“First you just barge into my home unannounced with these little monsters,” she glared at Zeke, “Then, you have the audacity to insult one of New York’s finest pies!” She dug out a heaping forkful. “I’ll show you how to enjoy fine dining!” She shoved it into her mouth. Then she downed another forkful, and another, until finally she stopped to chew. Almost immediately, her lips began to swell, her cheeks flushed red-hot, and her eyes poured tears like faucets. “Ga!” she mumbled as her cheeks and forehead swelled up like red balloons. She stumbled, then held herself up on the table.
She clutched a crystal pitcher of water in both hands and guzzled it down. “Ack!” she said, when the swelling popped her nose cast right off. It shot across the room. Underneath, she looked like a bloated frog with a plump tomato stuck to her face. A moment later, she fainted.
The chef came smashing back through the double doors, a torch in one hand, and a bowl of bananas in the other. He lit it. It burst into a curtain of flame. “Who are you?” he demanded, holding the dish overhead like he was about to throw it. “Tell me what you know!”
“Nanas!” cried Henry Junior. Guster could feel the heat on his cheeks.
The chef threw the burning bowl onto the table. The table cloth caught on fire.
“Let’s get out of here!” cried Zeke, crawling under the table to Guster’s side. Mom picked up the pork applesauce and threw the entire dish at the bananas flambé, dousing half the flames.
“Run!” she said. She grabbed Henry Junior, Guster grabbed the backpack, and they all dashed out into the entryway.
Mom looked back over her shoulder where Aunt Priscilla lay prostrate on the dining room floor. “Zeke, get my sister!” Mom cried. Zeke turned back, when the chef stepped into the entry, blocking Aunt Priscilla from view.
Guster shoved open the front door and bounded onto the porch. The Suburban was parked in the driveway where they had left it. At the far end, on the other side of the wrought iron gate, was the cream colored Cadillac. Guster skidded to a stop. Cadillac outside, maniacal chef inside, he thought. No way out.
“The plane!” shouted Mom. She grabbed Zeke by the hand and sprinted round the side of the house, Mariah hot on her heels. Guster followed, cinching the backpack tight to his back.
Braxton was in the side yard, pruning the hedges. “We’re taking Priscilla up on her offer to see the world!” shouted Mom.
“Where’s Ms. Priscilla?” Braxton asked.
“Indisposed!” said Mom.
“And we’re going without her?” asked Braxton.
“Wish we didn’t have to!” said Mom without slowing. Braxton dropped his pruning shears, held onto his cap and ran after them. Mom reached the silvery jet first, took the steps up to the door two at a time, and disappeared inside with Zeke and Mariah. Guster pounded after them. Braxton arrived last and yanked the steps upward and latched them shut like the door to an oven.
The plane was lined with velvet seats down the mid-section and a small cabin with two beds and a bathroom in the back. There was even a refrigerator. It reminded Guster of a motor home he’d been in once, but much fancier. Braxton ducked through a short door at the front of the plane and started flipping switches and twisting dials. Guster sat down on one of the seats.
The engines hummed to life. Guster stared out the window. The chef was coming toward them, a cleaver drawn, his crimson apron blowing in the jet stream. “Hurry Braxton!” shouted Guster.
“I’ve got pre-flight checks to run through. You can’t just get a bird off the ground without notice.”
There was a clank-clank against the fuselage. The chef was hacking into the plane with his cleaver. “Braxton!” cried Mom; there was a thrust and the jet lunged forward, pressing Guster into his seat.
In seconds, they were airborne.
Mom buckled in Henry Junior then flopped down in her chair, panting. “Please, everyone make sure you have on your safety belts.” Zeke undid Mariah’s while she stared out the window back at the ground below.
“So where to?” asked Braxton as he leveled out the plane.
“Somewhere far away,” Mom sighed. They could breathe, for the moment.
“Peru!” shouted Mariah, nearly jumping out of her seat.
Mom gave her a funny look. Mariah pulled a folded up printout from her pocket. “I’ve been researching it. It’s so far off the beaten path, no one will come looking for us there. I can help us find our way around.”
