The Explorers’ Gate (12 page)

We came out of the park through the Explorers' Gate. I motioned toward the bust of Humboldt.

“He talked to me last night,” I whispered.

“That's cool. He's on our side.”

“You're sure?”

“Oh yeah. We had a nice discussion the other night.”

“What?”

“Well, me and Willem had been practicing our treasure hunting, which, by the way, we were terrible at until we found you.”

“I'm sure you guys were fine,” I said modestly.

“No, Nikki. We stank. In fact, on Friday, a bunch of Loki's goons came running up from the Lake to scare us out of the park. Good thing we were with Balto. He chased them away.”

The nasty no-see-ums.

The dog I had heard barking in the distance.

“Anyway,” said Garrett. “We came out of the park and Mr. Humboldt told me that I needed to find
you
, ASAP. That you had the third piece of our puzzle and would probably be going to the big trivia contest in the park the next morning.”

“He told you all that?”

“Yeah. I got the feeling he'd been keeping tabs on you.”

“I see. And did Mr. Humboldt tell you anything else?”

“Nope. Oh—just that your mother would be very proud and pleased if you did join our Crown Quest team.”

“Garrett?”

“Yeah?”

“My mother is dead.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“No—I mean, what Humboldt said makes no sense.”

“That your mother would be happy if you joined our team?”

“Right. Because it's impossible for my mother to be happy about anything I might do in the future because she won't be there to see me do it.”

“Huh. I guess you're right.”

“Come on,” I said, tugging down on my red cap. “Let's go ask him what he meant.”

We marched across the bumpy pavers to face the statue.

“Good evening, Mr. Humboldt,” I said.

“I'm not so sure, Miss Van Wyck,” he replied, his eyes firmly focused across the street. “Looks like trouble over at 14 West 77
^th
.”

I whirled around.

A hulking beer delivery truck stuttered to a stop in front of my apartment building.

The door swung open.

Out hopped a man in a beer-company jumpsuit carrying a clipboard.

A man with a mohawk haircut and, most likely, even though I couldn't see it from so far away, a jagged scar running from his eye socket to his chin.

He rolled up a side panel on the truck and loaded several cases of beer onto a handcart.

Mohawk was making a massive, late-night beer delivery to my father.

Garrett and I retreated to hide behind the wall at the far corner of the Explorers' Gate so we'd have a better view of the action outside 14 West 77
^th
—my home!

“That man with the mohawk has a knife,” I said. “He might hurt my dad.”

“We should call the police,” suggested Garrett.

“We can't.”

“Sure we can. We'll just find somebody with a cell phone and ask them to …”

“No, I mean, well—my father has had problems with the police. If they have to come to our apartment again …”

“Oh,” said Garrett, thinking. “We'll ask Willem what to do!”

“I don't know. The castle is all the way up near 96
^th
Street. That's a mile. It would take us twenty minutes to walk it or, I guess, we could take the subway. I don't have enough money for a taxi.”

“We can call the castle. There's a water- fountain phone down near the Lake.”

“A
water-fountain phone
?”

“Yeah. Like the spray nozzle at Grandpa's place. This way.”

We headed down the sloping road toward the Lake.

“It's up past the bridge.”

We dashed across Balcony Bridge.

“Here we go!” said Garrett, stopping at a cast-iron water fountain tucked into the fencing alongside the path. He pressed the button. No water streamed up. “Good! It's not working.”

“And that's good because?”

“You can hear better without the gurgling water. Plus, this one has a dog bowl.” He pointed to a pan built into the base of the fountain. “It makes an excellent speaker phone.”

We bent down around the dog bowl. Garrett pressed a knob that should've made water flow but didn't because the fountain wasn't working which meant, for us, it actually was.

“Hello? This is Garrett Vanderdonk. Come in.”

We bent closer. Listened intently.

“Yo, Garrett. Howzit goin'?”

“Coach Krunk?”

“Yeah. I pulled a double shift. Switchboard duty. How may I direct your call?”

