned and their recipe thrown into a bottomless pit. She wishes you a good day.

  THANKING YE

  Right, this is going to be a bit long so have a good old stretch now, a wee yawn if you need it, and I can begin.* *Alternatively, you can just skip this bit and go straight to the story. But you never know, you might just have made it to the acknowledgements. Wouldn’t it be a pity to miss YOUR NAME in print? Mmmh?

  Here goes:

  First of all, and as promised, this one is for Sorcha Mellon-Whelan and the girls from way back when in St. Raphaela’s Primary School, Stillorgan (although they’ve probably all grown beards by now).

  Nat for all the time reading aloud and all the allowed reading time (and for the meringues).

  The Best Boy and the French Lady, just because.

  The Best of Natives on the Little Island, Siobhán and Elaina, for allowing me to camp with them.

  The crowd at Children’s Books Ireland for providing the most excellent company, great laughs and inspiration opportunities.

  Pauline, Paddy, Ger and the lasses on the writing group for laughing at my jokes, liking my biscuits and believing in Mad Cap.

  The staff, cook and landscape at Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig. The final draft of this book and my extra kilos number 7 and 8 thank you kindly.

  Jane Austen for inspiration (kind of).

  And finally, You, Dear Reader. Didn’t I say you’d be in there somewhere?

  1

  MIDNIGHT RAID

  The bedroom was darker than the old loo in the back garden, and Madgie M. Cappock, aka Mad Cap, stood there waiting for her eyes to adjust and scratching her nose furiously. She was wearing her superhero cape (which was great for camouflage) and her superhero mask (which was dreadful for itchy noses).

  The bedroom belonged to her big brother Colm and she could hear him snoring like a cat with asthma. But that didn’t worry Madgie. It was all part of The Plan, the plan her best friend Norbert Soup had carefully designed. Norbert was officially a genius and Madgie knew she could count on his brilliant brains to get her out of impossible situations as well as into them.

  Just like tonight. Tonight, Mad Cap’s mission was to uncover a potentially juicy secret: the name of her brother’s girlfriend. And for that she needed Colm’s diary. And for that she needed to sneak into his bedroom in the dead of night.

  She could see a bit better now: the outline of the Captain Gut posters on the wall, Colm’s trainee chef gear neatly stashed in a corner … Madgie licked her lips in the darkness at the thought of the delish dessert he’d baked that very evening. But she had to stay focused. This was an important mission – vital even. This was going to prove that the Rent-a-Hero agency she and Norbert had recently put together could handle tricky, perhaps dangerous, operations. If they could pull this one off, they would know for sure that they were ready to advertise their services (outside of school and their own family circles) as general finders-out and useful superheroes. After all, there was only so much fun you could have tracking down misplaced plastic buckets in playgrounds or following around odd-looking teachers to make sure they were not zombies in disguise.

  No, Mad Cap couldn’t afford to mess this up.

  As she tiptoed across the room, Colm suddenly lashed out an arm in his sleep and caught a handful of her cape.

  This was not part of The Plan. Madgie panicked. She stepped away from Colm’s bed, but his grip was firm and he didn’t let go. Worse, he gave a big yawn and started burbling. Madgie froze. What was she supposed to do? She tried to remember Norbert’s Plan:

  One: Get in

  Two: Get it

  Three: Get out

  She repeated The Plan over and over until she had calmed down. Then she tugged gently at her cape and prised it out of Colm’s fist. She wasn’t a superhero for nothing.

  Mad Cap forever and beyond! she thought triumphantly.

  But maybe she was thinking too loudly, because just then Colm grabbed her by the hand and began to mumble something. It sounded like ‘sitting in a tree’ …

  Mad Cap pricked up her ears. She couldn’t believe it. He was singing in his sleep! This was too good. If he kept this up, she wouldn’t need to find his stupid diary at all. He’d just sing out the name she was after.

  But then Colm began to spell. ‘K-I-S … K-I-S-I-N-G …’

  Madgie snorted. Even she was a better speller than that. But now Colm was squeezing her hand and – yuk! – kissing it!

  Come on! she thought to him. Sing! Who’s sitting in that rotten tree with you?

  But Colm was snoring again now.

  With a quiet sigh, Madgie wriggled her hand free of his. It was time for part 2 of The Plan: Get it.

  Her eyes had almost adjusted to the darkness by now. Almost. She bumped her knee against the bedside locker.

  ‘Janie!’ she muttered. ‘That hurt!’

