We Sled With Dragons Page 4

  6

  WE HEAR HERDERS

  ONE BY ONE, the band of explorers, tweens, the celebrity, the imprisoned celebrity impersonator, and the odd assortment of animals squeezed through the tiny bathroom window at the back of the hotel. Clouds of black smoke belched out around them.

  One by one, they landed, coughing, in a dusty alleyway. Corey shoved Ernest, still tied up, ahead of him out the window, so his impersonator landed face first on the ground with a thump. Beverly scurried out along the wall, Patrick jumped, and Dennis flapped his useless wings, dropping through the air in a flurry of smoke and feathers.

  Lastly, Professor Rasmali-Greenberg squeezed his considerable bulk through the small opening, dropped to the ground, stumbled, dusted himself off, and smiled.

  “So,” he said. “Shall we hail a taxi?”

  “I think, like, we better just run for it,” Corey suggested. “That mob is A-N-G-R-Y.”

  Celia narrowed her eyes at him but didn’t say anything.

  “We can’t go that way.” She pointed toward the far end of the alley, where a few stragglers from the angry mob passed by. Everyone ducked behind some old crates. Dr. Navel peeked his head out to check if they had been noticed.

  “Why did you guys make all these goat herders so angry?” Oliver whispered.

  “It wasn’t on purpose,” Corey whispered back. “The professor tried to create a distraction by letting loose a herd of goats. The goat herder got angry and started shouting. The pirates weren’t far behind us, so we had to borrow the goat herder’s pickup truck.”

  “You stole it?”

  “Borrowed,” Corey said. “We were being chased by angry pirates and an angry goat herder. Anyway, it turned out that the truck belonged to the goat herder’s brother, who also started chasing us, and he has a lot of sons, so they joined in, and pretty soon, they ran into the pirates. Pirates and goat herders don’t usually get along. The goat herders make an honest living and the pirates kidnap people. So they started fighting. That’s when your father made a wrong turn—”

  “Shh,” Dr. Navel called. “Someone’s coming!”

  They fell silent and waited as a few stray goats ambled past the alley, joining their herders in the mob.

  “Anyway,” Corey whispered. “After your father turned down the wrong road, we decided we needed to take a shortcut to get back to the city, so there was this field where another herd of goats were grazing. We had no choice but to cut across it, which upset those goats and those goat herders, so they joined the chase—”

  “Guys,” said Celia.

  “Well,” Corey continued, “they started calling everyone they knew—it turns out they all have cell phones—and pretty soon there was an entire mob of angry goat herders after us.”

  “What happened to the pirates?” Oliver wondered.

  “Guys?” said Celia.

  “I don’t know what happened to the pirates,” said Corey. “I guess the goat herders took care of them.”

  “They didn’t!” yelled Celia.

  Everyone turned to look at her and then to look at the other end of the alley behind them, where she was pointing.

  There stood Bonnie with five more of her pirate goons, blocking their way out.

  “How nice to see you all again,” Bonnie sneered.

  “Aha!” someone yelled from the other end of the alley. Oliver and Celia spun around to see the goat herders gathering at that end, filing into the narrow space next to the burning hotel. The angry goat herders were wielding clubs and machetes and sticks. So were the pirates.

  “Now what?” Oliver groaned, seeing that they were trapped between two armed groups and a burning building.

  Celia found herself wondering what the other sixth graders at her school were up to at the moment. She would have happily traded places with any of them, even if they were taking a test or giving a report or climbing a rope in gym class.

  She stopped herself. That was crazy thinking. Nothing could be worse than climbing a rope in gym class.

  “This way,” a voice called to them from the roof on the building on the other side of the alley. A rope dropped down next to them.

  In storytelling, there is a trick some writers use called deus ex machina. It is a Latin phrase that means “a god from the machine,” and writers use it to get characters out of impossible situations by bringing in a new character or idea that comes from nowhere and saves the day. In ancient plays, the writer would actually have a god lowered onto the stage by a crane to solve all the characters’ problems. The god actually came from the machine.

