Beetle Queen

by M. G. Leonard

  Bertolt squealed and covered his eyes.

  Darkus was transfixed. He’d never seen anyone eat a spider.

  ‘It’s not that different from seafood or vegetable tempura,’ the professor said, after he’d swallowed.

  ‘But why . . . ?’ Darkus struggled to word his question without sounding rude.

  ‘A personal project really.’ He lifted a skewer of grilled crickets and dipped it in the peanut sauce. ‘I’ve been a vegetarian most of my life. I don’t eat meat because I don’t wish to be a part of the aggressive factory farming that the demand for animal meat has created. It’s not sustainable and it’s damaging the planet.’

  ‘But I like burgers,’ Virginia said, ‘and bacon sandwiches!’

  ‘Oh yes, me too, Virginia, me too, they are delicious,’ Professor Appleyard agreed, ‘but the human race is growing at such a fierce rate that even if we chop every forest to the ground to raise cattle, there won’t be enough meat to feed the world’s population in a few years.’

  ‘We mustn’t chop the rainforests down!’ Bertolt said, distressed.

  ‘I agree.’ Professor Appleyard nodded. ‘But if there is not enough meat to feed the people on this planet, then what will they eat?’

  ‘Vegetables?’ Virginia suggested, looking at the fried spiders.

  ‘If you live in a wealthy country you can buy a rich mix of vegetables, but not elsewhere. However, there is a way to farm animals that are high in protein but don’t require masses of land and feed.’

  ‘Insect meat?’ Darkus guessed, although he’d never thought of insects being meaty.

  ‘Insect protein.’ Professor Appleyard nodded, taking a cricket between his teeth, sliding it off the skewer and munching on it happily. ‘In the West we have a strange relationship with insects. We’d never think of eating them, but one day we may have no choice. Although in some of the fanciest restaurants they are an expensive delicacy.’

  Virginia snorted out a laugh. ‘That can’t be true!’

  ‘It is! There’s a lovely restaurant in Denmark that serves ants, and they taste of peppermint.’

  ‘Those tanks in the hall?’ Darkus looked over his shoulder.

  ‘My own miniature insect farm. I rear my own food. I like to keep everything alive and fresh for as long as possible before it’s cooked and then they are killed humanely by freezing them. All my insects are bred for food – well, apart from the ones in the meditation room – and I’m working on an insect cookbook,’ Professor Appleyard said proudly. ‘It’s my retirement project.’

  ‘No one’s going to buy an insect cookbook!’ Virginia scoffed.

  ‘I’m trying to invent recipes that make insects as tasty as possible,’ Professor Appleyard said, smiling politely at Virginia. ‘You’d be doing me a great service if you’d try these and let me know what you think.’

  ‘Yeah, Darkus,’ Virginia’s eyes lit up, ‘try one.’

  ‘You try one,’ he shot back.

  ‘I’ll eat one if you do.’ Virginia dared him.

  ‘Spider or cricket?’ Darkus asked.

  ‘Spider.’

  ‘I don’t have to eat one, do I?’ Bertolt whispered, looking a little green.

  ‘You’ve got to eat the whole thing and swallow it,’ Darkus said to Virginia, grabbing the smallest spider he could see on the plate.

  ‘Deal.’ Virginia picked up a crispy arachnid between her thumb and forefinger.

  They looked at each other and bit into their spiders at the same time.

  Darkus pushed the whole spider into his mouth at once, and tried to make a noise like he was enjoying it, but it came out like a groan. Virginia bit off a leg, her face contorting as she struggled to control her disgust. Bertolt giggled, clamping both hands over his mouth. Darkus tried to blank his mind and focus on the taste, but he kept picturing a big fat hairy spider inside his mouth.

  Professor Appleyard leant forwards. ‘How does it taste?’ he asked. ‘Is it nutty?’

  Bertolt exploded into peals of laughter as Darkus and Virginia frantically chewed and swallowed.

  ‘Wasn’t so bad,’ Darkus said, his face twisted with disgust.

  Virginia was holding half a spider away from her face as if it smelt bad. ‘If you don’t stop laughing I’ll shove this down your throat.’ She waggled it at Bertolt, who shrieked.

