by Robert West
“He’s talking about us!” Scilla interrupted him.
“ ‘I knew that I had to take a chance on one more treatment.’ ” Beamer kept on reading.
“What kinda chance?” Scilla asked, getting more and more agitated. In frustration, she took the book from Beamer and turned to the last page with writing on it. “ ‘I put her to sleep,’ ” she read, “ ‘but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. One more treatment may be too much for her little body to stand.’ ” Scilla finished reading. “He’s gonna kill her!”
17
Bug Juice
“Come on, we’ve gotta go for help!” Scilla said as she pushed Beamer and Ghoulie toward the window. But Ghoulie slipped away for a closer view of the bank of monitors. He had seen enough cop shows with lab technicians glued to microscopes to recognize body cells. “I bet that’s Alana’s bloodstream up there in lights.”
“Ghoulie!” Beamer whispered a yell back at him as Scilla handed him the book and stepped through the window. “Let’s get going!”
“That’s funny,” Ghoulie mumbled after a moment’s hesitation. “The date on the screen is nearly two months ago.” He punched a button and his face screwed up even more in puzzlement. But before he had time to think things through, Beamer dragged him to the window.
“Come on,” Beamer said as he pushed him through the window. “He could come back any time!”
They scrambled blindly through the tree looking for the tunnel. As high as they were, the branches were much thinner. The sun broke through the foliage in bright bursts, blinding them as they moved back and forth from shadow into light. They didn’t get very far, though, before they knew something was wrong.
“Hey, I can’t move!” Ghoulie yelped.
“Me neither!” Scilla squealed as she tried to pull her arms free.
“We’re caught in a web,” Beamer yelled, “ — a big one!”
“Molgotha’s got another web?” Scilla cried.
“Either that or she’s twins,” Ghoulie groaned, remembering how Mrs. Drummond had turned out to be triplets.
They shouted for help until their voices turned to sandpaper. Nobody heard them.
One hour passed, then two. Beamer flinched every time a branch rocked or a gust of wind churned up the leaves. He was sure that Molgotha was coming for a few slurps of human juice.
Of course, you can be scared out of your wits for only so long. “Looks like we’re going to be grounded again,” Beamer croaked with a crooked grin and a shrug. The sun was already dipping below the treetops.
“I wonder what we were going to have for dinner,” said Ghoulie.
“Considering our present predicament, that’s not a good subject,” grumbled Beamer.
“I don’t suppose we can hope that Molgotha is nice like Charlotte, the spider from Charlotte’s Web?” Scilla asked dejectedly. “I was just beginning to look forward to my first better-than-average report card.”
“What are you worried about, Bruzelski?” asked Ghoulie. “There aren’t enough juices in you for one good slurp. Molgotha will probably just step right over you.”
“So I’ll just shrivel up from dehydration?” she shot back at him. “Thanks for the encouragement.”
“It’s really not all that uncomfortable,” Beamer said as he wiggled to make the web bounce. “Sort of like sitting in a hammock.”
“Oh, good grief!” Ghoulie said with a huge sigh.
“Might as well catch up on my reading while I wait for dinner,” Beamer said as he raised Dr. Franck’s book. Beamer was glued to the giant spiderweb from his elbows back, but his forearms and hands were free. It wasn’t easy, but he managed to flip the pages to where the wrinkling started. He scrunched up his face thoughtfully: “Four years and two months ago, huh? Now that I think about it, that’s about the time his wife died.”
Scilla jerked her head around and screwed up her face thoughtfully. “D’ya suppose those wrinkled pages and all those ink smears were caused by . . . tears?”
“That’s what I think,” said Beamer as he struggled to turn a few more pages. “A few months later, the wrinkling gets less. Hey! Here’s when he starts a new project. It’s called, ‘Time Machine.’ ”
“Whoa! That’s pretty spooky,” Scilla said. “Isn’t that what he called Alana’s aging?”
No one said anything for several minutes. Then — “How long do you suppose before he finally decides to do whatever he’s gonna do?” Scilla asked weakly, looking through the branches toward the dark attic window.
