The rest of the drive was fairly quiet. Dad stretched out in his seat and fell asleep—his snoring getting louder and louder until Mom finally reached around the seat and poked him in the ribs.
Nick stared out the window. Once they left the city, the countryside consisted primarily of valleys, villages, and fields. Most of the houses they passed were small, with men in shorts and long white shirts and women in colorful skirts standing outside or working in the fields. A few of them looked up as the car passed by, and Nick waved. Many of the people smiled and waved back.
Over time, the valleys turned to small mountain ranges, and the fields were replaced by forests so thick Nick had never seen anything like them. Brightly colored birds filled the trees, and once he could swear he saw a monkey with curious dark eyes watch them drive beneath the branch it was perched on.
Despite his big breakfast, Nick’s stomach was rumbling by the time Mr. Jiménez turned off onto a muddy road so narrow the trees and bushes on each side scraped against the car.
As the tires bounced and jostled over the uneven ground, Nick’s dad woke up with a snort. “Are we there?” he asked, rubbing his eyes and looking around.
Mr. Jiménez shifted the vehicle into low gear and started up a hill so steep Nick didn’t think they were going to make it. Mom dropped her knitting and grabbed the handle above her door with a concerned look. But a moment later they reached the top of the hill safely, and six or seven trucks and cars, along with twice that many tents, came into view.
At the sound of the arriving car, several men stepped out from one of the larger tents. Two of the men waved, but the third—a tall man with weathered skin and a dark, V-shaped beard—only glared.
Nick couldn’t wait to get out of the car and stretch his legs. As soon as the doors were opened, though, the heat and humidity hit him. After the air-conditioned interior of the car, the rain forest felt like stepping straight into a hot shower. His shirt began sticking to his back before he even got out.
Angelo took off his glasses to wipe away the fog that had formed on the lenses.
After the humidity, the second thing Nick noticed was the noise. From all around them came a constant blast of chirping, buzzing, and tweeting—as though the trees were filled with thousands of tiny violinists and horn players. Clouds of insects swarmed the air around their heads and faces.
“This will take some getting used to,” Mom said, slapping at her arms.
One of the men from the tent hurried over with a can and said something in Spanish. Mom closed her eyes and raised her hands as the man sprayed her arms, legs, and face. “It’s insect repellent,” she said as the man sprayed each of them. “He says it’s much stronger than the stuff we brought with us.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Carter said. “I’ve got my own insect repellent. It’s called stinky gas.”
The man spraying them must have understood. He smiled and fired off more quick Spanish that made Nick’s mom laugh.
“What did he say?” Carter asked.
Angelo grinned. “He said the jaguars like to eat smelly boys.”
Nick felt another little twinge of jealousy that his mom and his friend shared something he didn’t.
As the men began untying their luggage, Mr. Jiménez led them toward the tents. “Allow me to show you around.”
Nick noticed Angelo quickly shove his papers and DNA tester into his backpack. “Don’t mention anything about my equipment,” Angelo whispered. “I don’t want them to know what I’m doing until I get my results.” Apparently Mr. Jiménez hadn’t discouraged him from his theory.
“Here is the dining area,” Mr. Jiménez said, leading them to a large tent. Through the mesh-covered door, Nick could see a heavyset man working over several hissing gas stoves. “Breakfast is served promptly at seven. Lunch and dinner are a little more flexible. You eat when you can, depending on your work schedule.”
“Tell me we didn’t miss lunch,” Carter said, sniffing the air.
“I’m afraid you did,” Mr. Jiménez said. “But Dr. Canul has something special planned for you for dinner.”
He led them past several smaller canvas structures that didn’t smell nearly as appetizing. “These are the latrines. I’m afraid there are no flushing toilets. So make sure and sprinkle a little lime dust when you’re done.”
“Only the best?” Mom whispered under her breath to Dad. Dad pretended to be fascinated by a large red bird in a nearby tree.
“This is where you will sleep.” Mr. Jiménez opened the flap of a yellow tent that looked like it was made of some kind of heavy-duty plastic. “It can rain quite hard here. So you’ll want to be sure and get under cover when it starts to come down.”
