The Amphiblets (16 page)

The first thing Will was aware of when he woke was the pounding in his head. He rolled over in bed, groaning loudly.

‘He’s awake!’ said a voice.

Will turned to its owner and grunted. ‘Who the hell are you?’ He stared at Riley with a bewildered expression. ‘Where am I? What am I doing here? Where’s Peter?’

‘Will. It’s me – Riley. Don’t worry, you’re safe now.’

Will’s frown relaxed as he studied the face before him. Now that he had time to think and wake up properly, he recalled the photographs Hugo had shown him. ‘Riley? Is that you?’

Riley nodded. Neither of them knew what to say next. Then as if on cue, the two reached towards one another and hugged, before laughing as they had when they were children.

‘I thought I would never see you, again,’ said Will, excitedly. ‘When the Professor moved house with you, I thought I had lost you for good. Though when Hugo arrived unexpectedly at our door, I hoped there was a chance I might see you again. Where’s Ed?’

‘I’m here,’ said a voice by the door, and Ed limped into the room on crutches.

‘What happened to you?’ asked Will.

‘The Professor shot me,’ Ed explained. Will gasped. ‘It’s a long story.’

Will dashed out of bed and ran towards Ed, embracing his brother. He had been cruelly taken from them eight years ago but now the brothers were reunited. Everything was going to be all right. Riley joined them and the three boys held one another close.

‘I can’t you believe you’ve been alive all this time!’ said Ed, sniffing and wiping his tears on his sleeve. ‘And I can’t believe that Hugo knew all the while but was too frightened to tell us.’

Will was smiling properly for the first time in ages. Then all of a sudden his smile vanished as he remembered what had happened to Hugo. ‘Oh, no!’ he whispered, tears stinging his eyes.

‘What is it?’ asked Riley and Ed together.

‘Something awful happened,’ he explained. ‘I remembered something. Hugo’s dead!’

‘We know,’ said Riley, gently. ‘The Professor told us what happened. It wasn’t your fault, Will. You were angry and poison was secreted from your glands. You weren’t to know. If anyone was to blame it was the Professor – not you. He was the one that created us.’

‘So you know!’ gasped Will. ‘How did you find out?’

‘Ed had drawn a picture of the convention and I happened to notice he had drawn a logo so I went on the internet to search for it. I came across a website, which had the Professor’s picture on it. Except it wasn’t the Professor …’

‘Yes, it was!’ Ed butted in. ‘I’ve already told you there’s an exact likeness.’

‘Yes, but the picture was taken eighty years ago,’ said Riley, ‘so it couldn’t have been him.’

‘Huh?’ asked Will, confused.

So the two brothers explained everything to Will of what they had discovered. How there was a man who was supposedly the Professor’s father who was identical to the Professor. And how they had found a disk, with the video footage of their mother and themselves when they were babies.

‘I’ve still got the disk!’ said Ed, proudly. ‘It’s in my bag.’

‘I want to see it, later’ said Will. ‘The Professor is much older than we think he is. He’s been around for ages though I don’t know how he managed it. Peter will explain it to you. He knows an awful lot.’

‘Peter?’ asked Ed.

‘Yes, my dad. I must tell him where I am. He’ll be worried sick. So will Scarlet and Ruby.’

‘Who are they?’ asked the two brothers together.

‘Peter adopted me, and then Scarlet married Peter,’ explained Will. ‘Ruby is Scarlet’s daughter. You know, the one we first met at Professor Kyle’s house.’

‘The one that disappeared!’ gasped Ed and Riley together.

‘Yes, there’s a reason for that,’ said Will awkwardly. ‘She’s not exactly from this region.’

‘So where is she from?’ asked Riley.

Will pointed his finger to the ceiling. ‘From outer space.’

Riley and Ed broke into laughter.

‘How funny! They say girls are a different species,’ said Riley.

‘Oh, do they?’ said a voice from behind them. Elisha was smiling with her hand on her hip in the doorway. ‘Well, perhaps that’s why we’re more intelligent.’

‘Who’s that?’ whispered Will.