  ‘Now, now, you’re making an awful fuss. They really don’t taste bad at all.’ Using chopsticks, the professor lifted another tarantula, seasoned it, and popped it in his mouth. ‘Perhaps you should have dipped yours in the satay sauce.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Darkus wasn’t so sure satay sauce would make eating a spider any nicer.

  ‘Think of it this way,’ Professor Appleyard said, ‘you don’t have problems eating a hamburger, do you?’

  Darkus shook his head.

  ‘Isn’t it as peculiar a concept to eat a cow as it is to eat a spider?’

  ‘But a hamburger doesn’t look like a cow!’ Virginia held up her half-eaten tarantula. ‘This looks like a spider.’

  ‘Maybe if it didn’t look like a spider it wouldn’t be so bad,’ Darkus agreed.

  ‘Perhaps that’s the trick,’ Professor Appleyard nodded. ‘For us, eating is about what it looks, smells and tastes like, but in some places eating is about not starving.’

  Darkus thought about what the professor was saying. He tried to imagine being really hungry, the kind of hungry you get at the end of the school day when you are on your way home and you know that dinner is hours away. He picked up a skewer of crickets, dipped it in the peanut sauce, and slid one off with his teeth, copying the professor.

  ‘Actually, the crickets aren’t that bad,’ he said to Virginia and Bertolt.

  ‘Such noble beasts,’ Professor Appleyard said. ‘Your father’s love affair is with the beetle, but mine is with the cricket. I find their singing to be one of the most calming sounds.’

  ‘Singing?’

  ‘Yes.’ The professor slid back from the table and walked to a door on the far side of the room, opening it a sliver. ‘Come and listen.’

  An orchestra of chirps throbbed away inside the room.

  ‘This is my mediation room,’ Professor Appleyard replied, letting the door swing open as the children gathered around him. It was a boxroom with a curtain of white linen covering the window, and the wooden floor was clear except for a blue mat. Large bleached branches, the size of saplings, leant against the walls, and sitting on the branches were hundreds of crickets, singing a melancholy song.

  Darkus ran his tongue over his teeth, feeling guilty about having eaten one.

  ‘I come here to clear my mind and meditate on life.’ The professor smiled.

  ‘You have a room especially for thinking?’ Virginia asked.

  ‘Thinking is as important as eating and washing and sleeping. There are rooms for all those things.’

  ‘We have a place like this,’ Bertolt said. ‘It’s filled with beetles and we go there to try and work things out. We call it Base Camp.’

  Darkus smiled at Bertolt, and remembered why they were here. ‘Professor, we need to talk to you about our beetles.’

  ‘Of course, how can I help you?’ he said.

  ‘Our beetles are transgenic,’ Darkus said, ‘made by Lucretia Cutter. We know she’s breeding beetles, but we don’t know why.’

  ‘Transgenic?’ Professor Appleyard leant against the wall and exhaled. ‘Lucretia Cutter’s breeding beetles?’ He looked at Darkus, his eyes wide. ‘Are you sure?’

  Darkus nodded.

  ‘We think it’s something to do with the Fabre Project,’ Virginia added. ‘That was your project, wasn’t it?’

  Professor Appleyard covered his face with his hands and took a deep breath before answering. ‘It was your father that persuaded me to invite Lucy Johnstone on to the Fabre Project,’ he said. ‘She was truly brilliant. A different girl back then. Barty had got her all excited about beetles.’ He shook his head. ‘Of course, it was your mother’s join
ing the team that really shook things up. Once Bartholomew set his eyes on Esme, he could think of little else.’ He looked at Darkus. ‘Your mother used to make the most incredible insect paella, you know. I wish I had that recipe.’

  ‘Mum ate bugs?’

  ‘Of course! She was an ecologist. She was very interested in the relationship between humans and their food.’

  Darkus’s insides lurched. It felt wrong when other people talked knowledgeably about his mother.

  ‘Do you know why Lucretia Cutter would want to breed lots of transgenic beetles?’ Bertolt asked, wringing his hands as he waited for the answer.

  ‘She could have many reasons,’ the professor replied. ‘In a balanced ecosystem beetles are not a threat, but if an aggressive species is introduced in large numbers, they can wreak havoc.’ He stood up straight, and it was as if he was talking to himself. ‘An invasive species of wood-boring beetle can reduce a forest to a graveyard of dead trees in less than a week.’

