We Sled With Dragons

by C. Alexander London

  “Bo-ring,” said Oliver.

  He threw himself backward onto the bed, forgetting how gross he thought it was. He was tired and really wanted to watch TV, even if it was one of the dumb soap operas that Celia always made him watch, like Love at 30,000 Feet. As long as it wasn’t one of those fashion shows.

  “Ooh, Celebrity Fashion Crimes is on!” Celia squealed.

  “Anything but that!” Oliver groaned. Celebrity Fashion Crimes was about celebrities in terrible outfits giving free makeovers to non-famous people who looked fine until the celebrities came along. “Can’t we look for Agent Zero?”

  “No,” said Celia. She’d had enough action and adventure for a while.

  “How about Bizarro Bandits?” Oliver suggested.

  “We’re watching TV in a filthy hotel with a lizard, a chicken, and an evil celebrity impersonator while our parents, a professor, and a monkey try to rescue an actual celebrity from pirates,” said Celia. “Things are bizarre enough already.”

  “What about Soup Wars?” Oliver loved cooking shows.

  “It’s too hot for soup,” said Celia.

  “World’s Best Rodeo Clown?”

  “We’re watching Celebrity Fashion Crimes.”

  “Oh come on! Let’s just look for World’s Best Rodeo Clown!”

  “Celebrity Fashion Crimes. That’s final.”

  “Ugh,” said Oliver.

  “Hiss,” said Beverly.

  Celia gave them both a look that silenced them. She had her mother’s gift for it. Sometimes, she thought, both brothers and poisonous lizards needed to be reminded who was the boss. She was three minutes and forty-two seconds older, after all.

  On TV, Madam Mumu, the pop star of all pop stars, was in a canoe with a sad-faced girl in a pretty sundress. The girl was holding a fishing line and looking glum.

  “You need carp!” Madam Mumu shouted. “A freshwater fish is the fashion-forward way to a fancy hat!”

  “Bo-ring!” Oliver groaned.

  “You’ll have to stay in cooler climates so the hat doesn’t start to smell,” Madam Mumu was telling the girl. “How do you feel about moving to the arctic archipelago of Svalbard? It’s cold, but you get to see the wonder of the aurora borealis glowing in the twilight sky. Some of the ice sheets off the coast are thousands of years old. They’re as thick as skyscrapers! Your outfit will really pop against that background. You’ll love it!”

  The girl on screen did not look like she would love it.

  “Now let’s get back to your campsite!” said Madam Mumu. “After this commercial break, we’ll make a dress out of your tent! It’s warm, fireproof, and almost indestructible!”

  “Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring,” said Oliver.

  “Stop it,” said Celia.

  “Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring.”

  “Shh.”

  “Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring.”

  Celia turned up the volume to drown out her brother.

  For those readers who do not yet know Celia and Oliver very well, you may wonder how they can focus so much on television under their current circumstances. You see, while some children might have been filled with anxiety about guarding a prisoner while their parents staged the daring rescue of a celebrity from a pirate stronghold in the desert outside Djibouti, Oliver and Celia were not so easily impressed.

  Danger was nothing new to them—they’d been facing danger since before they could walk. Distant lands were about as interesting for these two as folding socks. And they were certainly used to their parents running off on one foolish quest or another.

  Their mother had run off when they were eight years old to search for the Lost Library of Alexandria. After three years without a word from her, she had suddenly reappeared on a mountaintop in Tibet. She told the twins that she loved them and missed them—all that normal mother stuff—and then she told them that she was part of an ancient secret society called the Mnemones, the scribes of the Lost Library of Alexandria back before it became lost. The M in Mnemones is silent, just like the D in Djibouti.

  Being an explorer, we should note, involves lots of silent letters and secret societies.

  Their mother also told Oliver and Celia that they were the last of the Mnemones and that they had to find the Lost Library of Alexandria before Sir Edmund did or the whole world was doomed. Then she disappeared again without so much as a bedtime story.

  She showed up a few months after that in the Amazon, and then again on a desert island in the Pacific Ocean, always talking about her secret society and the fate of the world and Oliver and Celia’s destiny.

  Of course, every time she showed up, the twins’ lives were in danger. It was unclear whether she showed up to protect them or if she brought the danger with her.

  Either way, because of her quest for the Lost Library, Celia and Oliver had battled monstrous yetis in Tibet, biting fire ants in the Amazon, giant squid on the Pacific Ocean, and faced witches, warriors, goons, and grave robbers. They’d ridden a yak, escaped crumbling ruins and an erupting volcano, and watched their favorite actor get kidnapped by pirates. They’d also been thrown out of an airplane.

  That one, their mother confessed, had been her fault.

  At least on TV the adventures came with special effects and the story was neatly tied up after half an hour. Even better, the twins didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything to have TV adventures. Excitement, they had long ago decided, was more exciting when it was happening to someone else.

  “You know when Mom and Dad get back they’ll want us to go with them on another adventure, right?” Oliver said, staring up at the ceiling.

  Celia didn’t answer. She knew her brother was right, and she hated when that happened.

  “They’ll want us to go looking for Atlantis,” he continued. “That’s where Mom thinks the Lost Library is hidden.”

