Revenge of the Beetle Queen Read online

  “Darkus, listen …”

  “NO!” His body was shaking uncontrollably. “You listen! Why have you shaved off your beard?” He glared accusingly at his dad. “Why are you wearing fancy new clothes? What are you doing in that room with the microscope and my beetles? You’re pretending everything is normal, but it’s not.”

  “Darkus, those beetles, I know you care about them, but …”

  “YES! They’re my friends. They were there when you weren’t. They helped me when I needed them, and those beetles fought and beat Lucretia Cutter. They’re on our side. We need them. This isn’t just about us, you know? There’s a boy, called Spencer Crips, Lucretia Cutter’s got him. His mum hasn’t seen him in five years!”

  “Darkus, calm down. Please. You’re gibbering.”

  “I WILL NOT CALM DOWN.” Darkus stared fiercely at his father. “I’m not stupid. I know you’re up to something.”

  “Darkus, I’m not going to argue with you about this anymore. If I find out that you’ve been poking around anywhere near Lucretia Cutter …”

  “You’ll do what?” Darkus stuck out his chin.

  “I’ll call in the exterminators.” His father’s face was stony.

  Darkus stared. “You wouldn’t! You don’t believe in killing things.”

  “Those beetles will bring Lucretia Cutter. If you won’t go somewhere safe, then I will have to get rid of them.”

  Darkus felt like his stomach was being sucked into a black hole as he stared into his father’s flinty eyes. He wanted to shout at him, but he had no words. Instead, he spun on his heel and stormed out. He pounded up the stairs, slowing at the top of the second flight as a sob erupted from his chest. He stumbled forward onto all fours, crawling up the last steps to the landing outside his bedroom. He hammered the floor with his fist, sucking in air as the bullet wound in his shoulder made him wince, hot tears blurring his vision.

  Baxter hopped down from his shoulder to the ground, rearing up onto his back legs and waggling his forelegs with concern. Darkus wiped his eyes and rolled over onto his back, glaring at the ceiling.

  “Why is Dad being like this, Baxter? If he could just see the power of the beetles, he’d see that together we’re more than a match for Lucretia Cutter. We should be fighting her, not running away.”

  Baxter’s elytra flipped up, his soft amber wings unfolding as he leapt, flying onto Darkus’s chest. The rhinoceros beetle settled down in the pit between his ribs, folding his serrated legs under his abdomen and resting his head on Darkus’s chest.

  Darkus lifted his hands, placing them protectively around the beetle. “I don’t care what he says, Baxter. I won’t ever let him separate us. If he tries, then I’ll run away and never come back.” He thought about what his dad had said about the beetles being her creatures. “Dad’s making a terrible mistake, you know, Baxter? Without the beetles, we don’t have a chance against Lucretia Cutter.”

  After a while he sat up, putting Baxter back onto his shoulder. Opposite him was the tower of cardboard boxes that he and Uncle Max had moved out of his bedroom the day that he’d come to stay, all those months ago. His eyes flickered down the pile, stopping at the box second from the bottom. It had a ripped corner. He remembered clumsily dragging it backward out of the room and tearing the box. The teeth of Nefertiti had spilled out onto the floor, together with a load of folders.

  Suddenly he was on his knees. The folders! He remembered that they had each had the words Fabre Project on them.

  He listened to the muffled voices of his dad and Uncle Max in the living room as he silently and carefully brought down the boxes, to get to the one with the ripped corner. He hadn’t known what the Fabre Project was back then, but he did now. If Dad wasn’t going to tell him what was going on, then he’d find out for himself.

  He reached the ripped box and pushed back the cardboard flaps. There they were, two piles of faded red and yellow folders, all marked Fabre Project. He lifted them out and put them on the floor.

  Downstairs, the door to the front room opened, and he froze.

  “I won’t be back late,” he heard his dad say. “Visiting hours at the hospital are till nine.”

  Darkus looked about in panic—the landing was a mess of boxes and his father’s folders.

  “I hope the old boy pulls through,” Uncle Max replied. “Don’t worry about us. I’ll keep an eye on Darkus.”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about all of this, Max.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Uncle Max reassured him. “Andrew is an old man. I know the doctors say it looks like an insect bite, but it could have been a stroke or a heart attack.”

