Angelo folded his arms. “How did you know what the carvings said?”
“It made sense. Think about it. Like a dead end. This is the beginning. Death is the beginning.”
“You’re saying you guessed?” Carter asked around a mouthful of tortilla.
“Sure.” Nick knew neither of his friends was buying his story. He wouldn’t have in their place. But he wasn’t about to tell them he was hearing voices again.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to answer any more of their questions, because at that moment his mom and dad walked into the tent.
“How was your morning?” Mom asked, getting in line for lunch. “Your dad and I have been having a ball. We got to handle items that haven’t been touched by human hands for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”
Nick scowled. “Glad to see you missed me.”
Mom stopped with a food tray in her hands. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nick only grunted, but Carter gave him a funny look.
Dad took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm as though he’d just returned from hiking through the jungle. He took a plate and sat at the table beside the boys. “It was like being Indiana Jones. Can you imagine how it feels to hold in your hands treasures most men only dream of?”
“No,” Nick said grumpily. “I can’t. I spent the day cutting bushes. I felt more like Gardener Bob than Indiana Jones.”
“It’s your own fault,” Mom said, brushing off a bench before taking a seat. “If you hadn’t snuck out last night, you could be sorting artifacts too.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Nick said. He was done with his lunch, but the last thing he wanted to do was climb back up the pyramid and chop more vines.
He noticed Angelo looking outside the tent and realized his friend was staring at one of the industrial generators outside. He leaned close enough to whisper, “You aren’t thinking of plugging into that, are you?”
“I need to check the DNA before Dr. Canul realizes I have it,” Angelo whispered back.
“How are you going to use their electricity without them noticing?”
Angelo smiled. “I have a plan.”
“This is your plan?” Nick asked as the three boys stood outside the supply tent where all the camp’s equipment was stored. “You’re just going to walk in there and ask for an extension cord? You might as well walk straight up to Dr. Canul and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to test my DNA samples now.’”
Angelo looked around to make sure none of the archaeologists were watching. “Just keep an eye out.”
Nick knew that Angelo was anxious to prove there had been aliens in the pyramids. But he also knew they were already in trouble for sneaking out the night before. One more slipup and they’d probably get sent home and Nick would be grounded for the rest of his life. “Couldn’t you wait to test the swabs until we get back to civilization?”
“If I wait until we’re gone to find out that I didn’t get any samples of alien DNA, it’ll be too late to look for more. Once we have proof of the aliens, we can confront Dr. Canul and force him to tell us the truth. Then my mom and dad will have to let me keep studying monsters and aliens.”
“Yeah, I see confronting Dr. Canul going really well.” Carter snorted. He and Angelo stared at each other. Carter hated it when Angelo acted like he knew everything, and meanwhile Angelo wouldn’t listen to reason when he thought he was on the verge of a big discovery.
“Fine,” Nick said. “But make it quick.”
Angelo took one last look around, brushed as much of the dirt off his pants and shirt as he could, and approached the man just inside the tent. “¡Hola!”
The man looked up from the tools he was cleaning.
Angelo pointed to something inside the tent. “Necesito un cable de extension.”
The man raised his hands and said something back in Spanish. Nick didn’t bother trying to understand the conversation. He eased up to the side of the tent and peeked around the corner, feeling like the driver at a bank robbery. He was sure that any minute someone in authority would show up and ask why they weren’t on the pyramid cutting bushes.
“You know what I don’t get?” Carter said, making Nick jump.
“Geez, don’t do that,” Nick yelped. “You scared the snot out of me.”
Carter didn’t seem overly concerned. His knitting needles clicked together with a machinelike consistency. “What I don’t get is why Dr. Canul invited us here in the first place.”
“Huh?”
“Well, clearly he’s not happy we’re here. I mean, did you hear him last night at dinner? It’s like we were a bunch of tourists trampling all over his precious pyramid.”
