We Dine With Cannibals

by C. Alexander London

  Celia remembered. They saw this on The Celebrity Adventurist.

  “What was Corey Brandt’s First Rule of Adventuring?”

  “I don’t know,” said Celia. “There were so many different ones.”

  “Don’t panic!” Oliver said. “If you fall into quicksand, be sure to stay calm and still and you won’t sink. The only way to sink into the quicksand is to panic.”

  “So you want me to sink?”

  “Yes!” Oliver ran over to a tree and grabbed a vine and handed it to his sister. “Tie this around your waist. If this doesn’t work, we can pull you out again.”

  “Oliver?” his mother asked. “What are you thinking?”

  “I bet this quicksand is like a trapdoor,” he told her. “Just like in our vision. The TV sank.”

  “Celia?” their mother asked.

  “I think he’s right.” Celia sighed. “For once.”

  Their mother looked at both her children and nodded. Sir Edmund grumbled.

  “This is why I hate going first,” said Celia, and she started flailing around like Madam Mumu on Dancing with My Impersonator. She sank quickly to her waist, then to her shoulders. “Here we go,” she said, and shimmied one more time as much as she could in the thick slurry of sand.

  She sank to her neck and then her chin. She took a deep breath and vanished below the surface. The vine kept sinking. It pulled and stretched. It strained. All was still.

  Sir Edmund, Oliver, and Claire Navel watched the pit of quicksand and waited. Oliver and his mother held their breath.

  “We have to pull her up,” Oliver’s mother said at last, grabbing the vine.

  “Hold on!” Oliver stopped her. “Just another second.”

  “I know you and your sister argue sometimes,” she told him. “But this is no way to get back at her!”

  “It’s not that,” said Oliver. He pointed at the vine. It moved once. Twice. Three times. “That’s the signal. She’s safe!”

  Just like in the old temple at Machu Picchu, Celia had sent the signal for the rest of them to come down. After some convincing, Sir Edmund went first. He climbed into the quicksand, grabbed on to the vine, and squirmed and flailed and danced his way underneath.

  “If you tell anyone about my dancing,” he said just before his face went under, “I’ll—” He sank before he could finish his sentence. After they felt him tug three times, Oliver climbed into the quicksand. It seeped over his feet and locked around his ankles like a pair of wet socks.

  “Mom,” he said as he started to wiggle to make himself sink faster. “If we find the library, will you come home?”

  She bent down. “I will always come home,” she said, and kissed him on the forehead.

  And then Oliver sank under the sand.

  For a moment it was terrifying. The sand let in no light. All was dark and hot and wet. The pressure of the sludge pressed on his nose and mouth and eyes. It was like lying on the couch under too many blankets in the middle of summer. He worried he’d get stuck. He worried he would drown. He started to squirm and to panic for real.

  And then it was over. He was hanging on the vine, soaked, a few feet above a stone floor, looking up at a dripping pool of sand from underneath.

  He let go and dropped to the ground. Celia and Sir Edmund were next to him. There was a dim flickering light coming from the other end of a long hallway. The walls were engraved with the symbol of the Mnemones. Oliver reached up and tugged the vine three times.

  They watched their mother’s feet appear from above, kicking and whirling in the air. Then her waist came into view and then the rest of her slid down, holding the vine until she was on the floor, as wet as the rest of them.

  “Well, that was something you don’t do every day.” Claire Navel smiled. “Shall we?”

  Oliver and Celia followed the two explorers down the hallway, running their hands across the smooth stone on the walls. They turned the corner and bumped right into their mother’s back. She had stopped in her tracks and was staring upward.

  They were on a balcony in a giant room with round walls that rose high above them and sank far below. The walls were covered in shelves, and each one was labeled in a strange language.

  “Quechua,” said their mother. “The language of the Inca. The Spanish outlawed it, but it survived. It’s still spoken today.”

  Sir Edmund just snorted. He didn’t care about linguistics.

