We Dine With Cannibals (11 page)

She rested her hand on Celia's shoulder to guide her out and Celia saw, much to her dismay, a golden bracelet on Principal Deaver's wrist inscribed with a picture of a scroll wrapped in chains.

OLIVER AND CELIA
didn't speak. People gaped at them as they walked the streets of New York City in the middle of the day with a large lizard. They were thinking about what had just happened.

Everywhere Oliver and Celia went, it seemed, they were doomed to find explorers, and not all of them were friendly.

Celia wondered why there were explorers working in their school, and why she and Oliver would need this unreadable guide to El Dorado “soon.” Oliver wondered how much it would hurt to get a tattoo like Mr. Rondon's and wondered what country he was from.

Both of them wondered where their mother was. When had she talked to Mr. Rondon? Why hadn't she come back to them?

They stopped outside the grand arched doorways of the Explorers Club.

“Do you think we'll be grounded?” Oliver wondered.

“I hope so,” said Celia.

“Me too,” said Oliver.

If they were grounded, they'd get to stay in the apartment for the next two weeks with cable TV. No adventures. No school. No dodgeball. Just the couch and some snack cakes and
The Celebrity Adventurist.
Heaven.

As they stood on the street, the doors to the club opened, and there stood Dr. Navel, looking very serious.

“Celia, Oliver,” he said. “Come inside.”

The children stepped into the building. They stood in the lobby in front of a giant old globe that had been given to the club by a crazy Scottish duke. Most of the countries on it were either in the wrong place or didn't exist anymore. Some of them probably never existed. Oliver was always tempted to spin it, but no one was allowed to touch the globe. Dozens of animal heads watched them from the walls with lifeless, glassy eyes.

“I received a telephone call from your principal,”
Dr. Navel said. As he spoke, an explorer dressed in scuba gear came down the stairs and rushed past them, running like a penguin in flippers. He popped out on the street and jumped into a waiting taxi. Dr. Navel continued.

“Celia, violence is never the answer to your problems,” he said. “I do not approve of you hitting other children. That being said, your suspension could not have come at a better time!”

He smiled and wrapped his arms around the twins.

“What? You aren't mad?” Oliver asked. “But we got suspended from school on the first day! Aren't we grounded? Why aren't we grounded?”

“We demand to be grounded!” said Celia.

This was an unexpected and unfortunate turn of events.

“Why ever would you be grounded?” Dr. Navel asked.

“Oh, I don't know … because we got suspended from school!” Celia said.

“Oh, school can wait! There will always be more of it. I have a surprise for you! Come along!” He turned and rushed up the stairs. Oliver and Celia looked at each other. Beverly leaped off
Oliver's back and raced up behind Dr. Navel. The lizard seemed to like surprises.

Oliver and Celia did not.

Their father's surprises never went well for them.

“Do you think we have cable now?” Oliver asked.

Celia just sighed and pushed her brother up the stairs ahead of her.

The stairs grew narrower and narrower as Oliver and Celia climbed to the 4½th floor. The carpet grew more and more threadbare. At one point, a small staircase branched off the main one, which led them to their apartment. A large moon rock sat on a shelf just above the door. It always fell when the door slammed too hard, scattering bits of precious moon dust onto the carpet.

The twins came inside and looked immediately to the television, hoping their surprise would be a glistening new cable box. They couldn't wait to catch up on
Agent Zero
,
Love at 30,000 Feet
, and of course,
The
Celebrity Adventurist
. They were fairly sure that video on demand was the greatest human achievement since the moon landing.

But there was no cable box.

There was no cable guy installing a cable box.

There was, however, an unknown figure sitting on their couch with his back to the twins.

“Where's the cable box?” Celia asked, slamming the door behind her. They heard the moon rock hit the ground outside with a thud.

“You promised!” Oliver added, ignoring the man on the couch, who did not turn around.

“I have something so much more exciting for you than cable,” said Dr. Navel.

Oliver and Celia deflated like day-old birthday balloons. This was turning into the worst day ever. Certainly, their father was about to introduce them to some famous deep-sea diver or long-distance camel racer or crazy-eyed shaman or some other person he thought was fascinating, who would bore the twins with hours and hours of stories and photos and artifacts.

“I'd like to introduce you to my new friend, just back from the northern wilderness,” Dr. Navel said as he stepped into the hall to put the moon rock back on its shelf. Celia could barely contain her groan. “He's traveled a very long way to be here,” Dr. Navel called back into the apartment.

The figure on the couch stood up and Celia
rolled her eyes, which she immediately wished she hadn't done.

Because she was standing face-to-face with the teen heartthrob and star of
Sunset High
,
Agent Zero
, and
The Celebrity Adventurist
, Corey Brandt.

“YOU MUST BE CELIA,”
Corey Brandt said, smiling. His eyes seemed to sparkle and his hair fell in shining brown wisps across his forehead. He put his hand out for Celia to shake.

“Uh, um, uh,” Celia said, staring at Corey Brandt with her mouth hanging open and her arms hanging loose at her sides. He was taller in person than she'd imagined him.