Dad stuck his head inside. “There are five cots in here. We won’t all be sleeping together, will we?”
“I’m afraid so.” Mr. Jiménez chuckled. “Unless you’re planning on sleeping outside.” He pulled a rope and a plastic divider dropped down the middle of the tent. “Not ideal for a romantic getaway. But it should provide some privacy.”
He waved to the tents the men had come out of. “These are where we work. Cleaning, sorting, mapping, storage, that sort of thing. You’ll be shown where to go depending on what jobs you are assigned.”
“What do you mean, jobs?” Carter said. “I thought this was a vacation.”
“A working vacation,” Mr. Jiménez said. “Everyone here has to pull their weight. If you wanted to sit around and sip drinks with little umbrellas, you should have gone on a cruise.”
Mom frowned at Dad, and this time he couldn’t look away fast enough to keep from meeting her eyes.
Nick looked from the cars to the tents, then past them to the dark green of the rain forest. “Um, aren’t we missing something here?”
Mr. Jiménez rubbed the darkly tanned skin of his head. “What did I forget?”
“Only the whole reason we came,” Nick said. “Where are the pyramids?”
“An excellent question,” said a deep voice.
Nick turned to find the tall man who’d glared at them when they arrived staring down his long nose. Nick felt his skin go cold as the man’s unblinking eyes fixed on him.
“Everyone,” Mr. Jiménez said, “please meet Dr. Canul.”
Dr. Canul’s face was so dry and leathery it looked more like beef jerky than skin. His eyes were hard, ebony orbs set deep in his head, and the beard poking out from the tip of his chin was so wispy, it looked more like fungus than hair. If a mummy were pulled out of its tomb, unwrapped, and propped in a corner, Nick thought it would look more lifelike than the man standing in front of him.
“You are the family fortunate enough to win a trip to my excavation,” the doctor said, looking at the five of them the way an exterminator might look at a nest of especially pesky rats.
“I chose it,” Nick’s dad said. “I could have picked a cruise to the Bahamas, a beach resort, or a theme park. But I wanted to come here.”
“Splendid.” Dr. Canul pinched the bridge of his nose, as though he’d been struck with an extremely bad headache. He waved toward Mr. Jiménez. “Fetch me five hard hats.” Mr. Jiménez hurried to a tent and back with an armful of what looked like bright yellow construction helmets.
Dr. Canul handed them each a hard hat. “You will wear these at all times while on the site. I have a great deal of work to do, but I promised I’d show you around. So . . .” He waved his hands—like spiders dying in the air—and walked away.
Nick and his family stared at one another, not sure what to do, before hurrying after the man.
“As you may or may not be aware,” Dr. Canul said in a dry, expressionless voice, “Aktun was discovered in the late 1950s by a group of natives. They had no idea what they’d stumbled across. A few stones, a vase, a statue or two. They thought it was nothing more than another in a long line of ancient ruins, until Dr. Samuel Canul heard rumors and realized what the find might actually mean.”
“Canul,” Nick said. “Was he .
. .”
“My father,” Dr. Canul said. “I come from a long line of noted archaeologists.” He began climbing up a steep, rocky slope covered with vines, ferns, and moss. “Of course, my father recognized at once that the ruins were, in point of fact, quite possibly one of the greatest finds of the last thousand years. Without putting too fine a point on it, they could be to Mexico what Giza is to Egypt.”
Nick rolled his eyes. Clearly the man had a seriously inflated ego. “No offense,” he said, trying to keep up, “but isn’t that a little bit of an exaggeration?”
Dr. Canul stopped halfway up the hill and spun around, brows pulled so low that his eyes looked like twin caves dug into his face. “It most certainly is not. Do you realize that we could be uncovering the temples of two of the most powerful gods in Mayan lore? The secrets hidden here could unlock clues revealing that my ancestors were the most advanced civilization in the world.”
