“Well you’re too big,” she said.

“But you ate my lollies that night we met, and now I’m glad you did. You see I was hoping that they’d win you over.”

“Like I said, you are so sweet, Percy.”

“But would you eat me if I was small enough, like a jelly bean?” he asked.

“You keep making it hard to decide,” said Ingrid.

“Really?”

He thought it unlikely that she would ever bring up the ‘two’ tiny ‘fellows’ she believed that she had eaten.

“Well if you were perhaps a little bigger than a jelly bean, but still small enough to swallow, you might be rather enjoyable to eat, don’t you think?”

“Would you really do that?”

“I guess I might. I think it would depend on whether you tasted nice or not.”

“You’re full of surprises, Ingrid. It does make you more interesting than any other woman I’ve known.”

"Well thank you. In the meantime, you’ve got me thinking. I'd like to eat something."

"Fine. I'll just slip into the O.C.T.O.P.U.S. chef's room, and see what he can rustle up for you."

"Really?"

"Yes. Let's try this large room. It's the first one with two doorways that we have come to. There must be something important in there."

"Maybe we'll find some food."

"Look Ingrid, I would accuse you of being crazy, but that might make me a hypocrite."

Ingrid smiled, and waited for Percy to open the unlocked door.

"How did you know that both doorways were for the same room?"

"Easy, my lady. They have the same room number on them."

"Oh yes. That makes it pretty hard to go wrong with a rough guess."

They entered the room, and Percy switched on his pen-torch. Its  light fell upon what seemed to be a science laboratory. There were open books, fallen pencils, test tubes, beakers and Bunsen burners, not to mention the occasional microscope. Percy looked at one of the open books.

"Ingrid, I don't understand all of this, but why would a scientist stop writing an important set of notes in the middle of a sentence?"

They pondered about that one and closely examined the room for any helpful clues. Percy looked at the books again, and at everything else.

"Dust, that's what so weirdly uncomfortable. This room hasn't been used for months, and yet the equipment is all scattered across the tables as if the scientists had dropped everything because of an emergency today, and not had the time to come back and clean up."

"Yes, and look at this Percy."

"Show me....Clever girl! A bullet in the wall. Somebody's been shot. I think that we have seen enough in here."

"You most certainly have," said a voice from the doorway, and the lights in the room were turned on. A blond girl stood at the door in a dressing gown, with a gun pointed at Percy.

"You are not members of our organisation, three of which have failed to return tonight. It was foolish of you to think that everybody was asleep," said the blond girl.

"Well  I didn't think that everybody was asleep. I merely thought that-"

"We were all at our posts in the tower, eh? Not so. Some of us do patrol this place."

"Do you also take the liberty of murdering anybody who threatens your plans?" returned the Sneaky Spy.

"Well normally I would automatically do away with you, but I think that our leader would like to question you both first in this case."

"He has admirable interests, I must say," said Percy, knowing that he must say anything that would give him a chance to save Ingrid, and himself too if possible, from an untimely death at the hands of this homicidal O.C.T.O.P.U.S. organisation. She had been right to warn him of the dangers, but he had been wrong to let her partake of them. He had lost Donna's life walking down beside Sydney Harbour. Was he insane, bringing Ingrid Castlecove onto a criminal organisation's island headquarters?

"The torch that looks like a pen. Put it on the table, and then move backwards," said the girl.

Percy obeyed.

"An interesting object. Let's see what else you don't use for writing. Both of you put up your hands!"
Percy and Ingrid raised their hands, and the girl made a thorough search of their persons, which yielded several more special pens, and Percy's tranquiliser dart gun.

"Agent One is asleep at the moment, but you will be locked in a room with no windows, no weapons, and none of your clever little pieces of stationery."

"Whatever you say," said Percy, "Could we have some milk and cookies - with cordial for me? You see, Ingrid's been having a lot to say about these hunger pains of hers lately, and I was wondering what you Octopeople have for snacks, when the taste of squid cutlets no longer tantalises your wicked little tum-tums."

"Be still and quiet! You will be given enough food to see you through until the morning. Now move!"

The blond girl locked the door, and left them in the room together.

"Percy, it sounded like whatever happens, they're going to kill us eventually."

"They think they are, but they won't. I said I would look after you, Ingrid, but my judgement has been off lately. I should have left you on the yacht. Still, I will find a way to get you out of this one, whatever happens to me."

"Please make sure that nothing happens to you, otherwise I would rather it happened to me too."

"Don't say that, Ingrid."
"Alright, but at least we can still pick the biscuits up, even with our hands like this."

"Of course we can. Let's even try to get some more sleep. We'll need it for our energy later."

They lay down and dozed off.

They were awoken at eleven am and taken up to the top room of the tower to meet Agent One, who was busy playing with Percy's collection of special pens.

"I had a look at your gun, Mister," said Agent One, "and I'm sure it fires some sort of sleeping dart or even a deadly needle, and I've also studied these interesting pens of yours. They all have their special uses, and my friend did well to deprive you of them. However, I have been puzzling myself over what to do with the contents of this aquamarine pen."

"Well, those little things are Sneaky Snacks," said Percy, "You eat them and they fizz in your mouth."

"So they are not cyanide capsules. I didn't think so."

"To save us from beating around the bush, why don't you tell me what you built this island complex for, and why you killed your scientists, if that's what happened, and whether or not this whole island has got anything to do with what's been going on in the low seas lately?"

The Sneaky Spy had developed an insatiable curiosity.

"Well, yes, it has, and they weren't our scientists, and we didn't build the island complex. It was built by a privately owned sea rescue team called O.C.T.O.P.U.S.. We of the organisation known as B.L.A.D.E. (Blackmail, Larceny And Diabolical Exterminations) managed to infiltrate O.C.T.O.P.U.S. and murder everybody. Their bodies are now obliterated ruins in the sea. Yours will soon join them. Just tell me what you're doing here, and where my two male and one female agents are."

