The Beast of Seabourne (7 page)

Oz followed her accusing finger. It was indeed Jenks and Skinner. They were leaving through the front door of the lab, and they looked far too pleased with themselves for Oz's liking. Mr Skelton appeared from the direction of the staff room. Ellie ran towards him.

“Sir, we just saw Jenks and Skinner leaving the lab,” she announced breathlessly.

“And?” Skelton frowned.

“But everyone's projects are in there.”

“Obviously. Since the two of them had problems with transport this morning, I needed to give them time to set up.” He saw the look of disbelief on their faces and added, “Not everyone is as organized as you three, you know.”

“But sir. That was
Jenks
and
Skinner
,” Ruff said in disbelief.

“Sir, can we just go in and check our stuff again?” Oz asked.

Skelton, however, had no time for trivialities. “Anyone would think they'd been up to no good, by the way you're reacting.”

“But sir—” Ellie began, but she got no further as the bell signalling the end of break rang out.

“Right, that's it. Go on, get to your lessons,” Skelton said, shooing them. “I need to make sure that all the Bunsen burners are connected up before year ten gets trigger-happy with the lighters.” He hurried off towards the lab.

Ellie watched him go, open-mouthed. “Did I just hear him say that he let Jenks and Skinner into the lab alone, or was it a nightmare I had?”

“He must be stark raving mad, if you ask me.” Ruff said. “They could have done anything in there.”

No one said anything else; they didn't have to. Jenks and Skinner were a nuisance at the best of times. In a lab full of carefully prepared and delicate bits of equipment such as the science projects, they were downright dangerous.

While Ellie and Ruff struggled with music theory, Oz went off to practise in the assembly hall. Since Soph had come along with her amazing ability to help with study and learning, Oz had taken up the drums.

A couple of sublimserts—Soph's amazing way of implanting knowledge into a sleeping brain—had set him up, and he'd managed to find a set of electronic drums on eBay for next to nothing. After a few months, he'd actually got quite good, and Mr Fidler, the music teacher, had roped Oz into the school jazz orchestra. With a concert looming, Mr Fidler took every opportunity he could to get them to sharpen up. While he organized tasks for the rest of the class, Oz and the other half-dozen or so pupils in the hall were left to their own devices.

There was a full drum kit permanently set up, and Oz relished the chance to provide a pounding rock beat for Aaron Bradley, who always brought his guitar. The resulting noise usually annoyed the saxophonists immensely—since they were into more subdued music—but Oz didn't care. Not even when Tracy Roper stood up with her hands over her ears and yelled, “If you hit those things any harder, you're going to break them!”

Eventually, Mr Fidler returned and imposed a little discipline. Because he was completely bald, with a droopy moustache and Coke-bottle glasses, Jenks and Skinner had nicknamed him Mr Potato Head. But he was an enthusiastic teacher besides being an excellent musician, and over the last few months, Oz had come to like him. But as practise wore on, Oz found his mind drifting towards the afternoon and the science competition. A flock of tiny butterflies kept taking off in his stomach whenever he thought of it, and more than once Mr Fidler had to reprimand him for not concentrating.

At last, the bell went for lunch, and he met up again with Ellie and Ruff, but they were all too nervous to talk much. They mooched around for the remaining half-hour and were all pretty relieved when afternoon registration ended and they were finally sitting in the science lab. The tank was exactly where they'd left it and looked intact, despite Jenks and Skinner having been alone in the lab.

The atmosphere buzzed with nervous excitement, and at one forty-five sharp, Mr Skelton walked to the front of the room, raised his arms, and called for quiet.

“Right, well, here we are,” he said, looking around at the expectant, fidgety class. “The year eight science project presentations. Just to recap the rules. Each of you will get five minutes to present your project to our adjudicators, myself and…” He beckoned to the first of two men standing to the side. “May I introduce the Vice Chancellor of Seabourne University, Dr Lorenzo Heeps.”

