Beast World Page 8

  ‘We are confused,’ said Queen Victoria, looking to Prince Albert.

  The Prince squinted though his monocle. ‘I say, are these creatures real, or is this some sort of play-acting for the Exposition?’

  ‘Yes,’ shouted Grimsby. ‘Just play-acting! Now we must get to the locomotive before this whole place collapses!’

  As if to add weight to his statement, more sections of ceiling shattered, glass cascading into the building. Screams echoed through the Crystalline Palace as spectators strove to escape the destruction.

  ‘No,’ said Tesla, springing to her feet. ‘This building will not collapse. The glass will shatter but the steel structure is sound. The only part designed to be destroyed is the viewing area.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Prince Albert.

  ‘It is a plot to overthrow the monarchy,’ explained Xandra. ‘Grimsby wants tigers to replace lions on the throne.’

  Victoria and Albert turned their royal gazes on the High Chancellor.

  Lady Mimsy chose this moment to join the royal party.

  ‘These are all such fanciful accusations,’ she declared, as her armadillos brought her chair over. She still held her umbrella up to shield herself from falling glass.

  ‘Are they?’ asked Tesla. ‘Listen. The steam has stopped. The shaking has stopped. Nothing else is collapsing.’

  ‘Your Majesty,’ panted Lord Edwin, as he came running from the stairway. He dropped to his knees before his beloved Queen. ‘I am your humble servant and I bring you news that the lions in the viewing area have all survived and are currently rounding up Grimsby’s tigers.’ He got to his feet and positioned himself between Grimsby and the Queen. ‘As for myself and the other noble animals – we would rather die than accept this pretender.’

  ‘This is all ridiculous,’ insisted Lady Mimsy. ‘There is no proof of anything.’

  Xandra could see the Queen was baffled by all the accusations and assurances. There was a real danger Victoria might still get on the train with Grimbsy. She had to do something. And that’s when she remembered.

  ‘Actually, there is proof,’ said Xandra. Reaching into her dress, she pulled out the notebook she had found at Shelltonne Estate. She curtsied and held it out to the Queen, open to the most damning page. ‘Your Majesty. This is the proposed menu for Grimsby’s coronation dinner.’ At a nod from Victoria, the guards allowed Xandra to hand it to her.

  The Queen read the menu, her eyes widening in horror. ‘We are not amused!’

  ‘The jig is up,’ declared Grimsby, as he ran for the locomotive.

  Steam and smoke poured over the station as the locomotive lurched into motion.

  ‘Stop those traitors!’ called Queen Victoria.

  The two guards bolted for the engine car, while Lord Edwin lumbered to the royal carriage.

  Throwing her umbrella to one side, Lady Mimsy retrieved a glass orb from inside her shell and threw it to the ground. As the orb shattered it released a cloud of smoke.

  ‘To the Gargantuon!’ screeched the tortoise.

  ‘Stop her!’ shouted Xandra.

  But when the smoke had cleared, Lady Mimsy and her armadillos were gone.

  At least the locomotive had stopped, the guards emerging with the armadillos from the engine car. Then Grimsby was shoved from the carriage by Lord Edwin.

  Grimsby stood before his sovereign, head hung low.

  ‘Lord High Chancellor,’ the Queen addressed him. ‘You have a lot of explaining to do.’

  ROOOOOOAAAWRRRRRRR!

  The building shook.

  More glass panels shattered.

  Screams from the last of the spectators echoed from below.

  Everything shuddered and swayed as the sound of grinding gears and rending metal filled the air. A wave of smoke erupted from the main area of the building and washed over the platform and station.

  Everyone gaped as a mechanical monstrosity, belching flames, reared up from the wreckage of the viewing platform.

  Xandra couldn’t believe her eyes. A massive metal frame slowly rose up – rounded across the back and flat on the front. Within it, gears and cogs, rods and pistons clanked with movement around a barely contained central inferno.

  It must be the furnace that Tesla had discovered earlier, Xandra thought.

  Articulated metal arms, a clamp at the end of each, unfolded on either side of the metal form.

  ‘What in the name of animal-kind is this thing?’ demanded Queen Victoria.

  ‘It’s a giant robot!’ called Lex.