  At this moment, the closest the Navels had to their own deus ex machina was a boy about Oliver and Celia’s age, who was standing above them on the opposite rooftop holding onto a rope. He was dressed in rags, his skin dark against the bright blue sky, and he had three thick scars in straight lines across his forehead.

  “Oh man,” Celia whined, staring at the rope.

  “Scarification,” Dr. Navel whispered, staring at the boy. “The marks of maturity in the Dinka tribe of Sudan.”

  “The what tribe?” Oliver wondered.

  “The Dinka are a Nilotic cow-herding people of the Bahr al-Ghazal region,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg said.

  “No-what-ic cow people of where?” Oliver wondered.

  “The Bahr al-Ghazal is in south Sudan,” the professor answered. “It is largely inhabited by—”

  “Can we skip the educational programming and get out of here?” Celia pleaded.

  “Hurry!” the boy on the roof called down.

  “Just like gym class,” Celia muttered as she grabbed onto the rope. More ropes dropped down and two more boys appeared next to them, smiling.

  “This is the worst,” Oliver groaned as he started hauling himself up, hand over hand, beside his sister.

  “Use your legs more and your arms won’t get tired,” Celia told him.

  “So you’re a gym teacher now?” he muttered.

  “Fine, do it your way, but when your arms turn into floppy noodles and you fall back into the alley and the angry goat herders tear you limb from limb, don’t whine to me about it.”

  “I won’t,” said Oliver.

  “Good,” said Celia.

  “Whatever,” said Oliver.

  Beverly scurried up the wall as Patrick raced ahead of the twins. The adults grabbed on and started climbing.

  Corey climbed up after the Navels with Dennis clucking and gripping his hair.

  “Ow, stop scratching me!” Corey complained.

  Professor Rasmali-Greenberg lashed a rope around Ernest’s ankles and then made his way up the ropes himself, grunting and pouring sweat.

  “Ooph, ooph,” grunted Ernest as the boys on the roof pulled his rope taut and hauled him up the wall upside down, banging and scraping him along the rough stone as they went.

  “Stop them!” shouted Bonnie from below.

  Her thugs charged forward. The mob of goat herders charged at the same time, but the pirates and the goat herders stopped short when a heavy spear slammed into the ground between them.

  A group of full-grown Dinka warriors, each at least seven feet tall, stood next to the boys with the ropes.

  “Cow herders?” Celia called down to her parents, who were climbing below her.

  “The Dinka are also legendary warriors,” her mother added.

  “Do you think Mom knows these guys?” Oliver asked.

  “I dunno,” said Celia.

  “I hope they’re friendly,” whispered Oliver, squinting up at the large men towering above the alleyway.

  Down below, the goat herders and the pirates cursed at each other in a variety of languages, but no one dared to attack as long as the warriors with the spears stood poised above them.

  “Just keep climbing,” Celia urged her brother, because she did not wa
nt to think what would happen if these Dinka warriors turned out to be unfriendly.

  7

  WE’RE PRIVY TO THE PROPHECY

  “COREY BRANDT!” THE Dinka boys had finished dragging Ernest up the wall and pulled the gag out of his mouth. They poked and prodded at him. “We are big fans! Big fans! Although you should have chosen Lauren at the end of Sunset High.”

  “Hey,” the real Corey Brandt objected, pulling the chicken off his head. The boys looked back and forth between Ernest and Corey, puzzled. “I’m Corey Brandt!”

  The boys shrugged, shoved the gag back into Ernest’s mouth, and ran over to poke and prod and question the real Corey Brandt. He nodded and smiled and gave vague answers, glad to find his fans even in this remote corner of Djibouti.

  “Excuse me.” Dr. Navel approached one of the tall warriors, opening his arms wide to show that his intentions were friendly. The warrior took a step backward, wary of a hug from the strange explorer whose glasses were sliding off his nose. “I’m Dr. Ogden Navel and this is my wife, Dr. Claire Navel. We are the Explorers-in-Residence at the Explorers Club in New York City. This man”—he pointed at the professor—“is Professor Rasmali-Greenberg, club president. I want to thank you for your assistance.”

