‘Was that Sam calling for help?’ he asked.
‘Where?’ Ruby asked, her arm brushing a tangle of vines aside. ‘What direction?’
‘I can’t tell,’ Gerald said. Then the cry came again, unmistakable this time: a smothered call of Rubeeeee.
‘I definitely heard it that time,’ Ruby said. ‘Has the idiot been kidnapped?’
‘How could he be?’ Felicity said. ‘We were right here. We would have heard something.’
Ruby’s face went pale. ‘If one of Mason Green’s gunmen has got him…’ She didn’t finish the sentence. Her eyes narrowed to slits.
‘What is it?’ Gerald asked Ruby.
Ruby elbowed past him and stopped next to a pile of lime green palm fronds on the clearing floor. Then she pulled back her right foot and gave the stack a hefty kick.
The pile of vegetation let out a smothered ‘ouch’.
Ruby stood over the bundle of leaves with her fists on her hips. ‘What are you doing, you idiot?’ she said. ‘Stop mucking about.’
‘I’m not mucking about,’ Sam’s voice strained out from the pile. ‘This thing is trying to eat me.’
Gerald and Felicity looked over Ruby’s shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’ Felicity asked.
‘Sam’s gone and got himself eaten by some giant carnivorous plant,’ Ruby said. ‘It must be another part of Mason Green’s stupid zoo project.’
Felicity clasped a hand to the base of her throat. ‘Shouldn’t we try to get him out?’
Ruby dropped to her haunches and cleared away vegetation from what at first glance appeared to be a mound of fallen palm fronds. She revealed a large bright green pod with what was clearly the shape of a person inside. ‘It looks like a Venus flytrap,’ Ruby said, ‘only super-sized.’
‘Isn’t that even more reason to get him out?’ Felicity said.
‘Don’t worry—they don’t have teeth. It’s just trying to dissolve him.’
This brought on a wriggling flurry as Sam struggled to fight his way out, like a small child trying to wrestle free of a too-tight sleeping bag.
Ruby shook her head. ‘What a goose,’ she said. ‘Here, hold this end steady, will you,’ she said to Gerald and Felicity. They pinned one end of the writhing peapod to the ground, then Ruby eyed up the other end. She sat down hard about halfway along the plant, and the flytrap burst open, revealing two boots connected to two legs. Ruby grabbed hold of one leg and Felicity the other and they dragged out a bedraggled Sam. He slid onto the jungle floor, covered in a thick coating of pea-green slime. He sat up coughing, and wiped the gunk from his face. ‘What took you so long?’ he asked, frowning at his sister. ‘That thing has a million little tongues and it was licking me all over.’
‘I can always shove you back inside,’ Ruby said. ‘How about some thanks?’
Gerald tried hard not to laugh. ‘What happened?’ he said to Sam. ‘We thought you’d been kidnapped.’
Sam tried to stand up but slipped down again onto his backside with a plop. ‘I stretched out for a rest on what I thought was a pile of leaves and it turned out to be a ruthless killing machine. It closed up around me like a clam, sprayed juice all over me and started’—Sam shuddered at the thought—‘started licking me.’
Ruby clicked her tongue. ‘You are the only person I know who could lose a fight with an overgrown snow pea.’
Sam opened his mouth to protest but stopped with his jaw hanging.
Ruby smirked at him. ‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘Cucumber got your tongue?’
Sam’s eyes grew wide and a strangled gurgle bubbled in his throat. ‘Your shoulder,’ he said. ‘On your shoulder.’
Ruby gave him a curious look and turned her head.
Gerald stared agape at a needle-sharp barb as it emerged over the bridge of Ruby’s shoulder. The point was attached to the end of an armoured tail that arched higher and higher as it moved into view.
‘Oh, my gosh,’ Felicity whispered. ‘A scorpion. A giant scorpion.’
‘Don’t move,’ Gerald said. He could have saved his breath. Ruby was frozen to the spot. The beast inching its way up Ruby’s back was the size of a house cat. A pair of razored pincers snapped the air and four sets of legs moved with deliberate intent.
‘That thing is enormous,’ Sam gasped. ‘Bleeding enormous.’
