Gatwick Bear and the Secret Plans (8 page)

“I really had no idea they were carrying all that money around!” the security man exclaimed. And, that was the statement that appeared on the front page of Lugano City News the next day.

The Grand Hotel was the Chief Inspector's next call. Here, he spoke to the receptionist:

“It's true, they had a suitcase full of money and gold bars. The little white bear had a diamond necklace on, too. I saw it all with my own eyes, here in front of me in the reception hall. The little white bear opened the suitcase, to the tune of
Knees Up Mother Brown
, and I saw the haul inside”.

“
Knees Up Mother Brown
, you say?” the Inspector asked.

“Yes, why does that mean something?”

“There might be a code – a message of some sort – in that tune. I'll have to pass this information on to our code breakers”.

“Well, what do you know!” said the receptionist, “whoever would have imagined such a thing? Real life is more incredible than in films”.

“Did they give you any clues as to where they'd be going next?”

“Oh, yes we gave them a packed lunch. They were going to have a picnic on top of Emerald Mountain. I even called a taxi to take them to the railway station. From there, they were taking the little train up the mountain”.

“Many thanks for your help. I think we've got them now. We'll have our forces onto them in no time”.

The Chief Inspector left. He hadn't noticed that Dazbog, who was sitting in an armchair in the hall hiding behind his newspaper, had overheard the whole lot.

It was the most beautiful sunny day, just right for a picnic. Gatwick and Little Sister arrived at the train station at the foot of Emerald Mountain. They loaded their luggage, and themselves, onto the little red mountain train on the rack-and-pinion railway. It was not long before the steam engine gave two chugs and stuttered into action. A big puff of smoke came out of its chimney. The train went diagonally over a road at a level crossing, Gatwick waved goodbye with his wooden spoon to the pedestrians standing there waiting to cross the road: “Cheerio!”

“Cheerio!”, Little Sister copied her big brother.

The way soon became steep as it went through some woods. All of a sudden they were in a pitch black tunnel. The driver honked the loud horn just as the nose of the train was about to emerge from darkness.

“What did he do that for?” Little Sister asked Gatwick.

“It's because there may be some animals on the tracks. There are a lot of animals up here. I saw the pictures in the brochure. The chamois is the symbol of Emerald Mountain. Did you know that their fur is light brown in summer and dark-brown in winter? Our fur doesn't change colour, does it?”

“That is so interesting, Gatwick”, she was hugely proud of her big brother. What a life she was having now. She briefly thought of the dusty book shelf, but soon put it out of her mind and admired the view, which was now breathtaking, really breathtaking. Little Sister stopped breathing, her round head turned red, and her eyes opened wide. The sheer vertical drops were awesome: frightening but exciting. Gatwick told her to look down at her paws for a moment, to get herself together, while he put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. She soon perked up, so Gatwick went on telling her what other animals lived on Emerald Mountain.

“In the brochure, I also saw pictures of squirrels, goats, cows and even a brown bear”.

“A brown bear!” exclaimed Little Sister.

“Yes, an enormous one. Look, Little Sister”.

“My word; he's huge. Let's see if we can find him and talk to him!”

“Good idea! There's a bear cave up there, it's called Grotta dell'Orso. We'll go look for him in there. Look there are also lots of different types of birds. Hey, look at this funny woodpecker, it's red. Did you ever see a red woodpecker in your life?”

“Well, no, you don't get to see much sitting on a shelf, you know”.

“Then there are owls, blackcaps, kites, wrynecks, buzzards, swallows, larks, wrens, ravens, and others I don't know the names of”.

“I only know what ravens look like out of those”, said Little Sister candidly.

“Well you see, owls are very wise and know a lot; blackcaps have black caps on their heads if they're male like me, and brown caps on their heads if they're female like you; kites can glide a long way; wrynecks have a dark line running down their backs from their necks; flying buzzards hold their wings up like a V; swallows have long tail streamers; larks get up early in the morning; and wrens are a bit dumpy, like us”.

“Gatwick, you're so intelligent. How do you know so much?”

“Once a passenger left a birdwatching book on a seat at Gatwick Airport, and I spent all afternoon looking at it”.

The small steam train slowly climbed the slopes, chugging and puffing as it went. It was now above the treeline. No trees could grow above a certain height. The higher up trees are, the shorter they grow. They got shorter and shorter as the bears moved up the mountain, until there were no trees at all.

After forty minutes the train stopped and all the passengers got off. The first thing the bears did was to rush to a railing at the edge of the mountainside, press their furry noses against it, and watch the goats climbing up the mountain face. “Hello, goats!”, the bears shouted down. But they didn't answer. Only one looked up quickly, a bit irritated, and then went back to eating his patch of grass. They weren't very friendly.

“Let's try the cows”, Little Sister giggled. She started running towards the sound of cowbells: clang, clang; clang, clang... Swiss milk cows were taken high up in the Alps for summer grazing. They were taken up in a procession, all together like children on a school outing. These must have been the most beautiful cows in the world. They were all different: brown or black, with and without spots. Gatwick and Little Sister soon got friendly with the cows. In next to no time the two bears were using the cows' tails as swings. The cows loved it and swayed the bears to and fro as high as they could go:

“Hold on tight”, shouted Gatwick with glee to Little Sister.

When they were tired of that game, Gatwick thought he would pick some flowers and place them behind the cows' ears. He ran off and came back with a small white star-shaped flower. Then he climbed onto one of the cows' backs and placed it behind her ear. She turned her head round and said:

“Youoo knowoo youoo can't pick the flowers here. It is forbidden and against the law! Moo! That is a precious edelweiss”.