Nick thought about that for a second. “Technically, we kind of are. I mean, Angelo knows a lot about pyramids and stuff, but we’re not archaeologists. For us, this is a vacation. For them, it’s their job.”
“Right. So why invite us in the first place? If this place is so sacred that no outsiders have ever been allowed on the site, why let two parents and a bunch of kids stick their noses in everything?”
Nick stared at his friend. It was easy to take Carter for granted. Usually he was cracking jokes or begging for food. And with all his knitting, Nick had assumed Carter wasn’t even listening to what was going on around him. Then he came up with something like this. “That’s a great question. Why did he let us come? I mean, all he had to do was tell the people booking the vacation this was a closed site. It’s kind of weird.”
Carter raised an eyebrow. “Very weird.”
Nick looked out at the camp, and another thought occurred to him. “You know what else is weird? That we’re the only tourists here. What kind of archaeology group opens their site up to people on vacation but invites only one family?”
“I got it,” Angelo said, hurrying from the supply tent. For a minute, Nick thought Angelo was saying he had an answer to Carter’s question. Then he saw the bright orange cord looped around his friend’s arm. “Now we just have to plug it into a generator, run it back to our tent, and prove aliens exist.”
Although Nick had his doubts, it was actually a lot easier than he expected. Angelo walked up to one of the camp’s generators like he knew what he was doing. He studied the connections for a moment, then plugged in the end of the cord and unreeled it back to their tent. Although several men walked by, none of them so much as glanced in the boys’ direction.
Once they were safely out of sight in the tent, Nick felt a little less stressed. “I’m surprised the archaeologists didn’t check for DNA themselves,” he said as Angelo plugged in the tester and began making adjustments.
Angelo put one of the swabs he’d taken last night into a test tube and shook it. He inserted the tube into the machine, pushed a button, and grabbed another swab. “They probably did. If I’m right, they’ve known for years that aliens built the pyramids. They’ve just been hiding it from the rest of the world.”
Carter laughed. “Why would they do that? If people knew aliens built the pyramids, they would all pay big bucks to come and see them.”
“He has a point,” Nick said. “I’ll bet the pyramids would be, like, bigger than Disneyland.”
Now it was Angelo’s turn to laugh. “Why does our government keep the alien spacecraft in that mysterious military base called Area 51 a secret? Why do my parents insist there’s no such thing as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster? Because if we all admitted monsters were real, people would freak out. There’d be panic. No one would be able to sleep at night knowing they might be beamed up at any minute.”
Nick could believe that. If his parents knew that he, Angelo, and Carter had met zombies, creatures sewn together from spare body parts, and their own evil doppelgängers, they wouldn’t let them out of the house until they were thirty. “You think they’re throwing away the evidence then?”
“Nope,” Angelo said, putting another tube in the tester. “The whole reason governments keep places like Area 51 is to try to
figure out how the aliens’ technology worked. None of the countries talk about what they’re doing, because they’re all competing to build their own flying saucer first.”
He pushed a couple of more buttons and watched something on the screen. “Plus, you saw how proud Dr. Canul was of being a direct descendant of the people who built the pyramids. Can you imagine his reaction if he had to admit the Mayans didn’t build them at all? The same thing goes for the Egyptians, the Chinese. Every country that’s been taking credit for building the pyramids would have to admit they had nothing to do with it.”
Angelo put the last swab into a tube, stuck it in the machine, and shut the cover. The tester began to whir softly and the screen filled with moving lines.
“Well?” Carter said, putting down his knitting. “What does it say? Were the pyramids made by aliens?”
Angelo studied the screen. “The full testing process could take a day or two. But we should know in a few minutes if there is any nonhuman DNA.”
“Can I ask you something?” Carter said, and Nick realized after a moment that Carter was talking to him, not Angelo.
Nick shrugged. “Sure. But if it’s about knitting, I’m clueless.”
