Flight of the Bluebird

by Kara LaReau

  Uggo hovered near Jaundice and Kale’s parents, his knife glittering. “Or your mommy and daddy go bye-bye,” he threatened.

  The Bland Sisters looked at their parents, who were still pleading with them not to do it. They looked at each other.

  “Well,” said Kale. “There really is only one thing left to do.”

  “True,” said Jaundice.

  She reached into one of her smock pockets. She pulled out the scarab. She placed it in Victor Gazebo’s outstretched palm.

  “Ah,” he said, closing his fingers around it. “I knew you were smart girls. Though, sadly, just like your mother and father, you have also been outwitted, by someone much smarter. Uggo, tie them up, please.”

  Before long, Beatrix and the Bland Sisters were also bound and gagged next to their parents.

  “It’s fitting, isn’t it?” Gazebo said. “You’re all about to become permanent additions to this archaeological find. Who knows? In a few thousand years, you might even be worth something.”

  Then he laughed and flashed his corn-like teeth again. Uggo laughed, too, until Gazebo gave him a stern look.

  “Let’s go,” he said, checking his watch. “I’d rather not keep my buyer—or my bank account—waiting another moment!”

  After the two turned to go, the room became pitch dark. Everyone started trying to talk, but the gags on their mouths made it impossible. A few minutes later, a light appeared. It was Jaundice, freed of her ropes and holding a newly lit torch. She pulled down her sister’s gag.

  “How did you escape?” Kale asked.

  “I know all about knots,” Jaundice reminded her sister. “Including untying them.”

  “Are we sure you’re not the older sister?” Kale asked.

  “Math doesn’t lie,” said Jaundice.

  Before long, she untied Kale, and then the Bland Sisters untied and ungagged Beatrix and their parents. Jaundice and Kale and their mother and father embraced for a long, long time.

  “Oh, how we’ve missed you,” said their mother.

  “We’ve missed you,” said Jaundice and Kale, tears rolling down their cheeks.

  Now that their parents weren’t bound and gagged and were illuminated by torchlight, the Bland Sisters could get a better look at them. Their mother was even more beautiful than their vague recollection of her; she did look every inch a queen. Unfortunately, Jaundice and Kale seemed to take after their father’s looks, which were significantly less distinguished. But what he lacked in discernible features, their father made up for many times over in other ways, they were sure. Jaundice was particularly happy to see that he was still wearing his trusty vest. It was just as she remembered—though, much like their father, it was slightly worse for wear.

  “We tried to meet you in the garden behind the Winter Palace, but the Daughters of Sekhmet got there first, and brought us here,” said Bert. “They are terrifying.”

  “Well, they were,” noted Beatrix, dusting herself off. “Now what?”

  “We need to get out of here,” said Hattie. “Follow me back up to the gate.”

  “Surely, Gazebo’s locked it,” said Bert, as they all walked back up through the tomb’s many corridors and chambers.

  “That didn’t stop us before,” said Beatrix.

  “But this might,” said Jaundice.

  The gate of the tomb was now blocked—not by a lock, but by a huge pile of rubble, no doubt moved there by the equipment outside.

  “That horrible man,” said Hattie, shaking her fist. “I rue the day I ever met him!”

  “Well, if you hadn’t met him, you wouldn’t have worked for him,” noted Kale. “And if you hadn’t been working for him, you wouldn’t have met our father. And if you hadn’t met our father, you wouldn’t have had us. That’s serendipity.”

  “You’ve been reading my journal,” Hattie said, giving Kale a squeeze. “Good girl.”

  “I have,” said Kale. “And it’s given me an idea.”

  She took the torch from Jaundice and led everyone back to the entrance to the tomb of Nehy and Nefret.

  “Your notes say that there’s a tunnel that keeps going beyond this chamber,” she reminded her mother. “It’s supposed to connect the tomb to the underworld.”

  “That’s true,” said Hattie. “Though we don’t know where that tunnel might take us.”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” said Bert.

  Hattie looked around the room, then went to a series of hieroglyphs.

