Aesop's Secret (15 page)

Jake hurried to his side, took hold of his wrist to take his pulse, then turned angrily to face Stumpworthy. “What have you done to him?”

At that, Elaine stood up and walked to Stumpworthy’s side. Her eyes flashed angrily at her husband, making her look a bit like a guard dog ready to defend her master.

“It’s all right, Elaine, he’s not going to do anything,” Stumpworthy said calmly. Then he turned to face Jake. “James Mulligan has proven to be a bit of a failure
—I had thought that after my success with young Felix and my dear colleague Dr. Melpot that I had eliminated the risk in infecting a human with the virus. I’m afraid my assumption was incorrect. Now it’s a matter of wait and see to determine if his constitution is strong enough to fight it or…not.”

Felix stepped forward, stopping when he saw the threatening look in his mother’s eyes. “You told me that the virus might kill a human!” he yelled. “Why did you give it to him, he wasn’t a threat!”

Elaine lunged towards Felix, stopping abruptly when Stumpworthy placed his hand on her shoulder, as if calming a well-trained animal. “What can I say?” Stumpworthy sighed. “As a man of science, I needed to experiment, and had I been successful, the results would have been extraordinary. After all, it worked so well on your lovely mother,” he said, patting Elaine again on the shoulder, at which she smiled gratefully, “and I had thought that it had worked on you as a premature Athenite
―plus I was very pleased with the results I saw from Dr. Melpot. It worked
beautifully on her, with no ill effects from her human side whatsoever, that I had to take the next step and test it on a regular human. James was the most likely choice. You see, he has been very useful in the past, but I couldn’t always count on him, and at times he was a bit slow.” He paused briefly, then smiled. “Too bad about him. For you see, if my little experiment had been successful I could have dominated any human I wanted: prime ministers, presidents, royalty
—anyone! But never fear…I’ll get there in the end.”

“I don’t think so,” barked Jake as he motioned for Felix and Melinda to stand tall alongside him. “I think your days of such experiments are over.”

Stumpworthy’s head dropped back as a howling laugh exited his throat. He looked at Jake, Felix and Melinda and shook his head. “Now why would I want to do that? I have no intention of leaving my research, and I’m afraid there is nothing you three can do about it. Elaine is mine and will continue to do whatever I want her to do; that includes defending me against the lot of you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Joe Whiltshire said as he sauntered into the room.

“JOE WHILTSHIRE!” Horace laughed. “And without your fur coat! This is indeed a surprise. The last time I saw you, you were dangling from my trouser leg. I can’t say that I blamed you for your bad behaviour, but you did cause a rather nasty bruise on my thigh.”

“What a shame,” said Joe. “I was aiming a bit higher.” Joe walked over and stood next to Jake. “Sorry, Horace, but you are outnumbered, even if you do have Elaine on your side. So I suggest you listen very carefully.”

Horace Stumpworthy shook his head pityingly. “I have no desire to listen to any of you. You see, it’s not a question of numbers but of cleverness. All of you should know that I never leave things to chance. It is true that your appearance as a human is a surprise. I’m also a bit surprised to see that Melinda and Felix are not affected by the virus. It’s all very interesting and something that we really must chat about, but it’s hardly a point of concern to my plans.” As he was talking he slipped his hand into his shirt pocket, withdrew a tiny syringe, and then, taking hold of Elaine’s arm, held the needle against her skin.

Melinda watched as her mother happily let the professor threaten her. “You have already brainwashed her,” she shouted. “What else can you do?”

Stumpworthy laughed again. “More than you could ever imagine, my young friend. And although it would sadden me to do it, I am prepared to inject her with wolfbane unless you all do exactly as I wish.”

Melinda narrowed her eyes. “What is wolfbane?”

Stumpworthy opened his mouth to explain, but it was her father who answered. “It’s one of the few things in the world Athenites fear.”

“That is absolutely correct,” Stumpworthy laughed.
“Please, allow me to explain. Wolfbane is a rare plant found in remote regions of the northern hemisphere. There are a lot of wonderful stories about this beautiful little herb. A long time ago, people, being the superstitious creatures that they are, were frightened of what they thought of as the plant’s evil magic. They believed exposure to the plant could turn a person into an animal.” He laughed warmly. “Of course, those stories are not true. Wolfbane is completely harmless to humans. In fact I’m told that it makes a lovely tea. But as with so many old stories about princesses turning into swans and princes becoming frogs, there is some
truth to the fable. Wolfbane is only toxic to Athenites. In a way it’s similar to my own little virus: exposure to the herb will force a transformation. But unlike my virus, wolfbane forces the person into only one animal form: that of a lemming. And I’m afraid that there is
no
cure to exposure.”

No one said a word while the professor gloated with Elaine smiling innocently at his side. Professor Mulligan squinted and listened in stupefaction, but he was unable to do anything about anything. Jake and Joe looked at each other with helpless expressions. Felix just nodded subtly to Melinda, who winked back.

Everything moved at dizzying speed. Professor Stumpworthy’s head pivoted around, but by the time he faced Melinda, a massive frog rocketed out of her clothes, landing squarely on his face. The professor fell backwards violently as the frog’s sticky feet held on tightly. Reeling from the force of the slippery body that had secured itself onto his head, he released his grip on Elaine’s arm and dropped the syringe. Elaine looked from the professor to the falling syringe and back again as if she didn’t know whether she was meant to retrieve the falling instrument or pry off the huge, slimy green creature that covered the professor’s face.

In that split second of confusion, Felix dove across the floor, grabbed the syringe after its first bounce, and rolled to a stop a short distance away. Scrambling to his feet, he tossed the syringe over to where his father and Joe were standing. Then he reached into his jeans pocket and withdrew two more syringes. He lunged towards his mother and thrust the point of a syringe into the centre of her right buttock.

