The Select

by Peter Lerangis

  “In case you missed that day in common sense, that is physically impossible,” I replied. “I was born ten minutes earlier.”

  “Wow,” Osman said. “I wonder what it’ll feel like when I’m that old, Safi.”

  Osman pushed past and stomped ahead of me in the dark. His flashlight beam flitted across the walls, then disappeared. I rounded a corner and saw him, standing still in the center of a large cavern.

  “Unbelievable . . . ,” he said in a hushed voice.

  “What?” I asked.

  He turned to me, his eyes wide. “It’s ten minutes later and it feels exactly the same.”

  Diary, would it be wrong for a girl to wring her brother’s neck?

  I arced my flashlight around the massive chamber. Scenes from old battles played themselves out on the walls in faded blacks, yellows, blues, reds—bearded soldiers brandishing spears, a winged woman holding a yellow ball of fire, and a square-jawed king wearing a glorious robe and holding an ornate staff topped by an inverted triangle.

  I let out a gasp. Osman was slack-jawed. “Father was right,” he said. “This is the Big One! This is it!”

  His flashlight played along one of the walls. At the base of a flaking image were dark, charcoal lines. Some kind of writing. “I think I can read this . . . ,” Osman said in a hushed voice. “Those books we picked up from the library trash . . . one of them was about hieroglyphics and runes . . .”

  Osman leaned closer, moving his lips silently. “What does it say?” I asked.

  “‘The Ring of . . . Har . . . pay . . . Harpagus,’” he exclaimed with glee, “. . . shall be revealed to the firstborn son of the Lord of Antiquities, known to all as Osman the Wise, ruler of his sister, Aliyah the Lame and Half-Witted . . .”

  I would have bopped his head with the flashlight if it weren’t trained on something against the opposite wall—three large wooden rectangular containers, leaning up against the rock. I moved closer, running the light up and down rotting, ancient planks with faded traces of rich decoration. “Coffins . . . ,” I murmured.

  “Smells more like tea,” Osman said.

  “Not coffee, coffins—look!” I said.

  Osman’s face fell. “Okay, this isn’t a treasure room, it’s a grave. And we’re after money, not mummies.”

  “Where do you think treasures were buried?” I said. “With the dead! Maybe King Harpagus was buried here!”

  “He wasn’t a king, he was a rattrap,” Osman said meekly. “You said so.”

  “Satrap,” I corrected him. “Maybe Safi sniffed out Harpagus, lying in there with his ring still on his finger.”

  “Finger bone . . . ,” Osman said.

  “Are you afraid?” I asked, stepping into the room.

  “Not if you go first.” Osman’s face had lost its color, but his curiosity was getting the better of him. He followed me into a dank, musty room, its air acrid and freezing cold. “What’s that smell?”

  “Vole poop,” I said with a shrug. “Or maybe bat.”

  “Stop it!” Osman said, still staring at the coffins. “You’re forcing out the Brave from Bartevyan! You’re leaving just the . . .” He thought a moment. “Tyan!”

  But I was training my flashlight at the ceiling, to a small recess, partway up the wall—a squarish natural shelf formed by the rock. In it, I could make out a dark, rectangular shape about a foot long. “What’s that?” I asked.

  Osman gulped. “Doesn’t exactly scream ‘This is a ring box!’ to me,” he said.

  “But if it is,” I said, “we wouldn’t have to disturb the Addams Family over there, against the wall.”

  “Good point!” Osman stood under the recess, knelt, and braced his hands against the wall. “You go first. On my shoulders. Don’t say I never helped you out.”

  “Can you hold my weight?” I asked.

  “Depends on how much filet mignon you ate last night,” he said as I cautiously stepped onto his shoulder.

  The walls were freezing cold, and sparkles of frost danced on the stone in front of me. My eyes barely reached the opening.

  I fished out my flashlight and thrust it forward. The beam lit up a small carved stone box, covered in symbols that resembled the ones on the walls. I reached forward to take it, my head echoing with Father’s favorite words, “Trust me, Aliyah . . .”

  Something was scrabbling against my stomach. I nearly fell.

  Safi.

