Beetle Queen Read online

  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 knelt up, 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-coloured elytra. ‘Where’s Bertolt?’

  Flash, flick, 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 starting 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 leant 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 . . . BASE . . . 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 favourite green jumper over his pyjamas and shoved the rolled-up photographs into his trouser pocket. ‘Did Bertolt teach you?’

  Flick, flash, flick, flick, 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 torch, 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 on to the filing cabinets, he reached his arms up out of the skylight and grabbed on to 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 neighbouring 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.

  Careful to avoid the loose tiles, he slid down the roof, stopping before the slumped section that hung over the ruin of the Emporium and picked his way towards the guttering. Peering over the edge of the rooftop, he saw the black wrought-iron fire escape. It was a two-metre drop to its top platform, but if he let himself hang from the guttering, dangling his legs down, it would only be a couple of feet.

  He closed his eyes and hoped no one was in the kitchen, before securing his grip on the ironwork that strapped the guttering to the roof and sliding off, dangling over the edge. He dropped, making a clatter, and crouched, listening, expecting to hear an angry voice or see a familiar face at the kitchen window, but nothing came. He unhooked the ladder and let it slide down. He climbed down to the next landing, releasing each ladder in turn until he finally dropped into Uncle Max’s weed-filled garden.

  Baxter fluttered down, landing on his shoulder. Newton danced through the air ahead of Darkus, zipping about excitedly. Darkus felt like he could do anything when he was with the beetles.

  Beetles and boy threw themselves up on to the shed roof at the bottom of the garden, and shimmied over the neighbouring wall, tumbling blind into the mass of junk that Darkus had named Furniture Forest when he’d first discovered it. A place which now, even in the dead of night, held no secrets for Darkus. He knew every corner and every cushion. He scrambled on all fours to the black door with a silver seventy-three that was the entrance to Base Camp.

  Pushing it open, he was greeted with a warm yellow light and smiles from his two favourite people.

  ‘What took you so long?’ Virginia smiled.

  Hanging from one of her braids, Marvin waved a red claw at Darkus.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Darkus laughed. ‘I thought you were banned from seeing me.’

  ‘From tomorrow.’ Virginia grinned. ‘We’re banned from tomorrow, so we thought we’d better see you tonight or we’d be disobeying our parents, and we wouldn’t want to do that, now, would we?’

  ‘And you?’ Darkus looked at Bertolt.

  ‘I stuffed cushions under my duvet and crept out. Mum doesn’t really make rules.’ Bertolt pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘She said she’d like me to stay out of trouble and not make your dad angry, but ultimately I had to make the decision about what was the right thing to do.’

  ‘I had to practically drag him here.’ Virginia said, flatly.

  ‘You didn’t,’ Bertolt protested. ‘I just don’t want to disappoint Mum.’

  ‘You won’t.’ Virginia flopped down into the olive green sofa. ‘Once we’ve found out what Lucretia Cutter’s done with Spencer Crips, saved him and stopped her from doing whatever evil thing she’s planning, you’ll be a hero. Your mother will be proud.’

  Bertolt didn’t look happy. ‘The Morse code is a cool trick,’ Darkus said, changing the subject.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Bertolt flushed with pride. ‘Newton picked it up really quickly. He can spell out complicated sentences now. I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to decipher it.’

  ‘I learnt at Cub Scouts,’ Darkus said. ‘And it’s a great idea to use a code. I wonder if the other beetles can learn it too?’

  ‘Not all of them have lamps in their abdomens,’ Virginia pointed out.

  ‘Morse code can be done with sound,’ Darkus said. ‘Baxter could tap out a message with his horn, or use stridulation.’

  ‘That is a good idea.’ Virginia sat forwards. ‘Marvin can tap-dance a message using his back legs.’

  Bertolt sat down beside Virginia, pulling out a pen and notebook. ‘I’ll write that down, shall I?’