“I don’t want to be nosy or anything. And you can tell me to mind my own business. But what’s up with you and your mom?”
“What are you talking about?” Nick asked.
“You seem kind of weird around her lately.”
“I don’t know. It just sucks that she and my dad get to do cool stuff while we have to pick weeds.” He hoped that would satisfy Carter and he would go back to his knitting, but Carter didn’t accept his answer.
“No. You’ve been mad at her almost since the trip started. Is it because she taught me to knit? I can stop if it’s bugging you.”
One again, Nick was amazed by how much Carter noticed when he didn’t seem to be paying attention. He glanced toward Angelo, who was adjusting something on the tester. Had he noticed too?
Carter shook his head. “He’s so gaga about the alien stuff, he wouldn’t notice a venomous snake until it bit him on the butt. So spit it out. What’s wrong?”
Nick sighed. “Have you ever wondered if your parents wished they’d never had you?”
“Dude, I don’t have to wonder.” Carter laughed. “Every time I leave a mess on the table or stink up the bathroom, my mom goes, ‘Tell me why I had you again?’”
Nick tried to smile, but the words hit a little too close to home. Clearly Carter’s mom was joking. But what if Nick’s mom really felt that way? “I keep thinking about how my mom speaks Spanish and I never knew it. And she seems to be having such a great time here. I forget that she had a whole other life before I came along and changed all that. It’s not like we have all that much in common either. I like video games, anime, and monsters. She hates all those. And I never thought to ask about what she likes.”
He looked down at his hands, realized they were clenched into fists, and finger by finger forced them to uncurl. “I don’t mind that she taught you to knit. In fact, it’s pretty cool. But what if she wanted to teach me how to knit, or speak Spanish, or whatever else she’s into, and I just never paid attention? Maybe she wishes she could take it all back and never have me in the first place. So she could keep living the life she had.”
Carter stared at him. “Dude, you can’t really think your mom doesn’t love you.”
“Of course she loves me,” Nick said. “She has to. But what if she doesn’t like me?”
The DNA tester beeped and Angelo pulled a strip of paper out of the box.
“Well?” Carter asked. “Did you find hair from E.T.’s missing toupee?”
Angelo slumped and ran his hand over his face. “No. Nothing.”
“Maybe the tests were wrong,” Nick said.
Angelo sighed from his cot. They’d spent the four hours since his test cutting weeds, and he still seemed as depressed as when the results had come back negative. “The tests aren’t wrong. The machine found several traces of DNA. All human.”
“What if it’s not working right?” Nick said. “Try it on us. We can be one of those—what do you call the people scientists use to compare to?”
“A control group.” Angelo rolled off his cot. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.” He took out four swabs, wiping one inside Nick’s mouth, another in Carter’s, and a third on his hard hat. “See if you can find a hair or something of your mom’s.”
Nick went into the other side of the tent and came back with a strand of hair too long to be his dad’s. “I found it on her brush.”
Angelo put each of the swabs and hair samples into test tubes and put them in the machine. The three boys watched anxiously as the machine buzzed and whirred. Several minutes later, it beeped.
Angelo pulled out the strip of paper and shook his head. “It’s working fine. See, it even knows you and your mom are related.”
Carter sat on his cot, adding pockets to his serape. “Maybe you’re just a lousy detective. I saw this TV show where the cop totally checked in the wrong places for DNA. His boss was like, ‘That’s it, dude! You’re back on crosswalk duty.’”
“Stop it,” Nick hissed. “You’re not helping.”
“What? I’m saying maybe he didn’t, you know, test for DNA in the right places. There could be tons of alien DNA. You have to find out where they brushed their teeth or took a—”
“Stop.” Angelo rubbed his eyes. “I guess I can try a few more swabs once this batch of testing is complete. It’s just, I was so sure that if I rubbed the altar and the places you would have touched walking up and down the tunnels, I’d find at least a trace of alien DNA.” He kicked his backpack. “I have to admit I might have been wrong. It’s possible aliens didn’t build the pyramids after all. I guess after this trip you guys will have to hunt monsters without me. You can have my notebook if you want.”
