by J; P Voelkel
Max checked his flight information. “I leave tonight! I need to call Lola and then get to the airport!” Max went to hug Zia, thought better of it, grabbed her hands, and shook them. “Will you tell my parents where I’ve gone?”
She nodded and fished a thick roll of euro bills out of her apron pocket. “For you,” she said.
“Where did you—?” began Max, but Zia pointed at her wristwatch. “Hurry,” she said. “They are waiting.”
Chapter Four
WELCOME TO MAD
From the airplane window, Max looked down on Spain. Greeny brown and browny green, plains and mountains, lots of roads, not many houses.
He remembered a jigsaw puzzle he had when he was little, a world map. Each little country in Europe had a picture, like the different lands in Disney World: Italy was a straw-hatted boatman rowing a gondola; Britain was a soldier in a red jacket and a black fur hat as tall as his head; Ireland was a green leprechaun; and Spain was a black-haired dancer in a red spotted dress.
He knew from visiting his mother’s family in Venice that the puzzle had got it right about Italy: everywhere he’d looked, there were straw-hatted boatmen rowing gondolas. He wondered if the streets of Spain would be filled with whirling Spanish dancers.
But first he had to get through the airport, and there was a distinct lack of merriment in the immigration hall. Just the usual fearsome wall of officials in glass cubicles, and slow-moving lines of exhausted passengers shuffling forward with their paperwork in hand.
Eventually, Max made it to the front of his line.
The sour-looking official eyed his passport distastefully and scribbled something in a notebook.
“Reason for visit?”
Max decided against mentioning the Maya Death Lords and his quest to find the Yellow Jaguar, answering simply: “Vacation.”
“Address in Spain?” barked the official, still writing busily.
“It’s a town called Polvoredo. In Extremadura.”
The official looked at Max with newfound respect. “You will not find many tourists there, my friend.” Chuckling to himself, he stamped the passport and gave it back. “Be sure to try the blood sausage. But do not ask what’s in it.”
Max stumbled out into the baggage hall, to be met by a wall of noise. It was a mixture of cheers and angry shouts, and it seemed to be centered on one of the baggage carousels.
Scanning the crowd for the source of the commotion, he saw that someone was riding on the conveyor belt with the suitcases. It was a tall, skinny figure dressed all in black leather, with long black hair that whipped to and fro as its owner rocked out with an invisible guitar. The guitarist’s face was daubed with white makeup, his eyes heavily accentuated with black eyeliner.
Max knew that face.
It was the one and only Vince Vermin, lead guitarist of the Plague Rats, Max’s favorite band!
And wait—Max thought he might faint with pleasure—now joining Vince on his makeshift revolving stage were his bandmates: lead singer Ty Phoid, bass player Trigger Mortis, and drummer Odd-Eye Ebola. They jostled one another and fooled around as they threw off various pieces of black luggage.
Max couldn’t believe his luck. What were the chances he would land in Madrid at the same time as his idols, the notoriously elusive Plague Rats?
Heart pounding with excitement, he pushed his way to the front of the crowd.
“Hey, watch it, doofy!” said an angry voice beside him.
Max turned to see a girl about his age, with punky black hair and big blue eyes. “You’re blocking me,” she said, and he realized that, until he’d stepped in front of her, she’d been taking photos with her cell phone.
“Sorry,” he said, moving aside. “Is it really the Rats? What are they doing here?”
“Beats me. They’re supposed to be touring in Japan right now.” She pushed Max out of the way as she went for a close-up of Vince Vermin. “All I know is, I’m getting an exclusive for my blog.…”
“You’re a music blogger? Cool.”
“And you’re a Rats fan?”
“Yeah.”
As he looked into her big blue eyes, it seemed to Max that bells were ringing. Wait, they were ringing. Alarms were sounding on the luggage carousel, red lights were flashing, and security guards were yelling as the Plague Rats leapt into the crowd and the lines of travelers closed up behind them.
The girl was frantically tapping into her cell phone. “Come on, give me a signal,” she begged it. “They won’t believe this back home!”
