The Inventors and the Lost Island Page 4

  The man called Don Nadie sighed. “Don’t you know that a silly statement like that can get someone hurt? Because if you do anything to warn those scientists, there will be certain.… consequences.”

  George gulped. “Consequences?”

  “Yes. Consequences involving your cherished manservant who, I happen to know, is on his way to the same health spa in Vienna where your friend’s mother, Lady Byron, frequently indulges in curative retreats. It would be such a shame if the spa were to burn down with all the guests inside. Miss Byron would be so upset if anything happened to her mother.”

  George’s stomach somersaulted. It was bad enough that this man was after his house. His house was not alive. But threatening Frobisher and Ada’s mother, both of whom were very much alive, stoppered his throat.

  The tall man must have seen these thoughts on George’s face. He gave a small nod and said, “Having your loved ones taken away from you is terrible, isn’t it?”

  Fury and fear tumbling inside him, George knew he had to do something. He clenched his fists and lowered his head, ready to barrel through the tall man’s legs at full speed. But then, quite unexpectedly, Don Nadie stepped aside.

  “You can go home now,” Don Nadie said casually.

  George’s palms began to sweat. “I—I can?”

  “Of course. You’ll need a good night’s sleep.”

  George smoothed his hair from his forehead. “I don’t understand. Is this part of one of my grandfather’s puzzles? Why would you do all this and just let me go?”

  At the mention of his grandfather’s puzzles, the tall man’s eyes flew to the portrait and lingered there, staring as if he were expecting the painted girl and boy to speak to him. The corners of his mouth twitched, almost softened into a smile—then all at once, his face hardened. “Your grandfather didn’t make puzzles, George. He played games. There’s a difference. Now it’s my turn to play games.”

  The tall man lifted his walking stick again. George winced. But instead of bringing it down on him, Don Nadie put the end of the stick into the cold, dark fireplace and squeezed the handle. It made a strange crackling buzz as a glass cylinder set into the stick began to rotate faster than a spinning wheel. A blue spark shot from the stick’s tip and immediately set the kindling in the fireplace ablaze with a rushing whoomp. George felt the heat of the fire against his skin even as his blood ran cold.

  “As soon as I retrieve that map, my days as a Nobody will finally end. I will be a Somebody again, and no one will be able to stop me. Least of all you,” Don Nadie sneered. “Now run.”

  George sprinted out of No. 10 into the cool, misty night as fast as his legs could carry him. The tapping of the tall man’s walking stick didn’t follow him. Somehow, that was worse than if Don Nadie had broken his word and chased George outside.

  Their earlier fight forgotten, George bolted to Ada’s house and banged on the door until his fist ached. He needed to know that she was safe. Finally, the butler yanked open the door and furiously turned him away. Ada was not home, he snapped. She had left shortly after George, and she hadn’t returned.

  And so George went back to No. 8, opening the door to find a grayish, fading darkness waiting for him. He climbed out onto the roof to watch Ada’s house with the telescope she’d left behind. He took the Star of Victory with him, hoping somehow it would protect him from the villain at No. 10.

  Because that was what the tall man was, George thought as he fidgeted in the cold night air. A liar and a villain.

  As the morning sun rose over the rooftops of London, George fell into a fitful sleep and dreamed that the tall man had turned into a giant, fearsome spider. His legs grew and grew, curling into eight limbs that wrapped around George to shut out the light.

  Chapter Five

  Several hours later, George woke up in a panic. When he realized that his encounter in No. 10 Dorset Square was not a nightmare, he almost fell off the roof. Why had he fallen asleep? Something terrible could have happened to Ada. The tall man next door was in charge of the Society. He had set up C.R.U.M.P.E.T.S. as a trap for the greatest scientific minds in Europe. What if she had figured out what was going on and they had decided to do away with the girl genius once and for all?

