The Mystery Of Wandering Caveman Part 2

"It's okay," said Jupe. "Don't worry about it."

"I hate it when he does things like that," said Eleanor bitterly. "And I'm never supposed to say anything because . . . well, because he and Aunt Thalia have taken care of me since I was eight. My parents died in a car accident."

Each of the boys wondered privately how well McAfee and his wife took care of Eleanor. She was very thin, and she had a faded, worn look.

"Aunt Thalia and my mum were sisters," she went on. "I'd have had to go to an orphanage if Aunt Thalia hadn't taken me in."

She opened the door and the boys followed her into the dusty dimness of the barn.

They saw a shining new pickup truck there, and a big fourdoor sedan that bristled with chrome. They also saw the heaped-up debris of years - bundles of yellowed newspapers and piles of old cartons and a jumble of tools rusting on a workbench.

A ladder on the back wall led to the loft, and- the boys climbed to a shadowed, suffocating area under the roof. There was a window thick with dirt and cobwebs.

When Jupe opened it, coolness and fresh air swept in.

"You want me to get you some towels?" Eleanor called from below.

"That's okay," Pete called back. "We brought our own stuff."

Still she lingered at the bottom of the ladder. At last she called, "I'm going up to the foundation pretty soon. Would you like to come and see the animals?"

It was plainly the nicest thing she could offer. Jupe leaned over the edge of the loft.

"Do you know the archaeologist who found the bones?" he asked.

"Dr. Brandon? Sure. You want to meet him? I can introduce you if he's home."

"I've been wanting to meet him ever since I heard about the fossils," said Jupe.

"Has he formed any theories about the age of the bones? Does he know how they got into the cave?"

Eleanor grimaced. "Everybody's so excited about that cave man. But he's so ugly.

He must have looked like a gorilla, only much, much smaller." Suddenly she looked alarmed. "Don't you go near that cave when there's n.o.body here," she warned.

"Uncle Newt's keeping a loaded shotgun behind the kitchen door. He says people will pay plenty to see the cave man, and if anybody tries to interfere, he'll blow him full of holes!"

"He wouldn't be talking about the archaeologist, would he?" questioned Jupe.

"Yes. Or anybody who tried to tamper with the cave man. I'm scared that something's going to happen - something really bad!"

Chapter 4.

Eleanor Tells a Lie THE SPICER FOUNDATION was a sprawling house on a hill half a mile up the road past McAfee's place. It had no fence to protect its smooth green lawns, but there were stone gateposts and a gate. The boys followed Eleanor up the drive to the house. She opened the door and went in without knocking.

There was no entry hall. Eleanor and the boys were immediately in a big living room. James Brandon was there too. He was pacing, and he paused to scowl when Eleanor introduced the boys.

"You came for the three-ring circus," he said. It sounded like an accusation.

"To see the cave man?" said Pete. "Yes we did."

"You and four million other people," said Brandon. He started to pace again.

"They're going to trample everything. If there are more fossils in these hills, they'll be destroyed. If I had a gun ..."

"You'd shoot them all," said a calm voice.

The boys turned. A tall, mournful-looking man had walked into the room. Jupiter recognized him immediately as the man who had come to the Rocky Beach hospital the night Karl Birkensteen died. On that occasion he had worn a threadbare grey suit.

Now he was dressed in faded khaki shorts and a polo shirt. He sat down in an armchair near the fireplace and stared at his own bony knees.

"Dr. Terreano, you've met Jupiter Jones," said Eleanor Hess.

Terreano looked surprised. "I have?"

"He helped me when I was in Rocky Beach with Dr. Birkensteen," Eleanor explained. "He was at the hospital, remember?"

"Oh, yes. I recall now. Nice to see you again - and under happier circ.u.mstances."

Terreano smiled and suddenly appeared much younger.

"Dr. Terreano is an archaeologist too," said Eleanor. "He's writing a book."

Terreano grinned. "We are always writing books."

"Oh, yes!" said Jupe suddenly. "I know! You wrote Ancient Enemy Ancient Enemy !" !"

Terreano's eyebrows shot up. "You read that?"

"Yes," said Jupe. "I found the book at the library. It's fascinating, but discouraging. If man has always had a need to battle his fellow man, and if he always will ..."

"Sad, isn't it?" said Terreano. "Our violence is inborn. It's one of our distinguishing characteristics, along with a large brain and the ability to walk upright."

"Oh, rot!" exclaimed Brandon. "Man is not inherently violent. You've misinterpreted the evidence."

"Have I?" Terreano looked around him "Consider, if you will, Abraham Spicer,"

he said "Spicer believed in helping humanity. He set up this foundation, and wasn't that n.o.ble! But Spicer was also a killer. He was a big-game hunter."

Terreano gestured towards the mantelpiece, The head of some delicate horned creature was there, its dead eyes staring towards the windows. On the wall above some bookcases there were other animal heads - a tiger, a puma and a ma.s.sive water buffalo. The pelts of bears and lions and leopards were strewn over the floor.

"If you kill a wild animal instead of another man," said Terreano, "you are allowed to bring the carca.s.s home and stuff it. There was a time when it was equally acceptable to crush the bones of an enemy and eat the marrow."

"You are absolutely wrong!" shouted Brandon.

