by Ryan Calejo
Panicking, I looked wildly around. “Me? What? Where?”
His eyes slid down to my shorts. “In you bolsos! You pockets!”
“My pockets?” Then I remembered: the alicanto egg! I’d hidden it in the inside pocket of my cargoes to make sure Saci wouldn’t try to take it again.
When I dug it out, Saci cried, “Madre! Did you just lay that?”
“No, you moron! Do I look like classification avian to you?” In all fairness, I had sprouted feathers once (and wings), but he didn’t need to know that.…
Another crack, crunch, crunch and now a long, zigzagging crack ran up the side of the copper-colored shell. All three of us froze. Something was in there… something alive! Which I guess should’ve been kind of obvious, it being an egg and all—but still!
The egg quivered between my hands; I heard another crack! and then a huge section of shell fell off and a tiny coppery bird—it looked like a newborn chick that had been dipped into a bucket of liquid pennies—pushed itself out through the gap. Twin beady eyes looked up at me. Its tiny coppery beak opened, and it chirped something that sounded suspiciously like “Mama!”
“Oh my gosh, Charlie—that’s, like, the cutest thing EVER!” Violet cooed.
The tiny bird chirped again, “Mama! Mama!” and this time Violet heard what I’d heard.
“Charlie, it thinks you’re its mother!”
“What? Why? Why would it think something like that?”
“I know—it’s weird.… I mean, for a bird to think that you’re its mother, you would have had to have incubated it for an incredibly long period of… hold on. How long have you had that thing in your shorts?”
Too long, obviously, I thought, but what I said was, “Uh… a while?”
A second later the baby bird hopped out of my hand, its itty-bitty little baby wings a blur, and landed on the floor between my sneakers. All three of us watched it waddle over to one corner of the cell and begin pecking at the golden wall. Tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap! Its tiny beak must’ve been made of something pretty hard, because next thing I knew there was a chunk about the size of a Ping-Pong ball missing from the wall.
“Charlie, I think it’s eating the gold…,” Violet said, sounding a little bit concerned and a lotta bit amazed—and finally everything clicked together in my brain.
“Of course it is!” I shouted. “It’s an alicanto!”
V was shaking her head like, No comprendo.
I gestured wildly at the bird. “An alicanto! My abuela loved these things! Well, she loved telling me stories about them.… They’re, like, these legendary birds known all over South America! Their feathers light up at night. They’ve also been known to lead people to vast treasures and stuff like that. Greedy people they lead off cliffs. But, yeah, they’re super famous!” I couldn’t believe it had taken me until now to remember about them.
Saci was nodding along, like he’d heard the same stories—or, maybe had tried to follow one. “And dey the mukis’ natural-born enemy. Those birds feed on precious metals. How you think dey feathers get such beautiful colors?”
A jingling: One of the soldiers had returned to our cell holding three different rings of golden keys. But the second he got one look at the alicanto in the corner, he let out a shriek (something like, “CHICHICHICAAAA!”), dropped the keys, and took off down the hall again.
Saci grinned. “See what Saci mean?”
I felt Violet’s fingers tighten on my upper arm. “Charlie, look!”
I turned and almost choked on my own tongue. The baby alicanto had almost doubled in size; it was now about as big as a full-grown duck, and the chunk it had taken out of the wall had expanded to about the size of a beach ball! Dang, that little thing knew how to chow down!
“It’s gonna eat through the wall!” V shouted with a rush of laughter.
The alicanto glanced back at me, chirped. “Mama!”
The hole it had made must’ve been almost two feet deep; there couldn’t have been much wall left. “Sí, sí, eat, my child!” I shouted, pointing back at the wall. “You must be hungry! Eat!”
From behind us came the wild jingling of keys—I turned, saw a different guard fumbling around with the keys the other one had dropped. He was trying to find the right one, but his eyes kept flicking up to the alicanto, and in his terror he was having a tough time sliding the keys into the lock. “¡No te muevas!” he warned us in a voice that was more scared than scary. “D-D-D-Don’t move!”
My eyes flew back to the alicanto: The once-tiny baby bird had grown to nearly the size of an ostrich! Even more amazing, it had already managed to eat all the way through the prison wall! The hole was just big enough for us to run through; only problem was, if any of us actually ran through it, we’d plummet twenty stories straight down to a resounding KASPLAT!