Angelo opened his notebook. “Are you saying you’re related to the Mayans who built Xma’ Su’tal Hats’utsil?”
Dr. Canul raised his chin. “Not just related. I am a direct descendant of Mayan royalty.”
Nick’s mother and father caught up with the rest of the group, huffing and gasping for air. “Do we really need to climb all the way to the top?” Dad asked. “We’re still adjusting to the elevation.”
“No, you do not,” Dr. Canul said. “You may go back anytime you want. In fact, feel free to return to wherever it is you came from. It certainly won’t bother me.” He turned and began climbing again.
“Maybe you guys should go down and rest,” Nick said.
Mom put her hands on her hips and charged up after the archaeologist. “If that pompous, pointy-nosed dirt digger thinks I can’t keep up with him, he’s got a big surprise coming.”
Dad bent over and sucked in a big breath before following her. “What she said.”
Nick, Carter, and Angelo hurried after the doctor. “What kinds of secrets do you think are buried here?” Angelo asked.
Dr. Canul tugged the straggly hairs on the end of his chin. “We’ve barely uncovered a fraction of this site, and already we’ve discovered that these pyramids and the structures surrounding them are a calendar so precise, it is as accurate as anything we have today. We’ve also discovered a temple, an amphitheater designed to stage elaborate religious ceremonies, and a star chart tracking everything from the cycles of the moon to the winter and summer equinoxes.”
He stopped at the top of the hill near a large, flat rock and turned to look at a stone building several yards away.
“I think you left something out,” Angelo said.
Dr. Canul’s dark eyes fastened on him. “What would that be?”
Angelo walked to the flat stone, set his backpack on top of it, and said, “Aktun also happens to be the site of some pretty bloody sacrifices.”
Nick was barely listening. He’d assumed they’d hiked all this way to reach the pyramids. But other than the flat rock and the stone building, there was nothing to see. “What was the point of coming up here?” he asked, searching all around. “Where are the pyramids?”
Dr. Canul smirked. “You’re standing on one of them.” He waved a hand. “Welcome to the pyramid of the sun.”
It took Nick a minute to understand what the doctor was saying. In his mind, he’d been picturing the Mayan pyramids to look just like the Egyptian pyramids he’d seen in hundreds of movies and images—huge, smooth stones piled up like a giant’s building blocks. It had never occurred to him that Aktun might be covered in centuries’ worth of plants and dirt.
Once he realized that, it became clear that they had just climbed one of the very pyramids he’d been searching for. The hill opposite them had to be the second pyramid. Nick looked at the space they were standing on, now seeing how flat and uniform it was. Which meant the stone Angelo was standing beside was . . .
“That’s an altar, isn’t it?” he said, walking closer. “One of those things they did sacrifices on.”
“Among other things,” Dr. Canul spat. “And I would appreciate it if you would remove your backpack from a very sacred pedestal.” Angelo grabbed his backpack in a hurry.
Nick looked at the square stone building at the center of the pyramid. It looked about the size of a small stone house, with pillars around the sides and a high, elaborately carved stone roof. “What’s that place?”
“A temple,” Angelo said. He pointed to a smaller building on the pyramid across from them. “That’s another one.”
Dr. Canul arched an eyebrow. “At least one of you appears to have a modicum of intelligence.”
A few minutes later, Mom reached the top, pulling Dad by the hand. “Come on, you hunk of manly stamina,” she said. “One more step and you can take a break.”
“Break?” Dad said, wheezing and coughing. “More like a heart attack.” As soon as he reached the top, he dropped like a sack of mashed potatoes. “All I have to say is, we better not be going anywhere for the rest of this trip. Because I’m not moving.”
“Guess what,” Nick said, hurrying over. “We’re on the top of one of the pyramids.” He pointed to the stone. “That’s an altar where they sacrificed people. And that thing over there is a temple.”
“I’m not surprised,” Dad said. “After climbing to the top of this, I’d be begging them to put me out of my misery.”
“What about mummies?” Carter asked. “Have you found any of those? If you did, I hope you didn’t bring them back to life. They’re almost as bad as vampires. Except they smash your head instead of sucking your blood.”
