“So even though you didn’t know it, Mr. Alexander, you are the single largest property owner inside the Arctic Circle. Your father was smart. He figured what with the Urban Tankmobile helping along global warming and all, the arctic was a good real estate bet, and bought up huge tracts of Canada, Siberia, Norway, Iceland—you name it. Even Greenland. Funny thing about Greenland, it’s not very green at all.”
Their escort, a realtor named Sven Jurgenson, stopped walking long enough to shrug. “Soon, we hope, but not yet.”
Alexander heard a moan from Winterbottom, and looked back to see him struggling with the deep snow and the heavy case he was carrying. The boy smiled at the sight.
“Global warming taking a little longer than he would’ve liked,” Jurgenson continued, “your father had Baddenfield Global Real Estate rent out these properties for whatever they could get. That’s how I got stuck—I mean, assigned—up here. Anyway, most of our business comes from reindeer herders, loganberry gatherers, evil geniuses, reclusive artists—that sort of thing.”
Dr. Kranstenenif, it turned out, had been a Baddenfield tenant for a number of years, having taken over a lab space halfway between the lairs of a hedge fund manager and the writer Thomas Pynchon.
“This used to be all ice, with twenty feet of snow on top of the ice,” Jurgenson said, making a sweeping gesture at the tundra ahead. “Now look over there: grass! It’s only a tuft, but in the middle of the day the ice around it melts into a small pool. It’s still cold enough to give you hypothermia like that,” he went on, snapping his fingers, “but it’s a good sign. We’ll be selling condos like this was Miami in no time.”
“I really think . . . we should reconsider this . . . young sir,” Winterbottom said, huffing and puffing as he caught up. He rested the case on the ground. It was punched through with holes, and if Jurgenson wondered what was inside of it, he figured it better not to ask.
“I mean, a mad scientist? It sounds frightening to me,” Winterbottom went on, mopping the sweat from his forehead before it turned to ice.
“Don’t be such a wuss,” Alexander said, moving on. “C’mon, let’s go.”
“Well, this is the place,” Jurgenson said when they arrived at a giant greenhouse that had been built into the side of a jagged mountain. All the glass, however, was too fogged-up for them to see what was inside.
The agent turned agitated and jittery. He rubbed his hands together and pointed at an intercom beside a rusted iron door. “Well, just go ahead and press that button there—guess I’ll be going now,” he said, and turned around so fast to leave that he was already gone.
“Do you really think we should just barge in like this?” Winterbottom said. “Unannounced?”
“We tried calling Kranstenenif, but his phone is disconnected,” Alexander said peevishly. “What more can we do? He doesn’t even have an e-mail address.”
Alexander pushed the TALK button on the intercom. A burst of static was followed by a buzz, and the heavy metal door came unlocked.
On the other side of it, they found themselves in a tropical garden grown out of control. It was partly dying, partly thriving, and so dense you couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead. Alexander pushed through the brown fronds of palm bushes and walked around great gnarled masses of prickly pear cactuses, with Winterbottom so close on his heels that he kept tripping.
“Stop that, Winterbottom!”
They came to a clearing near a cave, where the greenhouse met the face of the mountain. “Oh dear,” Winterbottom said as Alexander crept closer to the dark mouth of the cave. Before he got there, however, the boy was startled—and Winterbottom positively terrified—by a beast emerging out of the darkness.
But the animal was nothing to be startled by, let alone terrified of. It was a little white pony, and it seemed just as spooked to see Alexander and Winterbottom as vice versa.
The fascinating thing about the animal was that it had a horn coming out of the middle of its forehead. No, wait—the really fascinating thing about it was that it had wings!
“A unicorn!” Alexander said, approaching the animal.
The unicorn, raising its head abruptly to Alexander and his outstretched hand, leapt to one side and disappeared into the jungle.
“Wow!” Alexander said.
“Wow!” Alexander said again, this time at a snorting pig. The snort was not coming from a snout, however, but from the trunk of an elephant attached to its face where a snout should have been. The trunk dragged on the ground behind the beast, who walked a little sideways so as not to trip over it.
