Storm Warning

by Linda Sue Park

  as possible," Dan said. "I don't think I have to be completely naked."

  Nellie covered her mouth with her hand and turned away; Amy cleared her throat several times. Both of them were clearly hiding giggles. So immature. He decided to ignore them for the moment.

  "I'm supposed to keep my body as close to the pole as I can by wrapping my legs around it." Dan said. "Then I reach up with my hands, reposition my feet, and hike myself higher."

  "Be careful," Amy said. She and Nellie stood on opposite sides of the base of the sculpture.

  Dan took one last look at the horn. Then he grabbed the pole, wrapped his legs around it, and began pulling himself up a little at a time.

  The ridges of the twisted pole dug into his sunburned legs, making him wince.

  After about six inches of progress, he let go and dropped back down to the ground.

  "Okay," he said, flexing his fingers and hands. It hurt to grip so hard. "I've got the feel of it." He gazed again at the top of the pole; the horn suddenly looked much farther away. "It's harder than I thought."

  "Want me to try?" Nellie asked.

  "No, thanks, I'll give it another shot." He felt almost insulted by the offer.

  "If we gave you a boost, you could start up higher," Amy suggested.

  With some maneuvering, several grunts, and more

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  than one "ouch," they managed to get Dan standing with one foot on Nellie's shoulder and the other on Amy's, holding on to the pole.

  "Way better," he said. He was now already almost halfway to the top. Cautiously, he took his right foot off Amy's shoulder and wrapped his leg around the pole.

  "Here I go," he said, and took his left foot off Nellie.

  Hands--feet--hands--feet ... Hamilton had said to keep an even rhythm. It was almost like Dan's hands started looking forward to the tiny rest they got when he let go to move them up farther. In what seemed like almost no time, he reached the top.

  "I did it!" he called down to the girls.

  First mistake. He was much higher than he'd expected! It wasn't like being in a plane or on top of a building--there was nothing keeping him in the air but his own muscle power.

  Dan gulped. Okay, so don't look down again, he told himself firmly.

  "Look in the horn!" Amy was calling back. "Do you see anything?"

  Now things got tricky. He was right up against the side of the horn. The flared opening jutted out from the pole almost an arm's length. There was no way he could look into the opening.

  "I can't look into it," he said. "I'm just going to have to try to reach in."

  He held on with his left hand and stretched out his right. Gingerly, he put his hand inside.

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  Nothing but the horn's metal interior.

  He adjusted his grip on the pole and reached in a little farther. Then he felt something else--prickly? No, crawly ...

  "YIKES!" he shouted.

  With a panicked motion of his hand, he swept out whatever it was he had just touched and flung it toward the ground.

  Amy knew what it was as soon as she saw it falling. She knew because it was her secret nightmare: She would recognize it instantly, anywhere.

  Sharks, scary. Venomous snakes, scary. Huge spiders, scary. But for Amy, this particular creature was beyond scary. It wasn't just frightening. It was almost ... evil.

  Amy knew this was irrational. Animals weren't evil. They were what they were, and maybe she should even admire this one. It had been in existence for millions of years, surviving when other species had been unable to adapt. But she couldn't help it. Her fear seemed to come from so deep inside it was part of her DNA--a complete and instinctive kind of fear.

  She could hardly have seen more than its color and size--dark and small--as it fell through the air when the word exploded in her mind.

  Scorpion!

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  As Amy watched in utter horror, the scorpion fell onto Nellie's head, bounced once, and landed on her back, just below her shoulder. "Nellie," she whispered.

  It wasn't even really a whisper; she had barely moved her lips.

  Amy felt a familiar panic. The kind where she would end up frozen, unable to move or speak.

  NO! she yelled at herself. DON'T FREEZE--move something, anything!

  She clenched and unclenched her fists. Just once, but somehow it seemed to help. She could almost feel the blood moving through her hands and arms and up into her body.

  Now she forced her voice out of hiding. "Nellie," she said. "Do. Not. Move."