“Okay,” Mom said. She closed her eyes. “We can slow down a little bit. Strategize. Hide out for awhile until this blows over — but only until we can figure this all out,” said Mom. Guster could tell that the idea of knowing a little something about where they were running to was going to help Mom feel better about the whole thing. She talked about going to unfamiliar places, but when it came down to it, she seemed nervous about actually doing it.
“There’s a place there called Machu Picchu,” said Mariah. “It’s supposed to be absolutely spectacular.” She dropped the paper into Guster’s lap. He picked it up. On it was the picture of a mountain range, that, when turned on its side, looked exactly like the carved nose, chin and forehead of a very familiar face.
Chapter 7 — The Cuisine Capital of the World
Guster awoke hours later with a crick in his neck. He was exhausted. He rubbed his eyes and moved next to Mariah, who had an atlas open on her lap and the eggbeater on the seat next to her. Mom was in the cabin in the back, sleeping. “Peru is right here,” she said, pointing to a country on the western edge of South America. “Braxton says we’re going to land in a town called Cuzco, and I’ve convinced Mom that we might as well take a train or a bus from there up the mountain to the ruins.”
“She actually agreed?”
Mariah looked perplexed. “Surprising, right? I wonder if her conversation with Aunt Priscilla had anything to do with it.”
Guster looked at the map. He was never any good at geography, and now he was going to a whole new country. They’d lived in Montana before moving to Louisiana and now they were in Florida, but Peru? He wasn’t sure what to expect. “What do you know about it?” he asked.
“There are lots of jungles there, and everybody speaks Spanish,” said Mariah. It was a good thing she was there to figure all this stuff out.
He sat down next to her and picked up the eggbeater to see if he could read any of the symbols. “It just doesn’t make any sense.” he said.
Mariah nodded. “I know! It seems that whoever made this eggbeater wanted the One Recipe to be kept a secret. Even after you unlocked it, it’s still quite the puzzle.” She looked frustrated. “As near as I can tell, each of these symbols points to the location of an ingredient, with a bunch of extra instructions at the end. Look. Besides just the face and the big round fruit, there are these —”
“I can’t figure out what the chickens are for. Something about it doesn’t seem quite right, like they were carved there by mistake,” she said.
Guster frowned. He couldn’t tell what kind of fruit it was from the carving. As a clue, it was a dismal one.
“And these symbols tell us where to find the second ingredient.” She pointed to the second row of carvings:
“This looks like an island, a bear, and a barrel with a wooden handle sticking out of it. The odd thing is these baking instructions inscribed under the bear. They’re the only part written in English.”
seventy-four degrees, thirty-one minutes nineteen degrees, one minute
That clue wasn’t very clear either. Guster was no cook, but baking something for thirty-one minutes at seventy-four degrees, then baking it for one minute at nineteen degrees seemed pointless to him. Nineteen degrees was actually really cold.
“On the third row it looks like a gorilla,” said Mariah.
“The rest I can’t read. It’s in French. I think it must say what the actual ingredients are, and maybe the baking instructions.” Couldn’t the Master Pastry Chef have just written it out for them? It was going to be h
arder to figure out how to make the One Recipe than Guster thought. Especially since they had to hide their search from Mom.
In a few hours the plane began descending and Braxton’s voice came over the intercom, “Zero ten niner! Flight Squadron breaking formation and preparing to hit the tarmac!”
“Huh?” said Zeke, waking from his nap.
Braxton turned around and hollered through the open cockpit door, “Never mind, just some old Air Force talk. I used to fly the Vice President, you know.” He winked, a twinkle in his old watery eyes.
Mariah stashed the eggbeater and map away in Guster’s backpack just as Mom emerged from the cabin in the back. They flew lower and closer to the jungle-covered earth, then landed smoothly, Braxton jabbering over the radio to the flight tower. He brought the plane to a stop.
“I’ll wait here with the plane and get some shut-eye. You go on out there and stretch your legs,” he said.
