Revenge of the Beetle Queen Page 5

  “So what do you think did happen?” Darkus asked.

  “All I know is that Spencer didn’t come home from work one day,” Mrs. Crips said. “The shoes and the watch weren’t his. The shoes must have belonged to some other unfortunate soul, but my Spencer is a size nine and those shoes were a size eleven. He wore scruffy trainers, and those were smart brogues. I told the police all of this, but would they listen?”

  “No,” Darkus replied. “I’ll bet they didn’t investigate any of it.”

  “Spencer was kidnapped,” Mrs. Crips said. “I’m sure of it.”

  “How can you be sure?” Bertolt asked.

  “What other explanation is there? My Spencer is a caring, happy boy who would never do anything to worry me. Wherever he is, he’s being held against his will and can’t contact me. That’s kidnapping.”

  “Do you have any idea who did it?” Virginia leaned forward. “Or why?”

  Darkus’s eyes flickered up to the photograph of Spencer and the dung beetle. He had a horrible feeling he knew what had happened.

  “The day that Spencer went missing, before the police came and told me all that rot about him drowning, a woman came here and took Scud.”

  “Scud?”

  Mrs. Crips pointed at the photo. “Spencer had a pet dung beetle called Scud.”

  Bertolt glanced at Darkus, who looked at Virginia. She nodded in reply to their silent question.

  “Did the woman who took him have a walking stick and big sunglasses?” Virginia asked.

  Mrs. Crips shook her head. “No, it was an Asian woman in a black suit with a chauffeur’s cap. She said Spencer had stolen property belonging to Cutter Laboratories. She barged right in here, searching the place until she found Scud’s kettle in Spencer’s room—Scud slept in an old copper kettle filled with damp soil, you see—and took him, without so much as a by-your-leave.”

  “That sounds like Lucretia Cutter’s chauffeur.” Bertolt looked up at Darkus.

  “I told the police about her, but they laughed at me.” Mrs. Crips shook her head. “They even asked me if it was true that Spencer was a thief.”

  “Mrs. Crips …” Darkus leaned forward. “We believe every word you are saying.” He hesitated. “Scud, was he … clever?”

  Mrs. Crips gripped the arms of her chair and stared at Darkus. “How could you know that?”

  Darkus looked at Virginia and Bertolt. The three of them got to their feet.

  Baxter crawled out from his hiding place under Darkus’s sweater. Marvin leapt down from Virginia’s braid as Newton rose out of Bertolt’s hair, glowing.

  “Because we have beetles like Scud,” Darkus replied. “This is Baxter”—he pointed to each beetle in turn—“and this is Marvin and this is Newton. Our beetles understand humans, too.”

  Mrs. Crips’s eyes were wide and her mouth open as she looked at the three beetles.

  “Oh, my dears, if this is true,” she whispered, “then you are in terrible danger.”

  “We know.” Darkus nodded. “That’s why we need you to tell us as much as you can about what happened before Spencer disappeared. It might help.”

  Mrs. Crips’s eyes darted from side to side, her shoulders dropped, and she sighed.

  “Shall I pour the tea?” Bertolt asked, lifting the teapot. “It’ll be ruined if it’s left much longer.” Newton danced about him, flashing, happy to be out of hiding.

  “Spencer wanted more than anything to be a vet,” Mrs. Crips said as Darkus and Virginia returned to their seats. “But he didn’t get on with school. He was bullied. He dropped out and got a job working for a cleaning company, doing night shifts in big offices, vacuuming carpets and wiping down desks. One of those offices was Cutter Laboratories in Wapping.

  “One morning he comes home from work saying he’s seen a job posted up on a notice board, to be a laboratory assistant looking after beetle farms. He was so excited about getting to work with living creatures that he applied, and he got the job. I was so proud. And Spencer loved it. I’ve never seen him so happy. He was working in a laboratory in the East End and learning new things every day. He’d come home and tell me about different species, and the work he did feeding them jelly and recording their behavior on special charts. He was good at his job, so they promoted him. That’s when the strange things started to happen. They made him sign a legal document promising not to tell anyone about his work. He couldn’t say anything, but something about this new work troubled him. Spencer’s dinner conversations became about how animals deserved to roam free, in their natural habitat, especially ones clever enough to know they were living in a cage.