  “Yes.” The warrior nodded, keeping his spear pointed at the alley below. “We know who you are.”

  “You do?” Dr. Navel was puzzled. He looked to his wife.

  “Don’t ask me,” she said. “I don’t know them.”

  “We know who they are.” One of the boys pointed at Oliver and Celia.

  “You do?” Oliver asked.

  “You are Oliver and Celia Navel,” said the boy. “And you are known throughout the world for your daring exploits.”

  “Exploits?” Oliver shook his head.

  “Daring?” asked their parents.

  “Is this Bizarro Bandits?” Celia wondered.

  On Bizarro Bandits a team of pranksters sneak into people’s houses in the middle of the night and did things like change the furniture and shrink all their clothes and dye their pets green, so when the people woke up they believed they were in some bizarro world. More than one contestant had gone totally insane. Those who didn’t go insane won a vacation or a new toaster.

  Celia was not interested in a vacation or a new toaster. Oliver was looking around for hidden cameras.

  “Who are you?” asked Oliver

  “How did you know we’d be here?” asked Celia.

  “Your friend told us.” The boy shrugged.

  “Our friend?” Celia cocked her head to the side like a confused puppy.

  She and Oliver didn’t have a lot of friends in the sixth grade. Their father had pulled them out of school to go on adventures for most of the school year, and when they were in school, most of the kids only talked to them because they knew Corey Brandt. Celia didn’t expect any of the squeaky girls who had Corey’s face on their notebooks to know any Dinka warriors, and Oliver was pretty sure that none of the boys in his class had ever been to the Bahr al-Ghazal region of southern Sudan. Most of them weren’t even allowed to ride the subway alone.

  “Celia!” A girl dressed in a flowing white tunic with a colorful cloth bag over her shoulder climbed up on the other side of the roof.

  Celia broke into a smile when she saw the girl. She wasn’t a Dinka warrior and she wasn’t from Oliver and Celia’s school either.

  “Qui!” Celia smiled at her old friend from the Amazon, whose whole name was Quinuama, but she let people call her Qui to make it easier for them. She was thoughtful that way, even though she quite liked her full name. Qui had helped Oliver and Celia find the lost city of El Dorado in the Amazon and she was their first real friend in the world. Celia had no idea how Qui had gotten all the way to North Africa, or why.

  Celia ran across the roof and gave her a hug. Friends, we should note, never start by asking why.

  Oliver interrupted the hug. “What are you doing here? How do you know these warriors?”

  “We met on the Internet,” Qui answered him with a shrug.

  “The Internet?” Oliver and Celia asked.

  “We use it all the time,” said Qui. “We indigenous peoples have to stick together.”

  “Indigenous?” Oliver looked at his sister.

  “You know that one,” she said.

  “Like native?” said Oliver. Celia nodded.

  “My people are facing many of the problems the Dinka and other tribes are facing,” said Qui. “From pollution and the destruction of our cultures to getting into a good college when you’ve lived your whole life in the jungle.”

  “Or in the desert,” said the Dinka boy.

  “Right,” said Qui. “It’s hard being an indigenous kid these days. So we have Internet forums and stuff. That’s where I met these guys.” She pointed to the Dinka warriors.

  “And where I learned about your prophecy,” the boy said. “The greatest explorers shall be the least. The old ways shall come to nothing, while new visions reveal everything. All that is known will be unknown and what was lost will be found.”

  “That prophecy is, like, mega.” Corey Brandt whistled.

  “We know.” Celia groaned.

  “I can’t believe you read our prophecy on the Internet,” said Oliver. “Isn’t that, like, a violation of privacy?”

  Qui shrugged.

  “Do we really still have to do this whole prophecy thing?” said Celia. “It seems kind of worn out.”

  “Honey.” Her mother held her shoulders. “You have to fulfill a prophecy before it can be over.”