Mom looked worried.
“Oh, Ma’am, there’s no sense in going straight home with all those nasty fellas running around back there in the USA. Besides, Ms. Priscilla can take care of herself indeed.”
Mom looked stern. “We shouldn’t have left her.”
“You think she would’ve come?” asked Braxton. “If anything, I’d be worried more that she’s going to give the what-for to those gents back home!”
Mom straightened herself up. “I suppose you’re right,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do for her now.”
“Here, take this,” said Braxton, removing a backpack from an overhead compartment and handing it to her. “You can put the little guy in there.”
Mom slid Henry Junior inside and zipped it halfway up so that his big round head stuck out the top. He looked pleased as pie.
Guster shouldered his backpack and Mariah led them out the hatch, down the steps and into the noisy, bustling airport. There were tourists from every country with big cameras around their necks, and shops selling brightly colored blankets. Guster couldn’t understand a word of what people were saying.
“Oh dear,” Mom said looking around. She cinched up Henry Junior in his backpack. “Stick close to each other.” Mariah grabbed onto Guster’s backpack.
“This is total Espanol-land, Mom! How the heck are we going to find this place?” said Zeke.
Before Mom could answer, a short man with weathered brown skin and bright woolen cap approached. “Would you like ride to Aguas Calientes?” he asked. He smelled strongly of salt.
“You speak English?” said Mom.
“Yes,” smiled the man. He was missing three of his front teeth, and he wore a small cob of red corn on a string around his neck. “I can show you to ruins.”
“Oh.” said Mom. She glanced around at the busy airport and hesitated for a moment. “Well… that’s what we came to see. Sure,” she said. She grabbed Zeke’s hand, probably for reassurance.
The man smiled at Guster. “You like to know about history?” he asked.
Guster nodded. He wanted to know anything that was going to get him closer to the recipe.
“I can take you there in my truck,” he said. He pointed to an old, faded orange truck parked outside on the curb, then held his palm out flat.
“Okay,” said Mom. They waited for the man to move, but he didn’t. He just stood there, his hand open.
“Oh,” said Mom, and fished a few dollar bills out of her apron pocket. She pushed it into his hand. He still didn’t move. Mom pressed another handful of bills into his hand and he sprang back to life. “Ah, the beauty of Peru!” he said with a smile, spreading his arms out to the mountains. He led them to the truck. Wooden planks nailed together formed three walls around the bed. They all jumped in the back, except Zeke, who sat up front.
The man opened the back window. “My name is Estomago,” he said. “Please be careful for the chickens.” At the front of the truck bed were five chickens, each clucking and scratching in their own individual, padded cages. “They are my children,” Estomago said. He started the truck and drove down a rough road, dodging bicyclists and busses as he went. Guster held on tight. The houses and buildings looked so different from back home. Some of them were painted bright orange or yellow, with open fronts where shopkeepers could sell their wares. In many places, there were no sidewalks. Even the road signs were strange and unfamiliar.
“This place you go to — Machu Picchu — it was built five hundred years ago by the Incan Empire,” said Estomago as he drove. “It was a place for kings and nobles to live. They had running water, magnificent stone work, and temples for worshipping the sun and moon.” Estomago tapped the side of his forehead. “The Incans were very smart. They built that city like a fortress, way high up in the mountains, surrounded by jungle, where it was very difficult for their enemies to find. In fact, it was so difficult to find, that when the Spanish came and conquered this country, no one even knew the city was there. They didn’t even find it until, mmmm, about one hundred years ago. Some people think that they were hiding treasure up there,” Estomago shook his head. “Me? I think they just wanted to be alone, so they could grow their crops close to the sun, away from everything else, where they could remain pure.”
That made sense to Guster. A fortress high in the mountains was the perfect place to hide a precious fruit.
They drove out of the city along a winding highway that went higher and higher into the mountains.
“I can only imagine what an Incan feast would taste like. By the way, you hungry?” said Estomago.
