Poison Island Read online

  ‘Awwwright!’ said Bradley greedily. ‘I could really go a pie right now.’

  ‘Me too!’ said Bruce. ‘Didn’t know there were snack vans on the island though,’ he added thoughtfully.

  ‘Me neither. First time for everything, I guess!’ Bradley said.

  called Zac through the Voice Scrambler.

  Bruce and Bradley stood up quickly. They practically fell over each other to be first out of the cave.

  ‘I’m getting a pie and chips. Or maybe two pies!’ said Bruce, running.

  ‘Reckon they’ll have tomato sauce out here?’ said Bradley, his voice fading into the distance.

  Zac had done it! The cave was empty. Next stop — Dr Drastic’s secret lab.

  By now, Zac’s eyes were used to the darkness inside the cave. He saw stalactites hanging down from the roof like daggers. Directly in front of him was a long, narrow tunnel leading further into the cave. That had to be the way to the lab!

  He set off along the passage. He ran, but carefully. There was a stream running along the floor of the tunnel and the rocks were slippery. He couldn’t afford to fall and crack his head. Solution X and Leon would be lost for sure.

  Then again, Zac didn’t know how long Bruce and Bradley would wander through the jungle looking for a snack van that didn’t exist. Yes, they were thick. But how thick?

  The deeper into the cave Zac went, the narrower the tunnel became. Soon he was on all fours, only just squeezing through.

  It got darker.

  And colder.

  And scarier.

  If something happened to Zac down here, he knew he would never be found.

  Just as soon as he thought this, the rocky passage walls started to shake! Deep rumbling sounds came at him from every direction.

  Rocks pelted down all around him. The passage was caving in! It was another one of Dr Drastic’s booby traps. Zac must have accidentally triggered a trip wire.

  Zac tried to speed-crawl forward along the tunnel. But a huge pile of rocks blocked his way. He crawled backwards along the tunnel, only to find an even bigger pile of rocks there. Zac was trapped.

  He felt around in his pockets.

  He needed something — anything! — to dig with. But Zac had nothing but his SpyPad and a roll of grape Bubble Tape with hair stuck to it.

  Wait — his SpyPad! Which had music on it. His dad was always telling him his music was up so loud it made the walls shake.

  Maybe I could force the rocks out of the way by triggering another rockslide using sound waves, thought Zac.

  His SpyPad did have awesome built-in speakers. They were unbelievably powerful for something so small.

  There was always the risk that even more rocks would fall, but it was his only chance.

  Zac checked the music on his SpyPad.

  To trigger a rockslide, he’d need something really, really loud! He found Axe Grinder’s latest single, ‘Torture Your Ears’.

  Perfect! Zac set the volume to ten and hit play. yelled Ricky Blazes, the lead singer of Axe Grinder.

  The force of the sound waves blew Zac across the tunnel. There was no other word for it than awesome.

  But best of all, the rocks blocking Zac’s way forward had been blown apart! Now they were just a big pile of dust.

  Zac got back down on all fours. He crawled deeper into the tunnel. Axe Grinder’s rock concert had been very cool, but there was no time to waste.

  He glanced at his SpyPad before he put it in his pocket. It was already 2.43 p.m.

  He must be getting close to Dr Drastic’s lab by now. And sure enough, the tunnel started to widen. The stream on the floor of the tunnel deepened. Soon Zac was standing knee-deep in water.

  He rounded a final bend. The tunnel ended in an enormous, rocky chamber. Zac found himself on the edge of a lake that took up most of the area.

  He took a look around. If this is the end of the tunnel, he thought, then the entrance to the secret lab must be somewhere in this rocky room. But where? All Zac could see were smooth, hard walls. No secret passages. No doors with codes to crack.

  Absolutely nothing.

  Then, in the darkness, Zac almost tripped over something stuck into the shore of the lake. He got down low to have a good look.

  It was a sign that said ‘No Fishing’. There was also a picture of a fisherman looking alarmed as a fish with huge and bloody fangs chewed his arm right off.

  It was a piranha!

  Zac had seen a dead one once, on a mission in the Amazon. A piranha could chew all your skin off in ten minutes flat. But what would a fish that only lives in the Amazon be doing on Poison Island?