  With more tortured mechanical sounds and a gush of steam, a box-like head popped up from the top of the robot. The head was solid metal, apart from a long horizontal window in its top half. A jewel-encrusted tiara sat on its head. It leered at them like a cobbled together, yet glamorous, junkyard Cyclops.

  Lex gaped. ‘It’s … a giant robot … turtle … I mean tortoise! With bling!’

  Though she was having trouble believing it, Xandra realised that her brother was correct.

  One of the robot’s mechanical arms extended towards the group. Everyone threw themselves to the floor, except for Victoria, who couldn’t, and her bison, who stood before her, ready to protect their queen.

  But the clamp closed around the cowering form of Lord Grimsby, lifting him into the air. The head of the robot lurched forward, and then the creature froze.

  Xandra and the others looked up, wondering what was happening.

  ‘Heeelp!’ screamed Grimsby, waving his paws about like a frightened cub.

  A light flickered on behind the window on the robot’s head, revealing …

  Lady Mimsy.

  Xandra gasped.

  The tortoise sat on a throne, her forelegs encased in massive metallic gauntlets that were connected via cables and rods to a complex mechanism. Steam billowed around her. She wore a leather pilot’s helmet with goggles and a haughty expression. Behind her, a team of armadillos in goggles scuttled about, operating the controls that lined the walls of the operations chamber.

  ‘Greetings,’ called Lady Mimsy, her voice amplified by some unseen device. ‘Lovely to see you all again. What do you think of my Gargantuon?’

  No one said anything.

  ‘So impressive, it has left you speechless, I see.’ She cackled to herself before continuing. ‘As a banker, I find it always best to trust no one. So I never invest in anything or anyone without insurance.’ She glanced pointedly at Grimsby, still hanging from the clamp. ‘Since the High Chancellor’s plans of overthrowing the monarchy with cunning and intrigue and a convoluted plot have failed, I see I have no option but to take a more direct approach.’

  Xandra’s mind was racing, trying to work out what to do. But the situation seemed entirely in the tortoise’s favour.

  ‘Thank goodness,’ gasped Grimsby. ‘Lady Mimsy, I never doubted that you would come through in the end. Now, if you could just put me down, we can lock up Victoria and her ensemble until the coronation dinner.’

  The tortoise smiled at the tiger.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Grimsby gabbled, ‘that perhaps the throne is too much responsibility for just one animal. Just imagine, if the two of us could rule together. Side by side. Tiger and tortoise.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Lady Mimsy. ‘I have no desire to rule over other animals. I simply wish to eat them.’ She gnashed her metal teeth. ‘The United Animal Kingdom of Britannia shall be my larder.’

  She moved a gauntleted hand and the clamp holding Grimsby rose in response.

  ‘And you, Lord High Chancellor, are first on the menu.’ She pulled on the gauntlet, and the clamp brought Grimsby closer to her. An armadillo flicked a switch and the door opened out from the centre like an iris. ‘The Gargantuon is equipped with a fully automated kitchen; and given that I’m feeling a tad peckish, I’ve set it for seared fillet of tiger.’

  The colossal head leaned back.

  The clamp released.

  And Grimsby disappeared into the dark maw.r />
  There were shocked gasps.

  Xandra grimaced. Despite the anger she felt for the tiger, she had a greater revulsion for the tortoise and her culinary schemes. She almost felt sorry for Grimsby.

  ‘Now,’ said Lady Mimsy, turning her attention to the Queen as the Gargantuon’s head straightened. ‘I think lion might be best sautéed with a white wine and truffle sauce.’

  Xandra looked desperately from Lady Mimsy to the Queen. She wanted to do something. To help. To stop the mad tortoise. But what could she do?

  The bison still stood protectively before their queen. Lady Mimsy swiped them aside with one sweep of the Gargantuon’s arm, then lowered the head so she could observe her next victim more closely.

  ‘Grimsby was right about one thing. You are weak,’ she said. ‘You have a frail body that does not work properly and a feeble countenance. Like all lions you are mere pretence – all roars and teeth; no backbone.’

  A sudden rush of anger surged through Xandra and she strode to the Queen’s side. ‘You are not weak,’ she insisted. There was fire in her eyes as she implored the Queen. ‘You are not your disability.’