Elaine collapsed onto the floor instantly, giving Felix a clear shot at the professor, who was struggling to remove Melinda’s frog body from his face. Felix paused, savoring the moment—then he moved with determination, jabbing the needle into the back of the professor’s neck.

Feeling the professor go limp, Melinda released her grip and leapt free while Felix leaned closer to the professor’s prone body. “There you go, Professor. Burungo
―the strongest sedative known to modern science.”

But the
professor didn’t stay quiet for long. His body writhed and shrank; white hairs exploded out of his skin, covering his entire body. Felix pushed backwards as the professor melted into a furry mass. Seconds later all that was left of him was a small white animal now occupying the space where he had fallen. It was only then that Felix noticed Joe kneeling alongside.

Joe smiled as he held up a tiny syringe. “So it really does work,” he said in amazement. “Let that be a lesson to all of us to stay as far away from wolfbane as we possibly can.”

“That should do it,” Jake said as he pulled the syringe out of Elaine’s arm. She had been resting comfortably in her bedroom for the last three days. “That was her third dose of the antidote. We should be able to stop the Burungo soon,” he laughed, “but let’s have some on hand just in case she still feels a bit of loyalty to Stumpworthy.” He crossed the room to where Felix, Melinda and Joe were sitting. “Felix, it’s lucky that you found the antidote and all the professor’s notes about his experiments in that lab. You would have thought after my imprisonment in the horrible place that I might have had an idea where to look, but I didn’t.”

Felix shrugged. “The man was my hero…I knew everything about him, including how he thought, so I knew where to look. He would never have hidden something so important in a secure spot—that would be too obvious to someone who wanted to get their hands on it. I knew it had to be in a highly unlikely spot― someplace that most people would never look.”

“I still can’t believe that he stored it in the coffee maker,” Joe moaned. “What if someone used the pot?”

Felix shook his head. “That would have been highly unlikely; no one else even knew about the lab, not even the servants. I didn’t know it existed until he told me to kill the mouse.” His cheeks tinged red as he looked guiltily over at his father.

“I still don’t understand how you discovered that the antidote was in the coffee maker,” Joe pressed.

“First, I knew that there had to be an antidote. The professor had said he was immune to the virus, so he would have had to immunize himself. He was too clever to leave anything to chance; relying on some young Athenite rushing to his rescue was not something he would have done. Then it was just a matter of determining where he would have hidden it.”

Jake shook his head. “How did you come up with the coffee maker?”

Felix laughed. “That’s simple: the professor didn’t drink coffee. It’s so obvious when you think about it. Remember that no one knew about the lab but him. So you have to wonder why a man who really hates even the smell of coffee would have had a coffee maker.”

“That’s true,” Joe laughed. “I used to drive him mad at university with all the coffee I drank to get through exams. Harmony said that the teachers at the school weren’t even allowed coffee in the staff room because the smell bothered him too much.”

Felix looked guiltily at Joe. “How is Dr. Melpot? Is she recovering from her exposure to the virus?”

“She’s doing very well, thank you,” Joe nodded. “At first she said that her head felt like it was going to explode, which made her act a little like a trapped Tasmanian devil. I’m glad that I only had to recover from being a rabbit—the only side effect I had was getting used to a new diet.”

“Speaking of diets, Professor Mulligan’s diet isn’t suffering,” Melinda groaned. “I left him downstairs with egg all over his face. How can he eat so much—there must have been at least a dozen fried eggs on his plate.”

“I still can’t believe he survived, let alone that he recovered quicker than Dr. Melpot and Mum,” Felix said.

“He probably only had a single dose, whereas your mother and Harmony had quite a few. My concern over the professor isn’t about his health anymore, but about what he remembers hearing and seeing.” Jake sighed.

“Everything,” the professor’s voice rang out as he walked into the room. “I must admit it was all a bit surreal at the time, but the confirmation of Athenite existence is something that I have always believed was possible. That’s why I was so interested in Elaine’s manuscript. I’ve had the same theory for years about the reality of beings that could transform to suit their needs in the environment in which they found themselves. People have always been too eager to dismiss the abundant evidence found in every corner of the globe that supports the Athenite reality.”

Felix sighed as he looked around at his family and friends with new respect for them and his ancestry. “I guess being an Athenite isn’t so weird after all. But I still don’t want to learn to change into anything…just yet. I could end up changing into bizarre creatures like my sister. I mean really, Melinda―frogs are small creatures, not giant green monsters!”

Melinda batted her eyes at her brother, then ran out of the room, returning a short time later with a book in her hand. “While you were ill, I spent a lot of time in your room. I didn’t have a lot to do so I looked through some of your books. Most of them are really boring―I almost fell asleep just looking at them―but this one…” She paused in her act of flipping through the pages. “…was pretty cool because of all the animal pictures. I read about that toad that you had marked, but I like this one better.” She held up the book to show everyone the picture. “This is the Goliath, the biggest frog in the world. Did you know that it can be more than half a metre long when its legs are stretched out?”

Felix wrapped his arm around Melinda’s shoulder, flashing a Cheshire Cat smile. “I didn’t know that, but I’m glad you did. It’s like my old professor taught me: it’s not a question of numbers but of cleverness, and you never leave anything to chance.”

I would like to thank my agent Fiona Spencer Thomas for all her support and friendship. 

I would also like to thank all the readers who have helped me see the characters come alive through their eyes. 

With special gratitude to my mom and dad, Sam, Ian, Barbara, Tess, Emily, Lawrence, John, Kaitie, Jo, Nick, Kevin, Travis, Charlotte, Chris and Cindi.