Nick hated seeing Angelo so depressed. “You know,” he said, “there’s one thing we haven’t tested.”
“The outhouses?” Carter asked. “Because if I was an alien, that’s totally where—”
“No,” Nick said. “We’re not going on a search for alien poop. I don’t care how famous it would make us. The thing we haven’t checked is whatever those men were carrying out of the pyramid last night.”
For the first time since his results had come back negative, Angelo looked interested.
“We have no idea what was in the boxes,” Carter said.
“No. But we know someone who might.” Nick pulled on the shoes that he’d kicked off earlier. “My mom and dad have been indexing everything that came from the site. All we have to do is see what has shown up in the last twelve hours.”
Angelo grabbed his notebook and a pack of swabs. “Great idea. Let’s go.”
Outside, the sun was beginning to set and people were finishing their work and putting things away. The rain forest was as noisy as ever, and Nick could almost imagine they were walking past cages at some tropical zoo.
“What if nothing new has shown up?” Carter asked as the boys walked through the camp.
“Then we’ll know they’re hiding something,” Angelo said.
As soon as Nick smelled the aroma of roasted corn and grilled meat, he knew where he’d find his dad. Sure enough, as soon as he stuck his head inside the meal tent, he saw his parents. Mom was sitting at a table, reading a paperback book by the light of a sputtering gas lantern while she ate.
Dad was back in line getting a second helping of everything. Spotting the boys, he waved. “Better hurry and get some food. We working folk build up a hearty appetite.”
Carter snorted. “Put him on weed patrol for a couple of hours and let him see what real work is like.”
“Look who’s talking.” Angelo pointed at Carter’s yarn. “You spent most of your time knitting.”
“Hey,” Carter said, holding up his finished serape. “At least I’ve got something to show for my work. And soon I’ll have a hat to go with it.”
Nick approached his mom and waited for her to look up from her book. “How’s the indexing going?” he asked.
“Good.” She smiled. “You boys aren’t still mad about being sent up to cut weeds, are you? That’s important work too.”
“It’s okay. We actually got to help translate some Mayan writing.” Carter and Angelo were watching him closely from the entrance, and he tried to wave them away. His mom was very good at realizing when he was up to something. “So, um, how often do they bring new stuff for you to look at?” he asked.
Mom took a bite of her meat. “I’m not sure. There hasn’t been anything new since we started this morning. I think they’re working on opening up some new rooms.”
“Nothing?” Nick asked, his heart pounding. “Maybe they brought in some stuff last night before you started?”
“No. Everything has a tag with where it was found and when. It helps them keep track. One of the other catalogers was commenting on the fact that there hasn’t been anything new for almost two days.” She set her book down on the table and looked from Nick to his friends. A line formed above the bridge of her nose that Nick recognized all too well. “Why are you asking these questions?”
“No reason.” Nick kissed her on the cheek and backed quickly away. “Just wanted to make sure you’re having a good time. Well, gotta go.”
“Are you going to have dinner?” Dad asked, carrying an overloaded plate to the table.
“In just a minute,” Nick said. “Dr. Canul asked us, to, uh, finish cutting a few more bushes.”
Mom looked outside. “This late? It’s nearly dark.”
“That’s why we have to hurry.” Nick waved. “Gotta get it done while we can.”
“That’s the spirit,” Dad said, digging into his meat. “Put in a good day’s work and next thing you know, you’ll be running the place.”
“Do you think she believed you?” Angelo asked as Nick came out of the tent.
“Not a chance. She knows we’re up to something. She just doesn’t know what. But trust me, she’ll be watching us close. So let’s get out of here while we can.” He started toward the pyramid of the sun.
Curse of the Mummy's Uncle Page 8
