Deus, it didn’t bear thinking about.
‘As it happens, I do know the difference between poison and venom,’ she had acknowledged gently. ‘But why don’t you tell me what you think?’
The boy—Brady, if she remembered Jake rightly—had dipped his head in acknowledgement, maintaining direct eye contact but without a hint of a smile. All business.
‘Both poison and venom are toxins, but it’s the method of delivery that changes. Venom is injected whilst poison is secreted.’
He had delivered the facts quite animatedly, with such an intensity in his gaze that it had been like looking into a mirror to the past. For a moment, it had taken her quite aback.
Now, tugged back into the present, something slammed inside Flávia’s chest. How much of her own childhood had she spent lost in knowledge, and facts, and learning, in a way that her peers simply hadn’t understood? Greedily soaking up information and devouring books about anything and everything, but especially the natural world?
It had made for a rather lonely childhood, craving someone who would share her knowledge and her passion, but more often than not being thought of as a bit nerdy. Or, more likely, plain weird. Not least by her younger, social-butterfly sister, who had loved her but never understood how Flávia could have preferred ants over boys. Then again, if it hadn’t been for Maria dragging her to every party and social event going, maybe she would have turned out a lot more...introverted than she actually felt. At least now, in social situations, she could fool people around into thinking she was more confident than was actually the case.
Something twisted in her chest, but she pushed it aside. She wasn’t that weird kid any more. She’d come out the other side a long time ago and now her life was everything she could ever have dreamed it would be. An internationally respected, cutting-edge research scientist by day, and a loved and admired best aunt in the world to her two gloriously fun nieces by evening. The perfect life. But this poor kid still wouldn’t be there for about another ten years or more.
If that was, indeed, his path. Folding her hands in her lap, she cocked her head to one side. How like the seven-year-old Flávia was this boy? Did he get adults dismissing him the same way that she used to? Would he respond to someone who treated him as more than just a kid, and could talk to him on his level?
‘Nice. So, do you want to give me some examples?’
A sense of victory punched through her as she saw that closed expression relax a fraction. Then he edged closer to her.
‘Bees, scorpions, spiders, ants, snakes—they all deliver toxins through their bite or sting, so that’s venom. Rough-skinned newts, poison dart frogs, cane toads—all secrete, so they’re poisonous. That’s also why we say food poisoning, not food venoming.’
‘I’m impressed.’ She smiled widely. ‘Okay, here’s a bigger test. What about the Asian tiger snake?’
He narrowed his eyes.
‘That’s not a bigger test. It’s venomous, like I said. Snakes inject through their bite.’
‘Actually, as well as fangs to deliver venom, the Asian tiger snake has defensive glands on the back of its neck which deliver poison that it stores from eating poison toads, making it the only snake which is poisonous as well as venomous.’
It was a gamble, Flávia knew that. She wasn’t intending to trap him or belittle him, although she knew other kids might have felt that way. But this kid was different, and she suspected that as long as she was feeding him more information, he wouldn’t care about being wrong. He’d just store the knowledge for the future.
Still, she didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until the boy’s eyes widened and he edged forward again.
‘What else do you know that I don’t?’ he demanded, almost breathless with excitement.
‘I’m willing to bet lots.’ Flávia grinned, relieved when he smiled back. ‘But first, how about we find who you’re here with?’
She couldn’t bring herself to say Jake, but when he backed up almost imperceptibly, and his little face shuttered down, she could have kicked herself for not thinking faster.
‘My mummy died last year.’
‘I’m sorry, Brady. It is Brady, isn’t it?’
He nodded.
‘I know you’re here with your uncle. I just meant, who is looking after you now? A hospital nurse?’
‘Patricia,’ he confirmed after a moment, jerking to an older woman paying for something at the counter. ‘She’s getting me a meal. Then Uncle Jake will meet me here.’
‘Soon?’
‘Whenever he finishes.’ He shrugged, that sadness swirling around him again.
He might as well have slammed her in the chest. Flávia fought to breathe. It was all she could do to stay composed.
‘I see,’ she managed.