Dr. Canul rolled his eyes.
“Let’s look around,” Angelo said. He, Nick, and Carter walked across the top of the pyramid to the temple. Unlike the rest of the pyramid, the temple walls were meticulously clean.
“Someone spent a lot of time washing these down,” Angelo said, studying the intricate carvings that covered the building’s outer and inner walls.
“What’s the point?” Nick asked. “I thought all the valuable stuff was inside.”
“It is. But these carvings are actually ancient Mayan writing. They had a very advanced language.” He tapped one section of the wall. “Some of these are pictures. But these symbols spell actual words. I haven’t had a chance to study it as much as I’d like. But I think this means ‘power.’”
Carter moved down to an elaborate picture that took up nearly one entire wall. “Who’s this little dude on the tiger-skin rug?”
Angelo and Nick walked over to take a look. “It’s jaguar skin. And see the scepter he’s holding? I think that’s part of the ascension ritual they did when a prince became king. But this one’s still fairly young. That’s how the archaeologists must have figured out that his mother and father were killed.”
Angelo traced his finger along a picture of a cave leading to a river. “That’s the river of the dead that leads to the underworld. In the Popol Vuh, rivers in the underworld were filled with blood or pus.”
“Nasty,” Carter said. “But also kind of cool.”
Angelo studied the pictures. “So these people in the boat must have been his mom and dad who died. And the people standing by the jaguar skin are his aunt and uncle. The item they were guarding was supposed to be so powerful it could help you get past the undead after you died, so you could become a god.” He grinned. “But if my theory is right, the item was actually an interplanetary communicator and—”
Before he could finish what he was going to say, Nick’s mom called them. The group stepped out of the temple to find two men laying a blanket and several baskets on the ground.
Carter sniffed. “Wait, is that food I smell?”
The men opened the basket and took out massive quantities of food. Saliva filled Nick’s mouth and his stomach growled at the aroma of roasted meat and baked bread. Even Nick’s dad managed to pull himself to his feet as the men laid out plates of cheese, fresh fruit, and roasted pork, along with thick slices of what had to be homem
ade bread.
As they dug into the meal, the food seemed to mellow out Dr. Canul. “There’s something about this place,” he said, leaning back on his elbow as the sun dropped lower in the western sky. “At times I think I can feel the energy of my ancestors flowing through me.”
Nick was afraid of getting his head bitten off by the cranky doctor again, but he couldn’t help himself. “Mr. Jiménez said we should ask you about the curse. Do you think it’s real?”
The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “The greatest secrets have a way of . . . protecting themselves.”
“Do you think that’s what happened to your father?” Nick asked. “Did he discover some kind of secret?”
“Nick!” Mom said. “That’s rude.”
Dr. Canul raised his hand. “I do not know what happened to my father. He had some . . . difficulties in his later years. But Aktun is a place of power. It would be wise to be careful around it.”
Everyone nodded.
“My ancestors believed that after royalty were buried, they traveled a path through the underworld to return to the gods they were descended from. What we see as a pyramid, they saw as a mountain with a cave dug into it. The cave was the entrance to the underworld. The young king buried here was no doubt a powerful person to have two such great pyramids built for him. If there is a curse on this site, it was no doubt placed here by his aunt and uncle, who, from what we’ve learned, were charged with protecting him.”
“The curse of the mummy’s uncle,” Dad said, grinning. “I like it!”
“Do not take my warning lightly.” Dr. Canul stared at each of them. He stood and stretched. “It’s time to return to your tents.” He turned to speak to the boys directly. “Night is when the jungle’s greatest predators come out to hunt. Jaguars, wild boar, boa constrictors. I cannot warn you strongly enough, between sunset and sunrise do not leave your tents under any circumstances. Or you may not return.”
Nick heard a quiet click-click, click-click. His first thought was that some animal was trying to get into the tent. Then he realized it was coming from inside. “What’s that sound?” he asked.
Curse of the Mummy's Uncle Page 4