"You get so angry whenever we have this discussion," said Terreano. "It almost proves my point."

A short, balding man came bustling in just then. "Are you discussing bone marrow again?" he said. "I hate to hear about bone marrow before I've had my lunch."

Eleanor introduced Dr. Elwood Hoffer. "Dr. Hoffer is an immunologist," she told the boys. "He has a lot of white rats that are really kind of sweet. Could I show the rats to Jupiter and his friends?"

"You can, provided they don't touch anything in the lab," said Hoffer.

"Of course they won't," said Eleanor.

The boys followed her out to a long hall that ran at a right angle to the front of the house.

"The workrooms and laboratories open off this hall," Eleanor explained. "Dr.

Hoffer's lab is here."

She ushered them to the next door, and they found themselves in a small washroom. Eleanor produced four surgical masks. "Here," she said. "Put these on."

She fixed hers in place, then drew on a pair of heavy rubber gloves.

She opened another door into a huge room bright with sunlight. Against the walls were dozens of cages enclosed in gla.s.s, and small creatures darted and scuttled in each cage.

"Don't go too close and don't touch anything," warned Eleanor. She began to feed the rats, moving quietly from cage to cage.

"These rats are very special," she said. "Dr. Hoffer took away some of their immunities, so you have to watch that they don't catch cold or anything. That's the reason for our masks. Some of them have no way to fight off infections."

"That doesn't seem very helpful," said Bob. "If they can't fight off infections, won't they die?"

"I suppose some of them will eventually," said Eleanor. "But Dr. Hoffer believes that we get some diseases just because we're immune! Our bodies manufacture special cells that eat up viruses and bacteria, but sometimes those same cells can hurt us.

Maybe we get arthritis from our immune reactions, or stomach ulcers, or even some kinds of insanity."

"Wow!" said Pete. He sounded frightened.

"But without immunities we'd get smallpox," said Bob, "and ... and measles, and ..."

"I know," said Eleanor. "What Dr. Hoffer is trying to do is find ways to control immunities so that we're protected, but we aren't hurt."

"Wonderful!" said Jupiter. "And Dr. Terrreano is writing a new book."

"Dr. Brandon is writing a book too," said Eleanor. "His is about the person in the locked cabinet in his room."

"A person?" said Bob. "Locked in a cabinet?"

"It's a fossil person," said Eleanor. "He found the bones in Africa and put them together like a jigsaw puzzle to make a whole skeleton. He measures the bones and takes pictures of them and looks things up in his books."

"He wants to work with the remains in the cave the same way, doesn't he?" said Jupiter.

"Yes." Eleanor looked unhappy. "My uncle won't let him."

Eleanor had finished feeding the rats. She and the boys returned to the washroom, where she took off her mask and gloves and dropped them into a covered container near the sink. The boys dropped their masks in, too, and they all went back into the hall.

"Now you'll see the chimps!" she said.

The laboratory that had been used by Dr. Birkensteen was at the end of the corridor. It was bigger than Hoffer's lab. The two chimpanzees that lived in it shared a cage near the window. There were toys and b.a.l.l.s in the cage, and a little blackboard where the chimps could scribble with coloured chalk.

The animals shrieked with excitement when they saw Eleanor, and the bigger one held out his arms.

"Hi, there!" she said. She opened the door of the cage and the big chimp came out and took her hand.

"You happy?" she asked. "Did you sleep well last night?"

The chimp closed his eyes briefly and let his head drop to one side. Then he pointed to the clock on the wall and drew circles in the air with one finger.

"You slept long?" asked Eleanor.

The chimp jumped up and down and clapped.

The second chimp got out of the cage and climbed up on one of the laboratory tables.

"Careful!" warned Eleanor.

The animal looked with longing at a shelf lined with jars of chemicals.

"No, no! Don't touch!" said Eleanor. She turned to the boys and laughed.

"The chimps remind me so much of toddlers. They want to grab everything within reach and play with it."

Turning away from the shelf, the chimp took an empty beaker from the table, climbed down to the floor and began to roll the beaker across the room like a toy.

Eleanor took fruit and milk from a refrigerator and cereal and bowls from a cupboard.

"They do understand, don't they?" said Jupe as she poured cereal into the bowls.

"Yes. And they can use signs to say some complicated things. Dr. Birkensteen claimed they communicate as well as most kindergarten children. I don't know real sign language, so I can't judge, but I think they're funny and cute, and they sure let me know what they want."

"What will happen to them now?" asked Bob.

Eleanor sighed. "I don't know. The members of the board of the foundation are going to meet next month. They'll probably decide what to do with the animals. The foundation bought them for Dr. Birkensteen - those and a lot more. Most of them died."

Eleanor put bowls of cereal and plates of fruit on a little table, and the chimps scrambled into small chairs and ate. When they finished, Eleanor coaxed them back to their cage. They both screamed in protest and tried to cling to her.

"It's okay," she said soothingly. "I'll be back soon. Don't get so upset."

The boys watched, and Jupe felt that for the first time he was seeing Eleanor behave as if she were sure of what she was doing. Certainly she looked happier than she had at the McAfees' shabby house.

"They miss Dr. Birkensteen," she said now. "I miss him too. He was nice, even when he wasn't feeling well."