We Are Not Eaten by Yaks (30 page)

“She is a
Heloderma horridum
, which means, basically, horrible armor. You'll be responsible for looking after her now. She gets very nervous when she travels.”

“Where are we going?” Celia said.

“Oh, you'll see soon enough,” answered Sir Edmund. “I think you'll find it . . . educational.” He laughed and popped a fried beetle into his mouth.

The lizard stared up at Oliver's face, flicking her tongue.

“Ummm, does she . . . ummm . . . bite?” Oliver asked.

“Oh, I hope not,” said Sir Edmund. “She's horribly poisonous.”

Oliver went pale as the doors locked and the limo sped away toward what was going to be a very long summer with a very big lizard.

It is my duty to inform you, before we meet again on Oliver and Celia's next adventure, that some of what you have just experienced with the Navels is entirely true.

There really is an Explorers Club in New York City much like the one I have described, and although they are not the same, its banquets are perhaps more strange than this tale has revealed. The real one is not actually on Seventy-fourth Street and no one lives on the 4½th floor. They do, however, possess a stuffed bear.

There really is a group of Poison Witches somewhere in Tibet who prey on the unsuspecting traveler, though their criminal ways have nothing to do with the Bön religion. There really are oracles and sky burials in Tibet and the Lost Tablets of Alexandria did exist, though some have found their way into museums. The existence of the yeti has never been confirmed and I have not yet met a talking yak, nor visited Shangri-La, but since I do not have access to the secret files of the Explorers Club, I can't state for certain that they do not exist.

I am leaving it to you, the daring reader, to determine the rest of what is true and what is false.

Please let us know as soon as possible what you discover.

 

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C. ALEXANDER LONDON
is an awardwinning author of nonfiction for grown-ups, an accomplished skeet shooter, a master scuba diver, and a fully licensed librarian. He has watched television in twenty-three countries and survived an erupting volcano, a hurricane, four civil wars, and a mysterious bite on his little toe in the jungles of Thailand. Currently, C. Alexander London lives in Brooklyn, New York.