Gertie Milk and the Great Keeper Rescue

by Simon Van Booy

  “Useless . . . I’ve seen less rust on sunken ships.”

  Then he turned proudly to the Spitfire.

  “So, ready to test-fly your restored fighter plane?”

  Gertie felt her legs tremble—then a rising lightness in her stomach. But before she could answer, several flashes of lightning lit the sky, followed by an almighty crackle of thunder. A strong wind kicked up and blew them back toward the old space rocket.

  The B.D.B.U. was calling. Something had to be returned. The Spitfire’s maiden flight would mercifully have to wait.

  2

  It Glows in the Dark

  GERTIE’S FIRST THOUGHT WAS, This is it—the Big Dusty Book Upstairs had finally recognized her longing to locate the missing Keepers. She dashed through the kitchen, pulled out The History of Chickens to reveal the secret passage, then took the tower steps two at a time.

  Kolt followed at half the speed. “You’re like a mosquito, Gertie! Wait for me!”

  Once they reached the apex of the tower, both Keepers uttered the secret Keeper motto, and the guard doors opened.

  The giant book was shaking and there was faint smoke curling about its gnarled edges. Gertie went up the stone steps and peered down into the pages. One showed a moving picture of cauldrons of black liquid. Another, horse-drawn wagons plodding along, loaded with sacks of rock. Then into the frame with the bubbling cauldrons came a woman in a long coat.

  She was holding glass tubes with purple smoke pouring out of them.

  Gertie could smell the faint aroma of whatever the woman was cooking.

  “What’s she doing?”

  “I believe that’s Marie Curie,” Kolt said, “the world-famous scientist.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Gertie, her voice full of disappointment. “I was hoping it would be one of the missing Keepers.”

  The old book was still shaking as one of its giant pages began to turn. Now displayed were bustling streets, with women in long dresses and men with shiny top hats. In a small picture at the bottom of the page was the object that had to be returned.

  “There,” Kolt said. “It’s some kind of bowl with something inside.” They both leaned in to read the fine print. “One tenth of a gram of radium salts.”

  “A bowl of salt?”

  “Yes, but not ordinary salt, Gertie, radium salt! A highly radioactive substance.”

  “What does ‘radio active’ mean? Something to do with music?”

  “A substance is radioactive when it gives off energy as rays that are powerful and potentially harmful. Everything around us—except energy itself—is made up of atoms. You and me, Robot Rabbit Boy, the B.D.B.U., the tower we’re standing in, all the lost things from the world under the cottage, even the air. Each atom, Gertie, is a cluster of what humans call protons and neutrons, which are tightly packed into a center that’s called the nucleus. Tiny electrons dance around this nucleus in a pattern. Between the nucleus and electrons is just empty space.”

  “Have you ever seen one of these atoms?”

  “No I have not, and neither did Marie Curie. They’re rather small. . . . A scientist I once met called Doctor Feynman said that if an apple were magnified to the size of the Earth, then the atoms in the apple would be approximately the size of the original apple. The nucleus is even smaller, and when one is going bad, it gives off energy.”

  “Like when it’s dying?” Gertie asked.

  “Well, things don’t really die in the way humans think. Energy simply changes form and keeps going. It cannot be created or destroyed, only changed.”

  Gertie nodded. Kolt seemed to know everything, which sometimes she found slightly annoying.

  The old Keeper smiled as though reading her mind. “Don’t forget that before you came to Skuldark, I was alone for a hundred years without a television, so I did a lot of reading.”

  Back downstairs in the kitchen, they found Robot Rabbit Boy waiting dutifully.

  “Eggcup?”

  “That’s right,” said Gertie, “an immediate return.”

  “Lavender!”

  “Paris, France, at the beginning of the 1900s,” Kolt said, putting on his bowler hat. Then he swept away the rug that covered the trapdoor. Outside the cottage, tiny pieces of hail smacked against the windows. Robot Rabbit Boy pointed with a grubby paw toward the glass.

  “Dollops mush?”