  ‘Write what down?’ Darkus asked.

  ‘We don’t know when we’ll next see each other,’ Virginia said, pulling a giant atlas out of her rucksack and slamming it down on the coffee table. ‘So we’re making a case file to keep here in Base Camp. We can all make entries and read each other’s.’

  ‘It’s an atlas.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. It just looks like an atlas.’ She flipped open the cover of the book. Inside, where there should have been maps, was a folder instead. ‘I found it in one of the wet boxes, rotting over by the wall. The maps were ruined so I ripped out the pages and stuck this folder into the inside of the back cover. Now no one will know.’

  She pulled out several sheets of paper. One was the article about Spencer Crips, and another was titled Fabre Project, and had several names on it.

  ‘These should go in there too, then.’ Darkus reached into the back pocket of his pyjamas and pulled out the rolled-up photographs. ‘I found them in Dad’s research folders.’

  ‘It’s the picture!’ Bertolt exclaimed, taking the large photograph from Darkus’s hands. ‘The one from Lucretia Cutter’s desk.’

  ‘Look on the back,’ Darkus said.

  Bertolt turned it over and saw the names. ‘Look, Virginia!’

  ‘Brilliant!’ She pulled a pen from her jeans. ‘Read them out.’

  ‘Dr Danny Laroche, Dr Yuki Ishikawa, Dr Henrik Lenka, Dr Lucy Johnstone, then Darkus’s dad and mum, Dr Bartholomew Cuttle and Esme Martín-Piera,’ Bertolt read, ‘and Professor Andrew Appleyard.’

  Virginia looked at Darkus, her eyes shining. ‘That’s three new names! They could be possible leads.’

  ‘I brought this for the case file.’ Bertolt pulled a newspaper out of his bag. ‘Look who’s on the front page.’

  The front page featured a picture of Lucre
tia Cutter in her trademark white lab coat and sunglasses, two black sticks dangling from straps around her wrists like ski poles. Beside her, giving the camera her best movie-star smile, was Novak.

  ‘The story inside says that Lucretia Cutter is dressing all the actresses in the Best Actress category at the Film Awards, including Novak. Did you know she’s been nominated for an award? She’s in a movie called Taming of a Dragon, about a blind girl with a pet dragon.’

  Darkus thought back to when he’d first met Novak, at the library in Towering Heights. ‘She did say something about being in a film.’

  ‘We should go to the cinema and see it,’ Bertolt said excitedly. ‘I bet she’s wonderful.’

  ‘How would you know?’ Virginia snorted. ‘You’ve never met her.’

  ‘No,’ Bertolt sighed, ‘but I feel like I have, what with her being Darkus’s friend and helping rescue his dad . . . and she has a beetle. It’s like she’s one of us.’

  ‘She is one of us,’ Darkus said. ‘I wish there was a way I could talk to her.’

  ‘We don’t know what trouble she might have got in for helping rescue your dad,’ Virginia said softly. ‘You don’t want to make it worse.’

  Bertolt pointed at Novak’s picture in the newspaper. ‘At least we know she’s alive and well.’

  ‘Yes.’ Darkus smiled. ‘That’s true.’

  Bertolt put the newspaper into the case file. ‘If Lucretia Cutter’s going to the Film Awards, perhaps she’s given up looking for the beetles,’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Then it’s just my dad we’ve got to worry about,’ Darkus said glumly. He knew he was going to have to tell them that he was being sent away.

  ‘SSSHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!’ Virginia grabbed Bertolt’s arm, her face a picture of alarm, her finger to her lips.

  They heard a loud clatter beyond the door of Base Camp. All three of them turned and looked as the door was wrenched open. Uncle Max stumbled in.

  ‘Oh thank goodness you’re here, Darkus!’ Uncle Max was waving an envelope around and gasping, his leathery skin purple from the effort of scrambling through Furniture Forest.

