Aesop's Secret (12 page)

Melinda dozed uncomfortably under the curtains in Felix’s room. She had no idea what the time was, only that she had been crouched in her position for a very long time. She had taken the shape of a mouse―at least that’s what she had intended to transform into, because it was small enough to go unnoticed and quick enough to avoid capture. But when she looked down at her paws she knew she hadn’t got it quite right. Her paws were green and webbed, very much like the feet of the turtle named Abigail that she’d had when she was five years old. Her tail, with its huge plume of brown hair, was a bit too squirrel-like to pass for a mouse. But the rest of her seemed perfectly mouse-like; she had no way of knowing that her own freckled face was neatly planted on the front of, in all other respects, a perfect mouse head.

At the same instant that she had decided to improve her transformation she was knocked sideways as vibrations from outside the room turned into tremors when the door screeched open and then, with what sounded to her like a clap of thunder, shut. Shivering uncontrollably, she poked her head out from underneath the curtains, gasping when she saw Professor Stumpworthy, who was the size of a mountain, move smoothly across the floor. His back was to her as he stood over Felix. “There you go,” the professor chuckled. “By the time the Burungo wears off you’ll be as trainable as the rest of your family…if you survive the infection.” Then he turned and thundered back towards the door.

Melinda waited only a second before scurrying after him, barely making it through the door before it shut.

The professor glided down the hallway at an incredible speed, his long strides becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with, especially on tiny turtle feet. He walked to the end of the hallway, pausing briefly in front of a bookcase; then in one smooth motion he pulled the bookcase open to reveal a dark passageway. Melinda stayed neatly behind him, her tail almost being caught when the professor pulled the hidden doorway shut behind him. Safely out of sight, he clicked on a light and continued walking purposefully down the drab stone passage that eventually led down two flights of stairs.

Melinda was finding it impossible to keep up, and it wasn’t long before she lost sight of the professor. By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs she was out of breath and shivering. Stumpworthy was gone.

Without warning the light went out and the passage was plunged into darkness. Melinda’s eyes strained to see what was happening around her but it was no use. Surprised at not having the nocturnal vision of a mouse, she froze her movements so that she could hear the shuffling of footsteps or the squeak of a door―anything that might offer a clue as to what was going on around her―but the only sound she could hear was her own breathing.

The impenetrable darkness surrounded her, making her feel disoriented and dizzy. She had never been in a place so totally black, without light of any kind, where it was difficult to tell which way was up and which way was down. She was afraid to move but afraid to stay in place as a choking sensation of panic rose up from her stomach and into her throat. Then a faint amber glow, up near the top of the last flight of stairs, illuminated the passageway.

She leapt up with incredible speed to the first step, then to the second, third, fourth and all the way to the top, but by the time her feet landed on the cold stone, the thread of golden light was gone.
I’ve got to get out of here
, she thought desperately.

She thought fleetingly about transforming but was too frightened to concentrate. She crouched down low and rocked back and forth while she tried to figure out what to do. Suddenly a warm breeze tickled her face. She shivered involuntarily and continued to rock slowly as the warmth of the invisible wind caressed her body. It seemed to be directly in front of her, so she took a tiny step forward and felt the warm air wash all around her. Another step and the warmth rippled down her sides; one more step and it brushed the top of her head. In only a few more slow steps the breeze was gone and Melinda collided with the wall.

“Warm air doesn’t come out of walls unless there’s an opening,” she said to herself, and began searching the wall with her front paws. The cold stone was solid, but remembering the hidden doorway in the hallway upstairs, she didn’t give up. The warm current was gone as she made her way along the base of the wall, first one way, then the other. There didn’t seem to be any kind of opening, crack or hole that would let air come through.

“I didn’t imagine it,” she snapped. “I know I felt warm air!” She retraced her steps, patting the stone wildly and sniffing for any kind of scent other than the musty smell of the passage. Still she found nothing. Shuffling back to the centre of the step, she felt the subtle warmth across her back. She looked up into the blackness―but it wasn’t coming from above. The breeze was definitely coming from behind her, which meant that it had to be coming through the wall.

She turned slowly back around, taking a single step towards the wall, then stopped, feeling the warmth centre on her face. Another step forward and the breeze swept across her eyes. Two more steps and the air ruffled the hair on top of her head. Her lips curled into a smile and she made her way quickly over to the wall, stretching herself up to reach as high as she could; but the current was gone. Backing away a few paces, she took a deep breath and then sprang up as high as she could, reaching out with her tiny green paws in hopes of catching a deviation in the wall and perhaps finding the opening that was letting in warm air. She found it on her first try, as she grasped a stony ledge and felt the warm current blow across her knuckles. Her hind legs scrambled up to join them and she pushed her body forward through an opening.

A strange steely glow greeted her when she emerged out of the hole and into a colourless room illuminated only by a few tiny lights obscured from view high above her head. It was a large room, sparsely furnished with tall cabinets and a few stools, similar to a kitchen, but she knew from the acrid smell that it was not. She had visited her father’s workplaces enough to know that she was standing in a laboratory.