“Where’s home?” asked Max (rather suavely, he thought).
“Boston,” mumbled the girl, staring at her cell phone intently, as if she could conjure up a signal by sheer force of will.
“No way! Me, too!” said Max. “I didn’t see you on the airplane.”
The girl looked embarrassed. “We were in first class.”
Max tried to sound nonchalant. “Who’s we?”
“I’m on vacation with my parents,” she sighed. “Two boring weeks of museums, art galleries, and”—she made quote marks with her fingers—“ ‘cultural activities.’ I just hope I can track down the Rats somewhere.”
“Maybe I’ll bump into you along the way.”
Her eyes met his. “Cool,” she said.
A large woman in a pink suit and pearls came rushing over. “There you are, darling! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Now please stay close, there are some strange people around.”
This last remark was directed at Max.
“He’s not a strange person, Mom; he’s from Boston like us.”
“I don’t care where he’s from, you’re not to talk to him.”
“But Mom, you said you hoped I’d make new friends on this trip—”
“I meant cultured Europeans: princes, counts, archdukes.” She surveyed Max disapprovingly. “People with breeding.”
The girl frowned at her mother, and held out her hand to Max. “Pleased to meet you. My name is Nasty—Nasty Smith-Jones.”
“Your name,” said her mother, “is Anastasia. Now come on, your father is waiting for us.”
Max reached out to shake Nasty’s hand, and their fingertips brushed for the merest nanosecond before her mother pulled her away.
“My name is Max,” he called after her, but he wasn’t sure she heard.
Unable to break free of her mother’s armlock, Nasty twisted around, grinned at Max, gave him the finger sign for rock ’n’ roll, and attempted Ty Phoid’s trademark tongue waggle.
Laughing, Max watched until mother and daughter joined a middle-aged man wearing a carefully ironed safari suit and the three of them left the baggage hall. Seeing her mother’s iron grip on one side and her father’s protective hand on the other, Max doubted her chances of escaping her parents for long enough to track down the Plague Rats.
Still, he was definitely going to look her up when he got back to Boston.
Make that if he got back to Boston.
Meanwhile, he had another hour to kill before Lola’s plane landed. He decided to go and buy a map of Spain. And maybe a snack.
A little later, juggling his new map, a cappuccino, a cheese pizza, a chocolate doughnut, and an apple that he’d bought by accident, Max found a table within sight of the international arrivals doors.
Trying to look like a seasoned jet-setter, he sat back and slurped his cappuccino. Then he ate his food as slowly as he could.
Finally he allowed himself to look at the airport clock.
Nearly three p.m. Lola’s plane would be landing soon.
With excitement bubbling in his stomach (or maybe it was the pizza fighting the doughnut), he wiped his fingers and spread out the map.
Extremadura was a large province mostly southwest of Madrid, on the border with Portugal. Max forgot about clock-watching as he set about finding Polvoredo. After a long time, it revealed itself as tiny cluster of buildings on a hill, overlooking the thin blue curve of a river. Max spotted a train line nearby and trace
d it with his finger back to Madrid. Perfect! He’d read somewhere that trains were faster in Europe—and that train travel was considered romantic.
But where was Lola?
He saw from the monitors that her flight had landed ages ago. Was it possible that she’d missed the plane?
A ripple of laughter went through the arrivals hall. Max looked up.
What he saw made his mouth drop open.
Coming through the automatic doors were Lord 6-Dog and Lady Coco, the two ancient Maya royals whose spirits were subletting the bodies of Chulo and Seri, Lola’s two friendly howler monkeys.
What took Max by surprise was the fact that they were wearing clothes. Lord 6-Dog, his expression as mournful as ever, was trying to maintain a regal bearing while sporting a little black suit with a sequined matador jacket and a jaunty red sash. His mother, the vivacious and fun-loving Lady Coco, was lapping up the attention of the crowd in a red and white spotted flamenco dress with layers of frills and ribbons. Apart from her hairy body, she looked just like the Spanish dancer off Max’s jigsaw map of the world.