  ‘Why would she go to the effort of making lots of beetles to destroy a forest?’ Virginia frowned. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘In the second world war, the Germans believed that the Russians had bombed them with potato weevil larvae,’ Professor Appleyard took off his glasses and polished them with the corner of his linen shirt, ‘to destroy the potato crop, starve the people and break morale.’ He put his glasses back on. ‘In the diary of the Russian entomologist Alexander Konstantinovich Mordvilko, there are references to the weevil bomb . . .’

  ‘It was real?’ Bertolt asked.

  ‘Beetles used as weapons?’ Darkus had never heard of that before.

  Professor Appleyard nodded. ‘Invisible weapons, that no one takes seriously, until they are starving.’

  ‘How many beetles would you need to breed to make a weapon?’ Bertolt asked.

  ‘Gazillions.’ Virginia looked at Darkus. ‘Lucretia Cutter can’t make a gazillion beetles in Towering Heights. She must be doing it somewhere else.’

  ‘In her laboratory in the East End – where Spencer Crips worked,’ Darkus said.

  ‘But why would she want that kind of weapon?’ Bertolt asked.

  ‘Money, maybe?’ Professor Appleyard frowned. ‘Perhaps she’s developing a technology she hopes to sell.’

  ‘But she’s already wealthy,’ Bertolt pointed out.

  ‘For some people, what they have is never enough, no matter how great.’ Professor Appleyard stared into a time gone by and shook his head. ‘The world would not be enough for that woman.’

  ‘Dad said something like that, when he was in hospital.’ Darkus looked at Virginia and Bertolt. ‘He said, “Lucretia Cutter will not stop until she has the world at her feet.”’

  ‘One of the fundamental flaws of the Fabre Project was that, in our hope to achieve something truly great, we failed to consider the risks.’ Professor Appleyard shook his head.

  ‘Risks?’ Darkus echoed.

  ‘A small change in an ecosystem can cause a massive shift. No matter how you try and control the impact of changes you make to a species, there’s no insurance against nature taking control, of evolution powering forward and making decisions you might not have wanted. A biological beetle weapon could be disastrous for the human race.’ His voice petered out into a whisper.

  Darkus looked at Virginia and Bertolt. ‘That sounds bad.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Professor Appleyard shook his head. ‘What am I thinking? You mustn’t listen to a word I’m saying.’ He ushered them out into the hall, to the tank containing their beetles. ‘I’m scaring you unnecessarily. Don’t listen to me.’ He patted Darkus’s back. ‘I’m afraid you must be on your way now – I’ve got things I need to do. I’m very busy.’ He lifted the lid, and they each reached in and picked up their arthropod. ‘You mustn’t worry about Lucretia Cutter. She really isn’t your concern. I’ll talk to your father about it. Thank you for your visit – it’s always lovely to see a Cuttle.’ The professor smiled brightly, pushing the children out into the hall and closing the door on them before they could even say goodbye.

  Once the door was closed, Professor Appleyard shuffled back through his flat, his hand over his hammering heart. If Lucretia Cutter was breeding transgenic beetles, he was going to have to do something about it. He went to his meditation room and sat down cross-legged on the blue mat, breathing in slowly through his nose, closing his eyes, and breathing out through his mouth.

  Behind him, a lemon-yellow ladybird with eleven black spots on its elytra clambered in through the open window.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Daedalus Complex

  ‘Where have you been?’

  The force of the anger in his father’s voice shocked Darkus. He halted in the living-room doorway, Virginia bumping into his back.

  Bartholomew Cuttle was standing in front of Uncle Max’s sofa, his fists clenched by his sides. Frown lines were visible at the corners of his mouth. The absence of a beard made him look thinner and younger.

  ‘I, I mean, we, errr . . .’ Darkus stammered, unable to hold his father’s stare.

  ‘Virginia, Bertolt, you’re to go home immediately,’ his father said. ‘Your parents are waiting for you. Darkus is grounded.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Bertolt said, blinking frantically.

  ‘From tomorrow, you are forbidden from seeing him.’

  ‘What! Why? That’s not fair!’ Virginia’s hands jumped to her hips. ‘We haven’t done anything wrong!’

  ‘Sir, whatever your reasoning,’ Bertolt gabbled, breathlessly, ‘I’m sure we—’

  ‘You still haven’t answered my question.’ Bartholomew Cuttle looked back at Darkus, cutting off Bertolt. ‘Where have you been?’