“Meu Deus, that bird can eat!” Saci cried.
V whirled around. “Can those things fly?”
“Of course they can fly, chica! They birds!”
“Not all birds can fly, smart guy. Ever heard of an emu?”
Saci thought for a second. “No.”
“Whatever!” Her eyes locked onto mine. “Charlie, I think we’ve found our way out!”
I was shaking my head, wondering if she’d gone bananas. “What?”
“We have to ride that bird out of here!”
“What?”
“It’s the only way!”
“WHAT?”
“You have a better idea, or are you just going to keep sayng ‘what’?”
I was actually going to stick with my “what”—it seemed like the only sensible thing either of us was saying at the moment. But a loud metallic click behind us had me whirling: The guard had finally found the right key. Which meant there wasn’t any time for more “whats” or even any better ideas.
“C’mon!” Violet shouted, pulling me toward the alicanto, and all three of us quickly climbed onto its back, Saci yelling, “Fly, you crazy bird, fly!”
But instead of taking off, the bird craned its head around and squawked, “Mama!”
“This isn’t going to work!” I yelled as the guards threw open the door. They rushed into the cell, swords drawn—and I panicked. Right before they’d unlocked the door, I had spotted a fist-size hunk of golden brick hanging off the wall by my head; now I yanked it loose, showed it to the alicanto long enough for its eyes to light up a brilliant greenish gold, then tossed it in front of us, out into the open air. The alicanto took the bait. Literally. It sprang forward, snatching the golden nugget out of the air with its shiny beak before we had even started to drop. I had a split second to think how brilliant my move was—and then we did start to drop.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO
The good news: My plan had worked—we were out of the prison. The bad news: In all its hungry excitement, the alicanto had forgotten the number one rule of gravity—no flapping, no flying. We plummeted straight down like a bag of rocks. The wind screamed in our ears. The giant canvas ceilings of the market way down below rushed up toward us in a dizzying blur. of red, yellow, and blue stripes. At the very last moment the alicanto threw open its wings, which would’ve been perfect like five seconds ago. All it did now was slow our fall a little.
We crashed through a canvas top, splitting the fabric with a great tearing sound, and landed smack-dab in the middle of a huge crate of—SQUISH!—fruit. Juice sprayed everywhere. A sharp, citrusy scent rushed up my nostrils. Oranges. We’d fallen into a crate of oranges. Around us, several mukis who had been shopping at this fruit stand shrieked. One saw the alicanto and fainted on the spot.
“Vamos! Vamos!” Saci shouted, frantically climbing out of the crate. And then I saw why: A band of muki soldiers was pushing its way through the crowd less than thirty yards away. “TO THE CARTS! RÁPIDO, POR FAVOR!”
There was a row of golden mine carts sitting along the far edge of the market, where the golden brick floors turned to golden tracks that ran out in all directions, winding and crisscrossing int
o a complex highway system.
We zigzagged our way through the maze of tables and stalls—the alicanto right on our heels, Saci snatching up anything that wasn’t tied down—and jumped into the first cart in the row. The moment we’d all piled in, I heard a crackling, electric zap! and the cart immediately lurched forward, shooting off the line like we’d hit the turbo boost in Mario Kart. As we zipped along the tracks, going from zero to at least sixty in all of a blink, I remembered that gold was an amazing conductor of electricity and couldn’t help wonder if that’s how they were getting these carts to move.
“ONLY WAY OUTTA DIS PLACE IS THROUGH DA PURPLE CAVES!” Saci yelled.
There was a metallic screech as the cart began to pick up incredible speed. It bounced. It wobbled. It trembled, and Violet shouted, “WHICH WAY IS THAT?”
“Dey comin’ up!”
There was a tunnel up ahead, four tracks wide. As we zoomed into it, another mine cart came screaming up behind us, then suddenly hopped the tracks, pulling alongside our cart. The driver, an older-looking muki with a chin-cape of curly white hair that flew out behind him in the wind wagged his fist at us, shouting, “¡Aprendan a manejar, gamberros!” which basically translates to “Learn how to drive, morons!” And then he sped away. Huh. I guess even mukis suffered from road rage… well, track rage, anyway.