  “That’s why I have to go, to be sure, and poor Andrew has no one.”

  “You can take my car.”

  Darkus closed his eyes tight, dreading the sound of his father coming up the stairs to say good-bye, but a second later he heard the front door slam.

  Darkus grabbed up the folders, running on tiptoe into his room, and dumped them on the floor. He returned to the hall and hastily restacked the boxes. He was scrambling back into his room when he heard Uncle Max’s footsteps on the stairs. He threw an armful of clothes over the folders, then dropped cross-legged onto the floor, grabbing the nearest book.

  There was a knock. “Come in,” Darkus said, trying to calm his breathing.

  “I thought you might be hungry,” Uncle Max said, pushing the door open. He was carrying a plate of ham sandwiches and a banana in one hand, and a glass of milk in the other.

  “I’m starving,” Darkus admitted.

  “Good book?” Uncle Max’s eyebrows waggled. Darkus looked down and realized he was holding An Intellectual History of Cannibalism upside down.

  “I wasn’t really reading,” he admitted.

  “Shame.” Uncle Max grinned. “That’s the best book about eating people I’ve ever read.”

  Darkus smiled, sitting forward as his uncle put the plate and glass on the makeshift cardboard-box table. He lifted Baxter off his shoulder, placing him beside the plate. He peeled the banana and broke off a chunk for the rhinoceros beetle.

  “Thanks, Uncle Max.” He took a bite of the sandwich.

  “Right, well, I’ll be downstairs if you need me … you know, if you want to talk things through, or”—Uncle Max shrugged—“anything.”

  “Are we really going to leave?” Darkus asked.

  “I’m afraid I think we have to.”

  “But I can bring Baxter, can’t I?”

  “Um, well, I’m, er …” Uncle Max looked at Baxter. “Your father’s got strong opinions about our little friend.”

  “Dad’s wrong,” Darkus said, “about the beetles.”

  “Possibly.” Uncle Max nodded. “But he’s your father. He knows more about these things than either of us. We should support him.”

  “I just want him to listen to me, to let me show him what the beetles can do. Will you talk to him, Uncle Max?”

  “I’ll try.” Uncle Max looked like he was going to say something more, but then changed his mind. “Just shout if you need me,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

  Darkus looked at the heap of clothes, listening to Uncle Max’s retreating footsteps. He slid over and uncovered the folders, taking the top one and pulling out the paper inside. Grabbing his sandwich, he ate as he systematically worked his way through pages and pages of notes, skimming over Latin words, drawings—some of beetles—graphs, diagrams, and streams of numbers. His heart sank. He couldn’t understand any of it.

  He took another folder. It was full of similar pages. He took a third, flicking through the papers without taking them out. His fingertips found two photographs. One, the larger of the two photographs, he’d seen before, on Lucretia Cutter’s desk: It was of the Fabre Project team.

  He stroked his finger across his mother’s face. Her smile was wide and warm, and her thick black hair fell down past her shoulders. She was wearing a dark collared shirt under a white lab coat, her hands folded i
n her lap. On the back of the photo were names written in his father’s handwriting. He set it aside and looked at the second photograph, a small square image of his father as a young man, clean-shaven with thick framed rectangular spectacles, looking into the camera with a smile of wonder as he held in his hands a giant Goliath beetle.

  From her bedroom window, Novak watched the steady stream of yellow ladybugs coming in and out of Towering Heights. Mater was looking for something or someone. Her heart clenched in her chest; it wouldn’t be Darkus, since he was gone.

  Her eyes filled with tears. It had been two days since she’d learned her friend was dead, and the tiniest thoughts of him made her cry. Not even Hepburn could console her, and each time she broke down in sobs, her heart hardened a little more toward Mater.

  Through a blur of tears she saw another ladybug zip in through the third-floor window to Mater’s rooms. Fed up with watching, Novak decided to find out what was going on. She slipped out of her room and crept about the house, listening at doorways, sauntering past adults in conversation, and then, as Novak was passing the security room, her spying finally paid off. She overheard an agitated Craven shouting at Dankish.