  Amy crouched down and picked up the T-shirt Dan had thrown on the ground. Then she tiptoed toward Nellie.

  She could see the scorpion clearly now. It was only a few inches long but still positively evil looking, tail curved over its back, pincers raised.

  Amy grasped the shirt with both hands. Deep breath ...

  She slammed her hands together so the fabric closed around the scorpion. She squeezed hard and felt something crunch and squish. Then she flung the shirt away as far as she could and collapsed onto the ground.

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  Nellie broke out of statue mode immediately. "Dude," she said, "what was that?"

  Amy could hardly breathe. "S-scorpion," she gasped. "I don't know if-if I killed it-"

  Nellie walked over to the shirt and peered at it cautiously from a safe distance.

  "Ew," she said. Then she grinned at Amy. "He's a goner." She picked up the shirt and shook out the bits of dead scorpion. "Thanks, kiddo."

  Amy swallowed.

  "Anytime," she said shakily.

  "Hey," Dan hollered from the top of the pole. "It's just me up here, all alone. Everybody okay down there?"

  "Yeah," Nellie said. "Your sister just killed a scorpion."

  "No way," Dan said.

  "Way," Nellie replied. "What's going on up there?"

  "One more try," Dan said. "I sure hope that scorpion didn't live with a whole bunch of relatives."

  He held on to the pole with his right hand and freed his left, wiggling his fingers to keep them from cramping. Then he grabbed on again.

  "There better be--I don't know, rubies or something in there," he said.

  Grimly, he plunged his hand into the horn one more time.

  Nothing crawly. Good.

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  Nothing at all. Bad.

  "If there's anything in here, I can't reach it," he called without looking down. "It's sort of like, dusty. I can feel a little grit. But that's all."

  He pulled his hand out. It was very dirty. And his other arm was killing him.

  Dan closed his eyes for a moment and tried to concentrate. The horn was hollow. ... How could you hide something inside a plain empty space like that? It wasn't like the cave, there weren't any rocks to put something under--

  Wait. It was like the cave in a way. The mouth of the horn was like the opening of the cave ... and Amy had found the Tomas sign inside above the opening. ...

  Dan hiked himself up the pole a few more inches. Then he groped around just inside the horn's mouth. At the top, he felt some kind of ridge in the metal--maybe a seam where it had been welded together? With his fingertips he traced the ridge.

  It was a skinny strip of metal nearly half the circumference of the horn, eight or nine inches long, maybe a little longer.

  He picked at one corner with his fingernail. The strip was not welded to the horn--the corner came free as he picked at it. It was stuck to the horn with some kind of adhesive.

  "Please please please," Dan whispered fiercely.

  Bit by bit, he pried off the strip. It was not until the

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  whole strip was free that he realized how numb his other arm was.

  "I'm coming down now," he called. Then he grinned. "And I'm not alone."

  "YES!" Amy raised her arms in triumph.

  It was a strip of gold, soft enough to have taken on the curve of the horn and bent at one corner where Dan had pried it up. Close up, they could see that it was a
ctually two strips of metal welded into one.

  "But it isn't anything to do with a wolf," Dan said, disappointed.

  "That's okay," Amy said doggedly. "It's still obviously something to do with the clue hunt."

  There were raised letters embossed on the whole length of the strip on both sides--letters so tiny that they were impossible to read. All three of them tried; Dan was the only one who thought he could make out a few letters.

  "I see some O's, they're easy," he said. "And maybe some M's? Or they could be W's."

  "I have a little magnifying mirror in the car," Nellie said.

  As they walked to the parking lot, Dan put his T-shirt back on.

  "Yuck," Nellie said, pointing at the front of it.

  Dan looked down at the smears and stains. "Cool," he said. "Scorpion guts!"

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  CHAPTER 12

  * * *

  True to his word, Dan phoned Hamilton to tell him what they had found. This time, the connection was terrible, which turned out to work in their favor; it was clear that Hamilton couldn't make heads or tails of the conversation. But Amy agreed with Dan that they had held up their side of the deal.

