by Travis Hall
“But there has got to be something we can do,” Allora pleaded.
“We have about a minute until the water reaches the top,” Tanner said, grabbing Allora by the shoulder. “I’ve got to get you out of here.”
Tanner started to focus his energy just as Mr. Swan popped up out of the water.
“Where have you been?” Allora asked emphatically.
“I forgot that these old cities had their drainage systems hooked up to mercury-powered generators,” Mr. Swan said. The surface of the water was now five feet from the remnants of the dome ceiling. “It took me a few tries, but I got them working. We should be able to take the drainage pipes to the surface.”
“You were down there for, like, ten minutes!” Katie said.
“Oh, yeah. Here you go,” Mr. Swan said, handing them the pharynx glue that he had collected earlier. “Almost forgot about these. All you have to do is swim down and let the suction take you through the pipes and up to the surface, but we need to hurry. Those generators will lose power quickly. Also, make sure to streamline through the pipes. They’re quite narrow.”
Mr. Swan dove down into the water with a glowing orb attached to his hip to light the way. They all followed as the water’s surface got to the ceiling. Pulling through the murky water, they followed the glowing yellow orb, which suddenly started to move quicker as they got closer to the bottom. Allora felt the gentle tug of the suction guiding her toward the glowing orb, which disappeared into an open drainage pipe. She put her hands forward into a triangle, straightened her body, and tucked her biceps against her ears as she rocketed down into the pipe. The suction increased as she shot through the dark pipe at an alarming speed. The water rushed to the right, then curved to the left, and then angled upward. Staring ahead, she saw a small, round light coming at her quickly. Then, like a bullet from a gun, she shot through the small, round opening, through the lake, and up into the air. The drainage had created a geyser, launching everyone down into the shallows of the lake. Allora glanced around to make sure her friends had made it and then crawled through the mud, collapsing in the wet sand on the lake’s edge. They lay down next to her, trying to regain their strength in the warmth of the hot Egyptian sun.
“I hate sand,” Katie said.
“I hate water,” Allora said.
“Anybody ready to go home?” Mr. Swan asked, standing over them and temporarily blocking the sun.
Mr. Swan quickly created a portal, dropping them down through the sand and out of Egypt.
chapter
NINETEEN
Balloon Glue
The April showers were perpetual and never ending. Allora stared at the classroom windows, watching the small droplets of water streaking down the glass. She kept thinking about Alexandria. The jade orb was now in the hands of the enemy, and there was no way to get it back. The constant beating of raindrops against the roof and windows set Allora in a trance. Time passed quickly. The end of class arrived, and Allora remained staring through the window. Mr. Swan repetitively called her name, but she didn’t notice. He had to come over to her desk and shake her back to reality.
“You all right?” he asked, looking down at her with a worried look in his eyes. “You’ve been pretty quiet these past few weeks.
“They have it.”
Mr. Swan knelt down next to her desk. “Yes, but they have no way to access the information without the last cube.”
“Wasn’t that it, though? Weren’t we supposed to find the scroll inside Alexandria? There wasn’t anything there but ruins and more questions. What if they already found it and now have the completed orb?”
“So you want to just give up?”
“No,” she said defiantly.
“Good, because that scroll is out there. Just remember, Salazar isn’t the only one with a few tricks up his sleeve. When hunting a snake, you must put the most succulent bait at the edge of its hiding hole and wait until it pops its head back out. That is when it is time to strike. For now we must remain patient, waiting for our snake to show itself.”
Allora grabbed her book bag and got up from her desk.
“I’ve got a sinking feeling that our snake already knows that we’re waiting for it.”
Mr. Swan didn’t have a response. He had been thinking the same thing.
“Oh, before I forget,” he said, just as Allora was leaving the classroom. “Mrs. Ferris wants you all over at her house.” He handed her the directions. “She finally got all of the ingredients for bubble glue.”
“Why aren’t we doing it in the school lab?”
“She said that it’s not big enough. I think that she’s also worried about detection. She’s been a little paranoid lately.”
Allora left the room and found her three friends talking near Katie’s locker. Leaving the school, they all ran quickly through the rain toward Tanner’s car.
“So you were named as one of the finalists for May Day Queen,” Tanner said, turning onto a gravel road that led toward a large log cabin that backed into the forest.