  She rubbed at her knee. Then she remembered she’d been eating chocolate bu
ttons. And she was wearing new pyjamas under her superhero cape. Mum’ll kill me!

  Then Colm started sleep-singing again, and Mad Cap thought he might kill her too if he woke up and found her in his room. Better get a move on.

  She opened the locker and a pile of smelly underwear tumbled out. She rummaged in it. First she found a couple of battered comic books. Then came a cracked tennis ball and a soft rabbit that felt suspiciously like one she had lost years ago. At last, she found what she had been looking for: Colm’s secret diary.

  She went to the window to signal SUCCESS to Norbert, who was (in theory) watching from his own bedroom on the other side of the street. Madgie slipped behind the curtains and took out her mini torch. She paused. She had to get this right. What had Norbert said? Two flashes for ‘OK’ and one for ‘hard luck’. Or was it the other way round? She knew she should check – Norbert had written it all down for her on a piece of paper – but she couldn’t be bothered. She just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. The Captain Gut posters on the walls looked like they were about to come alive and Colm could wake up at any moment.

  I’ll flash three times, she decided. Norbert will understand. He’s a genius, after all.

  She turned the torch on and off, and again, and again, always taking care to aim at Norbert’s house across the street.

  Then she waited for his reply.

  Nothing.

  Maybe he had fallen asleep? In fairness, it was gone midnight, she realised with a yawn.

  She signalled again.

  Still no reply.

  This was getting boring.

  Then she remembered that she had Colm’s diary in her hot and chocolatey fist. She knew she wasn’t supposed to open it before she met up with Norbert again. But Mad Cap couldn’t wait. She decided she really wanted to know now. Really, really. And anyway, where was Norbert?

  She looked out the window. Still nothing. Behind her, Colm was now imitating a French horn. Quite convincingly, too.

  Mad Cap scratched her nose again and opened the diary. She shone the torch on it. It was full of concert tickets, old photos, bus timetables, phone numbers and, every now and then, a few spidery words that she couldn’t make out.

  Does he write with his toes or what?!

  She thought of the cookbook Colm kept in a glass case down in the kitchen, with its pristine cloth cover and neatly copied recipes. She wondered if her brother used a clone every time he was on dinner duty. No matter how you looked at it, Colm was a mystery. With a sigh, Madgie shut the diary again. She wouldn’t find out tonight, then. Oh, well.

  She glanced into the street. She would count to ten, she decided. If Norbert hadn’t replied by then, she’d go to bed.

  She had reached eight when she noticed a flickering white light on the other side of the street. At first she thought it was Norbert answering her at last, but then she realised the light wasn’t coming from Norbert’s house. It was coming from the house next door to his.

  Who lives there? she tried to remember. (Well, it was very late.) And who lives there who would be signalling with a torch to ME in the middle of the night?

  The light kept on flickering. Whoever it was must be desperate to make contact.

  The Fitzmarcels, she suddenly remembered. They were new people. They’d opened a butcher’s shop just in the last week or two. And apparently they liked sending weird signals across the street in the night. Or … could Norbert have gone next door for some reason and was now trying to attract her attention?

  Well, she couldn’t very well go and knock on the butcher’s door and ask if they were holding Norbert hostage or something. Whatever was going on, it would have to wait till the morning.

  She turned from the window, promptly tripped over her brother’s chaos and banged into the bed. Colm woke up with a start. He grabbed her hand and spluttered, ‘What are you doing here?’ and ‘Yurgh! Is that chocolate?’

  This time, Mad Cap was ready. Section B29(f) of Norbert’s Plan (the long version) popped into her head and she knew what she had to do. She shook free of her brother’s grip and said, ‘You’re dreaming, Colm. It’s just a dream.’

  For a second he stared at her as if she had three heads, then he fell back on his pillow. In an instant he was snoring again, but Mad Cap was already gone.

  2

  MORNING ROW

  Next morning, Madgie woke up with a headache. It was as if somebody was playing a Rocky film inside her head. Punch, punch, punch. When her brain cleared a bit, she realised the punching was actually coming from the box-room.

  ‘Oh no,’ she moaned as she copped what was going on. ‘I have boxing practice with Dad today!’

  Mr Cappock, Madgie’s dad, was a guard. His mum was a guard and his great-uncle was a guard, and there was nothing he wanted more than to pass the gift on to the next generation. Colm was a hopeless case, being a trainee chef and a rebel, but there was still Madgie. Hence the boxing practice on Saturday mornings, the watching of Law and Order on Sundays and the ‘friendly wrestling’ over the remote every other night.