Ruby gave a quavering whimper as her eyes swivelled to the side, trying to see the giant beast. With every careful placement of a leg, with every snap of a claw, the creature emitted rattling clicks that raised the hair on the back of Gerald’s neck. He could only guess what the sound was doing to Ruby’s nerves. The look on her face was unnerving enough.
‘Keep totally still,’ Gerald said, keeping his voice low and calm. ‘I’m going to try to knock it off.’ He pulled the butterfly net from his backpack.
‘Try to knock it off?’ Sam said. ‘Those things are lethal. You’ll have to do a bit better than just try.’
Gerald gave a grim nod, and pushed the brass button to deploy the butterfly net. The polished wooden rod shot out with a whoosh. The scorpion’s head snapped towards the movement, its pincers slashing at the air. The tail arched higher. A drop of venom at its tip glinted in the sunlight. Ruby smothered a gasp. She clenched her fingers together into tight clusters making the tips show white.
‘Careful,’ Felicity whispered. ‘You only have one shot.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Gerald said. He drew the net back over his shoulder to line up the scorpion. ‘I’m pretty good at cricket.’
The look on Ruby’s face told him that ‘pretty good’ probably wasn’t good enough. Gerald tightened his grip on the butterfly net. ‘Steady,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Steady…’
He unleashed a mighty swing, driving the net hard. In a flash, the creature caught the stick in its pincers and with a muscular twist of its back wrenched it from Gerald’s hands. A piercing scream ripped through the jungle, but Gerald had no time to worry about Sam.
The scorpion wielded the butterfly net like a quarter staff, shifting it left and right. Ruby flailed her hands around her ears, trying to dislodge her deadly passenger. She managed to grab hold of the stick, and she strained to wrestle it free, but the pincers clutched tight, their razor-sharp teeth shredding splinters from the wood in a rain of sawdust.
The scorpion arched its sting, ready to strike. The tip was poised like a dagger above Ruby’s eyes. Another Sam scream sent a flurry of birds into the air from the surrounding branches, showering them all in feathers, leaves and droppings. The scorpion lashed out its sting, a dart that flew faster than the eye could see, just as Ruby heaved down on the butterfly net and tore the creature from her back. The barbed point sliced down as the scorpion flipped over her shoulder. The tip scythed past her nose and missed by a millimetre.
The creature sailed through the air, a writhing nest of fury, and landed square across Sam’s face. It wrapped eight legs around his head in a crushing embrace, muffling his screams. Sam grabbed a crooked leg in each hand and tried to tear the beast from his head, but the other six limbs just tightened their grasp. Venom ran from the scorpion’s tail, and the creature emitted a guttural hiss. Sam threw his head from side to side.
The scorpion’s tail arched high and the barb shot down just as Felicity swung Gerald’s backpack at it. The scorpion was sent flying in a limp tangle against the trunk of a towering fig tree. It hit with a wet splat then slithered to the ground, trailing yellow innards. Ruby, Felicity, Gerald and Sam stared at each other, unsure whether what had just happened, really happened.
‘Uh—that was a good swing, Felicity,’ Gerald said.
Felicity held the backpack by one of its straps, weighing its heft in her hand. ‘You may be pretty good at cricket,’ she said, ‘but I am extremely good at hockey. I just hope the perpetual motion machine isn’t damaged.’ She looked at Sam, who was blinking dumbly at the scorpion’s corpse sprawled on the jungle floor. ‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘You can thank me later.’
Felicity smiled and leaned in. ‘Am I forgiven?’ she asked. ‘For everything?’
Ruby smiled as well. ‘For everything,’ she said. She turned to Gerald. ‘I think you need some more time in the practice nets, champ.’
The four of them gathered beside the scorpion. It was curled into a ball on its side but the barbed tail still looked deadly. Ruby gave it a tentative tap with the end of the butterfly net. ‘This isn’t normal, is it?’ she said. ‘Scorpions don’t usually grow this big.’
Felicity looked at the slimy yellow slick of scorpion goo that pooled around the creature, and swallowed down a belch. ‘You have to admit,’ she said, ‘that is pretty sick-making.’
A drop of venom fell from the sting. It hit the grass like acid rain, sending up a tiny puff of grey-green smoke.
‘I think it’s safe to assume that we’ve stumbled into something bizarre,’ Gerald said. ‘Ursus was telling the truth: this island is a living laboratory.’
