Danger Guys and the Golden Lizard (4 page)

Zeek stood up and looked into the jungle. “I think we're pretty lost.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but we've got something they don't.”

“You mean the map?”

I shook my head, forging ahead through the jungle. “No, it's that danger thing. No one has it but us. We were born with it.”

Swish! Swish!
I pushed through the leaves, slithering like a snake. I was getting into it.

Little spider monkeys swung from branch to branch above me as I went.

“But Noodle?”

“Don't worry, Zeek,” I said, weaving through a thicket of vines. “Danger is what separates us from the rest of the world. Those guys will never even get close. We'll dart here and there, creep all around them until—ta-dah!—we rescue the Emersons.”

“Noodle?”

“Zeek, we're on a mission. And we're good. We are so good that—”

“NOODLE!”

I stopped. I turned around.

Zeek was standing between two ninja guys. They were dressed in black from their ninja caps to their ninja boots, and they were holding Zeek off the ground.

Fingers came huffing up behind them. “Take them to the hut,” he snarled. “I'll find out where that Lizard is if it kills them!”

He laughed a little at that. “Get it? If it kills
them
!” he said again. He thought he was pretty funny.

Zeek and I didn't think he was so funny.

They dragged us far away from Maribo City, even deeper into the jungle. About an hour later we came to a small broken-down hut. It was a mess. All falling apart.

“So that's where you live,” Zeek said.

“Not funny, kid!” Fingers snapped. “My house is bigger than this, way bigger!”

Then Fingers got angry. He started to stomp his feet.

I guess that's what Zeek was waiting for.

In that instant, he twisted, flipped, ducked, and ran, just like when the quarterback yells “Hut-hut!” and Zeek leads our team, the Mayville Marmosets, to another amazing victory.

In a flash all that was left of Zeek was an empty space.

“Run, Zeek, run!” I yelled, just like at games.

“Get him!” shouted Fingers. Two ninjas ran through the trees where Zeek had disappeared.

Fingers pushed me into the hut.

I crashed right into some people inside.

It was the Emersons! They were being guarded by two more huge guys.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“We're fine,” said Mr. E.

Mrs. Emerson nodded. “But where is Zeek?”

“Not far!” snarled Fingers.

“Are you kidding?” I started in. “You'll never catch Zeek. He's a Mayville Marmoset! He's probably at home already, munching potato chips while the army loads up to come and blast you. He's so far you'd need a satellite to track him. He's—”

FLUMP!

A big pile of straw and sticks and something else fell through the ceiling of the hut and landed at my feet.

“You mean
him
?” asked Fingers.

I looked down at the lump on the floor of the hut. The lump looked back up at me and smiled.

I helped Zeek to his feet.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was trying to help everybody escape.”

I pulled some straw from his hair. “Hey, it's the thought that counts.”

Fingers whispered, and the six ninja guys blocked the door. Solid.

“You'd better let us go,” I said, “or else.”

Fingers stepped over, breathing hard and tapping those fat fingers into my shoulders. “What are you, some wise-guy kid?”

“Um, no,” I said.

“Then you must be a
stooge
” he snarled. “My big ex-football tough guys here like to squash stooges like you.” Fingers pointed and the big guys stamped their feet hard on the ground.

I gulped. “Well, no, actually, you were right the first time. I am a wise-guy kid.”

Zeek stepped up, too. “That's right, he's not a stooge. He's a wise-guy kid. We all call him that at school.”

“Well, good. Because I
kill
wise-guy kids!” Fingers shouted.

“Oh,” I mumbled.

Then he grabbed me and started to shake me up and down. “I want the map! Give me the map! I want the map!”

Each time Fingers said “map” he jostled me extra hard. I felt like a salt shaker.

He was getting ready to turn me upside down and pound my head into the ground when Zeek stepped in.

“Leave him alone! Here, take your stupid map!” Zeek held out a wrinkly brown piece of paper.

Fingers pushed me over to the Emersons and snatched the paper from Zeek.

“Zeek! No!” cried Mrs. Emerson. “The Golden Lizard!”

Fingers held the paper up to the hole in the ceiling Zeek had made. He started to read the squiggly lines on it.

“Sorry,” Zeek whispered. “I couldn't let him bust my pal's brain. We need that brain to get us past those linebackers blocking the door.”

“Oh,” I said. “I'm supposed to get us out of here?”

“You're the incredible plan man!”

Zeek was right. It was up to me.

I thought about it while Fingers traced his pudgy fingers across the map. I actually came up with two plans.

My first plan, charging the colossal big guys head-on, seemed pretty dumb. They'd crush us for sure. But I wasn't sure how far we'd get if we tried my second plan.

My second plan was to jump really high through the ceiling and fly away.

That was impossible.

Impossible? Or dumb? I went for dumb.

“Okay,” I whispered, “what we do is—I ask Zeek a question.”

Zeek gave me a look. “What question?”

“What do you call this kind of building?”

Zeek made a face. “A hut?” he whispered.

“What?” I said.

“A hut,” he said a little louder.

“What?” I said again.

Zeek was getting annoyed. “A HUT! HUT! HUT!”

That's when my plan really started to work.

SEVEN

It was awesome. It was amazing.

It was like three o'clock on Friday afternoon on the last day before April vacation.

When they heard Zeek yelling “Hut!” the ninja linebackers in the doorway thought they were back on the football field. They crouched low.

