The professor and Leni made a run for it. The two henchmen gave chase. The pair ran as fast as they could, but no sooner had they made it to the hallway and headed for the front door, than Leni tripped on the edge of a Persian rug. The precious egg flew out of her hand and up into the air. It soared in a smooth, upward arc.
As it came down again, Leni groaned in agony. They’d got so close. Could it all be over for the poor dodo? Before it had even had a second chance?
In a flash, a chubby, gold-ringed hand appeared. And the precious egg fell right into the outstretched palm of Benny Shoober.
Lying on the hallway floor, Leni was aware of a woolly sensation in her mouth. But in a jiffy, Beanbag pulled her up off the rug, grabbed her arms and held them behind her back in a firm grasp. Pawpaw wasted no time in grabbing Professor Scissorson’s arms and doing the same to her.
“Ow, let go,” winced Leni, spitting out bits of fluff.
But Benny Shoober ignored her plea. “How kind of you both to visit,” said the tycoon with an evil smile on his face. He cradled the dodo egg in his palm.
“Give back our egg, NOW!” shouted the professor.
“Now, now, that’s no way to speak to your host,” said Shoober in a voice so calm it was menacing.
“I am curious, how did you know I had the egg?” he continued. He strolled around the statue of his wife and then fixed Leni with a stare. She pinched her lips together as if she might accidentally blurt it out. But her eyes darted to Popcorn, giving the game away anyway.
“Ah, the bird, was it?” said Shoober, glancing up at Popcorn. “Hmm, I don’t like birds. Especially ones that squawk.”
“Squawk!” repeated Popcorn, who had perched on the head of Giavanna’s statue, out of Shoober’s reach.
“He almost pecked my eyes out too, boss,” complained Pawpaw.
“Why did you steal the egg?” demanded Leni. “You don’t even like birds.”
“You’re right, I don’t,” answered Shoober simply. “And a silly, oversized pigeon is the last thing I want. It would only get in the way of my plans.”
This was what Leni had dreaded. Shoober didn’t want to keep the dodo, he wanted to destroy it.
“I’m afraid your dodo bird would be too…inconvenient,” he said carefully. “If it returns, those misguided eco-idiots will want to give it a piece of the jungle. I cannot allow a fat, flightless fool to scupper my plans for more fields of sweet, sweet sugar.
“And so the ridiculous bird must be destroyed before it can hatch!” he declared.
Leni was sure he was going to crush the egg right in front of them. “Noooo,” she cried out. “Don’t do it…PLEASE.”
To her surprise, Shoober stopped. “No, you’re right,” he said. “I don’t want to get egg white all over my rings. I’m going to take it to the Granulator.”
That didn’t sound any better than being crushed to death in his merciless fist. “What is the Granulator?” asked Leni. Her arms were beginning to ache but she wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
“Why don’t you come and see for yourselves?” said Shoober, sweet as a lemon. He nodded to Pawpaw and Beanbag. “Bring them up to the Granulator.”
Benny Shoober turned on his heel and walked out of the hallway, through the grand double doors at the front of the mansion and around to the vast sugar refinery. His henchmen frogmarched Leni and Professor Scissorson along in his wake, but in their haste, Popcorn was left behind. He let out a desperate caw but it was too late, the double doors swung back and imprisoned him. He watched in vain as they disappeared from view.
The Shoober Sugar factory wasn’t far from the mansion and it had two huge chimneys which billowed steam. This was the place where workers brought mountains of raw sugar cane and transformed it into mountains of sugar – and money – for the tycoon.
They soon reached the main warehouse, where Shoober pressed some buttons on a keypad.
“You and the workers, take the afternoon off,” he barked to somebody on the intercom. Then he added with a purr, “My treat.”
A few minutes later they were inside, and met with the sight of a working sugar factory in full swing. Cogs were rotating, drums were whirring, and steam was puffing out of the various vats around them. “Follow me,” said Shoober, still clutching the egg.
He approached a set of blue steel stairs, which led to an elevated walkway running across the warehouse. They were marched up the stairs, and came to a stop where the walkway widened out into a small platform near the centre of the whole operation.
