We Dine With Cannibals (25 page)

“Are we on the ground?” said Qui.

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

“I think so.” The girl smiled. “Seat belt.”

Celia nodded and went around to the side of the plane. A whole wing was gone. She didn't remember that happening. Inside, she saw her brother, unconscious, lying underneath six Cozinheiro warriors. They were all sound asleep.
The Daytime Doctor
always told his guests they should never fall asleep after an accident in case they had a concussion. They might never wake up. She pounded on the metal door.

“Wake up!” she yelled. “Wake up now, Ollie!”

He didn't move.

She yanked on the door handle as hard as she could.

It didn't move either. The metal was bent and twisted. It was stuck. She tugged harder.

Nothing happened.

“Please wake up!” She pounded on it and pulled on it again and again until she was exhausted. She leaned against the door, resting her head on the metal, and she wept. “Please wake up … wake up …,” she whined.

“May I?” a voice behind her asked, resting a large hand on top of hers.

“Dad!” She turned and hugged him tightly.

“Hello, Celia,” her mother said. Celia looked up at her, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Hi,” she said, still not sure she could trust her mother. “Are you going to poison-dart me?”

“No, honey. Never.”

“Throw me out of an airplane? Drag me to Tibet?”

Their mother shook her head. “We're here to rescue you.”

Celia considered this, then nodded and hugged her mother.

Dr. Navel yanked at the airplane door. One, two, three hard tugs and it came off in his hands.

“Did you see that?” He smiled and held the door up. “Did you see me rip the door off?”

“Very good, dear,” his wife said.

Dr. Navel reached inside and pulled Oliver out of the wreckage. One of the warriors moaned and they all started to wake up, wriggling out from under each other and sliding out of the plane. Qui unbuckled herself and climbed out of the cockpit. Everyone gathered around Dr. Navel, who was holding his son in his arms.

“Oliver,” Dr. Navel whispered. “Oliver, time to get up.”

Oliver groaned.

“Oliver, you have to wake up.”

There was no response.

“Oliver!” Celia shouted. “
Celebrity Whisk Warriors
has been canceled for a talk show about politics!”

“What?” Oliver shouted, springing to life. “Injustice!”

It took him a confused moment to figure out where he was and what was going on and why he had a big bump on his head and a ringing in his ears.

But then he saw his father and his mother and his sister all together, and he broke out into a broad smile.

He looked around the ruined old theater.

“I'm sorry this isn't much of a family movie night,” their mom said.

Oliver hugged her tightly. “After Tibet, I was scared we'd never—”

“I know, honey.” She hugged her son. “I'm sorry for what I put you guys through. It's almost over now.”

Oliver wanted to believe his mother, but with his parents, nothing was ever that simple. They heard the loggers shouting out commands at each other as they ran toward the movie theater.

“You have to go,” Qui told them. “The loggers have tied up their speedboats by the pier. You remember what the khipu said?”

“Not really,” said Oliver. He bent down and picked up a cream-filled snack cake off the ground. He put it in his pocket. Celia raised her eyebrows at him. “What? It's in the wrapper!”

She shook her head at her brother and turned to Qui. “What will you do?”

“We will stay and fight,” she said. “These men come into our land and steal the trees. It is time they learn from whom they are stealing. But do me one favor?”

“What's that?”

“When you find the real Corey Brandt, tell him he should have ended up with Lauren on
Sunset High
.”

She handed Celia Corey Brandt's cell phone that the impostor had stolen. The last photos on it were of the real Corey Brant up in a giant redwood tree.

“I'll tell him that
you
think so,” Celia said, and put the phone in her pocket. She hugged Qui, her first real friend who wasn't her brother or a character on television.

Oliver just rolled his eyes. What was it with girls and vampires?

“Thank you,” Claire Navel said to Qui and to all the warriors. “And good luck.”

“We do not need luck,” said Qui. “We're protecting our home.”

The Navels found the side door to the theater and slipped out as the warriors pulled their bows
and spears and blowguns from the wreckage of the plane. For a second Celia felt bad for the loggers. They had no idea how much trouble they were in.

“The pier is just past the water tower,” Claire Navel told her family, pointing up at the logo of Velma Sue's snack cakes smiling down over the jungle.

The Navels ran through the backyards of the strange town, ducking low and crawling under tangles of vines and thorny bushes. They reached the factory next to the water tower and saw, across a broad lawn, an old pier with a few speedboats tied to it. A few men stood guard, holding heavy clubs and sweating.

As they crouched by the edge of the factory, they heard screaming from behind them. They turned and saw all the loggers running down the main street toward the pier.

“Cannibals!” They were shouting and dropping their clubs and rifles as they ran. The men guarding the boats looked confused at first and then saw the painted warriors chasing the loggers down the street. They jumped into the speedboats and started the engines.

“Come back here!” the mayor of Benjamin
Constant yelled, running out into the street, waving his arms, but his men had already untied and sped off down the river. There was only one boat left. Principal Deaver chased the mayor outside. The mayor was still shouting after his men when she pointed behind him up the street. The mayor looked back and saw Qui and six painted warriors charging at them. The Navels watched the mayor and Oliver and Celia's middle school principal break into a sprint worthy of gym class and lock themselves into the mayor's black Mercedes.

