We Dine With Cannibals (28 page)

Celia glanced at her mother and her brother and then at Sir Edmund. She rushed over to him and snatched the scroll from his hands.

“Hey! You clurb't derble—,” he spluttered, his mouth filling with quicksand as he tried to grab Celia, making himself sink deeper.

“You better stop moving or you'll drown,” said Celia. Sir Edmund had sunk up to his mustache. His eyes blazed with anger, but he stayed still and stopped sinking. Then Celia turned to her mother and showed her the scroll.

“Now you'll come home,” Celia commanded, and marched toward the boat. Her mother knew better than to argue, so she followed.

Suddenly, with a giant sucking sound, the largest of the ruins of El Dorado disappeared before their eyes. Then the ruins next to it disappeared, and then the one next to that. All the ruins were falling into giant sinkholes, churning with mud and stone and water. Sir Edmund gurgled in the quicksand but didn't dare move.

“Maybe we should—,” Oliver started when a sinkhole opened right in front of him. “Ahh!”

He flailed his arms in the air, falling forward toward the roiling water deep below. Celia caught him just before he plummeted into the abyss.

“Thanks,” he said, looking back at the disappearing ruins and then at the puddle of quicksand. “We can't just leave Sir Edmund to die,” he said.

As much as she hated to do it, Celia agreed.
Leaving Sir Edmund was the kind of thing he would do to them, not the other way around.

Their mother nodded.

“Oliver,” she said. “Do you still know your knots?”

“I do,” said Oliver.

“Then tie up his wrists,” she told him, tearing off a strand of vines. Oliver did as he was told. Only when his wrists were tied did they pull Sir Edmund from the quicksand.

“You no-good, lousy, rotten—,” he started the moment his mouth was free, but all three of them gave him a look that told him to keep his mouth shut or they'd dump him back into the quicksand. Just to be sure, they used some moss and another piece of a vine to gag him so he couldn't talk. The rage in his eyes told them everything he was thinking.

Then they all ran, stumbling toward the river as the ground swallowed the ruins of El Dorado and the Lost Library, leaving nothing but muddy pools in their place. Trees tumbled as their branches and vines were caught in the sinkholes. Angry birds took flight.

They jumped into the boat, tossing Sir Edmund
on top of the trunk as if he were a sack of potatoes. Celia gave the antidote to their father, who woke up with a groan. When he saw his wife and children, and Sir Edmund tied up, he smiled and hugged his children. He kissed his wife deeply.

“Gross,” said Oliver.

“I found it, Oggie,” said Claire Navel, holding up the scroll. “Plato's Map!”

“Plato's Map!” their father cheered. “You mean
that's
what this was about? I didn't even think that existed.”

“No one did,” said Claire Navel.

“You did. You knew,” said their father. “And you were right.”

“Oh, honey.” She smiled as she broke the wax seal on the scroll and began to open it. “I'm always right.”

Sir Edmund rolled his eyes. Dr. Navel leaned over his wife's shoulder to see. Oliver and Celia sat with Beverly and Patrick and watched from across the boat as their parents looked at the scroll.

“But—,” said their father. Their mother went pale. She dropped the scroll onto the floor of the boat and leaped back onto the shore.

“Honey, wait!” said Dr. Navel, running after
her. He turned back to Oliver and Celia. “Kids, stay here. We'll be right back.” Oliver and Celia watched their parents race into the jungle.

“What … what just happened?” wondered Oliver.

Celia got up and scooped the unrolled papyrus from the floor of the boat. She studied it and sat back on the trunk.

“It's not a map,” she said. “It's a note.”

She turned it so Oliver could see. There was no map, just a note in the middle of the page.

“Who's P.F.?” Oliver wondered.

Celia shrugged. She looked over at Sir Edmund. He looked as surprised as their mother had.

Oliver scanned the jungle for their parents. The trees shook and animals fled in all directions. After what seemed like an eternity, their father came back … alone.

“Where's Mom?” Celia asked.

“She …” Their father looked sadly at the jungle. “She won't be joining us,” he said, jumping back into the boat.

“What?” both children demanded.

“She's sorry,” he told them. He looked as upset as they were. “She wants me to take you home. … She says she's got to look for clues. She can't stop now.”

Oliver looked one more time at the jungle.

“Now you see what your mother really cares about,” Sir Edmund snarled at them, spitting the mossy gag out of his mouth.

“Are you behind this note, Edmund?” Dr. Navel demanded.

“Of course I am,” he answered sarcastically. “I trekked all the way through the jungle and got poison-darted by your wife and shot at and nearly drowned so I could look at a smart-aleck note from an unknown explorer and let your wife get a head start looking for the real thing while I'm tied up with you!”

“No need to be so rude,” said Dr. Navel. “She did give me something for you.” He pulled out a piece of paper and held it in front of the little man's face. “Read it out loud,” he commanded.

“I, Sir Edmund S. Titheltorpe-Schmidt the Third, forgive all debts owed by Oliver and Celia Navel—,” he started. “Hey! I do no such thing!”

Dr. Navel shrugged and reached for the blowgun that Sir Edmund had used on him earlier.

“Well now, Navel, calm down,” he stammered. “Violence never solved anything. … Okay … okay.” He kept reading. “They are hereby freed and absolved of service to me from this day forward from now and forever. They may also keep my lizard, if they so choose.”

