We Are Not Eaten by Yaks

by C. Alexander London

  “Gimme that TV Guide,” Celia whispered. “We’ll make a trade for something even better than the Lost Tablets of Alexandria.”

  With that, she stood up and waved the TV Guide in the air.

  “Yoo-hoo!” she shouted out. “Ladies! We’re back!”

  The witches stood up, startled.

  “Hey!” they shouted, looking in every direction at the reflections around them. Celia was reflected over and over again on the ice, like she was on a thousand different TV screens.

  “Which one is she?” one of the witches cried out.

  “We all live in a yellow submarine!” sang the musical witch.

  “Hush up,” the leader with the turquoise headband snapped. “Navels! So good to see you again. I am happy that strange man you were with didn’t manage to kill you. We never liked him. In truth, we have never been too fond of explorers.”

  “You could have told us who he really was,” Oliver said, standing. He liked the way the ice reflected him over and over again. It was the first time in days he had seen himself. He and his sister were really dirty. You never see it on TV, but adventuring is a messy business, and adventurers don’t smell so great either.

  “Well, that wouldn’t have been any fun,” the leader answered.

  “I wanna rock and roll all night! And party ever-y day!” the singing witch sang.

  “You see what kind of entertainment we’re stuck with?” the leader said.

  “That’s why we’re here,” Celia added. “We’re willing to make a trade with you.”

  “But there are no Lost Tablets of Alexandria. That was our deal.”

  “We’ll make a better trade,” Celia said. “You’re bored? What I have here”—she held up the TV Guide—“is a Lost Tablet of Entertainment!”

  The witches gasped, and leaned in toward the walls of ice, looking at the TV Guide. Corey Brandt was on the cover, peering over the top of his Agent Zero sunglasses.

  “What is this magic?”

  “This is a list of everything that is, was, and will be on television. This will tell you where to find Love at 30,000 Feet—for real. You can read plot summaries, you can read interviews with the stars.” She looked at the witch who liked music. “There’s also music television. Twenty-four hours of music videos.”

  “Rock and roll all night?” the witch sang quietly. The leader rolled her eyes.

  “Yeah,” Oliver said, grabbing the TV Guide from his sister. “And”—he spoke to the leader—“there are cooking shows. So many cooking shows. You could learn how to make deadly yak soufflé. Poison marinated snake casserole. Toxic beetle barbecue. The possibilities are endless. Celebrity Whisk Warriors. Ten Ton Taco Challenge.”

  “I like tacos,” the leader said.

  “Aren’t you tired of the same old recipes? The same old yak butter stew.” He waved the TV Guide in the air. “Corey Brandt shares his favorite desserts.”

  “Sunset High,” the witches murmured. Even witches in Tibet had crushes on Corey Brandt as a vampire. It was Oliver’s turn to roll his eyes.

  The leader thought a moment. She tapped her foot on the ground. She looked back at her companions, who nodded eagerly at her. “One moment please.” She gathered the witches around her in a huddle. They chatted and whispered and screeched and consulted.

  “Ladies,” Celia said, pointing at her father on the ground. “We’re running out of time over here.”

  Finally, the leader turned around and puffed her chest out like she was about to give a long speech.

  “Okay,” was all she said, and she nodded. One of the witches went over to Dr. Navel and fed him a greenish liquid from a small clay pot. He coughed and his eyes fluttered. Oliver and Celia stepped out from their hiding places and came into the clearing. Oliver handed over the TV Guide, and the witch opened it, her eyes wide.

  “Cooking with Carl,” she read excitedly. “An All-Day Meat-a-thon!”

  “Oooh . . . Meat-a-thon!” The other witches rushed to her and gathered around as they walked off into a thick mist.

  “Celia . . . Oliver?” their father croaked, sitting up. His voice was scratchy and his head seemed to float on his neck, like he was dizzy.

  “We’re here, Dad,” Celia said, rushing to him. “We’re okay.”

  “You’re alive,” Oliver explained. “The witches like cooking shows.”

