by Tony Abbott
Keeah sniffled and wiped away a tear. “Oh, Lumpies!”
Max jumped to the ground and examined the prints in the sand. “Hundreds of hooves galloped in a circle around the village, probably causing the sandstorm you saw earlier. And I know what kind of hooves they were. Sand pony hooves! My friends, there is only one tribe that uses sand ponies for things like this. This is the dirty work of … the Snitchers!”
“The Snitchers?” gasped Julie.
“The Rat-faced Snitchers?” asked Eric, frowning.
“Of Zoop!” added Neal. “Man, such a cool name for such an uncool people.”
The children had met the Snitchers before. On a journey into the past, they had freed young Galen from a band of the odd little creatures. The Rat-faced Snitchers of Zoop were highwaymen who rode the dunes on little ponies, stealing from innocent people.
“But this is new,” said Keeah, sliding from her saddle to the ground in front of Khan’s broken house. “The Snitchers have never attacked a whole village before. I wonder if someone put them up to this.”
Eric wondered the same thing. His first thought was that Emperor Ko, leader of the beasts of the Dark Lands, was behind it. “Ko is usually behind most evil things,” he said.
“But why would he use Snitchers?” asked Julie. “They’re not the sharpest tools in the shed, if you know what I mean.”
“And what does he want with the Lumpies?” asked Neal. “They’re just regular people — I mean, pillows.”
Eric put his hand into the pouch on his belt and took out the Ruby Orb. It flickered once in his hand, and a scene appeared from the Dragonfly’s cockpit. The plane was moving over a snow-covered valley, beginning to descend toward the center of the northern storm. Before long, the storm obscured everything, just as it had in his dream, though the snow was still white.
“I’ll fly up to Khan’s roof to see what I can see,” said Julie.
“Me, too,” said Neal. He untied the end of his turban and wound it under his chin like a helmet strap. He smiled. “Race you?”
“You’re on!” Julie cried.
The two friends soared up to the top of the brown, sandy-colored dome of Khan’s little palace. As they scanned in every direction, the others fanned out on the ground to look for any signs of life.
The gently winding streets were rutted and uneven. The ground had been torn up by hundreds of sand ponies. The children peeked inside every house nearby, but found no one.
All at once, Julie called down. “Guys, you can’t see it from down there, but there are hoof prints and boot prints and sticks strewn around the foot of the great dune.”
“It looks like the Snitchers and Lumpies had a battle right there,” added Neal.
The children rushed to the base of the high dune at the eastern edge of the village. Its sands shone gold in the midday sun.
“Could something be hidden inside the dune, or under it?” asked Eric. “Something that Khan and his people fought to protect?”
“What are we waiting for?” said Keeah. “Come on, everyone. Let’s dig!”
They all started shoveling handfuls of sand away from the pile. But no sooner was sand removed from the dune than it drifted right back. Every handful of sand the kids took away returned to the dune in a flash.
“This is impossible!” said Julie. “We’re getting nowhere —”
“Wait,” said Max. “Keeah, could this be … living sand?”
The princess’s eyes went wide. “Of course! Galen told me the sand of Pethkaloo has magical properties. It’s used to keep robbers from finding what’s buried beneath it.”
“Then how are we going to find anything ourselves?” asked Neal.
Keeah smiled. “Galen told me the magic words to use, too. Give me some space, people.”
Everyone moved several paces away. Keeah swung her arms wide and spun around on one foot, whispering a strange chant.
A terrific whooshing sound came from the dune. Sands flew up, then rained back down like a glittering golden shower. Next, a giant column of sand exploded out of the ground. Then another, and another. In all, four towers burst up in a wide square. In its center, thrusting from the depths of the dune, came a towering pyramid. Higher and higher it grew until it loomed over the tiny village. Running up the side was a narrow set of stairs that ended in an open doorway.
“That’s one big sand castle!” said Neal.
“And —” crowed a voice, “— it’s ours!”
The surrounding dunes were suddenly alive with the jingling of bells and the snorting of animals.