  Unless …

  Suddenly, Zac was certain.

  The lab entrance must be right at the bottom of the lake, protected by Dr Drastic’s final booby trap!

  A piranha-infested lake!

  In his mind, Zac made a list of things he’d need to dive into the piranha-infested lake.

  First, a diving mask.

  But he didn’t have one.

  Second, an oxygen tank. No, he didn’t have one of those, either. GIB didn’t think he’d need one in the middle of a jungle.

  Third, a piranha-proof suit.

  No, he’d left that at home, too.

  OK, Zac, he thought. You’ll just have to dive in anyway.

  He took a confident step towards the water. He stopped. Or maybe there’s another entrance to the lab somewhere else?

  But deep down, Zac knew there wasn’t. He took a huge breath and jumped in.

  Zac swam downwards, careful not to kick too much or wave his arms around. A big splash, he knew, would only attract the piranhas. At the moment, the lake seemed still. Not a single piranha anywhere.

  Although … aahhhh!

  What was that creepy, slimy thing that just brushed past him?

  In a panic, Zac kicked his legs. He thrashed his arms around. He screamed inside his head, GET THAT PIRANHA AWAY FROM ME!

  He looked left. He looked right. But all there was floating near him was a gloopy clump of seaweed.

  So that’s what brushed against me, thought Zac with relief. As long as I don’t make any big splashes, I’m safe.

  But even as Zac was thinking this, he realised he was still splashing around like crazy. The piranhas would find him any second! He had to swim to the bottom as fast as he could.

  Down he swam at double-speed.

  Near the bottom, Zac saw what looked like a round door with a handle in the middle. The entrance!

  Zac grabbed hold of the handle and pulled as hard as he could.

  Yes! The door was heavy, but at least it was shifting. He pulled on the handle again. It was definitely coming loose! Only one more big heave and Zac would be in the lab.

  Staring hard at the door, he collected every ounce of strength he had. He was just about to heave one last time when … A piranha! It was right behind Zac, its mouth gaping open.

  It examined Zac’s forearm.

  Mmm, lunch! it seemed to be thinking.

  Desperately, Zac felt about for something to distract it. And there it was, in the pocket of his pants. The entire roll of Bubble Tape with hair stuck to it! Zac broke open the pack and made a giant ball of bubble gum.

  The piranha opened its terrible mouth. Its razor-sharp teeth flashed. In a second, Zac had stuffed the ball of gum into the surprised piranha’s mouth.

  A moment later, Zac was through the round door, through an airlock and into Dr Drastic’s mysterious laboratory.

  What Zac found on the other side of the door was just what he expected an evil science lab to look like.

  Every surface gleamed white and silver. Coloured potions in glass containers bubbled and smoked over flames. Across one wall were rows and rows of tanks, all full of frogs. Each frog had a tube attached to it. Zac saw the deadly poison slowly drip-drip-dripping up each tube and into a huge vat on the floor. The only thing missing were the scientists. The lab was completely deserted.

  Zac had to work fast
. He’d found one of the ingredients in Solution X — the frog poison. That was obvious. But what are the other special ingredients mixed with the poison to create the miracle cure?

  He had to complete the formula.

  Nearby, Zac saw a shelf full of books.

  Zac wasn’t normally that into books. But today he was. A book was just the place a complicated formula might be written down.

  Zac raced over to the shelves.

  He grabbed a book. Family Recipes, the cover said in curly gold writing. That looked promising. But on the first page, there was nothing but a whole lot of oldfashioned handwriting with the heading, Mrs Drastic’s World-Famous Meatloaf.

  Zac was getting impatient. He had no time for Mrs Drastic’s cookbooks.

  Faster and faster he searched, scanning every single book on the shelves. 101 Birthday Cakes for Evil Boys. No good.

  Tripe, Liver & Onions — A Treasury of Horrible Treats. Yuck! No way!

  Finally, Zac came to a book that was smaller than the rest. It had no title at all. Perhaps …

  He opened it. This book had three formulas inside, but just like the cover, none of them had a title. Each of them listed ‘Frog Poison’ as the first ingredient.

  Suspicious, Zac thought. Any of these recipes could be Solution X!

  Zac checked his watch. It was 6.36 p.m!

