This Book Is Not Good for You

by Pseudonymous Bosch

  “Aarargh!” He staggered backward.

  On the counter there was a large open can of what looked like melted chocolate. Cass grabbed the can and threw it at Hugo. Chocolate dripped down his face, covering his one good eye.

  “There—now let’s see if you’re really so good at being blind!”

  “How dare you!” exclaimed the outraged chef, stumbling around the room. He dropped his knife and held his eye with his hand.

  Max-Ernest gasped in horror at the sight.

  “Don’t worry—it’s not hot,” said Cass. “Just chocolate syrup.”

  Max-Ernest nodded knowingly. “You know that’s what they used to use for blood in old black-and-white movies.” *

  Cass gestured toward Yo-Yoji. “Tell him to hold Hugo for us.”

  Grunting his assent, Yo-Yoji grabbed the struggling chef from behind. He picked up the soup ladle and held it to Hugo’s neck.

  “Now, where’s the Tuning Fork?” asked Cass.

  “And why would I tell you?” Hugo spat out.

  “Because you have a sword pointed at your neck.” (She figured he wouldn’t know it was the ladle.)

  “You wouldn’t dare—”

  Yo-Yoji made a hissing sound, and suddenly the mamba emerged out of his collar. (It seems the snake had been hidden under his shirt all along.) Hissing in response, the snake traveled from Yo-Yoji’s shoulder to Señor Hugo’s.

  The chef’s chocolate-covered eye blinked in fear.

  Afraid to move a muscle, he stood stiff while the snake wrapped around his neck several times, then lazily licked chocolate syrup off his cheek.

  “Now will you tell us?” asked Cass.

  “It’s… right… here,” said Hugo through his teeth.

  “Oh, there it is—” said Max-Ernest.

  The end of the Fork’s handle was just visible, sticking out of the chef’s apron. He pulled it out.

  Cass sighed with relief. “Great. Now tell Yo-Yoji to put Hugo in one of the cages and then come back,” she said, handing Yo-Yoji the key ring.

  “Good idea,” said Max-Ernest, typing rapidly.

  … AND TAKE THE SNAKE, he wrote for good measure.

  Awaiting the return of her daughter, Mel paced up and down in front of the old animal cages as fretfully if she were still trapped inside.

  Suddenly, a bearded face appeared over the top of the stone wall that surrounded the old zoo. The face was followed by a navy-blue uniform.

  Is that a policeman? Mel wondered. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a cop!

  One after another, a dozen men and women in police uniforms climbed over the wall. Actually, they didn’t all climb; some somersaulted, others catapulted, several made a human ladder. Had Cass’s mother been in a less agitated state of mind, she might have noted that they were an oddly acrobatic—not to mention an odd-looking—group of policemen. Preoccupied with her predicament, she stepped away from the cages and waved frantically to the bearded officer leading the charge.

  “Officer—over here! You must help me, sir.”

  “You mean, help me, ma’am,” said the officer, approaching calmly.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Officer… ma’am!” said Cass’s mother, blushing with embarrassment.

  “You can call me Myrtle. Now what seems to be the problem?”

  As Cass’s mother tried to explain what was happening, Officer Myrtle (as you have probably guessed, she was none other than the circus’s bearded lady) was joined by a tall skinny cop, and a short squat one, officers Mickey and Morrie respectively (yes, they were none other than the clowns).

  “We heard reports about some troublemaking kids breaking into the zoo after hours,” said Mickey, now cleaned up (or partly cleaned up; there were still some red and white smudges around his mouth). “Do you know anything about that…?”

  “We think they may have escaped from juvie,” said Morrie. “Buncha lowdown nogood-niks!”

  Cass’s mother drew herself up. “How dare you speak of my daughter and her friends that way! They’re very good kids. All three of them. They came to rescue me. And you must help us all get out of here right now… Hey, have I seen you two somewhere before?”

  “Why, you been in trouble with the law?” asked Morrie. “You didn’t just break out of one of these cells by any chance…?”

  “You sure look like a nice lady,” said Mickey. “But you know what they say about appearances…!”

