The Explorers’ Gate

by Chris Grabenstein

  “The shoe!” shouted Willem. He was pointing at Juliet’s raised heel. A plastic crown studded with plastic jewels was tucked underneath her foot.

  Garrett raced to the statue. “We found it! Woo-hoo!”

  All of a sudden, I heard horse hooves galloping across asphalt—and this time it didn’t sound like a dainty Shetland pony.

  These hooves carried the earth-shaking thunder of a galloping stallion plus the clanking jangle of steel.

  “King Jagiello!” cried Willem. “Curses! He has already chosen sides!”

  In the dim light, I saw fifteenth-century King of Poland and Lithuania come galloping toward us on a warhorse decked out in full battle armor. He was waving two enormous bronze swords over his jagged bronze crown while his bronze butt bounced up and down in an equally bronze saddle.

  Yes, somehow, a Central Park statue had come to life—just so it could kill us!

  Chapter 10

  “Run!” shouted Garrett. “Run!”

  And we did.

  “The statue is alive?” I shrieked as I ran faster than I had ever run before. “That’s impossible! How can a statue be alive?”

  Simultaneously, the two of them shouted exactly what I knew they’d shout: “Ask Grandpa!”

  The clattering horse hooves thundered closer. I looked over my shoulder: King Jagiello, sculpted at double size, his bronze cape fluttering in the breeze, was maybe a hundred yards behind us!

  I ran faster. Breathed harder.

  The king’s horse was also galloping faster, and it had two flaring nostrils the size of bagels to breathe through.

  I didn’t stand a chance.

  The King whooped a fierce Lithuanian war cry.

  As we rounded the bend coming out from underneath Winterdale Arch, Garrett pointed to an outcropping of gray stone. “Climb up the boulder, Nikki!”

  Technically, it was Manhattan Schist, a layered rock in which mica-bearing bands alternate with layers composed primarily of quartz and feldspar.

  But, right then, boulder worked just fine!

  I darted through the trees and, with Garrett’s help, scrambled up the enormous rock left behind seventy-five thousand years ago when a glacier known as the Wisconsin Ice Sheet scooted through town.

  “We’ll be safer up here!” said Garrett.

  He was right. The low tree limbs surrounding the jagged rock might knock the King off his high horse. At least they’d clip his crown, which, since he was a statue, was conveniently welded to his head.

  I took off my red cap to swipe away some sweat.

  The second I did, I couldn’t see the horse and rider, but I could still hear them.

  I tugged the red cap back on my head.

  Yep. They were still there.

  So, I tugged the hat off again and made them disappear.

  “The hat!” I said to Garrett. “Is it magic or something?”

  He gave me that wide-eyed panic look again.

  “That’s okay,” I said, putting the mysterious red hat back on my head. “I’ll just ask Grandpa.”

  “Good idea! Come on!”

  We clambered up to a lookout point. King Jagiello and his horse were only ten yards away on the bridle path, tramping in circles underneath Winterdale Arch. Suddenly, the fierce stallion screamed and reared up on its hind legs while the king let loose with what had to be a string of fifteenth-century Lithuanian curse words.

  Then I heard a dog barking.

  Balto! Our faithful friend was back and darting under the spooked horse’s belly, nipping at its ankles.

  But the sled dog’s fluffy fur had been buffed golden bronze. Especially on the top, where all those kids sit on him.

  “Balto’s a statue, too?”

  “Yes,” said Garrett. “But, he’s on our side. The king isn’t.”

  Right. I sort of figured that one out myself.

  But how come the dog looked real before? Yep—my “Questions for Grandpa” list just kept growing and growing.

  I started wondering about the nasty no-see-ums in the rowboats the night before. If I had been wearing my red ski cap, would I have been able to see who (or what) was manning the oars?

  I decided to add that one to the list, too.

  Under the arch, the bronze sled dog lunged. The king’s horse whinnied in terror.

  “Enough!” King Jagiello decreed, sliding his swords into their scabbards and pulling up on the reins. “Ve vill call off zee attacking tonight! You vin zees battle, Balto!”