  “Here,” she said. “These markings tell of Sokar. He was the god of the dead, and also the patron of the workers who built the tomb, and the craftsmen who made its artifacts. The hieroglyphs were left here by Huya, the pharaoh’s craftsman.”

  “Huya was the one who made the scarabs,” Kale said.

  “That’s right,” said Hattie.

  “I think I just got chills,” said Kale.

  Hattie stood next to her. “I don’t think that’s chills,” she said. “I think you’re feeling a draft. There’s air coming from behind this wall.”

  Beatrix and Bert pushed against the wall with all their might. Eventually, a few of the stones gave way.

  “Just be careful,” Hattie implored.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Bert.

  “I know you’ll be all right,” Hattie said. “I want you to be careful with the wall. This is an important archaeological discovery, after all.”

  Eventually, Bert and Beatrix cleared out more than a few stones, being careful to place them in piles according to Hattie’s direction. When the opening was wide enough, Hattie peered inside.

  “There is a passageway,” she said. “Though it’s probably more of a drainage shaft, to prevent flooding.”

  “I don’t care what it is, as long as it gets us out of here,” said Beatrix.

  Slowly, carefully, Beatrix and the Bland Sisters and their parents made their way down the drainage shaft.

  “This is a lot less exciting than the actual tomb,” noted Kale.

  “The hieroglyphs are nice and all, but I much prefer these plain gray walls,” said Jaundice. Gray was her favorite color, after all.

  Eventually, the drainage shaft ended. The rest of the way was blocked by a large pile of stones.

  “Looks like it must have collapsed here at some point,” observed Hattie.

  “This is going to take us forever,” Beatrix said.

  “Well, we’ll just have to work together,” Bert said. “All of us.”

  Everyone lifted and pushed and pulled. A good deal of grunting could be heard.

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever carried anything so heavy,” admitted Jaundice. “And I’m the one who normally brings in the sundries basket.”

  “I miss our sundries basket,” said Kale, wiping dust from her nose with the back of an equally dusty hand. “What I wouldn’t give right now for some perfectly stale bread, perfectly flat soda, and perfectly ordinary cheese . . .”

  “We’re so glad you girls enjoyed it,” said Bert.

  “It was the least we could do,” said Hattie, “after we left you so abruptly all those years ago.”

  “It certainly was the least you could do,” said Jaundice.

  “The very least,” said Kale, frowning.

  Recently, the Bland Sisters had been experiencing a longing for their parents. Now, they were experiencing a new emotion. It made Jaundice’s and Kale’s faces hot. Their hearts beat wildly. Their hands balled into fists. Their eyebrows furrowed.

  “We were all by ourselves for years,” said Kale, glaring at Hattie and Bert. “With nothing but a dictionary for guidance and companionship!”

  “I can’t believe you just left us!” cried Jaundice. She picked up a particularly heavy stone and heaved it aside, but even that didn’t help.

  “Now, wait a minute,” said Hattie. “We didn’t exactly abandon you.”

  “And you had plenty of guidance and companionship. Don’t forget, you had Mrs. Dirge,” said Bert.

  “Mrs. D
irge, our next-door neighbor?” said Kale. She looked at her sister. Jaundice was still panting, with newfound rage and overexertion. That stone really was quite heavy.

  “Before we left, we asked her to look after you,” Bert explained. “Good old Mrs. Dirge.”

  “Old is right,” Jaundice said. “She died right after you two left.”

  “Oh, dear. That explains a lot,” said Hattie, looking at Bert.

  “We’re terribly sorry,” said Bert. “And we’ve missed you so very much.”

  “Can you ever forgive us?” asked Hattie.

  The Bland Sisters looked at each other. Eventually, Kale let out a long sigh. “I suppose so,” she said.

  Jaundice nodded in agreement. She finally seemed to be able to catch her breath, too. Anger was one of their least favorite new emotions, the Bland Sisters decided.

  “I always liked Mrs. Dirge,” Bert admitted. “She used to darn all of my socks. And all the neighbors’ socks, as I recall.”