“Could be any time,” Beamer said. “He can’t just leave her there sleeping forever.”
“Not that whatever he does is going to get us out of this predicament,” grumbled Ghoulie. “What’s that?!” he cried out suddenly.
Beamer heard the panic in Ghoulie’s voice. The web bounced a little and then a dark shadow crossed above them. They all screeched and screamed at once!
Some heavy-duty praying — at least a few moments of silence — might be appropriate for the demise of the Star-Fighters. And, of course, if they’re gone, that’s “all she wrote” for Alana. It might even make a good news story if anyone ever found their shriveled remains. Not too many people climb to the top of such tall trees these days. Their only chance of discovery might be a very low-flying plane or a kite caught in the tree — one expensive enough that someone would climb way up to retrieve it.
Beamer didn’t see Molgotha’s disgusting body looming above them. His eyes were closed as tightly as if he’d used superglue and a coat of cement. He wasn’t doing much breathing either. Given a spider’s usual diet of flies and small bugs, the kids must have looked pretty tasty to the old spider.
Beamer felt the heat of the beast. A leg brushed him. Panic was building inside him like a time bomb. The web shook and jolted, but then the shaking and rustling began to fade. He should have been a cocoon by now, but he didn’t feel like it. He peeped one eye open and looked around. “Hey, guys, where’d she go?”
“Shut up,” said Scilla with a voice that sounded more like a squeak. “You’ll draw her attention to us.”
“No, I mean it,” said Beamer as he opened both eyes. “She’s gone!” That’s when he almost fell. “Aii!” he yelped as the strands of web beneath him broke off. He grabbed a branch and held on. Then he smiled. “She cut us free!”
“What?” asked Ghoulie, who suddenly flipped over. “Yiii!” he screeched as he dangled upside down with only one strand of spider silk holding his foot.
“Why would she do that?” Scilla asked in disbelief. She squiggled around, trying to get free. “Oh . . . I hate to admit it,” said Scilla from the side of her mouth, “but I think you’re right. She didn’t notice me. I’m here just as stiff as before, so would you guys get over here and get me loose!”
That’s what they eventually did. It took longer than it might have. For one thing, spider silk is stronger than steel for its size, and Molgotha’s silk was pretty thick. You couldn’t just snip it loose even if you happened to have some scissors. They had to wiggle each strand free from a tree branch. Another reason was that Ghoulie kept talking about how it was impossible for a spider to have set them free. “Anything that gets caught in the web — anything — the spider cocoons to be eaten later. Even another spider gets eaten if it wanders into her web. It must have been an accident.”
“Ghoulie, pipe down!” Beamer said.
“In fact, she should have been here, waiting in the center of the web when we dropped in for her dinner,” Ghoulie kept on saying, as if he hadn’t heard Beamer. “Come to think of it, garden spiders aren’t supposed to put their webs this high up in a tree either.”
Finally, when Beamer and Ghoulie freed Scilla, she too almost fell down. “Men!” she grumbled. “Y’all have got no attention to detail at all. Come on, let’s go get help.”
As if she’d given a verbal command, a light flashed on in the attic window.
“We don’t have time to go for help,” Beamer sputtered. “W
e’re gonna have to save her ourselves.”
The good news was that Dr. Franck hadn’t bothered to close the window. The bad news was that he was standing in a pool of light next to Alana, filling a syringe with a milky fluid.
Normally, kids are not known for being particularly quiet, but today was an exception. They slipped into the attic and scooted around the wall like mice, keeping in the shadows.
When the man finished filling his syringe, Scilla broke the silence. “What are you doing to Alana? She’s no lab rat, ya’ know!”
He looked confused, unable to see them in the dark outreaches of the attic. “I’m not trying to hurt her. I’m trying to save her!” He looked like he was speaking to a ghost, defending his actions.
“Why don’t you take her to a hospital?” Scilla said, keeping up the attack. “You’re no doctor — at least not that kind of doctor.”
