The Inventors and the Lost Island Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Glasstown Entertainment

  Map illustrations by Diana Sousa

  Map image copyright © Oleg Golovnev/Shutterstock.com

  Cover art copyright © 2019 by Iacopo Bruno. Cover design by Karina Granda.

  Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at LBYR.com

  First Edition: April 2019

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Morgen, A. M.

  Title: The inventors and the lost island / A. M. Morgen ; map illustrations by Diana Sousa.

  Description: First edition. | New York ; Boston : Little, Brown and Company, 2019. | Summary: George and Ada embark on a journey to the Galápagos to restore George’s family name and save the world from Don Nadie, head of the nefarious Society of Nobodies.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018022799| ISBN 9780316471534 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316471527 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316471558 (library edition ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. | Buried treasure—Fiction. | Lovelace, Ada King, Countess of, 1815–1852—Fiction. | Inventors—Fiction. | Scientists—Fiction. | Orphans—Fiction. | Galapagos Islands—History—19th century—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M66983 Inm 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018022799

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-47153-4 (hardcover), 978-0-316-47152-7 (ebook)

  E3-20190213-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Commander’s Log for the Whale

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Third Cabin Boy’s Log for the Ordek

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  To C. M. and W. M., my favorite nephews

  Chapter One

  Nothing good ever came of a house with no front door.

  That was what George, the 3rd Lord of Devonshire, was thinking to himself as he strode out the back entrance of his house at No. 8 Dorset Square. All around him, the late- afternoon sun slanted through the trees and made the glass windowpanes of the doorless No. 10 blaze with golden light. His former neighbors, the Mallard sisters, had moved out rather suddenly a week ago, after receiving a generous offer from an unknown buyer. The mansion had been leveled to the ground before the sisters had finished loading their trunks into a moving wagon. Already, the brick walls of a brand-new house had risen in its place.

  A brand-new house with absolutely no front door.

  George breathed in deeply. The air was crisp and fresh. Graceful starlings flitted through the dimming sky before settling down in the trees for the evening. But No. 10 stuck out like an unsightly blemish in the otherwise perfect neighborhood.

  George, who had been the unluckiest boy in all of London, knew that odd things should not be ignored, because they might be dangerous. Even Ada Byron, his genius neighbor and new best friend, had agreed that such a strange house meant trouble, though they had conflicting theories about why.

  George was convinced that the owner of No. 10 was a rival truffle farmer who was after him—or, more specifically, after his truffle business. The leaky attic of No. 8 had proven to be the perfect environment for growing the valuable fungi, so it seemed reasonable that the new owners of No. 10 were truffle farmers looking to reproduce the unique environment of George’s attic by building a greenhouse and seeding their own operation with George’s precious truffles. A greenhouse had no use for a front door.

  Ada’s theory, however, frightened George more than the thought of truffle thieves. Her theory was that the house’s owner belonged to the Society of Nobodies, the criminal organization that had stolen Ada’s inventions and chased them across Europe in pursuit of George’s treasure map. Ada suspected that No. 10 did have a front door but that it was hidden by complicated mechanisms meant to discourage intruders.

  That was why George was setting a trap at his house for the owner of No. 10. Ada was setting her own specially designed trap across the street at her house, No. 5. How else would they know who was right?

  Whistling casually, George retrieved a tall ladder from his garden shed and hoisted it onto his shoulder. He held it carefully to avoid the sticky barnacle glue that he’d borrowed from Ada and smeared on the rungs the night before. In plain sight of No. 10, George leaned the ladder against the side wall of his house as if he were going to do some home repairs. To further entice potential truffle thieves, he began chatting loudly to Mrs. Daly, his manservant Frobisher’s pet rat who resided in the walls of No. 8, about the incredible truffle crop he was about to harvest. The thieves lying in wait inside No. 10 wouldn’t be able to resist climbing the ladder to sneak into his attic now, he thought smugly.

  To his shock, Mrs. Daly answered in a muffled voice. “Hmmhoo, Oorge.”

  George then realized it wasn’t the rat’s voice he heard. It was Ada’s voice, floating through the front door from the speaking tube she had recently installed between their houses. George rushed inside to the trumpet-shaped porcelain mouthpiece sticking out of the wall, next to the front door. “Hello? Ada? Is that you?”

  “Are you finished setting your trap?” Ada’s voice sounded hollow and tinny.

  George grinned. “Yes. Come over and I’ll prove you wrong.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. I’m always right,” she chirped.

  The speaking tube went silent. A shiver raced up George’s spine. If Ada was right, a formidable enemy lurked behind the windows of No. 10.

