The Body Thief

Copyright © 2010 by Stephen M. Giles

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Cover illustration © Troy Cummings

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First published in Australia in 2009 by Pan Macmillan Australia.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the publisher.

Source of Production: Sheridan Books, Chelsea, Michigan, USA

Date of Production: August 2010

Run Number: 12849

To my parents,

Mary & Brian,

for everything

Adele Fester-Winterbottom Gets Mail

Washington, a stocky black bulldog, was licking at the saucer of milk and purring softly when Mr. Walter Fester entered the kitchen muttering to himself about the outrageous price of eggs. Washington, through no fault of his own, was a dog who firmly believed that he was a cat.

“How’s a person meant to enjoy his morning eggs when they’ve cost him an extra fifteen cents on the dozen,” said Mr. Walter Fester irritably. “You’d think we were
made
of money. I shall write to the newspaper about this. Oh, before I forget,” said Mr. Fester, putting on a bright yellow apron, “this came for you.”

He handed his daughter an envelope. It was royal blue with a thin silver band along the border. As letters went, it looked rather important.

“For me?” said Adele curiously.

Her mother looked up from the pages of her scientific journal. “For
her?
” She narrowed her unnaturally large eyes. “Who on earth would send Adele a letter?”

Who indeed? Adele examined the envelope in her hands. It was addressed as follows:

Miss Adele Fester-Winterbottom

399 Possum Avenue,

Tipping Point

Tasmania, Australia

On the other side, pressed into the seal of the envelope, was an engraved crest—it featured a set of ornate gates entwined with the vines of a rosebush. Etched across the crest was the word
Sommerset
.

Something about the letter made her feel nervous and excited all at once. She thought about letting her father read it for her, but Mr. Fester was busy enough scrambling eggs
and
shuffling through the sizable mountain of unpaid bills and final notices on the kitchen counter.

Back in Scotland, before everything had gone so horribly wrong, Mr. Fester had been a respected book restorer with an international reputation. It was a passion Adele had shared with her father, but now the business was long gone and there were very few books sent his way anymore.

You are probably wondering exactly what disaster befell the family to cause their complete financial ruin.

For the answer, look no further than the scrawny woman with the irritable expression and the wild mop of charcoal-colored hair sitting at the far end of the table. Adele’s mother, Professor Prudence Fester-Winterbottom, was a deeply unpleasant woman with sour breath. She was also something of a genius and her specialty was animal behavior. Her groundbreaking research at MacDougall University in Edinburgh was acclaimed worldwide and over the years her reputation and public standing flourished, much to her delight.

Unfortunately, the only thing the professor craved more than glory was money. Prudence had spent a lifetime envying her older brother Silas Winterbottom and his massive fortune. So when, during an experiment into the physiology of birds, she discovered a way to dramatically alter the physical appearance of a common tree sparrow, a rather diabolical idea began to form in her mind.

The professor realized that by putting the tree sparrow through a series of rather painful and highly unethical operations she could give it the appearance of a wallop lark—the rarest bird on the face of the earth
and
the most valuable. Each feathered impostor could be sold for a small fortune.

She would be rich!

In a remote basement laboratory in the bowels of the university, the professor and her assistant Paul gathered a test group of twelve tree sparrows and began their highly unethical operation in earnest. They worked late at night to avoid detection and in no time at all had successfully created the first batch of mutant wallop larks. The professor arranged for a rather lucrative sale through a friend of Paul’s who knew several notorious bird smugglers. The profit on the first dozen alone would be in excess of one hundred thousand dollars!

However, as the days passed, the birds began to exhibit rather violent tendencies not typically associated with the peaceful wallop lark. Their beaks and claws grew rapidly, sharp as razor blades, and soon all twelve birds had to be separated for fear that they would devour one another, so insatiable were their appetites.

Fearing that worst, Paul begged the professor to abandon the project and destroy the birds, but she refused, unwilling to turn her back on all of that beautiful money.

