“If he doesn’t speed this up, we’re going to miss it,” Celia whispered as she clapped.
“I can tell by their faces that Oliver and Celia are, like, so ready for this to be O-V-E-R, over.” Corey laughed. Celia blushed and hoped the teenage superstar hadn’t heard her. He rushed across the stage and shook each of their hands with a formal bow. Then he hung each of their medals around their necks and stood between them, raising their arms into the air above their heads like boxers at the end of a prize fight.
“Woo-hoo!” their mother cheered.
“Hurrah!” their father yelled.
Beverly hissed her lizard hiss and Patrick screeched his monkey screech and Dennis the chicken bwaked his chicken “bwak” from his perch on top of the head of a great stuffed polar bear by the door.
However, near the back of the crowd one man wasn’t clapping. He didn’t even seem to be paying any attention at all to the ceremony around him. It was easy not to notice him among the gathering of eccentric characters with odd haircuts and elaborate outfits. He wore a conservative black tuxedo, and if he had a strange haircut, one wouldn’t know it, because he had a baseball cap pulled low over his head. He didn’t look up from his phone, where he tapped away sending text messages, a gold ring glistening on his finger, inscribed with the symbol of a scroll locked in chains.
“Hey, Corey,” Oliver said through his clenched smile, his hand still held in the air above his head.
“Yeah?” Corey said, his face locked in roughly the same expression as the crowd continued clapping.
“Can we go watch your movie now?”
Corey laughed and let go of their hands. He nodded and, with the explorers still cheering, led the twins off the stage and toward the door, where their friends from all over the world had gathered.
“Where are you going?” their father called out and the room fell silent to listen. The man in the baseball cap perked up, finally paying attention.
“We’re going upstairs,” said Oliver.
“But we haven’t told everyone the story about how we freed the animals from Sir Edmund’s zoo!” Dr. Navel threw his hands in the air, dismayed to think that his children hadn’t changed at all, in spite of all they had been through.
“We want to watch Corey’s movie!” Celia objected.
“It’s your movie, guys,” said Corey. “It’s about you.”
“You lived through it all in real life!” Their father shook his head. “Why do you want to watch it on TV?”
“Because, Dad.” Celia rolled her eyes. “Stuff is better on TV!”
Their father sighed.
“Well.” Their mother stepped up next to him. “Can we watch it with you?”
Oliver looked at his sister.
She shrugged. “Sure.”
Their mother squeezed Dr. Navel’s hand. “Family movie night,” she said.
“That won’t be so bad.” Their father smiled. “I’ll make popcorn.”
“With nothing gross on it,” said Celia with a firm glare.
“Fried beetles aren’t gross!” Dr. Navel objected.
“We have them every time!” Oliver whined.
“Can’t we just have melted butter?” Celia pleaded.
“Melted yak butter?” Their father raised his eyebrows.
“Fine,” said the twins.
Their father jumped with glee.
The man in the baseball cap rolled his eyes and sent another text message: “NAVELS STAYING HOME. AGAIN. NO CHANGE.”
His shoulders slumped when he read the text he got back. “KEEP WATCHING. WE WANT TO KNOW IF THEY TRAVEL.”
“” he answered.
Oliver and Celia nearly knocked over Professor Eckhart of the Department of Obscure Spiritualities as they rushed from the Great Hall. The crowd of adventurers, explorers, daredevils, and globe-trekkers were left muttering to one another in surprise. They’d never seen anyone abandon their own award ceremony before.
“You know,” Corey told them as they raced toward the Navels’ apartment on the 4½th floor, “if you like the movie, I could always make another one.” He grinned back at Dr. and Dr. Navel. “If you have more adventures I can make it about . . .”
Oliver and Celia stopped and looked at each other. Their friends had already gone ahead of them to turn on the TV. Their parents were on the steps just below Corey and the walls all around them were decorated with pictures of famous explorers from times gone by.
Oliver raised his eyebrows at Celia, a hint of a smile forming at the corner of his mouth. His medal, like hers, shined on his chest.
“We’ll think about it,” she said, and they continued up the stairs to their apartment, where they could hear the music starting for the made-for-TV movie of the week. Their breath quickened. They had to move fast. They knew that if they ran up the steps two at a time, dodged past the rack of ancient spears, and dove through the door to their apartment with a somersault over the couch to the front of the TV, they might not miss the beginning of their story.
We should be happy to note that they didn’t miss a thing.
A FINAL NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
IT IS TIME, for now, to leave Oliver and Celia Navel in peace with their friends, their parents, and their cable television. But there is much more for us to discover!