  The Society
of Nobodies was a gang of vicious thieves Ada had once called the Organization. They had used stolen science to make weapons that could crack a pirate ship in half and machines that could fly through the air or swim underwater. George and Ada, along with their friends Oscar and Ruthie, had barely survived their last encounter with the Society. If the Society was next door, then… well, George couldn’t even fathom what it might mean for their safety.

  Someone tapped on his shoulder, and he screamed.

  “Sorry,” said the messenger who’d stepped in through the front door while George’s back was turned. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your… conversation with the wall. I’m here for the—”

  “Special delivery for the King?” asked George breezily, as if he hadn’t been caught talking into a wall. By now, he knew better than to try to explain Ada’s inventions to strangers. They only became more confused. “Yes, I have it right here. One moment.”

  He darted up to the attic and returned with a smooth, polished wooden box. The engraved words on top, DEVONSHIRE TRUFFLES, seemed to wink in the light of the setting sun. “Please make sure this package arrives at Windsor Castle safely.”

  “Of course, sir,” said the messenger, his eyes bulging—either because he was impressed by the lovely box or because he was trying not to gag from the smell of the truffles inside. To some people, truffles smelled heavenly. To others, they stank. The messenger bowed, then tucked the very fancy box and its very odorous contents into his leather bag.

  George ambled to the library to record his latest royal order. He lifted the tip of his quill to record the King’s purchase in his accounts ledger—

  And was immediately interrupted by a jarring THUMP that shook the walls of his house. George’s inkpot rattled on the desk. Ada’s giant mechanical frog made quite a racket whenever she landed it on his roof. Seconds later, her footsteps rang out on the stairs, followed shortly by the sound of her flutelike voice echoing in the foyer. “George?”

  “In the library!” he called out.

  Ada appeared in the entryway and paused, smiling. George heard the clack clack of several hard-boiled eggs knocking against one another inside the pockets of her yellow dress.

  Instead of hello, she said: “Did you get a new clock, Lord Devonshire?”

  George frowned. “Not yet. It takes time to refurnish a house.”

  Ada cupped her hand to her ear. “That is so strange. I could have sworn I heard a clock chiming wronnnng, wronnnng as I was coming down the stairs.”

  “Ha-ha. Very funny. You’re the one who’s going to be wrong,” George said smugly. “I couldn’t help but notice, though, that your trap isn’t set up yet.”

  Ada tilted her head to one side, an amused smile lifting her cheeks. One of her loose curls fell across her face. “My trap’s been set for hours.”

  George scrunched his brow in confusion. He pushed back the curtain to see Ada’s house from the window. “I don’t see anything unusual except your maid still sitting on the front steps.”

  Ada laughed. “That’s not the maid. That’s the trap! Remember the automaton you bought me?”

  “Of course! From the Jaquet-Droz workshop in Geneva.” George had first seen the organ-playing automaton while they were looking for the Star of Victory in Geneva. She resembled a human woman, but like everything sold in his grandfather’s favorite workshop, she was a piece of clockwork made up of gears and mechanisms. With his truffle money, George had bought the machine as a birthday present for Ada. “You named her Hippolyta, or was it Cleopatra?”

  “Neither. I named her Hypatia after my favorite mathematician. But I call her Patty now. Don’t you recognize her?” she said, nodding out the window.

  “That’s her!” George squinted in surprise at the figure sitting as motionless as a statue in front of No. 5. Her face was white porcelain and framed with tight blond curls. George had first noticed the automaton because of her unique pendant in the shape of a butterfly, which looked exactly like a drawing on his grandfather’s map. Though he couldn’t see it from so far away, he could picture its silver wings. It was another mysterious clue that George would probably never decipher. Had his grandfather copied it on purpose? The 1st Lord of Devonshire loved puzzles.

  “She’s the most wonderful present I’ve ever had,” Ada gushed. “She’s an amazing machine. Her arms are controlled by the gears in her back, so I can program them to perform any sequence of movements. There’s no end to what she can do—repairs, navigation, maybe even surgery one day. And she’ll be perfect to control my new water cannon.”

  “She’s your trap?” George asked.

  Ada raised a gleeful eyebrow. “I made it look as if she had been delivered earlier but no one was home to accept the package. I’ve rigged her arm to throw a lasso around anyone who walks up the steps toward her.”

  “That’s quite clever. She’s excellent bait,” George remarked grudgingly. She was the perfect thing to lure the Society. Anyone else walking by wouldn’t give Patty a second glance, but the Society of Nobodies loved complicated machines. Turning to Ada, he said, “It’s a shame you won’t have a chance to see Patty in action, since the owner of No. 10 isn’t the Society.”

