Within moments they were roaring over the grassy meadows, dark forests, and monstrous cliffs of Skuldark. It was the most exciting thing Gertie had ever done. The sheer speed of the aircraft was terrifying, but Gertie felt fully in control as she flew over the cottage several times, just low enough to see Kolt jumping up and down in the garden.
Robot Rabbit Boy looked determined too. The rushing air parted his fur, but his neon eyes glowed lemon yellow.
The power of the aircraft was astounding to Gertie, but she had to keep her mind on what she was doing, and not get distracted by the sights. She also had to be careful not to run out of fuel.
Gertie soared over the beach where she’d washed up. Johnny the Guard Worm was sitting on a rock out at sea while the white dodo birds panicked and ran at the sound of the Spitfire’s engine. The rocky shore looked smaller than she remembered. But the cliffs were very high. She felt proud then, of how she had so bravely made it through the cliff when she first arrived.
In the distance, the Skuldarkian Mountains rose majestically as if to beckon her. The highest, Ravens’ Peak, was tall, dark, and snow-capped. Gertie didn’t want to get too close on her first flight in case the drop in temperature affected the seawater in her fuel lines.
As she turned back toward the cottage, something on the ground caught her eye. Gertie pushed forward on the control ring, and went down for a closer look. Not only were there ruins of old buildings, but there was also a bright light coming out of the earth, a dazzling orange glow a little bigger than a Cave Sprite. Some kind of signal perhaps? A warning of danger?
Whatever it was, Robot Rabbit Boy saw it too. They would have to ask Kolt—though so much of the island remained a mystery, even to him.
5
Insects and Pirates
GERTIE’S LANDING IN A meadow just outside the Garden of Lost Things was close to perfect. Despite gusting crosswinds, she handled the Spitfire with the ease of a veteran pilot.
She knew Kolt had been watching from the ground as they rocketed through the sky, banking and sweeping in arcs over the tall trees of Fern Valley, and it made her feel good to think of how impressed he was.
The old Keeper had some cakes and cold bottles of ginger beer waiting in a wicker basket, but Gertie was too excited to eat.
“We saw something! A glowing light!”
“In the sky?”
“Lavender,” nodded Robot Rabbit Boy, hopping down.
“It was on the ground, a glowing light . . .”
“Probably nothing,” Kolt said casually, “a reflection from one of those robot hands that keep appearing?”
But Gertie was convinced the bright light was more. “I think we should go investigate, it could be something big.”
“Well, where was it?”
“Near some ruined buildings.”
“The Ruined Village,” said Kolt carefully, as though realizing it could be something after all.
“Should we go down there?”
Kolt rubbed his chin. “Let me think about it,” he said. “It’ll be dark soon, we can’t go today.”
* * *
‹‹ • • • ››
AT DUSK, THEY CARRIED the plates and empty bottles inside, then cleaned up from the day’s excitement. Kolt was hungry for something sweet, and put a tray of Darren’s double-Dutch-chunk chocolate cookies in the oven to warm. They had bought them on a recent return to Amsterdam, where they’d met a young, cheerful painter called Rembrandt, who was missing a brush.
“So we’ll check out what that light was tomorrow?” Gertie said. “I think it means something.”
“The Ruined Village is miles from here, Gertie. Let’s talk about it in the morning over breakfast.”
With all the excitement of the Spitfire’s maiden flight over Skuldark, and the dazzling light Gertie had seen emanating from the earth, they had forgotten something very important.
“Mashed potato, lavender eggcup room?”
“That’s right,” Gertie realized, checking to see if the chocolate cookies were ready, “it’s movie night!”
After bathing and getting into their nightclothes, the three Keepers settled into a nest of blankets on the velvet couch to watch a film about insects on pirate ships. The kitchen smelled of baking and the fire crackled.
Halfway through the movie, Robot Rabbit Boy yawned. “Maaasssshhhhed doooolllllloops . . .” he said, lifting a paw to the flickering screen. There were still a few moonberry stains on his fur.
“Someone seems to have lost interest in the moving picture,” Kolt chuckled. “I won’t say who.”
Gertie peeled her eyes off the screen to see what Robot Rabbit Boy was doing. “This always happens when there’s too much talking,” she said.
Gertie reached over and patted him. The fur was soft but mottled from years of neglect in the abandoned city.
“There has to be some storyline . . .” Gertie explained gently, “it can’t all be explosions and sword-fighting.”
There was a cookie crumb on the floor, and Robot Rabbit Boy brought his foot down on it. “Mush,” he said quietly.
The insect pirates were now swinging between ships.
They had dragged the television up from bedroom 771 some time ago, for a weekly movie night, after Kolt had tried to explain the concept of moving pictures with stories. He said it was also a way for Gertie to learn about different parts of the world before they went there. All you had to do was find the silver disk of the program you wanted to watch, then slot it into the TV.
However, Gertie found it boring to watch for a long time, and so the television was enjoyed mostly by Robot Rabbit Boy very early in the morning for cartoons, and by Kolt very late at night when everyone else was in bed. He enjoyed flickering black-and-white films that Gertie found more boring than watching moonberries ripen.