  Bridges and ramps cut across the space, connecting the shelves to each other, and large arched doorways opened into other chambers that looked just like the one they were in.

  Stone stairways swirled along the walls, connecting the upper and lower shelves. Far below them was a pool of water that reflected the room back up at itself, creating an illusion that the space went down forever. The effect was dizzying.

  Hundreds of fireflies flitted in the open air, flashing their lights. They were the only source of the light in the room. They cast an uneven, unending glow.

  “So …,” Oliver said. “Is this the Lost Library?”

  Although a writer might want to describe the space as “awe-inspiring in its vastness, infinite in its aspirations, the greatest feat of human ideas and engineering,” Celia provided the most astute answer of the moment.

  “Duh,” she said.

  “So where did all the stuff go?”

  All the shelves in the vast space were empty.

  “Someone got here before us,” Sir Edmund gasped. “They took everything.”

  “Not everything,” said Oliver, pointing.

  On the opposite side of the room, leaning upright on a shelf was a single scroll.

  39

  WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT PLAY-DOH

  THEIR MOTHER and Sir Edmund looked across at the scroll, then at each other. They stood frozen for a moment and then both of them took off, sprinting in opposite directions, leaving Oliver and Celia dumbfounded. The two explorers raced around the library to get to the scroll, just like Oliver and Celia raced to get to the remote control.

  Their mother would have won easily, but she tripped on a crumbling step and lost valuable time. They arrived at the scroll at the same moment and both of them grabbed for it. Oliver and Celia watched from a distance as Sir Edmund and their mother played an angry game of tug of war with the ancient document.

  “Let go,” muttered Sir Edmund. “You’ll tear it.”

  “You’ll never get it,” said Claire Navel, trying to kick the little man away.

  “Who could have stolen a whole library?” Oliver wondered as they watched. “Janice McDermott and the fake Corey Brandt?”

  “They couldn’t have done this,” said Celia. “They were only a few hours ahead of us.”

  “What do you think that scroll is?” Oliver asked.

  “I dunno,” said Celia, “but I guess we should go help Mom.”

  “Stay right where you are!” a woman’s voice demanded. They turned and saw Janice McDermott and the fake Corey Brandt standing right behind them. The celebrity impersonator had his gun pointed at them. “We never would have found our way in without your help,” said Janice. “Thank you.”

  Oliver and Celia looked at each other. This is just what Janice’s old partner, Frank, had done—tricked them into guiding him in Tibet and then left them to perish in a dark cave. They had outsmarted him and fed him to an abominable snowwoman. It was a pretty nasty situation and they would have preferred to forget all about it. That is the trouble with having enemies. Getting rid of them usually just makes more enemies. Anyway, there were no abominable snowpeople in the Amazon.

  “And you two!” Janice called out. “Don’t move or we’ll shoot the children!”

  Sir Edmund and their mother stopped tugging on the scroll and looked back toward the twins. They froze, but neither of them let go. Oliver and Celia went pale—paler than they already were. Why were people always threatening to kill them?

  “Janice,” Sir Edmund called out. “I have no quarrel with you. Shoot the childr
en if you must, but perhaps we can work out a deal? I am willing to pay very handsomely for—”

  “Ahh!” the fake Corey Brandt screamed, falling over into Janice. Oliver and Celia spun around to see what was happening.

  “Beverly!” Oliver shouted as the lizard jumped onto the fake Corey Brandt’s face.

  “Run!” their mother shouted. Oliver and Celia bolted off toward their mother as she snatched the scroll from a distracted Sir Edmund.

  “Hey!” he shouted as she raced toward her kids. Sir Edmund tried to give chase, but shots rang out as the fake Corey Brandt fired at him. He ducked down and put his hands over his head. Their mother pulled Oliver and Celia down the stairs and into another large chamber.

  “After them!” yelled Janice.

  The impostor ran across a bridge and leaped onto the stairs below. He rushed through the archway into the next room and saw the Navels running up the stairs on the opposite side.