  The clowns shook their heads solemnly, as if they’d seen one too many nice-looking ladies turn out to be terrible crooks.

  “Take those two, for instance—It certainly looks bad, but for all we know, there’s some totally innocent explanation.” Morrie nodded into the distance where Yo-Yoji was visible escorting Hugo at ladle-point, the snake still curled around the neck of the terrified chef.

  OK, time to make the antidote,” said Cass. “We have to hurry. I want to give it to Yo-Yoji as soon as he gets back.”

  “We need a glass of milk,” said Max-Ernest.

  “Milk? You’re sure?”

  “Well, I’m not sure sure, but that’s what it looked like. It was white and foamy.”

  Cass opened the door to the walk-in refrigerator. “I don’t see any milk.”

  Max-Ernest frowned. “Hm. Now that I think about it, maybe it just turned white.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s try water.”

  She turned on the tap and filled a glass.

  “Now what?” she demanded, handing it to him.

  “I don’t know, they just kind of stirred…”

  Carefully, Max-Ernest lowered the ends of the Tuning Fork into the milk and swished them around experimentally.

  Nothing happened.

  “Well?”

  “It’s not turning white.”

  He tried shaking the fork sideways, then up and down. He spun it clockwise, then counterclockwise. Still nothing.

  “You’re obviously doing it wrong.”

  “OK, so you tell me what to do.”

  “I’m not the one who saw it! Sorry—it’s just that we have to figure it out. Look at him—”

  Yo-Yoji had just walked back into the kitchen.

  WHAT IS MY NEXT TASK?

  STAND STILL AND WAIT, Max-Ernest typed.

  Yo-Yoji nodded gravely.

  I WILL BE LIKE A STATUE.

  He immediately froze in place. Not even blinking.

  “You think there’s a clue on the fork?” Cass asked.

  Max-Ernest pulled the fork out of the glass and held it up to the light. “There’re some kind of drawings but they’re really faded.”

  “There’s supposed to be a bird and a snake.”

  “Like by the front door here…?”

  “Yeah… Wait—what are you thinking? I can tell by your face—”

  “Nothing. I thought I remembered something, but I lost it…”

  As Cass groaned in frustration, the door to the kitchen opened and Simone walked in. The quetzal was now sitting on her shoulder, pecking at her hair.

  “Your police friends, they are here,” said Simone.

  “Police? We don’t know any police,” said Max-Ernest. “Well, we don’t know know any. I mean, once or twice we met some. Like when—”

  “They say they know you. A lady with a beard? A tall man and a short man?”

  Cass grinned. “Oh, those police! Yeah, we know them.”

  “They are with your mother now. I come to say good-bye.”

  Simone whispered to the quetzal, then pulled a long green feather from its tail. The bird squawked but did not seem to mind too much.

  “Here, this is for you, so you remember us,” said Simone, handing Cass the feather.

  “Thanks,” said Cass. The feather was beautiful but she didn’t know exactly what to do with it.

  “No, thank you,” said Simone. “Because of you I am free.”

  “Wait—that’s it!” said Max-Ernest.

  “What?” asked Simone.
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br />   “That—” said Max-Ernest, pointing to the quetzal.

  “What about it?” asked Cass.

  “Well, the Tuning Fork is Aztec, right? And what’s the most famous Aztec god? Quetzalcoatl. The bird-snake. How ’bout that? I read about him after we figured out the green bird was a quetzal.”

  “So Quetzalcoatl is the key, then?” asked Cass.

  “Maybe, maybe not. But it’s the only thing I can think of.”

  “So what was he the god of?”

  “The sky… creation… I think it said he invented books and the calendar.”

  “The Tuning Fork takes you back in time, right? That’s kind of related to a calendar. Sort of.”

  Max-Ernest nodded hesitantly. “Yeah, but I don’t know how to make a calendar out of a tuning fork.”

  “What about a sundial?”

  “No, I think I would have noticed if that’s how they made the antidote. Anyway, we’re inside. There’s no sun.”

  “Duh, I just meant… I don’t know what I meant. Do you remember anything else about Quetzalcoatl? Think.”

  “I’m trying!”

