It's True! Your Cat Could Be a Spy Read online

  Did you know that frogs are cannibals,

  fashion can be fatal and the dinosaurs

  never died? Or that redheads were

  once burned at the stake as witches?

  Find out why rubbish tips are like lasagna,

  and how maggots help solve crimes!

  To Max, Amelia, Dezzy and Rachel,

  with love from Auntie Sue

  First published in 2006

  Copyright © text Sue Bursztynski 2006

  Copyright © illustrations Mitch Vane 2006

  Series design copyright © Ruth Grüner

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Bursztynski, Sue.

  It’s true! your cat could be a spy.

  Bibliography.

  Includes index.

  For children.

  ISBN 1 74114 606 2.

  1. Spies – Juvenile literature. I. Vane, Mitch.

  II. Title. (Series: It’s true; 15)

  327.12

  Series, cover and text design by Ruth Grüner

  Cover photographs: Getty Images and G K Kart/Vikki Hart (cat), Comstock (spy) and BrandX Pictures (magnifying glass)

  Set in 12.5pt Minion by Ruth Grüner

  Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Teaching notes for the It’s True! series are available

  on the website: www.itstrue.com.au

  CONTENTS

  WHY SPIES?

  1

  SNEAKY SPIES AND GREEK GIFTS 1

  2

  WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET – NOT! 9

  3

  BELLE, BET AND HARRIET:

  WOMEN UNDERCOVER 15

  4

  SECRET SERVICE

  IN THE TWO WORLD

  WARS 25

  5

  SPY GADGETS AND

  SECRET WEAPONS 38

  6

  COOL CATS AND COLD

  WAR DISASTERS 51

  7

  BEST-SELLING SPIES 60

  8

  CYBER-SPYING 68

  9

  SHORT NINJA, TALL TALES 76

  Thanks 85

  Glossary 86

  Where to find out more 87

  Index 88

  WHY SPIES?

  Spying is the world’s oldest profession, ever since one tribe needed to know what the other tribe was doing. Men, women and children have been spies. During World War II, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland were fighting the Nazis, who wanted to murder them.

  Children and teenagers often made their way in secret through the sewers to find out information and bring back weapons needed by the fighters. A boy called Baruch Bursztynski rode a bicycle rickshaw as part of his disguise. One day, he drove a Nazi passenger who had no idea that he was sitting on top of a pile of weapons! Although many spies and agents didn’t survive their missions, Baruch did. He grew up to become my Dad!

  1

  SNEAKY SPIES

  AND GREEK

  GIFTS

  Spies live in a dangerous world.

  Their job is to find out enemy

  secrets and bring this

  information back to their

  leaders. They could be

  killed if they are caught,

  so they often wear a disguise or go

  undercover and live among the enemy.

  1

  Spies have to be very careful and very cunning.

  In ancient times, soldiers made good spies and so did

  travellers, because they could go from city to city.

  There is a story about King Alfred the Great,

  ruler of Wessex, in Britain, over 1000 years ago.

  Alfred thought he might do some hands-on spying.

  The Danes had invaded his country and Alfred

  disguised himself as a wandering minstrel and cheekily

  went to the Danish camp. He played his harp and sang

  love songs while the Danish leaders were meeting to

  plan their next battle. Did anyone in that tent wonder

  about the singer sitting in the corner playing beautiful music? We’ll never know. But Alfred won the battle.

  Alfred was a real king, but this story may be a

  legend, like the legend of the Trojan War.

  THE TROJAN WAR

  According to Greek myth, beautiful Queen Helen ran

  off with a prince called Paris to the powerful city of

  Troy (in what is now Turkey). Her husband, Menelaus,

  and other Greek kings followed with a huge army.

  2

  They besieged Troy, but the Trojans wouldn’t give in.

  After ten long years of fighting, everyone just wanted

  the war to be over.

  Finally, one Greek hero, Odysseus, thought of a

  clever plan to defeat the Trojans. First he had to go on a secret mission. There was a prophecy that Troy would

  not fall as long as it had the Palladium, a sacred stone belonging to the goddess Athena. The stone was in a

  temple under the city. Odysseus disguised himself as

  an old beggar and slipped through the gates into Troy.

  Nobody looked twice at him, but Odysseus was taking

  note of all the landmarks in the city.

  Then Helen recognised Odysseus, even with his

  disguise. When Odysseus told her what he wanted,

  she showed him where the stone was, because she too

  was fed up with the long war. Odysseus smuggled the

  Palladium out of the city.

  It was time for the second part of his plan.

  The Greeks built a huge wooden horse, big enough

  to hold a band of soldiers. Some soldiers hid inside

  the horse, and others hid nearby, while the Greeks

  pretended to sail their ships away.

  3

  One man was left,

  a spy called Sinon.

