The Curiosity Machine

by Richard Newsome

  Gerald lifted it out. This time, the tiny tube contained a glittering blue liquid that almost pulsed with vitality when Gerald held it up to the light. ‘This looks a bit more potent,’ he said.

  Sam held out his hands. ‘Here, toss it over,’ he said. ‘I’ll give our millipede another bath.’

  Gerald drew back his hand and was about to throw the capsule to Sam when a voice froze him in place.

  ‘What in the name of blinking blue blazes do you think you’re playing at?’

  Professor Knox McElderry filled the doorway. Gerald had barely turned his head when the burly Scotsman stormed into the hangar. The man’s red beard was as wild as an untrimmed hedge and his eyebrows as unruly as a primary-school break-up party.

  ‘Professor McElderry!’ Gerald was astonished at the transformation of his old friend. When he had last seen him in the cellars of the Billionaires’ Club, the professor had been dosed to the eyeballs on some potion. But now he looked fit, focused and fierce.

  McElderry brushed past Felicity and Ruby in a juggernaut of rolling rage. Gerald could just make out the anxious faces of Mr Fry and Mrs Rutherford over the professor’s shoulder before McElderry was on him, bellowing like a shot bull.

  ‘Don’t you dare throw that!’ he bawled, spittle spraying from his whiskered lips. McElderry grasped Gerald’s wrist and twisted it. Gerald yelped with pain.

  ‘Give it to me, laddie,’ McElderry said, squeezing so hard Gerald thought his arm might break. The ampoule slipped into the professor’s cupped hand, and McElderry cradled it as if it was a newborn chick.

  Gerald fell back and nursed his arm. He glared at the professor. ‘What’s your problem?’ he said. ‘What does that thing even do?’

  McElderry did not shift his eyes from the glass capsule that nested in his meaty palm. ‘Never you mind,’ he said. ‘Tell me how you did it. How did you get the mixture so pure? Can it be done again?’

  When Gerald didn’t respond straight away McElderry advanced on him, and yelled, ‘Tell me!’

  Gerald flinched. ‘Uh, we used the key,’ he said. ‘It seemed to make everything click into place.’

  The professor glanced towards the console. Gerald took a step towards the door, but just as quickly McElderry took a step to block his way.

  The professor screwed his right eye shut and clenched his empty hand tight, as if it was all he could do to restrain himself from beating Gerald to a pulp.

  ‘Key?’ McElderry said, spraying Gerald in spit and indignation. ‘How the devil did you—don’t bother answering. It’ll only make me mad. Just tell me where it is.’

  Ruby spoke up from near the console. ‘It’s over here,’ she said. The tiny golden key dangled on its chain, which was draped over her finger.

  McElderry thrust out his hand. ‘Give it to me,’ he demanded. ‘Give it to me now.’

  Ruby stood firm. Her fingers spidered the chain up into her hand and she shot a glance at Gerald. ‘Maybe we should leave the professor here and just be on our way.’ She said it as casually as if suggesting they pop out for a cup of tea and a scone.

  McElderry barrelled towards her, like an overheated steam train running off the rails. ‘Give it,’ he said. ‘I won’t ask again.’

  Ruby went to run but the professor caught her and snatched hold of her wrist. ‘Ow, you’re hurting me,’ she gasped. She tried to twist free but McElderry’s grip was absolute.

  ‘I’ve come this far,’ the professor said through clenched teeth. ‘I won’t have everything put at risk so close to the end.’ He wrenched Ruby’s arm.

  Her cry of pain was silenced by a howl as McElderry collapsed to the floor in a screaming heap, rolling in agony. Ruby looked in surprise at the sight of Mrs Rutherford, who was tapping an iron pipe into the palm of her left hand.

  ‘Mrs Rutherford!’ Ruby said in astonishment.

  The housekeeper clicked her tongue as she peered down her nose at the writhing form of Professor McElderry. ‘Honestly,’ she said. ‘Anyone would think the man had never been kneecapped before. Miss Ruby, I suggest you all toddle along now. Judging by the professor’s appalling language, his mood is unlikely to improve anytime soon. And judging by the volume, security can’t be that far away.’

