The Curiosity Machine (25 page)

The tiger dropped to the ground and threw another powerful swipe at the fence, straining the tall posts on either side. It opened its mouth and snarled a long low growl, baring its teeth.

‘That is like a full grown Bengal tiger,' Felicity said, unable to take her eyes from the animal as it paced the fence line. ‘On a South Pacific island. It makes no sense.'

‘Compared with a flock of extinct dodos, a tiger actually isn't that much of a surprise,' Ruby said.

Gerald watched as the big cat spat out a final snarl and turned back into the jungle. ‘It looks like we'll be walking around this fence after all,' he said.

Ruby picked up Gerald's backpack from where it had been thrown into a bush and handed it to him. ‘I get the feeling this might not be your standard South Pacific island.'

Gerald pointed to their right and they trudged on. From deep in the tangle of trees and vines off to their left came a shrill whooping.

‘What do you think?' Felicity asked. ‘Monkeys?'

‘Either that or Sam made it over the fence and no one noticed,' Ruby said.

Sam sent a stone skittering through long grass with a deft kick. ‘I didn't make fun of how you react to skeletons,' he said. ‘I just have a highly developed attack response, that's all.'

‘If your attack response was any more highly developed it would shatter glass,' Ruby said.

In the distance, a long mournful howl filtered out through the trees.

‘Was that a wolf?' Felicity asked, jogging to keep up with Gerald.

Gerald shook his head. ‘I can accept a tiger on a tropical island, and I can understand monkeys living here. Hey, I can even believe dodos, in some weird land-before-time lost-world situation,' Gerald said. ‘But wolves are at home in the snow.'

‘What those gunmen said is true, then,' Felicity said.

‘What do you mean?' Ruby asked.

‘This place is a zoo. Like, a literal zoo. With enclosures and exotic beasts.'

‘A zoo that would make King Rudolph proud,' Gerald said, recalling what Ursus had told him on the helicopter.

‘What about the abdominals?' Sam asked.

‘Somehow, I don't think that's the word he used,' Ruby said.

A lion dashed at them from the undergrowth and hit the wire mesh with its full weight, baring its teeth and unleashing a deep roar. Sam was a metre from the animal when it struck. He jumped straight up and shrieked with an intensity that silenced the lion. The big cat recoiled, its fur raised and its ears bent backwards by the pitch of the cry. It took a startled look at Sam and retreated to the trees.

For a moment they all just looked at the curtain of
foliage where the lion had disappeared.

‘Lions,' Felicity said. ‘Tigers. What's next?'

‘Bears,' Ruby said. ‘Oh my.' She prodded Sam between the shoulders and propelled him on. ‘Let's move, Dorothy. There's still a long way to go.'

They walked for almost an hour, passing the occasional dodo scratching in the dirt. The humidity was like a sauna, and the clouds began to turn thunderstorm grey.

Sam lifted his chin and said, ‘There's something up ahead. A change in the fence line.'

They stopped at a point where the tall fence branched off to their left, and a lower chain-link fence kept going in the direction they were walking, sectioning off a large area of cleared land.

‘It's like a paddock on a farm,' Gerald said. ‘Big scary creatures in the jungle behind the tall fence, extinct flightless birds behind the small fence.' He threw a leg over the low wire and leapt into the adjoining field.

‘Is that a good idea?' Felicity asked. ‘We don't know what's in there.'

Ruby and Sam followed Gerald over the wire. ‘If the fence is only up to your hips, there can't be anything too bitey in here,' Ruby said. ‘And if there is I'll just turn Sam up to maximum volume and point him in its general direction.'

Felicity grumbled something about taking risks, but went after them anyway.

‘Every step is getting us closer to the compound,'
Gerald said, ‘and closer to taking some action against Mason Green.' Gerald wasn't sure if it was the effect of the humidity or the heat but his resolve to exact revenge on Green was getting stronger by the minute.

They crossed the cleared section quickly and stepped into a thickening jungle. The air became heavier. Soon it was an effort to breathe. After a few minutes, Sam pulled up and leaned against a moss-covered tree trunk. ‘My lungs feel like soggy football socks,' he said. ‘How about we take a break?' Sam didn't wait for a response before he wandered into a small clearing where the jungle floor was littered with broad-leafed palm fronds. He stretched out on a lime green carpet and took a long drink from the water bottle. ‘Wake me when you're ready to go,' he called to the others. ‘I'm stuffed.'