  The giant room looked exactly like the one they had just left, with the empty shelves, the fireflies, and the reflecting pool at the bottom. The twins turned into another archway but slammed into a mirror.

  “It’s a trick,” said Oliver. “This place is like a fun house.”

  “Some fun,” said Celia. The mirror reflected the room back at itself and made it seem like it led into another giant chamber. There were dozens of archways all over the room, and now they didn’t know which ones actually led to another room and which ones were illusions.

  Corey fired his gun at them again. He missed, but shattered the mirror. Behind it was a stone wall.

  “That’s bad luck!” shouted Oliver as they turned and ran across another bridge toward another opening into another giant room, identical to the others.

  “What is this place?” Celia wondered.

  “This way,” their mother said, running up the stairs, searching for openings that might lead to a way out. Sometimes they ran into a mirror, sometimes they found another room. They popped out of one archway high above Sir Edmund, who was backing slowly away from Janice McDermott.

  “I can help you get the Navels! I can help you avenge Frank Pfeffer!” he was saying. “No need to do something you can’t take back. …”

  Beverly came running along the wall to join the Navels. She was holding the snack cake Oliver had given her, still wrapped in its plastic.

  “We have to rescue Sir Edmund,” said Celia. “Then we can trade him the scroll for Dad’s antidote.”

  “We can’t let him get this scroll,” their mother said.

  “Seriously, Mom?” snapped Celia.

  “What’s so important about that scroll?” asked Oliver.

  “Well, honey,” their mother said. “This is Plato’s Map.”

  “All this is about Play-Doh?” said Oliver, shocked.

  “Plato.” Celia rolled her eyes. “He was an ancient Greek philosopher.”

  “That’s right,” said their mother. “And he wrote the first description we have of the lost kingdom of—”

  “Where’d you go, Navels?” the fake Corey Brandt shouted from below as he searched for them. They all ducked; even Beverly pressed her neck low against the floor.

  “Mom? Oliver?” whispered Celia. “Maybe we can save the explanations for another time? We need to get out of here. Dad’s still lying poisoned in the boat and we need to rescue Sir Edmund and get the antidote from him one way or another.”

  “Agreed,” said their mother. “I’m just not sure how.”

  “I have an idea,” said Oliver, gently taking the snack cake from Beverly and tearing open the wrapper.

  “I told you that’s just a myth,” said Celia.

  “Myths have to come from somewhere,” he said as he tossed the cake over the railing. Sir Edmund and Janice McDermott turned and watched it fall. It hit the water with a plop.

  Then nothing happened.

  “Told you,” said Celia.

  “Why are you throwing cakes?” Janice shouted. The fake Corey Brandt ran out onto the bridge below them, panting.

  “Hey!” he shouted up.

  He raised his pistol, but he never fired it. The room started to shake. The pool of water below bubbled and churned. Suddenly a spout of water shot straight up and smashed into the bridge, knocking the impersonator off his feet.

  Another waterspout erupted and tore the bridge right off the wall. Soon, spouts were shooting from the water with the force of a hundred fire hoses, tearing off chunks of stairs and shattering mirrors. Janice fell over. The water started rising.

  “Remind me not to let you eat those cakes anymore,” their mother said. She tucked the scroll into her waistband, grabbed the twins’ hands, and rushed back toward the way they came in. Sir Edmund ran after them.

  “Wait for me!” he shouted.

  “Come back here!” Janice called, trying to stand up. Another spout of water knocked her down again. The stairs behind Sir Edmund crumbled. They were crumbling faster than he could run.

  “Help!” he called out, leaping into the air as the stone beneath him disappeared.

  Celia was the first to react. She let go of her mother and dove back, catching Sir Edmund by the wrist. Oliver grabbed on to Celia around the waist so she didn’t fall.

  Oliver and Celia were sliding, unable to keep Sir Edmund up.

  “Help!” Celia called out. Their mother grabbed on to her children and they all pulled Sir Edmund up together. He tried to snatch the scroll out of her waistband, but she slapped his hand away and pinned his arms behind his back.