  “The day before he disappeared …” She paused. “Spencer came home from work in a state. He wouldn’t tell me what had happened, but his behavior worried me and I badgered it out of him. He said that if he got caught he’d be fired, but that it was a small price to pay for the beetles’ freedom.”

  “What had he done?” Darkus asked.

  Mrs. Crips bit her lip. “Spencer was monitoring a special selection of beetles called the Bartholomew Cuttle Strain.”

  Virginia grabbed Darkus’s arm.

  “These were beetles intelligent enough to understand their surroundings. Experiments were being carried out on these beetles, and Spencer had to record their behavior in the hours and days after each experiment.” She shook her head. “Spencer had a big heart. He grew attached to the beetles, a dung beetle in particular who he called Scud. Some of the experiments were cruel, and Spencer hated to see the insects in distress.

  “One day, one of the normal dung beetles—the ones they bred in the farm tanks—died. Those beetles were used as control tests and weren’t tightly monitored, so Spencer put the dead beetle into Scud’s tank and smuggled Scud out of the laboratory in his lunch box. He wrote on the chart that Scud had died. No one in the laboratory realized that the dead beetle wasn’t Scud, and no one was interested in the ordinary farmed insects. Weeks passed. No one noticed the missing dung beetle, but the other beetles knew what had happened, and they clamored for Spencer to free them, too. Their unhappiness in the laboratory made him feel terrible, and so he came up with a plan. He made a careful note of each species of beetle, and measured each individual beetle’s size. Then he collected matching samples from the farm tanks, and once he had a group of beetles that mirrored the Bartholomew Cuttle Strain, he stayed late. When no one was about, he smuggled the special beetles into a cake tin, replacing them with the ordinary beetles, and then he left the laboratory”—Mrs. Crips looked at the children—“and he set the beetles free.”

  Virginia sucked in her breath and looked up at the picture of Spencer on the wall. “That was brave.”

  “Mrs. Crips,” Darkus said, “our beetles—they’re Spencer’s beetles, or descendants of them. What he did was heroic. I wish you could see them all. There’s this amazing place called Beetle Mountain and all Spencer’s beetles live there, free and happy. He did a good thing.”

  “I’d swap ten mountains of happy beetles to have my son back,” Mrs. Crips said.

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  “We’ll find him, Mrs. Crips. You’ll see,” Bertolt said.

  “So Lucretia Cutter’s making beetles, in these insect-farm things—but why?” Virginia asked on the way back to the bus stop. “And why would she kidnap Spencer?”

  “Bet Dad knows what’s going on,” Darkus said. “I wonder why the beetles are called the Bartholomew Cuttle Strain?”

  “Maybe she’s repeating the same experiments she did with your dad,” Virginia said, “on the Fabre Project.”

  “Maybe.” Darkus frowned.

  “We need to find out more about the work they did when they were part of the Fabre Project,” Bertolt said.

  “Dad’s not going to tell me anything,” Darkus sighed, “and we can’t ask Lucretia Cutter …”

  “What about Novak?” Bertolt said. “She helped you before.”

  Darkus frowned. He hadn’t heard from Novak
since the morning she helped him rescue his father. “I don’t want to get her into more trouble than she’s already in.”

  “Is there no one else we can talk to?” Virginia said.

  “I can’t think of anyone.” Darkus frowned. “Wait a minute! I’m being an idiot. Of course there is: Professor Andrew Appleyard.”

  It was five o’clock, and getting dark when they left Mrs. Crip’s house. Darkus, Virgina, and Bertolt hopped on a number 73 bus to Angel tube station, where they scrambled through the barrier and onto a train, switching from the Northern line at Monument to the District line and getting off at South Kensington. A short walk from the Natural History Museum, Darkus came to a halt in front of a five-story redbrick building with a pair of white pillars on either side of the front door and black wrought iron balconies below the windows.

  When the buzzer sounded, Darkus pushed the giant door, entering a churchlike vestibule with a mosaic floor and a grand, sweeping staircase.

  “This place is posh,” Virginia said, looking up at the ornate cornices on the ceiling. “Is Professor Appleyard rich?”

