I said I’d tell him later, I was busy.
“Yes,” said Dona Marina. “A girl about five or six. Apple of his eye.”
“The prophecy says that a little girl will lead us to the codex— the daughter of the ruler of Cozumel. Tomorrow, I want to go back to the city and fulfill the prophecy—” I turned to Cortes “—but I need a translator.”
“I see,” the explorer said, “and what do I get out of the deal?”
“Exactly what you want. A chance to steal the codex.”
“What?” He’d heard me, he just couldn’t believe he had.
I nodded. “Fair is fair. After we leave the city, take it if you can. But remember two things—” I paused.
“Yes?” Boy, was this guy eager.
“First, the prophecy says I will prevail.”
He nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Second, you’ll have to get past Sweetie-Fluff here.” I petted A.B., who had obligingly crawled into my lap like mama’s precious little boy-cakes.
“Ah,” said Cortes, trying to conceal his embarrassing childish glee. “That is the difficult part.”
“Think it over. You can decide in the morning.”
“That won’t be necessary. You’re on.”
Uh-huh. Big surprise. (But of course, he didn’t really say, ‘you’re on’— I hope I don’t have to keep explaining that a) my Spanish is so lousy I hardly know what he did say and b) I have a legal and current poetic license.)
Cortes was thrilled, but I was in agony. Most people would probably think the words “cat” and “apoplectic”— as in “about to have a stroke”— don’t belong in the same sentence. They would have no idea of the pain I was currently enduring from Sweetie-Fluff’s claws digging into my thighs to show his displeasure. He didn’t let up, either, while I negotiated the next few arrangements with the great explorer— no, we wouldn’t like to sleep on his boat, thank you very much, yes, we’d very much appreciate some food if he could send us some, and no to a couple of guards to protect the royal butt. (This last was at A.B.’s insistence; I had no idea why, I just wanted to get those claws out of my legs.)
When the Monster and I were finally alone, he went ballistic on me. “Are you out of your mind, Novice? We have the information we need: We know we didn’t get the book here because we know we went back to Uxmal to get it. Ergo, we have to go back to Uxmal. We have no reason to stay here. Why the bloody devil do you want to go to the Mayan city tomorrow? Do you realize how many lives it could cost me?”
Yada, yada, yada, meow, hiss, yowl, yada.
Except for the wounds, I was pretty much enjoying myself. “Oh, hiss-hiss, yourself,” I replied cockily. “We have to go: I made a promise to Abuela. I have to get the tears of a princess— and face it, no matter what I told Cortes, we both know I’m not one. So where else am I going to find a princess? Bad Girl School? This is my only chance and you know it. By the way, can you make a little girl cry?”
Like I didn’t know the answer.
I could swear he softened up when I mentioned Abuela. But he had to save face— I mean, snout. “They’ll try to kill us,” he grumbled.
“No, they won’t.” I told him my exit plan. “Besides, we have to at least ask for the book. Otherwise, we won’t—”
“It’s not here. If it were, we wouldn’t have gone to Uxmal.”
“But how can we know unless—”
“I am not making that child cry,” he said. “It’s unethical. Besides,” he said, and I could have sworn he was the least bit sheepish, “it is forbidden.”
“Oh, right, I forgot. Okay, I’ll pinch her or something. By the way, isn’t there one more Tactic of Combat? Think it’s time to let me in on it?”
“The Twelfth, last, and most important Tactic of Combat is this: It’s not over till it’s over. Chew on it.”
We slept on the blanket Cortes had left for us and sometime in the night I woke up feeling crowded. I pushed at my sleeping companion. “Move over, A.B.,” I said aloud. Nothing moved, and I realized that the thing crowding me was big, a lot bigger than A.B., and it didn’t like being pushed. A warning growl shook the ground. “Field goal!” I yelped silently. “A.B., wake up. Field goal already!”
“What is it?” the familiar voice snapped.
“We’re not exactly alone here. I think I might have about five seconds to live. Could you do something, please?”
“What is it?”
“There’s something big in bed with us. And it’s growling.”
