“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 prefer 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!”