“Excuse me, Sir Edmund,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg interrupted. “I believe I will call this meeting to order. I am, after all, still the president of our esteemed club.”
“Of course.” Sir Edmund smiled and bowed a little too dramatically, like he was making fun of the professor.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg called out. “Honored guests. Tonight is a very special ceremony. Not for a long time have we had such momentous events on which to report. Our own Explorer-in-Residence, Dr. Ogden Navel, is recently returned from Tibet. As you have certainly heard, it was a journey of great importance and even greater discovery. A wager was made and tonight, we shall settle the results.”
Dr. Navel looked sadly at his children, who looked angrily at Sir Edmund, who smirked with smug satisfaction.
“The wager concerned the Lost Tablets of Alexandria,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg continued. “These tablets, as we have learned, were not found. Nor, it seems, was the land of Shangri-La. Given the terms of the wager made at this very ceremony earlier in the summer, the bet is won by Edmund S. Titheltorpe-Schmidt the Third.”
The room ignited with chatter. Explorers gasped and muttered. Some traded dollar bills and gold coins from side bets they had made with each other about who would win. Some of them clinked glasses and toasted Sir Edmund. Oliver saw that there were other people in the room who wore the symbol of the scroll locked in chains. Those were the only people cheering Sir Edmund’s victory, but there were several of them. Maybe that was why the professor couldn’t accuse Sir Edmund of anything. Maybe he had too much support from his mysterious Council inside the Explorers Club.
“You see that?” Celia whispered to Oliver.
“I see it,” he said. “We can’t let them find out about the remote control that—”
“Shhhh,” Celia cut him off. “Don’t talk about it! Secret, remember!”
“Oh, right.”
“Silence, please!” shouted Professor Rasmali-Greenberg. “As is our tradition, we shall read the terms of the wager.”
Professor Eckhart’s monkey climbed onto the stage, carrying a giant old book bound in thick leather and stitched with gold lettering. Every bet that had ever been made at a Ceremony of Discovery was written in its pages. The monkey handed it to Professor Rasmali-Greenberg, who flipped through it and scanned up the pages with his finger.
“Nosferatu . . . Necromancers . . . ah! Navels!” he read. “Per the terms of the wager, upon failure to find the Lost Tablets of Alexandria, Dr. Ogden Navel shall be banished from the Explorers Club in disgrace forever and his children—that’s you”—he looked at Oliver and Celia Navel—“shall surrender themselves to Sir Edmund S. Thitheltorpe-Schmidt the Third for every vacation from school no matter how long, be it for summer, or a holiday, or a teacher’s conference, or a temporary building evacuation because of lead paint toxins, until they turn eighteen.”
The room was silent when he finished reading.
“Lead paint?” Celia whispered.
“It’s a big problem in older buildings,” Oliver answered. “I saw a Newsline Undercover report about it.”
People looked at the floor and the walls. No one wanted to make eye contact with the Navel family.
“I have determined,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg said at last, “that it is within my power as president of the Explorers Club to change the terms of this wager.” He handed the book back to the little monkey.
“What?” Sir Edmund shouted.
“What?” Dr. Navel asked.
“What?” said Oliver and Celia.
“Our club is one of discovery and exploration, and Dr. Ogden Navel, though he has failed to find the Lost Tablets of Alexandria, discovered much in his time in Tibet. He has firsthand experience of the Dugmas, those legendary Poison Witches. He has found not one, but two yetis, and he has climbed on the slopes of the sacred mountain. His discoveries, as usual, will bring honor and glory to our club. I will not expel such an explorer because of a silly bet.”
“Silly!” Sir Edmund huffed.
“He must, of course, tell us at last how he came to escape the yeti on that deadly mountaintop in Tibet and how he came to return safely to us with his children.”
“Gladly,” Dr. Navel said. “You see, the yeti wanted to be reunited with her child, who was still in a cage down at the monastery where Oliver and Celia had left him with Frank Pfeffer.”