  A plan formed in his head. First, he needed to find Ada and make sure she was safe. Once he found her, he would go to the registry office to find out the identity of the man who owned the house next door. Don Nadie, Don Jefe, Signore Nessuno, Das Niemand—those couldn’t have been his given name. George couldn’t report Nobody to the police.

  George put the Star of Victory in his pocket for safekeeping as he climbed down from the roof into the house. He had just finished pulling on his boots downstairs when a heavy knock came at the front door.

  “Open in the name of the King,” called out a deep voice from the other side.

  “The King?” George mumbled to himself. Then, in a much louder voice—“Is this about the truffles? If he wants more, he’ll have to wait.”

  A flurry of voices on the other side of the door confirmed George’s suspicion. The King’s truffles had been delivered only yesterday, and already the King must want more. George huffed in annoyance. I haven’t got time for truffles right now! he thought to himself, throwing the door open impatiently.

  Four royal officers in red coats stood on the doorstep. Their faces were still as statues.

  “How may I be of service?”

  One of the officers stepped forward to peer around George’s head. “Good morning, young man. We have an arrest warrant issued by the King of England.”

  Arrest warrant? George’s tongue felt as thick as a brick in his dry mouth. “An arrest warrant for whom? Perhaps you’ve come to the wrong house,” he said, throwing a hopeful glance at No. 10.

  The officer thrust the warrant in George’s face. “George, the 3rd Lord of Devonshire, at No. 8 Dorset Square.”

  George’s knees buckled. He clutched the door to stay upright. Black clouds crept into the perimeter of his vision, and his brain exploded with the buzzing of a swarm of flies. “George, the—the 3rd Lord of Devonshire?” he stammered. “There’s been a mistake, surely.”

  “No mistake. He’s accused of high treason for the attempted assassination of the King using poisoned truffles.”

  Cold terror gripped George’s chest. “That sounds very serious,” he said faintly. “Come in, won’t you? I’ll go find the 3rd Lord for you. I’m sure he’s here somewhere.”

  Trembling in every limb, George shuffled aside to admit the officers, all of whom wore long swords at their waists. He walked up the front staircase as calmly and slowly as on any other day. Because of his past bad luck, George was used to dealing with unpleasant surprises, but this was something completely different. With each careful step, he tried to make sense of the situation.

  The tall man had told him he should go home and get a good night’s sleep.

  He must have known the officers were coming.

  He must have sent them.

  The walls seemed to spin and stretch around George, encircling him like a web. As soon as he reached the landing, he could not hold back the panic any longer. He launched himself up the stairs, no thought in his mind save one.

  Run.

  George’s pulse pounded in his ears like a drumbeat. Run. Run. Run. Luckily, being chased by the Society of Nobodies all over Europe had greatly improved his athletic ability. He was able to stay out of the reach of the soldiers, who were weighted down by their heavy, starched uniforms and significant weaponry.

  About halfway up the second flight of stairs, George remembered that Ada’s mechanical frog was still on the roof, where she had left it before their expedition to No. 10. He bounded up the rickety staircase to the attic, emerging into the dark, damp, musty room.

  “Surrender in the name of the King!” a gruff voice called from below.

  Huffing, George climbed out of the attic window onto the roof. Ada’s frog sat on its landing platform, still hidden und
erneath a tarpaulin. George pulled the tarpaulin away and clambered up the metal rungs on the side of the machine. He buckled himself into the harness on the driver’s seat, which Lady Byron had insisted must be fastened before the machine could be turned on. He’d ridden in the jumping machine a few times, but Ada was always tinkering with its designs. Ada never labeled any of the controls on her inventions, but he remembered that she’d pulled on a lever to release the springs.

  But what did all the other buttons and knobs do? George’s fingers hesitated over the control panel, his heart thumping louder than the sound of the men streaming into the attic.

  A red-coated guard angled his head and shoulders out of the window. “You there. What are you doing in that contraption? Step away from it! Surrender now,” he barked at George.

  George pulled the lever.

