About this story
You assist Professor Redwood on a compound that seems to erase the pause every organism takes before its next growth spurt, tested on tadpoles your flatmate Cousin Jane bans from the flat, then on chicks entrusted to the Skinners at a remote Kent farm. By May the birds already tower over their run, a wasp has drunk from a spilled jar and escaped through a cracked window, and the rats near the rubbish heap have gone quiet. A keeper arrives with a torn sleeve, certain something oversized just attacked him.
How it opens
Redwood's growth curves covered your Sloane Street table in sharp rises separated by stubborn pauses.
Rain ticked on the laboratory window while three failed compounds cooled beneath glass covers.
Every organism seems to wait for one scarce substance before its next increase.
Cousin JaneWhatever you discovered, it is not bringing tadpoles into this flat.
Choose
Then we require a separate farm and animals easier to measure.
Chicks would be cleaner, drier, and more persuasive than tadpoles.