Her heart raced when she thought that this might be the laboratory where her father was working. It made sense, she thought, that this lab was right underneath the house. She scouted along the wall in search of a bed where she hoped to find her father asleep, where he might be catching a few minutes of rest before resuming his work to find a cure for Felix. She scurried along the perimeter of the room but didn’t find so much as a chair that might provide a comfortable spot to take a little respite from his work.

She sighed, deciding that she had seen enough for the night and would tell Joe all about her findings the next day. She turned to leave, but stopped abruptly when she heard a small, squeaky cry somewhere above her. She was sure that the sound resonated from on top of one of the cabinets, but it was impossible to tell for sure from her vantage point. Again the cry broke the silence, becoming insistent, almost desperate.

Melinda ran over to a nearby stool and leapt up to the first horizontal rung that ran between the legs. Balancing precariously like a circus performer, she leapt up again to the next rung. The next step was more difficult, as she had to leap upward and outward, then grasp hold of the seat of the stool. Next she pulled herself up as if she were simply climbing out of a swimming pool, swung her legs up to catch hold, and was on top of the stool in seconds. An easy leap from there and she was on the counter.

Sparkling glass vials and shiny silver scientific instruments were everywhere. She wandered along the hard, cold counter in awe of the forest of scientific machinery, illuminated by the lights of the gently purring machines. Making her way through a city of test tubes and across a sea of computer printouts, she saw the enormous silver cage in the distance; sparkling red eyes gleamed in her direction.

As she got closer, she smiled at a grey mouse, squeaking desperately inside the cage. It sat up on its haunches and squeaked, then rose up on its hind legs, grabbing onto the bars as it chattered in a tirade of mouse talk.

It was then that Joe’s words dawned on her:
“When an Athenite transforms they can only communicate with that species.”
It brought an important question to mind: why couldn’t she understand that mouse? The mouse continued to squeak desperately and Melinda frowned at her inability to understand a single thing it was trying to tell her. She looked down at her green webbed turtle feet and knew that there was only one explanation. Looking anxiously around at the implements on the counter, she spotted what she needed and trotted over to a tall chrome cabinet, squinting before braving a glimpse at her reflection.

“I look like a gargoyle,” she shrieked when she saw her image. “I’m supposed to look like you,” she whimpered, looking over at the mouse. “I can’t understand anything you’re saying,” she explained as she pulled her human ears away from her head, “because I still have human ears.”

The mouse stopped chattering and slumped into a heap, the reflection of its red eyes still glowing in Melinda’s direction. Then it stood up again, leaned against the bars and reached out desperately towards Melinda, opening and closing its paws as if beckoning her to come closer. It looked so pitiful, Melinda walked closer, and when she was only a few inches away from the cage, their eyes met.

“Dad,” she gasped with the same surprised conviction that she had experienced when she had looked into Joe’s eyes and saw Aesop staring back.

Melinda’s body was shaking as she pushed the bookcase back in place, concealing the entrance to the passageway. It was cold and she was back in human form, therefore quite naked, but that wasn’t the reason that she was shivering. She had made the difficult decision to leave her father behind. He squeaked pitifully when she explained, “I don’t want to risk Stumpworthy finding you gone―not yet anyway. It’ll only be for a little while, just until I can sort things out.” The only problem was that she didn’t know how to do that.

She tiptoed down the hallway as fast as she could, not making a sound as her bare feet padded along the Turkish rug that ran down the middle of the marble floor. She didn’t have a lot of time to save her father, discover what was wrong with Felix and find a cure, sort out her mother, and deal with Professor Stumpworthy. The enormity of the tasks made her eyes bulge toadishly.

Melinda sat in a big pink chair facing the window in her room, not having stirred for hours. She didn’t notice the brilliance of the sunrise; she didn’t hear the early-morning birdsong, the distant sounds of frenzied traffic or the subtle sounds associated with the household awakening.

Her body was stiff as she stretched and stood up, trying to clear the haze that was settling in her mind. She yawned and made her way out into the hallway, feeling groggy but surprisingly rested as she walked down to Felix’s room.

He was lying in the same position as he had been for days. “Felix,” she whispered, not expecting anything in return.

Felix opened his eyes and smiled. “Hi,” he managed in a raspy voice.

Melinda ran to his side, grabbed hold of his hand and smiled. “You’re getting better; that stuff is wearing off.”

“Burungo,” Felix whispered. “It’s a sedative.”

“I know! The professor wanted to keep you quiet.”

Felix interrupted, “I know. Everything is going to be OK now.”

Melinda frowned. “OK?” she barked hotly. “How can you say that? Nothing is OK except you, but I’m not even sure about that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The professor used that stuff to keep you here and he’s using something to make Mum do what he wants her to do and he turned Joe into a rabbit and,” she paused for emphasis, “he has turned Dad into a mouse!”

Felix’s face contorted into a just-eaten-a-sour-grape expression. “You are not making any sense.”

“I saw Dad in a cage downstairs in the laboratory.”