Everyone in the room looked back at Oliver and Celia with wonder and with dread. They were the first eleven-year-olds in the history of the Explorers Club to have fed a grave robber to a baby abominable snowman.
“As Edmund certainly knows, yetis are very protective of their children and, at first, she did not want to listen to reason,” Dr. Navel continued. “I tried to explain the situation, but she leaped down from her high boulder and knocked me nearly ten yards through the air. I hit my head again but, having missed so much of my children’s adventures up to that point, was determined not to miss any more excitement.”
“Excitement!” Celia groaned. “Was that supposed to be exciting?”
Dr. Navel kept going with his story. “I stood again and asked, politely, if the she-yeti would please just be patient. I asked in several languages. I even tried the universal language of interpretive dance, but she did not appear to enjoy my performance. She charged for Oliver and Celia. It was at that point that the parent in me overtook the scientist, and I threw the biggest chunk of ice I could at the beast. It hit her in the head. She froze with her giant claw raised above my children. ‘Leave them alone!’ I shouted. I did another dance that made my displeasure very clear. At that point, she charged at me again. After that, well, my children should tell the rest. It was their heroism that saved us all. Oliver, Celia, please come up on stage.”
Oliver and Celia groaned, but they did as they were told. They wanted to get it over with as quickly as they could.
“Well . . . um . . . the mother yeti was pretty upset,” Celia said. Why did all these people want to hear the story, she wondered. It was just a bunch of terrible stuff and boring adventures they’d survived. “She was going to kill our dad and probably us, so we, you know . . . ran over and jumped on her back.”
“I had some experience riding her, you see,” Oliver interrupted, a little excited to be in front of so many people. This is what it must feel like to be famous, he thought. Not bad. “We held on while she tossed and twisted and tried to get us off. She swatted me away and Celia started to hit her on her head. She tossed Celia off too, and all of us were scattered. She ran toward Dad, I think to eat him first. He had the most meat on him.”
“That’s gross,” Celia interrupted.
“You want to tell it better, then?”
“Yes,” Celia said. “It was right then that I remembered Pack Masters.”
“I love that show!” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg cheered all of a sudden, and then sat quietly in his seat on the stage. “It’s very educational . . .” he muttered into his hand.
“Yeah,” Celia said. “So I remembered that Pack Master Michael always says you have to establish dominance to become the Pack Master or else your dogs will run wild.”
“And I remembered,” Oliver said, “that the yeti was not a dog.” It felt good to be the one correcting his sister for a change. She just glared at him and kept going with her story.
“I stood up tall between my dad and the yeti and raised my hand and said, ‘No! Bad yeti!’ I used the voice I use when Oliver is trying to change the channel off of Love at 30,000 Feet. That stopped the yeti in her tracks.”
Some of the explorers chuckled. Oliver looked down at his sneakers.
“Then my brother came running over next to me,” Celia said, “and he stood in between me and the yeti.”
Oliver looked up again and smiled. “I shouted, ‘We are the Pack Masters!’ The yeti stood totally still. The stuff really works!”
“I told you it was a good show,” Professor Rasmali-Greenbe
rg added.
Celia kept going: “I think that’s when the yeti saw that we’re just like her, a family that wanted to look after each other. She stopped attacking. Then I remembered what Sir Edmund said at the banquet before we left for Tibet . . . how the yeti like musical theater. So we performed the only thing we both knew: the theme song from Love at 30,000 Feet.ʺ
“She must have liked soap operas,” Oliver said, “because she didn’t eat us. She grabbed us right up like it was nothing, one in each arm. I can tell you that a bear hug is nothing like a yeti hug. I thought Celia’s eyes might pop out of her head and that the noodles I ate for lunch would pop out of my stomach. She had Dad get on her back and she sped us down the mountain, back to our yak. The yak was scared at first, but yaks are braver than people, and more trusting, so the yak just went along with us back to the monastery. The guards saw us coming and ran off. No one wants to get in a fight with an angry yeti and an angry yak, not even armed guards. We set free the abbot and the little monk who was the Oracle of Dorjee Drakden. The spirit didn’t appear again, though. The little monk just thanked us and promised he’d send many blessings.”