“Oh. That’s Jose.” He said— or rather thought— something I could hear, but it wasn’t in English or Spanish or anything I recognized. The thing got up and moved a respectful distance, then plopped itself down in Cat Position Two, the Egyptian one, looking at me with mean green eyes.
Jose had spots.
“Omigod! He’s a jaguar.”
“He’s our baby-sitter— remember when I told you about the Planet Guard? The all-feline backup? Jose and Paco came down so I could get some sleep.”
I looked around for Paco, who was about twenty feet away, curled up like the Fur Grenade that ate Cleveland. My heart started to slow down a little. “Uh, okay. But I have to pee.”
“More information than I need, Soldier. Do what you have to do.”
“These guys won’t hurt me?”
“Don’t be absurd. Jose will escort you.”
Have you ever tried to pee on a beach with a jaguar staring at you? “Jose, could you turn your back, please?” I entreated silently.
But I guess only the Alpha Beast speaks Human. The jaguar either didn’t hear or didn’t care.
After that, I slept like a cub in a cave, Jose on one side and, eventually, Paco on the other, and A.B. at my feet. If any Spaniards were prowling, I hope they saw us and crossed themselves.
The guards were gone the next morning. And soon it came to pass (great myths always start this way) that once again the fabled Jaguar-Snake Woman and her darling pet, Sweetie-Fluff, went into the city to greet the people.
Only this time they had a Sixteenth Century police escort, complete with flying flags, strutting soldiers, and a famous explorer in a plumed hat.
The king made a welcoming speech, the beautiful goddess made a thank-you speech (through Dona Marina, of course), and then I asked to meet the princess. She was this adorable little kid with a bead hung over her nose so she’d be a cross-eyed grown-up, and I honored her by letting her hold my precious Sweetie-Fluff.
Of course, I knew I couldn’t lose. The Beast wasn’t going to chew her hand off, he’d already mentioned that. So there was nothing he could do but let her pet him and stroke his cute little ears and call him Cuddles in Mayan. But when I tried to take him back, she stamped her royal foot and said, “Princess keep the kitty!” or something close to it.
“Okay, A.B.,” I said, “this is your cue. Hiss, big-time. Give her a nip.”
But he just snuggled deeper into her arms, and even mustered a purr. A purr! I didn’t know he had it in him.
“Kitty’s going home, now, “ I told the girl, and lifted him out of her arms. Whereupon she screwed up her little face and started to cry on cue. Unceremoniously, I dropped the monster, produced a tissue from my pants pocket, wiped her winsome mug, and stuffed the tear-soaked tissue back in my pocket.
“How about I give you my shirt instead?” I said. “So you have something to remember me by.”
Now, here’s the thing— parents are the same anywhere, anytime. Naturally her dad was thrilled with the bribe. He was all, “Sure, kid, wouldn’t that be a great thing? A shirt worn by the goddess! Like, you know, a magic shirt!”
And she bought it.
So I had them bring me back my polo shirt, and then I had to change in front of everybody (which I did with extreme dignity) and then I picked up Sweetie-Fluff, and I said to Dona Marina, “Tell the people I love them very much, and I will be sorry to leave them. But before I do, I have one tiny request. Could the princess, please, take us to th
e Book of the Great Cycles?” (Of course I didn’t know the name of the one A.B. and I wanted, but I figured that was as good as any.)
The king’s eyes flashed furiously. “Hrrraaaaah!” he said, and something else. Then he made a sign to his soldiers, the ones in the quilted armor, who started towards me from their station across the plaza. I didn’t need Dona Marina to tell me what was going on. I seemed to have said the secret word.
“He says she’s an impostor,” Dona Marina said to Cortes.
Well, I really hated to leave on a sour note. I raised my hand for silence, clutching A.B. with the other. “Tell the people,” I told her, “that the book is safe. And tell them also—” I pointed to Cortes— “to beware the foreign devil!”
I pulled A.B.’s tail, and he grabbed a cosmic strand for Bad Girl School and there we were, doing the time-travel polka again. I tried to holler Adios, amigos, but you really can’t do two things at once. I like to think maybe they heard it, though, like from a tunnel in the distance.
Not counting the two rapists, I really liked those people.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO—ZEROING IN
“Idiot! Fool!” The Beast fumed.
