Beetle Queen Read online

  ‘Mrs Crips is a mother who knows what it is to lose a child,’ Barbara Wallace said to Uncle Max. ‘Of course she told us. What were you thinking?’

  Uncle Max’s face flushed. ‘You are quite right, of course. I got carried away with the situation. I’m sorry. Utterly unforgivable of me. Sorry. Terribly sorry.’

  ‘You’re as bad as the children,’ Barbara Wallace chastised him. ‘You’re meant to be the responsible one, the grown-up.’

  ‘Bertie, my little chickpea.’ His mother held out her arms, and Bertolt scurried into her embrace. She looked over his head at Darkus. ‘Has this boy been leading you astray?’

  ‘No, Mum.’ Bertolt shook his head, and Darkus was surprised to see him step back, out of his mother’s arms. ‘I’m sorry for lying. I really am. But I have to do this. You must let me go. There are dark things happening, things that will affect all of us.’ He blinked. ‘Mrs Crips’s son is missing, our friend Novak is in danger, and Darkus’s dad has gone – to stop Lucretia Cutter from doing something terrible at the Film Awards, we think.’

  ‘The Film Awards?’ Bertolt’s mother looked startled. ‘Oh, I love the Film Awards!’ She smiled brightly and clasped her hands together. ‘Everyone looks so handsome – oh, and the dresses are so twinkly . . .’

  ‘Mum.’ Bertolt took his mother’s hand to get her attention. ‘I want to go, Mum. I have to.’

  Virginia nodded, stepping towards her mother. ‘I’m sorry I lied, Mum.’ The words tumbled out. ‘I only did it because I didn’t think you’d let me go, and this is the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life. They need me. I have to go. Please!’

  Mrs Wallace looked at Darkus. ‘You told me his father was in hospital.’

  ‘I lied,’ Virginia admitted.

  ‘There’s been a lot of lying.’ Barbara Wallace sucked her teeth as she stared at Darkus. ‘Your father told me that my daughter should stay away from you.’

  ‘He was protecting her,’ Darkus replied, holding Mrs Wallace’s gaze. ‘He knew we’d try and fight Lucretia Cutter. He thought by keeping us apart, he’d stop us.’

  ‘Sounds like he was right.’ Barbara Wallace shook her head. ‘You should not be fighting anybody. You should be doing your school work. You are only children.’

  ‘We’re not only children,’ Darkus replied. ‘We’re children with one hundred and seventy-eight special beetles, and an uncle who understands that any young person can fight as hard as an adult.’

  Mrs Wallace scowled at Uncle Max, who rocked back on his heels, silently apologizing.

  ‘Virginia, you believe this is something you must do?’ Barbara Wallace asked her daughter.

  With clenched fists and a determined pout, Virginia nodded an emphatic yes.

  Barbara Wallace let out a sigh and shook her head. ‘If I could come with you, then maybe . . . but it’s Christmas, and someone’s got to look after Keisha and Darnell.’

  ‘I could go,’ Bertolt’s mum blurted out.

  ‘What?’ Bertolt squeaked.

  ‘I could go to Hollywood.’ Calista Bloom looked surprised at her own words. She giggled. ‘I mean, I’m hopeless at fighting, and I’m frightened of creepy-crawlies, but I could make sure the children eat properly, and tuck them in at night with a nice mug of cocoa.’

  ‘But what about the panto?’ Bertolt said, blinking furiously. ‘You can’t just walk out – you’re the good fairy.’

  Calista Bloom rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, I play that part every Christmas. Let the understudy have a go. This is much more exciting!’ She twirled around. ‘I’ve always dreamt of going to the Film Awards. I’ll have to buy a dress and shoes and a handbag.’

  ‘Would you really go, Calista?’ Barbara Wallace said. ‘That would be a weight off my mind.’

  ‘Wait!’ Virginia looked confused. ‘Are you letting me go?’

  ‘You’ve always been a fine fighter.’ Barbara Wallace gave Virginia a proud smile. ‘If you are set on fighting this bad lady, then who am I to stop you? I just want you to be safe, daughter, and Calista will make sure of that, she’s a mother, just like me.’ She looked at Uncle Max and pointed threateningly. ‘But no one is going to hurt my daughter without them hurting you first, you get me?’

  ‘Of course!’ Uncle Max spluttered. ‘No question.’