  Darkus jumped to his feet. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I heard a noise. I thought it was Barty coming home from the hospital. I went into his room and found this on his bed. It’s addressed to you.’ He passed over the envelope. ‘I don’t think I was meant to find it until the morning. My suitcase is gone, and all his new clothes.’

  Darkus took the envelope and ripped it open, dread tugging at his insides. His hand shook as he held the letter and read out loud:

  ‘Dear Darkus,

  ‘I have to go away for a while. I know this will be hard for you to understand, but there is something I must do, and I cannot take you with me.

  ‘Uncle Max will take good care of you, at Nana and Pop-Pop’s house, away from the city. Be good for him, he loves you very much and none of this is his fault.

  ‘I need you to be brave, as I may be gone some time. I’m sorry, it’s unlikely I’ll be home in time for Christmas, but I promise to come back as soon as I can and then I’ll make it up to you.

  ‘I wish I could explain better, but please know that your mother would have agreed, that I must go. There is no other way.

  ‘I love you more than anything in the world.

  ‘Dad.’

  He let the letter drop to the floor and looked at Uncle Max, whose mouth was hanging open.

  ‘Well of all the stupid, pig-headed, idiotic things . . .’ Uncle Max lifted his safari hat and dragged his fingers through his silver hair in frustration.

  ‘He’s going back to Lucretia Cutter,’ Darkus said, his voice thick with emotion.

  ‘He might not be,’ Bertolt said.

  ‘He is,’ Darkus replied flatly. ‘I’ve worked out why he’s got new clothes and shaved off his beard.’ He picked up the Fabre Project photograph. ‘He wants to look exactly like he used to when he was young,’ he pointed at his dad in the picture, ‘when they were friends.’

  ‘He says he loves you,’ Bertolt said. ‘That bit’s nice.’

  ‘Hang on. What does he mean, at Nana and Pop-Pop’s house, away from the city?’ Virginia looked at Uncle Max, her hands on her hips.

  ‘Well, I thought the three of us were going to stay in our parents’ old house in Wales for Christmas,’ Uncle Max said. ‘But Barty obviously had other ideas he didn’t see fit to share with me.’ He shook his head. ‘That vile woman has put some kind of a spell on him.’

  ‘I’m not going.’ Darkus rubbed his hands over his face. ‘You can’t make me.’

  ‘Darkus, I promised your dad I’d take you out of London.’ Uncle Max put a hand on his shoulder. ‘However, what I didn’t promise him was when, or where I’d take you, which gives us some wiggle room.’

  ‘Us?’ Darkus looked at his uncle.

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Uncle Max put his hat on the table and sat down on the sofa with a grunt. ‘Whatever you’re planning, I’m in.’

  ‘Darkus,’ Virginia looked at him, ‘what should we do?’

  ‘Dad’s in danger.’ He swallowed. ‘Only a powerful force is capable of stopping Lucretia Cutter. He can’t do it alone. We have to help him.’

  ‘We’re not a powerful force.’ Bertolt’s white eyebrows rose above his oversized spectacles.

  ‘A tiny thing, like a beetle, or a kid, might seem weak or unimportant.’ Darkus said. ‘But tiny things can get into places, and see things.’ He looked at his friends. ‘And if one tiny thing joins with another tiny thing, and another, together they become a powerful big thing, a force to be reckoned with.’

  ‘But we don’t know what Lucretia Cutter’s planning to do!’ Bertolt protested.

  ‘We know that she’s building up an army of transgenic beetles, we just don’t know what for.’ Darkus sighed. ‘But I’ll bet Dad knows.’ He turned to his uncle. ‘You and Dad talk, has he told you anything that would help?’

  ‘There was one thing,’ Uncle Max nodded. ‘In hospital, Barty was reading a journal article about an outbreak of mountain pine beetle in the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The beetle is only five millimetres long,’ he pinched his thumb and forefinger together to show its size, ‘but the outbreak has destroyed millions of hectares of forest. Your father seemed to think it was something to do with Lucretia Cutter.’