“I’ve tried all kinds of doctors. No one knows how to save her!” There were tears in his eyes. The man suddenly collapsed, sinking to the floor against a tall cabinet. There, with his elbows balanced on his knees, he held his head in his hands and cried. “I’m the one who caused her to be like this,” he finally said between sobs. “I killed my wife and disfigured my daughter.”
18
Lab Rats
It would have been easier to take if he’d said, “The sky is falling!”
Scilla was clearly rattled. “But . . . but . . . d’ya mean you murdered your wife?” she gasped.
“Not intentionally. She . . . my wife . . . brought Alana to work with her one day,” he said as he struggled back to his feet. “She was only seven at the time.” He walked over and leaned against the table with the computer monitors on the shelf above. “She wasn’t supposed to be there. It was a maximum-security area, but my wife wanted her to see where we worked.” He turned back toward the kids, still unable to see them in the shadows. It was almost as if he were talking to himself, remembering. “I was so happy to see her. I picked her up.” His voice choked. “She always . . . giggled when I spun her around above my head. So . . . that’s what I did.”
“That doesn’t sound like something a murderer would do,” Scilla whispered to Beamer standing next to her.
“Oh, how she laughed,” the man said with tears in his eyes. “But then her feet struck a bottle.” His voice again broke. “The bottle flew off the shelf and broke on the floor next to my wife. I brought Alana down into my arms but froze, not knowing what to do. Soon, the alarm screamed. My wife collapsed to the floor. I set Alana down, pushing her behind me, and rushed toward my wife. But before I got to her, hands were grabbing me and pulling me away from her. I kept crying out my wife’s name, trying to break free, but they pulled me back through the air lock. One glass door slammed in place before me then another, cutting me and my fellow workers off from the infected area — the area where my wife lay on the floor!”
“But what happened to Alana?” Scilla asked anxiously.
He almost lost it, his body heaving with sobs, but he fought them back and went on. “I looked through the crowd of scientists and lab technicians trying to find Alana, and then I turned back and saw her still in the room with her mother. She was so little, shorter than the lab table, that nobody had seen her disappear around to the other side of it. I screamed for someone to open the door. Then some people in those anti-contamination suits showed up and went through the air lock to get them.”
Oh, yeah, Beamer thought, now that part sounded pretty cool. I wonder what it’s like, wearing one of those things that look like rumpled, plastic space suits.
Mr. Franck took some deep breaths before he went on, talking as he walked to Alana’s bedside. “It was too late for my wife. She was already . . . dead. Alana, suffering less exposure to the toxic chemical, lived. In fact, she seemed fine at first. I was so relieved. But a couple months later her skin began looking thin and pale. The chemical had caused specific cells to mutate. A month after that the first wrinkles began to appear. My daughter was racing toward old age.”
“Whoa, that’s awful,” Beamer murmured with a gulp.
“But it doesn’t sound like it was really your fault,” Scilla said more loudly. “I mean, it was Alana’s foot that — ”
“But it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been so stupid!” he said as he rushed back to the table and banged his fist on it. “I knew that the area was dangerous. I was careless.”
The scientist’s expression changed, like he suddenly real-ized that real people, not ghosts, were talking to him. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” he asked angrily as he walked toward them. “Are you the children who traumatized her?” he said through clenched teeth. Suddenly he grabbed Scilla and shoved her into an animal specimen cage. “I can’t have you causing her any more harm.” He tripped Beamer as he and Ghoulie tried to get past him. He caught Ghoulie by the back of his collar and flung him into another cage.
“We didn’t come here to hurt her,” Beamer protested as the man dragged him into a third cage and locked the door. “We came to help her!”
“I don’t believe you,” he growled at them. “I know how you children treat anyone who is . . . different. At any rate, I can’t let you stop me from doing what I have to do, even if it means that I have to break all the laws of man and God.”
Whoa, that was a lot of lawbreaking. Beamer remembered the Ten Commandments, of course. But just from the few laws he heard about in Solomon Parker’s case, the laws of men must be up there in the zillions.