  Darkus found himself looking at Barbara Wallace and feeling envious. He wished his dad believed in him the way Virginia’s mum believed in her.

  ‘You keep an eye on him,’ Barbara Wallace said to Calista Bloom, pointing at Uncle Max.

  ‘But, but . . .’ Bertolt stammered, ‘Mum, you don’t have your passport.’

  Calista Bloom’s eyes brightened. ‘Actually, I do.’ She fished around in her turquoise handbag and pulled out a passport, spilling a lipstick and her keys on to the floor. ‘Whoops!’ She bent down and picked everything up. ‘I keep it with me, just in case Hollywood calls.’ She giggled.

  ‘Well, that settles it!’ Uncle Max clapped his hands together. ‘We’ll add Mrs Bloom to the passenger list.’

  ‘Miss,’ Calista Bloom corrected him.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Bloom.’ Uncle Max bowed.

  Bertolt’s mum turned to him and flapped her hands. ‘Isn’t this exciting, Bertie?’

  Bertolt nodded, a forced smile on his face.

  ‘We need to get airborne,’ Motticilla interjected, ‘or we’ll not make it to Narsarsuaq before the end of the day.’ She pulled open a huge door.

  Fifty metres in front of them, on the tarmac in the dazzling winter sunshine, was a small white plane with red markings. Its twin propellers reached forwards from the wings in line with a cockpit that sat high in the pointed nose.

  ‘This is Bernadette, she’s a Beechcraft 90,’ Motticilla said, striding out of the hangar. Darkus saw that Bernadette was written in swirly red writing on the tail of the plane.

  ‘Are there in-flight refreshments?’ Calista Bloom asked. ‘I didn’t have breakfast.’

  ‘We have packed a picnic,’ Uncle Max reassured her.

  Darkus felt Bertolt take his hand. His pale face was a picture of anxiety. ‘Are you frightened of flying?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Bertolt shook his head. ‘If you understand the mechanics of a plane, it’s impossible to be scared. Flying is the safest mode of transport there is.’ He paused. ‘It’s just, well, this is a big thing we are about to do.’

  ‘Yes,’ Darkus nodded. ‘It is.’

  ‘And, I’m afraid, if anyone’s going to muck it up, or get hurt,’ Bertolt frowned, ‘it’ll be my mum.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Narsarsuaq

  ‘This is going to be our greatest adventure yet,’ Virginia said, as the two propellers spluttered into life. She leant forwards, wedging her face between Bertolt and Darkus’s seats, grinning at them. ‘I thought my mum’d make me go home for sure. Can you believe your mum’s coming?’

  Darkus looked at Calista Bloom, who was at the front of the plane, talking nervously to Uncle Max. Her hands were scrunching up her brightly patterned skirt, as she talked.

  ‘I feel sick,’ Bertolt said, following Darkus’s eye-line. ‘I’d prefer not to have an adventure right now.’

  ‘You don’t mean that!’ Virginia said.

  ‘I do. I’d like Lucretia Cutter not to exist, and for everything to be normal.’

  ‘Yeah, well, normal isn’t much fun for some people.’ Virginia turned to look out of the window. ‘Normal means being invisible.’ She waved to her mother, who was standing on the tarmac.

  ‘No one could call you invisible!’ Darkus protested.

  ‘What, because I’m a Big Bird?’ Virginia snapped.

  ‘Hey, Virginia,’ Bertolt chided, ‘that’s not fair! He didn’t mean that.’

  ‘I mean, you’ve got guts,’ Darkus caught her eye, ‘and a big mouth, which makes you pretty hard to ignore.’

  A wry smile twisted Virginia’s pout. Darkus hadn’t realized her school nickname bothered her so much. She never
seemed to care what people called her.

  ‘I don’t want to live an ordinary life. I’m not good at it,’ Virginia huffed. ‘Adventures are tough, but that’s the point of them, isn’t it?’

  ‘What we’re about to try and do is a bit harder than tough,’ Bertolt pointed out.

  ‘We fought Lucretia Cutter before and we won,’ Virginia reminded him.

  ‘She got the beetles in the end, though, didn’t she?’ Darkus said, looking out of the aeroplane window at Barbara Wallace, who had her arms crossed and a grim look on her face.

  ‘Not all of them,’ Virginia said.

  ‘I’m not going to let her hurt one more,’ Darkus said, ‘or Novak, or Dad, or anyone.’