  Gertie looked. “I think he’s worried about Slug Lamps getting pummeled by the hailstones,” she said. Robot Rabbit Boy’s eyes were glowing raspberry, which meant danger.

  “Well then, he should go check on them while we’re under the cottage.”

  “Are Slug Lamps made of atoms?”

  “Oh, for sure . . .” Kolt said, taking the first cold step to the basement, “they’re mostly water molecules. And before you ask, a molecule is when two or more atoms hold hands. Water is two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom—hence its chemical symbol H20.”

  When they arrived at the main level under the cottage, they saw the familiar sight of all the different vehicles, machines, and devices for getting around the cliff. Then a Cave Sprite appeared. It was moving slowly, and had much less glow than the others.

  “Hello, Sunday,” Gertie said. Kolt had named all seven Cave Sprites after days of the week. “We’re here for some weird salt that gives off energy rays.”

  Sunday hovered for a few seconds as though thinking, then floated off down one of the many rock wall corridors, each lined with dozens and dozens of numbered doors.

  As they followed, Kolt took out two pairs of thick green gloves for them to put on.

  Gertie grimaced. “What are these for?”

  “I’m afraid this salt is rather nasty stuff.”

  “It didn’t look nasty, just small and harmless.”

  “Well, it’s not. Wear these gloves, Gertie, and don’t get too close to it. If we spill any in the Time Cat, it’s going to have to be decontaminated, which is a nightmare, basically—like going through a car wash five thousand times.”

  Just then they arrived at bedroom 91. The door was made of lead, and so heavy, Kolt was only able to open it partway. Gertie squeezed to get through. Kolt had to leave his bowler hat outside on the ground.

  They didn’t need Sunday to light their way because all the objects in the room were glowing in different colors.

  “It’s magic!” Gertie said.

  “No,” said Kolt, “it’s radiation. Remember, when atoms decay, they leak energy in the form of short but powerful rays that can penetrate almost anything.”

  “It’s cool that it glows though. Why is the room so small?”

  “Because lost items that are radioactive are dangerous, Gertie. For safety, Mrs. Pumble—who you know was the Keeper here when I arrived—had to construct ten-foot walls of concrete around this bedroom, with lead plates, because those rays I told you about can destroy the human body.”

  “Shouldn’t we be wearing more than gloves then?”

  Kolt bit his lip. “You mean like safety goggles?”

  “Er, I mean like full-on lead suits with concrete helmets!”

  “Probably,” Kolt said. “But it’s a tiny amount, and we’ll have it such a short time, we should be okay.”

  In a corner, Sunday was hovering over a small dish. Gertie put her green gloves on and went over to it.

  “It’s empty!”

  “No it isn’t,” Kolt said, peering over her shoulder and pointing to a white flake the size of a rice grain.

  Gertie picked up the bowl. “You’re right. It is small. Are you sure it’s dangerous?” To Gertie it seemed just an innocent flake.

  “I’m afraid so—but there are different kinds of radiation. Some types can power space stations, while other kinds kill cancer cells. Which is why Marie Curie’s discovery of radium was such an important step for human progress.
Doctor Curie was the first woman to ever be awarded the Nobel Prize, and the first person to win it twice. But don’t mention that to her.”

  “Why? Seems like she’d be proud.”

  “Because we’ve got her radium sample, so she hasn’t won it yet.”

  * * *

  ‹‹ • • • ››

  GERTIE CARRIED THE BOWL carefully with her green gloves all the way back upstairs—where a soaking wet Robot Rabbit Boy was pawing his ears, sore from the barrage of hailstones.

  “Save any Slug Lamps?” she asked him.

  “Mashed potato.”

  Kolt whistled. “That bad, eh?”

  “Are hailstones made of atoms, Kolt?”

  “Yes, Gertie—everything is.”

  The water dripping from Robot Rabbit Boy’s fur had formed a pool at his grubby feet.