Leni imagined that a sugar factory might look like a giant sweet shop, but nothing about this place looked yummy or tasty. Vats held sludgy substances in shades of stagnant pond green, murky mustard and curdled cream. Nearby, a giant rotating cylinder was throwing clods of something that looked like dried mud onto a conveyor belt. A huge tank with a little porthole window offered a snapshot view of some bubbling brown liquid. Above their heads, colossal bulk bags of sugar were lifted by a hoist and carried across the ceiling to a platform on the far side of the warehouse. It looked like the sort of place a human being could meet a nasty end, Leni thought. What chance did a little egg stand?
“Welcome to my factory,” announced Shoober. “This is where the magic happens.”
He studied the egg in his hand. “But not for everybody. Today we say goodbye to our friend the dodo. I’m sorry, but you’re extinct already, so really, what difference does it make?” A cruel smile formed on his lips. “And take comfort in this: the Granulator is very quick.”
He was standing alongside the top of a large blue storage tank, with a trap door set into it. “The Granulator is like a big centrifuge,” Shoober explained, opening the hatch. Leni recalled the centrifuge she’d unpacked for Professor Scissorson back at her hut. This was in a totally different league. She looked down at the monstrous, spinning drum inside, where sugar was whirring at supersonic speed, and caught her breath.
“The sugar cane comes up to the machine,” said Shoober, pointing to a wide conveyor belt that was steadily bringing it upwards. “When it goes into the centrifuge, the force of the spinning separates the sugar into crystals and molasses. Molasses is a by-product of the sugar-making process.” He pointed to another tank nearby, the one containing the brown gloopy-looking liquid behind the porthole.
Professor Scissorson narrowed her eyes and, in a terse voice, said, “Thanks for the guided tour. But you’re not putting my egg in there.”
Shoober just smirked. “I like a sweet coffee,” he replied. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll stir it into my espresso tomorrow morning. That’s it. A dodo egg-spresso!” He chuckled at his own joke.
“The dodo hasn’t even had a second chance at life and you want to destroy it!” exclaimed Professor Scissorson. “And for what? For money. Is that all you care about? Money?” She wriggled in frustration but Pawpaw just gripped her more tightly.
“Silence!” shouted Shoober. The buttons of his shirt strained under his belly as he puffed out his chest like a rooster. “I am the mighty Benny Shoober. And nobody messes with me.”
The tycoon held the egg over the gaping open chasm, about to drop the dodo to its doom.
Leni’s despair was tearing her apart. How could this be happening? The dodo’s de-extinction had started in a mini centrifuge. Now it looked like it was about to be re-extincted in a giant one.
And then, out of the corner of her eye, Leni saw something moving across the ceiling. Could it be one of the factory workers? She looked up.
But it wasn’t any of the factory workers. Instead, trundling towards them in three giant sugar bags suspended from the ceiling, were Marion, Mimi and Professor Flowers. They swooped down from above like three brave superheroes (only in slow motion). The professor was in the middle bag, flanked by Marion and Mimi – both armed with mops.
“What the?” gasped the gobsmacked Shoober. But the cleaners had already jumped out of their bags.
“Gotcha!” yelled Marion. The pair clobbered the two he
nchmen on the head, knocking them out in an instant. They slumped to the floor, releasing Leni and Professor Scissorson.
The cleaners then threw their mops into the gaping centrifuge and with an unhealthy groan, the huge machine ground to a halt.
The shocked Sugar King was rooted to the spot. Seizing his chance, Professor Flowers clambered out of his bulk bag and swiped the egg right out of Benny Shoober’s palm. And in his politest English accent, he said, “I think you’ll find this is Professor Scissorson’s, old chap.”
“Professor Flowers!” whooped Leni. Professor Scissorson’s jaw dropped. But Benny Shoober’s entire face seemed to suffer a landslide. The cleaners grabbed the tycoon and put him in a double armlock.
“Let me go!” Shoober shouted. The Sugar King was strong, but he was no match for the brute force of the cleaning women, strengthened by years of vacuuming, scrubbing and mopping.