We were back in the dining room, and I was once again eating granola. “Guess that’s even worse than Novice, huh?”
“That was unnecessary, Human. I told you the book wasn’t there. We wouldn’t have had to go back to Uxmal if it were.”
“But, A.B., we didn’t know that we got the book in Uxmal— Dona Marina only said we attempted to steal it. I was just trying to find out if we made it. Because, you know, why go to Uxmal if we didn’t?”
“But we did go, Novice. That means we must go. We can’t change history. Really! ‘Beware the foreign devil,’ indeed. You couldn’t resist warning them about Cortes, yet we know Cortes—”
“Hey, he wasn’t as bad as some of them. Maybe he got away with less stuff because I warned them.”
“And maybe the two of us scared the wits out of him…”
“…so he tried less stuff. I’d sure love to think so. Okay, okay, so we’ll go to Uxmal. Meanwhile, I’ve got to go to English.”
And off I went, but I was suddenly so exhausted I fell asleep in class. After a somewhat embarrassing takedown by the teacher, which you would have thought would have woken me up for a month, I still hadn’t recovered. Thinking I must be getting mono, or possibly African sleeping sickness, which is completely fatal, I finally went to Evelina for an infirmary pass. (Which was handy because I got to claim I missed gym because I couldn’t move.)
The nurse couldn’t find anything wrong but thought I might be catching something and sent me back to bed on grounds of looking awful. By afternoon I still couldn’t get up. A.B. sat on my chest, crushing my lungs and heart. “A.B.,” I managed to gasp, “I think I’m sick.”
“You’re not sick. Time-traveling takes it out of you. You’ll feel okay in a few days.”
“Listen, I’m sorry I was stupid. I’ll try to improve. I swear.”
“You did well, Traveler.” He took a load off my chest, his elephant paws thumping on the floor like four telephone books. I went back to sleep in my clothes, feeling in my pocket for my princess tears. They were there, dried up but still there, on that tissue in my pocket. The clowns let me sleep another day, and by then I felt about halfway back to normal.
However, near-total exhaustion did not keep me from the Ozone Rangers meeting that second night. A.B. was there well before me, of course.
“Hi, everybody? Did Kara tell you? A.B. and I went to Cozumel!” (Of course she knew— we were speaking now.)
“Woo-hoo!” Carlos yelped sweetly, but in a way that I could tell he already knew. “How was it?”
“Amazing! I’m a goddess. Wait’ll you hear the Legend of Jaguar Snake Woman.”
So I spun the tale for them, in such precise and vivid detail that I could see they didn’t believe a word, not even Carlos. Looking around at their doubting faces, I decided to just… give up. Who cared if anyone believed me? “Not buying it, huh?” I said. “Okay, listen, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just get on with the meeting.”
Whereupon A.B.’s tail lassooed my wrist in a death grip and yanked me to my feet. “A.B., what the hell?”
Cooper stood, balling his fist. It was so sweet. “She’s full of shit, but let her go, ape-cat!”
While I stood there in agony, A.B. talked to me.
I translated. “Umm… he says I’m wrong, it does matter.” And guess what? My voice wasn’t mine, it was his! That British, half-cockney, Michael Caine male thing.
They all screamed, even the guys. Sonya stood up so fast her chair fell on the floor, and backed up against the bookshelf. I swear if she could have turned white she would have. Kara actually did.
A.B. let me go, and I could see that already my wrist was purpling up. Stunned, I said aloud, “A.B., what was that?”
“That was nothing, Student. Just a trick. It is imperative they understand this is real. Tell them to focus.” Then he told me what to do next.
“The great and powerful Oz…” I began, but he was in no mood. He grabbed Kara this time, holding her hostage. “A.B. let her go. I’m sorry. Okay, let’s try again. The great and powerful Alpha Beast says this is real, O’Neal. And for reasons best known to his Fuzzy Highness, he wants to make sure you get it. He says we should focus and listen up…”
So we lit the candle and I led them through a short visualization more or less describing what I felt when I time-traveled. And then I said, “Let it unfold.”