More Wow!s followed as other animals emerged from the trees and underbrush. There was an aardvark sporting zebra stripes, a donkey hopping on the hindquarters of a kangaroo, bumblebees flapping butterfly wings, and a panda wagging the tail of a dachshund, which even Alexander had to think was cute.
All the mixed-up animals dashed off when they caught sight of Alexander and Winterbottom, except for a hare wearing the shell of a tortoise. It couldn’t dash anywhere, being stuck on its back. Its long ears flopped as it thrashed about, while its little cotton tail moved in and out of the back of its shell.
“The poor thing!” Winterbottom said, going to flip the odd little creature onto its belly.
“No, wait—don’t!” Alexander said, grabbing Winterbottom by the coat. “It’s funny watching it struggle like that!”
“Oh, Alexander Baddenfield, you truly are the worst boy alive,” Winterbottom said, tsk-tsking him. “Now let me go!”
“No! I order you not to turn that rabbitturtle over!”
“Rabbitturtle? I’d say it’s a haretoise. But whatever it is, I’m helping it. Now let go,” Winterbottom said, dragging Alexander forward.
“No, stop—I will fire you if you turn the rabbitturtle over!”
“Haretoise,” Winterbottom said, and unplucked Alexander’s grip finger by finger.
“Fine,” Alexander said, falling to his butt. “Actually, I order you to turn it over. I want to see if a rabbitturtle is fast or slow!”
“It is of extremely average speed, actually.” The unfamiliar voice came out from the shadows of the cave, followed by a man who walked to where the frustrated beast lay. He flipped it over, and the animal hop-crawled away, neither quickly nor slowly. “And I myself prefer the term ‘rabbittortoise.’”
“Ah, rabbittortoise!” Alexander and Winterbottom both said, nodding.
Was this Kranstenenif? He certainly looked mad, if not downright deranged, but not a whole lot like a scientist. His clothes were unkempt, and the closer he came, the more disgusting his personal grooming habits revealed themselves to be. His beard was crumby with specks of food, his rotten-egg breath could wilt a cactus, his ears brimmed with coagulated, cheesy wax, and his red, watery eyes were in a constant state of blink.
Winterbottom looked away so as not to stare, and motioned back toward the cave. “Your unicorn is very beautiful.”
Kranstenenif made a harrumphing sound. “Everyone loves the unicorn. The only thing is, I can’t make one that flies. Physics! I hate physics! To make a horse fly would take a pair of wings 163.33 feet long. Where can you find a pair of wings like that? Nowhere!” The scientist shook his head at the injustice of it all. “That one you saw has a pair of swan wings on it. Useless.”
Suddenly, as if he remembered he was supposed to be angry and annoyed, Kranstenenif gruffly said to his guests, “So! What do you want of the mad Dr. Graft?”
Alexander straightened himself up and said, “I am—”
“I know who you are!” the scientist said. “And if this is about the rent check, let me tell you something, Baddenfield. I’ve been complaining about the leaky roof in this dump for months, and no one has done a cotton-picking thing about it! Where is that squirrelly real estate agent of yours? Jerkenson. He’s been avoiding me forever.”
“Whateve
r you need is yours,” Alexander said. “And don’t worry about the rent.”
“Ah, the famous Baddenfield generosity,” the scientist said, his eyes narrowing to a suspicious squint. “What do you want from me in return?”
A cockatoo with the head of a ferret came flying past Alexander’s ear. “These mixed-up animals of yours are cool and all, but what about your other research?” Alexander said. “Combining animals and people?”
“Bah!” Kranstenenif said. “HUMAN research—if only I could!”
“Why can’t you?” Alexander said.
“Insurance!” Kranstenenif threw up his arms. “I can’t get any insurance!”
“I didn’t know mad scientists had to worry about insurance,” Winterbottom said.
“Everybody has to worry about insurance!”
“Well, that isn’t a problem,” Alexander sniffed. “Baddenfield Enterprises owns some of the most unscrupulous insurance companies in the world. We’ll write you a policy.”
