The 39 Clues Book 7: The Viper's Nest (6 page)

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vengeance. Shaka scorned tribal war tactics of the time, spear-throwing from long distances, and perfected close combat with short, large-bladed spears. His famed "buffalo horn" attack strategy helped build a military force that overtook local tribes and created one of the most powerful kingdoms ever known. Although many modern historians decry his violence, Shaka is considered the father of the united Zulu nation and a hero to South Africans.

"Cool," Dan murmured to himself, staring at the image of Shaka.

"Woo-hoo --look! Saladin's here!" Amy was now running over to the baggage claim conveyor belt. In a moment, she was walking back with the pet carrier. "Want to be the first to open it and say hi?"

But Dan couldn't take his eyes off the image of Shaka's shield. "Amy," he said, "what do you see here?"

"Um ... Saladin's starving and you're looking at a cheesy tourist postcard?" she replied.

"His shield," Dan said. "Take a look at his shield."

Amy nearly dropped the pet carrier to the floor--and Dan instantly knew he wasn't seeing things.

In the center of Shaka's shield was the Tomas crest.

50

CHAPTER 9

Amy had come within an inch of being flattened by a subway train. She had escaped collapsing buildings and been trapped in airless tombs. But waiting for Dan outside a bookstore was a shock she never anticipated.

"Maybe we should find a doctor," Nellie murmured. ! She handed Amy a recycled cell phone she had bought at an airport shop.

"Thanks--well, at least he's interested in something," Amy said, pocketing the phone.

Dan was grinning as he left the airport bookshop with a biography of Shaka Zulu. "Thanks, guys, this is awesome. They didn't have anything by the Gekks, but this one looked cool."

"The Gekks?" Amy asked.

"The people who wrote the text on the Shaka card." Dan flashed his postcard. "I can't pronounce their first
tn
names, but I like their style. Hey, how's Saladin?"

Hearing his name, Saladin scratched the side of his pet carrier. It was amazing how much anger could be contained in a
mrrp.

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As Dan knelt in front of the pet carrier, Nellie grabbed his arm. "Who-o-o-oa! The last time you did this, I ended up chasing that cat all over a library. Best behavior, guys. The rental-car clerk is eyeing me. It was hard enough convincing her to rent to me. I'm scared she's going to change her mind. Oh, and here's your phone, Dan. Don't say I never gave you anything."

Nellie grabbed the carrier and headed down the corridor. Dan followed her, leafing through the Shaka biography. "Nothing Cahill-ish in the index. He's got to be descended from Thomas, right?"

Amy shook her head. "Thomas Cahill settled in Japan. Shaka's parents were members of African tribes--and none of them had seen Europeans. Ever. Shaka didn't meet any Europeans until, like, the 1800s. Right?"

"Right..." He leafed through his Shaka book. "Some guy from a British delegation -- Fynn -- saves Shaka's life. Heals a sword wound, gives him meds. Hair dye, too. When Shaka sees his gray hair disappear, he's, like, whoa, they made me younger. It's magic! Up till then, Shaka hasn't liked the Europeans. Now he realizes, hey, they have something I need."

"The hair dye?" Nellie said.

"The weapons," Dan answered. "So now he's, like, okay, I trust them. Which ends up being a bad call."

Nellie led them to an elevator. "The point is, if he wasn't descended from a Cahill, he couldn't be one," Amy said. "So how did he get a shield with a Tomas crest?"

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"A certified pre-owned shield store?" Dan replied. "I don't know. Let's do some more research on him."

"I can't believe
you
suggested that."

"Shaka's fun, not boring," Dan said. "The Zulus did this killing head-twist?
Snnnap --
dead. They impaled enemies on stakes, then planted them like trees! Shaka was a genius. He's, like, what's up with spear-throwing, dudes? It's like throwing fly balls. The bad guys just step out of the way--plus, you lose the spear! So he teaches everyone to shish-kebob enemies with recyclable swords --green combat! His archrival, a dude named Zwide? Shaka fed his mother to the jackals. Who
wouldn't
want to research someone like that?"