  ‘She destroyed a whole forest?’ Bertolt said, dismayed.

  ‘I also might have had a bit of a rummage around his desk,’ Uncle Max admitted, his cheeks flushing, ‘Barty’s been collecting reports and information about unexplainable invasive beetle species appearing in unusual habitats from before he was kidnapped. I asked our old friend Emma Lamb, the news reporter, if she’d look into it. I’m still waiting for her to come back to me.’

  Virginia pushed the Fabre Project photo across the coffee table, indicating the three unknown faces. ‘Do you know any of these people?’

  ‘Yes.’ Uncle Max pointed at a tall blond man with an athletic build. ‘That brute is Henrik Lenka, a chemist. He was a disagreeable sort. He was Lucy’s boyfriend for a brief spell. Danny,’ he pointed at a diminutive woman with round glasses, ‘was a good friend of your mother’s.’ He sighed. ‘Tragic what happened to her.’

  Bertolt gulped. ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘No, but,’ Uncle Max closed his eyes briefly, ‘she’s not well.’

  ‘Does she live in London?’ Virginia asked. ‘Could we ask her some questions?’

  Uncle Max shook his head. ‘She’s French, from a little village in the Loire valley, and I’m not sure she’d want a visit from us.’

  ‘What about him?’ Virginia pointed to the last stranger in the line-up.

  ‘Dr Yuki Ishikawa.’ Uncle Max smiled. ‘A Japanese microbiologist and all-round lovely chap. He used to wear a tiny bamboo cage of crickets round his neck, letting the insects roam about the lab as he worked. He said their song helped him think.’

  ‘Like the ones in Professor Appleyard’s meditation ro
om,’ Bertolt said.

  Uncle Max nodded. ‘He and Andrew are good friends, I believe.’

  There was a heavy silence as they thought of Professor Appleyard, lying unconscious in a hospital bed.

  ‘So, Dr Ishikawa, is he alive and well?’ Virginia said.

  ‘Last I heard he’d gone to Greenland for research.’

  ‘Greenland’s a bit far away,’ Bertolt sighed.

  ‘We need to find out if those invasive beetle outbreaks have anything to do with Lucretia Cutter’s transgenic beetles,’ Darkus said, thinking out loud. ‘But first, we need to get Dad back. If he’s joining Lucretia Cutter, then we know where he’s gone.’

  ‘Towering Heights,’ Virginia said with a nod.

  ‘It may be too late,’ Bertolt pointed out. ‘It’s nearly eleven o’clock. He could have been gone for hours.’

  ‘We have to try.’ Darkus stood up. ‘I’ve got a horrible feeling he’s walking into a trap.’

  ‘We’ll never get in there again.’ Uncle Max scratched his chin.

  ‘We could take the beetles,’ Virginia suggested. ‘They can go in and look for him.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Bertolt fidgeted, his thumbs rolling over one another nervously. ‘What if we get caught? I don’t want to end up in one of Lucretia Cutter’s cells. Mum will panic if she wakes up in the morning and I’m not in my bed.’

  ‘You can stay here with Newton,’ Darkus said. ‘Write down what we know about the Fabre Project team, and the stories about invasive species of beetle.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Bertolt gave him a relieved smile.

  Darkus looked at Uncle Max. ‘Will you drive us to Towering Heights?’

  ‘It’d be my pleasure.’ Uncle Max put his hat back on.

  ‘We’ll pick up volunteers from Beetle Mountain on our way to the car,’ Darkus said, already at the door.

  Virginia jumped up. ‘You’re not leaving me behind.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’ Darkus gave her a wry smile. ‘You’d make too much of a fuss.’

  Virginia punched his shoulder.

  ‘OUCH!’ Darkus rubbed his arm. ‘What was that for?’

  Virginia smirked as she marched past him. ‘Toughen you up.’