We Dine With Cannibals (23 page)

“Your plane?” Celia exclaimed. “You have an airplane?”

The llama girl shrugged. “It's not exactly
our
plane,” she said.

It was a short hike to reach the seaplane. It was tied to a tree at the river's edge, hidden from view by layers of moss and leaves and vines. A giant whisk and chef's hat were painted on the side.

“This is the plane from
Celebrity Whisk Warriors
,” Oliver said.

“That's right,” the llama girl answered. “People leave all kinds of things behind when they are running for their lives.”

“Why did you chase them off? They could have made your tribe famous.”

“They never asked our permission to come here,” the llama girl said matter-of-factly. “Not everyone wants to be on reality TV.”

Oliver and Celia couldn't imagine that, but these days, the unimaginable had started to seem pretty normal. Their mother had abducted their father with a poison dart, and they had just had a vision of their parents discussing their fate in a quaint suburban living room in the middle of the jungle, so why couldn't there also be people who didn't want to be on TV? Anything was possible.

“Do you know how to fly it?” Oliver asked.

“We've never needed to,” said the llama girl.

Oliver looked over at his sister.

She looked him right in the eye. “No,” she said.

“Oh, come on!”

“It's not the same.”

“How different could it be?”

It was the llama girl's turn to be confused. “What? How different could what be? What are you talking about?”

“Celia knows how to fly a plane,” Oliver told her.

“I do not,” Celia objected. “I've just watched
Love at 30,000 Feet
a lot of times.”

“You have every episode memorized.”

“So?”

“So you've seen Captain Sinclair take off a hundred times. You even know the episode where he gets knocked out by the bird flu while his copilot is in a Norwegian prison and the Duchess in Business Class has to fly the plane. And she can't read! If she can fly a plane, you can fly a plane!”

“Yeah, but it's not the same … that's a 747! This is a seaplane.”

“Do you want to save Mom and Dad?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to get our family back together?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to get out of this jungle and get cable?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you're gonna have to try.”

Celia considered her options. No one else knew how to fly a plane and she wasn't about to let Oliver try. On the shows he liked, every plane crashed. There was even a show called
Plane Crash!
that he never missed.

“Fine,” she said. “But no backseat flying.”

Before they could board the plane, the shaman pulled a small gourd from a pouch around his neck and dipped his finger in it. It was covered in dark black ink. He painted dots on Celia's forehead and a series of stripes on Oliver's face.

“Now you are ready,” the llama girl explained. “You go into battle with us.”

They boarded the plane with half a dozen of the warriors.

Celia was in the pilot's seat and the llama girl sat next to her to be the navigator. Oliver found himself squeezed in between the warriors in the back. Their large arms squished him into himself. Their spears and blowguns and bows and arrows were piled every which way. They all sat perfectly still and quiet.

If Oliver didn't know that they were deadly jungle hunters, he would have thought they were nervous about flying.

They were.

Outside the plane, the shaman chanted blessings. Celia pulled on knobs and levers. She flipped switches that made the plane groan and beep. She found a starter and hit it and the propeller on the nose of the plane churned to life, breaking free of vines and moss as it spun faster and faster.

“Engines. Check,” Celia said, because that's what Captain Sinclair said on the show. She was going to do everything she could just like TV and hope they would have a happy ending. Flying a plane full of tribal warriors to a ruined suburb in the jungle where she would rescue her parents from her principal was not the way she had expected to spend the first week of sixth grade. She let out a slow breath.

“Here we go,” she said. “The captain has turned on the ‘fasten seat belts' sign. Prepare for takeoff.”

She steered the plane to the center of the river and pulled back on the throttle. The acceleration pressed Oliver against his seat and pressed the warriors against Oliver. The plane lifted off the river.

If they survived this flight and saved their parents, Celia thought, they'd better get cable television.

IN THE BEDROOM
of the house in the jungle, Claire and Ogden Navel were having a long-awaited reunion. They were tied back-to-back on two dining room chairs and locked in the closet. It was dark and sticky, but they were happy to be together again.

“I forgot how much more I enjoy danger when you're around,” Dr. Navel told his wife.

“That's good,” she said, “because there is plenty of it.”

“I am still a bit mad at you for kidnapping me and putting our children's lives in danger.”

“There's no how-to manual for parenting, Oggie. I'm doing the best I can.”

“I know … I know …” Dr. Navel was quiet for a moment. “So what is this place anyway?”

“This is Velma Sue's Snack Cakeville,” she said, as if that explained anything.

“Oh,” said Dr. Navel. He had no idea what Velma Sue's Snack Cakeville was, but he hated to admit that to his wife.

