The Curiosity Machine (29 page)

Gerald and Ruby laughed, for the first time in what felt like a very long time.

‘I think that's the bridge just ahead,' Felicity said. ‘Oh. It looks a bit dire.'

The bridge was constructed from short timber planks and its rickety way was made even more precarious by the water that raced across the top of the boards.

‘Either the stream has risen or the bridge has dropped,' Ruby said. ‘Either way, it looks like we're going to get our feet wet.'

Felicity screwed up her nose. ‘I hate walking in wet socks. I'm taking them off.' She sat and unlaced her left sneaker.

Sam sat on the sand beside her, tugging at his own shoes. ‘You might consider doing the same, Ruby,' he said. ‘You could kill every fish in there if you wash your socks in it.' Sam stopped what he was doing and wrinkled his brow. ‘What do you think this is?' he asked. He reached into a tangle of reeds and pulled out a flat white triangle, bigger than his hand. ‘It looks like it's made of bone.'

Gerald spared Sam a quick glance. ‘Then it's probably a bone,' he said.

Sam turned the flat shape in his hand. ‘It's pretty big. Shoulder blade from a cow, maybe?'

Ruby wafted a sock under Sam's nose. ‘Maybe Mason Green has been using his insta-huge spray on rats,' she said. ‘Just imagine that.'

Sam shoved Ruby hard with both hands, sending her rolling onto her back. ‘Don't even joke about that,' he said. He flicked the bone triangle at Ruby like a wonky frisbee.

Ruby ducked and the piece of bone shot into the bush behind her. ‘You overthink things, Sam,' she said. She yanked off her shoes with a grunt, then tied the laces together and draped the sneakers around her neck.

Sam grumbled to himself. ‘At least I don't overstink things.'

Felicity tied her sneakers in the same way as Ruby, and put a tentative foot on the first board of the bridge. ‘It's slippery,' she said. ‘Be careful everyone.'

Sam followed after her. ‘It's so hot we should just swim across,' he said.

‘I wouldn't be surprised if there were piranhas,' Felicity said. The water lapped at her ankles as she moved slow step by slow step, arms outstretched like a tightrope walker.

‘Or rats in aqualungs,' Ruby said from behind Sam.

Her brother stopped halfway across the bridge and flung her a filthy look over his shoulder. ‘I am going to give you such an enormous wedgie when you get to the other side,' he muttered.

Ruby snuffled a victory laugh and followed him out across the stream. Gerald waited for her to get a few metres ahead. It was at times like this that he wished he had a twin; they made such excellent targets.

Felicity jumped the last step and landed on the sandy path on the far side, graceful as a ballerina. ‘Simple as that,' she said, spinning on her toes to face her friends as they continued their crossing. Sam, then Ruby, soon joined her. Gerald eased his way across the slimy boards. His right foot hit a particularly slippery patch and shot forward, almost landing him in the splits in the middle of the bridge.

‘Careful,' Felicity called out to him. ‘No one is going to carry you if you twist an ankle, princess.'

Sam raised his eyebrows. ‘That's a very Ruby thing to say.'

Felicity shrugged one shoulder. ‘Sometimes a simple truth can be very liberating.' She looked up at Gerald as he righted himself. ‘Hurry up,' she called again. ‘You're slower than Aunt Marjorie's labrador.'

Gerald stopped midstream and gave Felicity a quizzical look. ‘That doesn't even make sense.'

Felicity raised her nose an inch in the air, and sniffed. ‘It would if you knew my Aunt Marjorie,' she said.

As Gerald lifted his foot to take another step, the water behind him turned a turgid black. Great bubbles bloomed on the surface and a colossal creature surged from the water. Twin rows of jagged teeth parted wide and clamped tight around the pack on Gerald's back. Gerald was pulled flat to the waterlogged boards as the giant crocodile landed on the bridge with a splintering
whack
!

One of the backpack straps snapped but the other
held firm, tethering Gerald to the croc's back as the monster reptile rolled off the bridge and plunged into the stream.