“You still haven’t told me what you want.” Kranstenenif squinted his eyes so much, they were now just closed.
“Winterbottom, if you would,” Alexander said.
Taking his cue, Winterbottom presented the case he had been lugging all over the Arctic Circle. It was a pet carrier.
“Dr. Kranstenenif, I would like to present Shaddenfrood.” Shaddenfrood, unfortunately, was curled up in a ball in the back of the carrier, somewhat ruining the big reveal. Alexander tapped on the case to try to wake him up. Dumb cat, he thought. “What I want is for you to remove the nine lives out of this lazy, undeserving creature and transplant them into me.”
Kranstenenif stood stonily still. The first movement that came to his body was the fluttering of his right eyelid, like he was about to have a seizure. Or was it a fit of rage? It was neither. The mad scientist began to weep.
“Oh, Alexander Baddenfield, my dear, dear boy,” Kranstenenif said, throwing his arms around him. No one had ever thrown their arms around him, so Alexander had no idea how to react. “The Fates have sent you here, finally! The quest for Nine Lives is my life’s work! My dream. How many years have I sought to do this, and now, finally, you have been brought to me.” He grabbed the boy by the shoulders and said, “Yes, young Baddenfield! Yes, I will do it. You will have your nine lives!”
“So a cat really does have nine lives?” Winterbottom asked skeptically. “The twelve greatest doctors in the world all assured us it’s a myth.”
“Bah!” Kranstenenif said again. “The twelve greatest ignoramuses, you mean! If one of their club doesn’t discover something, they refuse to believe it exists at all! It takes modern science a hundred years to come up with what the common folk have known for a hundred generations! For years modern science said it was barbaric that people used leeches on wounds, but now that some well-paid scientist has ‘discovered’ they make you heal faster, they have ‘medical leeches.’”
“I must say,” Alexander said. “I don’t care. Not unless it has something to do with me getting my extra nine lives.”
“Eight, actually,” Kranstenenif said. “A cat has eight extra lives that can be transplanted. But with your one, that makes nine. Let me show you.” Kranstenenif reached into the carrier and grabbed Shaddenfrood, who let out an abbreviated and high-pitched Meow! “There is a hidden organ unique to cats that I have discovered here, inside the cat’s navel.”
“The belly button?” Alexander said. “Cats don’t have belly buttons!”
“Oh yes they do. They're just covered over with fur. Feel here,” Kranstenenif said. “This tiny bump right below the rib cage.”
“Cool,” Alexander said.
Shaddenfrood purred from all the belly rubbing.
“The extra-life-giving organ inside of it I call the novavivum.”
“No-vah-VIH-vum?”
“No-vah-VEE-vum,” Kranstenenif corrected Alexander. “The novavivum is a reservoir of stem cells left over from the umbilical cord. It communicates with the brain and heart through a bundle of nerves, and when it detects that both have ceased activity and the cat is dead, the nova-vivum sends a dose of stem cells flowing out to all parts of the body. Within moments, all injuries heal instantly, whether it’s a collapsed lung or a broken leg or a hangnail.”
“That’s awesome!” Alexander said. “Who knew the unbiblical cord could do that?”
Winterbottom was less enthusiastic. “Excuse my asking, Doctor, but cats break bones all the time, and they take weeks to heal.”
“Most true,” Kranstenenif said. “Again, it is only when the heart and brain stop completely that the novavivum releases its stem cells. So when a cat falls out of a tree and injures its leg, it limps; when it falls out of a thirtieth-story window, it gets up off the pavement and walks away good as new.”
“So why eight extra lives, then?” Winterbottom said. “Why not six or ten?”
“Because the novavivum has eight compartments. When the eighth is used up and the ninth life begins, the novavivum shrivels to nothing, which is why no one ever discovered it before.” The scientist looked down at Shaddenfrood, who had caught sight of another bumble-fly buzzing around. (Or was it a butterbee?) His tail swished. “The first thing we must do is find out how many of his nine lives our little friend has left.”