  ‘You and Mr Fry should come with us,’ Gerald said to his housekeeper. ‘It’ll take more than an iron bar to deal with Mason Green’s guards.’

  ‘We would just slow you down, Master Gerald,’ Mrs Rutherford said, and she gave a knowing dip of her head towards McElderry where he rolled on the floor, clutching his knee. ‘It’s not like me or Mr Fry has the first notion where you children plan on going.’

  Gerald smiled. He wrapped his arms around Mrs Rutherford and squeezed a surprised ‘Oh!’ from her ribs. ‘You’re the best,’ he said.

  Mrs Rutherford’s cheeks shone red. ‘Toddle on now, Master Gerald. And you all take care. This island is not for the weak of heart.’ A moan floated up from the floor and she gazed with disdain at its source. ‘Oh, put a cork in it, Knox. You’ll get no sympathy from me, you great hairy pillock.’

  Gerald whipped his backpack to his shoulder and he and Ruby ran to join Sam and Felicity at the doorway.

  ‘Nice work there, champ,’ Sam said to Mr Fry as they dashed outside. ‘It’s good to know that Mrs R has a sidekick to watch out for her from way back here.’

  The butler arched an eyebrow and sniffed. ‘Mrs Rutherford is more than capable of looking after herself.’

  ‘Lucky for you,’ Sam said. ‘Otherwise you might actually have to do something.’

  They didn’t wait for Mr Fry’s response. McElderry screamed his bloody revenge as the four of them ran along the boardwalk into the deep, dark jungle.

  Chapter 27

  They heard the first whoop of the sirens as they cleared the boardwalk at the jungle’s edge. They jumped onto a sandy expanse of low-scrubby land that ran down to a broad stream that cut across their way.

  Felicity led the trek but her brisk jog soon dropped back to a walk when Sam called out for a breather. ‘We must have gone a kilometre by now,’ he said, puffing. ‘Green and his goons don’t know which way we’re going so we should be right to walk for a bit, surely.’

  Gerald and Ruby fell in behind Sam, and the little procession made its way along the bank of the stream. Thick clumps of rushes lined the waterway that bubbled towards the ocean. In the far distance, the sirens faded and the bush around them returned to the buzz and chirrup of flying insects and tropical birds.

  Gerald nudged shoulders with Ruby. ‘That was pretty clever of me, don’t you think,’ he said.

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Figuring out how to work the curiosity machine,’ he said. ‘You saw how that bucket of rusty bolts started running like clockwork once I turned the key.’

  Ruby pulled the golden key from her pocket and draped the chain around her neck, tucking it under her polo shirt. ‘Clever, maybe,’ she said. ‘But probably not very smart.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You saw the look on Professor McElderry’s face when he held that capsule up to the light,’ she said. ‘I thought he was going to burst an artery or something. Whatever that blue liquid is, it’s what he has been trying to produce out of that contraption.’

  ‘And now he has a nice working sample of it,’ Felicity said.

  ‘Do you think he’ll spray the millipede with it?’ Sam asked.

  ‘You’d have to think so,’ Gerald said. ‘It looked like he’d sprayed the poor thing with every other dose he’d made.’

  Ruby shivered at the memory of the writhing creature in the box. ‘That thing was disgusting,’ she said. ‘What do you think the blue spray will do to it? All the purple one seemed to do was make it sneeze and go to sleep.’

  Sam’s eyes popped wide. ‘I bet it’s a superfast growth drug that turns ordinary yucky things into extraordinary yucky things. Just look at the scorpion that took a fancy to Ruby, and the Venus flytrap that tried to eat me. Those things ar
en’t natural.’

  Gerald considered this for a moment. ‘So that blue liquid is another magic potion made from a recipe in the Voynich manuscript, but to perfect it you first have to build the curiosity machine? I guess that makes sense, and it sounds just the type of thing old Emperor Rudolph would have been into.’

  ‘What about the perpetual motion machine?’ Ruby asked.

  Gerald jostled the backpack on his shoulder. The weight of the stainless steel sphere inside bounced against his back. ‘Ursus said it was the power source for the machine,’ he said. ‘There was a hollow space on the control console where it would fit. Maybe it’s like the key: the machine operates at its best when it’s powered by perpetual motion and not just Sam cranking the handle.’