  Her pinprick claws danced up my sleeve, and in an instant she was climbing onto the ledge. Pain shot up my arm, and I let out an involuntary yelp. Safi squeaked and threw herself backward over my face, her claws buried in my scalp. My arms windmilled as I tried to get my balance back. I reached upward. Clasping the box, I toppled off Osman’s shoulders.

  I hit the ground with a thump. I blinked my eyes to see Osman standing over me, his flashlight trained on the box, which lay on my chest.

  “What’s inside it?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, thank you very much!” I snapped.

  He was already on his knees, reaching for the box. “Ali, you’re a genius. We’re rich. We’ll split this fifty-fif—”

  As he flung open the lid of the box, a musty smell wafted out. Osman’s face went slack.

  Inside the chest was a skeletal hand with nothing but wisps of leathery skin hanging off its bony fingers. No ring in sight.

  I didn’t feel disgust, Diary. I’d been here too many times before. Looking for treasure only to find junk. Father and his stupid schemes!

  “I guess someone took the ring but left the hand!” I started to slam the chest shut.

  “Yeeeow!” Osman cried out, jerking his hand away. “Are you trying to leave my hand in there, too?”

  “Sorry!” I felt awful. I should never let my anger get the better of me.

  Grimacing, Osman staggered backward, toward the opposite wall. Toward the coffins. “Osman, careful—”

  Too late. His back connected with the tallest box. The fragile, rotted wood splintered with a dry crrraaack.

  I watch in horror as Osman and the coffin toppled together to the floor in a cloud of splintering wood and bone. I felt light-headed. My little brother was screaming, rigid, lying in the embrace of a grinning skeleton. As Osman flailed, his feet twisted in the splintered wood, the skeleton moved with him as if it were alive.

  “Aliyah, help me!” he cried.

  So what did I do, dear Diary? What heroic act? I stood there like a mannequin, frozen, doing nothing—until I noticed a set of furry, jointed black legs crawling up my brother’s calves.

  Finally I leaped forward and kicked at them, sending a black shape flying into the darkness. Osman jumped, disentangling himself, staggering, doubled over with nausea.

  Now I could see a huge black spider—easily the size of my hand—scurrying out from beneath the skeleton. It was followed by another . . . and another . . .

  “Look out!” I shouted, yanking my brother away by the arm. The spiders scurried away on all eights. I heard a hissing noise and turned to see Safi scrabbling with another of the little beasts. I wasn’t sure if she wanted to bat it away or eat it. I stomped on one spider and flicked another off Osman’s knee. We both began dancing frantically through the chamber, squashing spiders the size of rodents. I felt each one pulsing beneath the soles of my shoes.

  As the last of the living spiders skittered away into the shadows I fought back the desire to puke. When I looked down I saw Osman had given in to his desire. We each swung our flashlights around the chamber. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Osman nodded. “Safi . . . ,” he said, catching his breath. “What happened to the ferret?”

  My flashlight beam caught a flash of white in the far corner of the chamber, by the floor. Safi’s white, fluffy tail. It was just disappearing into a crack in the wall.

  “No!” I groaned.

  “W-we can’t lose her,” Osman said. “Feyyaz will be furious!”

  I thought about Feyyaz chopping off the fingers of the man wh
o hadn’t sufficiently bowed to him. What would he do to someone who lost his ferret? I ran to the wall, lay flat on my belly, and thrust my hand into the small hole Safi had found. I felt it give a little and a few inches crumbled away. My fingers brushed Safi’s fur, and I felt her leap backward. How much room did she have in there? I scraped at the edges of the hole I’d made, and more of the wall crumbled into my hand. Osman crouched next to me. “Safi! Come out!” he cooed. He knocked his fist against the wall.

  A hollow thud echoed through the treasure chamber. Osman looked at me. “It’s . . . plaster?” he said.

  Without a word, we began pulling at it with our fingers. Plaster flaked off in great piles until we’d opened a space the size of our heads about an inch off the floor. Safi was on the other side, and she froze in the beams of our flashlights, looking relieved (as much as a ferret can, I guess).

  Osman put his hand through the opening and pulled off one more great hunk of plaster. Our eyes met and we each grabbed the lip of the hole. I counted, “One, two, three!” We pulled together, and a square meter of the bottom of the wall came loose in a shower of dirt. There was an opening just high enough for us to crawl through—and a large, dark tunnel beyond.