  ‘She has all the power, the money and the science.’ Bertolt blinked at Darkus through his big glasses. ‘How do you plan on stopping her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Darkus said. ‘But I am going to stop her, and this time, for good.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’ Virginia thumped Darkus’s arm with approval.

  Calista Bloom tottered down the aisle of the plane. ‘Darkus,’ she said sweetly. ‘Would you mind if I sat next to my little Bertie-kins?’

  Darkus tried not to smile as he shuffled past a blushing Bertolt to let Calista Bloom sit next to her son. He fell into the seat next to Virginia, and they grinned at each other as the plane’s engines roared to life.

  ‘Put your seatbelts on, children,’ Calista Bloom said in her bell-like voice, fastening her own.

  The Beechcraft 90 picked up speed and Darkus felt his stomach lean against his spine and his head push into the seat rest as Bernadette climbed steeply into the sky.

  As soon as the seatbelt light went off, Virginia sprang up. ‘I’m going to the cockpit. You coming?’ She clambered over Darkus, not waiting for a reply.

  Darkus leant forwards and tapped Bertolt. ‘Want to come?’

  ‘I’m going to stay with Mum,’ he shook his head, and mouthed: ‘She’s not great with flying.’

  Darkus looked at Calista Bloom, who had her eyes clamped shut and was gripping the armrests tightly. He nodded, and followed Virginia.

  Pulling aside the curtain that hid the cockpit from the cabin, Darkus saw Virginia sitting in the co-pilot’s chair, ogling the dashboard as Motty described what the switches and knobs did. Two handlebar-joysticks stuck out of the control panel, and when Motty nodded, Virginia reverently took hold of one.

  ‘She’s done me out of a job,’ Uncle Max said, hovering behind the co-pilot’s seat.

  Darkus looked out through the windscreen. They were above the clouds now; the horizon was pure blue. He pictured the trillions of beetles that crawled the surface of the planet below him. When this was over, he was going to dedicate his life to learning about those invertebrates. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that the idea behind the Fabre Project was a good one. Beetles could be employed in environmental healing. He imagined beetles working in landfill sites, breaking down waste. He imagined insect farms cultivated to help with pest control and pollination. He thought about Professor Appleyard’s book, and a world where humans farmed insects instead of cattle. It sounded like a good world to live in, something worth fighting for.

  He wondered, again, about Lucretia Cutter’s transgenic beetles, and something his father had said sounded in his head: A force that is made to do good can also be used for evil. Whoever controls that force has the power to choose.

  Who knew what kinds of insects Lucretia Cutter was creating in her laboratories, or what she planned to do with them? But Darkus knew she’d also made the creatures that had become his friends, and built Beetle Mountain, which meant that beetles created to do bad could also be good.

  His hand went up to Baxter sitting on his shoulder. The rhinoceros beetle was living proof that good could come out of whatever it was Lucretia Cutter was doing. He wished his father could see that. At the thought of his dad, Darkus’s heart ached. Where was he? Was he with Lucretia Cutter? Was he fighting her, or working for her?

  Baxter nuzzled Darkus’s finger.

  ‘Are you hungry, Baxter?’ Darkus backed out of the cockpit, walking down the aisle to the end of the cabin, where he’d strapped the suitcase of beetles into a seat. He released the seatbelt, unzipped the case and lifted the lid. Some of the beetles clambered away from the sudden light, burrowing into the oak mulch stuffed in between the teacups, others reared up and waggled their legs at Darkus.

  ‘Hello.’ Darkus reached into the front pocket of the case, pulling out two bags, one containing pieces of banana and melon, and the other containing tiny pots of jelly. ‘Baxter says it’s dinner time.’ He placed jelly pots and fruit pieces around the case, so the beetles could easily find something to eat, and then put a lump of banana on his shoulder. Baxter immediately climbed on to it with his front two legs and began to nibble it.

  ‘I’m going to have to shut you back in now,’ he said to the beetles. ‘I can’t have you roaming around the plane. I’m going to need every last one of you when we confront Lucretia Cutter.’

  He sat down in the chair next to the case, whilst Baxter ate his banana. Bertolt’s mum peered at Baxter from across the aisle.