“Of course, Frank Pfeffer was nowhere to be found,” Dr. Navel took over again. “We cannot be sure what became of him.” He coughed, though everyone knew what had become of him. Unlike yaks, yetis were not vegetarians. “Anyway, you have never seen such joy as when we opened that cage and the mother and child yeti were reunited. Even our trusty yak seemed to shed a tear at the sight.”
All the explorers laughed. Yaks were not known to be sentimental.
“It’s normal,” Celia interrupted. “We brought their family back together. Nobody likes to lose their mother.” She glared angrily at Sir Edmund.
“Yeah,” Oliver said, not noticing his sister’s anger. He was really into telling their story. He felt heroic. “The baby yeti hugged us too, just as hard as his mother did. I thought he might squeeze us to death, but he didn’t. He just wanted to play. His mother roared and he put us down. Then both of them jumped right out of the window and raced off into the snow because they were so happy to have escaped from Sir Edmund and his nasty Council.”
“Lies!” Sir Edmund shouted, while some of the other explorers wearing the symbol of the scroll in chains pulled out their cell phones and started sending angry text messages. “This is nonsense. Children could not survive an attack from an abominable snowman! And this so-called Council is a fantasy. Something from one of their cable television shows!”
“Snowwoman,” Celia corrected him angrily.
“We don’t even have cable and you know it!” Oliver added.
“I demand justice!” Sir Edmund shouted. “We had a wager! The Navels lost it! I demand my victory! I will not suffer these lies!”
“Calm down, Edmund,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg answered him, and turned back to the entire room. “I have decided on the second of the terms of the wager, concerning the children Oliver and Celia Navel. The wager stands.”
Many people in the room gasped.
“They shall surrender themselves into the service of Sir Edmund for the rest of the summer and return to his employment every vacation until they graduate from high school.”
“But he and his Council tried to kill us!” Oliver shouted. “More than once!”
“Nonsense!” Sir Edmund responded. “The boy has watched too many spy movies! Television rots your brain, you know.”
“Liar,” Oliver yelled, and tried to lunge at Sir Edmund. Celia grabbed his arm and held him back.
“Such a brat.” Sir Edmund laughed. “Now I understand why your mother decided to disappear.”
Celia let go of her brother and kicked Sir Edmund right in the shin.
“Ouch!” he shouted as he fell.
She grabbed Oliver and pulled him off the stage, running toward the exit.
“We’re running away now?” Oliver asked.
“Yes!” Celia shouted as they burst into the hallway.
38
WE ARE NOT THE KEY
THEY RUSHED PAST THE OLD portraits of explorers, up the narrow staircase under the old flags and banners from the club’s past expeditions. They sprinted all the way up four and a half flights of stairs and burst into their apartment. Oliver grabbed the backpack from its hiding place in the tunnel and Celia took a quick look around.
“At least we know where Dad will be,” she said.
“What if Mom comes back?” Oliver wondered. Celia didn’t have an answer to that. She just stood there silently. “Shouldn’t we look for her?”
“No, we shouldn’t,” Celia finally said. “She only found us again so we could find the Lost Library for her! And that’s the last thing I want to do. I’m done with adventures for good. And I am not going to be slave to Sir Edmund or his Council. Come on.”
Oliver climbed into the tunnel ahead of his sister. He had his doubts, but he couldn’t let his sister run away alone, and he didn’t want to stay behind to be Sir Edmund’s slave by himself. As they crawled away, they heard the door to their apartment burst open.
“Where are those brats?” Sir Edmund shouted.
“Oliver? Celia?” their father called out, worried.
Within a few minutes they had popped out of the tunnel into the library. They stood behind the big statue dedicated to Frank Pfeffer and Janice McDermott.
“Ugh,” Oliver said. “I don’t want to ever see that thing again.”