  “I don’t think so,” Darkus said. “He’s just lived here a really long time, from before things got expensive. He’s pretty old—he worked with my dad at the Natural History Museum before he retired.”

  As he reached the top of the staircase, Darkus saw the door to apartment number 15 was open, and a thin, elderly gentleman, dressed in a powder-blue pajamalike robe, was standing in the doorway. He blinked at the children through half-glasses propped on the end of his nose.

  “Is that Bartholomew’s son?” he said, his forehead wrinkling as his eyebrows rose. “My, you’ve grown up quickly. What are you doing here?”

  “Hello, Professor. We wanted to talk to you about something,” Darkus replied. “It’s really quite urgent.”

  “Well then, come in, come in.” He waved the children through the door and into his home. “I must say, I was relieved to hear that Barty had reappeared. He had me worried for a moment there. It was very naughty of him to disappear off on a research sabbatical and not tell anyone about it. He gave us all a terrible fright.”

  Darkus grimaced. The research sabbatical was the story Dad was telling everyone, and he was shocked by how readily people accepted the lie. When they asked about the locked room, his father would calmly explain that he’d never gone in there, that it was a mistake blown up by the newspapers into a big mystery. People would nod knowingly and reply, “You can’t trust what you read in the papers.”

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?” Professor Appleyard asked.

  “Sorry.” Darkus pointed. “This is Virginia, and this is Bertolt.”

  “Nice to meet you, Virginia,” Professor Appleyard said, shaking her hand, “and you too, Bertolt.”

  “The pleasure is all mine, Professor,” Bertolt said.

  “Here we go.” Virginia rolled her eyes and Bertolt scowled at her.

  “Now, young Cuttle, have you come with a message from your father?”

  “Kind of,” Darkus said, distracted by the walls of the professor’s hallway, which were built from glass terrariums. Each one was lit with white, green, or red lights, and furnished with earth, greenery, and a species of invertebrate. He saw locusts, crickets, and a variety of beetles, including longhorns and June beetles.

  “Whoa! Tarantulas!” Virginia pushed her nose up against one of the tanks. “Pink ones!”

  “Yes.” Professor Appleyard chuckled. “Now, can I interest you children in a bite to eat? I was about to make myself supper.”

  “I’m starving,” Virginia replied.

  “Marvelous, but first, why don’t you bring out your Chalcosoma caucasus”—he pointed at Darkus—“your Lampyridae, and your Sagra buqueti?” He smiled at Bertolt and Virginia.

  The three children stared at Professor Appleyard.

  “How did you know we had beetles?” Darkus asked as he lifted Baxter out from the neck of his sweater.

  Professor Appleyard clapped his hands together with delight as the three beetles leapt and landed on their humans’ outstretched hands.

  “I’ve spent my life observing beetle habitats and watching insects. I can spot twitching antennae from thirty paces, although I must admit this is the first time I’ve discovered the habitat to be children. The Sagra buqueti was in plain view. I saw him before you walked through my door. The Lampyridae was peeping over Bertolt’s ear, and as for your Chalcosoma caucasus, Darkus, his horn was poking through your sweater. The size, shape, and color of the horn is a dead giveaway as to the species of a beetle, you know.”

  “His name is Baxter,” Darkus said.

  “He’s unusually large; where did you get him?”

  The children looked at each other.

  “Actually, that’s what we came to see you about,” Darkus replied.

  “Well, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to ask you to put your coleopteran friends in this empty tank, to keep them safe.” He lifted the lid of a tank carpeted with brown mulch. “There are other insects that roam free in my home, and some of them are predatory.”

  Darkus placed Baxter in the terrarium and Newton flew in to join him, but Marvin wasn’t so keen. “Let go!” Virginia held her hand over the tank and shook it, but the metallic red beetle clung on stubbornly. “C’mon, Marvin. It’s only for a little while.”

  Marvin reluctantly let go, one leg at a time, dropping onto Baxter’s elytra. The frog-legged leaf beetle kicked his hind leg, spurring Baxter forward.

  “Ha! Look!” Virginia pressed her nose to the glass. “Marvin’s riding Baxter.” Marvin waved his forelegs at Virginia. “See you later, little dude.”

  Professor Appleyard’s brow furrowed as he stared hard at the beetles. “This way to the kitchen.”