You see, the search for Atlantis is almost as old as recorded history, and most of the theories contained in the story you have read are based on our research into the subject. Plato really did describe Atlantis and argue that it was a real place. Count Olof Rudbeck really did believe that the lost city of Atlantis was the same as the city of the Norse gods, led by Odin, and that its ruins really were to be found in his northern nation of Sweden, while other explorers have imagined that the North Pole is really the final hiding place of the Garden of Eden. Humans love hidden places and imagined lands, and we continue the search for our myths in the real landscape of Earth.
From Shangri-La to El Dorado to Atlantis, we have always been intrigued by places just beyond what we know, and nearly as soon as we think we’ve found one, we go on to think of others. We long for the blank space on the map to fill with our own dreams, and yet the known world is incapable of bearing our mysteries. Every time we make a discovery, we want to push on to the next one. That is the drive for exploration. There are many things in this book that are based on truth (including the ancient sea dragons!) and many that are pure fantasy. I hope your unanswered questions will lead you to uncover the truth for yourselves.
Or you could always see if there’s anything good on television . . .
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BOOKS, LIKE ARCTIC expeditions, are supported by countless people who never get medals hung around their necks. They should. In lieu of a medal, there are a few people to whom I would like to offer my thanks.
The adventures of Oliver and Celia Navel would have remained unknown to the world but for the editorial sleuthing of Jill Santopolo, who has been their champion (and mine) since the beginning and whose hard work has made these books far better than I could have made them on my own. Her aide-de-camp (which is just a fancy way of saying adviser), Kiffin Steurer, has provided wonderful insights, and Michael Green, publisher extraordinaire, brought the tale to Penguin with great faith and enthusiasm. In fact, the entire Penguin family embraced Oliver and Celia with open arms. Thanks go to Casey, Jessica, Scottie, Shanta, Marie, Katie, Annie, Cristin, Stephanie, Julia, Christina, and the rest of the marketing, sales, and publicity teams. Illustrator Jonny Duddle and the Penguin Art Department brought the images of the Navels’ world to life, while the copyediting staff improved my writing in ways I cannot begin to express (but I bet they could!).
Penguins may be flightless birds, but I am now convinced they soar.
As always, Robert Guinsler’s super-secret-agent experience makes my writing life possible (with a valuable assist from in
ternational woman of mystery Kelly Farber and woman of international mystery Aviva). Natalie Robin has long served as my narrative navigator, and I’d have been as lost as Atlantis without her.
The series was improved by Sam Cove and his family, as well as my earliest readers—Chris and Charlie Noxon, my sister, Mandy, and my brother-in-law, Dennis—who provided their own visions and prophecies when I needed mystical guidance. Mandy and Celia are very close kin, while Dennis is more heroic and kind than any chicken I could dream up. Of course, Mr. Xanders, my fifth-grade teacher who made me read Redwall, deserves some credit too.
Lastly, such a tale would have been impossible to tell without the care and support of Tim, who makes both adventures and excessive TV watching better, as well as his aide-de-camp, Baxter, a very wise dog indeed.
Turn the page to sample the first Accidental Adventure:
WE ARE NOT EATEN BY YAKS
1
We Meet the Reluctant Residents
IF YOU DID NOT KNOW what business took place inside Number Seven East Seventy-fourth Street, you might look up from the sidewalk toward the light flickering in an upper window. You might see two eleven-year-olds pass by that window, their faces pale and thin, with dark circles around their eyes, and you might imagine that they are the lonely and neglected children of wealthy socialites, forever trying to escape from their dull and pointless days.
But you’d be wrong.
Number Seven East Seventy-fourth Street is home to the old and exclusive Explorers Club, which is the most important society of adventurers, explorers, daredevils and globe-trekkers in the world. The two children who sometimes pass by the windows are reluctant residents of the 4½th floor of this club, and it is their story which concerns us here.
Now, most children would love to live on the 4½th floor of the Explorers Club. Most children would thrill to learn the mysteries and secrets shared among the explorers, and most children would love spending every evening hearing tales of danger and distant lands from the adventurers, explorers, daredevils and globe-trekkers who passed through those grand halls.
At least, that’s what the adventurers, explorers, daredevils and globe-trekkers kept telling the Navel Twins.
Celia and Oliver Navel, it must be said, are not most children. They did not like mysteries or secrets, tales of danger and distant lands, nor did they like adventures or exploring, and certainly they hated trekking the globe. While other boys might have turned green with envy because Oliver Navel had celebrated his ninth birthday in a cursed graveyard on the edge of the Sahara Desert, Oliver turned green with a stomachache because of the sweet-and-sour caterpillar cake he was served, which tastes even grosser than it sounds.