“How do you switch tracks with this thing?” I asked Violet.
“Probably with that!” She was pointing at a golden lever sticking out of the front of the car. “Looks like it’s some kind of primitive steering column.”
As I wrapped my fingers around it, I noticed there were strange symbols carved into the top. “What do these things even mean?” I started to say, and then—
Clink, clink, clink!
I whirled, saw a bunch of muki soldiers on our tail—five of them packed into a single mine cart with another bunch crammed into the cart behind them.
Three of the soldiers in the closest cart were holding sleek silver bows. They aimed them at us, making my insides twist into a pretzel, but apparently Saci didn’t share the same fear of being mortally skewered because he suddenly sprang to his feet, shouting, “Here! Right here!”
Good thing for him Violet was right there and dragged him down before one of them could score a bull’s-eye. “HELLLOOOO! They’re trying to SHOOT you!”
“I know—and I want dem to! Those arrows solid gold!”
Clink, clink, clink! The mukis missed again, the arrows bouncing harmlessly off the back of our cart, but they were gaining on us. Which meant they wouldn’t be missing for long.
Violet shouted, “CHARLIE, DO SOMETHING!”
She’d barely spoken the words when the mukis unleashed another barrage of arrows, and Saci fell back with a loud yelp. My first thought was, Oh yeah, sure. I was convinced he was messing with us—you know, pulling one of his old prankaroos.
But then I saw the gleaming golden arrow sticking out of the middle of his chest and my heart slammed so hard I was positive I’d busted a rib.
“SACI!” I shouted.
Violet’s panicked eyes found mine as we both leaned over him.
“I feel so cold, irmão…,” he whimpered, gripping my hand in both of his. I could feel his fingers trembling, the strength seeping out of them as his body went into shock.
“Dude, it’s okay—you’re going to be okay!” I looked at Violet, feeling dread beginning to crawl up my throat. “I mean, you can fix him, right?”
“Charlie, I don’t have the tools to perform SURGERY on him!”
“Just do something! He’s gonna die!”
She leaned closer, examining the wound.
“WHAT YOU DOING?” Saci yelped. “HURTS SO BAD!”
“I haven’t even touched you yet! I’m just looking.…”
“Is it muito, muito bad?” he asked her.
Violet’s eyes narrowed. “It’s TERRIBLE! I’m gonna have to operate after all. And by hand.”
“WHAT?” I couldn’t believe what she’d just said. I mean, first off, it sounded highly unsanitary. But before I could say anything else, she yanked out the arrow, and I almost passed out right then and there.
“Yep, just as I suspected—a kill shot.” She held up the arrow, and when I finally forced myself to look, I saw that the tip had embedded itself into a nest of curly gold shavings—the stuff Saci had been chiseling off the bars back in the prison! “Something tells me he’s gonna make it,” Violet said with an annoyed look.
“Oh, shiny!” Saci sat up, snatching the arrow from Violet’s hand. “GOOOOOOOOOOALLL!” he began to shout, but just as he did, the alicanto glanced over and gobbled up the golden arrow in a single slurping gulp.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Saci cried as the alicanto let out a satisfied burp.
“Charlie, get us out of here!” Violet screamed while more arrows swooshed by overhead.
I spun around and grabbed the steering column, but wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“Just do something!” she yelled at me.
Fine. I slammed the lever forward and then had to clench my teeth as an earsplitting shriek of metal rose up from the tracks, and we began to slow. The cart shuddered. My teeth clattered. The alicanto let out another loud burp.
“Do something else!” Violet said, so I did, yanking back on the lever. But this time there was no slowing down. In fact, it felt like I’d hit the warp-speed button on the Starship Enterprise! The mine cart shot forward like a rocket, the sudden acceleration snapping our heads back and slamming us against each other as we zoomed down the tunnel in a frenzy of speed and sound.
“Maybe dis a little too fast!” Saci yelled.
Ahead the tunnel opened up, creating a fork in the road—or rather, in the mine.
“Go right!” Saci yelled. “That’s the caves!”
“Hold on!” I shouted, and started to pull the lever to the right, but Violet stopped me.
“I think the controls are inverted!” she said.
I shook my head. The tunnel was coming at us fast. We didn’t have time for thinking. “Meaning?”