“Sand ponies!” snarled Max. “They’re all around us!”
“It’s the Snitchers!” said Julie.
“The Rat-faced Snitchers,” said Keeah.
“Of Zoop!” added Neal.
“At your service!” shouted the same voice. “I mean, no. Not at your service. Not at all!”
Keeah’s fingers sparked. Eric’s did, too. They would have used their powers against the bandits, except for one thing. Tied to each Snitcher saddle like a protective shield was a captured Lumpy!
“You’re horrible!” cried Julie. “How could you tie up our friends?”
“With chains,” snarled the robber.
A single sand pony stepped forward. On it rode a Snitcher with grizzled whiskers. He wore a red tunic and billowy green pants, with a long yellow scarf tied on his head like a hat. Khan himself was bound to his saddle.
“I am Captain Plundit!” the bandit said, twisting his whiskers. “And the treasure in that castle is ours!”
“Thief! Robber! What have you done with my father?” demanded Keeah. “Where is Zello, King of Droon?”
“He’s right over there!” said Captain Plundit. He pointed to a nearby dune, where King Zello was crouched on his knees, bound by chains from head to toe.
“I’m all right,” called Zello. “He tricked me. He tricked us all!”
“Of course I did!” Captain Plundit squeaked. “But never mind that. Thanks to your magic charm, Princess, the treasure has finally been revealed to us. And we shall have it.”
“What is the treasure?” asked Eric.
“A … thing,” said the captain, vaguely.
“What kind of thing?” asked Julie.
Plundit frowned. “The kind of thing that is a treasure, that’s what!”
“You don’t even know what it is, do you?” asked Keeah.
“Maybe,” Plundit mumbled.
“I didn’t think so,” Keeah said. “Who are you working for? Is it Emperor Ko? What did he send you to steal from the poor Lumpies?”
“Never you mind!” said a second Snitcher, twirling a club over his head. “Let’s attack!”
With that, the bandits all twirled clubs over their heads.
“Wait!” called Captain Plundit. “Before we attack, we always have a song from the Snitcher troubadour. Corporal Smeed, call the troubadour!”
“Troubadour!” called the club-wielding Snitcher. “Come forth. You are requested!”
A nervous little bandit with a big stringed instrument staggered forward among the band of thieves. He coughed, and adjusted the strap holding an instrument that looked like a cross between a banjo and a ukulele.
Captain Plundit stood up on his pilka’s saddle. He folded his arms and glared at the children below. Even standing full height on the back of a pilka, the Snitcher leader was still no taller than an elf.
“Sing!” Captain Plundit commanded.
The bandits quieted, and the song began.
Captain Plundit is his name
And snitching treasures is his game.
It also is his greatest fame,
And that’s the reason why we came!
“Hmmm,” said Plundit. “I like it!”
“It’s also pretty lame,” said Neal, “to have your rhymes all sound the same.”
The troubadour blinked. “Wow. Maybe you should be the Snitcher troubadour —”
“Enough!” said Plundit. He t
wisted his whiskers again. He dug his tiny feet into his tiny stirrups. “Ready, my fellows?”
“Ready!” the Snitchers hooted.
“Let’s attack!”
The little ponies whinnied, sand flew, clubs whizzed, and the battle of the dunes began!
“Hi-yaaa-hee-ooo!” yelled the rat-faced robbers. They galloped down the dunes.
Keeah pulled her friends back toward the pyramid. “I don’t know what this building is all about,” she said. “But if the Snitchers want to get inside, it’s our job to keep them out!”
“Defense!” cried Neal, tightening his turban.
“Pilkas!” shouted Max. “Surround the treasure house!”
The shaggy-furred beasts did as he said. There were so many attackers, however, that the little band was soon overwhelmed. And with the Lumpies tied to the robbers’ saddles, neither Keeah nor Eric could fire a single blast for fear of harming their friends.
To make matters worse, the Snitchers were being egged on by their troubadour, who kept singing one victory song after another.