  Osman got on hands and knees, gathered Safi up into his jacket, and crawled through the tunnel opening. A blast of cold air hit me as I stood, shining my flashlight around. We followed this tunnel in a curved path until we reached a grand, ornate chamber, much bigger than the one we’d just left. The walls were adorned with statues of warriors on horseback, Greek gods with spears flying from their hands, and fantastic monsters. “How many rooms are there?” I asked.

  “This one seems familiar,” Osman said.

  That was when I smelled coffee.

  I switched off my flashlight. A line of bright light, like a yellow gash, shone into the room from our left. “Is that moonlight?” I asked.

  “Is that coffee?” Osman said.

  We ran across the chamber toward the sliver of light. It was coming through the crack of a doorway. Osman pushed it open, and the first thing I could see was a breathtaking view of Fethiye harbor. And not twenty meters away sat our father with Gencer. My heart nearly stopped when I saw who was with them—Feyyaz the Cyclops.

  The men were warming their hands over a small fire, brewing coffee in an old tin pot. Father saw me first. “My chilrrren!” he said, staggering to his feet, smiling too broadly, walking too unsteadily.

  I gave Osman a look. Drunk, I realized. They all were. Feyyaz must have brought a bottle. “You’ve found a way through!” Father continued, his eyes darting back toward the other men with fear and anticipation. “And of course you’ve brought me . . .”

  His voice trailed off as Feyyaz approached. The man was easily twice my father’s size. He was dressed in a cream-colored silk shirt and had several rings on his fat fingers. He wore no patch over his missing eye, which was permanently closed by an angry white scar.

  “The jewel?” Feyyaz’s voice was surprisingly high-pitched and hollow for a man his size, but his one good eye was trained on me like a gun. “The ring?”

  “My children were guided by Safi!” Father blurted. “Whatever they accomplished or didn’t was determined by the limits of Safi—”

  “Dear Safi has no limits, isn’t that right, my beautiful kouklaki?” Feyyaz’s face suddenly twisted into a frightening, sour expression that may have been his version of fondness. He held out his arms toward the ferret.

  Safi poked her head out of Osman’s jacket and leaped to the floor. She began twitching and made a horrid hacking noise.

  Feyyaz’s eyes widened. He grabbed Father by his shirt front. “If those brats of yours have harmed my Safi, Khalid, you’re a dead man!”

  Safi gave an especially violent heave. Then she puked up the body of a mangled spider onto the floor of the tomb.

  I picked up the spider, shaking with anger. I don’t know what possessed me to do this, and looking back on it, it could have been suicide, but Most Girls don’t usually witness their father being bullied and threatened by dangerous gangsters. Without a second thought I placed the spider in Feyyaz’s outstretched hand. My voice was calm. “This is all we found, sir.”

  He squealed like one of my schoolmates and dropped it. I grabbed Osman’s hand and walked off, leaving my father and Feyyaz gawking.

  Thursday, 8:03 A.M., in a Jeep (forgive the shaky handwriting, Diary)

  “GET UP, ALIYAH.”

  Father.

  “Osman! Up, up, up!”

  Why was he whispering? I blinked my eyes open. It was still dark, my nose was cold. But at least I was alive. So was everyone. I guess Feyyaz wasn’t in a murderous mood last night. He was preoccupied with Safi’s health, nursing the little critter with mysterious, foul-smelling medicines that only seemed to make her worse. He fell asleep in the tent I’d pitched before the rest of us were even done setting up camp. He slept, snoring, with Safi in his beefy arms.

  As Father shook us awake, I knew that was what he was thinking, too.

  I could see Father’s breath as well as smell it. He’d obviously stayed up most (or all) of the night, drinking with Gencer. I opened my mouth to speak, but Father put a finger to his lips. His eyes were red and watery, and kept flitting to the opening of our raggedy tent. “Let’s go, children. Lots to do today,” he said, trying to sound cheery.

  Osman groaned. “What time is it?”

  “Shhh!” Father said. “Uncle Feyyaz is still sleeping. He’s had a rough night. Let’s leave him in peace.”

  Uncle Feyyaz? Yes, Diary, that is what he said. Does Father think I don’t know who Feyyaz is? Honestly, I’ve learned to let Father think he’s fooling me. Sometimes it makes it easier to get what I want. But it was time for him to stop treating us like babies. “Baba, come on, you don’t really think—” I began.