  They were making good time along the sandy bank, putting greater and greater distance between them and the compound. The sun was getting lower in the afternoon sky, but it still carried a smothering heat. The bridge Mr Fry mentioned couldn’t be much further away.

  Sam and Felicity kept up a rapid pace, and Gerald and Ruby fell a step or so behind. ‘It hasn’t been much of a birthday, has it?’ Ruby said, flashing Gerald an impish grin.

  ‘It won’t be one I forget,’ he said. They walked on in silence for a while. Then Gerald said, ‘Look, about when we were on the deck of the Archer, just before the gunmen came on board.’ He saw Ruby tighten her jaw. ‘You were, you know, crying—’

  ‘I was not,’ Ruby protested.

  ‘Well, you were. You were crying and you blamed me for inheriting all Great Aunt Geraldine’s money. And you called me a big dope.’

  ‘A big dope? Really?’ Ruby stared at the back of Sam’s head. ‘That seems an extraordinary thing for me to say.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ Gerald said. ‘It sort of demands an explanation, don’t you think?’

  Ruby’s molars clamped tighter. ‘We can all agree that your birthday has been a bit of a bust, Gerald. Let’s try to not make it a heartbreaking disaster as well.’

  Before Gerald could reply, Sam’s voice carried back to them. ‘What do you think, Gerald? Felicity and I have been trying to figure out how Mason Green can turn his insta-humungous bug spray into a trillion-dollar business. The best we can come up with is he’ll either cash in with butterfly freaks like Jasper Mantle by selling them monster moths to add to their collections, or—’

  ‘Or,’ Felicity continued, ‘he has bought up every can of insect spray in the world and will sell his to people for a thousand dollars apiece.’

  Gerald and Ruby laughed, for the first time in what felt like a very long time.

  ‘I think that’s the bridge just ahead,’ Felicity said. ‘Oh. It looks a bit dire.’

  The bridge was constructed from short timber planks and its rickety way was made even more precarious by the water that raced across the top of the boards.

  ‘Either the stream has risen or the bridge has dropped,’ Ruby said. ‘Either way, it looks like we’re going to get our feet wet.’

  Felicity screwed up her nose. ‘I hate walking in wet socks. I’m taking them off.’ She sat and unlaced her left sneaker.

  Sam sat on the sand beside her, tugging at his own shoes. ‘You might consider doing the same, Ruby,’ he said. ‘You could kill every fish in there if you wash your socks in it.’ Sam stopped what he was doing and wrinkled his brow. ‘What do you think this is?’ he asked. He reached into a tangle of reeds and pulled out a flat white triangle, bigger than his hand. ‘It looks like it’s made of bone.’

  Gerald spared Sam a quick glance. ‘Then it’s probably a bone,’ he said.

  Sam turned the flat shape in his hand. ‘It’s pretty big. Shoulder blade from a cow, maybe?’

  Ruby wafted a sock under Sam’s nose. ‘Maybe Mason Green has been using his insta-huge spray on rats,’ she said. ‘Just imagine that.’

  Sam shoved Ruby hard with both hands, sending her rolling onto her back. ‘Don’t even joke about that,’ he said. He flicked the bone triangle at Ruby like a wonky frisbee.

  Ruby ducked and the piece of bone shot into the bush behind her. ‘You overthink things, Sam,’ she said. She yanked off her shoes with a grunt, then tied the laces together and draped the sneakers around her neck.

  Sam grumbled to himself. ‘At least I don’t overstink things.’

  Felicity tied her sneakers in the same way as Ruby, and put a tentative foot on the first board of the bridge. ‘It’s slippery,’ she said. ‘Be careful everyone.’

  Sam followed after her. ‘It’s so hot we should just swim across,’ he said.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there were piranhas,’ Felicity said. The water lapped at her ankles as she moved slow step by slow step, arms outstretched like a tightrope walker.

  ‘Or rats in aqualungs,’ Ruby said from behind Sam.

  Her brother stopped halfway across the bridge and flung her a filthy look over his shoulder. ‘I am going to give you such an enormous wedgie when you get to the other side,’ he muttered.

  Ruby snuffled a victory laugh and followed him out across the stream. Gerald waited for her to get a few metres ahead. It was at times like this that he wished he had a twin; they made such excellent targets.

