The Madrona Heroes Register: Echoes of the Past (20 page)

From their vantage point Binny could
see through the glass door and had the best view of what was going
on outside the greenhouse and around the corner from the entrance
to the Minos building. She was busy trying to make herself smaller
when through the glass door she caught sight of the thin woman
marching in the opposite direction, away from the Records Room with
the two security guards in tow.

“
She’s leaving. She’s
leaving. I think we’re ok.” Binny excitedly whispered to Penny and
Zach.

Whistling. Binny, Zach, and Penny,
heard whistling. Not the whistling of the wind or the whistling of
a tea kettle. This was someone whistling a tune. A jazzy tune. Or
was it blues? Binny wasn’t sure. There were footsteps as well.
Slow, meandering, not-in-a-hurry footsteps.

Binny’s arm reached out reflexively
keeping Penny and Zach as far under the table as she could.
Cassie’s super power definitely would come in useful right about
now. But it was supremely unhelpful to think thoughts like that.
They didn’t have any super powers. And even if Cassie was there,
she’d be the only one disappearing. That would help the three of
them exactly not at all. But the whistling and the footsteps
weren’t disappearing. No. They just kept getting closer.

Ever so slowly.

15

Binny, Zach, and Penny sat huddled
together under the long table, as the footsteps and the whistling
got louder and louder. Finally, a pair of well-worn workboots
appeared directly in front of them. The whistling continued. Binny
repeated over and over in her head a silent plea for the boots to
turn around and walk straight out the door. Zach was afraid to
breathe.

The whistling stopped. Before the kids
could react, a face appeared, peering under the table and smiling
broadly. At least it looked like a smile. It was hard to tell since
it was almost completely upside down. Then the face spoke. “Seems
crowded under there. Wanna come out?”

The kids looked at each other, not
entirely sure what to do. Binny was the first to emerge, with Zach
and Penny following uncertainly. The face belonged to an old man
with pale white skin, rosy cheeks, and white hair. If the man were
a bit heavier and had a beard he might have been Santa
Claus.

He didn’t look like all the other
employees. A plaid shirt completed his outfit, and his hands were
dirty. It seemed clear to Binny that this man worked in the
greenhouse. What did you call someone who tended to the plants in a
greenhouse? A gardener? That didn’t seem quite right. “Hi.” Binny
responded.

“
You can’t see much from
down there, don’t you think?” The Santa man addressed the children
gently, chuckling.

The kids couldn’t help but smile. The
man’s friendliness was infectious. “True.” Binny smiled
back.

“
What exactly are we
looking at?” Penny interjected, curiosity getting the better of
her.

“
That’s an excellent
question. What are we looking at?” The man seemed positively
thrilled to be asked. Binny imagined that the man didn’t get many
visitors in the greenhouse. He continued, “We are looking at the
entire catalog of flora that we grow here at Luce Laboratories.
Mostly tropical species, hence the humid environment.” The man
chuckled again as he wiped a bit of sweat from his brow.

“
Why does a drug company
need to grow tropical plants?” Now it was Zach’s turn to be
curious.

The man produced something large and
ovoid out of his pocket as he spoke. “Another excellent question,
young man.” Zach was still suspicious but couldn’t help but soften
a little at the compliment. The kids recognized the object as a
mango. The man produced a pocket knife out of his other pocket and
started cutting into the fruit as he answered. “Well, our job here
is to create compounds that heal people. And we believe that many
of these compounds already exist in nature.”

The kids’ eyes fixated on the knife
slicing through the fruit as they listened to the Santa-like man’s
friendly explanation. “Long before there were pharmaceutical
companies like Luce Laboratories, medicine men – and women,” he
added looking at Binny and Penny, “found all sorts of plants
growing that had healing properties. Have your parents ever put
aloe on a burn?”

“
My mom has an aloe plant
growing on the window sill in the kitchen.” Penny chimed
in.

“
Exactly! Your kitchen
window sill is just a miniature version of this greenhouse. Here at
Luce Laboratories we just grow a lot more plants and use science to
enhance the plants and find out what they can do.” The man finished
slicing, put the knife back in his pocket, and offered the cutting
board with several slices of juicy and tasty looking mango to
Binny, Penny, and Zach.

Binny eyed the fruit suspiciously.
“What disease does your mutant mango cure?”

The man’s eyes lit up with excitement
as he took a breath looking like he was thrilled to share the
answer, “Hunger!”

There was a brief moment where the
kids didn’t understand the answer and then the old man started
laughing. Penny and the others couldn’t help but smile. “I forget
to pack my lunch sometimes and the climate in here is perfect for
mangoes. I assure you that the only special quality they have is
how delicious they are. Go ahead, try some.” The man pushed the
cutting board towards the kids, renewing his offer.

Penny was first to grab a slice, and
Zach and Binny soon followed. It was delicious. Juicy. Possibly the
best mango they’d ever tasted. They’d done a lot of biking,
climbing, and hiding, with the sun beating down overhead and didn’t
realize how tired and dehydrated they were. The kids mumbled ‘thank
you’s in between bites and the man couldn’t have looked more
pleased. “I told you they were delicious.”

The man continued, “My mission in life
is to find the special things given to us by mother nature. They’re
not usually as delicious as these mangoes, though. But they do help
people fight disease.”