‘Will, meet Elisha. We rescued her from her kidnapper,’ explained Ed, going forwards to meet her. He held on to her elbow, much to Will’s surprise.

‘It’s nice to meet you, Will,’ replied Elisha, holding Ed gently. ‘I’ve been waiting to see you for ages, but Dad told me not to come up here. In the end I decided to sneak up anyway.’

Will noticed that she wasn’t looking directly at him. He frowned. What was wrong with her eyes?

‘Elisha, I need to make a phone call to my dad,’ Will explained.

At the mention of the word ‘Dad’, Riley and Ed exchanged another glance.

‘I thought you might,’ she smiled and withdrew a phone from her pocket. ‘Use this.’ She reached out and Riley took the phone from her to pass to Will.

‘Thanks.’ He dialled and waited. A breathless voice answered.

‘Hello?’

‘Ruby, it’s me, Will!’

‘Oh, my God!’ she screamed. ‘Mum! Dad! It’s Will! Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m not sure.’ So he asked the others. ‘Where am I?’

‘At my house,’ Elisha told him. ‘In Richmond. It’s called Great Green Hall.’

‘Will, Dad wants to speak to you. I’m going to pass you over.’

‘Will, are you okay son?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine, Dad.’ Will smiled at his father’s concern. 

‘Where are you?’

‘I’m at a house called Great Green Hall in Richmond.’

‘Is the Professor with you?’

‘No. I don’t know where he is,’ said Will. ‘I’m with my two brothers.’

There was a pause. ‘I’ll be there in a jiffy,’ said Peter.

Three minutes later there was a commotion in the hallway. Voices were raised in a panic. Riley and Will rushed from the room, while Ed carefully escorted Elisha.

‘How did you get in here?’ they heard the housekeeper ask. ‘You can’t enter this property without being invited! What happened to the security guards?’

‘I can do what I like! I’m here for my son!’ snapped the visitor.

Will immediately recognised her voice and leapt over the banister, landing at the woman’s feet. ‘Scarlet!’

‘Will!’ Scarlet pulled him into her arms and held him tight. ‘We’ve been so worried about you.’

‘How did you get here so quickly?’ he asked.

Scarlet made a face. ‘I was in the area, searching for you,’ she said in such a way that Will knew she meant,
I’ll tell you later but not in front of all these people
.

Elisha’s father appeared in the doorway next to a rather anxious-looking housekeeper.

‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, frowning.

‘I’m so sorry to come barging in here,’ Scarlet apologised. ‘I wanted to make sure Will was safe. You see the last time we saw Will was when the Professor had taken him away. I wasn’t sure what situation he was in. Please accept my apologies.’

‘Apologies accepted,’ said Bob, puzzled by the intrusion. ‘Might I offer you some refreshments?’

‘Yes, that would be lovely. But would you mind the rest of my family coming in?’

‘Not at all. The more the merrier.’ He nodded to the housekeeper who immediately went to open the door.

‘You can come in!’ she called.

Ruby was the first to appear. As soon as she saw Will she flung her arms around him and squeezed him so tight he could hardly breathe. Peter came in next and did the same thing.

‘I thought I had lost you for good,’ he whispered, wiping a tear from his eye. ‘I don’t ever want to lose you again.’

Will smiled sadly and bit his lower lip. He withdrew from Peter’s embrace. ‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ he whispered.

‘Do what?’ asked Peter.

‘Kill Hugo. I loved Hugo. I’d never have wanted to hurt him.’ Will rested his head on Peter’s chest and sobbed.

‘Hey, today is not a time for sadness. Here, I have a surprise for you.’

Will sniffed and accepted the tissue that the housekeeper offered him. He noticed that Riley and Ed were peering at him from the banister. Peter went to the door and whistled. The housekeeper screamed, collapsing on the spot. Scarlet and Bob rushed to her aid.

Peter was laughing. ‘Don’t worry, he has that effect on most people.’

Bob glanced towards the door and gasped.

It seemed an age before the next visitor entered the room. Will stared at the door, waiting. Who could it be? Perhaps it was Robert. But as soon as the person ducked through the doorway, Will gasped. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Strolling into the mansion was Hugo, as large as life.