  Now they were in the car, examining the gold strip with a magnifying mirror that Nellie produced from her luggage.

  "First four letters e-k-t-o," Dan said.

  "Ekto," Nellie said. "That's from Greek. It means 'outer,' or 'outside.' Then m-a-l, right? 'Mal,' French,

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  with Latin roots, meaning 'bad.'" She frowned. "After that, 'u-j-a,' and the whole thing starts over again. But I don't know what 'uja' means."

  "J-A for Jamaica?" Dan proposed. "And U, short for Y-O-U. Outside, bad, you, Jamaica?"

  "Too late," Amy said. "We've already been outside a lot here."

  Something about the letters seemed vaguely familiar to her. ... What was it?

  "'Ekto' and 'mal' do sound like some kind of warning," Nellie said. "It would probably make sense if we knew what 'uja' meant."

  Amy felt a sharp pang. The three of us working together--that's what it was like before. And now it's all different, and we'll never be able to trust her again, not like before. ...

  SCRRREEEEEECH!

  Amy jerked her head up. A big SUV was pulling into the parking lot much too fast.

  Dan started yelling. "GO, NELLIE! DRIVE, GET OUT OF HERE NOW!"

  Nellie obeyed instantly, jerking the car into gear and heading for the lot's exit. She peeled out into traffic, causing cars going both ways to slam on their brakes. The driver of the SUV had to wait for the traffic to untangle before making the turn behind them.

  "What--?" Amy said.

  "Cobras," Dan said grimly.

  The Kabras had followed them to Jamaica.

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  By dint of very creative driving, some of which may not have been entirely legal, Nellie managed to lose the SUV in downtown Kingston. Now they were in an alley behind a sporting goods store, hiding out.

  "I've had it up to here with them!" Dan said angrily. "It's always them chasing us. Why can't it be us chasing them, just for once?"

  Amy's lips were pale. "We--we have to stay away from them," she whispered. "Especially Isabel."

  "I'm with you there," Nellie said. "Let's see"--she started ticking off on her fingers--"Amy and the sharks, snakes in the mine, the fire in Indonesia, all three of us in the airplane hangar. What do you think she'll do for an encore?"

  Amy hesitated. Then she said quietly, "You forgot one."

  Nellie saw the expression on Dan's face change from anger to anguish. Amy closed her eyes.

  Their parents, Nellie thought. Years ago, when Amy was seven and Dan only four, Isabel Kabra had deliberately, coldheartedly, started the fire in which Hope Cahill and Arthur Trent had died.

  Of course, Nellie had known this for ages. But it was only at certain moments that it really hit her. She tried to imagine what it would be like to know that the person who murdered your parents was free in the world--and gunning for you as well.

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  "That witch," she said bitterly. "I mean, anyone who would threaten to throw a kid into an ocean full of sharks--"

  Suddenly, Amy opened her eyes, and Nellie could almost feel the electricity of excitement crackling from her.

  "She has it," Amy announced. "The Janus icon."

  When Amy had closed her eyes, she was doing her best to block out the image of her parents' death. Even the memory of being on that boat in Australia with Isabel was better than thinking about how Mom and Dad had died. ...

  It was a sound, not a picture, that came to her first. A small metallic sound, like something rattling, almost tinkling.

  Isabel's bracelet. It was sliding around her wrist as she gestured at the water. A gold bracelet.

  Amy hadn't thought anything of it at the time, of course; she'd been too busy being terrified. But now the image grew clearer.

  The charms ... Like a camera lens zooming in, Amy's memory homed in on one charm in particular. Triangular, with a sharp point ... She could see it in her mind's eye with perfect clarity.

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  She blinked in sudden realization. "We were right," she said. "Remember the manifest? The animal bones?"

  "It's a jawbone?" Dan said in amazement. "A wolf's jaw?"

  Amy shook her head. "Not the whole jaw," she said. "One tooth--a fang, just like you wanted. And we're going to steal it from her."

  Planning an ambush was hard work.

