The Poison Factory Read Online Free PDF Page B

loo?’ she asked, biting her thumbnail.
    ‘What’s going on?’ Gaz demanded.
    ‘You’ve just joined my little club,’ Cornelius waved his hand towards the monitors. ‘Let me introduce myself fully; my name is Cornelius … Cornelius Byle . I own this factory.’
    ‘Then you are one twisted biscuit,’ Damo blurted out at him.
    ‘Where’s your loo?’ Hayley bounced up and downon the balls of her feet, her hands clutching Squirt a little too tightly.

    ‘I may be one twisted biscuit,’ Byle smiled. ‘But tomorrow, I will still be a twisted biscuit … and you will all be dead . You’ve each had more than enough of these sweets to make sure that you are well and truly doomed.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ the three of them all chimed at once.
    ‘The sweets were poisoned,’ Byle grinned. ‘In a matter of hours, you will all shrivel up like raisins and die.’
    The three children went deathly pale.
    ‘Fortunately,’ he raised one finger. ‘I have an antidote–’
    He held up his hands as the children started shouting. They fell silent.
    ‘To get the antidote for yourselves,’ he went on. ‘You have to do something for me. I want you to bring all your friends to this factory. My zombies are constantly falling apart, which means I’m always having to make new ones. It’s a complex chemical process, and I don’t get many volunteers. A dozen or so of your friends would do.’
    ‘You’re off your head,’ Gaz gasped.
    ‘Not at all,’ Byle shook his head. ‘It’s just business. I have a company to run, and it’s so hardto get good staff these days. Bring back some of your friends so I can make them into zombies, and you three will get your antidote.’
    ‘I NEED TO GO TO THE LOO RIGHT NOW!’ Hayley shrieked, her legs crossed.
    ‘Oh,’ Byle frowned. ‘The bathroom’s that door to your left.’
    Hayley rushed over to the door, and yanked it open, hurrying inside. She closed the door, and the boys looked awkwardly at each other. They weren’t sure what to do.
    ‘Well?’ Byle asked. ‘Do you want the antidote or not?’
    ‘We need to wait for Hayley,’ Gaz gulped.
    He really didn’t want to see his friends turned into zombies. But he didn’t want to shrivel up and die like a raisin either. They all stood quietly for a couple of minutes, the boys turning to gaze at all the lab equipment that filled the room.
    The door opened and Hayley came out.
    ‘It’s really posh in there,’ she said. ‘There’s gold taps and everything.’
    ‘You didn’t flush,’ Byle said, sourly.
    ‘Sorry,’ Hayley muttered.
    She went back inside, and there came the sound of the toilet flushing … And then a mighty explosion rocked the room – smoke and flames burst from the bathroom and the plaster was shaken from the walls as they were all knocked off their feet. Hayley staggered out, her hands over her ears. Squirt waddled out after her and fell over, dazed.
    ‘I just flushed the toilet,’ she said in a shocked, timid voice. ‘And it blew up .’
    The boys were stunned. Byle got slowly to his feet, one hand on his head as he tried to keep his balance.
    ‘What …’ he started to say, but had to stop as he got dizzy. He tried again. ‘What else have you eaten today? Tell me what you did in the factory. I need to know everything!’
    The children looked at each other, but since they were all going to die like raisins, it didn’t make any difference anyway. Gaz told Byleeverything – about being chased by the zombies, about riding the conveyor belt over the tanks of weird stuff, about meeting the Disgustinger and setting the cybercritters free, and about escaping from the cockroach chefs.
    ‘So let me get this straight,’ Byle strode over to a white board on the wall, and started writing strange chemical symbols on it. ‘You let your skin get soaked by the zombie disinfectant, you inhaled the Disgustinger’s breath freshener, you were injected with the venom of Truth Scorpions, and you ate my