What happened then was A.B. showed us a movie. Wow! I have no idea how he did it, but it was like he projected the whole trip to Cozumel on the backs of our eyelids. I got to see myself with Cortes and Dona Marina, and sleeping with the jaguars, and tricking the little Mayan princess, and everything. Of course I was a little embarrassed that Cooper and Carlos saw me in my bra, but who really cared? Even Meryl Streep does nude scenes.
When the lights were back on, and everyone had dutifully exclaimed, we compared notes to make sure we’d really all seen the same thing. As it became clearer and clearer that we had, people started to get more and more weirded out. Finally, Julia, eyes sort of halfway cut at A.B., as if she were afraid to drop her guard, even for a second, blurted, “But… what does he want?”
A.B. said, “Traveller, give me your voice!”
“Uh, everybody hang on. He says he wants me to channel him again.” And then I said, or rather A.B. did, but it came out of me: “We are talking about preventing the destruction of the planet, my innocents! This is real, Lucille, as my apprentice would say. Please do not disrespect the Alpha Beast. If you wish to help Reeno Dimond and me, decide now. Are you in or out?”
“Wow,” I said. “My throat hurts.” But what I was really thinking was, Did he just call me his apprentice?
“Slip of the tongue, slip of a girl,” the Beast said.
“Well, that was helpful,” said Cooper. “What does he want us to do?” And then he had to go through the dread tail-bracelet torture. Finally, the Beast said, once again in my voice, “When we go, we will need you to send energy to Uxmal.”
“Huh?” said Carlos, Cooper, and me together. But Sonya, Kara and Julia nodded in understanding. “Oh, is that all?” said Julia. “Piece of cake.”
“We will need it on a consistent basis the entire time we are in Uxmal.”
“Well? How long will that be?”
“That remains to unfold. Possibly weeks.”
The three original Rangerettes said something like, “Pfff!”
Carlos said, “Could someone clue us in about this energy-sending thing?”
Julia said, “Well, there’s nothing to it, really. When someone needs some— like when they’re sick or hurt or something— we just focus on sending a piece of our energy to them. Or maybe the universe’s—who knows where it comes from? Anyhow, it’s like, I don’t know, cosmic vitamins or something. A booster shot to keep them going.” She paused. “It’s easy
for a few minutes. But I can’t imagine how we could keep it up for a long time.
I was excited. “Hey, did I say why we went to Cozumel so suddenly? I got kind of desperate— Haley’s in a coma. Could we send her some energy?”
Julia said, “Oooh, sorry to hear it. But sure. We’re barely started here. Wait’ll you see what Kara taught us. In fact, let’s do that first. The way we usually do it is try to generate energy first, so we have a good supply on hand. Do you know what I mean?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, the work we’re going to do with Cooper and Stuffed Curly will get our adrenaline going. Then we can chant a little to generate some energy and we can send it off to Haley. Make sense?”
“Not too sure.”
She nodded. “Just trust me. More new business? No. Okay, then: LET’S RIDE THE OZONE!”
Weirdly, everyone shouted the last three words with her. It seemed like a new group tradition— a lot had happened in two days.
Julia put the Curly dog in the middle of the table, lit the candle, and we were off. “Okay, Reeno, watch this. I mean, don’t just watch, help us. Let’s levitate Curly.”
Almost the moment we started to focus, the doll lifted into the air— and kept rising! It was easy too, not just some three- or four-inch thing, accomplished by focusing so hard it strained your neck muscles. That thing floated. And kept floating until Julia said, “Top of the right bookshelf,” whereupon it did an immediate one-eighty, headed to the appointed shelf, and plopped itself down.
“Yes!” Cooper made a fist and pumped downward with his elbow.
I settled for a simple “Zowie! How the hell did we do that?”
“It was mostly Kara,” Julia said. “Kara, do you mind demonstrating?”
“Sure.” Kara had gone from French’s to something like sunflower gold— in other words, she was almost radiant. And she was in her element now. She nearly glowed as the stuffed toy left the shelf and floated slowly to the one on the opposite side of the room.
“Now let’s put it back,” Julia said, and with all of us on it, it practically flew. “See? She can do it by herself, but with all of us on it, what we gain is speed. We tried the other way too— just us without Kara— and we actually can’t raise it more than a couple of feet.”
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