“System overload. System overload.”
We heard Mike’s muffled yells through the closed bathroom door. “What’d it say?”
“System overload,” Rosalie Claire shouted back. “That can’t be good.”
The computer boomed out its warning again. System overload. System overload.
We heard the toilet flush, followed by a sharp rattle. The bathroom door was shaking.
“It’s locked!” Mike banged on the handle.
Rosalie Claire was about to unclip her seatbelt to go help him when the cards flew across the table and fell to the ceiling. Chocolates and gummy worms sailed through the air.
The plane had spun upside down.
We screamed and clutched the edge of the sofa. My heart raced so fast I thought it would burst from my chest. I watched Violet’s corkscrew hair stick straight out from her head, bouncing like golden springs. Rosalie Claire clutched my hand.
My stomach flopped and a flurry of candy and cards shot back down to the floor.
It was like a miracle. The plane was upright again.
And that’s when things really took a turn for the worse. The cabin filled with the deafening wail of the engines, and the airplane shot upwards, high into the sky.
I could feel the taste of Froot Loops, sour milk, and puke creeping up my throat. Please don’t throw up, please don’t throw up, I chanted in my head. Mind over matter. Mind over matter. I shut my eyes and swallowed hard, forcing it all back down.
Rosalie Claire let go of my hand and unclipped her seatbelt. Inch-by-inch, she crawled to the bathroom door. She yanked hard on the handle but it wouldn’t budge. Then she clung to it like a life raft as the plane rocketed upward.
I unbuckled my seatbelt.
“Son of a bee sting! What are you doing?” Violet hissed.
“Somebody’s got to try and fix this thing!”
I clutched and crawled my way up toward Command Central. For every two feet of progress, I’d slip and slide back one. When I finally reached the controls, I hoisted myself up into Mike’s pilot seat and clicked on the seatbelt. I grabbed the steering thingy. It was frozen into place.
On the instrument panel, strings of numbers flashed on and off faster than I could read. I touched the screen and the numbers reassembled into a series of letters, followed by a word that didn’t surprise me one bit: DANGER!
With Mike locked in the bathroom, there was only one other person who could help.
“NOAH!” I screamed.
Noah must have already been on his way. An instant later he pulled himself into the co-pilot’s seat and buckled up. His fingers frantically worked the controls. I’d never seen him look so fierce. His teeth clenched tight and his eyes bored down on the computer screen like a pair of gas-blue laser beams.
“Think, think, think.” He sounded angry with himself for not figuring it out.
Higher and higher the plane rocketed into the stratosphere.
That’s when I noticed something to the left of the screen.
“IS THAT A RESET BUTTON?” I shouted.
“TRY IT!” he yelled.
Would it turn off the plane and send us plummeting to the ground? Which fate would be worse? Shooting straight into outer space or crashing down to Earth?
I took my chances. With my pointer finger shaking, I reached over and hit the button. The computer shut off and flickered back to life. As the plane still shot upward, the following words appeared on the screen: Steering yoke—deactivated. Elevator tail flaps down—locked. Bathroom door—locked. Who in the world thought it was a good idea to design a plane with an automatically locking bathroom?!
Noah went to work. His fingers flew on the touch screen until the elevator tail flaps were up and the steering yoke was reactivated. The plane corrected its course and headed straight. Once again, the whining engines were whisper quiet.
That’s when we heard the click of the bathroom door. Mike hurried out. His face was filled with relief and covered in sweat.
He took control of the plane, gently guiding it back down from the heavens. “I owe you kids. Guess the autopilot needs a tune-up.”
Violet and Rosalie Claire rushed over and threw their arms around Noah and me in a giant group hug. Mike tried to join in.
“Please, just fly the plane,” said Rosalie Claire. “There will be plenty of time for hugging later.”
Mike gave a quick salute. “Roger that. And Noah? Madison? A million-and-one thanks.”
“A million-and-one you’re welcomes,” I said as I felt my heartbeat returning to normal.
“Teamwork.” Noah flashed a crooked grin.
