We Are Not Eaten by Yaks (7 page)

He turned and left the room abruptly. Other explorers cleared a path for him as he went. The top of his head brushed the bottoms of everyone's sherry glasses, but he held it high and knocked more than one to the floor.

“Dad,” Oliver tried again, once Sir Edmund was gone. “We heard him say he wanted to destroy you! What if you've fallen into his trap? And stuck us in it too!”

“Don't be so suspicious, son,” Dr. Navel said. “You've seen too many spy movies. Sir Edmund is not nearly clever enough to trick me like that. I've been everywhere from Machu Picchu to Dayton, Ohio. I think I can handle him.”

“But Dad,” Oliver objected once more. Celia elbowed him in the ribs.

“Shhhhhhh,” she whispered. “If Dad wins this bet, we get cable.”

“But what if he
loses
?”

“Ms. Thordup,” Dr. Navel said to the mountain climber. “I would like very much to question you further about how you came to find this document and what you know of this hidden temple behind the waterfall. Perhaps you can even help us find a guide for the journey.” He turned back to Oliver and Celia. “Children, I'm glad to see you are already packed. We will leave for Tibet right away.”

“Be careful,” Choden said. “The monastery where I found this page was guarded by more than just men. This is the realm of the
Dugmas
—the Poison Witches—and countless unknown terrors. I barely escaped them myself.”

“So we will first have to see the Oracle of Dorjee Drakden,” Dr. Navel said casually. “For his blessing.”

“Wait,” Celia gulped. “He's the one with the sword?”

“And the yak?” Oliver spluttered.

“That's the one.” Dr. Navel smiled. “How exciting!”

And with that Dr. Navel and the Tibetan mountain climber disappeared toward the map room with the ancient piece of paper. The children stood alone among the explorers in the Great Hall, thinking about cable television and Lost Tablets, and wondering whether or not yaks ate people.

But most of all, they were thinking about their mother.

TIBET IS LOCATED
in Central Asia, in the highest region on earth, and getting there isn't easy. On the first part of the flight, Oliver watched three movies and a twenty-minute show about exercises you could do in your seat to keep from getting something called “deep vein thrombosis,” which sounded like a kind of musical instrument, but was really a dangerous medical condition. Then they had to change planes in Germany and fly for another eleven hours to get to an airport in China, where they would then fly another two hours to get to the capital city of Tibet, called Lhasa.

Oliver found himself happy to be going on such a long trip. He was happy because the airline had installed personal television screens on the back of every seat, so he could watch whatever he wanted and he had hours and hours to do it. His father didn't complain or suggest Oliver read a book. He didn't even notice that Oliver had been watching movies and television for almost twenty hours straight. Celia had drifted off to sleep after watching some romantic comedies with titles like
Summer's Storm
and
Kissing Cousins.

Dr. Navel was two rows ahead, madly flipping pages in the books and charts and maps Choden had given him. Occasionally, he would shout “Aha!” and the people around him would shift uncomfortably in their seats.

“Couldn't he just snore or something?” a man behind Dr. Navel said loudly.

Across the aisle from Oliver, Celia muttered in her sleep: “He'syourcousin, don'tmarryhim . . .ʺ She sighed and shifted without waking up.

On his little screen, Oliver was suddenly watching a nature show about mountain wildlife. He liked nature shows, though he thought he'd been watching a movie. These airplane systems were weird, he guessed, changing channels on their own. He didn't mind, though. On nature shows, you could see the entire world without getting bitten by any lizards. And you got to drink the endless supply of soda the airline gave out.

But when a wild yak stared out of the tiny screen at Oliver and said, in an ancient language unheard for over two thousand years,
You will have to remember enduring Love if you want to escape a terrible fate,
Oliver realized, much to his surprise, that he was asleep and dreaming a most unusual dream.

The yak had bright green eyes that looked cold and hard, like the jade statue that Oliver and Celia had hidden behind in the Explorers Club library.

“Why am I dreaming about a yak?” Oliver wondered to himself. “I don't think I was even watching a nature show when I fell asleep.”

Yes you were,
the wild yak with the jade eyes told him.

“No I wasn't,” he thought.

“Yaks don't eat meat,” Oliver replied.

Well, then I'll climb out of the screen and skewer you with my horns,
the yak answered.

“Okay,” Oliver thought, because it's never a good idea to argue with mind-reading yaks. “How do I understand you? I don't speak any ancient languages.”

“It's my dream. I just know.”

“I agree.”

“What does that mean?”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

“That makes more sense.”

“Youʹre welcome. So whatʹs the cryptic message?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, who are you carrying the message for?”

And with that, Oliver found himself awake, staring at his screen. A movie about a lonely superhero was on. He hadn't been watching a nature show at all. It
was
just a dream.