  “That is so totally unfair,” said Celia.

  “You say that a lot,” said her father.

  “Well.” Celia shrugged. “Everybody needs a catchphrase.”

  Suddenly, sirens wailed on the street below.

  “That will be the police,” one of the warriors said. “We have to go. Follow us.”

  He turned and the warriors began moving across the roof.

  “Wait!” Oliver rushed to catch up with the boy in the lead. “You didn’t tell me your name!”

  “I know I didn’t.” The boy smiled enigmatically, which Oliver would have known meant mysteriously if he had spent more time watching educational programming on TV instead of Agent Zero and Bizarro Bandits.

  “Come on!” Oliver complained. “Why won’t anyone explain anything? What’s your name?”

  “Sam,” the boy answered.

  “Sam?” said Oliver.

  “What?” The boy wondered. “Sam is not a good name?”

  “No,” said Oliver. “It’s fine. I was just expecting something more . . . I dunno. Exotic.”

  “Exotic?” Sam wondered.

  “You know,” Oliver said. “Like foreign.”

  “But you are the foreigners here,” said Sam.

  “Oh,” said Oliver. “Right.”

  “Come this way.”

  “So where are we going?” Oliver jogged to keep up. “Sam! Hey, Sam! You can’t just herd us like cows! Why are you being so mysterious? Why won’t anyone ever explain anything?”

  Oliver’s complaints echoed across the rooftops of Djibouti, but no one answered his question. Sam now knew what Celia had discovered years ago: it was fun driving Oliver Navel crazy.

  8

  WE CATCH A FILM

  BEHIND THEM, THEY heard the whine of fire engines racing to the burning hotel and the screech of police sirens racing after the pirates and the mob of goat herders.

  The Dinka warriors, the tweens, their parents, Qui, their pets, Corey Brandt, his impersonator, and the professor climbed down from the rooftop to an empty square and crossed under a shady colonnade where a few women covered in brightly colored headscarves sold mangoes and vegetables and stinking piles of tiny fish. The women vanished into doorways as soon as they sa
w the Dinka warriors coming their way.

  A few moments later, half a dozen armed pirates ran past the women in hot pursuit.

  Just ahead of Oliver and Celia, a police jeep blocked their path.

  “Stop!” two policemen in blue outfits called out, pointing their rifles at the warriors, who froze. The pirates scattered and disappeared while the Navels put their hands into the air.

  “You are under arrest by the authority of the Djibouti Police!” one of the police officers said and spoke quickly into his radio in Arabic.

  “He said Djibouti.” Oliver chuckled. Celia elbowed him.

  “He’s calling for backup,” said Sam.

  “I’m Corey Brandt!” Corey Brandt stepped forward, his hands high in the air, a friendly smile spread across his face. “From television’s hit shows Agent Zero, The Celebrity Adventurist, and Sunset High!”

  The police shouted and waved their guns at him. He stepped backward.

  “I tried.” He shrugged. “They’re not fans.”

  Sensing the danger, or maybe just enjoying a good fight, Patrick and Beverly charged forward through Oliver’s legs. The monkey jumped onto the head of one policeman while Beverly hissed and snapped her jaws at the other one. The police dropped their guns and dove into their jeep, locking their doors. Oliver smirked. He’d grown to like Beverly quite a lot.

  Dennis clucked. Being a chicken, he was often left out of the action, which was too bad. Chickens can be frightfully vicious when they want to be.

  The warriors looked at the animals who had subdued the police, looked at each other, and shrugged. They picked up their spears again and kept running past the police jeep. The Navels and their entourage followed. As soon as they turned a corner, Bonnie and her pirates appeared ahead of them.

  “Aha!” Bonnie shouted.

  Dennis the chicken charged toward her, clucking wildly. The pirates were more confused than frightened, but it gave everyone a chance to turn back and run the other way again, past the jeep with the frightened police officers, through the square, and down another alley. Dennis raced after them to keep up, and the pirates, enraged at having let a chicken distract them, gave chase.