  “After she died, we took on her business,” Jaundice informed her parents.

  “Not to mention her darning egg,” said Kale.

  “I’m glad you two were able to make the best of things. Your father and I thought we were making the right decision at the time,” said Hattie. “It was clear you two were better off at home, until we felt you were both old enough to join us.”

  “You were probably better off without Mrs. Dirge, too, rest her soul,” Bert said. “You always cried when we tried to make you play with other children or babysitters or anyone, really.”

  “He does have a point,” Jaundice said.

  “At your age, my parents never let me out of their sight,” Hattie said. “It was truly oppressive. I would have loved to be left to my own devices, to discover life on my own terms!”

  “We did discover we prefer the white cheese to the yellow. And we’re quite proficient in sock darning,” noted Kale.

  “I enjoy tying and untying knots,” Jaundice informed her mother.

  “That’s . . . not exactly what I envisioned,” said Hattie. “But still, a mother can’t help feeling proud.”

  “I’ll feel prouder when we’ve moved this last boulder out of the way,” Beatrix said.

  Everyone took hold of it, and when Beatrix counted to three, they all pushed. Slowly, it gave way, and a great puff of fresh air wafted through.

  The Bland Sisters and their parents stepped out. Jaundice’s torch illuminated the sandy landscape, which extended as far as their eyes could see. Beatrix gave a loud whistle, hoping to summon Cleo.

  “Where are we?” Jaundice asked.

  Bert reached into two of his vest pockets, produced a compass and a map, and considered them. “We’re in a valley, it looks like, still west of Luxor. I’m just not sure exactly where.”

  “There’s always Plan M,” Hattie reminded Bert. “For now, at least we’re free.”

  “We’re already at Plan M?” said Jaundice. “It seems like we were at Plan B only yesterday, when Beatrix came to our rescue in Dullsville.”

  “That’s because it was yesterday, darling,” said Hattie.

  “Time flies when you’re having fun,” said Bert.

  “We might be free, but we’re out in the middle of nowhere,” Kale reminded everyone. “And Victor Gazebo is about to sell both of the scarabs.”

  “Well, he does have two scarabs,” said Jaundice. “He just doesn’t have two real scarabs.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Kale.

  Jaundice fished around in her smock pockets. “I bought one earlier today, when we were at the bazaar. It looked so much like the real thing, I thought it would make a nice souvenir. So when Victor asked me to hand over the scarab, I gave him the fake one.”

  As she handed the real scarab to Hattie, her parents pulled her in for a hug.

  “The people of Egypt owe you a great debt,” Hattie informed her.

  “Well, they’re my people, too, right?” Jaundice asked. Her mother nodded, her eyes glistening with tears.

  “That’s some sleight of hand you pulled there,” said Bert. “I think you’ve inherited some of my family’s magician genes.”

  Jaundice smiled proudly. The Bland Sisters had recently learned about their grandfather, Albertus Magnus Sr., who had been one of the greatest magicians in the world. And they had witnessed more than one extraordinary performance by their aunt Magique, aka the Queen of Magic. So the comparison was quite the compliment.

  “What else do you have in those smock pockets?” Bert asked. Jaundice emptied them. She was carrying:

  The aforementioned book of matches from Ricky’s

  A large bottle of sunscreen

  A string with several complicated knots tied in it

  A handful of date candy, scooped up from the overturned stand in the bazaar

  “My favorite candy!” exclaimed Hattie, popping one in her mouth. Kale was glad they were discovered before the smock went into the wash, since she was the one who did the laundry.

  “Impressive,” said Bert, inspecting the knotted string.

  “But now we’re back where we started,” Hattie said. “We have one scarab, and Gazebo has the other. And his is still about to fall into the wrong hands. If only we knew where he was planning his rendezvous.”

  “We’re going to need reinforcements,” said Bert, fishing around in his vest. Eventually, he pulled out a flare gun and fired it into the air.

  Jaundice nudged Kale, who had her nose in her mother’s journal.

  “Stop reading and start helping us think!” Jaundice scolded.