  Ada sniffed in disagreement. “I hope you’re right. Really, I do. I’d rather it not be the Society after what they put us through in Venice and how ruthless they were about your grandfather’s map. But if you were being logical, you’d see that my theory makes more sense. The Society wanted your grandfather’s map. They didn’t get what they wanted. Therefore—”

  “Therefore, they have no reason to come after me anymore,” George interjected quickly. “Let’s go up to the roof and wait. I made us some sandwiches, and there’s a pot of stew on the stove,” he added to change the topic to something that didn’t make his stomach sour with nerves. The thought of Roy, the redheaded brute from the Society, living next door after trying to kill him was enough to ruin his appetite completely.

  While George stoppered his ink bottle and wiped the nib of his feather pen clean, Ada ran her hands along the empty shelves in the library, collecting dust on the edge of her palm. “Are you sure I can’t store some of my instruments here? With all the work I’m doing for C.R.U.M.P.E.T.S., my room is full to bursting,” she said.

  George busily tidied his desk. “This is a library, not a pantry. I have truffles in my attic. I don’t want crumpets on my bookshelves. Besides, if we keep any more pastries in the house, Mrs. Daly will invite all her rat friends over for a feast, and Frobisher will insist that we keep them. Oscar may like living in a menagerie, but I don’t.”

  Ada’s face fell at the mention of Oscar’s name. An undertow of sadness tugged at George’s chest, too. He often had to remind himself that his friends Oscar and Ruthie no longer lived a few miles away at the royal menagerie in the Kensington Palace gardens. Once, it had seemed like the journey of a lifetime for George to leave his house and cross the street. But now that Oscar and Ruthie were sailing the seven seas with Oscar’s father, Captain Bibble, his friends felt as far from Dorset Square as the stars in the sky.

  Ada brushed her brown curls out of her face, discreetly wiping away a tear at the same time. “You and Oscar are always thinking about food. I didn’t say crumpets. I said C.R.U.M.P.E.T.S. The Council for Radical Undertakings in Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, Technology, and Science.”

  “The council for…?” George asked. He knew the next word wasn’t radishes, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Ada was right. He was always thinking about food.

  Ada sighed. “It’s a brand-new scientific gathering happening in London. I received an invitation to submit an invention for consideration. If I get accepted, I’ll finally be able to prove to my mother that my inventions are worth something. She thinks I’m wasting my time making sloppily built toys instead of devoting my mind to serious scientific pursuits.”

  Ada pulled the invitation from her pocket and put it under George’s nose with a flourish. It was printed on creamy white pape
r and stamped with a gold wax seal in one corner. The date was less than two months away. The location was London. A specific address would be revealed to those who accepted the invitation.

  The invitation certainly looked impressive to George, but he wasn’t sure Ada’s mother would feel the same. Though Ada’s inventions were the most wonderful things that George had ever seen, Lady Byron had forbidden Ada to make any more flying machines after her mechanical bird had crashed into the Adriatic Sea. She even insisted that the frog, which had jumped back and forth between No. 5 and No. 8 a million times with no problems, must have a safety harness and an extra braking mechanism. If Ada needed some space away from her mother to build her invention for C.R.U.M.P.E.T.S., then it was George’s duty as a friend to help. “Of course there’s room for you to store your instruments here,” he said, smiling at Ada. “But first, will you join me for dinner?”

  In the kitchen, George placed two bowls of truffle stew on a serving tray next to a neatly stacked pile of cucumber sandwiches. Frobisher usually prepared their meals, but the manservant had left for a well-deserved and much-needed vacation at a curative health spa in Vienna. After spending many years at sea as a pirate called Jon the Gardener, Frobisher had developed a terrible case of land sickness when he gave up piracy, and he needed help recovering his land legs. When Frobisher returned from the spa, a brand-new identity would be waiting for him so that his former life as a pirate would be completely erased. All legally arranged by Ada, of course.

  They carried their sandwiches and stew up the narrow stairs to the attic, snuffing out all the lights on the way, then climbed out onto the roof to wait for their prey in the shadow of Ada’s jumping machine. The contraption vaguely resembled the bottom half of a giant frog or equally large grasshopper, with two long legs that were bent nearly double at the knee joints. Coiled tightly between the legs, the machine’s two massive springs were waiting to vault over Dorset Square when they were released, calculated to alight precisely on the matching landing pad on Ada’s roof across the street. Though he told himself that the Society had not moved in next door, George threw a tarpaulin over the frog to hide it from view. Just in case.