Will, Riley and Ed all screamed Hugo’s name at the same time. Will and Riley rushed to his side, whereas Ed slowly limped towards him. The gentle giant was laughing as he lifted Riley and Will on to his shoulder; for once Riley didn’t mind being so high.

‘I can’t believe it,’ said Will. ‘You’re still alive!’

‘Thanks to Ruby and her mother,’ said Hugo. ‘They’re like doctors. They can heal with their hands, you know.’

Ruby took the opportunity to approach Ed. ‘Want me to heal your leg for you?’ she asked. ‘It won’t take long and it won’t hurt, I promise.’

Ed smiled at her. ‘Okay. But I don’t think you’ll be able to.’

‘Let me be the judge of that,’ she smiled, taking him into another room and closing the door.

By now, Elisha was standing beside her father, who had his arm wrapped around her shoulder. There was much laughter and talking at the same time.

Two hours later, Peter and the boys were seated together around a table. Ed was no longer limping or suffered with the sharp shooting pains along the length of his leg, since he had been healed by Ruby. It was four of them at the table: Peter, Riley, Ed and Will.

‘I wanted to talk to you boys alone. There’s much to discuss though I don’t quite know where to start. I’ve got something to tell you. I know it won’t be easy for you to take in what I’ve got to say, but it needs to be said nevertheless.’ Peter gazed at each boy in turn. ‘Professor Snipes has used many different names in the past, to stop people tracing him. He was the same person who was engaged to my mother, Sally Pondweed, in 1892.’

‘But that’s impossible!’ declared Riley. ‘That would make him over a hundred years old!’

‘He’s a lot older than that, let me assure you,’ said Peter. ‘I will explain how that is possible, later on. For now, I want you to imagine that he’s a man who has lived through many generations, taking on the form of many different people as it suited him, so no one grew suspicious of him. Sally Pondweed was Sir Ivan Pondweed’s daughter – the man who was the same as us. From recorded documents that had been passed down in Robert’s family, the Parsons…’

‘Who’s Robert?’ asked Ed.

‘My butler,’ explained Peter, who continued. ‘His family has served mine for many generations. It was Robert’s ancestors who kept a record of all that had happened in their lifetime and thus it was through his great-great grandmother, Mary Parson, that the truth has been discovered.’

‘Who was Mary?’ asked Riley.

‘Sally Pondweed’s housekeeper,’ said Peter. ‘Mary kept a record of everything. She had been educated as a child and had been taught to read and write before succeeding her mother to become the second housekeeper to the Pondweed family. She knew Ivan as a young man and wrote fondly in relation to him.

‘Anyway, through Mary we know that Lionel Heatherton coldly murdered my mother, Sally. He was obsessed with knowing where Ivan was buried, and when Sally refused to tell him she was killed. But unknown to Lionel, the child that he thought had died had actually survived, and was being kept in a secret room away from him. The child’s name was Peter Pondweed, renamed Peter Peed after the housekeeper took him away.’

‘You!’ gasped Will.

Peter nodded. ‘I age well, don’t I? Professor Snipes was my father, though he never knew it.’

‘Why did they lie to Lionel about you?’ asked Will.

‘Sally was frightened and thought Lionel would leave when he caught a glimpse of me. She was born with a normal appearance though she still carried the same mutating gene. For some reason it’s only the males who mutate in the womb. She had no idea he would have relished having a son like me.’

‘So why did he kill her?’ asked Will.

‘She refused to tell him what he wanted to know – the location of her father’s tomb. She kept it a secret and he became increasingly angry with her. To this day, Lionel never knew the truth concerning me. If he had, then I don’t think he would have killed Sally. If anything, I think she would have made him a very happy man.’

‘How come?’ asked Riley.

‘Lionel was obsessed with science. He had a rather warped view of how science should be conducted and what was actually important. The truth is, Lionel had experimented on Ivan when he was a child. He was born an orphan, his mother died shortly after giving birth to him. It was always the orphans that Lionel would experiment on. Many died before he became victorious and created Ivan.’

