The Poison Factory (5 page)

‘SSSomebody’s ssssset the cybercritters loose!’ Harold squealed. ‘Catch them, quick!’

This was easier said than done. Wherever the cockroaches stepped, their sharp, clawed feet got stuck in the backs of the cuddly robots. Free from the grip of their captors, Gaz and Damo watched, bemused, as the insect chefs scurried around, clumsily trying to round up the horde of soft toys. Some of the cybercritters were squirting out their dinners, and the floor quickly became slippery with the slick mess. Hayley appeared as if by magic beside the two boys, clutching Squirt in her arms.

‘Come on!’ she urged them. ‘Run for it!’

They jumped down off the counter and waded through the furry tide to the door. Behind them, there came a screech of fury.

‘Yooouuu’re nnnot going anywhere!’ Harold snarled at them.

The raging cockroach charged at them, but his clawed feet impaled a couple of mechanical rabbits, and then he skidded through a pool of robo-pooh and flipped onto his back. His feet flew into the air, throwing the unlucky bunnies far across the room.

The three children belted out of the kitchen, and down the corridor. Gaz slapped the button to call the elevator. It pinged gently. Behind them, Albert clawed his way out of the kitchen through the mass of robotic toys. Glaring at the children, he snarled, and clattered towards them.

‘Come on! Come on!’ Damo was yelling at the elevator doors.

There was another bell chime and the doors slid open. Gaz pushed the others in and punched the button to shut the doors again. They clamped closed just as Albert slammed into them with a frustrated roar.

They all slumped against the walls, exhausted. Gaz pulled out the bottom of his t-shirt, and the Truth
Scorpion dropped to the floor. He kicked it away from him. Damo was struggling to find his scorpion in his big, baggy tracksuit top.

‘Here, what are you doing?’ Hayley asked. ‘Let me help.’

She reached up the back of the jumper and was pulling the scorpion out when it twisted in her hand and stung her. Her face went all rosy, and her eyes glazed over.

‘Aw, no,’ Gaz groaned.

‘Listen, I
have
to tell you this lads!’ Hayley exclaimed, grinning madly. ‘You’ve both been sending me Valentine cards for years!’

‘No I haven’t!’ Damo snorted a little too loudly, rolling his eyes. ‘Girls are so soppy.’

‘Yeah!’ Gaz spluttered. ‘She’s … she’s lost her mind or somethin’. I never sent any cards …’

Both boys fell into an embarrassed silence, desperately hoping Hayley’s scorpion sting would wear off quickly.

T
he elevator took Gaz, Hayley and Damo up to the top floor. In the few seconds of peace, they each treated themselves to a sweet from the bag, as a reward for escaping from the cockroaches, and to help Hayley get over her embarrassing bout of honesty.

‘We’d better go easy on these,’ Gaz said, warily. ‘There’s not many left. We’ve got to have some for Molars.’

When the doors slid open, they found themselves on a flat, open section of rooftop. Across from them was a door, marked ‘Management’. It was the only door they could see.

‘So where’s the security office?’ Damo moaned. ‘How do we find Joey?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gaz sighed. ‘But I need to go for a
pee right now, or I’m goin’ to burst.’

‘Me too,’ Damo agreed.

They went up to the base of a chimney that jutted out from the roof, and unzipped their flies.

‘Bet I can get higher up than you can,’ Gaz said.

‘In your dreams, bud!’ Damo laughed.

‘Typical boys!’ Hayley muttered, disgusted.

She turned away to look out over the rooftops. She needed to go too, but she decided to hold on until she found a proper toilet. When the boys were done, all three of them walked across to the door marked ‘Management’. Gaz knocked nervously, and a voice inside beckoned them in. They opened the door to find themselves faced with a small science lab, and a wall of monitors that showed lots of different views of the factory. A thin, angular man wearing a white coat sat with his back to them on a stool at the large desk. He was working with some test tubes. He swivelled to face them, his skinny legs folded at sharp angles. They recognised his exhausted-looking face immediately. It was Cornelius, the man they had met when they had first entered the factory.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You made it. Have you got the sweets?’