On the day of the sale, Professor Fester-Winterbottom arrived early at the university to check up on Paul, who had been working throughout the night to prepare the birds for transportation. When the professor entered the basement laboratory she made a discovery so horrific, it snatched all the strength from her legs, sending her plummeting to the ground. Paul’s body lay sprawled on the floor, largely hidden beneath the swarm of rabid wallop larks devouring his flesh. With ruthless efficiency they were eating him piece by piece, stripping the bones clean.

The birds had used their powerful beaks to chew through the locks on the cages. They had waited patiently until Paul’s back was turned before striking. He did not stand a chance against their savage hunger.

Unable to conceal the horror of what she had done, the professor was forced to confess everything to the university. The press jumped on the sensational story. Headlines screamed,
Birdbrained Professor Creates Killer Sparrows
!

Not surprisingly, the university was sued by Paul’s grief-stricken family. In turn the university sued the professor for every penny she was worth and then some. Desperate to bury the scandal, the university convinced Scotland Yard not to pursue the case, and the investigation was quietly closed.

Not that it mattered. The professor’s reputation was utterly destroyed.

Broke and desperate, Adele and her parents fled Scotland and sought refuge in the only place that would have them—Tipping Point, Tasmania.

Pushing those dark memories from her mind, Adele reached down and patted Washington on the head; the bulldog purred gratefully. Washington was an unfortunate victim of an early experiment carried out by the professor. She was convinced that she could reprogram a domesticated dog, replacing its canine instincts with those of a cat. While the experiment had been a triumph (Washington was completely transformed, purring and meowing like a lifelong fluff-ball) it quickly became apparent that the professor was unable to reverse the effects, thus condemning the stocky bulldog to life as a cat.

Adele looked again at the envelope in her hand. She felt a ripple of excitement. Who
had
written to her? With some care, she broke the seal and read the letter.

Dear Adele,

This letter may come as something of a surprise as we have never met. Time, however, is not on my side, so allow me to get straight to the point. I am dying and it is my wish that I might get the chance to know you, at least a little, before death takes me. I would like you to be my guest at Sommerset for two months beginning in June. I have enclosed a check for $10,000 to cover the necessary travel arrangements and additional expenses. Should you accept my offer, I will expect you no later than June 1.

If the answer is no, I shall not trouble you again. The money is yours to spend in any way you wish.

Regards,

Your Uncle,

Silas Winterbottom

Adele could scarcely believe what she had just read. After some hesitation she reached into the envelope and pulled out a small rectangular piece of paper. It was a check! A check for ten thousand dollars!

Adele did not realize that she had just let out a fantastic scream, but evidently she had, for both of her parents were staring at her queerly. The professor looked irritated at the sudden outburst.

“What on earth are you shrieking about, girl?”

“Uncle Silas,” said Adele, trying to suppress her mounting excitement. “It’s a check from Uncle Silas!”

“Silas!” shouted the professor, her eyes bulging madly. “Did you say
Silas?
Silas Winterbottom?”

Adele nodded nervously. “That’s what it says.” She folded the check and quickly slid it back inside the encrusted envelope. “He is dying,” she said quietly, “and he wants me to visit with him at Sommerset.”

“Visit him?” said Mr. Fester anxiously.

Adele nodded. “I feel very sorry for Uncle Silas,” she said, “but don’t you think it is a very odd invitation considering I’ve never even met him before?”

The professor jumped up and slid halfway across the table, lunging for the letter.

“Of course it’s not
odd!
” she said breathlessly. “It’s thoughtful, that’s what it is. You said something about a check—how much is it for, my dear?”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Adele told her. “Silas says that if I don’t wish to visit him at Sommerset, then the money is mine to keep.”

Mr. Fester grinned widely. “Oh, my girl, this is great news!” he declared. “Naturally, I’d never let you go and stay with that tyrant, but just
think
of the money. Why, we could clear a few bills with ten thousand dollars.”

“What?”
the professor hollered. “Not let her go? Are you a complete maniac?”

“Now, Prudence, I don’t like to speak badly of a sick man,” said Mr. Fester carefully, “but Silas Winterbottom is the most tightfisted, blackhearted, evil-minded scoundrel who ever lived.”

The professor gasped. “Walter Fester, take that back!”

