clockwork nessie

Clockwork Nessie, Part 7

“Oh, great balls of evolution! Please don’t eat me!” I scrambled in reverse to the rock face of the ledge where it angled back and opened into a recess not visible from below.

The creature continued to eye me, but shut its jaws with a low groan.

Inside the small space, I found a slip of paper tucked into an eye-level crevasse in the wall.

“To Do:

1. Remind Robert: Nessie needs to have her points oiled and a good cleaning to remove seaweed and brine buildup.

2. Bring new schematic to the Dog Island lab.”

It looked like Papa’s handwriting, but who was Robert?

The creature named Nessie withdrew from the ledge, bit off and swallowed a large piece of rock, then slipped silently into the water. Did it wait for high tide to take it out to sea or did it reside in the watery depths of the cave?

Descending the ladder, I noticed the tide had encroached to within a few yards; time to go.

(To Be Continued)

Head

Clockwork Nessie, Part 6

After a few minutes of wrestling the dratted thing into position, I managed to pull myself on the ledge. The beast’s head lay still, so I kept my movements slow and silent.

From two feet away, my eyes confirmed my suspicions. Etched on the side of the beast’s head, just above the hinge for its jaw, was a brass plate that said “Blake-Rankine Automatons”.

My father had built a clockwork driven, steam-powered, self-feeding plesiosaur!

But why?

In his spare time, my father had built many automatons. At first they were mostly to amuse my mother and me, but toward the end of his life, he’d progressed to a much larger and complex scale with his creations. I had no idea he had gone so much farther. To my chagrin, Papa did not approve of my following in his footsteps. In his oft-voiced opinion, women were ill-suited for any sciences other than the domestic sort.

“Did he give you a name?” I leaned in for closer inspection, but found nothing more on the brass plate or the creature’s head, but rivets, bolts and metallic scales.

I sat back on my heels. “Think, Lizzie, think.” If Papa had built this automaton, he’d have had blueprints and plans. Where had he kept them?

“Ewan Blake! What have you made this time?” I imitated the admonishment my mother often delivered.

The creature lifted its head and opened its jaws. Uh-oh.

(To Be Continued)