The man’s face softened, though, when he returned to his daughter. “Even as you are, you are beautiful to me, but I want you to be a normal girl — to have friends,” he said gently to her.
“I am a geneticist, you know,” Dr. Franck said, looking back at the kids in the cages. “I know how to do things with . . . the genetic code. I had only worked with plants, though, but I found a source for human DNA and began working with those genes identified with aging. It isn’t legal. I could end up in jail, but I don’t care as long as I can cure my daughter.”
“Do you know about DNA?” Ghoulie whispered to Scilla like a talking encyclopedia.
“Yes, I know about genes and all that stuff,” Scilla whispered angrily. “You may be a grade ahead of me and a genius, but I’m not stupid!”
“Okay, okay,” Ghoulie whispered. “I just wasn’t sure you knew that it’s the DNA code that gives you stuff like the color of your eyes and hair, the shape of your face, and — ”
“I got it!” whispered Scilla again.
“I’ve tried every variation of gene therapy I could think of trying to slow her growth rate,” Alana’s father said. He swallowed hard. “But nothing has worked.”
Beamer didn’t notice when Scilla’s fingers, which were playing aimlessly on the cage door, accidentally tripped open the latch.
“I have one more drug combination to try,” Alana’s father said gently to his daughter, his voice breaking, “but . . . it is the most dangerous one of all. It might . . . cost you your . . . life.” He noticeably sagged, his hands on the bed, bracing himself as he leaned over her. Then he straightened, his face taking on a harder expression, and walked back to the table. “But maybe that’s just as well — better death than to live a life alone and friendless.”
“But she’s not friendless!” Scilla yelled at him. “We’re her friends.”
“Liar!” he shouted back at her. “Be quiet.”
“Hey, y’all,” Scilla whispered at Beamer and Ghoulie when Dr. Franck looked away. “Hey, y’all,” she whispered louder.
“What?” Beamer whispered. Then he saw Ghoulie’s eyes pop open. A lightbulb had definitely gone on in Ghoulie’s supercharged brain.
The man again picked up the syringe.
“Don’t do it, Dr. Franck,” Ghoulie yelled. “You have your miracle! Go ahead. Check the latest cell activity.”
“I have given her no new medications for the past two months,” he answered as he wiped tears from his eyes. “
There is no reason to expect that anything has changed.” But he hesitated, giving Ghoulie a long look. Then he seemed to dismiss whatever he was thinking. “What do you care, anyway?”
“Listen to me, you two!” Scilla whispered again. “Ani-mals may not be able to open these cages, but humans can.”
Beamer looked at her and finally got it. “You’ve gotta trust in God, Mr. Franck,” Beamer said as he fingered his cage latch. “I don’t know how, but he will work things out for Alana. That’s what my mom and dad have taught me since I was old enough to talk.”
Scilla quietly slipped outside her cage to help the others.
Again, Alana’s father hesitated. “Why should I believe you? You hurt my little girl.”
“But we didn’t mean to!” Beamer exclaimed. “We’ve played with Alana. We care about her. God cares about her too. I mean, I think he’s the one who brought us to her. Don’t do this to her!”
“No, I have to fix her,” Dr. Franck said, his voice choking. Once again he looked at the level of the liquid in the syringe.
“Check the readings on the monitor!” Ghoulie shouted to him again. “I’m telling the truth!”
Suddenly Beamer got his cage door open. He ran toward the doctor. “You can’t do it!” he shouted, taking him to the floor before he could inject the fluid into Alana.
While Beamer tried to wrestle the syringe out of the scientist’s hand, Ghoulie burst out of his cage and ran over to the monitor. He hit a key to display Alana’s current cell activity. “Look, Dr. Franck! Here it is, just like I said.”
Dr. Franck, who had just grabbed back his syringe, looked up at the screen and gasped. “I don’t understand it.” He let go of Beamer, stood up, and walked over to the screen. He tapped some more keys, looked at a screen showing Alana’s cells two months ago, and tapped the keyboard again to see the current results. “You’re right. The cells are not mutating as quickly as they were the last time I tested her. In fact, they look almost normal!”