Everyone nodded, except Guster. He hadn’t eaten anything besides a handful of crackers on the plane, but he doubted Estomago could offer him anything he wouldn’t hate.
Estomago stopped the truck in a small town nestled between a ring of steep, tree covered mountains. “My friend has a shop here.” he said. He called out in Spanish toward a small roadside booth. “Lengua! Amigo! Queremos empanadas!” A short man with dark black hair and dark brown skin came to the counter. He also wore a red corn cob around his neck. He nodded and set to work. In minutes he presented the family with a steaming plate full of small meat pies.
To Guster’s surprise, they smelled quite good. It was worth chancing it, so he took a pie and nibbled on the corner. The firm crust was decent, but there was something inside between the tender meat and cheese that was just perfectly divine — a chopped hard-boiled egg. It was cleaner than any food he’d ever tasted, with a strong, almost almond-flavored yoke. “These eggs are delicious.” he said.
Estomago raised his eyebrow at Guster. “You can taste my eggs in the middle of Lengua’s delicious meat?” he laughed. “You certainly know quality! Some people have come from across the sea, just to taste one egg from my chickens.
“My friend Lengua and I are descendents of the Incan priests. And just like them, we know good flavors when we find them.”
Lengua chattered something quickly to Estomago in Spanish.
“Yes, and as my friend reminds me, Peru is the Cuisine Capital of the Americas. The best vegetables in the world grow here, so we must be careful to protect our crops and meats from cross-breeding with foreign influences,” Estomago frowned. “We have to preserve the flawlessness of the Peruvian tastes.”
Guster carefully picked out the eggs from his empanada and discarded the rest. Then he had another. They were so good, the eggs could’ve been sold in the Patisserie.
He reached for a third, when Zeke snatched it right out from under him and stuffed it in his chubby mouth. “Way better than anything those stupid chefs in red made, eh?” said Zeke.
Guster could have kicked him. First, because that was the last empanada, and the few morsels Guster had weren’t enough to feed a mouse; second because Zeke had blabbed. He’d already blown their cover once back at Aunt Priscilla’s.
Estomago squinted like he was about to ask something, then decided against it.
Mariah bought a book on Machu Picchu from the shop next door. Mom paid Lengua, and they got back in the truck. Estomago
drove them up a steep, winding road through the jungle. They drove in silence for a long time. Finally, Estomago stopped the truck where the road ended at a parking lot. “Tell me something,” he said to Mom, then glanced at Guster. “Is your interest in the great lost city of Machu Picchu purely for sightseeing?”
Guster squirmed. Something in the way Estomago said it made him feel uncomfortable.
“This was an excellent chance for a family vacation,” said Mom. She picked up Henry Junior and got out.
“Then I will wait here until you are finished,” Estomago said, “To take you back down the mountain.” His eyes fixed on Guster.
With that, they started across the parking lot toward the Lost City of Machu Picchu.
Chapter 8 — The Lost City
The lost city of Machu Picchu hadn’t been lost ever since it was found about a hundred years before Guster got there.
Now the parking lot outside the city was bustling with tourists just like the airport had been. There were several busses parked there, and a small store selling soda pop.
They followed after a crowd that went down a short, winding path, then hiked back and forth along more than a dozen switchbacks. At the end, the jungle opened up and Guster found himself standing at the top of a broad, uneven stone staircase that descended into the ruins. The city sprawled up and down over a narrow hilltop.
“Well,” said Mom, as she looked around, “it’s nice to see that this place is well-kept enough to host so many visitors.”
“Let’s check over there first,” whispered Mariah to Guster. She pointed to a lone tree growing on a grassy area in the middle of the city. Guster scanned the maze of crumbly stone walls and patches of green grass below. Plant life was sparse — only the grass and a few bushes growing amid the stone buildings. That tree was the likeliest place of all to find the fruit. Guster started down a broad staircase toward it.
“Stop right there Guster,” ordered Mom. Guster froze. “You have to stay within eyesight! No climbing things, and you must take Zeke with you.”
Evertaster Page 6