  The frog’s springs released with a loud boing, catapulting into the air with George inside. The whoosh of wind blew his blond hair into his face, but it did not muffle his scream. Below, the rooftop of No. 8 grew smaller and smaller as the frog hurtled higher and higher. The guard was on the roof, a tiny red figure shaking his fist at the sky.

  But as the frog descended, George realized in horror that he was not heading for the rooftop of No. 5 as he had intended—because instead of leaping over Dorset Square, he was leaping away from it. He must have needed to flip whatever switch would reverse the frog’s direction. The frog landed on the rooftop of a building overlooking Baker Street with an impact that made George’s teeth rattle. As the frog’s legs shuddered beneath him, the harness squeezed tighter, pushing the air out of George’s lungs.

  George shifted the lever forward. He meant to stop the frog to allow himself to climb out and hide, but the springs released again with a clank, hurtling George over Baker Street onto the rooftop of a brand-new mansion overlooking Regent’s Park.

  “Ada, how do you stop this thing?” George shouted, though she was not around to hear him. He unbuckled himself from the boa constrictor harness but had only managed to get one arm out when the frog jumped again.

  George’s screams were snatched away by the wind whistling past his ears. People in the street below were screaming, too. He barely avoided being flung away and impaled on the iron fence surrounding Regent’s Park by hanging on to the harness for dear life. His palms burned as they slipped over the rough fabric of the harness. When the frog landed on the soft green grass inside Regent’s Park, just barely missing a woman pushing a baby carriage, George buckled himself in again. He’d rather have the air squeezed out of his lungs than shatter every rib when he hit the ground. He had to stop the machine before it squashed someone.

  But as soon as the buckles were fastened, the frog jumped again. And again. It crashed down with one leg in the muddy bank of an ornamental pond. The other leg was submerged in the water. Geese and swans took flight to escape being trampled. Frantically, George picked out a smaller switch in the center of the panel that looked useful. He flicked it down.

  With a shudder, the frog began to jump again, but this time in a series of smaller, faster leaps, much closer to the ground. Within seconds, George had crossed an incredible distance. Men, women, and children screamed and fled as he galloped through Regent’s Park. Dogs broke loose from their leashes and chased the frog, howling and baying.

  “Stop it!” George cried as he mashed down every button on the control panel at once.

  The machine belched out a black puff of smoke. One spring came loose with a horrible, wrenching clang. The legs continued to pump up and down, sending the frog spinning in a dizzying dance through a maze of clipped hedgerows. Leaves and twigs showered down on George’s head.

  With an unsteady leap, the frog rammed through the hedgerows, stumbling into the center of a garden filled with people. George could barely make out the lettered banner above them proclaiming: THE 20TH ANNUAL GREATER LONDON FLORICULTURAL FÊTE AND EXHIBITION OF FLOWERS AND FLOWERING PLANTS. When they saw the frog burst through the rosebushes, everyone’s faces contorted in expressions of shock before they fled from the lurching metal monster. Completely outside George’s control, the frog launched itself toward dozens of trestle tables loaded with vases full of brightly colored flowers.

  “I’m sorry!” George shouted. The frog sputtered and coughed out another cloud of black smoke from its belly. It must be running out of fuel, George thought. Not fast enough, though. He was starting to feel queasy, but there was no time for that.

  He felt underneath the control panel. There had to be a button or lever or something to turn the machine off. His fingers found a ring at the end of a cord. He yanked. A grappling hook shot out of the front of the machine. Its sharp silver hooks shattered a vase of peach-colored roses.

  A woman turned back from the scattering crowd and began beating on the machine with her silk parasol.

  “Enough!” George pushed his hair from his eyes. There was more than one way to slay a beast, he thought. He loosened the harness straps so that he could lean all the way forward to yank open the cover of the instrument panel, which rebounded and slammed back onto his hand. Saw-toothed gears and mechanisms whirred at blinding speeds.