“I will not,” her husband told her plainly. “Silas has never shown this family an ounce of kindness—last year when we had our
trouble
I begged him to lend us enough money to save the house, and what did he do? He called us fools and laughed in our faces.”

“Walter, try not to be such a nincompoop,” suggested his wife. “Silas is dying. It stands to reason that he has invited Adele to Sommerset because he wishes to leave his fortune to her. Would you seek to deny your own daughter such an opportunity? Horrible man!”

Mr. Fester smoothed down his mustache, which he did whenever he was thinking a problem over. “Silas…he must be sitting on a tidy sum by now,” he said gingerly.

“A fortune,” said the professor with certainty. “A very
large
fortune.”

“How did he become so rich?” said Adele, desperately hoping to discover that there was a great adventurer who struck gold or a brilliant inventor in the Winterbottom family tree.

“He married it,” said the professor harshly. “Well, he was
going
to marry it. His fiancée, Lady Cornelia Bloom, died the day before they were to wed. She left the entire Sommerset estate to Silas. Foolish girl!”

“She died?” said Adele, her dark eyes wide open. “What happened to her?”

The professor shrugged. “Killed in a car accident. Silas got
everything
, including Sommerset, a magnificent estate on its very own island. Not to mention several million dollars from Lady Bloom’s trust fund. Since that time, the fortune has only grown.” The professor pointed triumphantly at her daughter. “And it could be all yours!”

“You’re forgetting the others, Prudence,” said her husband cautiously. “To begin with, there’s your older brother Nathanial; he’s got a daughter around Adele’s age, doesn’t he? Not to mention your sister Rosemary and your brother Julius—as I recall he had a son. Gave the boy a most peculiar name.”

“Rosemary hasn’t been heard of in nearly twenty years,” said the professor dismissively. “As for my brothers, well, yes, they each have a child. But Julius is dead, God rest his soul, and Silas has even
less
affection for Nathanial than he does for us.”

As her parents discussed the likelihood of Adele inheriting a colossal fortune from an uncle she had never met, the young girl quietly packed her schoolbag, tucked her remarkably frizzy red hair firmly under her school hat, and headed for the front door.

“Wait, my dear,” called her mother, following Adele into the hallway.

“You’ll go, won’t you?” the professor asked hopefully. “To Sommerset, I mean.”

“If it’s all the same to you, Mother, I’d rather not,” said Adele. “I don’t think I would like to go so far away all on my own.”

“Well, you wouldn’t be on your
own
, my dear,” said the professor calmly. “Silas is family, after all.”

“But he is a stranger to me,” said Adele faintly. “I would much rather stay here if you don’t mind.”

“Of course, dear.”

“Well, I better go, or I’ll be late for school.”

Adele had just opened the front door when she felt her mother’s long spindly fingers grip her wrist, pulling her back.

“Listen to me,” she hissed, her eyes glowing with fury. “You
are
going to Sommerset, and you
are
going to be the most delightful niece that any uncle could hope for. Do you understand?”

“Let me go!” said Adele, but her mother’s grip only tightened, coiling around her wrist like a python choking its prey.

“There is something you should know, my dear,” the professor whispered in her ear. “There is a place not a hundred miles from here called Ratchet’s House. It’s a
special
place for revolting little brats that nobody wants. Should you decide
not
to go to Sommerset, then I’m afraid your father and I will be forced to send you there for the foreseeable future. You see, we have so little money left and the cost of raising a twelve-year-old girl is ridiculously expensive.”

Adele felt a rush of cold fear swell up in her chest. She knew of Ratchet’s House from the children at school. It was a dreadful, horrid place, no better than a prison! All the windows were barred; a guard kept watch at the front gate and the whole compound was surrounded by an enormous concrete wall topped with barbed wire to prevent escape. Inmates were given only soup, bread, and apples to eat, visitors were strictly forbidden, and even the youngest of them was forced to work in the shoe factory beneath the schoolhouse every day after classes.

“You can’t,” Adele managed to say. “Dad would never let you send me to a place like Ratchet’s House.”

“Your father will do as he is told,” said the professor calmly. “Oh, I am sure he will come to your defense at first and kick up a great fuss, but eventually he will accept that I know best. He always does.”