  “I am helping,” Kale said. “And I’m thinking, about the dream I had, where I ran into Gazebo. Remember the last thing he said?”

  “Something about queens who are kings and twins who aren’t really twins,” Jaundice said.

  “Right,” said Kale. “All this time, I thought he was talking about our mother, and us. But maybe he was talking about a place.”

  She opened the journal to one of their mother’s drawings. Hattie’s eyes widened.

  “The Temple of Amon, in Karnak,” she said, nodding.

  “A pair of obelisks remains there, but one of them is broken,” noted Kale. “Like twins who aren’t really twins.”

  “Constructed by Hatshepsut,” added Hattie. “The queen who reigned as a pharaoh.”

  “That must be it,” said Jaundice. She patted her sister on the back. “Sorry I doubted you.”

  “I might not be almost always right, like you. But I am right sometimes,” said Kale.

  The quiet desert was soon thrumming with two distinct noises: the sound of hooves and the sound of a car engine. Cleo was approaching from one direction, and Omar from the other.

  “I never thought I’d see you again!” he said, jumping out of his car to embrace everyone.

  “We need to get to Karnak, to the Temple of Amon,” said Bert.

  “And we don’t have much time,” said Hattie.

  “My cousin is waiting to ferry us all back across the Nile,” Omar informed everyone.

  “Giddy-up!” said Beatrix, jumping on Cleo’s back.

  IF YOU ARE IN TROUBLE, SAY “MAYDAY” THREE TIMES INTO YOUR RADIO HEADSET. IT WILL SIGNAL YOUR DISTRESS TO ALL OTHER PILOTS AND AIR-TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS.

  TAKING OFF! with Trip Winger

  By the time Omar parked his car in the shadow of the Temple of Amon, it was the middle of the night. The ancient sites were closed, the tourists had all gone back to their hotels, and the streets of Karnak were empty.

  “It seems so quiet,” said Kale.

  “Too quiet,” said Bert. “You two should stay here with O, while your mother and I look around.”

  “We’re not about to put you in danger again,” said Hattie. Then she and Bert scurried off.

  “I think we should go with them,” said Jaundice.

  “But it’s safe here, in the car,” said Omar.

  “O’s right,” said Kale.

  “Yes, but remember what happen
ed last time our parents left us?” said Jaundice. “We didn’t see them again for years.”

  “True,” said Kale. “Sorry, O. We have to go.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Omar. “But I understand. I, too, have parents, and I, too, have never listened to them.”

  The Bland Sisters crept over to the temple’s entrance, and hid behind a palm tree. A car was parked there, headlights on, near where four men stood. The Bland Sisters recognized the silhouettes of two of them.

  “Gazebo,” whispered Jaundice.

  “And Uggo,” whispered Kale.

  The two other men were wearing impeccable suits and fedoras and sunglasses, even though it was the middle of the night. One was wearing a bright-red tie, and the other was bearded and carried a briefcase.

  “Mr. Red, I presume,” Gazebo said to the man in the tie. They gave each other the V sign with their fingers. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  “It should be, given how much I’m about to pay for these scarabs,” said Mr. Red, with a thick accent.

  “Indeed,” said Gazebo, grinning. His teeth seemed even more yellow in the moonlight. “You managed to outbid every other interested party quite handsomely.”

  “They are worth just that much to me. But how can I be sure that they work as you described?” said Mr. Red.

  “They work. Trust me,” said Gazebo.

  “I trust no one,” said Mr. Red. He smiled. “How about we both take a little nap?”

  “Here?” said Gazebo.

  “We can sit in your car,” Mr. Red suggested.

  “Very well,” Gazebo said. Uggo unlocked the doors, and Gazebo and Mr. Red got in.

  “All we need to do is place the scarabs behind our heads,” Gazebo explained. “If I appear in your dream, we’ll have a deal. Agreed?”

  “As long as you or your man don’t try to run off with the scarabs and my money,” Mr. Red said. He turned to the bearded man next to him. “Make sure they don’t try any funny business, Al.”

  Al nodded and tightened his grip on the briefcase.