  They looked over at Yo-Yoji—standing so still it looked like he might fall over. Time was clearly of the essence.

  Cass took the Tuning Fork from Max-Ernest. “I see two stars, one on the top of the handle—or is that the bottom?—and one right here above the bird and snake.”

  She showed him the engraved star, barely visible in the silver.

  “I think I also read that Quetzalcoatl was considered the god of the Morning Star,” said Max-Ernest. “Maybe that’s what that is.”

  “Kind of weird that the Midnight Sun would be into him then, isn’t it? And then what’s the other star?”

  “Well, he had a twin brother—Xolotl, who was the Evening Star…”

  “I’ll bet that’s it! Like to make you go back in the past, you need Quetzalcoatl. And to go back to the present you need Xolotl. Day then night.”

  “Sounds good, but then what do I do with the Tuning Fork?”

  Simone, who had been having trouble following the rapid-paced conversation, spoke up for the first time. “Maybe you just turn it upside down?”

  It worked. Or seemed to. As soon as Max-Ernest dipped the end of the handle into the water, the water started to cloud. In seconds, there was an alarmingly large head of foam.

  “Taste it,” said Cass, staring.

  “No. Why?”

  “I don’t know. To make sure.”

  “But I don’t even know what it’s supposed to taste like. Plus I could be allergic.”

  “To Aztec magic? OK, I’ll do it.”

  “No! You don’t know what’s going to happen. It might take you back in time again.”

  “Let me,” said Simone. “I know how to taste and not drink. It’s my job.”

  She grabbed hold of the glass, closed her eyes, and took a tiny sip. She spit it out, making a face. Whatever the flavor was, it wasn’t her favorite.

  “Vanilla,” she said, opening her eyes.

  “Really?” asked Cass.

  “Well, it makes sense doesn’t it? It’s the opposite of chocolate,” Max-Ernest pointed out. “And we’re looking for the antidote to chocolate, right? How ’bout that?”

  Apparently, Yo-Yoji liked vanilla better than Simone did. He drank the antidote as readily as if it were a milk shake.

  His transformation, however, was not immediate; it happened in stages. As he drank, he relaxed his military bearing and started walking in circles, a meditative expression on his face. He mumbled to himself. First in Japanese. Then, gradually, in words more intelligible to his friends.

  “… What’s going on, yo?” he asked when he at last opened his eyes. He looked around, blinking, confused. “What happened? Where are we?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain,” said Max-Ernest. “But, in summary, you’re inside a kitchen inside a chocolate factory inside a rainforest inside a wild animal park.”

  Quickly, Yo-Yoji’s friends filled him in on the rest. Or tried to. How do you explain to someone that his mind and body has just been possessed by a seventeenth-century samurai?

  As Yo-Yoji began to absorb what had happened, a big grin broke out on his face. “Hey, do you think Master Wei will let me be her apprentice now? She always says, ‘To go forward you must first go back.’ Well, you gotta admit, I really went back!”

  “I don’t know, it depends on what you mean by back,” said Max-Ernest. “You didn’t necessarily go back in time. At least your body didn’t. Maybe your mind…”

  “Thanks for pointing that out,” said Yo-Yoji, annoyed.

  Max-Ernest turned to Cass. “Guess it’s time to get out of here, huh?”

  “Yeah, but first we have to get my mom.”

  “Right.” Without thinking, Max-Ernest typed:

  FIND CASS’S MOM.

  And held his Decoder up to Yo-Yoji. It translated as usual into Japanese.

  “Dude, why are you pointing that thing at me? What’s it saying?”

  “Oh! Sorry. I forgot you spoke English again. I was just telling you your orders were to go find Cass’s mom.”

  “My orders? From who?”

  “Me, your mast…,” Max-Ernest stammered, reddening. “I mean, no one.”

  Yo-Yoji laughed. “When did you turn into little general man? You giving me orders?—that’s hilarious! I’d really like to see that.”

  Max-Ernest sighed. He was going to miss having his own personal samurai servant.

  As they exited the pavilion, the kids saw the Bald Man and some of the dung-covered guards chasing after the escaped children.

