The Curiosity Machine (24 page)

‘I'm disappointed,' Sam said. ‘I thought Mason Green would have his lair inside a dormant volcano at the very least.'

‘Did you see anyone?' Ruby asked. ‘Any sign of people walking around?'

‘How about our parents?' Felicity said.

‘If they are here, I don't think they're going to be walking around like it's a holiday resort,' Gerald said. ‘They'll be locked up somewhere.'

Ruby's head jerked up as if someone had landed an uppercut on her jaw. ‘Gerald, do you remember when we all had dinner at your place in Chelsea after we got back from Sweden, after the'—she paused—‘incident with Tycho Brahe? Didn't your mother say that she and her friends had been held captive somewhere near the ocean?'

Gerald thought back to the dinner. His overwhelming memory was of Ruby holding out the faint prospect of actually agreeing to become his girlfriend. His brain moved reluctantly on from that image. ‘You're right,' he said. ‘They were kept in some windowless dormitory but they could hear waves breaking on the shore. This could be the place.'

‘And she said she saw Professor McElderry and the others from the museum as well,' Felicity said, her voice rising. ‘This must be the place. And it must be where my mum and dad are too. Surely it must.'

The lights of the compound disappeared as the boat rounded the western tip of the island where the trees grew thick to the waterline. After another twenty minutes of motoring, Sam brought the boat around a headland to a beach that ran long and straight for several kilometres. He drew in a sharp breath.

‘What is it?' Ruby asked, turning to look ahead. And she saw it too.

The
Archer
.

Gerald's palatial super-yacht was anchored half a kilometre ahead. It almost glowed in the moonlight. But there were no party lights, no Chinese lanterns. The vessel floated as lifeless as a bloated corpse.

‘We don't want to get too close,' Sam said. ‘Green probably has some men on board.'

‘At least we know we're at the right place,' Gerald said. He chewed on his bottom lip. ‘What do you say we beach this boat and go the rest of the way on foot?'

There was a murmur of agreement, and Sam steered towards the sand.

‘Over there,' Ruby said, pointing to a spot where the trees grew thick down to the shore. ‘If we can get in there we can hide the boat and keep our presence secret for a little longer.'

The trees lined either side of a stream that flowed into the ocean. Sam was able to take the boat well into the foliage; even from just a little way along the beach it would be impossible to see. The hull scraped the sandy bottom and juddered to a stop. ‘That's as far as we can go,' Sam said, and he switched off the engines.

The low rumble of the jet boat was replaced with the chirrups and buzzing of insects that filled the dense jungle ahead of them. Gerald shovelled all the remaining snacks into his backpack, together with a torch and a fresh water bottle. He picked out a spare shirt from the pile in the cabin and wrapped it carefully around the perpetual motion machine to protect it. Sam looked at Gerald, Felicity and Ruby in their
Tabula Rasa
polos and grunted. ‘You better throw me one of those too, Gerald,' he said. ‘I'm a team player.'

The four of them slipped over the side of the boat and waded through a tangle of mangroves. ‘So we go in there?' Sam said, nodding towards the dark wall of vegetation.

‘That's right,' Gerald said. ‘Across the middle of the island and sneak up from behind.'

‘Right,' Sam said.

‘Right,' Gerald replied.

No one moved.

Felicity opened the top of Gerald's backpack, and pulled out the torch. ‘You pair are going to attract barnacles if you go any slower,' she said. ‘I think we've
faced enough danger in the past few months to prepare us for a hike in the forest.' She hooked an arm through Ruby's and they made their way through the veil of vines and branches.

Gerald was astonished that the foliage could so quickly and thoroughly digest a human being, leaving no sign of the girls apart from the swish of a leafy curtain that fell back into place. ‘Wait up,' he called. Then he shoved Sam hard between the shoulders. ‘After you, champ.'

And the jungle happily swallowed two more.