  “That is where it is hidden,” Celia told her brother. She’d found Percy Fawcett’s journal that said so.

  “We’ll have to beat Sir Edmund there,” Oliver added.

  “Of course, when in Svalbard, you must watch out for walruses,” Madam Mumu continued to lecture the girl on TV. “Polar bears are obviously best avoided, but an angry walrus can be equally dangerous. They are a status-driven species, so it is important to establish a dominant posture.”

  “We could . . . you know.” Oliver hesitated. He worried that his sister was going to yell at him for what he was about to suggest. She was pretty good at establishing a dominant posture and she always got the final say on what they watched on TV or who went first into ancient ruins. “We could help them,” he said. “Mom and Dad are pretty hopeless without us.”

  Celia sat on the edge of the bed and stared straight at the TV. Of course they could help their parents, she thought. In spite of themselves, they’d become pretty good adventurers.

  Oliver pulled the old leather journal from the bag and flipped through it. There was a lot of faded writing and drawings from the old explorer’s travels. Some pages were filled from edge to edge with tiny words, others had sketches of the fabled city of Atlantis, with a large temple in the center and rings of walls and moats stretching out from it like ripples in a pond. A statue of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, stood at the entrance to its vast gates.

  Other pages had odd symbols and crazy drawings of monsters like yetis and giant squid, unicorns and dragons. There was, for some reason, a whole page with a picture of a buck-toothed squirrel arguing with an old bearded man. The explorer who kept this journal must have gone crazy when he vanished in the jungle. What sort of adult would draw a picture of a man arguing with a squirrel?

  The back page of the journal was filled with pictures of a tree. Not different trees. Just one big tree—the same tree—over and over again.

  “C-r-a-z-y,” Oliver muttered. He got bored and threw the
journal back into the bag. “I mean, if we helped Mom and Dad, we wouldn’t have to go back to sixth grade yet,” he finally said. “And we do have that remote control. It could help.”

  Celia studied the remote in her hands. It wasn’t just a universal remote control. It also had the ability to access the complete catalog of the Lost Library of Alexandria from any TV anywhere in the world.

  I know what you’re thinking.

  Big deal, right? It’s just a library catalog.

  Well, no one actually knows everything the Lost Library contained in its collections. It was destroyed two thousand years ago in a terrible fire, and all its contents were believed lost. Except they were not lost. They were rescued from destruction and hidden away, maps of forgotten civilizations—like Atlantis—along with scrolls of ancient wisdom and power, magic and intrigue, accounting records and instruction manuals.

  Those last two don’t sound so exciting, but the accounting records document all the wealth of the ancient world, and the instruction manuals might just show how to raise the lost city of Atlantis. For that reason, the rich and powerful have long sought to find and control the library. And for that same reason, the Mnemones have been trying to find it first.

  “And anyway, the sooner we help Mom and Dad find Atlantis and get to the Lost Library, the sooner we can all go home,” Oliver added.

  “Fine,” Celia said. “We’ll help Mom and Dad. But just this one time,” she added. “Then we get to go home and watch TV and never have another adventure again. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” said Oliver. “Now, gimme the remote.”

  “Celebrity Fashion Crimes isn’t over yet.”

  “But you just said we could use the remote to help Mom and Dad.”

  “After Celebrity Fashion Crimes.”

  “No,” Oliver whined.

  “Just a minute!”

  “Come on!” Oliver dove for the remote and Celia tried to pull it away.

  “No!” she yelled as he tugged at it and she tugged back. They pulled and twisted and wrestled and pushed over the remote control while Dennis and Beverly watched from Ernest’s back.

  “Give it!” grunted Oliver.

  “You’ll break it!” grunted Celia.

  “Will not!”

  “Will too!”

  “Will—oh.” Oliver stopped struggling and Celia snatched the remote back from him. She followed his eyes to the TV screen and saw that they were no longer watching Celebrity Fashion Crimes.

  Instead, they were looking at an entry in the catalog of the Lost Library of Alexandria.

  “The Life and Voyages of Saint Nicholas of Myra,” Celia read aloud. “Fourth century AD, three scrolls in his own hand.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Oliver.

  “It means that the library had three scrolls written by Saint Nicholas of Myra in the fourth century.”

  “When was that?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “Where’s Myra?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Who was Saint Nicholas?”

  Celia shrugged.

  “Is he, like, Santa Claus?”

  Celia looked sideways at her brother.

  “You know,” said Oliver. “Like Old Saint Nick?”

  “Don’t be such a baby,” said Celia. “There’s no such thing as Santa Claus.”

  “How would you know?” said Oliver.

  “Because,” said Celia, “I’m older.”

  “We’re twins!”

  “I’m still older.”

  “By three minutes!”

  “And forty-two seconds,” she added. “Anyway, what would Santa Claus have to do with the Lost Library?”

  That one stumped Oliver.

  “See?” said Celia. “He’s not real.”

  “He could be real,” Oliver grumbled.

  “Could not,” said Celia.

  “Could too,” said Oliver.

  “Could not.”

  “Could too.”