“I'm Oliver,” Oliver said, grabbing the actor's hand and shaking it wildly with both his hands. “I love
Agent Zero
. My favorite episode is when you're trapped on the roof of the Hashimoto Bank building, wrestling a panther, and you use your prep school tie to ride a power line like a zip cord and then you jump that speedboat into a private pool party so you can take Melissa St. Germain to the prom, but she tries to kill you and everyone
thought you were slow dancing but you were really fighting and she was really an assassin from the Nori Crime Syndicate, and that was really, really awesome, but I wonder if you use a stuntman, because I once fell off this cliff and went over a waterfall and it really hurt and I just don't think I could do that every day for my job like you do, if you don't use a stuntman, but I just think it's really cool even if you do, but it would be even cooler if—”

“Hi,” Celia finally said, interrupting her brother.

The room fell quiet and everyone stared at each other.

At that moment, Professor Rasmali-Greenberg came out of the bathroom, drying his hands on the bright yellow duck tie he was wearing.

“Ah, Celia, Oliver, you are home at last. I trust the sixth grade is going well?”

“Um,” Oliver started.

“They were suspended for two weeks,” Dr. Navel explained.

“Excellent!” The professor clapped. “Well done!”

“We didn't
do
anything,” Celia objected. She looked at her brother in disbelief. Things were getting
very strange indeed. The adults were all happy they had been suspended, there was no cable in the apartment, and Corey Brandt was standing in their living room.

“I had to leave regular school when my acting career took off with
Sunset High
,” Corey Brandt said. “I didn't miss it, you know? There was, like, all that drama in school, not like TV vampire drama, but like
interpersonal
drama, which is totally dull and who needs it, you know? Although sometimes I worry I missed out on a real, like, authentic experience, you know?”

Oliver and Celia didn't know. What was he talking about? Was this how actors really talked?

“I am sure you are wondering what this is all about,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg said. And indeed, they were.

“An exciting opportunity has materialized,” he told them. “Corey Brandt would like to hire the services of our Explorer-in-Residence”—the professor smiled at Dr. Navel—“and his family, as consultants on his hit show,
The Adventuring Celebrity
.”

“
The Celebrity Adventurist
,” Celia whispered. Corey Brandt smiled at her. The room seemed to
get brighter from the light of his teeth. Celia's knees went weak and she leaned on Oliver for support.

Oliver rolled his eyes. Girls were weird.

“That's right,” said Corey. “I have decided to make the new season all about great discoveries, and no one makes greater discoveries than the Navel family.” He fist-bumped Oliver for no apparent reason.

“I was just telling young Mr. Brandt how you two are experts on the lost cities of the Inca!” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg said.

“We are?” Oliver asked.

“We are?” Celia asked.

“You are!” the professor said.

Celia couldn't tell if he was joking. His face gave nothing away. Why were real people's faces so hard to understand? On
Love at 30,000 Feet
you could always tell what someone was thinking by looking at a close-up of his face. She wished all people overacted like soap-opera stars. Or that she could stand right up in their faces and study them in close-up, but that would probably make people uncomfortable.

The professor continued, putting his arm around Corey Brandt.

“In fact,” he said, “Oliver and Celia have a guide to one of the greatest lost cities in the world in their bag right now!”

“We do?” Oliver asked.

“We do?” Celia asked.

“You do!” the professor said.

Celia was dismayed. How did the professor know about Mr. Rondon and the khipu? Did he know that their mother had been back and had he not told them? Why were people always hiding things from them?

“Of course, the only ones who know how to read it fled into the Amazon rain forest six hundred years ago,” the professor told Corey Brandt. “But if anyone could find them, I bet it would be the Navels.”

“But—” Oliver was interrupted by a knock at the door.

Dr. Navel looked at his children admiringly as he went to the door. He swung it open to reveal the most wonderful sight the twins had ever seen: the cable guy.

His uniform was bright blue and his tools shined in his tool belt. He looked at the clipboard in his hand.

“I'm looking for Ogden Navel,” he said. “I'm from CableWorld. We're here to install your premium package: two hundred and fifty channels in high definition, unlimited video on demand, and a free hat.”

Celia yelped and jumped a little off her feet. Oliver smiled. He liked the hat too.

We should observe that in all our lives, there will come days of astounding wonder. Lights shine brighter; food tastes better. Misery is washed away by triumph and all our hopes are realized. These are the days that we each treasure for the entire length of our lives.

For Oliver and Celia, this was
not
one of those days.

“Ah yes,” Dr. Navel said. “Unfortunately, we'll have to reschedule. We're traveling soon, you see, and my children were suspended from school. So no cable today. Can you find your way out?”

“Um,” the cable guy answered.

“You just go down the stairs, under the polar bear, past the spears, and through the wide double
doors beneath the Mesopotamian archway.” He closed the door in the cable guy's face.

Oliver and Celia stood in stunned agony.

“Cold,” Corey Brandt whispered. He started sending text messages on his cell phone, trying to look busy. Professor Rasmali-Greenberg studied his tie.