Read Online The Querulous Effect by Arkay Jones - Free Book Online Page B

wrapped up in my own work.”
    Tim listened intently to the Prof. He had never seen him look so worried before. “But what could you have done?” he said.
    â€œI should have been more understanding. He was probably as frustrated with me as I was with him. At the least I should have tried to keep in touch with him when he left. Tried to track him down earlier,” said the Prof. “I should have known he’d continue his experiments in his usual impatient way, without my guidance.” The Prof reflected pensively for a moment but then looked up and said more positively, “But that’s in the past. What’s done is done. The important thing now is that we track him down. And quickly!”
    After this dramatic statement it was not long before the Prof left the table to go back into his laboratory, having arranged to see everyone the next morning to gather together the equipment for their next visit to Blusterton’s factory.
    After his departure the children speculated on where Dr Querulous might be. Jay, whose image of the missing scientist had been formed solely on the basis of the Prof’s worrying description, wondered if he might be in some hideaway in the Amazonian jungle, injecting distilled snake-venom into creeping jungle vines or some such strange activity. Tim and Ella, who actually knew Cosmo from their earlier holiday visits and, despite the professor’s current strong views, had rather liked him, thought he would be somewhere much less exotic. Perhaps back at the university in Germany where he and the Prof had first met or working in the butterfly farm they had visited with him and the Prof at Upper Dampney. But despite the difference of views, all three agreed that tracking him down might prove an exciting change from the daily watering and gardening. Equally, they were agreed that if Mr. Knibbs, could help with information, then a return visit to the factory, which they had been rather dreading, might not be as forbidding as they had initially feared. So when the discussions finally ended and they were ready to make their way up to bed, they were in a more cheerful frame of mind.
    The next day, after the children had finished their morning chores in the garden, they helped the Prof gather together all the equipment they would need for the visit to Blusterton’s. There were several large bottles of pink liquid, several extra-large ones of pale blue liquid, four Bunsen burners, two retort stands, a coil of rubber hose, various lengths of glass piping, six empty distilling jars and a contraption, which the Prof called an electro-granulator, which was full of coils and coloured wires and stood almost as tall as Ella. Then the professor remembered he would need his microscope and his centrifugal mixer. Finally, they placed in a pile next to the scientific equipment, their spare Wellington boots and waterproof cagoules.
    â€œThat’s just about it, I think,” said the professor as he popped two cases of microscope slides on top of the enormous pile of gear stacked neatly in the middle of the stable yard.
    â€œThe only thing is…” Tim observed, then hesitated.
    â€œGo on,” said the Prof, “what have I forgotten?”
    â€œThe only thing is,” repeated Tim, “how are you going to get this lot to the factory, together with the three of us, in your little sports car?”
    â€œAh, yes,” said the Prof. “A good point. I thought of everything but I didn’t think of that.”
    â€œSo, in a way,” Tim reflected, “you didn’t really think of everything.”
    â€œAnother good point,” responded the Prof, rather irascibly, “but not, I am bound to say, a very helpful one. Has anyone got any helpful ideas that might address Tim’s point?”
    Everyone looked at one another, then down at their feet and then back again at each other.
    â€œI suppose,” said Jay, a little nervously,