  He told the Trojans

  that he had been

  beaten and left behind.

  The wooden horse,

  he said, was an

  offering to the

  gods for a safe voyage home. The Trojans took the

  horse inside the gates. Can you guess what happened?

  Late that night when everyone was asleep, tired out

  from partying, the Greeks attacked. Poor Trojans – for

  ten years they had held out against the Greeks, and

  then their city was destroyed in one night!

  4

  Trojan horse

  Today ‘Trojan horse’ is a computer term for

  a program that is smuggled on to a system

  to do secret damage.

  RUTHLESS ROMANS

  The Romans
believed they were descended from the

  Trojans. And they weren’t

  going to be beaten by

  anyone. Rome was full

  of spies. Noble families

  had their own,

  and the Roman

  army used spies

  when Rome was

  at war with other

  powerful states.

  Rome fought a series of wars against the

  African city of Carthage from 272 to 146 BCE.

  The Carthaginian general, Hannibal, had spies

  everywhere. Any spy who made a mistake was in big

  trouble. Hannibal once ordered the execution of one

  unlucky spy who sent him to the wrong city (which

  had a name that sounded like the right city).

  On the Roman side, General Scipio Africanus

  had his own spying methods. He sent officers to the

  Carthaginian camp to discuss a truce, but the Romans

  took along some slaves – only they were really officers

  in disguise. There was one officer who might have

  been recognised, so he was beaten in front

  of the enemy, as if he was really a slave.

  They knew the Carthaginians wouldn’t believe an

  officer would let himself be beaten in public like that.

  The Roman soldiers and their ‘slaves’ looked carefully

  at the layout of the camp. They attacked that night

  – and won.

  Years later, Roman emperors had their own spies.

  Some of them, the frumentarii, started out as supply sergeants. No one suspected supply sergeants of spying,

  because they had to travel around to buy supplies for

  the army. They became a sort of secret police, spying

  on those who might be against the

  Emperor. They were hated and feared

  by the people.

  Roman emperors believed

  they needed their spies to

  survive. Did the spies help?

  Well . . . only a quarter of

  the emperors died of old

  age or illness. The rest

  were murdered.

  7

  READ IT, JULIUS !

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  8

  2

  WHAT YOU SEE

  IS WHAT YOU

  GET – NOT!

  Secret agents have to know more than the language and

  details of the country they are spying in. They have to

  know how to act like the locals so they are not noticed.

  If they are ‘sleeper agents’ they have to live in the place where they’re spying, as ordinary members of that

  community, till they are ordered into action.

  They need a range of old clothes and good clothes,

  so they blend in. If they are on the run, they might

  cut their hair, wear glasses, grow a beard or stain their 9

  teeth. In some
r />   cases, they might

  even have plastic

  surgery before

  they go on

  a mission.

  In World War II,

  British secret agents slipped into

  France wearing French-styled clothes, and maybe a

  Swiss watch. They cut off British clothing labels and

  even had their dental fillings changed to match French

  ones. Over the centuries, spies have worn all sorts of

  disguises. Men have disguised themselves as women,

  and women have dressed as men. One white woman

  spy, Sarah Emma Edmonds, disguised herself as a

  black man!

  10

  THE SPY IN A PINK NIGHTIE

  A hundred years ago, when ladies wore elegant long

  dresses and hats with veils to protect them from the sun, a lovely young woman was holidaying on a yacht off

  the coast of France. Each day she would paint charming

  scenes of French boats and then the yacht would sail on

  to the next harbour. But, if you looked closer, you might have noticed that Miss Edith Murphy’s shoulders were

  rather broad. And her gloved hands were large – most

  unusual for a well-bred lady of 1903.

  In fact, Miss Edith was an Australian spy working

  for the British, and ‘she’ was really a man! Herbert Dyce Murphy was painting watercolours to record

  information about the French navy and railways.

  Herbert Dyce Murphy was born in Melbourne in

  1879. He studied at Oxford University in England, and

  in his summer holidays he worked as a sailor. But he

  had been spotted in a university play, in a female role.

  He acted so well that a man from British Intelligence

  who was in the audience asked him to work as a spy in

  Europe, disguised as a woman. The British government

  11

  wanted someone to check out the condition of French

  and Belgian railways. If the French were planning for

  war, the railways would be used to carry soldiers and

  equipment. A man snooping around the trains would

  be more suspicious than a young lady painting pictures.

  Herbert was short of money, so he said yes.

  He learned how to act like a girl and grew his hair,

  which was safer than wearing a wig. As a spy, he had

  a chaperone – an older woman who travelled with

  him – as all respectable young ladies did in those days.

  The chaperone’s real job

  was to make sure nobody

  caught ‘Edith’ putting on

  his disguise or shaving.

  Herbert had some

  strange experiences

  during his spying career.