The telephone box was in a quiet part of Simian City, so there weren’t many monkeys walking along the pavement or swinging from tree to tree.
As the instructions had stated, Pete went to the meeting place alone with the case. However, the instructions had said nothing about wearing a hidden mini-radio; Pete’s was under the baseball cap that he’d borrowed from Tammy. The rest of the team were sitting in one of the gallery’s jeeps just a block away – they’d be able to hear everything and could provide back-up at any moment.
Pete stepped into the phone box at a minute to the hour. He glanced at his watch and then …
BRRRING! BRRRRING!
Pete grabbed the phone.
‘Mr Pink?’ said a low voice.
‘Sorry, no one here by that name,’ Pete answered. ‘This is a kebab shop, mate.’
There was a long silence on the line, and then a doubtful ‘Really?’
‘Nah, just kidding!’ Pete grinned. He liked to try to inject a little humour into tense situations. ‘I AM Mr Pink.’
‘Well then, I hope you’re in good shape, Mr Pink,’ said the voice on the line, sounding calm again.
‘Let’s just say, I work out at the gym at least once – sometimes twice – a year.’ Pete caught his own reflection in the phone-box window and winked.
‘Good. Because you have exactly two minutes to reach the telephone box on the corner of Lemur and Swing Streets, starting … NOW!’
‘Wait!’ Pete shouted. ‘I’m not sure where that is …’ But the line had gone dead.
Pete burst out of the phone box and shouted into the radio mike, ‘Did you get all that?’
‘We did!’ answered Tammy. ‘Bri’s just looking it up in the A–Z.’ A couple of seconds later she began to relay directions to Pete. ‘You’ll have to cut through the park to your west! But we can’t follow you, we’ll have to drive the long way round. You’re on your own, Captain!’
Pete ran as fast as he could. He liked speed, but only when it involved sitting on a motorbike or in a powerboat or – best of all – in the cockpit of SkyHog 1. Where was the fun in going fast by RUNNING? It was too much effort for too little speed.
His legs agreed, which is why they were aching by the time he spotted the next phone box on the other side of the park. He was still twenty metres away when the phone started to ring.
Pete put on a final sprint, and pulled the phone off the hook.
‘Almost too late, Mr Pink,’ teased the deep voice on the other end.
‘GAAAAAAAH!’ said Pete, mainly because this was all his lungs allowed him to say just now.
‘No jokes?’ continued the voice.
‘GAH!’ said Pete. It was still the best reply he could come up with, under the circumstances.
‘Good. You now have another two minutes to get to the phone box on the corner of Howler and Squirrel Streets. I’ll start timing as soon as you hear the …’
CLICK! went the phone.
Pete stumbled out of the phone box.
‘Can you hear me, Pete?’ came Tammy’s voice over the radio.
‘GAAH!’
‘You need to go north and take the second left. Oh, and Pete?’
‘GAH?’
‘It’s a long way, so run! Run like the wind!’
Pete’s trotters pounded against the pavement. His legs ached, his lungs ached, his … everything ached. He felt his heartbeat pulsing in his forehead and he was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign. The suitcase full of Nana notes seemed to weigh a ton, but he couldn’t abandon it.
Pete forced himself to carry on. At last, he could see the little red phone box in the distance, like a vision shimmering before the eyes of someone in the desert who really wanted to make a phone call.
Over the sound of blood pounding in his ears, Pete could hear the phone – it was already ringing. He ordered his legs to go faster. They did, but they weren’t very happy about it.
The ringing was louder now – just a few more steps to go. Pete reached for the phone and … the ringing stopped. He was too late!
He rested against the phone and tried to catch his breath. What now? Would the thieves call again or was that it?
Suddenly, he heard a noise – he wasn’t alone in the phone box! There was something else in here, something above him! Pete looked up, but he caught only a glimpse of fur before something dropped on to his shoulders and shoved the cap down over his eyes.
‘OI!’ the captain cried, but then he heard the door open and felt a HUGE pair of hands pull him out of the phone box. These powerful hands lifted him as if he weighed no more than a rag doll (although, in fact, Peter Porker weighed more than any rag doll in recorded history). He was still in that vice-like grip when he felt the case being ripped from his trotter. For a few moments it felt like he was being frisked – then he was shoved backwards into the phone-box door, and he slumped to the ground. The thieves disappeared with a rustle of leaves.
Wasting no time, Pete scrabbled to pull the cap from over his eyes. He looked around quickly. In the distance, he could see two tiny figures swinging away through the trees. Actually, one of them was tiny; the other looked pretty big, even from afar.
Tammy was shouting into his earphone. ‘Are you OK, Pete? What’s going on?’
‘I’m OK,’ he answered. Turning round, he saw a flat, rectangular object propped against the outside of the phone box. It was wrapped in brown paper. The captain carefully tore off one corner and peeked inside.
He smiled. ‘And the Mona Fleasa’s looking pretty good, too!’