Gerald's world turned in dizzying circles. All he could think of as the croc spun were two words: death roll. Gerald had seen enough nature documentaries to know the death roll was the ultimate killing manoeuvre. A croc would drag an unsuspecting cow into a river and spin the beast until it drowned, then wedge the carcass under the bank and leave it to rot to make the eating easier. Gerald held his breath for all he was worth. He had no intention of being stuffed into a reptile pantry like some sack of soggy potatoes. The strap dug deep into his right shoulder, winding tighter and tighter like a twisted rubber band. Gerald's face broke the surface and he caught a quick gulp of air before pitching once more into the wash that boiled and seethed like a witch's cauldron. He had to get free of the backpack. It was his only hope, before the crocodile lost its taste for St Cuthbert's backpacks and decided to sample a St Cuthbert's student.

Gerald tensed his stomach muscles and threw himself into the crocodile's side. In the tumult of thrashing bodies something had to break. Finally, the strap gave way. Gerald spun from the crocodile's death grip and his head broke the surface. Ruby, Felicity and Sam were screaming at him to get out of the water.

Gerald wiped his eyes clear and saw that he was only a few metres from the bridge. He kicked out and
swam against the current to the wooden platform and scrambled up and out of the stream. Instinct kicked in and he raced to the closest bank and collapsed onto the sand. He gazed at the water's surface. It flowed as serenely as a Wordsworth poem. There was no sign of the crocodile and no hint of the battle that had just taken place.

‘Are you all right?' Ruby's voice carried across from the far bank. ‘Gerald, are you hurt?'

Gerald sat in the sand and looked across the stream to his friends. He had not seen such worried expressions since the last time he narrowly cheated certain death. ‘I've lost the perpetual motion machine,' he called back to Ruby. ‘That was our back-up plan.'

Ruby sighed. ‘Never mind about that,' she said. ‘We'll just have to make sure Sam's plan works first time.'

Gerald dragged himself to his feet and stared at the waterlogged planks that stretched ahead of him.

‘I'm sure the croc is long gone,' Ruby called out to him.

Gerald stretched out a tentative foot and felt the water's cool flow about his ankle. He sucked in a calming breath to still his shakes, and took another step. He was a third of the way across the stream when the crocodile launched out of the water and landed on the bridge, blocking his way to the far bank. The impact juddered Gerald from his feet and he dropped hard onto his backside. His eyes shot up as the beast in front of
him grinned with evil intent. Gerald's body went into lockdown. His legs refused to do the obvious thing. Then the crocodile opened its jaws, revealing rows of cream-coloured triangular teeth, each one bigger than a boy's hand.

The monster moved towards Gerald, unlocking a mouth big enough to swallow him whole.

Then the crocodile arched its back and emitted a rasping
huuurk
that sounded like the world's biggest cat hoiking up the world's biggest hairball. Then it spat out Gerald's backpack. The bag struck Gerald in the chest like a giant phlegm-covered cannonball. He almost dropped it into the stream as he fell backwards.

The croc took another pace. The beast was just metres away. Ruby, Felicity and Sam were shouting and raining rocks against its back from the far bank. But the missiles made no impact on the leathery skin. Gerald stared paralysed at the advancing monster. He didn't even blink when the shark launched in a grey blur from the stream and took the crocodile in the ribs. The reptile threw its head back and roared as a chasm of razor-sharp incisors closed around its chest, showering the air with blood and broken fangs. A jettisoned shark tooth spun from the monster's maw and struck Gerald in the forehead, tearing the skin above his left eyebrow. The force of the shark's momentum carried both enormous creatures back beneath the water with an immense splash.

Finally, Gerald managed to convince his legs that running was a good idea. He landed in the arms of his friends on the far bank.

‘Did you see that?' was all he could ask. Again and again. ‘Did you see that?'

Sam took the dripping backpack and Felicity and Ruby led Gerald to a tuft of grass so he could sit and somehow recover.

‘Yes, we saw. We saw,' Ruby said. ‘A shark the size of a speedboat just attacked a crocodile as a big as a dinosaur. You're not imagining it.'

Sam unwrapped the soggy T-shirt from around the stainless steel sphere in Gerald's pack. ‘The perpetual motion machine seems okay,' he said, ‘apart from being coated in crocodile spit, of course.' He looked back to the stream and the bridge. ‘It looks like we can add giant apex killers to the list of bizarre animals in Mason Green's zoo. Those things looked prehistoric. Did you see the size of the teeth?'

‘That's pretty much all I saw,' Gerald said. He swallowed and tried to get to his feet, but he only managed to get halfway up before dropping to his backside again.

