by Lin Oliver
“Sound Bender, Sound Bender,” he called.
Yes, Dad, I thought. I’m here.
Crane didn’t die down there in the Land of the Dead. But they let him stew for a full day. When at last, Dr. Reed and a few of the villagers took pity on him and went back the next day, they found him delirious, ranting and raving in broken sentences. In a rather satisfying turn of events, Crane had contracted malaria at some point in the expedition, and the fever finally hit as he roamed the underground city, looking for the path to the center of the world. For all his bluster and power, it was a lowly mosquito that took him down.
While we waited at the village to arrange for transportation back to Samarinda, the villagers kept him in a wooden cage just outside the longhouse. He spent three days in there shivering, curled up, and yelling at everyone who passed by him. It cost Crane his watch and his diamond pinkie ring, but Klevko eventually found a longboat to take them to a town backriver, where he was airlifted to the hospital in Samarinda.
Hollis and I stayed with Dr. Reed and Diana at Byong Ku for a few more days, learning about the people and their ways, feasting and singing with them. Dr. Reed was going to stay in the area for quite a while, at least until a delegation from the local university could arrive to investigate the tunnels and the bones, which raised more questions than they answered. There are no shortcuts to knowledge, she said, and no easy answers to difficult questions. It was possible that the underground city and its bones would be a mystery for many years to come. Perhaps forever.
Diana was going to stay with her mom and help her with the investigation. But she would be back in New York in six months, though that might as well have been forever.
Dr. Reed helped Hollis and me find transportation back to Samarinda, and Dr. Haga volunteered to ride with us back to the city. We went with him to Crane’s hospital, where he tried to collect the money owed to him and I had my hand checked out and put in a cast. Since it took me more than a week to get my hand treated, the doctor told me that it might never totally heal. The last time I saw Crane, he was screaming at the doctors about their pathetic lack of private rooms. Klevko was giving him a sponge bath, and Dmitri was rubbing powder on his feet. I guess that’s the reward for grave robbers — that and a few gold beads.
Though he wasn’t able to collect from Crane, Dr. Haga helped Hollis and me get a commercial flight back to New York. I promised to pay him back someday, somehow.
Jeremy met us at JFK Airport, waving papers he’d just received from the court that give me the right to choose my own school. We still have to live with Crane, but at least he’s not back for another week. And I plan to use that time to search for my disc and to root through the crates for any more of Crane’s questionable artifacts. Trevor’s coming over tomorrow, and he’s ready to dig in.
Hollis and I were so relieved to be back and malaria-free. The first thing he did was call all of his buddies from Secret Stairwell to set up their next band rehearsal. And the second thing he did was call Arturo from Mom’s old quartet, for a lesson on the violin. Me, I went to my room, got out the blank travel journal, and wrote Diana a letter. Then I started to record my experiences from my adventure. If I am ever going to understand my power, then I’ve got to do a better job understanding myself.
As I sat down to write, using green ink in honor of my dad, Kirk Lomax, I noticed that my phone had four messages. Two were from Mr. Dickerson to make sure Crane hadn’t called the school board, and one was from my dentist to schedule an extraction of one of my baby incisors.
But the last one, that was different. The voice was electronic, a ringing, distorted sound not unlike Dr. Bill’s mechanical voice from the Spiricom record. That made it difficult to understand, as did the speaker’s foreign accent. Here’s what it said:
“Hello, Mr. Lomax. Do not be alarmed by my voice filter. It is a necessary precaution. As was the absurd story about my fall from a balcony some months back, but I assure you, rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated.
“I hear that you have taken up quite an interest in me. Yes? Then we have something in common, Mr. Lomax, as I would very much like to speak to you. I have pressing matters to discuss, which I cannot mention over the phone. Make no efforts to contact me, for I shall be in touch.”
The authors once again wish to thank our editors, Abigail McAden and Zachary Clark. Your insight and guidance have been extrasensory. Thanks also to David Saylor and Debra Dorfman for your creative vision and leadership, and to Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Eddie Gamarra of the Gotham Group for their unwavering support.
While The Shadow Mask is a work of fiction, the records mentioned within this book are very real and can be found with a little effort. However, the authors do not necessarily urge our readers to look for them this time around.
Finally, the authors would like to thank all of our beloved readers, and especially those who took the time to send us a note about Sound Bender. Without their near-daily support, the authors probably couldn’t have gotten out of bed.
LIN OLIVER is the New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books for young readers, including the HANK ZIPZER series, the GHOST BUDDY series, which she cowrote with Henry Winkler, and the WHO SHRUNK DANIEL FUNK? quartet. She is also a film and television writer, having created shows for Nickelodeon, PBS, Disney Channel, and Fox, and is the cofounder of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. She lives in Los Angeles with her two other sons, Ollie and Cole. She is happy.
As a kid, THEO BAKER used to make weird noises into tape recorders. As an adult, his love for music and records led him to multiple jobs as a record seller, a DJ, a music reporter, a record producer, and a sound designer. When his mom asked him to write a book with her, he said, “Sure, why not?” Theo currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their two cats. Their apartment is filled to bursting with rare records, science fiction books, and many (mostly broken) tape recorders. His wife is a very patient woman.
Copyright © 2013 by Lin Oliver and Theo Baker. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oliver, Lin.
The shadow mask: the sequel to Sound bender / Lin Oliver & Theo Baker.
p. cm.
Summary: Leo’s cruel and greedy Uncle Crane is forcing him to use his ability to hear sounds from the past to find and steal the other half of the mysterious Siamese twin mask that was once owned by Leo’s father — or be separated from his younger brother forever.
ISBN 978-0-545-19694-9
1. Extrasensory perception — Juvenile fiction. 2. Masks — Juvenile fiction. 3. Brothers — Juvenile fiction. 4. Orphans — Juvenile fiction. 5. Uncles — Juvenile fiction. [1. Extrasensory perception — Fiction. 2. Masks — Fiction. 3. Brothers — Fiction. 4. Orphans — Fiction. 5. Uncles — Fiction.] I. Baker, Theo. II. Title.
PZ7.O476Sh 2013
813.6 — dc23
2012022680
First printing, January 2013
Jacket art © 2011 by Alan Brooks
Jacket design by Whitney Lyle
e-ISBN 978-0-545-51031-8
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