  Balto barked triumphantly.

  The king hung his head in shame. I think his crown would’ve toppled off if it wasn’t forged to his curly bronze locks.

  Horse and rider clomped off toward their pedestal over on the far side of the Great Lawn. Balto followed after them like a shepherd’s dog, his tail plume swishing back and forth proudly.

  “Come on,” said Garrett. “I’ll help you down. Grandpa’s probably waiting.”

  We slid down the face of the sloping rock together.

  “We should hurry,” Garrett said after I landed safely. “Who knows who else might try to attack us tonight?”

  True, I thought. There’s a statue of a Plymouth Rock pilgrim over near East 72nd Street. He carries a bronze musket. I didn’t want to become his early Thanksgiving turkey.

  We made our way up the asphalt footpath toward the Hunters’ Gate exit on the north side of West 81st Street. In a pool of light beneath a street lamp, I could see Willem waiting for us. He was clutching the toy princess crown to his chest like he’d never let it go.

  “Are you okay, Nikki?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I’m a little confused but, hey, at least I didn’t get my head chopped off.”

  Willem nodded grimly.

  “Could the statue really do that?” I asked. “Lop off my head?”

  Willem kept nodding. Grimly.

  “Oh-kay. Maybe I should just head home so I’ll be in bed when I wake up from this extremely strange dream.”

  “Don’t you want to ask Grandpa your questions?” said Garrett.

  I sighed. I remembered the message in the garbage can: WHAT WOULD YOUR MOTHER DO? It made me sigh again.

  “Where exactly is Grandpa Vanderdonk?” I asked.

  “Not far,” said Garrett. “Four blocks north at Central Park West and 85th Street.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go see Grandpa.”

  Suddenly, a menacing figure slipped out of the shadows to block our exit.

  It was Brooke Billingsley’s boyfriend, Brent. The boy who had ripped my charm necklace off my neck.

  “So, Ima Gene,” he said with a snide little smirk. “We meet again.”

  Chapter 11

  I instinctively dropped my eyes. Tried to hide behind my bangs.

  “And who are these losers you’re hanging with tonight?”

  Garrett stepped forward. “You know who I am, Brent.”

  “Riiiight. Garrett Vanderdork. The big dummy on the P.S. 245 wrestling team. Don’t tell me you’re stupid enough to think Kroll’s team has a chance at winning the Crown Quest?”

  “What? You’re with the Lorkus people?”

  “Of course. So is anybody with half a brain. Oh. That would exclude you, now, wouldn’t it, Garrett?”

  Garrett balled up his fists.

  Willem raised a hand. “What people say about you, Garrett, often says more about them than it does of you.”

  “Does that mean Brent is a jerk?”

  “Precisely.”

  Garrett smiled. “Get out of our way, Brent.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll show you the wrestling move I used to win the state championship last year.”

  Brent blinked. Several times. Then he stepped aside.

  “Come on, Nikki,” said Garrett, leading the way forward.

  I grinned.

  It was absolutely, unbelievably, super incredibly awesome to have my own six-foot-tall, two-hundred-and-fifty pound bodyguard escorting me out of the park. I w
anted to take Garrett everywhere I ever went!

  “Nikki?” Brent sneered behind us. “Is that really your name, Ima Gene? Nikki?”

  Frankly, I had had enough of the snobby twerp. I spun around. “Yes, Brent. My name is Nikki Van Wyck. If you have a problem with it …” I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder. “Maybe you should talk to Garrett about it.”

  “Nikki Van Wyckie?”

  “Um, no. My name is Van Wyck, which, by the way, is a very old, very historical New York name.”

  “Is that so?” Brent said snidely.

  “Yes.” It’s amazing how brave I felt now that I had a personal protector. “The Van Wycks were some of the very first Dutch people to settle in New Amsterdam, before it became New York City. There’s even a Van Wyck Expressway. And there’s no ee at the end.”

  “Yeah, you hear that, Slicktenhorsey?” said Garrett.

  Which confused me.

  So Garrett put a hand beside his mouth to explain. “I’m making fun of his last name the same way he made fun of yours!”