‘That’s terrible!’ gasped Ed.

‘Those kids had no one to protect them from him,’ muttered Will, sadly.

‘But how can he be that old? It’s not possible,’ indicated Ed.

‘Lionel was never human. He would like to be, but he wasn’t,’ Peter informed them. ‘I used to work for an organisation known as the AAA, which stands for Alien Agents Alliance. It’s where I first met Scarlet and Ruby, a place where good star-spirits fight against crime in different galaxies where we have formed an alliance with the local inhabitants. My grandfather Sir Ivan Pondweed worked there for a short time.’

‘This is too strange,’ whispered Riley. ‘Aliens live among us? How is it possible that people don’t know this?’

‘It’s clouded in secrecy,’ said Peter. ‘People could never accept such an idea.’

‘I know. I’m finding trouble accepting it myself,’ frowned Riley. ‘You had better not be pulling our legs!’

‘How long ago was the AAA built?’ asked Ed.

‘It was established some 2000 years ago. The founder of the organisation is actually still alive. His name is Arbtu.’

‘You mean to say he’s 2000 years old?’ gasped Ed.

‘Well, no, he’s actually 9,000 years old. His race of people live for an awfully long time,’ said Peter.

‘I can’t believe this!’ gasped Riley. ‘This is way too weird!’

‘And here’s something else you didn’t know,’ said Will excitedly. ‘We’re all related to Peter. Lionel used the DNA from Ivan’s bones to create us, making us relations, of a kind.’

‘Used his bones? Ewe! That disgusting,’ groaned Ed.

‘So how come Lionel was so old?’ asked Riley. ‘Was he an alien too?’

‘Yes, he was. Where Lionel came from, his real name was Grempling. He arrived on Earth purely by accident. He was a prisoner on board the ship and escaped when it crash-landed. For hundreds of years he went undetected on this planet.’

‘I still don’t know why he killed Sally?’ said Will. ‘Her death didn’t achieve anything.’

‘It made him feel better, I bet,’ muttered Ed. ‘I can’t believe we’ve been living with a lying alien imposter for our entire lives.’

‘I wonder how long he’s been here on Earth,’ said Riley.

‘I recently asked Scarlet to take to the AAA the drawing of Lionel, that I had on the mantelpiece that showed Ivan as a youngster standing next to Lionel. They were able to probe into the records to discover he had been here for at least four hundred years.’

‘Do you know why the Professor was a prisoner?’ asked Will.

‘He was accused of experimenting on his people, causing mutations on them to transform them into a new species. He was a very sick individual,’ said Peter grimly.

‘I can’t believe we thought he was our father for so long. He totally deceived us!’ Ed was furious. ‘He ruined our lives! He lied to us about Will’s death. We cried for weeks and he knew Will was alive all along!’

‘If you knew of Lionel all this time why didn’t you do something?’ asked Will.

‘I wasn’t sure,’ confessed Peter. ‘Lionel disappeared for a long time and when he showed up again it was many years later. I thought it must be his grandson. I was only a child when I was sent away. So all I had to go on was the drawing and another sketch of Sally standing next to Lionel. I had to be sure. The sins of the father should not be visited upon his children.’

‘No, children should not have to pay for their parents mistakes,’ whispered Will. ‘But we did. Look at us. We were born freaks because of what the Professor did to us.’

‘No, William. We may be different but we are definitely not freaks,’ said Peter.

‘I had a horrible thought!’ gasped Will, thinking back to all that had been said so far. ‘So the Professor is related to you but not us?’

‘My grandfather Ivan was no relation to Lionel,’ clarified Peter.

‘Thank God for that!’ muttered Riley. ‘No insult to you, though.’

‘None taken,’ smiled Peter.

‘So why did the Professor sell Will to you?’ asked Riley.

‘He needed money for another experiment he was involved in,’ explained Peter.

‘Why didn’t he sell Riley and me too?’ asked Ed.

‘I wanted him to but my offer was denied.’ Peter sighed. ‘I’d planned to kidnap you both later on, but I think the Professor suspected that and moved so we had no idea where you were.’