  He needed to know which was the right recipe, and fast. There was only one way to find out: mix up each recipe then try them all himself.

  Zac rushed over to a nearby cupboard. Sure enough, it was filled with hundreds of glass bottles, each with a weird-sounding name on the label. He grabbed a crusty mixing bowl from a sink and rinsed it out.

  As quickly as he could, he threw all the ingredients from the first recipe into the bowl, mixed them together and swallowed them down.

  He felt nothing. But then he saw his reflection in the bottom of a dirty saucepan. His eyes were changing colour! One minute they were pink, the next they were gold and the next they were fluoro orange.

  This couldn’t be the right recipe.

  He mixed up the second recipe and swallowed that too. Zac coughed. His cough sounded like a canary singing! Also not the right recipe.

  Desperately, Zac mixed together the third recipe. He gulped it down and waited. Nothing happened.

  He checked his eyes in the saucepan. They were brown, as normal. He coughed. That sounded like a normal cough too.

  This must be it! thought Zac.

  He’d found the formula for Solution X! Suddenly, a very loud grinding sound filled the lab.

  Zac spun round. The entire bookshelf was turning around — it was a revolving door. Behind the bookshelf, Zac saw a dusty tea-break room, where lab assistants sat reading magazines and drinking coffee.

  And there, in the doorway, stood a pale-skinned man with cold blue eyes and an explosion of white hair on his head. He was wearing a lab coat. Zac saw a nametag pinned to the chest. It read:

  Dr Drastic stuck out his hand. ‘Agent Rock Star?’ he asked.

  Zac’s mouth dropped open in horror.

  But his tongue wasn’t acting like it normally did. It unrolled and unrolled and unrolled, and at the end, a whistle blew.

  The third recipe had turned Zac’s tongue into a party whistle!

  Zac was about to be captured. And he didn’t have the formula for Solution X after all!

  ‘Step this way, Rock Star,’ said Dr Drastic. ‘Watch your head on the revolving bookcase.’ He was calm and polite, but icy. It was exactly how Zac’s teachers sounded when someone tried the ‘dog ate my homework’ line on them.

  Zac felt Dr Drastic’s hands on his shoulders. His bony fingers and sharp fingernails dug in hard, like claws. Zac knew there was no running away from a grip like that.

  ‘I knew you’d come sooner or later to save your brother,’ said Dr Drastic. ‘Couldn’t resist trying to make yourself a hero, could you, Rock Star?’

  Dr Drastic’s cold, blue eyes locked with Zac’s. There was something funny about the left one. Zac couldn’t tell exactly what it was.

  All of a sudden, Dr Drastic reached up and popped out his left eyeball altogether.

  He laid it in his palm and showed it to Zac. ‘It’s glass. I lost my real eye a long time ago.’

  Zac had never seen anything as gross as Dr Drastic’s glass eye. Unless it was the empty socket where Dr Drastic’s real eye used to be.

  ‘Hasn’t your mother ever told you it’s rude to stare?’ snapped Dr Drastic. ‘Probably not. She’s always too busy spying for GIB.’

  He popped his glass eye back in and Zac sighed with relief.

  ‘I bet you hate being a spy,’ said Dr Drastic, suddenly cunning. ‘You’d much rather make yourself popular with your friends. Being a spy doesn’t make you look cool because you can’t tell anyone about it, can you?’

  Zac nodded dumbly. How did Dr Drastic know all this stuff about him? It made him feel weak and stupid all of a sudden.

  So that’s what they mean by an evil genius, Zac thought.

  ‘Well, would you like to see your brother?’ said Dr Drastic. ‘Not to rescue him, of course. Just to say hello.’

  He sounded friendly again, as though he were asking Zac if he’d like a chocolate milkshake. His personality changed from nasty to friendly and back again every second minute.

  It’s scarier than him being horrible all the time, Zac thought.

  Dr Drastic strode over to a large silver door on the opposite side of the lab. He flung it open, and inside Zac saw Leon.

  But Leon wasn’t standing, or even sitting with his wrists bound together with rope the way captives often are.

  Instead, Leon was frozen inside an enormous block of ice. The expression frozen on Leon’s face wasn’t one of pain or fear. His forehead was wrinkled and he had a finger pressed to his cheek.