  Felicity jumped the last step and landed on the sandy path on the far side, graceful as a ballerina. ‘Simple as that,’ she said, spinning on her toes to face her friends as they continued their crossing. Sam, then Ruby, soon joined her. Gerald eased his way across the slimy boards. His right foot hit a particularly slippery patch and shot forward, almost landing him in the splits in the middle of the bridge.

  ‘Careful,’ Felicity called out to him. ‘No one is going to carry you if you twist an ankle, princess.’

  Sam raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s a very Ruby thing to say.’

  Felicity shrugged one shoulder. ‘Sometimes a simple truth can be very liberating.’ She looked up at Gerald as he righted himself. ‘Hurry up,’ she called again. ‘You’re slower than Aunt Marjorie’s labrador.’

  Gerald stopped midstream and gave Felicity a quizzical look. ‘That doesn’t even make sense.’

  Felicity raised her nose an inch in the air, and sniffed. ‘It would if you knew my Aunt Marjorie,’ she said.

  As Gerald lifted his foot to take another step, the water behind him turned a turgid black. Great bubbles bloomed on the surface and a colossal creature surged from the water. Twin rows of jagged teeth parted wide and clamped tight around the pack on Gerald’s back. Gerald was pulled flat to the waterlogged boards as the giant crocodile landed on the bridge with a splintering whack!

  One of the backpack straps snapped but the other held firm, tethering Gerald to the croc’s back as the monster reptile rolled off the bridge and plunged into the stream.

  Gerald’s world turned in dizzying circles. All he could think of as the croc spun were two words: death roll. Gerald had seen enough nature documentaries to know the death roll was the ultimate killing manoeuvre. A croc would drag an unsuspecting cow into a river and spin the beast until it drowned, then wedge the carcass under the bank and leave it to rot to make the eating easier. Gerald held his breath for all he was worth. He had no intention of being stuffed into a reptile pantry like some sack of soggy potatoes. The strap dug deep into his right shoulder, winding tighter and tighter like a twisted rubber band. Gerald’s face broke the surface and he caught a quick gulp of air before pitching once more into the wash that boiled and seethed like a witch’s cauldron. He had to get free of the backpack. It was his only hope, before the crocodile lost its taste for St Cuthbert’s backpacks and decided to sample a St Cuthbert’s student.

  Gerald tensed his stomach muscles and threw himself into the crocodile’s side. In the tumult of thrashing bodies something had to break. Finally, the strap gave way. Gerald spun from the crocodile’s death grip and his head broke the surface. Ruby, Felicity and Sam were screaming at him to get out of the water.

  Gerald wiped his eyes clear and saw that he was only a few metres from the bridg
e. He kicked out and swam against the current to the wooden platform and scrambled up and out of the stream. Instinct kicked in and he raced to the closest bank and collapsed onto the sand. He gazed at the water’s surface. It flowed as serenely as a Wordsworth poem. There was no sign of the crocodile and no hint of the battle that had just taken place.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Ruby’s voice carried across from the far bank. ‘Gerald, are you hurt?’

  Gerald sat in the sand and looked across the stream to his friends. He had not seen such worried expressions since the last time he narrowly cheated certain death. ‘I’ve lost the perpetual motion machine,’ he called back to Ruby. ‘That was our back-up plan.’

  Ruby sighed. ‘Never mind about that,’ she said. ‘We’ll just have to make sure Sam’s plan works first time.’

  Gerald dragged himself to his feet and stared at the waterlogged planks that stretched ahead of him.

  ‘I’m sure the croc is long gone,’ Ruby called out to him.

  Gerald stretched out a tentative foot and felt the water’s cool flow about his ankle. He sucked in a calming breath to still his shakes, and took another step. He was a third of the way across the stream when the crocodile launched out of the water and landed on the bridge, blocking his way to the far bank. The impact juddered Gerald from his feet and he dropped hard onto his backside. His eyes shot up as the beast in front of him grinned with evil intent. Gerald’s body went into lockdown. His legs refused to do the obvious thing. Then the crocodile opened its jaws, revealing rows of cream-coloured triangular teeth, each one bigger than a boy’s hand.