  Osman slid out of his sleeping bag, yawning.

  “Enough. Follow me now, before the Cyclops wakes.” Father scooped up my sleeping bag with a shushing noise and hurried out to his old Jeep, leaving me sitting alone, on the ground, my mouth hanging open. It was the first time I’d ever heard him use that nickname.

  And that is how I ended up here.

  And why my handwriting is so shaky.

  I must stop now. I shouldn’t have written so much. More tomorrow. I am getting Jeepsick . . .

  Thursday, 11:41 P.M.

  CAN’T SLEEP AGAIN, Diary. Maybe it was the lingering effects of that horrible Jeep trip. I never want to ride in that godforsaken vehicle again. Gencer and Father sat in front, in the only seats, while Osman and I bundled with the bedrolls and equipment in the back. The roads seemed like they hadn’t been paved since Harpagus’s empire. When we got out, Osman rubbed his back and groaned like an old man. “That really is a rattrap,” he grumbled.

  Father still looked pale, glancing backward as if Feyyaz might mysteriously fly toward us.

  “Don’t worry, Khalid, that one-eyed fool will forget the whole thing the moment he wakes up,” Gencer said, flicking another cigar impatiently to the ground. “Now, let me borrow this rust bucket for a few hours. I’ve got something I have to do.”

  “Borrow the Jeep?” Father said wearily. “Why?”

  “It’s called sharing—or am I supposed to buy a Cadillac from what we made yesterday?” Gencer replied, holding out his hand. “And, oh yes, I will need to buy gas, Khalid, unless you plan to push.”

  I glared at the old moocher, but Father just nodded, digging into his pocket.

  As Gencer drove off, he grinned and stuck his tongue out at me, the creep. “Why do you let him boss you around like that?” I said. “Some bravery.”

  Osman glared at me, then put his arm around Father’s shoulder and walked with him into our shack.

  Diary, I felt terrible. What are you doing, Aliyah? I scolded myself. Father was tired. Defeated. I was not helping him by asking embarrassing questions! Feeling guilty, I went inside and fixed some lentil soup and bread. I served them to
Father, but he merely nibbled on the bread quietly and left his soup untouched. Finally he stood up and headed for the door, wiping his mouth. “Thank you, but I must go out. For . . . a meeting.”

  “You’ll be back soon, right, Baba?” Osman asked, eyeing him warily.

  “Of course. Take care of your sister,” Father said as he pulled on his coat. Then his eyes briefly met mine. “You take care of your brother, too.”

  We watched him go. Again. To yet another mysterious “meeting.” We were so used to this that it didn’t seem strange at all. But I felt angry and confused. What kind of meeting does a tomb robber go to? Or was he just meeting up with Gencer and his friends at the tavern? Osman and I exchanged a glance without words. I don’t know about other twins, but we can communicate with our eyes.

  Once again, we had been the ones who had done the work. We had been in harm’s way.

  I sighed, turning back to do the dishes. For a change, Osman pitched in to help. “Do you think our luck will change?” I asked. “We haven’t found much of anything in almost a month.”

  Osman shrugged. “It could be worse. We could have to go to school.”

  He had a point. In some ways I don’t mind the life we lead. It’s been ten months since I last went to school, but all I did there was argue with my teachers. They called me insubordinate, which means disobedient, but that is just not true. I am very respectful. I just speak up when people are wrong. I call that strong. And I can’t help being that.

  Anyway, now I like being able to explore the city, finding odd books to read, dodging truant officers. My life must seem pretty special to a normal schoolkid. But truly, Diary, if it meant I could have Mother back, I’d gladly go to school seven days a week and never talk back to a teacher ever again.

  Friday, 12:26 A.M.

  I CAN’T BELIEVE what just happened. My brain is racing. Father is back and he’s fallen asleep for now, but I am worried for his life and I don’t know what happened to Gencer or that horrible Greek man who—

  Calm down, Aliyah.

  One. Two. Three.

  Okay.

  Not long after my last entry, Diary, Father fell against the door and stumbled inside—right into the main room where my brother and I were sleeping. (Well, he was sleeping. I only pretended.)