  His father smiled up at him with no idea what his son meant or where, exactly, they were.

  “We’ll explain later,” Celia said, hugging him. She pulled back and looked him in the eyes. “Once we get cable.”

  Their father laughed, but his laughter didn’t last long. His jaw dropped and his face went pale again. For a second Celia thought that their father was about to pass out, that the witches had lied, but she followed his gaze around and saw Sir Edmund and the rest of the Council surrounded by guards. They blocked the entrance to the cave.

  “You’ve still lost the bet,” Sir Edmund said. “There are no tablets, and therefore, you will give up the title of Explorer-in-Residence and your children will become my slaves. Accounts will be settled at the Ceremony of Discovery.”

  He snapped and there was a roar, a rumbling, and a thwomping sound as the wind whipped in all directions. Snow swirled around the cave and the earth shook, like a demon was about to break free from the ice.

  Instead, a large cargo helicopter with two spinning rotors popped up from below and hovered alongside the mountain. Its back hatch opened, settling onto the ground, and the Council, the guards and Sir Edmund climbed aboard.

  “SEE YOU BACK AT THE CLUB!” Sir Edmund shouted over the roar of the helicopter. “THIS IS FAR FROM OVER!”

  With that, the helicopter closed its hatch and peeled off into the night.

  Oliver, Celia and their father were alone on the side of the mountain, high in the Himalayas.

  Well, not entirely alone.

  A mother yeti stood to her full height on a boulder right above the Navels and roared. “Sorry I shot at you!” Oliver called out.

  “Shhhh!” Celia snapped.

  “It’s okay, guys,” their father said. “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  36

  WE DON’T DO “DERRING-DO”

  Professor Rasmali-Greenberg declared that the Ceremony of Discovery would take place a month later. Everyone was excited to hear the Navels’ tale of courage, danger and derring-do, which is just another way of saying courage.

  Celia never understood why explorers had to use such weird words, and ever since getting back from Tibet, she had been spending more time with explorers than ever. For the past month, explorers had been pouring into the apartment on the 4½th floor asking Oliver and Celia to “debrief” them, which is just another way of saying “tell them.”

  “What was it like to meet the Oracle of Dorjee Drakden?” they asked.

  “How did you survive the Poison Witches?” they begged.

  “Did you really feed Frank Pfeffer to a yak?” they winced.

  Oliver had to explain over and over that the oracle was just a kid, except when he was a crazy hissing monk, and that the Poison Witches just wanted some new recipes, and that no, Frank Pfeffer was not eaten by a yak. “Yaks don’t eat people.”

  “Oh,” all the explorers said, disappointed.

  “It was a yeti,” Oliver corrected, and the explorers brightened. Celia rolled her eyes at her brother. It looked like he enjoyed telling the story, like it was something that happened on television to some other kids. Like it had been fun.

  “You’re turning into an explorer, you know,” she said.

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  “Am not!”

  “Are too plus infinity.”

  Celia always got him with that one.

  “But how did you escape the yeti?” the explorers begged to know. “Why didn’t she eat you?!”

  “We will have a full debriefing at the ceremony
tonight!” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg interrupted. “The children will tell you all you want to know about their brave escape from the yeti and how they came to lose the wager with Sir Edmund. But for now, please leave them to watch their television in peace.”

  He smiled at the twins as he ushered all the explorers off the 4½th floor. Oliver and Celia were finally alone.

  “What’s on?” Oliver said, turning back to their brand-new TV. It was a big flat-screen and it had simply been there when they got back. It even had a bow on the top of it, but there was no note telling them who gave it to them. They had barely turned it off since getting home, even though they still didn’t have cable. Their father didn’t want to install cable if he was getting kicked out of the club in a few hours for losing the bet with Sir Edmund. The twins knew that they would have to surrender to Sir Edmund at the same time, and become his slaves for the rest of the summer. That was not going to happen.

  They were going to run away for real this time.

