Jill Marshall

Jane Blonde: Sensational Spylet

‘Welcome to my SPI-lab,’ said G-Mamma. ‘You’ve got the same control panel on your side. I think I’ll get them to widen it though so you can just step through instead of scrabbling around like a chimney sweep.’
  Janey didn’t reply. She was too busy gawping at the room that lay before her. The kitten had disappeared, but there was still plenty to look at.
  Every single wall on the top floor of G-Mamma’s house had been knocked through. The surfaces were either white enamel or surgical steel, as gleaming and clinical as an operating theatre. Enormous floor-to-ceiling cupboards lined the walls, and nearly every one had a glass front, through which Janey could see a vast array of equipment, from scissors and nail files to jet skis and backpack propeller sets. One cupboard had a shining steel door and another boasted a curvy white front with magnetic pictures and letters stuck on it – Janey guessed that this was G-Mamma’s fridge. In the middle of the huge expanse of floor were three sleek stainless-steel islands. One had nothing on it at all; one was covered in an array or test tubes, Bunsen burners and bubbling bottles, like something out of a Frankenstein movie; and the third was home to G-Mamma’s massive collection of make-up and a series of mirrors with which to view her face from any angle.
  ‘Amazing!’ was all Janey could say. How had G-Mamma got all this done so quickly?
  G-Mamma opened the cupboard with the metal door. ‘Wish I could say the same for you, honey-mine. You are the most bumped and filthy Spylet I have seen in a long, long time. Into the Wower with you.’
  ‘Er, do you mean the shower?’
  ‘No, I said exactly what I mean. A SPI shower is called a Wower.’ G-Mamma grinned. ‘You’ll see why in a moment. Go on, you need all the help you can get.’
  Looking down at herself, Janey could see that G-Mamma was right. And before she could hesitate, she was shoved into the shower room, fully clothed. The steel door slammed shut.
  Janey looked around. ‘Where’s the shower then?’
  She was enclosed in a small cubicle made up entirely of shimmering surfaces. She caught sight of her reflection in one and giggled. No longer lean and gangly, the girl peering back at her was not bigger than a toddler, with babyish creases in her chubby knees and elbows. In the next mirror she looked fantastically tall, stretching to the very top of the glass with a worm-wide, spaghetti body. To her right, her reflection was wide and soft, with pudgy arms that would have made a teddy bear proud.
  ‘G-Mamma!’ She shouted again. ‘What do I do? There’s no shower in here!’
  ‘No shower?’ G-Mamma’s voice boomed into the cubicle. There was clearly some kind of public address system. ‘Course there is. Just say, “Wow me,” and get on out here, will you? Zipperty split, Janey!’
  ‘Er, OK.’ Feeling very silly, Janey closed her eyes. ‘Um, please, er Wow me!’
  There was a tiny click, like a camera shutter. Suddenly the whole cubicle began to fill up with steam. Damp, glistening air surrounded her, heavy with pearly moisture. Miraculously, it seemed to Janey that the tiny droplets of water were soothing her cuts and bruises so she no longer felt any pain, and instead of her nightclothes feeling sodden and heavy, she was encased in silk, or something even lighter, like gossamer. It was like being enclosed inside a snow-globe, with glittering flakes swirling and whirling around her.
  Janey’s head spun slightly as a pair of robot hands reached from the back of the cubicle and moved towards her. A moment later all the nerve-endings in her scalp tingled as her whole head was pummelled and cleaned by the metal fingers, and her hair was massaged with a sweet-smelling potion. Next she felt the hands at work on her fingers and toes, polishing her nails to perfection. Then suddenly she was being blasted with warm air while a third hand reached for her face.
  ‘Right! That’s enough! Come out now!’
  Stepping from the cubicle, Janey was immediately swept up in a huge embrace by G-Mamma.
  ‘Oh, Look at you!’ crowed G-Mamma. ‘What a Spylet! Second rule of SPI work, Blonde-girl: be sensational!’ G-Mamma swung Janey round and pushed her towards the polished steel of the Wower door.
  Janey gasped at her reflection. She could no longer see her savaged, scrawny joints or her bruised and bloodied fingers. In fact, she couldn’t see any of her skin below her neck, as she was now encased in a silver Lycra catsuit that seemed to iron out her angular bones and give her smooth curves instead. She looked like an Olympic gymnast from the twenty-second century. And now Janey could see what those robotic hands had been doing to her – in place of her limp, mousy hair was a high, sleek ponytail of platinum blonde. Suddenly her cheekbones sprang to attention and her lips looked plump and rosy. And her vision was definitely sharper. Janey wondered if that had anything to do with the slender black glasses from behind which her grey, long-lashed eyes now sparkled.
  ‘Wow!’ she said. ‘I look like a pop star!’
  G-Mamma grinned back proudly, as though the transformation had been entirely her work. ‘For the first time in your life you look like what you are meant to be: Jane Blonde, Sensational Spylet.’

Jane Blonde: Sensational Spylet © Jill Marshall. Published by Macmillan Children’s Books.