“Mush mashed potato?” said Robot Rabbit Boy, more interested now in being petted than anything taking place on the screen.
Gertie was still trying to follow along with the story.
“Let’s listen,” she said, as the chief insect pirate drew his sword (a toothpick).
Then she reached for a cookie, but felt only crumbs. “If you’re not watching the film anymore,” Gertie said, “would you get another plate of cakes and cookies from the kitchen?”
Robot Rabbit Boy slumped down off the couch, his metal legs clanking.
“Eggcups?”
“Not eggcups, double-Dutch-chunk chocolate cookies,” Kolt said, “and hurry up or you’ll miss the grasshoppers taking over the pirate ship to rescue Big Skinny.”
“Lavender?”
“The grasshopper king,” Kolt explained, “who was kidnapped at the beginning of the film, remember?”
But Robot Rabbit Boy, their Series 7 Artificial Intelligence Forever Friend, wasn’t listening.
The empty kitchen was far more interesting with all its dark corners and little passageways that only a rabbit could fit through.
“C’mon!” cried Gertie at the flashing screen. “Use your cannons!” Then she turned to Kolt. “If we had cannons like that we could blast Doll Head into oblivion.”
“What about the cannons on the Spitfire?” Kolt said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Didn’t you fire a few frozen moonberries on the test flight?”
“Er, I was too busy watching the fuel level,” Gertie said, but the truth was she had forgotten.
Movie night was when they tried to forget their problems and lose themselves in whatever story was playing out on the screen.
Gertie only really liked watching films when it was very cold outside. Then they could snuggle under their own blankets with things to eat and mugs of hot chocolate. Sometimes, Gertie and Robot Rabbit Boy built a fort from all the couch cushions, and used the blankets to form a giant roof. They would watch from underneath.
“
Mush, mush, mush!” Robot Rabbit Boy said from the kitchen, peering over at Kolt and Gertie, who were still mesmerized by the flickering glow and mumble of voices.
“I hope he hasn’t found one of those horrible robot hands,” Kolt said.
Gertie thought about the one she’d seen dart across the kitchen yesterday afternoon—and the one she found in her bathtub. Not even the Cave Sprites seemed to know where they were coming from.
Robot Rabbit Boy scrambled up the ladder Kolt had built for him and walked along the countertop toward a stack of cooling double-Dutch-chunk chocolate cookies.
“Hurry up! You’re missing the best part!” Gertie called out.
Kolt turned his head toward the kitchen, but kept his eyes glued to the screen. “The grasshoppers are about to do martial arts—like in China when we rescued the B.D.B.U.—only it’s insects doing it this time.”
“Dollops?” Robot Rabbit Boy said dreamily, more interested in a pair of Slug Lamps suctioned to the kitchen window, snuggling against the cold wind. Their slug-baby faces were pinched, and they glowed bright green. Robot Rabbit Boy stuck one grubby paw on the glass, while balancing the plate of cookies on his other. But when they noticed a pair of glowing robot rabbit eyes, they got scared and squelched along the glass back to their moonberry leaf beds, leaving a trail of neon slime.
Robot Rabbit Boy followed them with his eyes until the last squashy bit of Slug Lamp had disappeared altogether.
Then he skipped across the counter, went down the steps of his ladder, and stood there in the dim, cool kitchen light, still balancing the plate of cookies. On the floor beside him, a petrified crocodile head sat with its jaws wide open.
“A dollop?” he said, bending down to inspect the razor-sharp teeth. “Ooh, eggcup, mush . . .”
“I don’t believe it!” Gertie shouted at the film. “Why doesn’t he try and escape?”
“I don’t get it,” Kolt said. “He knows they left the ship’s cabin door unlocked, it’s obvious. Just walk through it!”
Robot Rabbit Boy looked around and saw the front door of the cottage happened to be open too. He went toward it and just stood there.
“Just walk through it!” Gertie pleaded with the confused insect on the screen.
“C’mon, walk through it please!” came Kolt’s voice from the couch. And so Robot Rabbit Boy did. He walked through it.
There was a trail of Slug Lamp slime on the step. He followed it, which took him into the garden. Then another slime trail caught his eye. He followed that one all the way to the treasure chests.
Back in the cottage, Kolt and Gertie were on the edge of the velvet sofa, awaiting the big rescue.
“Hurry up with those cookies!” Kolt said, without turning around.
“Yeah, come on!” Gertie cried. “You’re missing the best bits.”
6
A Lost Rabbit
AN HOUR LATER, THE film ended. The pirates had been defeated by the insects. Big Skinny, the grasshopper king, was safe. Gertie and Kolt lounged on the couch under heavy sheep’s-wool blankets.
“Wish we had some insects warriors to round up those robotic hands,” Gertie said. “I always get a shock when one darts out from its hiding place.”
But Kolt appeared to be lost in his own thoughts.
Gerte’s mind wandered to her box of maps, which she hoped might lead her to where the trapped Keepers had been hidden.
The fire was low now.
Logs had burned down to red embers that radiated a deep warmth Gertie could feel in her bones.