Chapter 22

Gerald and Sam caught up with Ruby and Felicity and made sure not to lose sight of them again. They pressed on, squeezing between trees that stretched high and straight to the star-filled sky. Soon, Gerald felt a great tiredness come over him. He glanced at his watch. It was almost midnight. He had not slept properly for more than twenty-four hours. He stumbled forward, almost falling on top of Ruby.

‘I've got to sleep,' he said, his voice a slur, ‘or I'm going to collapse. I vote we go back to the boat. There are comfy bunks at least. We can start again in the morning.'

Ruby gave a tired nod. ‘You're right. I'm done in.' She looked over her shoulder. ‘Which way is back to the beach?'

Gerald, Sam and Felicity pointed in three different directions. Ruby looked at each of them in turn. ‘A fat lot of good that is,' she said. ‘Now what do we do? Sleep in a tree?'

‘That sounds a great way to roll over in the night and break your neck,' Gerald said.

‘If you've got a better idea, don't hold back,' Ruby said. ‘We're all ears.'

Gerald was tempted to argue with Ruby just for the sport, but he was too exhausted to bother trying. ‘What do you think, Sam?' he asked.

Sam was peering into the jungle, lost in thought.

‘Sam?'

Sam looked back at Gerald, almost surprised to be hearing his name. ‘Huh? I think we should sleep in that shed over there and start again when the sun comes up.'

‘What shed?' Ruby asked.

‘The one just on the other side of that wire fence,' he said. ‘Can't you see it?'

Ruby took hold of her brother's shoulders and spun him around. ‘Just take us. We can shower you in praise when we get there.'

Sam led the group to a waist-high wire-mesh fence. Gerald was too exhausted to voice the obvious question about why there would be a fence in the middle of a jungle. The prospect of sleep took him over the wire and stumbling onwards.

The shed was a simple wooden structure. The door
was unlocked and Felicity shone the torch inside to reveal a floor piled with bales of hay and rough hessian sacks, stuffed and stacked halfway up the wall.

‘What's in these, do you think?' Ruby asked as she climbed onto one pile.

‘Don't care,' Gerald mumbled. ‘Just as long as it's soft enough to sleep on.'

Felicity flicked off the torch. Gerald could not remember ever feeling so tired. Within a minute all four of them were stretched out and lost to their dreams.

Gerald woke to a gentle knocking on his skull, as if somebody was checking whether anyone was home. He opened his eyes to be greeted by the sight of a large blunt-beaked bird, butting its forehead against his.

‘Gack!' Gerald cried.

‘Gack!' the bird echoed back at him.

Gerald bolted upright and scooted in reverse, shuffling as fast as he could across his mattress of sacks. The bird quickly overcame its shock at Gerald's sudden movement, and resumed its previous activity: eating from a pile of pellets that spilled from a tear in the sack Gerald had been sleeping on.

Gerald leaned back on his elbows and stared at the creature. It stood almost a metre tall, with two stubby wings tucked into its sides. A light covering of grey
and white down gave it the appearance of a stunted chimpanzee dressed in a feathered onesie. The bird's head had both the brilliance of a toucan and the addle-brained docility of a giant pigeon. It was quite the most extraordinary thing Gerald had ever seen.

The bird looked up from its breakfast and fixed a goggle eye on Gerald's open-mouthed stare. ‘Gack!' it said. Then it buried its head into the sack, disappearing in a spray of light brown pellets.

It was only then that Gerald realised the shed was over-run with the bizarre creatures. A dozen stumpy-legged, round-beaked birds were pecking, head-butting and tearing at the piles of hessian sacks.

Gerald leaned over and grabbed Ruby's ankle. She woke with a snort. ‘Whazzit?' she said. ‘Who's talking about what now?' Her hair was stabbed through with straw that stood out on both sides of her head like a startled scarecrow. Her outburst caught the attention of the birds, which raised their heads to stare her way.

‘Gack!' they chorused.

Ruby blinked. Then she screwed her eyes shut and opened them again. ‘Nope, no good,' she said. ‘They're still there. Gerald?'

‘Yes?'