It was just before noon when we touched down on a primitive grassy landing strip somewhere in the Brazilian jungle. I peered through the porthole window. As dangerous as the Amazon could be with its poisonous snakes and people-eating bugs, I decided this had to be a piece of cake compared to nearly flying straight into the sun.
Mike opened the hatch door and I was hit with the familiar jungle air. It was even thicker, hotter, and sweatier than Jacó. I was glad I’d remembered to pack bug spray.
“This is where you adventurers get off. Apologies for the technical glitches. Hugs?”
Everyone overlapped arms and pulled into a tight circle, touching head-to-head.
“Not that he’ll believe me, but at least I’ll have a great story to tell my little brother,” Violet said as we collected our backpacks.
“See? There’s a silver lining to everything!” Mike grinned.
“So, Mike?” Rosalie Claire asked. “Would you care to tell us what we’re supposed to do now?”
“My pleasure. Walk upriver about three miles. You’ll come to a lodge. Fabian is expecting you.”
We scaled down the ladder. It felt good to be on solid ground.
“How will we get back to Jacó?” I asked. Not that I was hankering to hop on that flying deathtrap anytime soon.
“I have a feeling you won’t be needing my services, Squirt. Catch you sometime in the future.” With that, Mike yanked up the ladder and slammed the hatch door shut.
We watched the Astral plane cough and sputter as it flew up into the skies, back to heaven-knows-where.
Noah and I looked at each another and crossed our fingers.
“Here’s hoping we’re not stranded in the Amazon again,” we said at exactly the same time.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Into the Amazon
We marched down to the water’s edge and covered ourselves head to toe in bug repellant. I didn’t want to be eaten by a bazillion insects, which can happen in the Amazon. Then we made our way single-file along the shore, beside the wide, lazy, caramel-colored river. As we headed east, we left our footprints in the spongy ground. A plastic bottle bobbed in the water. On its bleached-out label I could barely read the word Stranded! Obviously garbage left behind from the show.
“Noah, is this where we were last summer?”
“Sure looks like it,” he said.
“I wish I’d been on that TV show with you guys.” When Violet said it, I could tell she felt left out.
“You think you do, but you really don’t,” I told her.
“It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever done,” Noah said. “I guess I can’t complain since my dad and I won the million dollars, but some of those contestants were jerky.”
“Well you two weren’t. If I’d been on it, I would have given them a piece of my mind.”
I had no doubt that’s exactly what Violet would have done. She never had a problem telling people what she thought. Sometimes I wished I had guts to say what was on my mind the way Violet did, but I often worried I’d wind up hurting someone’s feelings. Then I’d just clam up.
We’d been walking for over an hour when I heard a faint beep coming from my backpack.
“Hold up, guys!” I unzipped my pack and pulled out the GammaRay Particle Scanner. A cherry-red light flashed, matching the slow rhythm of the beeping sound. It meant that somewhere, not far from here, was th
e remote control for the MegaPix 6000! We all kept an eagle-eye lookout, although Noah said we couldn’t be too close since the GPS wasn’t beeping fast enough.
At last we spotted a sign on a wooden dock with letters made from glued-on twigs that said, “Tanini Lodge.” As we stepped onto the rickety platform, four dolphins burst from the water in perfect half-moon arcs.
“Holy crab cakes! Those dolphins are pink!” Violet said.
Cotton candy pink, to be exact.
“They must be pink river dolphins. Their skin’s so thin their blood shows through. Like they’re constantly blushing.” It was crazy how many cool facts Noah knew.
“I read somewhere the locals think they’re magical,” Rosalie Claire said.
I hoped that was true. We could use some magic right about now.
We followed Rosalie Claire up the narrow creaky wooden stairs to the lodge. Waiting at the top was a wiry Brazilian man with a hoop earring and a friendly smile.
“Good afternoon one and all! I am Fabian,” he said in accented English. “I have been waiting for you! Follow me, please!”
Fabian led the way along a wooden catwalk past an open-air dining room, to a dozen huts built on platforms overlooking the river. He stopped at the last one on the end.