“Lady Coco, over here!” yelled Max.
It took her a moment to spot him in the crowd. The eyes of the young Ix Kan Kakaw (Lady Coco’s original Maya name, which translated as something like “Lady Perfect Precious Treasure of Accumulated Wealth through Judicious Trading of Ripe Cacao Beans”) had been trained to cross, a sign of beauty much admired by the ancient Maya upper classes. So now she was a cross-eyed monkey, which rather impaired her vision. But as soon as she saw Max, she ran to him, whooping with pleasure, and jumped into his arms.
Lord 6-Dog, or Ahaw Wak Ok as he’d been known to his ancient Maya subjects, walked sullenly behind, his gaze fixed on the airport floor.
Lola came through the doors next. She was wearing her usual black T-shirt and cargo pants, denim jacket knotted around her waist, and she looked even prettier than Max remembered. She tucked her long, coppery black hair behind her ears as her gentle brown eyes searched him out in the crowd.
Max had been planning to wave and jump up and down like a madman as soon as he saw her. But now, intimidated by her good looks and remembering that even the Death Lords thought she was out of his league, he walked stiffly over and greeted her formally.
“Hello, Lola, it’s good to see you.”
“Hoop!” screamed Lola, squashing him in a bear hug. Lady Coco, caught in the middle, screeched in protest, and Max set the monkey down, laughing.
“Bienvenido a Madrid!” he said, reading out the sign on the wall.
Lola made a rueful face. “It’s a good thing you didn’t listen to me,” she said, “or we’d be in San Xavier right now.”
“I was beginning to think you’d stayed there,” said Max. “What took you so long? I was wondering if you’d missed your plane.”
“There’s a lot of paperwork when you travel with animals,” said Lola ruefully. “Luckily, I got some help with it or I’d still be filling it out.”
“So how was the trip?”
“Not good,” admitted Lola. “Lord 6-Dog has been sulking since we left San Xavier.”
Max looked over to where the monkey-king was leaning moodily against a pillar, lips pursed, arms folded, staring pointedly at the ceiling and ignoring the curious glances of passing travelers.
“What’s his problem?”
“It’s the clothes. He hates being dressed up like a pet monkey.”
“I don’t blame him.”
“I thought they might be allowed to sit with me on the plane if they looked more human, but it didn’t work. They were still put in cages in the hold. So it’s been one humiliation after another for him. And, of course, I had to ask them not to talk until we’re alone.”
“I guess it’s not the kind of VIP treatment he’s used to,” said Max. He waved at Lord 6-Dog and called over, “Lookin’ fly, Your Majesty!”
If looks could kill, the story of Max Murphy would have ended right there. The monkey glared at him with the steely-eyed contempt of a mighty king who had once been the most fearsome warrior of the mighty Maya.
Lola sighed. “At least Lady Coco’s happy.”
Stamping her feet and rotating her paws at the wrist, Lady Coco was attempting to dance flamenco in a circle of clapping children. It was hard to imagine that she had ever been an imperious Maya queen.
“We should get going,” said Max. “There’s a train.…”
But Lola wasn’t listening. She was waving to a smartly groomed young man in a business suit who’d just come through the automatic doors.
“Santino! Over here!” she called, and the young man trotted obediently over, a look of besotted love on his handsome face.
“Max Murphy, meet Santino Garcia,” she said. “We sat next to each other on the plane. Santino’s a law student and he helped me with all the paperwork back there. I don’t know what I would have done without him.” She flashed her widest smile at the young Spaniard. “I was so lucky to meet him.”
“It is I who was the lucky one,” said Santino, gazing at Lola with smoldering eyes.
Max surveyed Santino Garcia with loathing.
From his shiny black hair to his shiny black shoes, he was too good-looking, too clean, too nice. He must be clever, too, if he was a law student, and his well-cut suit suggested he was not short of funds. Handsome, smart, rich. Max had never felt so ugly and badly dressed and lacking in prospects.