  “His name is ‘Slicktenhorst?’ Brent Slicktenhorst?”

  “Yep.”

  Garrett and I shared a belly laugh at a name even sillier-sounding than mine. Then we knocked knuckles.

  “So, Miss Van Wyck,” said Brent, suddenly very formal, “you’re with them? You have joined up with Garrett and Willem?”

  I gave him a duh look.

  “Um, yes, Brent. We’re a team.” Then I added a fist pump. “Goooooo, Red Hats!”

  That’s when thunder crackled over our heads, the cloudless sky quivered, and a solitary star fell like a comet to the distant horizon.

  Brent shook his head. “You three don’t stand a chance!”

  He turned and ran into the park, fast.

  I looked to Willem. My eyes must’ve been filled with question marks because he took my hand and smiled softly.

  “Come along, Nikki. Now you definitely need to meet Grandpa Vanderdonk.”

  “Huh?”

  “Did you see the shooting star?”

  “Yeah, but …”

  “Your intentions have been duly noted. We are now, quite officially, a Crown Quest team.”

  Chapter 12

  We walked up Central Park West to the corner of 85th Street.

  “That’s our apartment,” said Garrett, pointing to the dormer window of an upside-down-ice-cream-cone turret on top of a five-story brownstone.

  We hurried up the steps to the stoop, entered the foyer, and climbed up five flights of stairs.

  “Grandpa should be in his study,” said Willem as Garrett unlocked the door to apartment 5-A and flicked on a lamp.

  The place looked like a very organized junk museum. Stacks of newspapers and magazines and books and last month’s’ mail were piled in orderly columns everywhere.

  Curio cabinets were crammed with knickknacks that looked like they’d all come from Ye Olde Dutch Village: miniature windmills, a kissing Dutch Boy–Dutch Girl figurine, and sailing ships inside recently polished glass bottles.

  “Grandpa?” Garrett called out. “We found the crown! Grandpa?”

  He pushed open a heavy wooden door. I heard snoring.

  Apparently, while we had been battling berserk lawn mowers and the crazed statue of King Jagiello, Grandpa Vanderdonk had been grabbing a nap.

  In the darkness, I could make out the scrolled back of a chair pulled up to a desk in the turret window. A tuft of white hair peeked up over the top of the chair. It rose and fell in time to the snores.

  A very cool map was hanging on a nearby wall: It showed what’s underneath Central Park. All the pipes and water tunnels in the field drainage system that had been installed when the park was first built. They carried off excess rainwater and turned the swampy marshlands in the middle of Manhattan Island into a forest filled with streams and lakes.

  “Grandpa?” Garrett jostled the chair.

  “Humph?”

  “We’re back. We found the crown!”

  Something large shifted in the seat of the chair. Wood creaked.

  “Ah! Well done, Garrett. Well done, indeed!”

  The old man swiveled around in his chair.

  Grandpa Vanderdonk was huge. In fact, he barely fit between the ample arms of his three-foot-wide perch. He was dressed in a puffy-sleeved black nightshirt with a napkin-sized white collar winging out over both shoulders. He had a bulbous nose, rosy cheeks, a curling white mustache, and a bearded chin.

  “Welcome, Miss Van Wyck!” he said with a twinkle in his coal-black eyes. “Did you enjoy your adventures this evening?”

  “Um, I guess. Once I survived them.”

  “Indeed! Once you survived. Oh, ho. Very good. Very jolly. Very jolly, indeed. I imagine you must have questions?”

  “Maybe one or two.”

  More like one or two hundred.

  “They know Nikki is working with us,” said Garrett.

  Grandpa curled a finger through his mustache as he considered this new information. “Indeed?”

  “We ran into Brent Slicktenhorst outside the Hunters’ Gate. He’s this snotty kid working with the legions of Lorkus. Nikki told him she’d joined up with us.”

  Grandpa nodded slowly. “Garrett? Willem? I wonder if Nikki and I might have a moment alone?”

  “Of course,” said Willem.

  He and Garrett left the cluttered study. Grandpa Vanderdonk gestured toward a footstool.