"They're tied up in a cave on a nearby island a few miles away from this one; and I'm here with Ingrid to look for a friend who went missing, but I suppose you have made sure that we will never find him, haven't you? Death by drowning? A one-way dip?"

"You'll join him soon enough. We simply pretend to be the real O.C.T.O.P.U.S. and answer distress calls with a distress which we provide ourselves."

"But you can't keep killing people," said Ingrid, "It's cruel and horrible, and it cannot be reversed even when you realise what you've done to all your poor victims and their families."

"We have, we can and we will. Your deaths will prove that to you, if you need it to be proved. Take them down to their quarters and shoot them, Agent Number Eighteen."

"Yes, Agent One," said the girl, 'Then can I go and look for the three agents on the other island? Agent twenty-two and I are more than close friends."

"You've earned the privilege of going to look for them now," said Agent One, "So take a boat and visit that other island. Agents Seventeen and Nineteen, you will take these two down to their quarters, shoot them efficiently, and then blow them up at sea. They must have a boat around here. We might like to use that to transport their dead bodies out a mile or two. Well, get going then."

"Alright, I'm not completely heartless," said Agent Number Nineteen, "You can choose for yourselves who's going to go first."
"I don't see why Ingrid should die at all. I'm the inherent danger to your plans. You could keep her on this island and then buy her secrecy when you're all rich enough. That way she can still live."

"Percy, I had as much right to make this trip with you, and I won't be left with these creeps!" said Ingrid.

"This is very amusing, but we've never let anyone live, since we started this operation," said Agent Seventeen, "and we're not going to raise our risk levels now."

Percy was one step away from a frenzied panic, but the Sneaky Spy did not take that final step in any situation. He was so conditioned to remain cool and collected in situations such as this, that it would overflow into his domestic social life, to the point that people were annoyed by his lack of demonstrative reactions to some social developments.

Before either man could react, the Sneaky Spy swung his hands into the gunman beside him, knocking his gun hand away and struck his head as his arm bent while in motion, to launch his elbow at the man's temple. He launched a furious kick at the other man's groin and watched them both collapse. Percy took both of their guns.

"This is the last time I let you take a risk like this."

"Percy, we should share the same risks. I want you to be safe too."

"And I would be safer in a combat situation, if I didn't have to protect you too. There were two of them ,and I need to position the first one between myself and the second one, so that the second one could not attack me while I fought the first, but he could still have attacked you."

"I suppose you're right."

"It doesn't mean your role is not important. I'd be lost without having you in my life."

He hugged the girl for a prescious second, and then spoke again.

"Alright, let's go back out the way we have come in. I'll never get my things back from Agent One of B.L.A.D.E. now, and we can hardly fight this whole island without them. We'll have to take the fastest yacht out of here, and then return with the navy."

Percy and Ingrid did just that, and they were extremely fortunate not to run into any more girls with guns, having made their escape before the fate of their would be executioners had been discovered. They were soon speeding away from the island.

Before long, B.L.A.D.E.'s agents were in hot pursuit.

"We got to the boat unnoticed," said the Sneaky Spy, "but I thought that they would see a boat making an unauthorised departure from the tower. They will never catch us though. I checked our fuel, and this boat's full. It's also fast. We've just got to race ahead of them to Tasmania, and then use the radio to get in urgent contact with the navy while we're at it. Hopefully they'll arrive in time to bail us out if we need it."

Ingrid stood behind Percy with her arms around his chest, as he steered the yacht towards its distant destination. She knew that the worst was over. Percy Dale had done it again.

*          *          *          *

"Absolutely astounding," said the navy admiral, "a criminal organisation taking over the headquarters of our old friends the O.C.T.O.P.U.S. research and rescue organisation. Few people even knew of the existence of O.C.T.O.P.U.S. None of us knew about B.L.A.D.E."

They had managed to make radio contact with a navy submarine, which had surfaced and taken them on board. It would do B.L.A.D.E. no good to pursue them now.

"It's astounding alright," said the Sneaky Spy, "and so fantastic that none of the authorities would ever have thought of it. You'll be able to do your job now. Just remember that those two islands are not on any maps."

"They are on mine," said the admiral, "I've known about O.C.T.O.P.U.S., Jungle Island and the other place for quite some time now. We'll send out a fleet of ships and submarines. I'll beat the best that they've got, from what you tell me. There'll be a big reward for you two, once we take that pack of Australian criminals off to be tried for the various murders and robberies that have been committed."
"I'll let you get on with it," said the Sneaky Spy, "For once I'd love to let the end of the adventure sort itself out, and just see to the safety of my friend here."

Ingrid beamed across at him, and he took her hand, and wandered into a cargo hold to be with her, while the admiral arranged for Percy and Ingrid to be transported back to Sydney and their boat returned to Tasmania.

*          *          *          *

Later they were snuggled up in Ingrid’s bed, kissing and cuddling, but saving other activities for marriage. Ingrid suddenly put our her tongue in front of him. It looked spectacular, even from his full sized perspective. She licked his cheek, and then unbuttoned his shirt and licked his neck and shoulders.

“That’s really nice,” he said.

“So are you,” said Ingrid, “And you did ask me something back at those islands, which I’ve been meaning to answer.”

“Oh yes. You said you’d eat me if I tasted nice. So would I be in trouble if I was not much bigger than a jellybean?”

“Absolutely, but you are. I’ll just have to get my tiny boys elsewhere,” she said, in a tone that pretended to joke but in fact contained the absolute truth, as far as she knew.