ʺAha! I knew it! The yak was wrong!ʺ he shouted. The people around him looked over nervously. The man in the seat next to Oliver grunted and pushed earplugs into his ears, shaking his head. Across the aisle, Oliver's sister jolted out of her own nap.

“Why are you yelling?” she snapped at him.

“I . . . ummm . . . there was a . . . nothing. Just a dream.”

“Well, you didn't have to shout.”

Oliver turned the volume up on his headset and acted like he was watching the movie, but he was really thinking about his dream. What could the green-eyed yak have meant? How would remembering enduring love help him? What terrible fate did he need to escape? It really was a cryptic message.

Meanwhile, Celia, now awake from her nap, was feeling sore. She was tired of sitting in the uncomfortable airline seats and tired of traveling and tired of worrying what awaited them high in the mountains of Tibet. The man at the window seat next to her kept shoving her arm off the armrest with his elbow. He was reading a newspaper and wore too much cologne. His nose was red and short and he was wearing a shiny black suit that hadn't wrinkled at all during the long flight. He breathed too loudly through his nose and wouldn't give back the armrest. She shoved at his arm, reclaiming it by force. Without a word he jabbed right back with his elbow and pushed her off again.

“Ow!”
she shouted. “Stop being a jerk!” The man glared at her and reached up to press the button that summoned the stewardess.

“May I help you?” the stewardess asked, appearing almost instantly. She had the whitest teeth Celia had ever seen, but her skin was caked with makeup, like she'd painted her face with the kind of paint they use for road signs.

“This young lady is being very rude. She has attacked my arm on more than one occasion,” he said, smiling at the stewardess and adjusting the lapels on his shiny suit. “Normally, I wouldn't complain, but I worry that this family is troubled. They have all shouted at some point during this otherwise pleasant flight. Her latest outburst was simply the last straw.”

“Young lady?” the stewardess asked, raising her eyebrows at Celia, who really didn't know what the question was.

“He pushed me first,” she said.

“Where is your father?”

Celia's heart sank as she pointed to her father, who had now asked a small Chinese lady next to him to hold her finger on a point on a big paper map while he measured some distance with a string.

“Hold still, ma'am! Please try to hold very still, otherwise I'm sure we'll find ourselves lost in the Gobi Desert.”

“Sir,” the stewardess interrupted. “Could I speak to you, please?”

Dr. Navel looked at the Chinese lady, who smiled at him, but used her eyes to plead with the stewardess for help.

“Perhaps we could talk at the back of the plane?” the stewardess suggested. Dr. Navel reluctantly put his maps and strings down on his seat and followed her to the back. Celia watched while the stewardess lectured her father. He had that pose that boys get when they're in trouble. He slumped and shrugged and acted like he wasn't listening. Then the stewardess pointed at Oliver and then at Celia, and Dr. Navel got angry and started lecturing her. And then she got angry and pointed at him. Then she poked him in the chest and out of fairness, he poked her back, which was not a good decision.

“Do not dare touch me, sir!” the stewardess shouted, and everyone turned to look.

“You touched me first,” Dr. Navel said sheepishly, realizing he had gone too far.

The stewardess picked up the little phone next to her and spoke into it very quickly. A man stood up from a seat near the front of the plane and walked back toward them. When he passed Celia's seat, she saw him wink at the man in the shiny suit, who gave a quick nod of his head, like they were old friends.

When the man reached Dr. Navel and the stewardess, he pulled out a badge.

“Air marshal,” he said. “Is there a problem here?”

“No problem, sir,” Dr. Navel said, trying to undo the damage that had already been done.

“He has been a disturbance this entire flight,” the stewardess said. “We have reason to believe his children are . . . unbalanced, as he is himself, and now he has assaulted me.”

“I did not assault you,” Dr. Navel tried to say, and Celia looked at Oliver with worry in her eyes. Oliver's eyes showed worry too.

“We're not
unbalanced
,” Oliver whispered, and then thought about the talking yak in his dream.

“Sir,” the air marshal said. “Please do not interrupt. Unfortunately, I have been noting your unusual behavior since leaving New York, and I cannot allow you and your family to continue to put this aircraft and its staff in danger.”

“I promise we will sit quietly until we land.”

“Unfortunately, sir, you cannot be permitted to remain on board.”

“What?!”

“You and your family will have to leave the plane.”

“But we're forty thousand feet in the air somewhere over Central Asia!”

“Sir, please don't cause a scene,” the air marshal said. “We are only at thirty-eight thousand feet, and we are just passing over Mount Everest. It'll be a lovely piece of sightseeing for you.” He glanced back at the man next to Celia and smirked. Then he winked at Celia and gave her a thumbs-up, like the whole thing was one big joke. If getting thrown out of an airplane was a joke, she didn't get it.