Oliver was surprised to find himself happy about that. He'd grown to like Beverly.

“Sign it,” said Dr. Navel, pulling a pen from his pocket and shoving it into Sir Edmund's mouth. Sir Edmund grumbled but did his best to sign the paper.

“I didn't want the lizard back anyway.” He spat the pen out and glared at Oliver. “You ruined her.”

Beverly hissed at him. Oliver ignored him. He was looking back at the jungle. Celia rested her
hand on his shoulder, and he clenched his jaw, fighting back emotion.

“She won't be coming, Oliver,” said Sir Edmund. “She still believes she can beat me.”

“I think she just did,” said Dr. Navel, picking up the blowgun.

“Now, Navel, don't do anything rash. I set them free. … I'm sure we can—”

He fainted before Dr. Navel could even shoot the dart.

“Well, at least we'll have some quiet time together,” Dr. Navel said as he started the boat. Oliver and Celia looked sadly at each other. “I'm sure Mom will come home soon,” their father told them, although he didn't even sound like he believed it. “You guys can tell me what I missed.”

All three of them looked back at the jungle one more time and then their father eased the boat onto the river and back toward civilization.

“
THANKFULLY, I REMEMBERED
Corey Brandt's First Rule of Adventuring,” Corey Brandt told the interviewer, with a wink and his trademark smile.

“Which rule is it this time?” Oliver rolled his eyes.

“Shh,” snapped Celia, turning the volume up on
Celebrity Access Tonight
.

“We've watched every interview he's done. That's like three hundred by now. And it's a different rule every time.”

Celia pressed pause and froze the image on the screen so she could be more threatening when she glared at her brother. Cable television was truly magical.

“I don't see
you
surviving stuck in a tree for two weeks.”

“All he had to do was not fall,” Oliver complained. “We were the ones who had to have all that …
adventure
.” Oliver said the word
adventure
the way you might say
boogers
.

Celia hit play again. “Always count on your fans,” Corey Brandt continued.

“Seriously? Come on!” Oliver tried to grab the remote from his sister. Patrick the monkey sat on top of the refrigerator and clapped. Apparently, he loved a good wrestling match. Beverly, back in Dr. Navel's favorite armchair, flicked her tongue. She flicked her tongue at most things these days. She hardly ever hissed anymore, ever since Sir Edmund disowned her. As lizards went, she wasn't the worst.

It had been almost four months since their adventure in the Amazon. Oliver and Celia spent the last two days of their school suspension using the photos on Corey Brandt's cell phone to find exactly where the teen star had been trapped.

Dr. Navel couldn't believe it when his children begged to go with him to the giant redwood forest in Northern California.

“You know,” he told them, “giant redwoods sprout copies of themselves from their own branches, duplicating themselves over and over again … sort of like impersonators.”

“Whatever,” said Oliver and Celia. They just couldn't wait to meet the
real
Corey Brandt at last. They didn't want to learn about trees.

When they found the teen star, he had lashed himself to a tree branch and was delirious from hunger and thirst. He was dreaming about a big Italian feast.

“Noodles,” he said, and passed out in Dr. Navel's arms. The teardrop freckle was under his eye, just where it was supposed to be.

After his rescue, he told everyone the most exciting tale of Janice and the impersonator's diabolical plot to trap him in a tree and take his place. And he described how the Navel twins and their father had rescued him.

“Oliver and Celia Navel are the true adventurists,” he said. “And I am honored to call them my friends.”

When Oliver and Celia came back to school, it was like their first day had never happened. Even the eighth-grade girls wanted to watch
Fashion
Force Five
with Celia. All the boys wanted to be just like Oliver. He was the first picked for every team, even though he was terrible at every sport.

They never had to play dodgeball again.

Principal Deaver had not returned to school. Their new principal was friendly, honest, and most decidedly
not
an explorer. She did, however, bear an amazing resemblance to former president William Howard Taft.

Mr. Rondon, too, was gone, and the new custodian didn't know exactly what had become of him. There were rumors he had gone to South America to live with a tribe of cannibals.

The twins made it to Christmas vacation without anything else exciting happening to them. They missed their mother, but they were thrilled to know that they could watch cable TV over the break and didn't have to be slaves to Sir Edmund. Their father promised they wouldn't have to go anywhere exotic or do anything interesting.

“I cannot, like, wait to join the Explorers Club myself,” Corey Brandt told the interviewer on TV. “I have just pledged all the money from my latest prime-time special to protect the indigenous people of the Javari Valley in Brazil from outside intruders.
I love, you know, doing good. Activism is, like, so … you know—”

Their father stepped in front of the screen and turned it off.

“Hey!” Celia objected. “We were watching that!”

“You'll have plenty of time to spend with Corey Brandt when he comes to visit for the New Year's banquet. Now, it's time for dinner.”

“But—,” Oliver started to ask just as Professor Rasmali-Greenberg came in. He was wearing his red and green tie where all the ducks wore Santa Claus hats.

“Merry Christmas!” he said. “Happy Hanukkah. Good Diwali!”

“It's none of those holidays,” said Celia. “Christmas Eve isn't even until tomorrow.”