  Gertie set the dish of radium salt on the kitchen table, worried what would happen if Robot Rabbit Boy accidentally swallowed the contents. Even if he didn’t die, the Series 7 might glow for the rest of his life.

  “Stay here for this mission,” Gertie told him gently, “because if the hail gets worse, you might have to rescue more Slug Lamps.”

  “Eggcup?”

  “She’s right,” Kolt agreed. “And we won’t be long, Paris in the winter of 1901 is not dangerous at all. We’ll be back in a jiffy with rhubarb jam, fresh croissants, and a little absinthe for me.”

  * * *

  ‹‹ • • • ››

  WHILE GERTIE WAS IN the Sock Drawer choosing which dress to wear, Kolt started a fire in the kitchen for Robot Rabbit Boy to dry out. Then, before leaving, they plonked him in a cozy chair with his favorite snack: a jar of lemon curd.

  Gertie had chosen a long, wine-colored dress that hung an inch off the floor. The tiny floral pattern on it was from Liberty of London, and very fashionable in its time, according to Kolt. It had white silk-covered buttons from the bottom of the skirt all the way to the blouse. An attached white lace collar covered Gertie’s neck. There was also floral embroidery at the hemline, and riding up the long cotton sleeves.

  Kolt opted for a gray lounge suit with his black bowler hat, which had been popular back then.

  With the morsel of radium still giving off a bluish glow, Gertie attached a handkerchief tightly over the top to stop the flake from falling out and getting lost. She wondered if she should find something heavy to block the radiation, but hopefully they’d be rid of the item quickly. She placed the wrapped dish in a Bon Marché wicker picnic basket, which would have been a normal thing to carry in Paris of 1901.

  With Robot Rabbit Boy snoozing away in the armchair, Kolt and Gertie braved the hard pellets of hailstones and raced to the Time Cat. After fiddling with the door lock, Gertie slid past Kolt into the driver’s seat.

  “I’ll drive!” she said.

  “Fine,” Kolt said, going around to the passenger side and getting in. “Just remember the clutch trick I showed you.”

  He set the time clocks on the dashboard, then checked the emergency peach cake and moonberry juice situation. Gertie removed the actual time machine (a small wooden box) from the glove box and readied her key.

  “So it’s Marie Curie, and Paris?”

  “That’s right,” Kolt said. “The B.D.B.U. should get us within shouting distance of her Shed of Discovery.”

  “Her what?”

  “Where she worked with her husband, Pierre, another brilliant scientist, who sadly will be . . .”

  “What?”

  “Er, it doesn’t matter, Gertie, our job is to help the world by returning vital things, nothing more, I’m afraid.”

  Gertie shrugged and slotted her Keepers’ key into the time machine. With an intense flash of green light and the usual fizzing, they were soon on their way. A split second before crossing the graviton bridge, however, the steering wheel came off in her hands.

  3

  The Radioactive Woman

  “SORRY,” KOLT SAID, AFTER a moment’s panic getting the steering wheel back on. “I’d been meaning to fix that.”

  But Gertie was too busy looking around. Her first impression of Paris during La Belle Epoque was that it reminded her of London in the 1920s—where she had tried to return a watch to the champion swimmer Mercedes Gleitze.

  All around them, horses, carts, and people in dark clothes with bamboo-handled umbrellas rushed about. The men sported large mustaches, while the women Gertie could see had on giant floppy hats and long dresses like the one she was wearing. A few pedestrians stopped to stare at the Time Cat. Kolt waved nervously.

  “I’m afraid they’ll have to wait another sixty years or so to get their hands on this beauty.”

  “Let’s drive somewhere quieter,” Gertie said, “before anyone gets suspicious—maybe we should have come on foot? I don’t see any other cars.”

  “Well, they existed. Peugeot had something called a Bébé, unveiled at the Paris Salon earlier this year. It had a top speed of about twenty-eight mph, which is actually the top speed of a Slug Lamp in panic mode.”