“Presenting your most excellent cabin!”
And it was. It looked like it could be a fairy’s treehouse, hanging over the gurgling river. There were four canopied beds, one for each of us, and brightly painted wooden birds dangling from the thatched ceiling. Before he left, Fabian walked us out to the back deck where four hollowed-out pineapples were waiting, filled with cold fruit smoothies and jumbo straws. I took a long, slow sip. It was the most delicious thing I’ve tasted next to Rosalie Claire’s blueberry pie.
It was then that I heard the muffled sound of the GPS in my backpack. I sucked down the rest of the smoothie lickety-split. The beep-beep-beep was a constant reminder that we needed to hurry and track down the remote before Florida got any sicker.
“Everybody ready?” I started for the door.
Violet slurped the last of her drink. “Bets on how long it’ll take us to find it?”
“I vote for sometime before sunset,” Noah said.
“From your mouth to God’s ears,” Rosalie Claire told him.
I pulled out the GPS and left my backpack on my bed. We let the beeps guide us deep into the jungle.
I’d forgotten how noisy the Amazon was. Howler monkeys bellowed. Frogs croaked. Mosquitoes buzzed in our ears. Birds screeched their warnings. As we trudged over twigs that snapped and crackled beneath our shoes, there was also an extra sound. The GammaRay Particle Scanner. As far as I could tell, it was beeping at exactly the same rate as it had when we’d arrived.
“Does anybody else think it’s kind of creepy out here?” Violet slowed her pace, dropping behind Noah and me.
Wow. In my entire life, I’ve never seen Violet scared of anything.
“Don’t worry. Usually the animals won’t attack unless they’re provoked.” Noah’s lips curled in a crooked smile.
“Gee, thanks,” Violet said. “Then just make sure you don’t let me step on any poisonous squirmy things.”
We trudged through the Amazon, listening closely to the GPS and the jungle sounds, making our way over fallen logs and gnarled roots twisting above the ground.
It had been over an hour when Rosalie Claire stopped dead in her tracks.
“Listen!” she whispered.
We froze, struggling to figure out what we were supposed to hear. A vicious jaguar? A poison arrow frog? A deadly fer-de-lance?
“The GPS. Is it beeping faster?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Violet said. “It’s kind of hard to tell.”
Violet was right. Were our ears playing tricks on us?
We kept walking. Noah and I were in the lead when a fluorescent green snake slithered past us through the decaying leaves. The next thing I heard was Violet’s shriek, followed by Rosalie Claire’s cry. Then BAM! I was knocked to the ground with a thud. Rosalie Claire had tumbled right on top of me.
Violet looked horrified. “Sorry, sorry, sorry! I was trying to get away from the snake.”
“No worries. Let’s blame it on the root I tripped on. Are you all right, Madison?” Rosalie Claire gave me her hand and helped me up.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I could feel a slightly scraped knee beneath my jeans. “What about you?”
“I think I heard something in my left ankle pop.” Rosalie Claire sat back down and carefully worked off her boot and her sock. We watched her foot puff up like an inflatable pool toy. “Maybe I’ll sit here a spell while you keep looking.” She tried to move her ankle and winced in pain.
“No way,” I told her. “We’re taking you back to the lodge.”
“Uh, Madison?” said Noah. “Where’s the GPS?”
It was only then that I realized it wasn’t in my hand. It must have flown from my grasp when I’d fallen.
Since Violet had been the one to knock down Rosalie Claire, she offered to stay with her while Noah and I hunted for the GPS.
We strained to hear the beeps, but the howler monkeys were riled up about something, so all we heard was their noisy squawking. Still, we searched every nook, cranny, bush, and tangled vine, trying hard to hear through the monkey racket.
At last I spotted the pulsing red light in a cluster of giant ferns. I crept closer. The sound was unmistakable. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep.
I dove in and grabbed the GPS. It definitely sounded faster! My heart pounded, keeping rhythm with the quickening beeps.