“Uh, I'm not sure …”

“We need to talk to whoever's in charge of security,” I said.

“Dat you, Van Wyck?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Howzit goin'?”

“Not very well, sir. I think my father might be in danger.”

“Dis due to the suspicious arrival of a beer-delivery-type vehicle outside 14 West 77
^th
Street?”

“Yes, sir. But how did you …”

“Humboldt already phoned it in.”

“He has a phone?” said Garrett.

“Well, not exactly. He used what you might call ‘metal telepathy.' Dese statues? Dey can communicate with one another. So, Humboldt, he told Freddy Lebow who ran around the Reservoir to tell us.”

Fred Lebow, best remembered as the founder of the New York City Marathon, is immortalized in a life-sized statue atop a black-granite pedestal near the Reservoir. The statue is wearing a tracksuit.

“Don't worry, Nikki,” said Krunk. “We sent in our best man and dog. Very stealthy-like individuals.”

“You sent the Indian Hunter statue to my house?”

“I'm afraid dat information is—what do you call it?—classified. But, yeah. Dat's what we done. Da guy's got a bow and arrow. I'm not sayin' he's gonna use 'em, but, hey, if he has to, he has to, am I right?”

“Thank you guys, so much!”

“Yo, Garrett? You still on the horn?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You comin' by to practice tomorrow?”

“No need, coach. It's wrestling.”

“I know, but …”

“Coach, I'm a state champ. I also weigh twice as much as Brent Slicktenhorst. A quick ankle-pick takedown, maybe a headlock, and he's on his back kicking like a tipped-over turtle!”

“A little practice never hoit nobody. Yooze guys got an eight-minute head start so far. You do good tomorrow, yooze can double that!”

While Garrett and the coach talked strategy, a suspicious horse and rider clanked and clomped down the West Drive.

I tapped Garrett on the shoulder.

It was time for us to go.

Now.

Because, apparently, the statues pulling for Loki could also pick up on that “metal telepathy” thing.

“Zare you are!” screamed King Jagiello.

He crossed his two giant swords high above his crown again.

“I, Wladyslaw Jagiello, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, claim you two, once more, for Loki!”

His heavily armored horse rose up on its hind legs and whinnied an equestrian battle cry.

“Run!” I yelled.

“Where to?”

I pointed to the forest on the far side of the Lake.

“The Ramble! Hurry!”

We raced over the bridge that would take us across the northern neck of the Lake and up into the Ramble, a woodsy part of Central Park where the footpaths are narrow, tangled, and jumbled since its thirty-six acres were designed to be a rambling wilderness where city dwellers could forget they lived anywhere near a city.

“Go right!” I yelled. “Left! Right again!”

I, of course, had the maze of paths memorized.

We could hear King Jagiello and his horse snorting and clomping after us in the distance. They would have to move slowly. Several of the Ramble's paths involved steep stone steps and tight passages underneath arches with very low clearances.

Behind us, I heard a tremendous clang and what had to be another flurry of fifteenth-century Lithuanian swear words.

I figured the King was trying to squeeze underneath one of the arches without lowering his swords.

“We have a pretty good lead on them,” I shouted to Garrett as we rounded a curve.

“But he has a horse!”

That gave me an idea. “We need to head south. Past Bethesda Fountain, then down the Mall.”

“Okay,” said Garrett. “But why?”

I glanced over at him and, still at a trot, smiled. “Balto!”

“Ah-hah!” cried Garrett. “Awesome! Kick it up!”

So we ran even harder. If we could reach Balto and enlist his aid, we could, once again, spook Jagiello's horse and send the humiliated king home to his pedestal at Turtle Pond.

So, coming out of the jumbled wilderness, we zoomed across world-famous Bow Bridge even though, normally, I would have slowed down to admire it because it's one of the most beautiful cast-iron bridges ever built. I don't think they've filmed a single romantic comedy in New York City without it.

“Up to the Mall!”