The three children looked at each other, mystified. Gaz handed over the bag. Cornelius stood up and took it, hefting in his hand and looking inside.

‘My! We
were
hungry, weren’t we? Ahhh, nobody can resist the smell of my jellies. One of my best inventions,’ he chuckled. ‘Been doing any burping, lately?’

Hayley couldn’t contain herself any longer.

‘Can I use your loo?’ she asked, biting her thumbnail.

‘What’s going on?’ Gaz demanded.

‘You’ve just joined my little club,’ Cornelius waved his hand towards the monitors. ‘Let me introduce myself fully; my name is Cornelius … Cornelius
Byle
. I own this factory.’

‘Then you are one twisted biscuit,’ Damo blurted out at him.

‘Where’s your loo?’ Hayley bounced up and down
on the balls of her feet, her hands clutching Squirt a little too tightly.

‘I may be one twisted biscuit,’ Byle smiled. ‘But tomorrow, I will
still
be a twisted biscuit … and you will all be
dead
. You’ve each had more than enough 
of these sweets to make sure that you are well and truly doomed.’

‘What do you mean?’ the three of them all chimed at once.

‘The sweets were poisoned,’ Byle grinned. ‘In a matter of hours, you will all shrivel up like raisins and die.’

The three children went deathly pale.

‘Fortunately,’ he raised one finger. ‘I have an antidote–’

He held up his hands as the children started shouting. They fell silent.

‘To get the antidote for yourselves,’ he went on. ‘You have to do something for me. I want you to bring all your friends to this factory. My zombies are constantly falling apart, which means I’m always having to make new ones. It’s a complex chemical process, and I don’t get many volunteers. A dozen or so of your friends would do.’

‘You’re off your head,’ Gaz gasped.

‘Not at all,’ Byle shook his head. ‘It’s just business. I have a company to run, and it’s so hard
to get good staff these days. Bring back some of your friends so I can make them into zombies, and you three will get your antidote.’

‘I NEED TO GO TO THE LOO RIGHT NOW!’ Hayley shrieked, her legs crossed.

‘Oh,’ Byle frowned. ‘The bathroom’s that door to your left.’

Hayley rushed over to the door, and yanked it open, hurrying inside. She closed the door, and the boys looked awkwardly at each other. They weren’t sure what to do.

‘Well?’ Byle asked. ‘Do you want the antidote or not?’

‘We need to wait for Hayley,’ Gaz gulped.

He really didn’t want to see his friends turned into zombies. But he didn’t want to shrivel up and die like a raisin either. They all stood quietly for a couple of minutes, the boys turning to gaze at all the lab equipment that filled the room.

The door opened and Hayley came out.

‘It’s really posh in there,’ she said. ‘There’s gold taps and everything.’

‘You didn’t flush,’ Byle said, sourly.

‘Sorry,’ Hayley muttered.

She went back inside, and there came the sound of the toilet flushing … And then a mighty explosion rocked the room – smoke and flames burst from the bathroom and the plaster was shaken from the walls as they were all knocked off their feet. Hayley staggered out, her hands over her ears. Squirt waddled out after her and fell over, dazed.

‘I just flushed the toilet,’ she said in a shocked, timid voice. ‘And it
blew up
.’

The boys were stunned. Byle got slowly to his feet, one hand on his head as he tried to keep his balance.

‘What …’ he started to say, but had to stop as he got dizzy. He tried again. ‘What else have you eaten today? Tell me what you did in the factory. I need to know everything!’

The children looked at each other, but since they were all going to die like raisins, it didn’t make any difference anyway. Gaz told Byle
everything – about being chased by the zombies, about riding the conveyor belt over the tanks of weird stuff, about meeting the Disgustinger and setting the cybercritters free, and about escaping from the cockroach chefs.