We will take,
You will quake!
and
You won’t grin
When we win!
With each new rhyme, the little troops advanced closer to the pyramid.
“We’re way outnumbered,” said Julie.
“Cover me, boys — I’m going into the treasure house!” yelled Plundit, and he slid Khan off his saddle and charged the pyramid.
The robber leader was small, but he proved to be a very good pony rider. He nudged the animal’s flanks, and it bounded up the pyramid, three steps at a time. Before anyone could stop him, Plundit disappeared into the dark opening, laughing at the top of his lungs.
“Someone follow him!” Keeah shouted, busy helping Max and Julie try to stop any more Snitchers from scaling the steps.
“Neal, we can do this!” said Eric.
As Keeah, Julie, and Max kicked sand at the robbers and blocked their way to the castle, Neal and Eric hustled up the steps toward the pyramid’s summit. Without a pause, they dived together through the opening.
The moment they stepped inside, all the sounds of the battle outside — the hollering, the whinnying ponies, the calls of their friends, the squeals of the Lumpies — stopped.
“This place really is magical,” Neal whispered.
“Let’s hope it works for us,” said Eric. “Come on. We have to keep Sergeant Plundit from running off with the treasure —”
“That’s Captain Plundit to you!” came a yell from up ahead.
“Touchy, isn’t he?” said Neal, hurrying toward the sound of the voice, with Eric on his heels.
The passages inside the pyramid were narrow and dark. They zigzagged steeply downward, then continued as if they wound deep under the ground.
Eric ran his finger along the wall. Sand poured to the floor from where he touched. “It really is one giant sand castle. I can’t risk shooting sparks around in here —”
Neal paused. “Look at that.”
Plundit’s sand pony stood in the passage ahead, stamping lazily on the floor.
Its rider was nowhere in sight.
“He’s gone ahead on foot,” said Eric, following the marks on the floor to where the ceiling of the passage lowered. “And then on his hands and knees.”
“I don’t like tight spaces,” said Neal.
“That makes two of us. Come on.”
The two friends crawled into the narrow passage after the robber. The tunnel soon opened out into a room as large as a gymnasium, whose walls seemed to go on forever.
Captain Plundit was already halfway down a long set of stairs. In the center of the otherwise empty floor below sat a small box the size of a shoe box. It appeared to be made of wood, but was crisscrossed in heavy chains.
“It’s here! I have it!” crowed the Snitcher. He jumped off the stairs and ran to the chest.
Eric and Neal bounded after him.
“You leave that alone!” yelled Eric.
“Try and stop me!” snarled Plundit.
“That’s exactly what we —” Neal began.
But the instant Plundit snatched the chest up from the floor, the walls around them wobbled sharply. Sand rained down from the ceiling. The walls began to crack. The floor sank beneath their feet.
“Uh-oh,” said Neal. “Booby trap …”
“Worse — magical booby trap!” cried Eric.
Before either boy could make a move, Plundit flung a handful of sand at them and darted past with the chest, racing up the stairs to his pony.
“Eric, Neal, get out of there!” Keeah cried from the pyramid’s opening. “The castle is crumbling!”
“Run!” cried Neal. He grabbed Eric’s hand and pulled him up the steps as fast as he could. They hurried back through the passages, even as the walls collapsed one by one behind them.
Keeah yanked both boys out of the entrance and down the stairs, seconds before the whole pyramid collapsed back into the ground.
Laughing wildly, Captain Plundit galloped past Neal, Julie, and Max and joined his men. Holding the chest high, he yelled, “Let’s take the treasure to Zoop and see what it is!”
“We’ll follow you,” said Keeah. “And we’ll get that treasure back.”
“I’m so scared!” snarled Plundit. “Besides, you’ll never find Zoop. It’s completely hidden —”
“In the black mountain!” said Smeed, pointing to the distant east.
Plundit turned to him. “Good work, bigmouth! You told them where Zoop is. Now they’ll come after us.”
“But they’ll never find it,” said Smeed. “I didn’t mention the twin valleys, did I?”
