by J
“Never mind. Let us get down to details. Pine or oak? Satin lining or velvet?” The baron clapped his hands and Louis appeared behind him. “Measure them for their coffins. And polish up my best spade.”
Louis produced a tape measure from his pocket.
“And now,” said Baron Saturday, standing up and tipping his top hat, “I must mingle with my guests. We will meet again at midnight, one hour from now. I suggest you wear black.”
As Louis took their measurements, he whispered: “You must pay the baron, weez a gift or weez your lives.”
“But we have nothing,” Lola whispered back.
“What about zat ’airy leetle boy?” suggested Louis.
“I can’t give away my brother,” said Lola, shocked.
“But your brother, ’e ’az something, does ’e not? What was ’e ’iding when ’e arrived?”
Max and Lola exchanged a nervous glance.
“Oh that,” said Lola. “It’s just an old bone, probably from a dinosaur, or something. You know what boys are like. It’s disgusting. The baron doesn’t want that.”
“Zee baron likes old things.” Louis finished measuring and stood up. “Zees bone might save you from zee graveyard.”
“It’s my brother’s favorite toy,” said Lola.
“Ask ’eem,” urged Louis. “Before eet eez too late.” He made a big show of jotting down their measurements in a notebook. “Or you weel not get out of ’ere alive.”
Lola pulled Max out of Louis’s earshot. “What should we do?”
“We’ll have to get that stupid bone off Lord 6-Dog. It’s our only chance.”
Louis popped up behind them. “Why don’t you take up some dessert for zee boy? We ’ave many specialties of New Orleans. I zeenk ’e would like zee bananas foster.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
ESCAPE IN THE NIGHT
“Bananas foster! Did you hear that?” Lola said to Max as they ran upstairs. “He said to bring bananas to Lord 6-Dog. He knows he’s a monkey! He knows who we are!”
“This is bad,” agreed Max. “Very bad.”
When they opened the door to their suite, it got worse. There were feathers everywhere.
Brown feathers.
Green feathers.
All over the floor.
“What happened?” cried Max.
“Where’s Lord 6-Dog?” cried Lola.
“Here.” A disheveled monkey head appeared from behind one of the sofas.
Lola ran over to him. “Are you all right?”
Lord 6-Dog got shakily to his feet. “Thank Itzamna thou hast returned. Thou didst miss quite a battle.”
Lola picked up a brown feather and a green feather and studied them. “Was it a battle between an owl and a parrot by any chance?”
“Just so.” Lord 6-Dog sounded disappointed that she’d guessed the scenario so easily. “The parrot was outflanked.” They looked to the perch where the bedraggled parrot sat almost comatose.
“Where did the owl come from?” asked Max.
“It was Lord Kuy.”
“Kuy was here?” Lola looked around fearfully. “What did he want?”
“He wanted the scepter of the Jaguar Kings.”
“Not him, too,” said Max.
Lord 6-Dog turned sharply. “Explain thyself.”
“We just met Baron Saturday, the owner of this hotel. He’s a New Orleans version of a Death Lord. It’s his job to dig people’s graves and escort them to the underworld.”
“And he’s going to dig our graves tonight,” added Lola, “unless we give him your scepter.”
“That cannot happen.”
“Please, Lord 6-Dog,” begged Lola.
“This guy means business,” Max agreed.
Lord 6-Dog shook his head. “It is impossible.”
“It’s all right for you,” Max exploded. “You’ve been dead already. Don’t you care about us? Is a stupid old bone more important than our lives?”
“No,” said Lord 6-Dog, “it is not. But I cannot give thee the scepter because Kuy has already taken it.”
“No!” Max groaned and fell back on the sofa.
Lola sat down heavily next to him and buried her head in her hands.
“There is trouble in the air in Xibalba,” said Lord 6-Dog. “The Jaguar Kings told me all about it. Apparently, there are mutinies brewing over who controls the Jaguar Stones. Tzelek was planning his own rebellion and had the idea to steal the scepter. It was his zombies who fired at us from the coast guard boat and sent us to the cave to find the scepter for him. But then the Death Lords got wind of his plan and called on their relative Baron Saturday to grab the scepter for them. But it seems that Kuy has beaten them all to it.”
