‘Nothing. I didn’t tell her to sit in a puddle and wave her wig. I didn’t know she had a wig,’ said Hector, moving swiftly from concerned denial to hysterical giggles. This set Kate off, and they moved away to sit on a bench as Mrs Warp continued to shout in English.
‘You! You over there,’ said Mrs Warp loudly, while pointing at a very hairy man who was heavily overweight, ‘You look like you’ve eaten a few of the animals. Which ones taste best? Come on, speak up? Look, here have some peanuts and then tell me.’
Mum and Dad joined Kate and Hector on the bench, keen to move away from the utterly bonkers Mrs Warp. She had started to splash her hands down into the puddle to attract more attention, as if that was needed. After a while even Mum and Dad were overtaken by the giggles.
‘You! Yes, you! Slobber chops,’ yelled Mrs Warp pointing at a sad-faced man, ‘You’ve clearly had too many pies, so you probably know which animals taste best. Which one should we kill and eat?’
Five minutes later, everyone was still laughing while Mrs Warp had started to sing and speak in German. It was at this point that Mrs Warp was approached by a man Kate immediately recognised, although he seemed to have shaved off his silly beard. He was the person who had quizzed Kate on her first night at the army camp. He was one of Mrs Warp’s creators.
Mrs Warp got up and walked off to a nearby building. She entered and disappeared. The man approached and it was obvious he was very angry. He introduced himself to Mr and Mrs Trogg, and explained that Mrs Warp was not human, and that Kate and Hector had command buttons. He believed they had abused these, and issued silly commands. Mum and Dad seemed more surprised by this than by Mrs Warp’s behaviour.
‘Mrs Warp is here to protect you,’ the man said to Hector and Kate while shaking slightly, ‘She is mostly bullet proof, immensely strong, well disguised. The previous model defeated the world’s most feared assassin, and yet you two ruined her. You already have your teeth into this one and there hasn’t even been an attack.’
The man then handed Mum and Dad a command button each, together with a warning that Mrs Warp would not question or carefully consider any command. He explained that letting her get on with it was the best approach, and that the command buttons were only for dire emergencies where Mrs Warp had some sort of error.
‘If you keep on abusing the command button I might just change sides,’ said the man to Hector and Kate as a parting shot.
Ten minutes later Mrs Warp was back, cleaned up slightly and smiling as ever. Mum and Dad had just about finished telling Kate and Hector off. Kate managed to distract them both by explaining how strong Mrs Warp was, and how she had managed to successfully fight off Sludge.
‘The thing is Dad, she’s bullet-proof and stronger than Sludge,’ Kate explained, ‘We’ve got to keep her with us, enjoy the zoo and not draw attention to ourselves.’
‘I see,’ said Dad in the tone he reserved for the final killing blow, ‘and you two have been helping us to keep a low profile have you? Making sure we don’t stand out? Ensuring that we are difficult to spot?’
There was silence.
‘Sorry,’ said Hector, for about the tenth time.
‘Sorry,’ said Kate, ‘It just seemed very funny.’
‘Well, let’s do our best from here,’ said Mum, drawing things to a close.
Dad decided they would go to the reptile house, as this was inside and made them slightly harder to see. Nevertheless, some people openly pointed at them as they made their way to the brightly coloured concrete building.
Hector noticed that Mrs Warp kept looking around, as if she was checking for danger. The problem now was that as her head moved her wig did not always follow. He nudged Kate and pointed it out. The two of them lapsed into giggles. Yet, as they entered the reptile house, Kate saw a worrying small blue flash from Mrs Warp’s leg.
‘Mrs Warp, what can you tell us about this crocodile?’ asked Dad.
‘Well, the notice says it is a nile crocodile, but I believe it is a salt water crocodile from Australia,’ explained Mrs Warp.
Then to everyone’s horror she prized back the glass window with her unearthly hands, set it to one side, and climbed in with the giant crocodile.
‘Now, as you can see it is completely still,’ explained Mrs Warp, moving closer to the giant reptile, ‘Normally, they lie still until they get close to their prey. It will use its amazingly strong tail and whole body to propel itself suddenly forwards. Its jaws are very strong, and it will grab a kangaroo, sheep, deer or whatever it can and drag it into the water to drown it.’
‘Mrs Warp,’ said Mum, looking around to see how many people were watching, ‘do you think you should get out in case it attacks you?’
‘No, no, it’s quite alright. If anything it will be anxious about me entering its cage. It is a very large crocodile, but it will still be unhappy about being approached. Now, if I take hold of it…’
Mrs Warp half-dived and half-fell on the crocodile, and managed to get on its back as it began to thrash about.
‘As you can see, it is unhappy,’ shouted Mrs Warp above the noise of the splashing water and thumps as the crocodile’s tail hit the side of the pool, ‘but once I get hold of its jaws I will be able to hold them shut. This is because the huge muscles that are used to clamp the jaw shut on its prey completely dwarf the muscles used to open the jaw.’
Mrs Warp had lent forwards and was sliding up to the front of the crocodile. She clamped just one of her hands around the front of the giant beast and it stopped struggling.
By now, a number of people had gathered to watch. Some thought it was a show, but others clearly appreciated that this bedraggled, middle-aged woman was unlikely to be employed by the zoo to mud-wrestle one of the largest salt-water crocodiles in captivity. They were the ones looking on in open mouthed horror.
‘Mrs Warp,’ said Kate, ‘I really think we should leave. We are attracting attention,’ Kate could also see that someone had rushed outside and, from the little she could see through the open door, appeared to be speaking to a member of staff at the zoo.
Mrs Warp stepped forwards, but as she did the crocodile struggled free and then lunged forwards to bite her left arm, ripping her blouse. What happened next drew gasps of wonder and horror. As some of the water splashed about earlier dripped its way back into the green pool, Mrs Warp took hold of the great snout with her free hand and simply opened the crocodile’s jaws. As it pulled back she smacked it hard on the nose, and then climbed out of the tank.
Just then two zoo staff arrived and seemed to quickly reach the conclusion that the crocodile had barged open the glass panel and tried to grab a visitor. They spoke quickly in French, and judging by their manner were very apologetic. When another visitor began to speak, and seemed to be claiming that the lady had opened the tank, climbed in, and even wrestled the crocodile’s jaws open, the zoo staff gave him withering looks of disbelief, and returned to apologising to Mrs Warp.
Dad, Mum, Kate and Hector all exchanged looks. Keeping a low profile was going very badly.
A short time later the crowd had dispersed and they were all looking at the different snakes. Dad, Mum and Kate were all rather pleased that the snake house was quite dark. Only Hector was praying that something else exciting would happen. He was being guarded by a disguised robot that had wrestled a huge crocodile, and in truth he was proud and wanted more.
‘Mrs Warp, you must not lever off the front of any of the tanks,’ said Dad, just as they reached an enclosure with a huge anaconda.
‘Very well,’ said Mrs Warp, before walking off.
‘Where’s she gone?’ asked Mum, looking down the corridor where Mrs Warp disappeared.
‘What do