“How dare you take my egg?” Shoober barked at Professor Flowers.
“It’s not yours, actually,” replied the old man brightly. “And now I’m returning it to its rightful owner.” And with that, Professor Flowers stretched out his arm to Professor Scissorson, and said, “I think this egg belongs to you.”
Professor Scissorson was totally bowled over and, with a trembling hand, she took the egg.
Underneath them, Leni noticed that the tank of molasses was making gurgling noises and a small amber light on its side had started to flash. Through the little porthole, Leni could see the gloop getting angrier.
Then she looked at the egg in Professor Scissorson’s hand. Was she seeing things, or were there a couple of hairline cracks just starting to appear?
“The dodo!” she exclaimed. “It’s starting to hatch!”
Leni noticed a buzz of excitement between the two professors. They’d both seen a lot of eggs hatch in their time, but none quite like this one. Meanwhile, Shoober squirmed, trying to escape the cleaners. “Stay still, you,” growled Marion. “You’re not going anywhere.”
And then, before their very eyes, out of the little white eggshell, a tiny, tiny beak emerged. Ever so slowly, a little damp-feathered wingtip poked out. Then the entire wing, a head and finally the body of a baby bird emerged and flopped onto Professor Scissorson’s outstretched palm, as if it had just finished a mammoth race. Here it was – the world’s first de-extincted dodo.
The professor had tears in her eyes. “My precious baby,” she cried, cradling the new hatchling. The squab had wet, grey down and big dark eyes, with the lids still closed. Leni had never seen anything so beautiful.
“It’s the cutest thing ever. Look at its gangly legs and tucked-in little wings,” marvelled Leni. “But you can tell it’s a dodo. Check out the shape of its beak. It couldn’t be anything else!”
“Her beak,” said Professor Scissorson.
Professor Flowers looked at her.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Dead set,” she replied. “I DNA-tested the egg before it hatched, to find out.”
The dodo was alive and kicking. And she was hungry. “We’ve got to get the squab back to her adoptive mum and dad as soon as possible,” said Professor Scissorson.
Shoober was glowering, but in the firm grip of the cleaners and with his two henchmen out cold at his feet, there was nothing he could do.
“This sucks!” he shouted, stamping his foot. “Who needs dumb dodos? Or kestrels, or parakeets or pesky pink pigeons? Have you all gone MAD? The world has enough silly birds! What we need is sugar! More sweet, sensational, scrumptious sugar!
“You’ll regret the day you ever de-extincted the dodo,” he snarled. “You maniacs! And you!” he addressed Marion and Mimi. “You will pay for this. I’ll ruin you and your business! I’ll make sure you never clean another toilet on this island!”
Leni half expected to hear Popcorn squawk “Island!” and then she realized he wasn’t there. “Where’s Popcorn?” she said. A bad feeling started creeping into her stomach and it churned like the molasses in the tank.
An eerie silence hung in the vast warehouse, broken only by the occasional sound of bubbling gloop. Leni tried to think back to when she’d last seen Popcorn.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” Everybody spun round to see a figure in thigh-high leopard-print boots and a pink miniskirt. She had enormous earrings, huge hair, and larger-than-life lips. She stood there pouting and holding a golden bird cage. It was Giavanna.
“Popcorn!” shouted Leni. She started to run to the parakeet. “Thank goodness you’re safe.”
“Not so fast, little girl,” said Giavanna in her scratchy-sweet voice. She gripped the cage tightly.
“I think you have something I want...”
A new dread crept into Leni’s heart. Oh no, what could she be after? Shoober looked relieved. “Thank you for coming to get me, sweetlips,” he sighed.
“It’s not you I’m after,” snapped Giavanna. To Leni’s surprise, she turned her gaze on the baby dodo. “It’s this little beauty I want,” she purred.
Shoober was stupefied. “But sweetlips, please! You’ve got to help me,” he cried.
“Quit jabbering, you idiot,” she shot back.
Giavanna bent down and brought her face up to the baby bird in Professor Scissorson’s hand. The professor instinctively tried to pull back, but the woman gripped her wrist with her long-taloned fingers. Leni thought she was going to kiss the dodo but she simply breathed on her. She seemed besotted by the hatchling.