For those of us who are not embarrassed by what we don't know, I'm happy to elaborate on the subject of Velma Sue's Snack Cakeville, based on my extensive research into the history of the snack cake industry.

Snack Cakeville is a town in the heart of the Amazon rain forest built by Minnesota baker, housewife, and industrialist Velma Sue Harrison. In the early twentieth century, Velma Sue invented her delicious snack cakes by discovering a secret ingredient that gave them an extra-special taste and bounce—all-natural rubber. Rubber trees grew wild in the Amazon rain forest and Velma Sue believed she could make a lot of money if she built a snack cake factory right in the Amazon where the rubber grew.

To accompany her factory, she decided to build a model American town to go with it. If her snack cakes were to be wholesome and good, then her factory town should be too, she thought.

She built American-style houses and a water tower and a movie theater and an ice cream parlor and a schoolhouse. She thought she could tame the jungle.

Of course, the jungle had other plans. The experiment was a failure; the factory closed. The town was abandoned. The wilderness took it back. She changed her secret ingredient.

Dr. Claire Navel had found the abandoned town to be a very comfortable hideout.

Until, of course, Sir Edmund's Council found it.

The Navels heard Sir Edmund and Principal Deaver talking in the next room.

“I am certain the twins will come here,” he explained. “And when they do, we'll have the whole family lead us to El Dorado.”

“How can you be sure they even know where we are?”

“They are resourceful, in spite of themselves.”

“That is my worry,” Principal Deaver answered. “If they have already translated the khipu, why wouldn't they seek out El Dorado first? If the library is really there and they are to find it, all our plans could …”

Sir Edmund laughed. “They couldn't care less about the Lost Library. They're children. They don't even like books. They just want their mommy back.”

In the dark closet, Claire Navel cringed. Dr. Navel reached his hand back as much as he could against the ropes that bound him and touched her on the wrist.

“Am I a horrible mother?” she asked.

“You did what you thought was best,” he said. “But neither of us will win any parenting awards.”

“No great explorer would. Discovery is a dangerous business.”

“When this is over, maybe we should settle down, let the kids have normal lives.”

“I'm not sure I know how.”

“Me neither,” said Dr. Navel. “But I do wonder if all this is worth it. To find a library?”

“It's not just a library, Oggie. It's something that the scholars in Alexandria found. It's what's
in
the library. And it's what would happen if Sir Edmund and his people find it first. I wish I could explain it all to you.”

“You could try.”

“Not right now, honey,” she said. “Right now, we're going to escape.”

She stood up, letting a frayed bundle of rope fall to the floor.

“How did you—?”

She smiled and held up her ring with the symbol of the Mnemones on it. A tiny blade was popped out. “There's also a little magnifying glass, but you need another magnifying glass to see it,” she said as she untied her husband. “No ropes can keep a mother from protecting her kids.”

“I suppose we should wake up the professor,” said Dr. Navel. Professor Rasmali-Greenberg was sound asleep in the back of the closet buried under a pile of moldy coats. His arms and legs were tied, but he didn't seem the least bit uncomfortable. In fact, he didn't like having his nap interrupted.

“Five more minutes?” he groaned.

“Time to escape,” Claire Navel said.

She helped him to his feet and the three explorers huddled together.

“I have a plan,” she told them. “Do you remember the Zanzibar Gambit?”

“You're not thinking—” Dr. Navel's voice became hoarse.

“I am. Do you remember it?”

“Sadly, yes,” said Dr. Navel. “But we don't have the supplies for that.”

His wife pulled a handful of rubber bands and a whistle from her pocket.

“What about the steamer trunk?”

“On the other side of the door.”

“Sack of flour?”

“In the pantry off the kitchen.”

“Garden spade?”

“In the garden, of course!”

“And the monkey with a crowbar?”

Just then they heard a thump and the closet door slid open. The logger who had been guarding them was unconscious on the floor.

A small gray howler monkey with a shock of black hair stood on the man's chest holding a crowbar proudly in the air. He smiled a wide monkey-toothed grin.

“Meet Patrick,” Claire Navel said. “He's the finest monkey I have ever known.”

“Claire?” said Dr. Navel.

“Yeah?”

“It's nice to have you back.” He wrapped his arms around his wife and kissed her. She held his face in her hands, staring at him with a smile.

“Pardon the interruption,” the professor said. “But might I ask, why do you need rubber bands, a steamer trunk, a sack of flour, a garden spade, and a monkey with a crowbar?”

“You forgot the whistle,” said Claire Navel.

“Yes,” added the professor. “And a whistle?”

“For the Zanzibar Gambit,” answered Claire Navel.

“But
what
is
the Zanzibar Gambit?”

“Well, Professor,” said Dr. Navel. “You are about to find out.”