“Meaning forward is stop and back is go, right? So then left is probably right. And right is left.”
“So then left is right, right?”
“Right.”
“Wait!” Saci said. “So, his right or your right?”
“Enough!” Violet wrenched the lever left, and the mine cart swerved sharply into the middle lane, cutting in front of the other cart of muki soldiers just as they came zooming up on us. The tiny bearded driver tried to slam on his brakes, but it was too late. The front of their cart played bumper tag with the back of ours, then tilted sideways. A mesmerizing shower of golden sparks leapt into the air as their mine cart tumbled once, twice, then went flying off the tracks.
“AGAIN!” Saci cried, playing bongo drums on my back with his fists. “SWITCH AGAIN!”
Violet gave the lever another yank, and we sliced right, our wheels squealing against the inside rail as we shot into the narrow opening.
We blasted down the tunnel. Rocky walls zoomed past. The wind howled around us. Then our cart bucked and nearly jumped off the tracks as the second cart of soldiers rammed us viciously from behind. The wheels on our cart whined and shuddered. The angry pint-size driver pulled his cart closer and closer until he was tailgating us. And just as he did, one of the mukis tried to board us, swinging his sword inches from my face.
He’d almost crawled halfway into our cart when the alicanto finally decided it’d had enough. Our big, beautiful bird snatched the muki’s sword, swallowing it down in a single gulp, then batted him away with its wings, sending the muki tumbling backward into his cart. Then it stretched out its long, feathered neck and bit a chunk out of the front of their cart, chomping through the tough gold ore like it was sponge cake. The muki driver let out a terrified shriek, twisting the steering column, and the mine cart wobbled suddenly and then came off the tracks. It crashed into the rocky wall and was out of sight a split second later.
“GOOD PÁSSARO!” Saci cried, stroking the alicanto’s broad, coppery head. “WHAT A BIG WONDERFUL BIRD!”
But no sooner had he said that than the big wonderful bird turned into the big gluttonous bird and craned its neck around to bite a massive chunk out of the back of our mine cart. And then another. And another.
The cart began to shake. Now I could see our back wheels grinding along the tracks, sending up spurts of fiery yellow sparks.
Oh, man, oh man, oh man! Las cosas están malas! BIEN malas!
“He’s eating us out of house and home!” Saci cried, wrapping his arms around me.
“Doesn’t matter,” Violet shouted. “Looks like it’s time to move, anyway!” She pointed up ahead, where the tracks dead-ended at an untidy heap of rotten planks, and not for the first time that day, I heard myself swallow.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
A large rectangular sign had been chained over the pile. It read VÍA CERRADA.
“JUMP!” Violet shouted, and no one hesitated—not even the alicanto.
We hit the ground hard, tumbling for several feet, and when the world finally stopped spinning, I looked up just in time to see our cart smash into the pile of planks. Splinters and chunks of stone flew in every direction.
The thud of the crash echoed through the tunnel, rattling off the walls and making bits of rock rain down from the impossibly high ceilings.
Gingerly I pushed up to my knees and ran a quick diagnostic. Alvin’s smelly dog collar? Check. Freaky finger-necklace? Check. Skeletal system still in one piece? Más o menos… “Everyone still breathing?” I asked.
“Think so.” Violet sat up, wiping sweat off her face.
“You two dangerous to be around, you know?” Saci was already up, looking around at the ginormous cavern. Stalactites hung down from the roof like fangs while stalagmites shot up from the ground like spikes. He turned to glare at the alicanto. “And I not even going to talk about dat crazy bird.…”
“There!” Violet said, pointing. Through the blackness, maybe ten yards ahead of us, I could just barely make out a bridge—some kind of long plank-and-rope setup that must’ve stretched a hundred yards or so over a pitch-black chasm. It should’ve been impossible to see with how dark it was in here, but something nearby had started to glow. And when I looked around to find out what (I was hoping one of us hadn’t unknowingly caught on fire or something), I saw it was the alicanto! A bright radiant light was spreading like luminescent ink through the veins of its feathers, shining out in every shade of copper, gold, and brown imaginable. The bridge, which, like everything else in this place, appeared to be made of pure gold, shone dully in its fierce glow.