Releasing her grip, Giavanna stood up straight again and said, “I don’t know what my husband was thinking, trying to destroy this beautiful bird.” She threw a withering glance at him. “What a tragedy that would have been.”
Leni breathed a sigh of relief.
“She’s an exquisite creature,” Giavanna carried on. “I want this dodo for myself. And she is going to be kept very much alive.”
Now Leni wondered what the catch was. There had to be one, surely. Why did Giavanna want the dodo? Shoober looked confused too, as did Marion, Mimi and both professors.
“I’ve tried every anti-ageing treatment going,” Giavanna said. “From rubbing coyote urine into my neck to bathing in hippo’s milk. But nothing has worked…”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” began Shoober weakly.
“Shuddup, you!” Giavanna snapped at her husband.
“By the way, you can do what you like with him,” Giavanna told the cleaners. “I don’t care. In fact, you’d be doing me a favour if you polished him off.”
At this, Benny began to collapse, like a bouncy castle at the end of a party.
Leni couldn’t believe it – Giavanna was even more vile than her husband, if that was actually possible.
“I never thought I’d see this day. But here it is. The secret to looking young for ever is finally here. And it is mine! All mine.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Leni. “What secret?”
“You’re so young, my dear, such things don’t matter to you. Let me fill you in,” explained Giavanna. “When dodos were first discovered on Mauritius, centuries ago, we know that the European explorers sometimes ate them. But they also discovered that for those poor sailors suffering from scurvy, eating dodo eggs led to a miraculous recovery.”
Professor Flowers looked dismayed. Professor Scissorson looked disgusted. And Leni looked at Giavanna in utter disbelief.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Giavanna. “It happened almost overnight. There was something in the eggs that turned scurvy-sufferers’ skin from spotty and purply to glowing again, and their swollen and bleeding gums back to radiant smiles.
“And it gets even better,” she went on. “Not only did they cure their scurvy, but the explorers soon found that eating dodo eggs also had rejuvenating qualities – made them all look ten years younger! As you can imagine, the eggs became the most in-demand luxury food of the seventeenth century. But when dodos died out, so did the key to looking young for ever.”
Professor Scissorson was shaking her head.
“As long as I can remember I’ve dreamed of trying a dodo egg,” Giavanna declared. “But I never thought it would be possible… Until now.”
Muppa had never mentioned anything about dodo eggs having anti-ageing effects and it sounded like a very tall story. Leni wondered where Giavanna had heard such nonsense.
“Now I will have an endless supply of eggs! I’ll get a special hutch made, keep the dodo in my garden and eat her eggs whenever she lays them!” Giavanna gazed at the defenceless little bird. “And I will look young for ever!” She dangled Popcorn’s cage and swung it from left to right, making him giddy on his perch.
“It’s all rubbish,” said Leni. “You’ve been told a giant fib, Mrs Shoober.” She felt sorry for this desperate woman.
“Hmph, well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” said Giavanna.
But Professor Flowers backed Leni up. “Leni’s right, there’s no truth in your story,” he said. “You’ve been tricked, I’m sorry to say. Now if you’d just hand over the parakeet, we’ll forget all about it – and you won’t be left with egg on your face.”
“Pah!” spat Giavanna. Then her face brightened again. “I’ll have boiled dodo eggs with toasted soldiers, dodo egg and cress sandwiches and dodo egg omelette! Ha ha ha!” Her laugh could have grated cheese.
“Oh no you won’t,” cut in Professor Scissorson. “My dodo is a no-go.”
“Oh really? And I suppose you don’t want your friend the parakeet back?” threatened Giavanna. And with that she opened the cage door and took Popcorn out by the throat.
“If you don’t give me the dodo, the parakeet gets it,” she stated bluntly.
Giavanna tightened her grasp on Popcorn, making his eyes bulge and her knuckles whiten.
“Hand over the dodo, or I’ll extinctify your little green friend,” she hissed. “And I don’t even care if it ruins my nails.”
The Great Dodo Comeback Page 8