“Okay,” Celia said. “So we’re going to leave this room and run right for the door. Don’t stop for anything. Ready?”
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
“Going somewhere?” a voice called out to them. They turned and saw Professor Rasmali-Greenberg sitting in one of the high-backed chairs facing the fireplace.
The professor stood slowly, setting down a small leather book. “I fear that the story of two children running away to seek their freedom only ends happily on television. In real life, I think you’ll find that you shall meet a terrible fate on your own.”
“More terrible than becoming slaves to Sir Edmund?” Celia snapped.
“Sir Edmund will never let you escape,” the professor responded, shaking his head sadly.
“You could have done something to help us,” Celia said. “You could have changed the bet like you did for Dad.”
“I suppose I could have, Celia. But I did not.”
“Why not?” Oliver demanded.
“Well,” the professor said. He sighed and gestured for the children to sit down. Neither of them moved. “Okay, fine. Stand if you like.” He leaned on the armrest of the chair. “I have not been honest with you for quite some time. You see, I know about the Council and I know what your mother gave you in Tibet.”
“You know?” Oliver asked. “How do you know that?”
He smiled and lifted his hand. He wore a ring on his finger that had a symbol of a key on it.
“Your mother would be very proud you didn’t betray her to win the bet,” he said. “And now we need you.”
“Who needs us?” Oliver asked. “What is that symbol?”
“It is the symbol of the Mnemones.”
“What?” Oliver said. “What the heck are the Knee-Moans?”
“The Mnemones were the scribes in the Great Library of Alexandria. Whenever a ship came into port, all its books would be taken and copied by the scribes. Whenever a new land was conquered or a new discovery made, the Mnemones were the first to learn about it and to study it. They recorded all of the knowledge in the world. They wrote the tablets.
“But the leaders of Alexandria didn’t want anyone but themselves having all that knowledge. So they decided to destroy the Mnemones and their records. In the battles that followed, the library itself burned down. The books and treasures were feared lost. But they were not lost. They were hidden. Your mother has spent the past three years trying to find out where. The Council is searching too, and they will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. Your mother stayed away all this ti
me to keep you safe from them. But then she heard that prophecy from the oracle. She knows that she is not the one who is destined to find the library. You two are.”
“No,” Celia said.
“I don’t want to be a Knee-Moan,” Oliver said.
“We’re not going to find anything. We’re going to run away now, like we should have done before.”
“You can’t run from your destiny.”
“We can try,” Celia said.
“A wise poet once said that one often meets one’s destiny on the path one took to avoid it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The professor just shrugged. “If you do stay and fulfill your part of the wager, when you return from your summer job with Sir Edmund, you will have all the premium channels. Not just basic cable. Everything. Everything you could ever want to watch.”
“Everything?”
“Nature. Movies. Cooking. Soaps. The Travel Channel. Everything,” the professor said.
“No travel,” Oliver said. Celia just crossed her arms in front of her chest. She was angry that this had been hidden from them. The Council and the Mnemones and their mother were all part of some ancient treasure hunt, and Oliver and Celia were supposed to solve it for them? That was crazy. They just wanted to be left alone.
“You don’t have to find anything,” the professor continued. “All I ask of you is that you honor your father’s bet with Sir Edmund and work for him. Who knows? You might learn something useful. You might accidentally discover something, in which case, I would appreciate if you wrote it down and told me about it when you got back.” He smiled kindly. “Just like scribes.”
“Or spies,” Oliver said, a little excited.
“You want us to spy on Sir Edmund,” said Celia flatly.
“I do,” said the professor. “And after what he did to you, I would imagine you might want to spy on him also.”
“We just want to be left alone,” Celia said.
“Well, my young friend, I do not need to be an oracle to tell you that that is not going to happen. Your life is going to be an adventure whether you want it to or not. You have a choice, however, over what you do with that adventure. I suggest you take advantage of it. No matter what, you are going to have to endure it.”
We Are Not Eaten by Yaks Page 19