And while most girls might have screamed with jealousy that Celia had been given a Mongolian pony for her sixth birthday, Celia could not stand the smell of horses. In fairness, I believe that the horse could not stand the smell of her either. Whatever the case, the horse had to be returned to Mongolia with a formal apology from the Explorers Club, and Celia Navel was banned from ever entering the country, which suited her just fine. She did not like wild animals or exotic places. Nor did her brother.
The Navel Twins liked television.
They liked television more than anything else in the world. They would watch for hours and hours without a break, and it didn’t even matter what they were watching as long as the comforting glow of the TV flickered across their eyeballs.
That little box contained worlds! Nature shows gave them nature. Dramas gave them drama. And cartoons about talking llamas gave them talking llamas, which one could hardly find in the “real” world anyway. They never wanted to miss a show for anything as boring as school, or dinner parties or going outside to play, and definitely not for trips to places like Mongolia.
Unfortunately for them, Oliver and Celia lived at the Explorers Club with their parents, Dr. and Dr. Navel. Well, they actually only lived with their father, Dr. Navel, as their mother, Dr. Navel, had gone off to find the Lost Library of Alexandria, which she believed had never been lost, and had, herself, unfortunately been lost in the process. Though a search party searched for her, no trace had yet been found. Two of the explorers sent to find her even disappeared themselves.
Sometimes, when there was nothing to do during commercial breaks for one of their shows, the twins would talk about their mother.
“You ever miss her?” Oliver would ask his sister, popping cheese puffs into his mouth like it was no big deal, but really holding his breath for his sister’s answer. Looking at Celia was almost like looking at a picture of his mother. Celia had the same little nose and giant eyes. She had the same pale skin and dark hair. Oliver had a face more like his father’s, but his hair and eyes were the exact same as his sister’s. Both of them had dark circles under their eyes from staring at the screen all the time.
“It’s her own fault,” said Celia. “If she’d just stayed home with us, she’d never have gotten lost.”
“Yeah, but don’t you think—”
“Shhh,” Celia cut him off, “Ten Ton Taco Challenge is back on.”
Oliver didn’t say anything after that, because he loved Ten Ton Taco Challenge and because he could tell his sister didn’t like talking about their mother. Oliver secretly missed his mother a lot. Celia’s secret was that she hated Ten Ton Taco Challenge. She was only watching it now because the sound of frying tortillas kept her from thinking about the Saturday morning their mother left.
“Good-bye, Oliver,” she had said. “Good-bye, Celia.” She kissed them each on the forehead.
“Uhuh,” both kids grunted because cartoons were on and they did not appreciate interruptions. It was hours before they even noticed their mother had gone and taken her big backpack with her. She was always going off somewhere. That was the thing with having explorers for parents. They were always coming and going, looking for the Ancient City of This or the Lost Library of That. Oliver and Celia could not have known that that kiss on the forehead was the last time they would see her.
Some kids might have taken a lesson from that, and stopped watching so much television, but not Oliver and Celia. After their mother left, they watched even more. A television could do a lot of what a mom did, anyway, like telling stories and keeping them company when they were lonely. And even better, if they got tired of it, they could just turn it off, which you couldn’t do with a mom at all. Of course, they never did get tired of TV. It drove their father crazy.
“Too much television rots your brain!” he complained. He was standing in his usual spot behind the couch with his arms crossed in their usual upset way.
“No,” Celia answered without looking away from the screen. “Mongolian Horse Fever rots your brain.”
Dr. Navel sighed. Celia was right of course. She’d caught Mongolian Horse Fever from that horse he gave her for her sixth birthday. They’d barely gotten her to the hospital in time.
“Well,” he said, changing the subject. “We have a dinner to go to. It’s in honor of your mother.”
The twins stood slowly. They couldn’t argue with him about their mother. Ten Ton Taco Challenge would have to go on without them.
“Another banquet,” Celia groaned.
“There will be a prince, and a hot-air balloonist, and a deep-sea diver,” Dr. Navel said excitedly.
“Ugh,” Oliver and Celia said together and deflated like two hot-air balloons crashing into the sea.
Read the second book in the series:
WE DINE WITH CANNIBALS
Don’t accidentally miss this third adventure!
WE GIVE A SQUID A WEDGIE
-filter: grayscale(100%); -moz-filter: grayscale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
We Sled With Dragons Page 21