Ruby didn't bother to look at him. ‘Yes, you have a rest. I imagine all that screaming would take it out of you.' She sat on a fallen tree trunk and kicked off a shoe to massage her toes.

Gerald squatted at her feet and looked at his watch. ‘This is taking forever,' he said. ‘Maybe we should have just knocked on the front door last night and taken the chance that Green would be so happy to get the perpetual motion machine that he'd just let everybody go.'

Felicity dropped next to Ruby and rolled her shoulders. ‘I think we all know it's not going to be that easy,' she said. ‘Dodos, tigers, lions…Mason Green has something brewing on this island. I want to free my mum and dad
more than anything, but I don't think we can rely on doing a straight swap with Cornelius Drebbel's contraption.'

‘What do you suggest?' Ruby asked.

Felicity reached out to touch her toes. ‘The only reason we didn't radio for help before was because Green and Ursus would get to us first and bring us here. Well, we're here now. Gerald, you saw a satellite dish and antennas in the compound? There must be some powerful communications equipment here. I say we get a distress signal out to the world. Then we can set to freeing our parents and the others. Whether that involves dealing directly with Green can depend on what we find when we get there.'

Ruby and Gerald looked at each other and nodded. ‘That sounds like a plan,' Gerald said. ‘The sooner we can get to a radio or satellite phone, the sooner a rescue party can get here.'

Ruby laced up her shoe and stood up. ‘We'll get our parents out of this, Flicka,' she said. ‘You'll see.' She turned to look for Sam between the trees. ‘Hey, dopey!' she called. ‘Let's move. Felicity has worked out how to save us all.' She waited for a response. ‘Sam?'

Ruby frowned. The clearing where Sam had stretched out to rest was empty. Sunshine tumbled through the gap in the canopy like a spectral waterfall, lighting up the green leaf litter on the jungle floor. A water bottle lay discarded on the ground. But Sam Valentine was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter 23

Ruby called her brother's name as loud as she dared. She circled the jungle that fringed the clearing, searched the undergrowth, scanned the treetops.

But there was no response. No sign.

‘Maybe he wandered into the bush to, you know, have a pee,' Felicity said.

Ruby shook her head. ‘He wouldn't have gone that far,' she said. ‘Trust me, being bashful is not one of Sam's endearing traits.'

‘We've got to find him,' Gerald said. ‘Who knows what other bizarre things Mason Green has in this zoo of his.'

‘Obviously we have to find him,' Ruby said, spinning around to face Gerald. ‘What a stupid thing to say.' Then
she pressed her lips together. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I'm tired. And I'm worried.'

Gerald put a hand on her shoulder. ‘We'll find him. He can't have—'

‘Did you hear that?' Ruby cut him off. Her head swivelled left and right like a radar dish trying to pick up a signal. ‘I thought I heard a cry.'

She took a step into the jungle. ‘There,' she said. ‘There it is again.'

Gerald strained to detect anything above the background chatter of insects and bugs. Then he heard it: a muffled sound, as if someone was shouting through a hand held across their mouth.

‘Was that Sam calling for help?' he asked.

‘Where?' Ruby asked, her arm brushing a tangle of vines aside. ‘What direction?'

‘I can't tell,' Gerald said. Then the cry came again, unmistakable this time: a smothered call of
Rubeeeee
.

‘I definitely heard it that time,' Ruby said. ‘Has the idiot been kidnapped?'

‘How could he be?' Felicity said. ‘We were right here. We would have heard something.'

Ruby's face went pale. ‘If one of Mason Green's gunmen has got him…' She didn't finish the sentence. Her eyes narrowed to slits.

‘What is it?' Gerald asked Ruby.

Ruby elbowed past him and stopped next to a pile of lime green palm fronds on the clearing floor. Then she
pulled back her right foot and gave the stack a hefty kick.

The pile of vegetation let out a smothered ‘ouch'.

Ruby stood over the bundle of leaves with her fists on her hips. ‘What are you doing, you idiot?' she said. ‘Stop mucking about.'

‘I'm not mucking about,' Sam's voice strained out from the pile. ‘This thing is trying to eat me.'