‘A laboratory for what though?’ Felicity said. She rubbed her hands along her arms to massage away the goosebumps that had sprouted there. ‘Why would anyone want to create a creature like’—she shuddered and waved a disgusted hand towards the dead scorpion—‘like that thing?’
‘Maybe he didn’t create it, as such,’ Sam said. ‘Maybe he resurrected it. It looks prehistoric. Maybe Ursus and Mason Green are bringing back all sorts of things that have gone extinct, not just dodos.’
Gerald took his backpack from Felicity and pulled out the perpetual motion machine. ‘Rudolph created his zoo to contain his collection of live curiosities. Ursus said this zoo would rival that one.’
‘Giant scorpions and dodos,’ Ruby said, shaking her head. ‘That certainly qualifies as curious.’
A gentle hum reverberated from Gerald’s hands when he switched on the machine. It seemed to be undamaged. He turned it off and wrapped it up again. ‘I’d feel safer if we kept out of the jungle,’ he said. ‘There’s no telling what other beasties have been brought back from the beyond.’
The others didn’t need convincing. Gerald led the way through the trees, back in the direction they had come. A sudden screech from the treetops ensured they completed the trek in very quick time indeed.
Chapter 24
The squat building nestling in the island undergrowth looked so entirely out of place that Gerald almost wandered past it without stopping.
The hut was hiding in plain view among a stand of bamboo. It looked as if it had fallen there from the back of a passing cargo plane.
Gerald dropped to his belly in the grass. Sam, Ruby and Felicity joined him a second later. A bank of windows in the side of the hut overlooked the path along which they had been walking. If someone was inside and had happened to look out…
‘What do we do?’ Felicity squeaked. ‘We’re in the middle of no-man’s-land.’
Gerald studied the side of the hut, and a surge of determination rallied his nerves. ‘I think it’s time we got on the front foot,’ he whispered. ‘I say we go through the front door.’
Before anyone could tell him just how stupid that sounded, Gerald was on his feet and running towards the building. He only hoped that his friends were filled with the same zeal.
The building was at the end of a long walkway that snaked off through thickening bush. Gerald paused near the boardwalk and was relieved to hear Sam, Ruby and Felicity arrive beside him. He rolled up onto the timbers, grimacing at the groan and creak of the boards. There was a door at one end of the hut, inset with a pane of glass. Gerald crept up and poked a wary eye above the sill. The structure appeared to consist of a single room with stainless steel benches along the walls. Shelves were stacked with various bottles and containers, ordered according to size. There were four standalone stainless-steel workbenches. And no sign of anyone inside.
Gerald beckoned for the others to come up, and he tried the doorhandle. It opened and they stole inside. Felicity eased the door closed behind them.
‘What is this place?’ Sam asked, sliding a finger across a benchtop.
Ruby crossed the room and rummaged through a small wooden desk. ‘Who cares?’ she said. ‘See if you can find a telephone or a radio.’
Gerald moved to the closest workbench and raised an eyebrow at what he saw. ‘Look at this,’ he said. The bench was covered with dead butterflies and moths laid out in precise order, smallest to largest, pinned, wings open, to index cards. Gerald picked up a pair of tweezers and plucked a dead moth from a dish of insect cadavers.
‘Now I’m confused,’ Gerald said, turning the insect so the light caught the red and green dust of its wings. ‘Since when has Mason Green been interested in bugs?’
Ruby took a large hardbound book from the bench and looked at the cover. ‘The Lepidopterists’ Handbook,’ she read, and riffled the pages. She flicked through endless photographs and descriptions of extravagantly coloured flying insects.
Felicity leaned in front of Gerald and picked up a squat glass jar with a screw-top lid, and nodded with recognition.
‘What is it?’ Gerald asked.
‘This,’ she said, holding up the container, ‘is a killing jar.’ Gerald, Ruby and Sam stared at the bottle with mild concern. ‘Don’t worry,’ Felicity said. ‘It’s only for killing butterflies. My biology teacher at St Hilda’s is mad for this sort of thing. She uses one of these to poison butterflies without damaging their wings.’
Ruby screwed up her nose. ‘Gross. How does it work?’