  “Let’s go,” she told Oliver and Celia as she dragged Sir Edmund down the hall they’d first come through. Beverly raced ahead. The vine was still rising up through the quicksand and the lizard scurried up.

  “Climb,” their mother told them. Water was rushing down the hall and knocking into their legs, getting deeper by the second.

  Celia caught Oliver to keep him from falling over.

  “You go first,” she said. This time Oliver didn’t object. He grabbed the vine and climbed, holding his breath when he got to the sand and using all the strength he had left to hoist himself up through it. Celia followed him.

  “And you,” their mother said to Sir Edmund, wheeling around him once she saw her children were safe. “You’ll give me that antidote right now.”

  “Give me the scroll.”

  “Give me the antidote!”

  “We don’t have time to argue,” Sir Edmund shouted, already up to his waist in water. “Your husband will die if you leave me down here.”

  Claire Navel hesitated. She looked at Sir Edmund and then up at the way her children had gone. The water kept rising.

  “Fine,” she said at last. “But this isn’t over.”

  “Of course it isn’t.” Sir Edmund sneered as he took the scroll with one hand. Claire snatched the antidote and climbed the vine.

  Sir Edmund grabbed on behind her as the water filled the underground chamber.

  There was no sign of the fake Corey Brandt or of Janice McDermott.

  40

  WE LOSE A FRIEND AND GAIN A FRIEND

  WHEN THEIR MOTHER and Sir Edmund burst through the surface of the quicksand, Oliver and Celia were catching their breath on the ground. The sand bubbled as water churned in the space below. The children saw that Sir Edmund had the scroll.

  “I’m sorry,” said Oliver. “I’m sorry I destroyed the library and that you lost your Plato scroll.”

  “You saved us all, Oliver,” their mother said. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  Sir Edmund chuckled. Oliver ignored him.

  “Now that the library is gone, though,” he said, “will you come home?”

  “Oh, that’s priceless!” Sir Edmund laughed. He looked at their mother. “He thinks you’ll come home. He thinks it’s over!”

  Oliver’s mother glared at Sir Edmund. She turned back to Oliver.

  “Honey, it’s not just about the library,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?�
�� Celia demanded.

  The earth shook before she could answer.

  “I don’t think we should stay here,” their mother said.

  “You’ve got to come home!” said Oliver. “You said you would!”

  The ground quaked and twisted, but Oliver and Celia stood, unmoving, staring at their mother.

  “Guys,” she said. “I will come home, I promise, but—”

  “There’s always a but, isn’t there?” Sir Edmund laughed. “A big but!”

  The ground shook and knocked him off his feet. He fell backward into the pool of quicksand. “Help! Help!” he shouted, flailing his arms, the scroll waving in the air above his head.

  Celia glanced at her mother and her brother and then at Sir Edmund. She rushed over to him and snatched the scroll from his hands.

  “Hey! You clurb’t derble—,” he spluttered, his mouth filling with quicksand as he tried to grab Celia, making himself sink deeper.

  “You better stop moving or you’ll drown,” said Celia. Sir Edmund had sunk up to his mustache. His eyes blazed with anger, but he stayed still and stopped sinking. Then Celia turned to her mother and showed her the scroll.

  “Now you’ll come home,” Celia commanded, and marched toward the boat. Her mother knew better than to argue, so she followed.

  Suddenly, with a giant sucking sound, the largest of the ruins of El Dorado disappeared before their eyes. Then the ruins next to it disappeared, and then the one next to that. All the ruins were falling into giant sinkholes, churning with mud and stone and water. Sir Edmund gurgled in the quicksand but didn’t dare move.

  “Maybe we should—,” Oliver started when a sinkhole opened right in front of him. “Ahh!”

  He flailed his arms in the air, falling forward toward the roiling water deep below. Celia caught him just before he plummeted into the abyss.

  “Thanks,” he said, looking back at the disappearing ruins and then at the puddle of quicksand. “We can’t just leave Sir Edmund to die,” he said.