  ‘We can’t even run away,’ said Victoria sadly, as the Gargantuon’s clamp moved towards her.

  ‘Running away isn’t a strength,’ yelled Xandra. She turned to face Lady Mimsy and her robot. She was so terrified that she felt like she might vomit at any second, and yet she stood her ground – determined; defiant; strong. ‘I can run away. But I WILL NOT!’

  ‘There is a difference between strength and stupidity,’ said the tortoise, and with a sweep of her gauntlet, the Gargantuon’s arm sent Xandra sprawling.

  Lex, Archie and Tesla ran to her side.

  Head pounding, vision blurring, Xandra began struggling to her feet. ‘I will never give up,’ she yelled.

  ‘And neither shall We,’ said Victoria, as the clamp closed over her dais and railing. ‘You are quite correct,’ she called down to Xandra. ‘A Queen does not run away.’

  As she was lifted up, the Queen took the crown from her head. She moved it from one hand to the other, as if testing its weight.

  ‘I shall enjoy devouring you,’ declared Lady Mimsy.

  The Gargantuon’s mouth opened.

  ‘We are old and We are tough,’ retorted Victoria. ‘We are certain that We would give you indigestion.’

  And with that, she threw her hefty crown at the window. Lady Mimsy screeched as the gold and ruby symbol of the monarchy smashed through the glass, showering the interior with shards. The crown struck the mechanism that the gauntlets were connected to. Sparks erupted, steam billowed and the tortoise screamed. The armadillos threw themselves to the floor as their controls spewed smoke and flame. The Gargantuon flailed about, waving Victoria and her dais through the air.

  The screams subsided and Lady Mimsy collapsed back into her chair, her forelegs falling from their gauntlets. The massive robot stilled, its head coming to rest on the platform, its arms raised high, holding onto the Queen’s dais at a precarious angle.

  Xandra and the others looked up, but Victoria was out of reach.

  ‘My love, are you all right?’ called Albert.

  ‘We have been better,’ she called back.

  The bison, finally regaining consciousness, staggered forward to stand beneath their Queen. ‘Take the tortoise and the armadillos into custody,’ she ordered.

  The bison marched towards the Gargantuon’s head, climbed in through the broken window and rounded up the armadillos. Under guard, the little armoured creatures picked up the prone form of their employer.

  ‘We need to get a ladder,’ said Xandra, looking up at the Queen. ‘Wasn’t there one in the storeroom on the second level?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Archie. Taking Lex with him, he went to fetch it.

  ‘We will rescue you shortly,’ called Tesla.

  ‘Piffle,’ said Victoria. ‘We are Queen of the United Animal Kingdom of Britannia. We do not require rescuing.’

  Victoria’s dress and underskirts were bunched up, revealing her ankle-length pink bloomers and the metal supports that secured her to the dais. She reached for the leather straps that held her legs to the rods, and began to unbuckle them.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ called Tesla, ‘do be careful.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Albert, positioning himself. ‘I shall catch you, my love.’

  And as the last buckle came loose, Victoria fell into Albert’s arms.

  Archie and Lex arrived with the ladder carried between them.

  ‘Oh,’ said Archie, ‘we appear to be too late.’

  The bison led the armadillos from the fallen Gargantuon, Lady Mimsy’s limp form clutched between them. As they passed the royal couple, the tortoise’s eyes snapped open.

  ‘I will not be deprived of my feast,’ screeched Lady Mimsy, launching herself at Queen Victoria. She chomped down on the Queen’s leg, biting hard.

  ‘Aaaargh!’ screamed Lady Mimsy, falling to the floor and clutching her mouth. ‘My teeth! My beautiful teeth.’

  Queen Victoria pulled up the bloomers to examine her leg, a metal brace clearly visible around her knee and calf. Satisfied that she was unharmed, she surveyed her surrounds, her regal gaze taking in the destruction, the cowering tortoise and the fallen robot, then moving to the two mythical beasts.

  She doesn’t seem weak now, thought Xandra.

  ‘We do believe,’ said Victoria, ‘that it is time for a good cup of strong tea and some in-depth explanations.’