Lola looked up. “Who’s Kuy working for?”
“Ah Pukuh, I assume,” replied Lord 6-Dog. “But he was gone before I could ask him.”
“So what happened?” asked Max.
Lord 6-Dog sighed. “I had finally bid farewell to my ancestors and was lying on the sofa to recover my strength. Stupidly, I had left the scepter in the bathroom. The first I knew of its theft was when the parrot alerted me. I flew into action, as did the parrot, but Kuy was too fast for us. Owls are rapacious hunters. He nearly killed that brave bird.”
They all regarded the little green parrot asleep on its perch. It had lost more than half its plumage in the fray, and its pink dimpled skin, like raw chicken, shivered in the breeze from the ceiling fan.
“Does he look familiar to you?” asked Lola.
“Never mind the parrot. We have to get out of here,” said Max.
“My thoughts exactly,” said Lord 6-Dog.
“But how?” said Lola. “The doors and windows are locked. The baron has security everywhere. Could we get a message to Lucky?”
Max shook his head. “He’ll be under the Gulf of Mexico, halfway back to San Xavier. We have to get out of here right now!”
The parrot opened its eyes. “Cahokia!” it said.
“Did anyone else hear that?” asked Max.
Lola and Lord 6-Dog were staring at the parrot.
“That mangy coat,” said Lola. “Those bald patches. It’s Thunderclaw! I know it is!”
“Don’t crack up on me,” said Max. “I know how much you loved that chicken. But you saw Thunderclaw plummet into Xibalba with Chan Kan.”
Lord 6-Dog backed away. “Thunderclaw? The Chee Ken of Death? The mighty Fowl of Fear? The bird that bestrides the halls of Xibalba with claws like obsidian razors?”
“We made that up,” confessed Max. “It was the night you and Lady Coco became howler monkeys. You needed bodies, and you were giving us a hard time, so we said that stuff about Thunderclaw to frighten you. I’m sorry.”
“Thou hast no need to apologize, young lord. It was no deception. This bird is a brave and noble warrior. He fought beak and claw tonight, and I am honored to have fought alongside him. He is truly the embodiment of the mighty Thunderclaw.”
“I’d recognize him anywhere,” agreed Lola.
Max looked like his head might explode with frustration. “Please don’t waste our last minutes on earth by talking about a stupid bird who—” He was cut off by an unearthly shriek a sounded like a demented banshee. He had heard that racket before. And it came from the little yellow beak of the parrot. His mouth dropped open. “It is Thunderclaw.”
Lord 6-Dog clapped his hands. “If I can reappear as a howler monkey, why should not the Chee Ken reappear as a parrot?”
Lola tickled the parrot under his chin, and he rippled what was left of his tattered feathers with pleasure. “Did Chan Kan send you?” she asked him.
“Cahokia,” he repeated, nodding his head.
“I knew it!” Lola kissed the parrot’s bald little head. “Chan Kan is trying to help us. I told you he was a good guy, Hoop!”
“I wish he’d sent us a helicopter instead of a parrot.” Max looked at the bird. “Can you get us out of here?” When he nodded again, Max almost kissed him, too. �
�Show me.”
The parrot flew to the top of a large armoire.
“Cahokia!” he said.
“That’s not Cahokia, it’s a cupboard,” said Max.
“Give him a chance.” Lola threw open the doors of the armoire. It had drawers down one side and shelves down the other, with a hanging space in between. “Maybe it leads to Cahokia like that wardrobe in those Narnia books my dad told me about.”
“I hate to break this to you,” said Max, “but they’re fiction.”
Still, he stood next to Lola and inspected the inside of the armoire. It was empty except for a few old coat hangers and a spider weaving a web in one corner.
Thunderclaw landed on Lola’s shoulder. He seemed to be scrutinizing the inside of the armoire as well. With a squawk, he flew inside and began pecking at the base.
“Must be spilled birdseed,” said Max in disappointment. “We haven’t got time for this.”