Ruby held Gerald by the shoulders to keep him upright. ‘There's one thing about this island that just doesn't ring true,' she said.

Felicity scoffed up a laugh. ‘Only the one thing?'

‘Mason Green is not the zookeeper type,' Ruby said. ‘He's all about world domination and power and people
calling him God. This place isn't his style at all.'

‘Well, Ursus did say that he doesn't work for Green,' Felicity said. ‘Maybe someone else is running this show after all.'

‘Geppetto could be pulling the strings for all I care,' Sam said. ‘Let's get to the
Archer
and be done with this crazy island.'

Ruby took Gerald's hand and hauled him to his feet. He stood unsteadily for a moment, getting his balance, then let Ruby lead him along the path into the jungle. He could probably have made it quite easily by himself, but he kept a firm grip on Ruby's hand.
It'll make her feel better to be helping me
, Gerald assured himself.

They followed the trail for a few hundred metres before Ruby pulled to a sudden halt. She whipped around to face Sam and Felicity with a finger to her lips. They all dropped to their haunches.

What now?
Gerald wondered. A sabre-toothed tiger? A woolly mammoth? Carnivorous penguins? Ruby pointed through the tangle of branches and vines to their left.

Gerald stopped breathing. It was worse than some primeval predator.

There were two of them, squatted in the bushes.

Humans. Looking right their way.

Chapter 28

For a moment, both groups stared at each other. No one wanted to make the first move.

Then it struck Gerald: if this was a pair of Mason Green's bullyboys, why were they hiding in the bushes? He ignored Ruby's gasp of alarm as he stood and called out, ‘You don't need to hide. We're not going to hurt you.'

Ruby hissed an ‘
Are you crazy?
' but in a moment there was a rustling in the undergrowth and the movement of two bodies coming towards the path. Ruby sucked in a sharp breath as two blonde women stepped out in front of them.

‘Ella!' she said. ‘Irene! What are you doing out here?'

The twins, still dressed in their uniforms from the
Archer
, beamed at the sight of the four ragged youngsters on the path, and gathered them into a tight group to make sure they were all okay.

‘We're fine,' Sam said to Irene, puffing out his chest. ‘I've been keeping everyone safe.'

Ruby rolled her eyes. ‘You are truly pathetic,' she said.

Irene tried to suppress a smile. ‘You're terribly brave,' she said to Sam.

Sam looked like his ribs were about to burst.

‘We broke out of the dormitory where they had locked us up,' Irene continued. ‘We were on our way to the
Archer
to try to get to the ship's radio room.'

‘We heard you coming along the path. We thought you were guards,' Ella said, ‘so we ducked into the jungle to hide.'

Sam told them about his plan to use the EPIRB and how it was all his idea and how brilliant an idea it was and that it was all his.

‘That is brilliant,' Irene said. ‘If we use the radio, the guards will be able to monitor it and know help is on the way. By firing off the EPIRB they'll be none the wiser. You
are
clever.' Sam's face exploded tropical pink.

Ruby shook her head. ‘You are a hopeless case,' she said to her brother. She turned to Ella and Irene. ‘You two know the
Archer
better than anyone,' she said. ‘Can you find one of these beacon thingies?'

Ella nodded. ‘There's one in the rear gear locker on
the lower deck. We can get to that without being seen.'

‘First, we have to show you what we found further in behind the trees,' Irene said.

Before Gerald could ask what could possibly be more important than sending out a distress signal, the blonde twins swept away through the tangle of branches like jungle cats. Gerald ploughed after them, battling through the vines. More than once he lost sight of the pair, only to catch a flash of white uniform through the leaves. He urged Sam, Ruby and Felicity to keep up. Finally, they all emerged in a clearing, at the centre of which stood a squat building, almost identical to the butterfly house they had found earlier that day.

Ella waved off Gerald's questions. ‘Come and look inside,' she said. ‘I think this will answer everything.'

The six of them gathered in the doorway of the corrugated-iron structure. Ella nodded to Irene, who stood at the back of the group. ‘Ready?' Then she slipped a hand into a pocket and retrieved a key. She unlocked the door, flung it open and rushed inside. Gerald felt a sharp shove in the back as Irene corralled them all through the doorway.