‘He did it to spite us,’ mumbled Ed.

‘Was it terrible living with the Professor?’ Peter raised an eyebrow.

‘It was okay,’ said Riley, ‘but then again we haven’t got anything to compare it with. We’ve only ever lived with him. In some ways it was good that he was working abroad so much. We hardly got to see him.’

‘Do you know where he was working, or what he was doing with his time?’ queried Peter.

‘No,’ said Riley.

Peter pressed his lips together.

‘Why? Do you?’ asked Will. ‘You do, don’t you!’

Peter nodded. ‘He was working in the Amazon rainforest.’

‘What was he doing there?’ gasped Riley.

‘Experimenting on another human,’ Peter told them.

‘Who?’ Will’s face was a picture of shock.

‘A baby boy, by all accounts. We found the evidence in the attic room inside your home. We gathered together all the documents,’ explained Peter.

‘So we now have another brother somewhere, do we?’ asked Will, sighing impatiently.

‘No, he’s not related to you whatsoever,’ said Peter. ‘He wasn’t created with Ivan’s DNA. This time the Professor used something else.’

‘What?’ the three boys chorused.

‘The DNA of a monkey.’

‘No way!’ gasped Will.

‘That’s terrible!’ remarked Ed.

‘I could kill him, if he weren’t already dead. What will become of the boy?’ asked Riley.

Peter shrugged. ‘I was hoping to find him.’

‘We’ll come with you,’ said the boys together.

‘It’ll be our first family holiday.’ Will opened his eyes wide, pleading.

‘As if I could leave you all behind,’ laughed Peter. ‘I was hoping Scarlet and Ruby would come too. Who knows when we might need them.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ said Ed, puzzled. ‘Does that mean Riley and me are coming to live with you too?’

‘Of course it does, maggot brains!’ laughed Will. ‘We’re family. Families stick together, no matter what.’

‘But what about our mum?’ asked Ed.

‘We’ll find her as soon as we’ve found the boy whom Grempling experimented on,’ said Peter. ‘If that’s what you would like.’

At that moment, there was a knock on the door. Scarlet and Ruby entered the room with Elisha and her father.

‘I hope you’ve finished talking. Elisha’s father has something he wants to give to Riley and Ed before we leave,’ Scarlet informed them, winking at Peter, who frowned in puzzlement.

‘It’s a cheque for fifty thousand pounds,’ explained Bob.

‘Fifty thousand pounds!’ exclaimed Peter and Will together. ‘What for?’

‘For rescuing my daughter. Who knows what her kidnapper might have done with her had your boys not found her in time. Thankfully she is alive and well. The reward was fifty thousand pounds.’

‘I see you both have much to tell us!’ laughed Peter. ‘But we can keep it for later. Right now we must thank these wonderful people for their hospitality and make sure we invite them for dinner some time.’

‘That would be lovely,’ said Elisha, her face beaming. ‘I’d like to
see
you all again.’

Riley, Ed, Will and Peter wrinkled their faces. Was it their imagination or was Elisha glancing from one person to another and directly meeting their eyes?

‘Elisha?’ whispered Ed. ‘Can you see us?’

Elisha nodded frantically. ‘Ruby and Scarlet healed my eyes, restoring my vision. Isn’t it brilliant! No hospital has ever been able to do that for me.’

Riley and Ed stood excitedly and embraced Elisha. There was laughter and surprise.

‘I think it’s time we left before we over stay our welcome,’ smiled Peter.

‘I’m not sure who you people are,’ said Bob,  ‘but you are always welcome here. And if you ever need anything in the future, then I’ll help you in any way I can. You have done an amazing thing for my daughter and you’ve changed our lives beyond belief. I can never repay you enough. I can’t believe I’m saying that I’m pleased my daughter was kidnapped, but so much good came out of it and she’s safe. Her sight is restored and it’s all because of meeting you all. I will never tell anyone of this. Rest assure. They wouldn’t believe me anyway,’ he laughed. ‘I still don’t believe it.’