“Wait!” said Lola.
“I believe the fowl has found something.” Lord 6-Dog peered into the armoire. “There’s an indentation.” He felt around with his monkey fingers, and a small square of wood sprang open, revealing a secret box built into the base. He pulled out an old-fashioned key. “Is this what you were looking for?” he asked Thunderclaw.
The parrot took the key in his beak and flew across to the balcony doors.
“Got it,” said Lola. As quietly as she could, she unlocked the doors, opened the shutters, and edged outside. “All quiet out here,” she whispered to Max and Lord 6-Dog. The three stood on the balcony contemplating the distance between them and the street beyond the inn.
They heard church bells strike twelve.
Someone banged from the hallway. “Ouvrez la porte! Open zee door!” came Louis’s voice.
Thunderclaw flew into the big old oak tree and sat there looking at the group expectantly.
“He wants us to follow him,” said Lola.
Max was sweating with fear. “We’re too high, it’s too far, I can’t do it.”
There was more pounding on the door. It would fly open any moment.
“I will catch thee.” Lord 6-Dog took a flying leap off the balcony railing and landed on the nearest branch. He gripped it with his tail and held up his arms to Max. “Look into my eyes, and jump.”
Funereal music floated up from the first floor of the inn.
Max climbed over and sat on the railing.
Then he stood.
Then he jumped.
He didn’t travel as far as he’d hoped. He grabbed a piece of Spanish moss, but it broke under his weight. Quick as a flash, Lord 6-Dog grabbed him in mid plummet and pulled him to the safety of a thicker branch.
“Me next!” Lola did one practice knee bend on the railing, then launched herself at the oak tree. She caught a branch, hung there for a second, then swung herself up like a gymnast.
“Ta-da!” she said.
“Show-off,” muttered Max, who was hugging his branch for dear life.
“Focus,” commanded Lord 6-Dog. “Make thy way along the branch toward the trunk.”
“Uh-oh,” said Lola. “We have company.”
Max looked down. The tree was surrounded by angry-looking musketeers. They threw down their hats and held their swords in their teeth as they began to scale the trunk.
“Higher! Climb higher!” Lord 6-Dog commanded Max and Lola.
“That’s easy for you to say,” complained Max. “You’re a monkey.”
“Do something, Thunderclaw!” begged Lola. “Tell Chan Kan we need help! Tell him we’re trapped and we don’t have much—”
Thunderclaw let out an almighty shriek.
New Orleans seemed to go quiet.
Then Max heard clip, clop, clip, clop, and something large and white loomed out of the dark toward them down the middle of the street. As he stared openmouthed, Max made out rickety wheels and tossing manes.
The parrot flapped his wings excitedly.
“We’re saved!” cheered Lola.
“It’s not real,” said Max. “Look at it. You can see right through it. It’s a mirage, or a trick of the light, or something.”
Thunderclaw squawked, as if rebuking him.
As the carriage drew closer, the white-clad driver doffed his white top hat at them. The two white horses shook the white plumes in their bridles. The white paintwork of the carriage glistened in the moonlight and the plump white velvet cushions on the four rows of seats shimmered invitingly.
“Cahokia!” squawked the parrot, and flew onto the driver’s shoulder, a patch of lime green in the mass of white. The carriage stopped right outside the inn under an overhanging branch.
“Okay,” said Lola. “So we get to that branch and we drop.”
“But it’s a ghost carriage!” protested Max. “We’ll fall right through it.”
“The parrot found a solid perch,” observed Lord 6-Dog.
“Of course he did.” Max was losing his temper. “The parrot is a ghost, too! It’s the ghost of Thunderclaw. Is there anything in New Orleans that isn’t a ghost?”
“Thunderclaw wouldn’t trick us!” Lola had reached the overhanging branch and, as Max watched, horrified, she let herself drop. She bounced slightly as she landed on the padded white velvet seat. “It’s safe!” she called. “Your turn!”
Lord 6-Dog took Max’s hand and, after some intense pulling, prying, and persuading—with the musketeers getting ever closer—together they let go.
