Alligator Action (4 page)

“I've seen this before,” said Josh, taking the key as Danny carefully peeled off the gloves. “It's the key to Petty's shed . . . and her old laboratory.” He gulped. “The next instruction is ‘Exit back on all fours.'”

Quickly, they unbolted the back door and crawled across the threshold. Two inches above Josh's burnt hair, three arrows shot across from one side of the doorway, embedding themselves in the wooden frame. A foul-smelling liquid oozed from the wounds they made in the paintwork. “Poison tipped,” whispered Danny with a gulp.

It was a relief to be in the back garden. The weeds grew above their heads, so they bashed a path through to the shed without any fear of being seen
from nearby houses. The key fit into the padlock on the shed. In a few seconds, they were inside. They passed the neglected old lawnmower, the pointless wheelbarrow, and the never-used rake. They stopped at the hidden door at the back of the shed.

It felt very odd to go down into Petty's old underground lab, knowing that she was not in it. It had always smelled pretty weird. But now it also smelled neglected and damp.

Josh found a switch on the wall just inside the door. He switched it on. Light flooded through the room. It had once been filled with Petty's stuff, but now it was empty apart from some trestle
tables, shelves, and boxes. In a booth in the corner was a very old computer. Petty had new ones at the new lab, and this one now looked ready for the trash heap.

“Eeerm . . . how long have we been in here?” Josh asked, suddenly sounding panicky.

“Dunno,” Danny said, staring around at the forlorn ex-lab.

“Because . . . Number Eight says, “‘One minute from red door.'” And I don't like the sound of that.”

Nor did Danny. He checked his watch. “Maybe thirty seconds?” he guessed. “What's Number Nine?”

“Working lunch,” whispered Josh, his eyes wide and fearful as he checked his own watch. “Ten seconds to work that out, I think!”

“There's no work going on here!” whimpered Danny. “Nothing! Except . . . wait!” He ran toward the little booth with its ancient computer.

“Danny—we've got to get out!” said Josh. He could feel something rumbling under his feet.

“I think this could be it!” Danny had found a lunchbox by the computer in the booth—which was shaking. Quite a lot.

“DANNY! COME OUT NOW!” yelled Josh. “Something's happening! Something BAD!”

Danny could feel that for himself. The rumbling was getting louder. And there was a hissing and screeching noise joining it. The ground was trembling under his feet.

“
COME ON! RUN!
” shrieked Josh, hanging on to the doorway as the whole room began to sway.

Danny wanted to run. But it wasn't easy. A huge crack had just opened up across the center of the floor.

The crack tore itself open right in front of Danny's eyes. The earth beneath it seemed to dissolve away. A red glow and a gassy smell rose up from it. Then suddenly—flames leapt up! Danny shrieked. Josh bellowed, “JUUUUUMP! Jump NOW! Before it's TOO LATE!!”

Danny was on a little shelf of ground with the computer booth just behind him. The shelf was beginning to crumble away. Incredibly, Petty had built some kind of collapsing pit over a gas fire trap! He had to jump now, or there would be nothing left to jump from. Below him, in the widening chasm, there were hissing and grinding and whining noises. Flames were shooting up higher. He shoved the lunchbox down his shirt, coughing as the gas caught in his throat. It was now or never. Danny jumped.

He leapt across the fire pit, his arms waving frantically through the air. He crashed into the rough edge of the crumbling floor. He would have slipped into the pit if Josh hadn't grabbed his wrists and pulled him up. “Come on!” screamed Josh. He looked terrified. And he had every reason to be. The whole room was breaking apart. The old corrugated iron ceiling was shaking and buckling. Dirt and grit cascaded down. As Josh and Danny scrambled back up the tunnel toward the shed, there was a huge
WHUMP
behind them. Glancing back, they saw the roof fall in. Dirt, grit, roots, and old brick tumbled into the flaming pit. Josh and Danny flung themselves through the metal door to the shed, across the wooden floor, and out into the garden. They landed in the tall weeds just as the shed collapsed. It tilted over toward the back and then just fell apart as if it were made of playing cards. The mower and the wheelbarrow stayed put on the floor. The wooden walls and the roof slithered to the ground. Rakes, hoes, and spades tumbled with it. Plastic plant pots bounced across the wreckage.

Then . . . silence. In the garden, all evidence of what had just happened seemed to evaporate along with a cloud of dust. After a minute, the birds started singing again. Josh and Danny walked carefully across to the shed and peered at the back, where the doorway and the tunnel had once been. Tugging up the collapsed wooden panels, they found the back wall and the red door lying flat. And when they pulled the door up, they found nothing but dirt and grit and rubble beneath it. No sign of any secret passage to an underground lab. Nothing.

“Petty set it to self-destruct,” marveled Josh. “So if anyone went in for longer than a minute . . .
boom
! Everything gone.”

“Not everything,” Danny said. And he pulled a small metal lunchbox out of his shirt. Sitting down in the tall weeds, they carefully opened it. Inside, set tightly into black foam, were twenty-one small plastic spray bottles, each about the size of a cotton reel. There was a label on each. The first label read “SPIDER.” The seventh label read “FROG.” The twenty-first label read “ALLIGATOR.”

“Wow!” Danny stared at Josh in amazement. “It's the complete set of Petty's S.W.I.T.C.H. sprays! Every single one!”

“And you think she left them for us?” queried Josh.

“Well—let's find out!” Danny said, and he pulled out a slim, silver gadget from the box. There was a label on it that read “PLAY ME.” It was a digital recording device. Danny pressed PLAY, and a familiar voice rang out.

“Aaahh! If that's Josh and Danny listening—well done! And if it's not Josh and Danny, bad luck. This device is set to explode if it picks up traces of DNA from anyone else. So . . . three . . . two . . . one . . . BYEEEEEE.”

Josh and Danny edged back from the box.

“But if I'm still talking, it is you, Josh and Danny. Good work, boys! Good work. I hope you didn't find the self-destruct system in the lab too troublesome. Rest assured that there is nothing left down there now except rubble and mud. No possible way for Victor Crouch to find any trace of my S.W.I.T.C.H. project. Now—in the box is a complete set of all the sprays I have made so far. And if you've got them, it must mean that I have gone missing, presumed dead. Yes . . . I'm most likely dead.”

Josh and Danny grimaced at each other.

“And oh—what a loss to science!” lamented the voice. “How utterly, utterly terrible! But you—Josh and Danny—you must carry on my work!”

“Us?” Danny looked appalled. “We're not genius scientists! We're eight!”

“Now don't start getting all spluttery, Danny,” went on Petty, as if she was right there with them. “And Josh—you will need your sensible head on. Contact the editor of
New Scientist
magazine and tell him everything! I want the whole world to
know what a genius I am. Or was. Oh . . . .” Petty had a little sniff. “
What
a loss . . .
what
a terrible loss....”