Plundit thought for a moment. “No. But what about the rocks that look like faces? Did you say anything about them?”
“Not a word,” said Smeed. “Or the mountain pass known as the Pretzel, either. Only if they follow that will they actually find Zoop. They haven’t got a chance!”
Keeah stared at them. “We’re right here, you know. We can hear every word you’re saying.”
“Oh!” growled Plundit. “Forget everything we said! To Zoop, Snitchers! Go!”
At the leader’s command, the robbers untied the Lumpies and pushed them all from their saddles. Then the entire band galloped around and around the village on the sand ponies. They moved so quickly that a second sandstorm grew up, acting as a wall between them and the children.
“Those ponies are fast!” exclaimed Neal.
A moment later, they heard the sound of hooves retreating across the desert. When the sandstorm died away, Keeah raced across the dunes to her father.
“Daddy!” she said. She blasted away his bonds, and he jumped to his feet.
“I feel so silly,” said the king. “I found a way through the sandstorm and into the Lumpy village, but the whole force of the Snitchers was on me in a moment. They cast me in chains before I could wield my club!”
Khan hustled over as quickly as he could. He patted the king’s arm. “We battled the robbers, too, but their numbers were too great. Now they have the secret treasure!”
“What exactly is the treasure?” asked Eric.
Khan shook his head. “We don’t know. My ancestors vowed to protect it from evil hands, and they did. Until today.”
Zello scanned the deserts to the east. “We may not have seen Ko today, but this theft reeks of him. Khan, I will stay and help rebuild your village. Maybe we’ll find a clue about this treasure. Keeah, you all must find Zoop and try to keep the treasure from Emperor Ko!”
Keeah hugged her father. “We’ll do it.”
Max saluted. “Aye-aye, my king!” He leaped back onto his pilka and called to the others. “Hi-ya! To the distant caves —”
“Of Zoop!” added Neal.
As quickly as they could, the five friends raced across the dunes toward the hideout of the dastardly Rat-faced Snitchers!
Mile after mile vanished under the pilkas’ thunderous hooves, but
as little as the sand ponies were, they were fast. Before long, the robbers had vanished from sight.
Keeah slowed her pilka. “The desert ponies don’t get as tired in the heat as our northern pilkas do,” she said. “We have to find water — and shade. The pilkas must rest if we have any hope of finding Zoop.”
“Excuse me!” coughed a voice behind Eric.
“Eric, your pouch is talking,” said Neal.
“And it’s talking in my master’s voice,” said Max. “It is the Ruby Orb!”
Eric flipped open his pouch. The red sphere of Doobesh popped out and hovered in the air, its insides whirling with snow. Galen’s face appeared through the flakes. The children quickly told him what they had found.
“But we’re falling behind,” said Julie. “And we’re running out of time.”
“I see,” said Galen, seeming to stare at Neal’s head. “Yes, I see. In fact, I see only one thing … and it looks like a big blueberry!”
“That’s Neal’s turban,” said Julie.
“Ah, yes,” said Galen. “His genie turban. The turban whose magical cloth has been known to turn into water. Water, as in a swiftly moving river. Neal, use your head —”
The boy gasped. “A river! Right! I can make a river from my hat! A river to follow the Snitchers on! My good old genie turban!”
“My work here is done,” said Galen, and the Orb flickered out.
Neal whipped the giant blue bundle of fabric off his head. Standing on the back of his pilka, he held one end of the cloth tightly and hurled the rest toward where the robbers had disappeared.
Phewwwww! The cloth unrolled and fluttered down onto the sand. But when it did, it was no longer a cloth. It was a bubbling blue river that surged miles and miles across the deserts toward eastern Droon.
“Voilà!” said Julie. “Instant river!”
Rushing to a nearby oasis, the friends collected branches, tree bark, and palm leaves.
Using his spider silk like glue, Max wove all the pieces together and secured them as tightly as he could. When he stepped back, a small round boat and five paddles sat on the bank of the flowing river.