Heeps wore a pinstriped suit with a striped blue shirt and a yellow tie. He had a trimmed, grey-flecked moustache and beard and a crow sitting on his head. At least, it looked like a crow whenever Oz saw it, though he knew it was really a coiffured hairstyle.

“May I say what a great pleasure it is to be here,” said Heeps, and beamed at them all.

Everyone applauded politely, everyone, that is, except Ellie, Ruff, and Oz, who exchanged knowing glances. Heeps was someone none of them trusted. For one thing, they knew that, despite his respectable and affable appearance, he was a Puffer, and Gerber's man through and through. In the months leading up to Soph's appearance, he had tried to convince Mrs Chambers to sell Penwurt, and he had secretly obtained photographs of the library panels, so he could decipher the alchemical code carved into them.

Luckily, Ruff had beaten him to it. Nevertheless, Lorenzo Heeps was also Pheep's dad, and, as Ruff had so aptly put it, she must have inherited her “evil toe-rag genes” from somebody…

“The other gentleman you see is Mr O'Flynn, who will be reporting on today's competition for
The Echo
.” Mr Skelton consulted a clipboard. “We will proceed in alphabetical order. Those of you in teams, may I ask that the spokesperson only be out front? First, then, with a ‘novel way to feed a cat,' are the Anchor Angels.”

Oz sat back. He was too nervous to take in much of what was happening, but he did note that everything he saw was amateurish and poorly constructed. There were a few exceptions, of course; Dilpak's working model of a wind turbine involved blowing up a balloon, positioning it in a holder, and letting the air rush out to drive the turbine. His first attempt resulted in the balloon slipping through his fingers and zooming around the room making gross raspberry noises, like a windy poltergeist, much to the delight of the class, who batted at it and roared with laughter. The propulsion, when it did work, sent a little voltmeter's needle flickering, and the tiny bulb he'd attached glowed impressively. But it only lasted a few short seconds before Dilpak had to blow the balloon up again.

The water clock that followed wasn't much better; it leaked all over the floor, and the spokesperson, Bernice Halpin from 2B, was so nervous she called it a “clotter wock” twice.

When it came to Jenks and Skinner, who called themselves “The Geniuses,” things went downhill. Entitling their project “dungpower” should have been enough of a clue, but if anyone had any doubts that Jenks had somehow turned over a new leaf, the smell emanating from the sealed container he carefully opened soon put everyone right. Their plan was to place a funnel over a sizeable lump of dung and light the “gas” effusing from it at the stem of the funnel. Unfortunately, the rotted manure Jenks had asked his brother to provide ended up being fresh and steaming from the nearest field. Thus, even though the room filled with stink, no flame burned at the funnel.

But what got Jenks hot under the collar was the large dollop that Skinner managed to drop onto his shoe halfway through the demonstration. That at least got them some applause in amongst the gales of laughter.

Then it was Niko's turn. His claim for his animal noise transducer was that, by simply adjusting a dial, he could alter the instrument's pitch, and the noise, which was outside of normal human hearing, would call a variety of animals.

“Is based on Polish hunting device. I make it into digital instrument,” he explained in a shaky voice. “Notes are transformed into ultrasonic signal by software and then sent out through bugle.”

Heeps, who sat at a desk next to Mr Skelton to one side of the classroom and who had almost fallen asleep through three of the presentations, sat up keenly.

“Excellent, Niko,” Skelton said. “Would it be possible to demonstrate?”

“Dog, rat, or bat?” Niko said.

“Excuse me?”

“You have choice. Dog, rat, or bat?”

Heeps cleared his throat. “Since bats are nocturnal, perhaps it would be unkind to disturb them in the middle of the afternoon. We've all seen dog whistles, so why not try the rats? I'm sure there'll be one or two about this old school.”

“There's one sitting at that table next to Skelton,” Oz said out of the corner of his mouth so only Ruff and Ellie could hear.