“They aren't really cannibals, you know,” Oliver told his parents.

“A myth can be more powerful than a spear,” added Celia.

Dr. Navel winked at his wife. She reached out and squeezed his hand. A knowing glance passed between them: Oliver and Celia were becoming explorers in spite of themselves.

The Navels saw that the mayor's car was surrounded. Qui stood among the warriors and knocked gently on the car window. She saw the Navels hiding around the corner of the factory and she waved.

“You can go now!” she called out to them. The
monkey was making his way across the lawn, dragging the heavy trunk behind him. Beverly was perched peacefully on top. Oliver hated to admit it, but he was happy to see her.

The Navels rushed over to help the monkey with the trunk, and they all climbed onto the last boat.

Qui knocked on the car window again. The window came down slowly.

“Are you going to eat us?” squealed Principal Deaver.

Qui smiled. “We are going to play a game,” she said. “I believe you are familiar with dodgeball?”

Dr. Navel started the boat engine and they pulled away from the pier.

“And where are we off to, Claire?” Dr. Navel smiled, reaching for the throttle.

“I think,” said their mother, “that we should ask Oliver and Celia.”

CELIA LOOKED AT OLIVER.

Oliver looked at Celia.

This was their chance. They could shrug and complain and offer no help and they'd get to go home and there'd be no more adventures and they wouldn't have to face the Corey Brandt impersonator or their old nemesis, Janice McDermott. They could watch television and argue with their father about attending the latest lecture on novelty hats in ancient Greece.

But that would mean that Janice would still be at large. And the real Corey Brandt would still be missing. No more
Agent Zero
. No more
Celebrity Adventurist
. No hope of a
Sunset High
reunion. And their mother would probably leave
again. She would never give up her search for the Lost Library, and she would never stop trying to get the twins to fulfill their destiny.

There was only one thing to do.

They had to help their mother end this quest once and for all. That's how they would get their family back.

“Something about a sweet sea,” said Oliver.

“And darkling waters,” said Celia.

“Well, this is the Sweet Sea. That's what they used to call the Amazon, before the conquistadors renamed it,” their mother said. “Is that it? Is that all they told you?”

“Um …,” said Celia. Her memory was not so good for things that weren't on television.

“The Sweet Sea forks into darkling waters,” Oliver said, smiling as he remembered it. “Beyond the serpent's tongue and through weeping trees, where doubt itself bends toward a shadow, there the knight should boldly ride, if he seeks for El Dorado.”

“How did you remember that?” Celia asked.

“You told me how.” He smiled. “
Wally Worm's Word World
. You told me it was easier to remember
a rhyme, like with
ossuary
and
gilded
. I just kind of remembered ‘shadow' and ‘El Dorado' … they rhyme.”

“Sort of,” grumbled Celia. She wished she'd been the one to remember it.

“Great job, Oliver!” said their mother.

Celia crossed her arms and leaned back as the boat sped forward. “I told him how to do it,” she said.

“What do you think it means?” Dr. Navel asked his wife.

“Well, the weeping trees have to be rubber trees,” she said. “When you cut them, they weep out rubber. But otherwise, I don't have any idea. Doubt doesn't bend.”

“Maybe when you get more information, your doubt bends,” Dr. Navel tried. That theory didn't make much sense.

“Doubt is the name of a river,” Celia perked up. “The River of Doubt. Theodore Roosevelt discovered it. It's called the Roosevelt River now.”

“Okay,” said Oliver. “How do
you
know
that
?”

“Principal Deaver talked about it when you got us in trouble,” she said with a smile.

“I didn't do it,” Oliver muttered. “Beverly and Greg Angstura got us in trouble.”

Beverly, still resting on the trunk, flicked her tongue.

“The River of Doubt!” both their parents exclaimed.

“If we take this branch of the Amazon to the River of Doubt,” their father said, “and turn when it bends toward a shadow—”

“Away from the sun!” said Oliver.

“And see rubber trees,” their father continued, “then we should find El Dorado!”

“Oh, Celia, well done!” said their mother, nearly knocking Celia over with a hug. Dr. Navel accelerated the boat, his glasses splattered with spray from the river. The monkey screeched with happiness. There was a loud cough from inside the trunk.

“Ah,” said Dr. Navel. “Perhaps someone should let the professor out of the trunk now. I can't imagine he's comfortable in there.”

It took a few minutes for Claire Navel to find tools on board the boat to cut the lock off of the trunk and a few more minutes to get Beverly to move from her spot without biting anyone.

“Professor,” she said as she popped off the lock. “We have wonderful news. The work of the Mnemones is nearly complete!” She lifted the lid with an excited flourish, which quickly turned to disappointment.

Professor Rasmali-Greenberg was not in the trunk.

But Sir Edmund was.

And he was holding a blowgun.

“That
is
wonderful news!” said Sir Edmund, standing up. “Now, this is how one performs the Zanzibar Gambit!”

With that, he blew a large dart right into the back of Dr. Navel's neck.

“Not again,” said Dr. Navel as he slumped, unconscious, over the steering wheel.