  “Get a move on, man. Those blasted ladybugs have beaten us to it. We look like ruddy idiots. The boss’ll sack us and replace us with beetles if we’re not careful.”

  Dankish’s reply was a muffled grunt.

  “NO! Give it here. You put the gas into the tank with the funnel.”

  “I don’t want to go in the sewers,” Dankish grumbled. “It smells bad down there, and there are rats.”

  “You smell bad most of the time, but you don’t see me complaining,” Craven snapped back. “As soon as we’ve fueled up the flamethrowers, we’ll chuck them in the van and drive to the sewage works, get into the tunnels from there. I for one can’t wait to find that rotting heap of beetles and incinerate the lot of them!”

  Novak felt the blood drain from her face. They were going to burn Darkus’s beetles! First Mater had murdered Darkus, and now she wanted to kill his beetles!

  Novak ran, her feet clattering against the stone floor. She slid to a stop outside the servants’ lift and dragged back the gate, hopping in and pulling it shut. As the lift ascended to the fifth floor, she felt tears roll down her cheeks. She wiped them away angrily. A panicked sense of helplessness drove her forward. Darkus loved those beetles, and they were Hepburn’s family. She had to save them—but how? She was trapped in Towering Heights. Maybe she could get a message to someone—but who?

  She thought about Darkus’s father, but he’d be grief-stricken from losing his son. He wouldn’t want to help the daughter of the woman who’d killed Darkus. She thought of Bertolt and Virginia, the boy and girl Darkus had called his friends, but she didn’t even know their last names. How would she find them?

  She had to warn someone. Craven and Dankish couldn’t be allowed to destroy Darkus’s beetles.

  As the elevator pinged, Novak remembered Darkus’s uncle, the man that had punched Gerard. Maximilian Cuttle, Mater had called him. He might be able to help, and she knew where he lived: on Nelson Parade.

  Novak wrenched the gate back and sprinted along the corridor into her bedroom. Her luggage, all that was left of her dream of going to school, was still packed, destined to come with them to LA now. Gerard had told her that Towering Heights was being closed and they wouldn’t be returning.

  Novak threw herself onto her bed and pulled a lavender stationery set from a drawer in her bedside table. “Oh, Hepburn, something awful is happening!” she said to the vase of hydrangeas beside her bed.

  Hepburn emerged from underneath a blue flower, a rainbow of colors reflecting off her elytra as she clambered up to Novak’s eyeline.

  “Craven and Dankish know where your mountain of teacups is. They’re going to burn it!”

  Hepburn stood up on her hind legs in alarm, waggling her forelegs, almost falling off the bouquet.

  “We’ve got to get help.” Novak slid out a piece of paper, picked a purple pen from her pen pot, and started to write.

  The white telephone beside her bed rang. Novak picked up the receiver without taking her eyes from her letter to Maximilian Cuttle. “Hello, Millie.”

  “Hello, dear. I’ve just been instructed that you’re going to the Empress Hotel this evening.”

  “Tonight? But it’s late!”

  “Yes. You fly to LA in the morning, early. I was just wondering if you wanted me to make you anything, a snack or drink to take with you?”

  “Oh!” Novak felt a flutter of panic. Time was running out. “Could I have some melon for the journey?”

  “Of course, dear, I’ll bring it up.”

  “Thank you.”

  She replaced the receiver, then hastily finished the letter, folded it, and slipped it into a lavender envelope. “We need to get ready to go,” she said to Hepburn, sealing the envelope and writing Maximilian Cuttle on the front. Hepburn flipped up her colorful wing cases and fluttered over to Novak’s arm.

  “I’ll get the bracelet,” Novak said to the beetle, crossing the room to her handbag and pulling out a wide silver bangle with a chunky setting containing a semiprecious green stone. She flipped a catch and the green stone sprang back on hinges to reveal a hidden pill pot. Novak pulled a few petals from the blue hydrangea and lined the silver chamber, then dipped her finger into the vase and drew out a drop of water, dripping it onto the petals. Hepburn strutted along her wrist and clambered in, wriggling to make herself comfortable on her hydrangea bed.