Santino moved to shake hands. Max kept his hands firmly in his pockets.
“Señorita Lola has told me much about you,” said Santino, in a voice as rich and smooth as a movie star’s. “But she did not mention that you have the red hair. You know here in eh-Spain, we used to think that the redheads, los pelirrojos, were in league with the devil.”
“My hair is brown,” replied Max coldly.
“I am sorry, I must need eh-spectacles,” said Santino, with a wink at Lola.
“You need spectacles,” Max corrected him.
“You think so?” asked Santino. “You are eh-student of ophthalmology?”
“No,” said Max, getting irritated. “I’m just telling you there’s no eh sound in those words. It’s just spectacles and student.”
“Eh-spectacles, eh-student.”
“May I have a word with you, Hoop?” asked Lola sweetly. “Please excuse us for a moment, Santino.”
The law student made an extravagant bow, and Lola pulled Max aside.
“What is wrong with you?” she hissed, once they were out of earshot. “You’re being so rude. He has a little problem with pronunciation, big deal.”
“He has a little problem with his brain,” said Max. “Must be all that hair gel.”
Lola narrowed her eyes. “For your information, Santino knows Polvoredo, and he’s offered to drive us there. You could at least be polite to him.”
“What?” howled Max.
Lola signaled to him to keep his voice down.
“What were you thinking?” he continued in a muffled snarl. “You can’t trust some guy you just met on a plane. Particularly him. He has shifty eyes.”
“I think he has nice eyes,” stated Lola.
“What have you told him?”
“The truth.”
Max stared at her in disbelief. “You do understand that I’ll die a long and painful death in five very short days’ time if we mess this up?”
“Have you finished?” asked Lola. “All I told him is that we’re old friends meeting up for a vacation and researching your family history along the way. That’s pretty much true, isn’t it?
“How did you explain the howler monkeys?”
“My devoted pets who cannot be separated from me. He said he’d feel the same in their position.” Lola smirked. “He said I was the girl of his dreams.”
“What a slimeball. What a complete eh-slimeball. Let’s just say adiós and get going. There’s a train—”
“Don’t be silly, Hoop. It’s getting late and we’ll be there much faster if we get
a lift from Santino. Now come and be nice to him.…”
While they’d been gone, Santino had bought flowers for Lola—a big bouquet of red roses.
“Thank you—they’re beautiful,” she said.
“But not,” replied Santino, “as beautiful as you.”
Max scowled all the way to the airport parking lot.
As he trailed behind with the baggage cart, he saw Santino casually drape an arm around Lola’s shoulders. He considered ramming the Spaniard’s ankles with the cart, but he knew Lola would not approve. He could tell she really liked her new friend from the plane. But the question was, how much?
“He’s not even her type,” he muttered to the monkeys, who were riding on top of the bags. Lady Coco responded by squeezing his hand with her paw. “You don’t think he’s handsome, do you?” he asked her, but she was preoccupied in arranging her ruffled skirts and seemed not to hear him.
By the time they reached the parking lot and he was stowing the bags in the trunk of Santino’s shiny black car, Max had worked himself up into a jealous funk.
He was vaguely aware of some shouting behind him and a crunching of gears, but was too caught up in thinking hateful things about Santino to pay it any attention.
“Mac! Mac!” came a voice.
Lola tapped him on the shoulder. “I think someone’s calling you,” she said.
He turned to see Nasty Smith-Jones leaning out of the window of a rental car that her father was trying and failing to back out of a tight spot on the far side of the parking lot. She was waving and waggling her tongue and making rock ’n’ roll signs.
“Mac! Mac!” she called.
Max waved back enthusiastically.
“Who’s that?” asked Lola.
“She’s a close friend of mine from Boston,” said Max smugly.
“She can’t be that close. She thinks your name is Mac.”
“That’s what she calls me.”
Lola pursed her lips. “What’s she doing in Spain?”
“She’s on vacation. We’re hoping to meet up.”
“There won’t be time for that,” said Lola firmly.
“You never know,” said Max.