‘So let me get this straight,’ Byle strode over to a white board on the wall, and started writing strange chemical symbols on it. ‘You let your skin get soaked by the zombie disinfectant, you inhaled the Disgustinger’s breath freshener, you were injected with the venom of Truth Scorpions,
and
you ate my sweets?’

‘Yeah,’ all three kids said at once.

Byle finished writing out his calculations, and stood back, his hands shaking. He turned to glare at them, his loosely-rooted teeth rattling in his skull.

‘That’s an impossible combination of chemicals,’ he whispered, trembling. ‘You should be dead. But since you’re not dead, and since my toilet just blew up, I can come to only one conclusion. You are all filled to the brim with highly explosive urine.’

‘What d’ya mean?’ Damo asked.

‘He means our pee can explode,’ Gaz translated, as a nasty plan started to form in his mind.

‘You could go off at any second,’ Byle whimpered. ‘Don’t … don’t make any sudden moves.’

I don’t know,’ Gaz smiled slightly, his fear making him angry again.

‘If we don’t get that antidote, I might lose the rag a bit – and I can go a bit mental when I’m really angry. I might start jumpin’ around … and I’m burstin’ to go. I might go right here on your chair!’

‘NO!’ Byle cried. 

Hayley and Damo stared at Gaz. Was he serious?

‘Really, I’d do it – I’d do it right now,’ Gaz nodded, his jaw jutting out.

‘Me too,’ Damo added suddenly. ‘And I might just do some hip-hop dancing on your desk! I can spin around on my hands!’

‘I can do gymnastics,’ Hayley piped up. ‘Want to see my back-flip?’

They all climbed up onto the desk.

‘Right,’ Gaz called out. ‘On the count of three, we let rip! One … Two …’

‘Please, please don’t!’ Byle sobbed. ‘I’ll give you the antidote. Just don’t do anything stupid!’

He pulled a little bottle from his coat pocket and handed it to Gaz.

‘Oh, and we want my little brother back too,’ Gaz demanded.

‘I never took him!’ Byle whined. ‘He’s still out in the yard. He was hiding there the whole time.’

He pointed to a monitor, and sure enough, there was Joey, peeping out from behind a stack of barrels.

‘That little weed,’ Gaz growled, turning to the other two. ‘I
told
you he was good at screaming.’

After knocking back the antidote to the poison, Gaz, Hayley and Damo made their way extremely cautiously down to the yard. It was all very well being able scare Cornelius Byle into giving them the antidote, but there was still no telling whether or not they might explode. They walked down the last flight of stairs very slowly and gently. Taking small, timid steps, they shuffled out into the yard.

‘Where were you?’ Joey exclaimed, coming out of his hiding place, holding their football. ‘I saw you go inside, and then you were gone for ages. I was going to go home and tell Mam!’

Gaz leaned over him, his hands clenched into fists.

‘I’ve a good mind to kick your–’

‘Ah, leave him alone,’ Damo said. ‘He caught us out – we should respect the little dude. You don’t want to go starting a fight, Gaz. Not with what’s in your bladder. Come on – let’s go home.’

But Gaz was determined to get revenge. Grabbing his brother’s shoulder, he swung back his leg and delivered a sound kick to Joey’s backside. Just as he did, there was a deafening crack, and a deep rumble. At first, the others covered their heads, sure that Gaz was exploding right in front of them. But he was still standing there when they opened their eyes, and the rumbling noise was getting louder. He was looking up. They looked up too.

A tall chimney was toppling over towards them,
its shadow falling over them, the huge tower of concrete plummeting straight down at them. There was no time to do anything but close their eyes and wait to be crushed. It crashed to the ground just short of them, smashing at their feet, sending shards of concrete and dust flying in all directions. Hayley gave Gaz and Damo a disgusted look.

‘Was that the chimney we …?’ Damo began.

‘Yeah,’ Gaz nodded. ‘We’d better go. Quick.’

‘Do you think the antidote will fix the whole exploding pee thing?’ Hayley wondered aloud as the Root Street Gang walked towards the hole under the back wall.