Her eyelids were heavy with sleep. The cushions were like a warm nest. She was about to drag her body off the couch and down the corridor to her bedroom when she noticed cookie crumbs all over the floor.
She looked around. “Where’s Robot Rabbit Boy?”
Kolt rose with a yawn from the cozy bliss of blankets and cushions. He scanned the kitchen counters. “Wasn’t he getting more double-Dutch-chunk chocolate cookies?”
“Yes, but that was ages ago.” Gertie wrapped herself in the blanket and stood up. “Robot Rabbit Boy!” she called. “Where are you? Eggcup! Lavender!”
“I’m sure he’s around somewhere,” Kolt said. “Good film, wasn’t it? I’m so glad I dragged that television up from the basement.” He leaned over and collected cookie crumbs from the cushion by pushing on them with his finger. “The little chap probably went to sleep somewhere.”
Gertie laughed, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Still wrapped in her blanket, she took small steps toward the kitchen so as not to trip. She checked under the main table, in the big velvet chairs, in cupboards, behind doors, even under the sink. She even looked in some of the boxes that said DO NOT OPEN THIS BOX, EVER, which were mostly full of Kolt’s powders and potions, including newly discovered rhyming spice from a strange land where people communicated through songs.
But the fluffy mechanical rabbit who loved moonberry jam and Slug Lamps was nowhere to be found. Gertie checked his bed several times, but found only empty blankets, a few of his toys (chewed), and a few tufts of fur he must have pulled off during a bad dream.
Then she noticed the front door to the cottage.
“Kolt!” she said, with mild alarm. “The front door is open!”
Kolt was now slumbering lightly on the couch.
“Sorry? What? Who?” he said with his eyes still closed.
“The front door is open!”
“The front what . . . door?”
“It’s open!” Gertie repeated, an edge of urgency in her voice.
Kolt’s eyes gradually widened. He seemed surprised to find himself on the couch and not snug in his bed. “The door?” he said. “Open? Ah yes! I needed a draft for the chimney when the film was on . . . got smoky in here if you remember . . . I had to open it. Is it too cold?”
“I think Robot Rabbit Boy went outside.”
“Well,” Kolt said, sitting up now, “he is a curious little fellow.”
They both stared toward the open door, at the strip of darkness that led into the night.
“He’s been out alone before,” Kolt said.
“But never at night!”
“That’s true.”
“I know he’s a clever, self-powering, independent robot child with a high-powered deadly nose laser—but he’s also just a rabbit who likes lemon curd and moonberry jam.”
Gertie suddenly remembered the Spitfire, but it would be useless at night in the darkness.
Kolt had begun to search now too—even pulling out The History of Chickens and slipping through the secret door to peer up the tower where the B.D.B.U. lived.
“I don’t think he’s up there,” Gertie shouted, feeling a draft of frigid air, “because he can’t pull out the chicken book that opens the secret door.”
Kolt’s voice echoed from the dark stairwell. “Ah yes, good point.”
They flopped back down on the couch, now certain that Robot Rabbit Boy had gone outside and both feeling guilty for being too engrossed in the film to notice him slip away.
“We have to go after him,” Gertie said. “We must.”
“The garden is one thing, Gertie, but if—”
“Then we load up on Slug Lamps!”
“Yes, of course, but if he’s unlucky enough to have left the garden and stumbled into Fern Valley—or ventured beyond the Line of Stones, then we may have to take precautions.”
“I thought you said there were no millipedes in Fern Valley? That you made the story up?”
“I did, but there are still Attercoppe hives and Orispian Tunnelers who might find our little friend interesting enough to carry underground.”
“Would they eat him?” Gertie said, horrified at the thought.
“The Tunnelers? No, no, nothing like that—they collect things they find interesting and stor
e them away deep in the Tunnels of Bodwin.”
“What do they look like?”
“Imagine a dog with very strong, short legs, and the long head of a horse, and bright red eyes, and a tongue like a shoelace. They can live for hundreds of years down there, feeding on tree roots and coal. They’re more a nuisance than anything else, like those robotic hands. Sometimes they’ll steal things from the garden and take them underground.”
“What were those other things you said, that live in hives?”
“Attercoppes?”
Gertie nodded.
“Nothing to worry about, just your average giant flying spider.”
Gertie reeled in disgust. “Flying spiders! Eek. Do they sting?”
“Absolutely not. No Keeper in the history of Skuldark has ever been stung by an Attercoppe.”
“Phew, that’s a relief.”
“But they do have a nasty bite,” Kolt went on. “Don’t get bitten, or you’ll die in agony or turn into one yourself, depending on whether you have any Attercoppian DNA.”
Gertie felt sick and dizzy at the thought of Robot Rabbit Boy buzzing around with eight bulbous eyes after getting stung by an Attercoppe. She dropped her blanket, and hurried toward her bedroom in search of warm clothes.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m summoning myself for a rescue mission!”
With Attercoppes flying about, Gertie also decided she would bring her new ax, just in case. It had been presented to her on a mission as a token of thanks by a young Viking named Leif Erikson. Gertie had returned his lost map by signaling to his fleet of ships from the top of an iceberg off the coast of Greenland.
Gertie Milk and the Great Keeper Rescue Page 4