  Usually Madgie didn’t mind the routine, as she managed to get the better of Dad by using unconventional weapons like tickling and shrieking at the top of her voice. But this morning, she had no time for it. She had to go to Norbert’s to report the mission’s success and she had to find out about Colm’s girlfriend. But first she HAD to get breakfast.

  She rushed to the kitchen, scoffed down a scone and some juice and ran out the door. She was halfway through the front garden before she realised she was still in her pyjamas.

  Never mind, she thought. No one’ll notice, if I’m quick enough.

  ‘Nice outfit!’ a voice called out.

  Madgie stopped dead. Her mum was at the living-room window, looking flushed and tired, but not in a grumpy sort of way. In fact, she was smiling. Madgie relaxed.

  ‘What are you up to, bean?’ Mrs Cappock continued. ‘Off to Norbert’s to right some wrong, young hero?’

  Madgie frowned. What was Mum talking about? What did she know?

  It was like Mrs Cappock had a seventh sense: she always knew when there was some sort of mischief about. (Her sixth sense she used to find anything anybody in the family had ever lost around the house, from car keys to botched homework to good manners.)

  ‘Come on in,’ Mum said again. ‘I’ve got a mission for you.’

  Madgie’s guilt and fear lifted for a moment. A mission? That’d be good – really good. The Rent-a-Hero agency could do with some real business and some real money coming in. There was this deadly pair of superhero boots Madgie had seen in the shop only the other day, with side pockets and a secret compartment built into the heel. Just what she needed to hide her snacks in.

  But then she remembered she was talking to her mother and that they probably had very different definitions of the word ‘mission’.

  She ran back into the house and zoomed up to her room to grab a hoodie. At least it would hide some of the chocolate stains, and she could stuff Colm’s diary in the front pocket. Come to think of it, she could stash a few cereal bars in there, too.

  She darted down to the living-room and plonked herself on a beanbag. Mrs Cappock frowned, noticing the strange bulge in Madgie’s front pocket, but then she started to rub something away behind her glasses. Surely it couldn’t be tears? Maybe she had something in her eye. But there was no time to investigate because, just then, an almighty roar sprang from Colm’s bedroom, flooded the landing and crashed down the stairs.

  Before the yelling tsunami had time to reach the living-room, Mad Cap had pressed her hands deep down into her hoodie pocket and made a run for it.

  Even from Norbert’s doorstep, she could still hear her brother bawling across the road. She couldn’t be sure, of course, but she thought it went something like, ‘WHO’S THE NASTY GNOME THAT STOLE MY DIARY?’

  Norbert Soup opened the door even before Mad Cap knocked. His hair was sticking out as if he’d been electrocuted, and he looked p
articularly grumpy.

  ‘We’d better get out of here’ he said, closing the door behind him. ‘My sisters are watching a replay of University Challenge. They support different teams. It could turn nasty.’

  As they made their way to their hiding place under the Grand Canal Bridge, Madgie noticed that her friend was carrying a small leather suitcase. She also noticed that he wasn’t saying anything about the strange midnight goings on that nearly wrecked their plan, so eventually she spluttered: ‘What happened to you last night? Did you fall asleep in front of Countdown or what?’

  Understanding Mad Cap as she spoke through a mouthful of cereal bars was one of Norbert’s fortes.

  ‘No’, he said with a scowl. ‘I got caught under Scrum. He sat on me all night. I couldn’t move. Happy?’

  Scrum was the Soups’ cat. It was probably the most enormous cat you’ve ever seen. If you met him in the dark, you might mistake him for a small elephant. Mad Cap had been stuck under him once and she knew for a fact that Norbert was telling the truth. Still, there was no need to be rude.

  She handed him the diary and waited.

  ‘OK,’ he said, opening the suitcase. ‘We want to do this properly. One, fingerprint analysis. Two, dating of paper. Three, graphology.’

  Madgie rolled her eyes. What was he talking about? At this rate, Colm would be married and they still wouldn’t know the stupid name! But Norbert was very strict on these things and there was nothing she could do.

  So while he examined the cover with a magnifying glass and a home-made chart containing the fingerprints of the people living on Barnaby Street, she sat back and tried to fold her cereal bar wrapper into a frog shape. She remembered the instructions from her Origami for Beginners book, but the wrapper wasn’t behaving and she was getting nowhere. Normally, she liked origami because it was totally foolproof. Once you knew what valleys and mountains were and so long as you followed the simple guidelines, you could make some really cool stuff really easily. But right now, it just wouldn’t work.