  They hadn’t told anyone about the prophecy and they didn’t want to. If anyone believed that they were destined to become great explorers, they’d never be left alone. Their father would make them search the world looking for clues and Sir Edmund would chase them to who-knows-where to find the Lost Library and whatever time they didn’t spend on mountain peaks or in the deep sea, they would spend “debriefing” people. They’d never have time to watch TV again.

  That’s why they planned to run away later that night. A new backpack was packed with clothes and snacks and a fresh issue of TV Guide. But they didn’t want to leave before they knew what would happen to their dad. His part of losing the bet with Sir Edmund was losing the title of Explorer-in-Residence and getting kicked out of the club. Oliver and Celia didn’t want to leave before they knew where he would be living. They’d have to check in on him from time to time, of course. He was their father, after all.

  “We’ll leave after the Ceremony of Discovery,” Celia said, even though she didn’t want to go. She knew they would have to tell everyone how they escaped from the angry yeti. But it would be worth it to know that their dad was okay. As usual, Oliver agreed.

  Just as they settled in to their last hours in front of the TV, Professor Rasmali-Greenberg and their father burst back into the apartment.

  “I understand if you still want to demand answers from the airline, but I fear you will not get anywhere,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg was explaining to a frustrated Dr. Navel. “I promise I am on your side, but consider the facts, Ogden. If your wife arranged for your mid-flight departure, pursuing the matter might only put her in danger. And if this Council is as powerful as your children claim, they will certainly be working to cover everything up anyway. You realize, of course, that Sir Edmund has denied everything. And Choden Thordup has vanished. I can’t believe she was really Janice McDermott. The disguise was perfect. Now I am left with no proof and a large green statue of a toothpick. I cannot go around calling Sir Edmund a liar without evidence.”

  “And why not?” Celia interrupted their conversation. She pressed mute on the TV.

  “Hey,” Oliver snapped at his sister. “I was watching that!”

  She had only pressed the mute button because they were watching an Agent Zero rerun that she didn’t care about. It was the one where Agent Zero has to escape from a floating casino that was really a nuclear submarine. Oliver watched without sound while Corey Brandt slid upside down across a wire connected to the shore. The sub was rapidly sinking and he was in danger of being dragged under into the dark waters of the Aegean Sea.

  “It’s gonna break,” Oliver told the TV, and just like that, the wire snapped and the camera zoomed in on Corey Brandt’s face looking surprised. “Told ya,” Oliver said, and then turned to listen to Professor Rasmali-Greenberg answering Celia.

  “I understand your anger, Celia,” the professor said warmly, “especially after what you say Sir Edmund put you through in Tibet, but there are larger concerns here. You cannot begin to understand the pressures that prevent me from taking action even if I know what is right and what is true.”

  “Pressures!” Celia exclaimed. “Pressures!! Have you ever been thrown out of an airplane and fallen over a waterfall and been chased by angry warriors and Poison Witches and rescued by weirdo gods disguised as little monk children?! Have you?!”

  “Well, actually, dear, one time, I—”

  The professor was interrupted by a knock on the door. Professor Eckhart and his monkey had come to tell them that they were expected at the cocktail hour before the ceremony.

  “Sir Edmund,” Professor Eckhart explained, “is beginning to brag that Dr. Navel is too much of a . . . ahem . . . coward to attend.” His monkey screeched.

  “I’ll show him a coward,” Dr. Navel said, rolling up the sleeves on his tuxedo like he was ready for a fight.

  “Be patient, Ogden,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg said. “And trust me. Come, Navel family! We have a ceremony to endure!”

  “We’re gonna stay and watch a little more,” Celia said. Their father didn’t argue. The twins did not want to stand around with a lot of explorers more than they had to.

  Once they were alone, Oliver snatched the remote back from his sister and turned the sound on.

  “I want to watch something else,” Celia said.

  “You don’t even know how to use the remote,” Oliver argued.

  “Neither do you,” she objected.

  “Do too,” Oliver said, and started pressing buttons. The screen kept changing. Different menus appeared and disappeared. Celia tried to grab it from him, while Oliver kept hitting buttons blindly and trying to keep it from his sister.