‘Why is there a bunch of dodos in here?'

Gerald almost fell off his perch. ‘Dodos!' he said. He thought they looked familiar. ‘Of course they're dodos.' One of the birds launched itself on strong legs from
the floor to land on the sack next to Gerald. It nudged the side of its head against his thigh.

‘Uh, Ruby?' Gerald said.

‘Yes?'

‘Aren't dodos meant to be extinct?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘They are meant to be extinct.'

Felicity and Sam woke and joined the confusion. They stepped from hay bale to hay bale to join Ruby on her stack. Gerald pulled the last of the food from his backpack and handed it around.

‘Doesn't anyone find this the slightest bit strange?' Felicity asked. ‘Breakfast with dodos?'

‘Of course it's strange,' Ruby said. ‘These things died out hundreds of years ago.'

‘But not here, apparently,' Gerald said.

‘No,' Ruby said, as one of the birds tugged at her shoelaces. ‘Apparently not.'

Sam jumped to the floor and scooped up a handful of pellets. He soon had a dodo eating out of his hand. ‘They're sort of cute, I suppose,' he said. He tickled it on the back of its head as it bobbed up and down for food. ‘Why did they go extinct?'

‘The usual story: too slow and too yummy,' Ruby said. ‘And, to answer your next question, no, we cannot barbecue one of them.'

Gerald shooed two of the birds away from his backpack. They flapped their stunted wings and scattered in a flurry of feathers and
gacks
. ‘Ursus said this island
was some sort of eco-experiment,' he said. ‘Maybe bringing back the dodo is one of them.'

Ruby stretched her arms wide to ease the cricks from her back. ‘We better get going,' she said, ‘and see what other surprises this place has in store.'

They filed out of the shed to an overcast morning that hung on the landscape humid and lank, like washing left overnight on the line. The shed stood on the edge of a cleared section of land that the surrounding jungle was doing its best to take back.

Gerald pulled the compass from his pocket and pointed it at a rise in the distance. ‘We came in from the north-east last night,' he said, ‘so if we go back in that direction we should get close to Mason Green's compound.'

Felicity nodded. ‘And then what do we do?'

Gerald started across the clearing. ‘Who knows?' he said. ‘I'm making this up as we go along.'

Ruby glanced back to look for Sam and found him kneeling in the shed doorway. ‘Come on. We're going,' she called. He turned around with a sheepish grin on his face. He was holding a dodo in his hands. ‘Can I keep him?' he asked.

Ruby sucked in a slow breath. ‘Put it back,' she said. ‘One dodo in the family is enough.'

Sam grumbled to himself and placed the bird on the ground. ‘Sorry,' he said to the dodo. The bird head-butted him in the nose.

‘Gack!' it said.

They passed more of the birds scratching and pecking in the dirt like over-grown chickens. Eventually they reached a tall chain-link fence, at least three metres high, that stretched out of sight in both directions. Jungle grew thick right up to the other side of the fence.

‘Should we climb it or look for a gate?' Felicity asked.

Gerald laced his fingers through the wire mesh. ‘It could be kilometres till we find a gate,' he said. He wedged the toe of his sandshoe into the fence and lifted himself off the ground. ‘This won't be hard to climb.'

‘Why would you need such a high fence?' Sam said. ‘It's not like the dodos are going to get over it.'

Gerald clambered higher. The wire bit into his fingers. ‘Maybe they can fly a little bit.'

A beast appeared from the closest tree with incredible speed, leaping across the gap to the fence in a flash of fur and fangs. All Gerald registered was gaping red jaws and the stench of foul breath. There was a roar, and a high-pitched scream, and the clash of teeth on metal. A powerful paw lashed out and Gerald threw himself backwards off the fence. He landed hard on his side, his lungs deflating on impact. He looked up at the frantic animal hacking at the wire with its claws.

Gerald's breathing was ragged. ‘Why is there a tiger on this island?' he asked, not expecting anyone to have a sensible answer. ‘And Sam, can you please stop screaming?'