  There was a knock on the door and Millie bustled into the room with a small Tupperware container of sliced watermelon. “Come on, dear—you must put on your coat and shoes.”

  Novak carefully closed the secret compartment. “Millie,” she said, taking a deep breath, “I need you to do something for me. It’s very important.”

  “Nothing’s more important than making sure you’re ready for when that car arrives.” Millie blinked furiously. “You know how the mistress gets if you’re late.”

  “This is more important, Millie.” Novak held out the letter. “I need you to deliver this.”

  “What is it?” Millie looked at the envelope suspiciously.

  “It’s urgent. It needs to go to Nelson Parade immediately. Can you find out where that is? Maximilian Cuttle lives in the building next to the shop that blew up. I don’t know the number.”

  Millie gasped and stepped back, her hands raised, shaking her head with alarm. “Oh no, dear, you mustn’t get mixed up in all of that. It was bad enough, that day, when you … I mean, if the mistress found out …”

  “Listen, Millie, she didn’t find out about that and she won’t find out about this, either. Mater and I will be on a plane on our way to LA tomorrow morning. Please, Millie, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.” Novak could hear her own heart beating. “Please.”

  Millie took the letter reluctantly, nodding imperceptibly as she slipped it into the big wide pocket of her white apron.

  “Thank you,” Novak whispered, her eyes filling with grateful tears. Darkus was gone, and she couldn’t bring him back, but at least she could save his beetles.

  Darkus woke up and blinked. Something was tickling his ear. He turned and saw Baxter on the pillow beside his head, mouth open, smiling up at him.

  “Hey, Baxter,” he whispered, sitting up in his hammock. The two black-and-white photographs he’d fallen asleep clutching fell from his chest onto his lap. “Is everything okay?”

  Baxter flicked up his elytra and pointed a front leg up to the skylight. The night sky was a deep, star-speckled black, but a particularly yellow star seemed to be growing and flashing.

  “Newton?” Darkus rose to his knees, careful not to rock the hammock, and pulled the window open. The firefly zoomed in.

  “Hello!” Darkus held out his hand and the beetle landed on his palm, folding his soft wings away under his copper-colored elytra. “Where’s Bertolt?”

  Flash, fl
ick, flick, flick, dark, flick, flash, dark, flick, flick, flick, dark, flick.

  “Calm down. Why all the flashing?” Darkus looked closely at the lozenge-shaped beetle. “Are you trying to tell me something? Is there a pattern to your light?”

  The firefly started flickering and flashing again, in exactly the same pattern as before.

  “Is that Morse code? Are you using Morse code?”

  Newton nodded proudly.

  “No way!” Darkus leaned out of his hammock and grabbed a pencil and paper from the top of the filing cabinets. “Do it again. Flash, flick, flick, flick, dark. That’s a B!” Darkus watched the firefly intensely. “That’s an A, an S, an E … B-A-S-E … it’s Base Camp! Bertolt’s in Base Camp?”

  Newton looped the loop in delight at being understood.

  Darkus scrambled out of his hammock. “When did you learn Morse code?” He pulled his favorite green sweater over his pajamas and shoved the rolled-up photographs into his trouser pocket. “Did Bertolt teach you?”

  Flash, flick, flash, flash, dark, flick, dark, flick, flick, flick, dark.

  “Y-E-S, yes!” Darkus laughed. “Of course he did. He kept that quiet.”

  His heart was suddenly light at the thought of his friend being close by. He held out his hand and Baxter clambered on, racing up his arm to his shoulder. “Is Virginia there, too?” Baxter nodded at him and Darkus grinned. Virginia never did as she was told, and Bertolt always ended up doing what she wanted, even if he disapproved.

  He grabbed the small flashlight, strapped to wide elastic, that hung from the brass hook at the foot of his hammock, pulled it over his head, and switched it on. Clambering back onto the filing cabinets, he reached his arms up out of the skylight and grabbed onto the wooden window frame, jumping up through the hole and sitting on the roof tiles to the left of the window. He often came up here with Baxter. He liked to look out across the neighboring streets and watch everything coming and going around Nelson Parade. People rarely looked up, which Darkus thought was a pity, because the sky was always more interesting than the pavement.