  Queen Victoria delicately sipped her tea. After the building had been evacuated, a portable throne had been set up on the platform, as well as a table with additional lower seats, and a full silver-service tea set. Prince Albert had left to oversee the incarceration of the traitors, leaving his Queen to enjoy her tea and explanations in the ruins.

  ‘What an incredible story,’ she said. ‘It seems that We are indebted to all of you. We shall bestow our royal favour upon you all. What do each of you desire? Come now, speak up. Do not be shy.’

  ‘A place at your royal court,’ blurted Lord Edwin. ‘So that I may serve at Your Majesty’s side.’

  Queen Victoria inclined her head. ‘Granted.’

  ‘Your Majesty, with Lord Edwin at court,’ said Archie, tentatively, ‘I would very much like to assume custodianship of the Royal Cryptozoological Society.’

  ‘Granted.’

  ‘I would like to help you, Your Highness,’ said Tesla.

  Victoria looked surprised.

  Tesla indicated Xandra, who stood and lifted her skirt. Archie blushed and turned away.

  ‘This is an exoskeleton of my design,’ explained Tesla. ‘It allows Miss Volodin to walk even though her muscles to not work properly. I believe with a device such as this fitted to your legs, you too would be able to walk.’

  ‘We would be honoured,’ said Victoria. Then she directed her attention to Xandra and Lex. ‘And what of our two not-so-mythical human beings?’

  Xandra gasped as she felt a sudden desperate tugging.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Lex.

  Xanda nodded, but staggered to the edge of the platform, leaning down over the railing. Her eyes focused on the remains of the fountain and a strange shimmering in the water. All thoughts of Queen Victoria, Tesla and Archie were driven from her mind by a yearning for home. It was as if, now that their adventure had come to an end, she needed to leave.

  ‘My brother and I would like to go home.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Xandra, as she approached the wreckage of the fountain, the urge almost overwhelming her. She felt her breath quickening, her heart racing. They were so close.

  The stone hemispheres of the structure were little more than a pile of rubble and the bent copper pipe sprayed water in all directions, forming mini waterfalls and rivulets in the debris.

  ‘The fountain?’ asked Tesla.

  ‘Yes’ said Xandra with excitement, ‘there in the water. Can you see that shimmer?’

 
; ‘I thought it was just a trick of the light,’ said Archie.

  As they got closer the shimmer became more distinct. And an image began to form. Grass. Trees. Tall skyscrapers in the distance.

  ‘City Park,’ said Lex.

  ‘Home,’ said Xandra.

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Queen Victoria, as her bison put down her portable throne. ‘This is where you come from? A world within a fountain ruled by mythical beasts.’ She paused. ‘Today has been the most extraordinary of days. It shall make an ever-so exciting entry in Our diary.’

  Xandra hugged Tesla as Lex shook Archie’s hoof. Archie held out his hoof to Xandra. She gathered him into a hug instead. Lex didn’t even have the chance to extend his hand, before Tesla hugged him.

  ‘I apologise,’ said Lord Edwin, ‘for the locked room … for the implication that you should be pets … for everything. You have more than proved yourselves. Can you forgive me?’

  ‘You came good in the end,’ admitted Lex.

  ‘Kneel,’ demanded Queen Victoria, looking at the children, ‘and bow your heads before Us.’

  Victoria extended a claw and tapped Lex and Xandra on their heads. ‘Arise Lord and Lady Volodin, honorary knights of the Royal Guard. Should you ever return to Our world, you will always have a place at Our court.’

  Smiling, Xandra and Lex rose.

  The Queen beckoned Xandra to her side. ‘Every creature,’ she said in a low voice, ‘be they royal or not, has the capacity for bravery. But sometimes, one may require a reminder. And for that, I thank you … most sincerely.’

  Xandra curtseyed one last time, then joined her brother. They gave a last wave of farewell and turned to the fountain. Xandra took her brother’s hand, excitement building, and the two of them ran for home.

  ‘Oh no!’ Xandra heard Tesla call out, as they leapt into what was left of the fountain. ‘The water. The exoskeleton. The static power.’

  Electricity crackled. Water hissed as it evaporated into steam. And with a blinding flash Xandra and Lex were gone.