The cave of the unicorn was the entrance to Dr. Kranstenenif’s lab. A flickering fluorescent light exposed a dingy room that seemed to double as Kranstenenif’s office and bedroom, with a pillow and a blanket laid out on an old couch. Buckets around the room pinged with drips of water from the ceiling. Unopened bills and notepads full of numbers and odd doodles spilled off his desk, which also had on it a photo of a woman and a young girl.
“Is that your family?” Winterbottom asked.
Kranstenenif picked up the frame and sighed, but said nothing.
The scientist led them through a heavy door that went whoosh with the sound of escaping air and then automatically locked tight behind them. Squeezed into a pod, Alexander, Winterbottom, Kranstenenif, and Shaddenfrood were misted from all sides by jets.
“Antibacterializing shower,” Kranstenenif said.
How excellent, Winterbottom thought, and made a mental note to get one for back home.
After putting on green medical scrubs and having Winterbottom do the same, Kranstenenif released them from the pod and they entered his laboratory.
The level of hygiene in Kranstenenif’s lab was far better than that of his person, giving some small lift to Winterbottom’s spirits. His stomach was twisted up into a tight gnarl, and he wished he had brought his Tums with him, or that at least he could drink a glass of milk. He thought of asking Kranstenenif for one, but feared the milk might come from a crocacow or heiferpotamus or something.
A pair of operating tables stood at the center of the doctor’s laboratory. On one was strapped down a monkey, and on the other, an armadillo.
“What were you going to do with them?” Alexander asked.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Kranstenenif said. He unstrapped the animals and shooed them out.
At the mouth of the cave, the monkey and the armadillo eyed each other. They shared an uncomfortable moment, and then briskly walked their opposite ways.
Back inside, Kranstenenif clipped an X-ray he had taken of Shaddenfrood’s torso to a light box.
“Look at this!” Kranstenenif said, and held up a magnifying glass for the others to see. “The entire novavivum—all eight compartments—is entirely intact! I’ve never seen a more perfect specimen.”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Alexander said. “The most dangerous thing that cat has ever done is use the litter box.”
“So,” Kranstenenif said, clapping his hands together. “Let’s get this operation going!”
“Right now?” Winterbottom asked.
“Right now,” Kranstenenif confirme
d.
“Right now!” Alexander agreed.
“But this is so sudden!” Winterbottom said.
“Sudden?” Kranstenenif said. “I’ve been waiting twenty-five years to do this! It’s not sudden at all.”
“Yeah, Winterbottom,” Alexander said. “And I’ve been waiting almost a week. Besides, I’m standing around here with just one life on my hands. Do you have any idea how risky that is? The sooner I get ahold of those eight extra lives, the better!”
“But-but-but,” Winterbottom stammered. “Aren’t there tests that need to be done before an operation like this? Some sort of compatibility study between Alexander and the cat?”
“Not really,” Kranstenenif said, opening up a case of gleaming stainless-steel surgical instruments.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Winterbottom asked helplessly.
“Well, no one can be sure they know what they’re doing until they’ve done it,” the doctor said.
“So why haven’t you?” Winterbottom asked. “Surely in twenty-five years you found someone willing to try the operation.”
“Well, the thing that has ‘turned off’ most people is that to perform the surgery, the patient has to die on the operating table. There’s no way to avoid it—the heart has to be disconnected a good ten or fifteen minutes to insert the novavivum.”
“And that scared people off?” Alexander said. “What’s one life to get eight more?”
“But what if you are wrong,” Winterbottom said, “and the transplant doesn’t work?”
“Well then,” Kranstenenif said, “Alexander will be dead for once and for good.”
Winterbottom felt as if the floor of the world had just opened up beneath his feet, and generation upon generation of Winterbottoms—all the cautious souls of his ancestors—were calling on him to try and stop this.
You must stop him, Son, the ghost of his father said, tugging at his pants leg. It is your life’s duty!
“You know, I can’t believe that NO ONE was willing to take you up on this!” Alexander said to Kranstenenif.
The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield Page 3