But finding the remote control would have to wait. The three of us helped Rosalie Claire hobble back through the jungle to the lodge. As the light faded, I kept wondering if the remote control had made its way out of the Amazon River. Where had it finally landed? It was all a big mystery. And it was one I planned to solve as soon as the sun came up the next morning.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hot on the Trail
“I’m trusting you kids to stay safe,” Rosalie Claire told us as I wrapped a towel packed with ice around her swollen ankle. Overnight her foot had turned plum purple.
“Promise,” I said. “Are you sure you’ll be OK?”
“I’ll be fine. Fabian will take good care of me.”
I hugged her goodbye and the three of us headed out to search for the missing remote. The sun was just rising, streaming fingers of light through skyscraper trees.
We charged down the wooden steps and rounded the corner of the lodge. The first thing we saw? A short man with hair the color of coal. He pulled a crate of vegetables from the back of a rusted white Jeep. What he wore made me stop dead in my tracks.
I nudged Noah and his eyes opened wide. “It looks like he’s wearing the jacket Wolf Adams had on the first day of Stranded in the Amazon.”
“Exactly,” I said. “The one the monkey threw in the river with my remote control in the pocket.” I’d recognize that jacket anywhere.
The vegetable man gave the box to the chef at the back door. Then he hopped into the driver’s seat. The engine revved and mud splattered from the spinning tires.
“We gotta stop him!” Violet took off after the rattly Jeep. She was within spitting distance when it bounced away, down the mucky rutted road.
“Race you!” she yelled and broke into a sprint.
Noah and I ran after her. It wasn’t long before the Jeep disappeared from sight. Breathing hard, we slowed down and followed the freshly laid tire marks in the mud. I watched Violet take in the dense forest thick with emerald green trees, skittering lizards, and chirruping birds. A huge smile spread across her face.
“Why was I such a boneheaded chicken yesterday? This place is awesome. Whoa! Check out the spider webs!” She scooted over to inspect an enormous cobweb on the spreading branches of a giant tree.
A big hairy spider was busy spinning an intricate pattern between leaves as big as hubcaps. Beads of dew clung to the silver
threads and caught the light streaming down from the sun. The web looked as if it was studded with miniature pearls.
Then fast as anything, the light dimmed into semi-darkness, and the sky opened up with drenching rain. Enormous drops bounced off the ground like a bajillion SuperBalls. In five seconds flat, my t-shirt and jeans were soaked to my skin.
“Over here!” shouted Noah.
Violet and I sloshed through the mud to join him under nature’s own umbrella—a canopy of giant palm fronds.
The rain stopped almost as fast as it had started, although at first it was hard to tell because of how much water still dripped from the trees. When it slowed, we scurried out from under our shelter.
The Jeep’s tire tracks had washed away.
“This is a job for our handy-dandy GammaRay Particle Scanner.” I pulled it from my backpack. It beeped, slow and steady.
We followed the makeshift road, cut between a forest of trees. The squishy mud turned our sneakers the color of hot cocoa. Just as the road stopped at a T, the beeps sped up. We had a decision to make.
I had a hunch which way we needed to turn. “Let’s go right,” I said. Violet had already turned left and was jogging at a steady pace. I called for her to stop so we could at least take a vote.
“Fifty-fifty chance it’s this way, right?” Her voice was filled with the excitement of adventure.
But my gut told me we needed to go the opposite direction. I should have said something, although I didn’t want to go against my best friend.
Noah shrugged and followed Violet. I gave in and brought up the rear.
The deeper we trudged down the path, the more I somehow knew we were heading the wrong way. It wasn’t long before the GPS agreed with my intuition.
“The beeps are slowing down,” I said.
“Positive?” asked Violet.
I held up the GPS as evidence.
“Madison’s right. Let’s head back.” Noah turned around.
“Whatever. Can’t win ’em all,” she said and then clammed up. Violet never liked to be wrong.
We retraced our steps. Once we passed the T, the GPS beeped faster. We were definitely on the right track.
The beeping led us to a tiny village. A dozen wooden thatched-roof huts propped on stilts sat along a narrow river that branched off the Amazon.
Hello There, Do You Still Know Me? Page 5