  That’s exactly how Leon looks when he’s studying or concentrating very hard on something, thought Zac.

  Dr Drastic slammed the freezer door shut, smirking. ‘Don’t fret, Rock Star.’ He patted Zac’s cheek creepily. ‘I left an air bubble in the iceblock. Your brother’s still alive.’

  Relief flooded through Zac. If Leon was still alive, there was always a chance Zac could come up with some last-minute plan and save him, and maybe the formula for Solution X, too.

  Zac looked around him. All the windows and doors in the lab looked really secure. Now break-time was over, Dr Drastic’s assistants were everywhere.

  There was absolutely no way to escape.

  Zac’s spirits sank again.

  ‘If I don’t get my money, I’m going to destroy Solution X, you see,’ Dr Drastic was saying. ‘And while I’m at it, I thought I’d do away with Agent Tech Head here, too.’

  Dr Drastic walked over to a model of the island in the very centre of the lab.

  ‘I’m going to drop them both into this volcano,’ Dr Drastic said, pointing to a mountain on the model. A label stuck to the side read: .

  Zac’s mind went into overdrive. He knew there was a volcano on Poison Island, but it hadn’t erupted for hundreds of years.

  ‘Ah! I see you’re confused. Before you ask, Rock Star — yes. You’re correct. Mount Humble is an extinct volcano. Or rather, was an extinct volcano.’

  Dr Drastic picked up a test tube of powder that looked like pepper from a nearby bench.

  ‘I call my latest invention Eruption Powder. It works like pepper on a human nose. I simply sprinkle it into the crater of the extinct volcano, triggering a kind of giant, volcanic sneeze. And when the volcano’s good and hot again, I’ll drop in the formula for Solution X.’

  ‘Along with Leon,’ said Zac grimly.

  ‘Correct!’ said Dr Drastic. ‘And you too, now that you’re here.’

  He pulled a watch on a chain from the pocket of his lab coat.

  It was 11.02 p.m.

  There was less than an hour until the deadline expired!

  ‘There’s a car waiting to take us to Mount Humble,’ s
aid Dr Drastic, with an evil laugh. ‘I’m dying to hear that giant ice-block sizzling in the hot lava, aren’t you?’

  Dr Drastic’s ute bumped along the rough jungle track towards Mount Humble. Zac’s hands and feet were tied together with vines. He was squashed between Bruce and Dr Drastic. Bradley was driving.

  The giant block of ice, with Leon still frozen inside, was tied down in the back. It was late at night now, but the jungle heat was still fierce.

  As sneakily as possible, Zac turned his head to get a better look at the block of ice. It seemed to be melting fast. Was it possible it might melt before they reached Mount Humble?

  ‘Do you fancy a little car game, Rock Star?’ asked Dr Drastic, not waiting for an answer. ‘I’ll start. I spy with my little eye something beginning with … S.’

  ‘Sweat?’ said Zac, looking at Bradley’s stinky, sweaty armpits. The more he played along with Dr Drastic’s stupid games, the more time he’d have to dream up a rescue strategy. He had to be careful, though. Dr Drastic would be expecting some kind of escape attempt.

  ‘Good try, but no,’ said Dr Drastic. ‘S is for “small boy trying to figure out how to rescue his brother and save the day”.’

  Bruce laughed nastily and poked Zac in the ribs. Zac sighed.

  ‘Give up, Rock Star. There’s no escape. You won’t be saving your brother. You’re not getting the formula. It’s O-V-E-R,’ said Dr Drastic.

  ‘That spells over,’ Bruce added.

  At the worst possible time, Zac had really drawn a blank. He was out of ideas!

  ‘Look! Over there!’ cried Dr Drastic. ‘It’s Mount Humble!’ He clapped his hands with delight.

  The ute turned off the main track and started climbing steadily up the side of the volcano. Before long, the ute stopped. Dr Drastic got out and ordered Bradley to unload the block of ice with Leon inside.

  Zac hopped along awkwardly. Walking wasn’t easy with both feet tied together.

  Bradley hauled the block of ice over to the very edge of the volcano crater. Bruce was busy sprinkling something into the crater itself. Dr Drastic watched Zac with amused eyes.