Ruff snorted and had to pretend he'd sneezed to cover his laughter.

Niko adjusted the black box—which looked suspiciously like a stripped-down mobile phone—at the base of the mouthpiece, held the instrument to his lips, and blew. Everyone strained to hear a noise. But there was none. Not even a squeak or a peep. Twice Niko blew, his cheeks bulging out with the effort, and twice there was silence.

“May I remind you that you now have two minutes left, Niko,” Mr Skelton said.

“It should not take much longer,” Niko said, looking unperturbed and raising the instrument one final time.

The room stayed silent for thirty long and embarrassing seconds. Oz and Ruff exchanged knowing glances. Oz could see Ruff was thinking exactly the same thing as he was. Was this a wind-up? Had Jenks been in and shoved chewing gum in the bell to make Niko look a fool? If so, Jenks and Skinner were going to pay big time. Niko was a good bloke and member of Oz's five-a-side team. Skinner and Jenks were just a pair of…

A muffled scream drew everyone's attention. Tracy Roper, who happened to be sitting near the windows, was on her feet, her face contorted with a kind of frozen horror. She pointed wordlessly at something in the yard. Everyone stood and craned for a look at the cause of her agitation.

“What is it?” someone asked from behind Oz.

“Rats,” Skinner said. He, being taller than most, was able to see. “And lots of 'em, too.”

“Out of the way!” Skelton was on his feet and pushing his way through, with Heeps in tow. Everyone was jostling for position by the windows now. Even Oz, who wasn't particularly squeamish, felt his skin crawl when he finally stuck his head through a gap and looked out into the yard.

There were rats. Dozens of them. However, they weren't scurrying to holes in the walls or down drains. These rats were wandering about, looking slightly confused as they stopped to listen or sat up on their back legs to sniff the air.

“My God,” Skelton said, and whipped an astonished face around to look at Niko, who was still standing at the front with his transducer in his hands. “Do you mean to tell me…” he began, but quickly ran out of steam. “Is this… Are you…”

“Make them go away!” wailed Tracy Roper, who had clambered up to stand on her chair.

“Extraordinary,” Heeps said, sounding very impressed.

“They're disgusting,” Sandra Ojo said with feeling.

“They're coming closer and there's more coming from the field. Look.” Jenks was pointing to the far end of the bus bay.

“Having proved his point very well,” Heeps said smoothly, “perhaps we could ask young Mr Piotrowski to now get rid of them?”

“Can you?” asked Skelton. “Make them go away, I mean?”

Niko nodded and adjusted the instrument. Once again, he put it to his lips and blew his silent note. Outside, the rats stopped, turned almost as one, and this time ran for their boltholes. The class broke into spontaneous applause, which lasted a good five minutes and redoubled once everyone got back to their places. Niko stood in the front without smiling. If anything, he looked even more self-conscious.

“Wow,” Ruff whispered to Ellie under the applause, “Niko's the Pied Piper of Seabourne.”

“That thing of his is amazing,” Ellie said.

Finally, the applause died down, and Niko found his way back to his seat. Several of his fellow students clapped him on the back as he passed them.

“Well, after that amazing display, it's now the turn of the Penwurt Profs and their water cycle model.”

Nervously, Oz lifted the Perspex box with shaky hands and carried it to the front of the classroom. Niko was going to be a hard act to follow, but he felt quietly confident as he took off the cover. He went into his brief explanation of the water cycle and came to the interesting bit. “No one has been able to build a working scale model. Until now.”

Oz flicked the switch. “It should take about seventy seconds,” he said to the assembled watchers. Oz sent Ellie and Ruff a confident grin.

By thirty seconds, steam was coming off the water, and by fifty, it was rolling forwards towards the clay mountain. By sixty-five seconds, Oz was ready for the climax, but at eighty, he was getting worried. By ninety, steam almost filled the box, obscuring Ruff's sculpted mountain altogether, and, with a sinking heart, Oz knew that something was dreadfully wrong.