  He grabbed the parasol from the woman, who was now beating at George’s legs. “May I?” He jammed the handle of the parasol as hard as he could into the spinning gears. With a dreadful squeal, the gears ground to a halt, and the frog died in a final puff of black smoke. It teetered and tottered, then toppled over onto a table piled high with tulips. George leapt out of the seat and collapsed onto the grass—

  Just in time to see a police officer from the Bow Street Runners come galloping into the gardens.

  “Step away from the contraption,” ordered the police officer. He had no weapon, but the row of silver buttons on his black coat glinted menacingly.

  George’s head was spinning. His stomach heaved. One glance around him told him all he needed to know: the garden was completely destroyed. Tables were broken, ladies’ hats lay abandoned among the ruined remains of prizewinning blossoms, and there was a single baby shoe orphaned on the lawn. If he was innocent before, he certainly wasn’t now.

  “Officer, I wasn’t—I didn’t—my neighbor is after me—this isn’t my fault. I was trying to stop it.”

  Before George knew what was happening, another police officer arrived with a pair of heavy iron handcuffs and roughly shackled George’s wrists. With a police officer firmly holding each of his arms and his hands shackled together, George was marched through Regent’s Park like a common criminal. Flower fanatics and casual picnickers glared in his direction. A few hissed at him as he passed. George had never felt so low in his life.

  If the tall man had wanted to humiliate him, he had succeeded.

  When they arrived at the police station, George scoured every corner of the room with his eyes, expecting the tall man to be waiting for him. It was almost a relief to see that Don Nadie was not there. Maybe this was all a misunderstanding. Maybe he could sort it out with someone reasonable. At the very least, he thought, the situation could not get any worse.

  But the longer George sat, the more his relief dwindled away until it vanished completely. He had once been the unluckiest boy in London.

  He knew from experience that things could always get worse.

  Chapter Six

  While George was being chained to a hard wooden bench in the front room of the police station, the guards who had invaded his home arrived, huffing and puffing. The red-coated guards began arguing with the black-coated police officers over which of George’s crimes was the more serious: poisoning the King with murderous truffles or destroying the flower show. The small front room filled with more and more men in coats until there was hardly room to breathe.

  “I did not poison the King,” George interjected weakly, but no one listened to him. He looked down at his shackled wrists. He felt strangely calm again, despite the chaos of the police station around him.

  It felt like falling, George realized. Not long
ago, he’d jumped out of Ada’s airship over the ocean into empty space, a wall of water rushing to meet him. There was nothing to do but wait for the impact. This time, there was only one hope of rescue when he was done falling: Ada. If she didn’t intervene, he’d be hanged for sure. And if he wasn’t hanged, he’d be sent to prison. And if he wasn’t sent to prison, he’d be put in the workhouse.

  At least Frobisher was far enough away that he wouldn’t be dragged into this mess with him. Poor Frobisher. He had reformed himself after years of piracy, but his freedom was as fragile as George’s. If the police found out he was really Jon the Gardener, infamous pirate, he’d be hanged right next to George. Maybe worse, if the tall man at No. 10 got to him.

  A cloud of despair swirled in George, darker than the fumes from the frog. He closed his eyes against it, trying to dispel the terrible lump of dread in his chest. Images of his friends burst into his mind to give him comfort. Oscar at the bow of a pirate ship. Ruthie standing on Oscar’s shoulders. Ada kneeling in the middle of her room, surrounded by whirring gears and ticking machines.

  Then a hush fell over the police station.

  George’s eyes flew open. A portly man in a brown wool tailcoat with a starched linen collar stood in the doorway, staring at him. The red-coated guards snapped to attention, their arguments forgotten.

  Hope blossomed in George’s chest. The man was a gentleman, George could tell. Ada must have sent him. The man spoke to the guards, then the police officers, then he squeezed through the crowd to the bench where George was chained.

  Sure enough, the man put his hand comfortingly on George’s shoulder. “Someone get this child a glass of cold water at once. Can’t you see he’s parched?”

  One of the guards leapt to comply. “Yes, Vice-Chancellor Shadwell.”