  Although their argument was of the utmost seriousness, Oliver and Celia actually quite enjoyed arguing with each other and could have happily debated the existence of Santa Claus for hours, if, at that moment, their parents, Professor Rasmali-Greenberg, Patrick the monkey, and the real Corey Brandt had not burst through the door, out of breath.

  “Oliver, Celia!” Their father rushed across the room. “We’ve got to go, right now!”

  “But we were just about to—” Oliver had just pointed back at the screen when he heard the unmistakable shouts of an angry mob growing nearer. Explorers—and the children of explorers—learn from a very young age what the shouts of an angry mob sound like—a bit like the ocean in a seashell, a bit like a handful of forks tossed into a blender.

  In this case, a very big blender and a whole lot of forks.

  5

  WE MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT

  “HEY GUYS.” COREY nodded at Oliver and Celia as he slammed the door behind him and leaned against it. He had a bruise next to his left eye, just to the side of his teardrop freckle, and his perfect hair was long and greasy and not at all perfect. His clothes were tattered. “I guess I’m doing a whole, like, retro-grunge look, huh?” He smiled widely.

  “So retro,” Celia said, not really knowing what he meant but liking the way he smiled when he said it.

  Oliver rolled his eyes, but Celia elbowed him in the side. Corey gave Oliver a high-five, which he happily accepted.

  “So, did the pirates torture you?” Oliver asked.

  “Only on the first day.” Corey shrugged. “An argument broke out about the series finale of Sunset High and, well, they settled it with fists. Team Annabel and Team Lauren took out their disagreements on my face. Who knew that pirates cared so much about romance? But after that was settled, they were pretty decent. My hand got sore from signing autographs and scrubbing floors, but otherwise—”

  “There’s no time!” Dr. Navel cut him off and pulled Ernest up from the bed.

  “Mrrrmmm,” Ernest groaned.

  “We’re not, like, taking him with us, are we?” Corey asked.

  “We made a promise,” said Dr. Navel.

  “We’ll turn him over to the authorities once we’ve escaped the angry mob,” said their mother.

  “Bwak!” squawked Dennis.

  “So, uh, why is there an angry mob chasing you?” Oliver wondered.

  “You don’t need to say angry mob,” said Celia. “You can just say mob. All mobs are angry.”

  “Whatever,” said Oliver. “Why is there a mob after you?”

  “The rescue didn’t go all that smoothly,” their mother explained. “Patrick snuck into the pirate stronghold and located Corey Brandt, just like he was supposed to.”

  The monkey clapped for himself.

  “The pirates were running around, packing things up to leave,” their mother continued. “Bonnie was furious that the professor had escaped and she was preparing a search party to go after him.”

  “She imagined that I would fetch a nice ransom.” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg smiled. “As president of the Explorers Club, I do have many wealthy friends. The royal family of Monaco attended my last birthday party.”

  “Uh-huh.” Oliver and Celia shrugged, unimpressed.

  “Anyway,” said their mother. “To make a long story short—”

  “Too late,” said the twins in unison.

  “The professor created a distraction while your father and I took Corey.”

  “They kept me chained to a post outside!” the teenager added. “Check out my tan! And my scorpion bites!”

  He seemed pretty excited about his tan and his scorpion bites. Celia was afraid he’d gone crazy, but it was very hard to tell with celebrities, and even harder to tell with teenage boys.

  “Anyw
ay, we were making our way out of the camp when—,” their mother said.

  “There’s a window back here.” Dr. Navel ran in from the bathroom. “We can climb out that way and escape the angry mob.”

  “You don’t need to say angry,” repeated Celia.

  “Honey,” said their mother, smiling way too politely, “I am trying to tell the story about why the mob is chasing us in the first place.”

  “But honey,” Dr. Navel said, smiling back, “the mob is going to tear us apart any minute.”

  “Yes, honey.” Claire smiled back at her husband. “Don’t you think the kids would like to know why the mob is going to tear them apart?”

  “I don’t think they do, darling,” said Dr. Navel. “I think they’d prefer to escape without being torn apart.”

  “But it’s a really good story, sweetheart,” she answered him.

  “I am sure they’d love to hear it later, dear.”

  “It won’t be as interesting later, dear.”

  “I think it will be interesting later, dear.”

  “I think it won’t.”

  “It will.”

  “It won’t.”

  “It will.”

  “It won’t.”

  “It will—oh, never mind.” Dr. Navel threw his hands in the air. “Finish the story then. If we’re still alive when this mob of goat herders tears us limb from limb, then we’ll make our escape.”

  “Ogden!” Claire Navel shook her head. “You just ruined the end of the story. The goat herders were the best part. Now I don’t even want to tell it.”

  Just then, a large bottle with a flaming rag sticking out the top of it smashed through the window and crashed into the television, where it burst into flames.

  Outside, the mob roared.

  “They seem really angry,” said Oliver. “I think we can go back to calling them an angry mob.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Celia as she shoved the remote control back into their backpack and handed it to her brother, who put it on without complaint as the wall behind the television caught fire. “Now, can we please make our escape?”

  Her parents nodded. There was no arguing with an angry mob, a wall of fire, or Celia Navel.