That's where the really brilliant part of my plan came in.

Zeek and I dived over the guys, slid across their backs, landed on our hands, did flips, and hit the ground running.

“Do what we do!” I shouted to the Emersons. Zeek and I broke into our Double N–Double Z zigzag. The Emersons were cool. They did it, too.

Before any of the bad guys figured out what was going on, we were all deep in the jungle.

“Noodle!” Zeek cried, swatting leaves out of his way as he ran. “Incredible plan!”

“Here's another one!” I yelled. “Into the trees!”

Zip! Zip! Zip!
We jumped up into one of the really tall trees. It was great for climbing. Lots of branches. In a flash we were up near the top of the forest.

There were toucans and parrots flying all around, chirping and cawing.

Fuzzy little spider monkeys followed us up, hanging by their tails and swinging on vines.

“Eeep! Eeep!”
they cried.

We all climbed some more, then I stopped.

“Hey,” I said. “Why are we climbing so hard? Fingers already has the map. He doesn't need us anymore!” I sat on a branch and slumped down.

“Noodle's right,” Mrs. Emerson said. “Fingers
will
find the Golden Lizard. All he has to do is follow the map.”

“You're right,” Zeek said. “All Fingers has to do is follow the map.” He dug into his right sneaker and pulled out a wrinkly brown piece of paper. “Yeah, I figure he must be heading toward the Mayville School auditorium by now.”

“Auditorium?” Mr. Emerson said.

Then it hit me. “Of course! My plan to sneak into our classroom to get our speech! You gave that piece of grocery bag to Fingers! Man, you are one sneaky dude!”

“Yeah, well. If
you
can climb trees, then
I
can have brilliant ideas. By the time he discovers he has the wrong map, we'll be so far away that—”

WOCKA-WOCKA-WOCKA!

A deep, angry whirring noise erupted through the air as six very loud, very shiny, very black helicopters came circling over the treetops.

“I guess he just discovered he has the wrong map,” I said. Zeek smiled a weak smile.

Suddenly, dozens of guys in black bodysuits started sliding down ropes from the helicopters.

“Last one on the ground is ninja lunch!” I said, jumping down to the next branch.

Swip! Swip! Swip!
Leaves rustled on the jungle floor. I looked down to see Fingers pointing right up at us—and an army of guys in black jungle outfits climbing fast up our tree.

“Uh-oh,” gasped Zeek. “Ninja sandwich! These guys just don't give up!”

My mind raced. My mind stalled. Nothing. No plans at all.

Just then, the monkey on my branch curled his tail back, caught a vine, and pulled it over to me.

“Eeep?”
it chirped.

Some other monkeys pulled vines over for Zeek and the Emersons. It was just like in the movies!

“Are we thinking what they're thinking?”

The ninjas closed in from above and below.

“I think so!” cried Zeek.

In a flash we were off, swinging like we'd seen the monkeys do.

Fingers stamped his feet, did his finger thing, and the ninjas started after us.

But we were too quick for them.

From vine to vine and branch to branch Zeek and I swooped like awesome Jungle Spider Danger Guys! “Danger Guys!” we screamed.

The Emersons seemed to like it, too. They swung after us and yelled out, “Danger Adults!”

A few minutes later we slid down our vines and landed on the jungle floor.

“Let's go!” I cried, tearing off through the trees. “We're off to see the Lizard!”

My heart was drumming. I pushed on. The jungle was dazzling, the air hot and misty, with sunlight flickering through layers of leaves.

I was really getting into it.
Ziiiiip!
I ran quickly over roots, through bushes, around trees.

“Faster!” I yelled. I dived ahead of everyone else. It was as if the jungle were calling me.

WHAM!
It suddenly said “go away!”

In front of me was a mass of green so tangly and thick I couldn't even see through it.

“This is one thick hedge!” I rubbed my nose.

Mr. Emerson stepped up behind me. He looked closely at the green tangly stuff in front of me. “This is no hedge. This is a wall!”

He was right. It
was
a wall, made of stone and overgrown with moss and vines and roots.

It was as high as a house, and it stretched away in both directions as far as we could see.

I listened. Something was different. The jungle was hushed. It was quiet all around us.

Zeek pulled out the map and studied it.

“This wall is hundreds of years old,” Mrs. Emerson said, running her hand over the stones. “There are ancient carvings under these vines.”

“What's on the other side of the wall?” I asked.

Mrs. E. glanced back. She didn't say anything.

Zeek slowly folded up the map and tucked it away. “We're close,” he said. “I can feel it.”

A shiver went up my spine. I could feel it, too. There was something strange about this place. Something eerie. Something—

That's when I spotted it.

A huge head carved in stone on the wall. It had big slanted eyes, a long snout, and jaws the size of a garage door. It was all overgrown, but I could tell it was a lizard head.

I said it out loud. “We're here. The Kingdom of the Golden Lizard!”

Zeek bent closer to see.

Suddenly—
KKKERRR-SLAHHH!
With a horrible sound, the stones in front of us moved. The lizard jaws opened wide, grinding and grinding.

Gunky stuff dripped from the upper jaws, as if the stones hadn't opened for hundreds of years.

Zeek and I peeked into the widening hole.

We were amazed by what we saw. We stepped forward into the jaws.

GRRR!
The ground gave way under our feet!

We tumbled forward and—
JUNNG!
—the jaws slammed shut behind us!