Gerald and Felicity looked over Ruby's shoulder. ‘What's going on?' Felicity asked.

‘Sam's gone and got himself eaten by some giant carnivorous plant,' Ruby said. ‘It must be another part of Mason Green's stupid zoo project.'

Felicity clasped a hand to the base of her throat. ‘Shouldn't we try to get him out?'

Ruby dropped to her haunches and cleared away vegetation from what at first glance appeared to be a mound of fallen palm fronds. She revealed a large bright green pod with what was clearly the shape of a person inside. ‘It looks like a Venus flytrap,' Ruby said, ‘only super-sized.'

‘Isn't that even more reason to get him out?' Felicity said.

‘Don't worry—they don't have teeth. It's just trying to dissolve him.'

This brought on a wriggling flurry as Sam struggled to fight his way out, like a small child trying to wrestle free of a too-tight sleeping bag.

Ruby shook her head. ‘What a goose,' she said.
‘Here, hold this end steady, will you,' she said to Gerald and Felicity. They pinned one end of the writhing peapod to the ground, then Ruby eyed up the other end. She sat down hard about halfway along the plant, and the flytrap burst open, revealing two boots connected to two legs. Ruby grabbed hold of one leg and Felicity the other and they dragged out a bedraggled Sam. He slid onto the jungle floor, covered in a thick coating of pea-green slime. He sat up coughing, and wiped the gunk from his face. ‘What took you so long?' he asked, frowning at his sister. ‘That thing has a million little tongues and it was licking me all over.'

‘I can always shove you back inside,' Ruby said. ‘How about some thanks?'

Gerald tried hard not to laugh. ‘What happened?' he said to Sam. ‘We thought you'd been kidnapped.'

Sam tried to stand up but slipped down again onto his backside with a plop. ‘I stretched out for a rest on what I thought was a pile of leaves and it turned out to be a ruthless killing machine. It closed up around me like a clam, sprayed juice all over me and started'—Sam shuddered at the thought—‘started licking me.'

Ruby clicked her tongue. ‘You are the only person I know who could lose a fight with an overgrown snow pea.'

Sam opened his mouth to protest but stopped with his jaw hanging.

Ruby smirked at him. ‘What's the matter?' she said.
‘Cucumber got your tongue?'

Sam's eyes grew wide and a strangled gurgle bubbled in his throat. ‘Your shoulder,' he said. ‘On your shoulder.'

Ruby gave him a curious look and turned her head.

Gerald stared agape at a needle-sharp barb as it emerged over the bridge of Ruby's shoulder. The point was attached to the end of an armoured tail that arched higher and higher as it moved into view.

‘Oh, my gosh,' Felicity whispered. ‘A scorpion. A giant scorpion.'

‘Don't move,' Gerald said. He could have saved his breath. Ruby was frozen to the spot. The beast inching its way up Ruby's back was the size of a house cat. A pair of razored pincers snapped the air and four sets of legs moved with deliberate intent.

‘That thing is enormous,' Sam gasped. ‘Bleeding enormous.'

Ruby gave a quavering whimper as her eyes swivelled to the side, trying to see the giant beast. With every careful placement of a leg, with every snap of a claw, the creature emitted rattling clicks that raised the hair on the back of Gerald's neck. He could only guess what the sound was doing to Ruby's nerves. The look on her face was unnerving enough.

‘Keep totally still,' Gerald said, keeping his voice low and calm. ‘I'm going to try to knock it off.' He pulled the butterfly net from his backpack.

‘
Try
to knock it off?' Sam said. ‘Those things are
lethal. You'll have to do a bit better than just try.'

Gerald gave a grim nod, and pushed the brass button to deploy the butterfly net. The polished wooden rod shot out with a
whoosh
. The scorpion's head snapped towards the movement, its pincers slashing at the air. The tail arched higher. A drop of venom at its tip glinted in the sunlight. Ruby smothered a gasp. She clenched her fingers together into tight clusters making the tips show white.

‘Careful,' Felicity whispered. ‘You only have one shot.'

‘Don't worry,' Gerald said. He drew the net back over his shoulder to line up the scorpion. ‘I'm pretty good at cricket.'

The look on Ruby's face told him that ‘pretty good' probably wasn't good enough. Gerald tightened his grip on the butterfly net. ‘Steady,' he whispered to himself. ‘Steady…'