  “Give it,” she said, and grappled with him.

  “Let go,” he said as he struggled under her.

  Suddenly, the screen went black and an image of a key appeared.

  “Hey,” Celia said. “That’s—”

  “—the symbol from Mom.”

  The twins stopped wrestling.

  A new menu screen showed up.

  PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR LANGUAGE, it said.

  Oliver selected English and the screen changed again. It was a list, like a list of TV shows, but they had strange names like A treatise on the process of Alchemy and Prophecies of Dorjee Drakden, Volume 1.

  “What is this?” Oliver said.

  “I don’t know,” Celia replied.

  “It looks like the TV Guide Channel.”

  “Sort of. But that key symbol.”

  “Oh, no,” Celia said.

  “Oh, no,” Oliver said. He pressed the button that said INFO in big red letters.

  WELCOME TO TABLET 2.0, the screen read. THE COMPLETE CATALOG OF THE GREAT LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA.

  “Um,” said Oliver. “Mom slipped us the Catalog of the Lost Library.”

  “She said there were no tablets,” Celia said.

  “This isn’t a tablet,” Oliver answered. “It’s digital. So she didn’t lie exactly.”

  “But . . . but . . .” Celia objected. “Why would she do this?”

  “Because of the prophecy. She told us we had a copy.”

  “But, um . . . No! No! No!” Celia couldn’t think of anything to say, but she really felt like letting the world know that she was not happy about this.

  “What do we do?” Oliver finally asked.

  “Watch something else!” Celia demanded. “I don’t want to get involved in this. I don’t want to eat eyeballs or ride yaks or fall off anything anymore!”

  Oliver turned the TV off.

  “If we show this at the ceremony,” Celia added, “we could win the bet. It’s a copy of the Lost Tablets.”

  “But then Sir Edmund and his Council would have it. Mom told us not to let it fall into his hands. If we hand it over, everything we went through would be for nothing. And, you know, Sir Edmund’s Council might take over the world.”

  This was why their mother wanted them to keep watching TV. This was how they were supposed to
find the Lost Library in whatever lost land it was hiding. But another adventure was the last thing they wanted. Oliver hadn’t been bitten by an exotic lizard in months, and he was going to keep it that way. Whatever clues lurked in that remote control, he did not care to look for them. At the same time, they couldn’t just turn it over to Sir Edmund.

  “So we’ll have to keep it a secret,” Celia agreed. “You aren’t very good at secrets.”

  “Am too,” Oliver said.

  “Are not.”

  “Am too.”

  “Fine. You are,” Celia gave up. “Let’s go to the ceremony and get this over with.”

  When she turned to go, Oliver dropped the remote control into their getaway backpack. You never know when a universal remote that opens up the only copy of the Lost Tablets of Alexandria would come in handy.

  37

  WE’RE AT OUR LAST CEREMONY

  THE COCKTAIL PARTY before the Ceremony of Discovery was under way when they arrived. The usual cast of explorers, adventurers, scientists and globe-trekkers were talking and drinking and telling stories to each other about their latest adventures.

  As Oliver and Celia walked in, the room fell silent and everyone turned to look at them. Celia felt as if the eyes of the stuffed animals on the walls were following her. Oliver gripped her hand. Their father rushed over from where he’d been talking to Madame Xpertina, the motocross rider, and hugged them both.

  “So glad you have chosen to join us,” Sir Edmund called from the stage at the far end of the room. He was wearing a tuxedo but had pinned tons of medals and ribbons to it, awards he had received or bought from governments and armies all over the world. Some of them even looked like antiques. He couldn’t possibly have earned all those medals, Oliver thought. As they drew closer, they saw that his cufflinks bore the symbol of the scroll wrapped in chains, the symbol of the Council.

  “I am a man of my word,” Dr. Navel told him, mounting the stage and taking the attention from Oliver and Celia.

  “Good, then we’ll begin!” Sir Edmund tapped one of his medals on the edge of his sherry glass, making a loud ringing sound. “Attention, all! Attention!” he called out.