  ‘He’s very big, isn’t he?’ She wrinkled her nose as she studied the rhinoceros beetle from a safe distance. ‘I don’t really understand why you children are so obsessed with bugs.’ She shook her head, and her long dyed-blonde ringlets bounced around. ‘Bertie used to let me brush his hair, but since that fire bug thingy decided to live in it, he won’t let me near his head. It’s dirty.’

  ‘Without beetles, Mum, you’d be up to your knees in animal dung,’ Bertolt replied.

  ‘Oh, Bertie-kins, how revolting!’ She turned and frowned at her son. ‘Poop is hardly a suitable subject for conversation, is it?’

  ‘Mum!’ Bertolt’s face scrunched up. ‘I’ve told you a thousand times. Stop calling me that.’

  ‘Beetles do more than get rid of . . . dung.’ Darkus smiled. ‘They’re an important part of the food chain for birds and other small mammals, and they pollinate all sorts of plants.’

  ‘I thought bees did that.’ Calista Bloom pouted. ‘I like bees. They make honey.’

  ‘Bees do pollinate plants,’ Darkus replied, ‘but so do beetles.’ He stroked Baxter’s elytra and turned to stare out of the window, whilst the rhinoceros beetle ate his dinner.

  Darkus was awoken by the thud of feet as Uncle Max marched Virginia down the aisle towards them, and Motty’s voice came over the tannoy. ‘Lock up your beetles and take your seats, folks. We’re coming up on Narsarsuaq.’

  ‘I need to get back to the cockpit and help with the landing,’ Uncle Max said apologetically as he hurried away.

  ‘I wanted to do that,’ Virginia grumbled, ‘but they wouldn’t let me. It’s not my fault I turned off the autopilot.’

  ‘Maybe take some flying lessons, before you try landing a plane,’ Darkus suggested as Virginia helped him lift and strap the beetle suitcase into the seat before they scurried back to their own.

  As the plane descended over the charcoal sea, Darkus saw white icebergs thrusting up from the water, like the tops of drowning mountains. The sea ended abruptly, and a strip of tarmac painted with white lines climbed out of the water, marking the path inland to Blue West One, the airbase on Narsarsuaq.

  The plane lowered its wheels, grazing the runway as it landed steadily and slowed to a stop.

  ‘Nice landing, Motty!’ Virginia shouted, cupping her hands round her mouth so the sound would carry.

  ‘This is your captain speaking.’ Motty’s voice came over the tannoy. ‘You are now free to undo your seatbelts and hop off the plane.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Dr Yuki Ishikawa

  Aman in US military uniform was waiting for them on the runway.

  Uncle Max handed out padded coats with fur-lined hoods to the children, giving Calista Bloom his own.

  Uncle Max opened the door and jumped down.
He spoke a few words with the uniformed man, who walked round to the back of his truck and pulled out a standard army-issue jacket with hood. Uncle Max pulled it on gratefully, whilst the children passed down their overnight bags and the suitcase containing the beetles.

  Darkus’s breath was a heavy white fog that made the top of his lip sting. It was bitterly cold, even with the coat.

  The military man pointed to a minibus with its engine running. Bertolt and Virginia piled their bags on to the back seat and sat down. Darkus lifted up the suitcase of beetles to sit beside him. Motty stayed with the plane, to refuel for the second leg of the journey.

  It was only four in the afternoon Greenland time, but it was dark as midnight. Uncle Max explained that this far north, there were only a few hours of daylight in winter.

  The bus drove down a cleared road, passing a series of single-storey square wooden houses painted red, tucked into three or four feet of snow. The bus driver informed them that there were only one hundred and sixty inhabitants in Narsarsuaq, which doubled when the adventure tourists arrived or the scientists descended on the town. He said that in the winter the temperature fell below freezing but that the long dark nights made it a perfect place to experience the Aurora Borealis – the Northern Lights.

  ‘This place we’re going to,’ Virginia whispered to Darkus, ‘the ar-bor-e-tum. What is it?’

  ‘It’s a collection of trees,’ Bertolt replied, his whole body juddering with the cold.

  ‘The University of Copenhagen tends the Greenlandic Arboretum,’ Uncle Max explained. ‘It is a hundred and fifty hectares of trees. The area is also a climate station, collecting data on temperature, soil properties and things that tell us about climate change.’

  ‘And that’s where we’re hoping Dr Yuki Ishikawa is,’ Darkus added, with a shiver.

  The bus pulled to a halt. ‘Bus wait here,’ the driver said. ‘Don’t want to get stuck in snow.’