Binny couldn’t tell if the man’s
excitement and friendliness stemmed from his genuine love for his
work or from the likelihood that he didn’t get many visitors. Binny
stated more than asked him, “When you find these special things
that nature makes, these miracle plants, you try to figure out what
makes them special.”

“
Exactly, my dear.” The
man was thrilled that he’d made his point. “We use the scientific
method to find out what medicinal properties a particular plant
exhibits.”

Binny continued, “Doesn’t taking
things apart or “enhancing” them to find out what makes them
special, kill the thing you’re investigating?”

Penny’s eyes widened at Binny’s
challenge. Zach shot Binny a look: He also thought she was being
rude to their host. Binny didn’t notice either of them. She was
looking straight at the old man.

For his part, the man didn’t seem to
take offense. He just smiled more broadly, enthusiastically
engaging in the argument. “Well, yes, of course, but these are just
plants, my dear. And while your concern for them is admirable, when
we find something special we share it with the world in the form of
medicine. Our job is to find what’s special in nature and share it
with everyone to make the world a better place.”

When that didn’t seem to satisfy
Binny, he added, “And of course you’re right. Sometimes we have to
help mother nature along. Our scientists spend a lot of time
experimenting with and enhancing many of these species until they
have just the right medicinal effect. This is the ‘magic’ we do
here.”

“
That’s them.” The thin
woman in the lab coat burst through the door to the greenhouse
followed by two large men clad in black from head-to-toe. One of
them had “HEAD OF SECURITY” embroidered on his chest pocket. On the
other pocket was presumably his name, “G. GRATER”. His even bigger
counterpart only had his name embroidered: “V. BARRIOS”. There was
no mistaking it now. The thin woman was definitely
angry.

“
I’m so sorry, have they
been bothering you?” The woman glared at the three kids as she
addressed the old man.

The man laughed, “Oh, Hello Dr. Trace.
No. Not at all. I’ve just had the pleasure of showing them what we
do here in the greenhouse and at The Lab in general.”

“
You said your mother
works in the Records Room. She most certainly does not.” Now Dr.
Trace was addressing Binny, her finger pointing sharply, her face
extra pinched. “This is a place of business, not a
playground.”

“
There must be some
confusion. The children are working on a summer science project,
learning about how we can harness the power of nature to make
medicine. Their mother suggested they come here to do some
research. Right children?” The man was now looking directly at
Binny for confirmation. A mischievous sparkle in his eye now
accompanied the perpetual smile on his face.

Quickly overcoming her surprise at the
old man’s covering for them, Binny agreed enthusiastically. “Oh
yes. We’re doing research. You’re doing very interesting work
here.” Binny nodded towards the rows of plants nearby.

“
It’s perfect for our
science project.” Penny added.

Zach looked nervous and confused at
the strange turn of events.

The security men stood there stone
faced, but had relaxed their stances a little bit. The one in
charge, Grater, looked a little disappointed.

Dr. Trace was even more annoyed than
when she’d entered the greenhouse. “Who has school projects over
the summer?”

“
We’re very studious.”
Binny offered earnestly.

“
Little girl. You told me
your mother worked here.”

“
Did I?” Binny responded
looking up at the ceiling of the greenhouse pretending to be
confused. But she couldn’t stop the corners of her mouth from
turning up in a bit of a smile at the woman the old man had called
Dr. Trace.

Zach could see that Binny’s smugness
was infuriating Dr. Trace even further. “We really better get home
now to write down what we learned and work on our project. Thank
you so much.” Zach started pushing the girls towards the
door.

The kids mumbled goodbyes to the old
man as the two large security officers parted ways to let them out.
“Thanks for the mango. It was delicious.” Penny yelled back as the
door closed behind them.

This time as the kids made their
escape from the thin woman, they couldn’t contain their laughter
and started giggling the moment the door slammed shut.

§

The laughter subsided after the first
few minutes of the bike ride home.

“
That was awesome!!” Penny
shouted exultantly.

“
That was insane.” Zach
corrected her. “We almost got in huge trouble.”

“
But we didn’t. Why is
that?” The question changed Binny’s mood from giddy relief to
contemplative and serious. “
Why
did the greenhouse caretaker cover for
us?”

“
Those mangoes were
amazingly delicious.” Penny was remembering how juicy they were as
she said the words.

“
Seriously, why did he lie
to that angry lady?”

“
Seriously, they were
delicious.” Penny said, imitating Binny’s somber tone.

Zach burst out laughing at Penny’s
joke. But Binny was getting annoyed. Even though Penny was a new
friend, she sure did say irritating things sometimes.

“
You guys are being
jerks!” Binny pedaled faster to move ahead of her brother and her
friend.

“
Hey, hey, we were just
kidding.” Zach offered, giving Penny a look that said maybe they
should ease up on Binny.

Binny came to a stop and turned to
face the others. “We didn’t go there to eat. We went there to get
answers to our questions. In case you two have forgotten, Cassie
can turn herself invisible, and Mom got pregnant with the help of
an experimental drug made by those weirdos at Luce Laboratories. I
don’t think plants are the only things they experiment
on!”

Penny and Zach were just staring at
Binny now, mouths open, not quite knowing what to say.

“
Did you
hear
him?” Binny
continued. In order to enhance things that occur naturally, they
first
dissect
them to find out what makes them special! Binny was almost
yelling now.