We charged up the western staircase from Bethesda Terrace to the Mall and headed south for what is called the Literary Walk because of all the sculptures of famous writers placed there: Robert Burns, Scotland's renowned national poet; Sir Walter Scott, a Scottish novelist; William Shakespeare, who wasn't from Scotland but wrote a play about a Scottish king; and the statue we reached first, Fitz-Greene Halleck.

“Love your work,” I said as we dashed past the bronze of a bearded gentleman in a suit from the 1800s who sat cross-legged in a chair, pen in hand, contemplating his next eloquent line of poetry.

“Wait!” Halleck boomed as he rose from his seat. “Halt!”

I halted, even though I shouldn't have, because to keep running would've been rude.

“Young lady, do you know who I am?”

Leaning over, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath, I said, “Yes, sir. Fitz-Greene Halleck. Poet and essayist. 1790–1867.”

“That's remarkable! Nobody who comes into Central Park knows who I am. Oh, sure, they know Bobby Burns and Shakespeare and
Sir
Walter Scott. They see me, they say, ‘Who the heck is Halleck? What'd he ever do to become a statue?'”

I heard bronze horse hooves clambering against stone steps.

King Jagiello was hot on our trail, galloping up the staircase back at Bethesda Terrace.

“Nikki?” said Garrett. “We need to hurry.”

“Just a moment, young man,” insisted Halleck, puffing up his chest. “Do go on, dear girl. Tell me more about
me
.”

“Well …”

“Aha! You children! You are my prisoners!” King Jagiello was at the northern end of the Mall, maybe three hundred yards away, spurring his stallion's flanks.

“Um, I don't mean to be rude,” I said, “but we really need to run.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Halleck. “But do not despair. My fellow writers and I shall deal with the megalomaniacal Polish king.”

“Thank you, Mr. Halleck. Come on, Garrett.”

“Burns?” Halleck called out.

“Yes, Fitz?”

“Put down your quill and put up your dukes, man. We have a horse and rider to contend with.”

“Oh,” moaned Burns, “man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!”

“He's not a man,” said Halleck. “He's a statue. And, he sides with that liar Loki.”

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” said Sir Walter Scott, climbing off his block to join them.

“And where the offense is,” said Shakespeare, striding up the walkway, “let the great axe fall!”

Linking arms, Shakespeare, Burns, Scott, and Halleck marched to the middle of the Mall to form a bronze blockade.

Meanwhile, Garrett and I started running again, down a side path leading to Willowdell Arch. Balto's statue was perched on the other side.

“Four poets against a battle-hardened King?” said Garrett gloomily.

“Well, remember what they say: ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.'”

“What about
two
swords?”

Behind us, we heard the clanking of bronze on bronze and Shakespeare screaming, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”

“At least they slowed him down,” I said as we scurried under the arch.

“Hide,” said Garrett. We ducked into two recessed vestibules on either side of the archway and tried to disappear into the water-stained bricks.

King Jagiello clip-clopped slowly down the path we had just taken. The narrow strip of asphalt split. His horse snorted and pranced. Reins clinked. They couldn't make up their mind which way to head next. The poets had, indeed, slowed them down long enough for the king to lose sight of us.

“Leetle boy and leetle girl?” he called out. “I mean you no harm.”

I heard the
SLICK-THWICK-SWICK
sound of steel sliding against steel as he sharpened his swords over his head.

“Leetle boy and leetle girl …”

That's when the intrepid Balto went streaking through Willowdell Arch like a lightning bolt with bared fangs to defend us!

The king's stallion let loose such a horror-stricken cry I thought he might be having a horse-sized heart attack.

“Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the winter of 1925. Endurance. Fidelity. Intelligence.”

Truer words were never chiseled on a plaque.

Balto was up on his rocky perch above his inscribed tribute, tail curled proudly, tongue lolling up and down as he panted.

“Thank you!” I said, nestling his head in my hands so I could rub behind his ears. He licked me with his cold metal tongue: a slobbery, wet kiss that felt like rolling a frosty soda can across my cheeks.