‘Do you see this white layer at the bottom of the jar? That’s probably plaster of Paris, or something else that’s absorbent. All you need then is a poison.’
‘Like chloroform?’ Ruby asked. She picked out a brown bottle from a shelf on the nearest wall. ‘There’s loads of it over here. Litres of the stuff.’
‘Chloroform?’ Gerald said. ‘How are you supposed to hold a chloroform-soaked rag over a butterfly’s face?’
Felicity looked sideways at Gerald through narrowed eyes. ‘It’s as if Sam was in the room,’ she said.
Sam looked up with a confused expression. ‘I am in the room,’ he said.
Felicity ignored him. ‘Obviously you don’t sneak up behind an unsuspecting butterfly and try to kidnap it. You pour a little of the chloroform into the jar and it soaks into the plaster of Paris. Then you drop the butterfly inside and screw on the top. The fumes kill it and the wings droop open, ready to be pinned to a display card, just like these.’ She returned the jar to the bench and dusted her hands. ‘It’s pretty grotesque when you think about it. Nasty.’
Gerald dropped the moth back into the dish. ‘I’ve never understood why anyone would kill something just to hang it on the wall, whether it’s a butterfly or a water buffalo. What’s the sense in it?’
‘Collectors can be strange,’ Ruby said. She stopped short at the sound of footsteps on the boardwalk outside.
Four bodies dived behind four workbenches. Gerald pressed up against the back of a drawer knob that stuck hard into his spine. He clutched his backpack to his chest and tucked himself into as small a ball as he could. Ruby was doing the same at the next workbench, except she held the bottle of chloroform wrapped in her arms. Gerald could not see Sam or Felicity, but he hoped that from the doorway the room looked deserted.
A bump and a jangling clatter of metal told him that someone had just wheeled a trolley inside. Gerald’s eyes darted to Ruby. She held up two fingers: two people had entered the room. Then she pointed to the bottle of chloroform in her other hand.
Gerald’s eyes bulged in protest—there was no way that Ruby could hope to take down two people using chloroform. He shook his head. Ruby nodded just as vigorously. She stabbed a finger to the backpack Gerald hugged to his ribs, and gestured with a whipping motion of her hand. Gerald’s eyes swelled even wider as her message sunk in. Ruby wanted him to launch a Felicity-style attack using the perpetual motion mach
ine as a blunt instrument.
No! Gerald’s eyes vibrated in their sockets.
Ruby’s return expression told him she was going to launch her assault with or without him. She eased off one of her sneakers and silently peeled a sock from her foot. The clink of glass near the shelves behind them masked the soft pop as Ruby flipped the stopper from the neck of the chloroform bottle. She soaked her sock in the noxious liquid and gave Gerald one last look of disdain before she crept around the far corner of the workbench towards the door.
Gerald’s eyes almost popped from their sockets. When would this girl stop frustrating him so much? He rolled onto his hands and knees and crawled along the narrow stretch of floorboards that led to the shelves. Through the dusty gap beneath the workbench he could make out four rubber wheels and two sets of shoes. The two newcomers appeared to be loading bottles onto the trolley. Gerald could also see Ruby on the far side of the room, crouched low and set to pounce. She flashed a look at him, her eyes electric. She counted off on her fingers. One. Two. Three!
Gerald leapt up and swung his backpack high. He just managed to divert the blow at the last second so it swung harmlessly clear of Mrs Rutherford’s head.
His startled housekeeper emitted a pert ‘Ooh!’ as she turned to face him.
‘Master Gerald!’ she said, surprised by his sudden appearance. ‘How did you get here?’
Gerald would have answered but he was distracted by the sight of Ruby with her arms and legs wrapped around the back of Mr Fry and her chloroform-soaked sock clamped over his butler’s nose and mouth. Fry grunted a muffled protest and he flung his arms about trying to dislodge his attacker, but Ruby’s blood was up. Her face was fixed with a look of manic determination that only started to fade as Mr Fry’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he folded to the floor like an inflatable bear with a slow leak.
Ruby clung to his back all the way down and only rolled off when the butler was splayed out like a zoo escapee with a tranquiliser dart in its rump. She looked down at the result of her efforts like the world’s most embarrassed big game hunter.
The Curiosity Machine Page 19