"Sounds like a real laugh riot," Amy said flatly.

The elevator door opened, and Nellie stepped into the car-rental lot. "The chariot waits, kids. We're looking for slot thirty-seven K."

Dan followed her into the lot and scanned the area.
"Whoa ...you ordered a Hummer? WOO-HOO!"

Yipping with glee, he sprinted toward an enormous black Hummer near a post labeled 37K.

Nellie examined her receipt. "I said the cheapest car. Even one with holes in the floor, like the Flintstones."

Amy counted to seven before she heard what she expected -- a devastated
"AAGHHHH!"
from Dan. They found him slumped against a yellow two-door Yugo, looking forlornly to his right, where the Hummer sat in the slot marked 38K. "I was off by one."

Nellie looked inside. "Sweet. A stick shift!"

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"I think you should demand an upgrade," Dan said. "Look at this hunk of junk. The steering wheel in on the wrong side!"

"They're all like that," Nellie said. "They drive on the wrong side of the road here."

"The rental clerk insulted your honor!" Dan pressed. "Shaka Zulu would not have settled for a Yugo."

"Dude, this was hard enough to get," Nellie said.

Amy backed away from her brother and au pair, leaving them to their argument. She crept around to the other side of the Hummer. There was something strange about it. The windows were dark, a dusky black. But they were also fogged.

She leaned in to the driver's side, peering through the window. She couldn't see much, but the front seat seemed to be shaped funny--lumpy, not straight across.

Then the lump moved.

* * *

Dan reluctantly settled into the front seat of the Yugo, putting Saladin's carrier on his lap. The seats were hard. "Smells like fish in here," Dan said.

"At least Saladin will like it," Nellie replied.

"Now
can I let him out?" Dan said, beginning to unlatch the pet carrier straps.

But Amy was flinging open the passenger door, diving into the backseat. "Go!
Go!"

Next to them, the Hummer began to bounce. From inside came the sound of shouting voices.

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"Someone's in there?" Dan said.

"They were waiting for us!" Amy shouted.

"I thought they were all in Illinois!"
Nellie slammed on the gas and threw the stick shift into reverse. The car jumped off the ground and jolted backward.

EEEEEEEEEE...

"You're right, this
is
a piece of junk," Nellie said.

Dan felt Amy's arm reach over his shoulder and grab the pet carrier. "Give me this before Saladin goes flying out the window!"

With a screech of tires, the Yugo peeled backward out of slot 37K. Nellie yanked the steering wheel to the right and the car did a ninety-degree turn. "Yee-hah!" she screamed, throwing the car into first gear.

Dan was looking over their shoulders. "Um, Amy, they're not following us."

"That's because I took these." Amy held up a set of keys. "The front door was open and I reached in."

"Whoa, snnnap!"
Dan said. His sister was all grinning and proud of herself. "You took your Cahill pills!"

THUNK.
The car jounced over a traffic barrier and into the streets. Dan didn't know what to expect of Johannesburg, but he didn't see much of anything here, just dry fields stretching out in all directions.

"Guys? How do we get to Pretoria?" Nellie asked.

"Northeast," Amy said, leafing through a pamphlet. "Ought to be about a half hour. There's a major library, the State Library. Also the government archives, the University of South Africa, the National Cultural

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History Museum. We ought to be able to find some connection between Shaka and the Cahills."

"Northeast..." Nellie said, peering out the window to her left. "Let's see. The sun is rising in the east..."

"Watch it!"
Dan shouted.

The Hummer zoomed around them from the left, cutting sharply in front.

"How'd they get a set of keys so fast?" Nellie said. "Now you did it," Dan shouted. "They're mad!"

"Hurry!" Amy said.