Gatwick was horrified and so was Little Sister. “What can I do now?”, he asked, “I can't put it back. I'm so so sorry”.

Little Sister started crying.

“Please don't cry Little Sister, I'll never ever do it again”. It took a while for a smile to come back to Little Sister's face.

Gatwick wanted to know what the tags were on their ears. They explained that it was like a passport. The tag has the cow's name on it, the cow's date of birth, and its cow identity number: Gatwick and Little Sister went from cow to cow looking at their names: Carolina, Margherita, Celestina and Angelina.

“Swiss cows, I must tell you that you make the most delicious chocolate”, said Gatwick.

The cows answered in chorus: “Thank youoo for the compliment”.

With that, the bears decided that they'd have another box of chocolates between them. To get to the boxes of chocolates, Little Sister had to take out all the Swiss francs and place them beside her on the grass. She handed the box to Gatwick, then she neatly put all the money back in again. When they'd finished the chocolates, they thought they'd start their picnic. They emptied all the goodies from Gatwick's box onto the grass. The cows joined them. What a feast!

When they were full, Gatwick placed all the litter back in the box. He wasn't going to be accused of being a litter lout again! In fact, Gatwick cleaned the whole field. He had also seen that the cows had dropped splats of their dung on the grass. He shovelled them all up with his wooden spoon and hurled those into the box, too. Then he went back to all the laughing and rolling about in the grass with the others.

During this merry mayhem, Jet had flown down and, with one quick swoop dropped the imitation big box on wheels, tied up with red rope, onto the grass and took away the real one

as quick as a flash of lightning.

The cows started telling the bears about the Brown Bear who lived on Emerald Mountain. They said that some shepherds were hunting him down. They wanted to kill him before he killed their sheep. Gatwick and Little Sister were horrified. Gatwick asked how they knew the bear was there. It seemed that the shepherds had found some bear fur and bear droppings. The Brown Bear must have wandered into Switzerland from the Italian side of the Alps. Some shepherds said that they had seen him through binoculars.

It was now time for Gatwick and Little Sister to leave the cows and make their way to the Bear's Cave. The cows gave them directions. It was quite a distance but all they had to do was to follow the mountain path. On and on they trudged with their luggage. Little Sister's paws were hurting, she wanted a rest. They sat down on the grass and admired the different greens in front of them. The darkest green was formed by the reflection of a cloud between the mountain and the sun. All of a sudden Dazbog flew down with a swoosh, seized the imitation box, by hooking the red rope on to his beak, rose steeply and glided away. Gatwick was devastated. He'd had that box all his life; though, of course, he didn't realise it was an imitation. Now he was only left with his small blue Edwardian case with rusty catches and an even rustier big lock. Poor Gatwick!

They started on their journey again. There were helicopters circling over their heads everywhere. The bears enjoyed watching them. The sound of helicopters seemed to get louder. Suddenly, a deafening gun shot was heard. It was so loud that it made the bears jump, and then tremble with fright. They huddled up together, lay down on the grass against the mountain face, and held Little Sister's suitcase in front of them for protection. They waited and waited for a long time, until they were certain there was no longer any danger. They had heard no more shots and the helicopters had flown away.

The sun was going down, the evening breeze began to ruffle the bears' fur. The last train down to the valley had left. The bears had no idea how far the cave was. Neither did our bears realise how dangerous mountains were. Gatwick had only lived at Gatwick Airport and Little Sister on a shelf – they were totally clueless. They had no idea that the temperature fell sharply at night, that creatures could freeze to death. The Alps were snow-capped all the year round. Even when the temperature in the valley was scorching hot, the ice and snow still hugged the tips of the mountains.

The two bears were still marching along the mountain path until hardly a ray of light beamed from the sky. Night time had fallen by the time they finally reached the cave. They poked their heads in. It was pitch black in there. All they could do was to tread carefully, find a spot to sleep on, and hold each other's hand while they waited for the morning sun to rise. Gatwick managed to feel his way with his wooden spoon; he clung to it for good luck. Little Sister was even too scared to cry. Gatwick thought they should try and sleep where they were instead of walking further into the cave. There might be pot holes, or deep water wells, or prowling animals, or slimy reptiles, or creepy insects, or all sorts of nasties deeper in the cave. They needed to sleep and to be fresh in the morning to walk all the way back to the little train station.

So, they lay on the hard ground, side by side, trying not to let the slightest noise worry them. The clouds moving in front of the moon were projecting sinister silvery shadows through the entrance and on to the walls of the cave. Suddenly, Little Sister felt someone was lurking there, near her. She could feel a gaze on her, and thought she heard breathing. She sat up and turned around, all she saw were two white eyeballs glowing at her in the dark. Slowly, they were moving nearer towards her until they were right there in front of her. Then she felt a gentle stroke on one of her shoulders, then another stroke on her other shoulder. She was being gripped. Little Sister was petrified. A strange voice asked: “Who are you?”

Little Sister couldn't speak. So Gatwick answered: “Please don't harm us. We're only two little peaceful cubs”.

“What are you doing here?”, the voice continued.

“We wanted to visit this cave. We didn't realise it was so far, and arrived here when it was nearly night time. So we couldn't go back because we couldn't see our way in the dark”. Gatwick found the courage to ask a question: “Are you the Brown Bear?”

“Who told you about the Brown Bear?” the voice asked back.

“We met some cows, they told us that everyone thought that the Brown Bear was on Emerald Mountain”.