  “Please. Make yourself comfortable. Where to begin? Where to begin?”

  “Well, if you don’t mind, how about the statues? Did they really come to life tonight?”

  “Ah! Good question, a most excellent query.” He cleared his throat. “Yes. The statues in Central Park do, indeed, come to life at night.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Then how come the police don’t report them missing when they leave their pedestals?”

  “Well, Nikki, bronze is an alloy: a metal made by combining two or more metallic elements—in this instance, copper and tin. Therefore, all the bronze statues possess a certain duality. Their essence can roam free while their shells remain behind.”

  I gave that a second to sink in.

  “Okay … So why did King Jagiello want to kill us?”

  “Sadly, the king and several other statues in the park have allied themselves with the Lorkus faction.”

  “And, um, you guys are with the Krolls?”

  “That’s right,” said Grandpa Vanderdonk. “The rumor is that Loki …”

  “The little guy with the red beard?”

  “Ah, you met him this evening as well?”

  “Yep. His pony, too.”

  “Beware of that one, Miss Van Wyck. Loki is a trickster.”

  Duly noted.

  “We’ve heard word that Loki has promised King Jagiello a new perch up on Vista Rock, the cliff and castle he now stares at enviously from his location down near the shores of Turtle Pond.”

  “They promised him Belvedere Castle?”

  Grandpa nodded. “I trust Balto dealt with the Polish king swiftly?”

  “Yes. But when I first met Balto, he looked like a real dog.”

  “Indeed. For Balto is given that special power by virtue of his position as the most popular statue in the park. I am grievously saddened that some of the others have sided with Loki. Now they must live with the consequences of that choice.”

  “But how can they do that?”

  “Indeed. Have they no shame, no sense of loyalty?”

  “No, I meant, how can they live?”

  “Ah! Elementary, actually. They are permeated by the irrepressible life force that radiates throughout Central Park after sunset, when the air has cooled and the atmospheric interference from the ozone layer is lessened.”

  “Hunh?”

  Sorry. This was way above what I remembered from seventh-grade science.

  “Nikki, do you ever pick up a.m. radio stations from far-off cities once the sun has
gone down?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, a similar principle applies. Tell me—are you familiar with the term kabouter?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a Dutch word. It’s what we call the magical creatures who live in the forests back home in the Netherlands.”

  I must’ve blinked like a billion times. “Magical creatures?”

  “Oh, yes. Very magical. Kabouters are wee people, about yea high.” He held his hand about three feet above the floor. “They’re quite similar to Ireland’s leprechauns and the Scandinavian nisse. They’re not exactly elves or dwarves, although they are, of course, related.”

  “Of course.”

  I didn’t know what else to say because I had just learned something about Central Park I guarantee you won’t find in any guidebook: It has magical little “wee people.”

  Chapter 13

  “You see,” said Grandpa Vanderdonk, “centuries ago, some very wise Dutch settlers brought kabouters with them when they sailed to these shores, knowing the magical creatures to be very helpful around the home, in the workshop, and on the farm.”

  I just nodded. Screaming would have been rude.

  “In fact, the colony of New Amsterdam would have failed if not for the aid of the clever kabouters. Why, I’d go so far as to say that without them, there would be no New York City! Incredible creatures, kabouters. Live to be one hundred, one hundred and fifty.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Oh, no. Not at all. This one fellow—Thor he was called—made it all the way to one hundred and ninety-nine. Anyway, so much excess life force courses through their small bodies that, at night, it overflows and animates inanimate objects, such as statues. Nikki, do you know why Central Park was originally created?”

  “Sure: as an urban oasis. To make the crowded city more livable.”

  “Indeed, indeed. It was also designed to be a sanctuary.”

  “For birds?”

  “And kabouters. You see, when New Amsterdam was young, this island we now call Manhattan was mostly forest and farmland. As the city grew, serious steps had to be taken to insure that the wee people would be guaranteed a woodsy home for all time. And so it came to pass that, under the influence of some very wealthy Dutch merchants, Central Park was created as a perpetual nature preserve for …”