Max braced himself for the impact of hard asphalt.
He landed, as Lola had done, in the carriage, although not quite as perfectly placed.
Just as Max and Lord 6-Dog scrambled onto the seat, a troop of musketeers burst out of the inn. They looked up and down the street but appeared not to see the carriage that was almost right in front of them. The musketeers still in the tree looked equally baffled.
“By the beard of Itzamna, we are invisible!” exclaimed Lord 6-Dog.
Lola waved at a guard.
No reaction. He looked straight through her.
The driver flicked his whip and the horse trotted on.
Max relaxed back into his seat. Chan Kan and Thunder claw had saved them. But how many weeks, he asked himself, would it take to reach Cahokia at this pace?
It was a strange feeling, being invisible.
They rolled through the tourist quarter, still brightly lit and throbbing with music even at this late hour. No one turned to look at the ghostly carriage trotting down the street. If a group of revelers got in their way, they passed right through them unseen and unnoticed.
Soon they pulled up at a large iron gate in an old white-washed wall.
“Do we get out here?” Max wondered aloud, but the driver motioned with his gloved hand to tell them to stay seated.
“It’s a cemetery,” said Lola, sounding worried.
Thunderclaw turned and looked at her. “Cahokia!” he squawked. Then he made a little cooing noise.
“He says this is the way,” she said.
“So now you can talk to parrots as well as howler monkeys?”
“This isn’t any parrot. This is my old friend Thunderclaw.”
“I don’t like it,” said Max. “If this was a movie, and the good guys got in a ghostly carriage of their own free will and allowed themselves to be taken to a spooky old cemetery in the middle of the night, you’d say they were asking for trouble.”
“Shut your eyes if it helps,” suggested Lola.
But Max kept them open, wide open, with fear.
On the other side of the wall, carved marble angels stared back at him. The tombs they guarded were above ground—some big, some medium, some small—all jammed in together, so that they looked like houses, palaces, and apartment blocks in a miniature city: a city of the dead.
With a creak that made Max jump out of his skin, the gate opened and out came a family in old-fashioned clothes: the mother and little daughter in crinoline dresses, the father in a frock coat.
“The spirits walk abroad tonight,” observed Lord 6-Dog.
Max sneaked a peek at these new passengers as they climbed into a row of seats at the back. “You mean they’re ghosts?” he whispered.
Lola turned and waved at the little girl. The little girl waved back.
“She sees you!” said Max. “That ghost girl sees you! Does that mean we’re ghosts, too? Are we dead? Did Baron Saturday win?”
“No,” said Lola. “I think Chan Kan sent these ghosts to help us. They seem very friendly. Be nice to them.”
Max turned and smiled at the little girl.
She burst out crying.
“What did you do?” asked Lola.
“I’m not good with kids. I think I scared her.”
“You frightened a ghost? Way to go, Hoop.”
Max shrugged. “It’s payback for all the times ghosts have scared humans.”
“What should scare thee,” said Lord 6-Dog, “is the fact of riding through a city of shadows in a phantom carriage with no clue where these specters are taking us—or why.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE PHANTOM QUEEN
“Where are we going?” Max wailed as the ghostly carriage clopped on through the night.
“Our destination is our destiny,” observed Lord 6-Dog unhelpfully. “And vice versa.”
They stopped at two more cemeteries, each time taking on more passengers.
“I didn’t know ghosts traveled so much,” Max whispered to Lola. “I thought they just hung around in one place and haunted it.”
“I think the rules are different in New Orleans,” she replied. “It reminds me of my country. Everything is mysterious. Everything has a story.”
“In Boston,” muttered Max, “the only thing that’s mysterious is why the Red Sox lose so much.”
“The Red Sox? Like on your cap?”
“Yeah. They’re the greatest team in the history of baseball.”
“But you just said they lose a lot.”
“It’s complicated.” Max searched for the words to explain his feelings. “With the Red Sox, it’s not about winning. It’s about believing.”
“You don’t want to win?”
“Of course we do. But there’s more to it than that.”