  Gertie put the Jaguar in first gear and they crawled through the Paris streets. Kolt said he’d been to Paris quite a few times, and from his memory, they were close to where the famous scientist worked. Soon she pulled into a narrow road with crumbling white buildings on either side. The windows of the buildings had closed wooden shutters, and the street was made of cobblestones that caused the car to creak as they bounced along. Then a group of street dogs bounded past. They were chasing a cat with a fish bone in its mouth.

  “Let’s cloak it,” Gertie said, reaching for the button with a question mark on it. This turned on the Narcissus paint, which enabled the Time Cat to reflect its surroundings perfectly, making the car disappear from sight. Standing outside in the wintery Paris street, Gertie kicked an invisible tire with a thump. “What if someone walks into it?”

  Kolt laughed. “Then he or she will get a shock, but this return shouldn’t take too long—that street there is Rue Lhomond—do you have the time machine, your key, and the item?”

  Gertie held up the wicker basket. “What language does she speak, French?”

  “Polish and Russian too, but remember that Skuldarkian adapts to whatever language is being spoken around us.”

  Their destination was shielded by an ivy-coated wall with a door in it. But as they were crossing the road, a bicycle came hurtling around a corner and collided with them. Everyone, including the cyclist, went sprawling on the cobblestone street with a clatter.

  Kolt was the first to jump up, but then tripped on his bowler hat and went flying again. Gertie stood and rushed over to the woman to see if she was hurt.

  “Are you okay?”

  “It’s all my fault!” the woman cried. “Please forgive me.” Gertie scanned her dress for any sign of blood.

  A few yards away, Kolt had picked up his bowler hat and was muttering to it angrily.

  The woman looked over. “I think there’s something wrong with your friend.”

  “Oh no, he’s always like that.”

  Kolt saw he was being watched and discreetly put the dented hat on his head. Then he hurried over to check on everyone.

  Gertie collected the picnic basket and raised a flap.

  “Any damage to the . . . muffin?” Kolt asked, trying to be subtle while raising the woman’s heavy bicycle.

  “No, it’s fine,” Gertie said, thankful for the handkerchief she’d wrapped around the dish.

  She could feel it vibrating, which meant they were close to finding its rightful owner.

  “I’m sorry about our frightful collision,” the woman said. “Please come in for some tea; I live very close by.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re not injured,” Gertie told her, “and we’re sort of in a hurry.”

  Kolt smiled awkwardly. “But tea might be n
ice?”

  The woman grinned. “You could meet my daughter, Irène, and my husband, Pierre, and it would make me feel better to give you some refreshment. I love cycling so much, I sometimes forget how fast I’m going.”

  Gertie nodded, wondering how the woman was able to pedal in such a long dress.

  “When my scientific work becomes too much, I really need to breathe, so I go racing around the Paris streets.”

  “Sounds like fun! But we have to locate someone here in Paris and return this very, very important muffin to them,” Gertie said winking at Kolt.

  “I see,” said the woman thoughtfully. “I live here, so perhaps I can help? Ah, where are my manners! My name is Madame Curie. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

  Gertie tried not to look surprised. This was the person they had come to see. The B.D.B.U. had done it again. Placed them exactly where they needed to be—even if it meant getting run over.

  “Actually, tea sounds great!” Gertie said.

  Kolt nodded vigorously. “Yes it does, and one of those small madeleine cakes to go with it would be a dream!”

  They followed the young scientist through the white door in the wall, and found themselves in a courtyard with three different fires going.

  Gertie sniffed. The air smelled heavy and sulfurous.

  Kolt chuckled. “I can see why you like clearing your head with fast bicycle rides.”

  The scientist agreed. “Yes, the smell is terrible, truly—but work comes first in our household. When I got married, I even chose a dress that I could also use for lab work.”

  Over each courtyard fire was an iron cauldron like the ones Gertie had seen in the B.D.B.U. Passing one, she could see a heavy black liquid with black rocks floating in it. Madame Curie put on thick gloves and stirred the contents with a metal rod.

  “As you know, metal and water conduct heat, so if I were to touch the metal with my bare hands, I’d get burned.”