  “What’s wrong with you people?—letting these kids get the better of you like that! You should be ashamed of yourselves,” the Bald Man shouted at the guards. “Run as fast as you like, you’ll never get out of the gate!” he shouted at the children.

  A familiar truck pulled up in front of Cass and her friends, splattering mud all over the already-splattered guards.

  Owen, still in cowboy mode, hopped out of the cab.

  “Howdy!” He tipped his hat, fully revealing his face to them for the first time. “Salutations, little lady… gents.”

  Cass smiled, relieved. But also chagrined. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t recognized him earlier.

  Before they could greet Owen and/or berate him for giving them such a hard time when they were entering the animal park, the Bald Man rushed up. “You can’t be here! This area is for… zoo employees only!”

  “I thought it was for crazy evil alchemists only!” said Owen, his twang still in effect.

  “What—?” the Bald Man sputtered. “If you know what’s good for you you’ll leave right now.”

  “Funny, I was just going to ask you to leave. There’s a new sheriff in town. And the old one, looks like he’s not real popular with the kids around here.”

  The Bald Man took a step forward, fist raised. “I don’t try to make myself popular.”

  “You know what, I think I’ll give you that ride out of here myself,” said Owen. “Much friendlier—”

  With that, he reached between the hay bales in the back of his truck and pulled out a long rope.

  “Here, catch!”

  As the Bald Man put up his hands, Owen tossed the rope around him, and hog-tied him to the truck.

  Smiling, Owen addressed the rest of the dumbfounded and very dirty guards. “Now who’s next?”

  “Ballyhoo!”

  In a moment, the clearing was filled with uniformed police doing cartwheels and back flips. Not to mention swallowing swords—which Cass thought rather unhelpful under the circumstances.

  The guards took one look at the “cops,” then took off running.

  Myrtle, who could barely manage a slow waddle let alone the gymnastic feats of her colleagues, but who was nonetheless mighty strong in the arms, plunked Cass’s mother in front of Cass.

  “So what’s all this about monkeys and child slaves?” asked Myrtle.
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  “You have to get them out of here,” said Cass. “I think there’s going to be a fire.”

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  Loud horns and a jaunty circus tune signaled the arrival of a rainbow-colored VW Bug that looked like it had last been serviced in the 1960s. With a great squeal of brakes and a big cloud of smoke, the Bug stopped in front of the pavilion.

  An oversized bumper sticker on the back read:

  I BRAKE FOR ELEPHANTS

  “Transportation for fifty, right here!” said Mickey, sticking his head out of the driver’s window.

  “How are you going to fit everybody in there?” asked Max-Ernest. “That’s impossible.”

  “Don’t worry, we do this all the time,” said Morrie, jumping out of the car. “Step right up, kids!”

  He picked up the nearest child and dropped him feetfirst into the VW’s open sunroof. The child appeared to disappear as soon as he landed inside. (Although somebody standing close to the car might have heard a faint “Ow!” and then a “Why is it so dark??”)

  The other children clamored for the chance to follow their mate.

  “Me!” “No, me!” “My turn!”

  As one child after another was tossed into the seemingly magic Bug, Simone climbed aboard the back of Owen’s truck with Cass and the others.

  “Owen, he said he would take me to Africa,” said Simone, settling onto a hay bale next to Cass. “He says he knows a pilot that flies there all the time.”

  “Oh, we know that pilot,” said Max-Ernest.

  “I want to see my mom,” said Simone. “I want to go home.”

  “I know what you mean,” said Cass, looking in the front window of the cab where her mom was talking animatedly to Owen. She couldn’t wait to go home either.

  From a distance, the couple mounting the tour bus in the Wild World parking lot would not have attracted much attention. Like so many other tourists at the animal park, they wore their new Go Wild! Wild World T-shirts above their plaid Bermuda shorts. The man wore a heavy camera around his neck, the woman wore dark wraparound sunglasses on her head. He carried a stuffed lion cub in his hand, she drank from an oversized cup with a purple giraffe straw. They looked exactly like everyone else who’d just spent a long hot day at the zoo.

  Among the other passengers on their bus, however, they created a minor stir.