  "Excellent Nanny probably had weeks to work out her ambushes," Dan complained. "We could definitely use her help."

  The Cahills got busy. They chose the location after a quick stop at the tourist information office: a forested park outside Kingston, where a ropes course was being constructed near a waterfall. They spent the afternoon checking out the park and buying a little equipment.

  Over her (very loud) protests, Nellie was made to stay in the car during the reconnaissance of the park. Amy had been firm about this.

  "This has nothing to do with Grace's letter, so you're out of the loop again. We'll need you standing by with the car so we can get out of there at the end. That's it." Nothing Nellie said would change her mind.

  At a hotel in Kingston, Amy slept badly that night, exhausted but wired. In the morning, she could see on Dan's and Nellie's faces that they hadn't slept well,

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  either. But they couldn't wait any longer. They had to find the Kabras before the Kabras found them.

  After breakfast, Amy nodded at Nellie. "Make the call," she said.

  "Since when did you become CEO?" Nellie muttered. She punched in the number.

  Irony. That was the right word. Amy knew that McIntyre had some kind of line to their rivals, and Nellie had a line to McIntyre. Nellie's betrayal had become a tool that the Cahills were now using to try to gain an advantage.

  Nellie spoke briefly into the phone and told McIntyre to get a message to the Kabras.

  Then they packed the car and drove to the park.

  Nellie was in the car on the road beyond the park's entrance. Dan sat with Amy at a picnic table off the side of the path that led into the forest, screened by a stand of trees.

  The Kabras were right on schedule. Their now-familiar SUV pulled into the dirt parking lot of the forest preserve. Isabel got out of the driver's seat and walked toward the path, followed by Ian and Natalie.

  Dan's heart was in his throat. During all their other confrontations with Isabel, they'd been running away. This was different. This time, they wanted her here.

  He licked his lips. Futilely, as it turned out--his mouth was all but spitless. "Ready?" he croaked.

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  Amy had that scared-rabbit look in her eyes, but she nodded. He saw her clench and unclench her fists.

  Dan exhaled once, hard. Then, feigning surprise, he jumped to his feet.

  "Amy! Kabras--RUN!" he yelled.

  They ran up the path about a quarter mile until it forked into two smaller tracks. Dan vee
red to the left while Amy went right. As they split up, Dan risked a quick look over his shoulder.

  All three Kabras were chasing them. Isabel Kabra was running flat out, her children barely keeping up.

  "Ian! Go after the boy!" Isabel shouted.

  Dan was panting up a steep slope now. Soon he reached a sign posted along the dirt track:

  COMING SOON! BLUE MOUNTAIN ROPES COURSE FUN AND ADVENTURE FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!

  The ropes course had several stations spread out over a few acres. A couple of men were working on the last stations, but the beginning of the course was finished--and deserted.

  Now Dan pounded down the path for several yards until it opened onto a little clearing. There was a rough, newly built hut on the left, and to the right, the first station of the ropes course: wooden slats nailed ladder fashion to the trunk of a big tree.

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  It was straight out of Nanny's book. The ladder was the only point of entry to the ropes course.

  Halfway up the ladder, Dan checked to see that Ian was still following. For the plan to work, he had to make sure Ian didn't lose him. Dan heard footsteps and hard breathing; satisfied, he kept climbing.

  About sixty feet above the ground was a small wooden platform. A heavy metal cable led to a second platform in another tree. Half a dozen pulleys were rigged to the cable. The pulleys had large metal clips on them, meant to be fastened to harnesses. With no harness, Dan grabbed the clip itself.

  When Ian entered the clearing and spotted him, Dan launched himself into the air, hanging on to the clip for dear life. He'd done it earlier, when they checked out the place, so he already knew what it would feel like.

  If Ian hadn't been chasing him, riding the zip line would have been one of the most fun things Dan had ever done. Actually, it was still pretty fun. For the few moments it took to zip down the line, he didn't think about Isabel or the Madrigals or the Clue hunt; he just held on tight as he sped through the air, the sky rushing by above him and the ground far below.