"I'm going as fast as I can!" Nellie yelled. She wove in and out of traffic, whizzing past a sharp right-hand exit. "Nellie, get off this road!" Dan said. "She can't," Amy replied. "She's past the exit--"

"Not yet!"

Nellie yanked the steering wheel right. The Yugo tilted sharply, its left wheels lifting off the ground as it veered onto the grassy shoulder.

The car bounced, its front bumper crunching down repeatedly on the rock-hard dirt. Its rear wheels began sliding side to side, kicking up dust clouds. Inches away, the road dropped off sharply into a steep ditch.

"Hang on!" Nellie cried out.

"We're going to die!"
Amy shouted.

She closed her eyes as the car sailed into the air.

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CHAPTER 10

Dan had no idea that dying felt so bad on the tongue.

"OWWWW ... ow-ow-ow-ow-ow!" he screamed, blood trickling over his bottom lip.

His eyes opened. The Yugo was in the ditch, slanted to the right. Nellie gunned it forward, her left tires just gripping the ditch's upper ridge. "HANG ON!"

With a loud bump, the car lifted upward onto the lip of a downhill exit ramp. It swerved, straightened, and picked up speed.

Dan sucked back the blood from his bitten tongue, which was beginning to swell. He watched the dust settle around them. Nellie had managed to backtrack to the exit ramp she'd passed, and they were headed into a bleak-looking area just short of the city skyline.

How did she learn to drive like that?

"You did it!" Amy cried out.
"You got away!"

"Why did oo haf thoo do that?" Dan said, his tongue thick and throbbing. "I bit my thongue!"

Nellie was staring angrily forward, leaning on her horn. "Hey,
who taught you idiots how to drive?"

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There was a car headed directly toward them. "The
left
side of the road, Nellie!" Amy shouted. "They drive on the left!"

"Oh, right. Brain fart."

Nellie adjusted into the left lane and gunned it. She zoomed through an intersection, not stopping for any of the cars. Hugging the left side of the road, Nellie sped past whitewashed buildings and chicken-wire fences, past women balancing buckets on their heads and men three-to-a-seat on motorcycles.

A screech of tires made Dan spin around. Through the rear window he spotted the Hummer stuck in the intersection, surrounded by honking motorists.

Nellie pushed the Yugo to its limits. The town was small, and the four-lane road soon narrowed to two. Outside the town, the countryside was flat and green, with distant outcroppings resembling enormous stone fists. Cattle grazed in pastures, and the land was dotted with tin shacks and wood huts.

"We really lost them," Amy said.

But Dan had his eye on the back window. A faint hum grew louder, like an approaching plane.

And then, through the dust, a wide black silhouette purred its way up the street.

Dan's tongue felt like a wad of paper towel. "Hummuh!" he said.
"HUMMUH!"

As Nellie sped over a hill, a flock of goats ambled across the road. The goatherd was a craggy old man singing to himself and beating the ground

58

rhythmically with a staff. Seeing the car, the goats lifted their heads as if to say,
Sorry, WE were here first.

"YO, GET OUT OF THE WAY!"
Nellie screamed.

"They're
goats!"
Amy said. "They don't understand English!"

"NO-O-O-O-O-O!" Dan shouted.

Nellie slammed on the brakes. The Yugo arced to the left, onto the parched plain. Dan listened for the sound of goat massacre but heard only the crunching of rock underneath them.

Then, from behind them, a hollow, unearthly
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE...

Dan opened his eyes. The Yugo was careening across open ground. Goatless.

The smell of burning rubber reached him from behind. He turned to look out the back window.

The goats were thick in the road now, still chewing, still bleating, still alive and safe. The Hummer had narrowly missed the flock and disappeared headfirst into a chicken coop. A cloud of white feathers plumed up around it, and some very angry birds were expressing their disapproval.

A farmer drove up to them in a purple-painted pickup and hopped out, yelling.

Dan sat back and let out a sigh of relief. He rubbed his tongue against his lips, trying to stop the pain, as Nellie aimed the car back onto the highway.