  Darkus looked at Uncle Max, who was standing in front of the mantelpiece, his shoulders stooped and head bowed.

  ‘Nowhere, um, we . . .’ Darkus had never seen his dad like this. It frightened him.

  ‘Never mind. I don’t want you to lie to me. I know where you’ve been.’ Bartholomew Cuttle sank down into the sofa. ‘The police called. The three of you were seen leaving Andrew’s home.’

  ‘The police?’ Bertolt gasped.

  Darkus looked at his dad, goosebumps springing up all over his body as he tried to read his expression. ‘What’s happened?’

  His father rubbed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. ‘Andrew’s in hospital, in a coma. He’s in a critical condition.’ He looked at Darkus. ‘They don’t expect him to wake up.’

  ‘What! How?’ Darkus felt his stomach spasm with fear. His father’s face was as grey as old chewing gum.

  ‘They think it might have been some kind of insect bite.’

  ‘Insect bite?’ Darkus thought of the yellow ladybird in the Tic-Tac box back at Base Camp. It had bitten Virginia.

  ‘It’s her!’ Bertolt looked at Virginia, his eyes wide. ‘She did it.’

  Virginia’s hands fell from her waist, slack with shock. ‘But . . . but he was fine! He was making us eat spiders and telling us all about—’ She glanced at Darkus.

  ‘What was he telling you?’ His father’s steely voice made Darkus’s heart skip anxiously.

  Virginia’s bottom lip trembled.

  ‘He was telling us about his bug cookbook,’ Darkus said, feeling a surge of anger, ‘and how Mum used to make a delicious insect paella.’

  A strangled noise came from his father’s throat.

  Bertolt took Virginia’s hand and tugged her backwards. ‘Come on,’ he whispered. ‘I think we should go home.’

  Virginia locked eyes with Darkus. He could see she didn’t want to leave him.

  ‘I’ll see you at school,’ he said, with a nod to reassure her.

  She nodded back, and left with Bertolt. Uncle Max followed them, to see them out. Darkus heard the front door close and Uncle Max’s footsteps retreat to the kitchen.

  ‘You won’t be going back to King Ethelred Hall High School,’ his father said.

  Darkus frowned. ‘What?�
�

  ‘You’ve been through a lot, Darkus. A break will do you good. Uncle Max can tutor you so you don’t fall behind, and then, when we’re able to return home, you can go back to your old school in Crystal Palace.’

  ‘When we’re able to go home? What does that mean?’

  ‘Darkus, listen to me, please. I need you to do as I ask. You need to be somewhere safe.’

  ‘What’s wrong with here?’ Darkus stuck out his chin.

  ‘Darkus, we are living above a mountain of Lucretia Cutter’s beetles, and she’s looking for them. Do you think she won’t come for them? Because she will.’ The hard look in his eyes softened and he shook his head. ‘I’ve racked my brains. I can’t think of anywhere that would take them. They will have to fend for themselves, but it’s too risky for you to stay.’

  ‘We could all move away?’ Darkus suggested. ‘Together.’

  ‘No, I want you away from the beetles.’ Bartholomew Cuttle looked at Baxter, who sat unmoving on Darkus’s shoulder. ‘All of them.’

  ‘NO!’ Darkus looked at his dad with horror. ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘Darkus . . . Lucretia Cutter, she’s going to do something terrible.’ A desperate look sent his father’s blue eyes darting about the room.

  ‘Then we’ll stop her,’ Darkus said, stepping towards his dad. ‘Together. Us and the beetles, they can help, they can—’

  ‘No.’ His father’s face hardened. ‘Darkus, you’re to stay out of this. You’re my son, it’s my job to protect you. I will not let Lucretia Cutter harm you again.’

  ‘Can’t you tell someone? The army? Or the government? There must be someone who can help!’

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve tried?’ He gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Lucretia Cutter is powerful.’

  ‘I will never leave Baxter, ever.’ Darkus folded his arms across his chest. ‘If the beetles aren’t coming with us, then I’m staying right here.’

  ‘Darkus, that’s enough. You have no say in this.’

  ‘I’m not going.’ Darkus stamped his foot. ‘You can’t make me.’

  ‘Darkus, please. This is not a game. I’m trying to do what’s best for you.’