  The children followed him to the end of the hallway of tanks and into a wooden-floored kitchen with a sink, work surfaces, and cupboards along one wall and a low rectangular table in the middle of the space, surrounded by floor cushions. The professor opened the fridge and lifted out two plates, setting them down on the low table.

  “Please do sit down.” He turned and grabbed a ramekin of thick brown liquid from the side. “Mustn’t forget the satay sauce.” The children sat cross-legged on the cushions, and Bertolt peered at the plates. “Now, what did you children want to talk to me about?” the professor said, joining them.

  “Um, excuse me, Professor,” Virginia asked, “is that octopus or squid?” She poked one of the crispy black shapes.

  “Neither! It’s tarantula tempura. High in protein, low in fat, and surprisingly tasty.”

  “You eat spiders?” Bertolt whispered, aghast.

  “And those?” Virginia’s eyes were bulging out of her face.

  “Cricket satay,” Professor Appleyard replied, with a smile. “My favorite.”

  “This is your supper?” Darkus asked, astonished.

  “Yes, I’m rather into entomophagy.”

  “Ento-moph-agy?” Darkus sounded the word out.

  “Insect eating.” The professor chuckled. “Although strictly speaking, a tarantula is an arachnid.” Darkus grimaced. “Come now, Darkus, eating an invertebrate is no different from eating any other kind of creature. Birds feed on them and you eat birds. Your digestive system is probably full of tiny creatures you haven’t realized you’ve swallowed.”

  Darkus stared at the spiders. “But the hairs …”

  “Singed off before they were dipped in batter.” Professor Appleyard offered the children chopsticks. “Would you like to try one?”

  Bertolt shook his head. “No thank you.”

  Virginia bent down, her nose almost touching the rim of the plate. “You really eat them?”

  Professor Appleyard picked up a tarantula with his chopsticks, dashed soy sauce over it from a bottle on the table, dusted it in cayenne pepper, and bit into it.

  Bertolt squealed and covered his eyes.

  Darkus was transfixed. He’d never
seen anyone eat a spider.

  “It’s not that different from seafood or vegetable tempura,” the professor said after he’d swallowed.

  “But why … ?” Darkus struggled to word his question without sounding rude.

  “A personal project, really.” He lifted a skewer of grilled crickets and dipped it in the peanut sauce. “I’ve been a vegetarian most of my life. I don’t eat meat because I don’t wish to be a part of the aggressive factory farming that the demand for animal meat has created. It’s not sustainable and it’s damaging the planet.”

  “But I like burgers,” Virginia said, “and bacon sandwiches!”

  “Oh yes, me too, Virginia, me too, they are delicious,” Professor Appleyard agreed, “but the human race is growing at such a fierce rate that even if we chop every forest to the ground to raise cattle, there won’t be enough meat to feed the world’s population in a few years.”

  “We mustn’t chop the rain forests down!” Bertolt said, distressed.

  “I agree.” Professor Appleyard nodded. “But if there is not enough meat to feed the people on this planet, then what will they eat?”

  “Vegetables?” Virginia suggested, looking at the fried spiders.

  “If you live in a wealthy country you can buy a rich mix of vegetables, but not elsewhere. However, there is a way to farm animals that are high in protein but don’t require masses of land and feed.”

  “Insect meat?” Darkus guessed, although he’d never thought of insects as being meaty.

  “Insect protein.” Professor Appleyard nodded, taking a cricket between his teeth, sliding it off the skewer, and munching on it happily. “In the West we have a strange relationship with insects. We’d never think of eating them, but one day we may have no choice. Although in some of the fanciest restaurants they are an expensive delicacy.”

  Virginia snorted out a laugh. “That can’t be true!”

  “It is! There’s a lovely restaurant in Denmark that serves ants, and they taste of peppermint.”

  “Those tanks in the hall?” Darkus looked over his shoulder.

  “My own miniature insect farm. I rear my own food. I like to keep everything alive and fresh for as long as possible before it’s cooked, and then they are killed humanely by freezing them. All my insects are bred for food—well, apart from the ones in the meditation room—and I’m working on an insect cookbook,” Professor Appleyard said proudly. “It’s my retirement project.”