“What?” Allora asked, completely surprised.
“We kind of made a campaign to get you elected,” Tanner admitted, smiling emphatically.
Allora smacked his shoulder as he parked the car.
He started laughing. “Katie said that you’d react like that.”
“Why in the world would you do that?” she asked. “Don’t you think that I have enough to worry about right now?”
“Figured you could use it. You’ve been kind of depressed since we got back from Egypt.”
“You knew about this?” Allora asked Katie as they got out of the car.
“Yeah, I thought it was kind of sweet,” Katie responded. “You have been kind of a bummer lately. You needed something to snap you out of your funk.”
The cabin was odd. There were no windows. Tanner slid his hand along one of the logs and knocked on it. The log made a metal clanking sound. They walked around the side of the cabin to the only door. Allora knocked on the brown metal. After a minute, the rectangle slit at eye level in the door slid open. An old man’s eyes scanned the individuals. He stared at the four teens for a few seconds.
“What do you want?” the old man asked.
“We’re here to see Mrs. Ferris,” Allora said, looking down at the directions again to make sure that they had come to the right place.
“Hold on,” the old man said, and then he slammed the metal viewing hole.
They were about to leave when the metal door swung back open. Mrs. Ferris stood with a smoking cylinder in one hand and a frog in the other. She wore goofy-looking bug-eyed goggles, a black apron, and bulky clogs that looked too big for her feet.
“Welcome, dearies!” Mrs. Ferris said. “Don’t mind my husband. He’s just an old grouch. Come on in.”
Mrs. Ferris moved aside, and they all went into the house. The walls and ceiling were made of solid steel, but the interior was beautifully decorated with all sorts of paintings, sculptures, and tapestries. It was like walking into a small museum. The hardwood floors bent and creaked underneath their feet as they walked through the living room and into the kitchen, where an old man was reading a newspaper.
“Put that newspaper down, and stop being so rude, Manar,” Mrs. Ferris said.
The old man slowly lowered the paper, as if it weighed him down. He had large glasses, white hair, gray pleated pants, and a starched button-up shirt. His expression was sullen, and he squinted behind thick glasses, studying each teenager. He folded up the paper and gently placed it onto the wooden kitchen table. Mrs. Ferris went through their names as Manar stared at each again.
“So these are the whippersnappers who are going to bring Salazar down,” Manar said, getting up from his chair to further examine them. “Well, you don’t look like much, but I hope you succeed. That bastard took my two boys. I hope he pays.”
Manar turned away and began to cook dinner.
Mrs. Ferris stood up straight, turned, and put on a courageous fac
e. “Sorry about that. You don’t quite ever get over the loss of your children.”
Mrs. Ferris lead them into a hallway to the right of the living room. There was one portrait that stood out from the rest. There were two young men dressed in black uniforms, each with a dark-green T that ran along the shoulders and down the abdomen. Both men had dark, short hair, stern expressions, perfect posture, and emerald-green eyes.
“Minar and Tanus,” Mrs. Ferris said, noticing what had distracted Allora. “They were the most amazing boys. Brave, courageous, handsome, and incredibly stubborn, just like their mother and father.”
“How did they…?” Allora immediately stopped, realizing how inappropriate that question may have been.
“It’s OK.” Mrs. Ferris gently took Allora’s arm and glanced back up at the portrait. “They were a part of the royal guard, tasked to defend the true king. They were away on the night of the coup. Actually, most of the royal guard was away, sent off by a traitorous military general who tried to reduce the amount of security in the palace. When my boys came back to Titanis, the king had been overthrown, and the entire city had been turned over to General Salazar, who had claimed the throne. I think that they blamed themselves for what happened.” Mrs. Ferris choked back tears. “I told them not to go.” She leaned up against the wall with one hand raised toward the portrait, trying to grasp onto a memory, as if doing so might bring it to life.
“After meeting up with what was left of the royal guard, they infiltrated the underground passages of Titanis in order to free some of the families and soldiers who had been imprisoned during the coup. As we have been told by those who were there, my sons got most of the prisoners out before they were overrun. They were trying to reach one last prisoner, but it was too late.” She looked over at Katie and Dax, taking in a weighted breath.
“My mom,” Katie said, feeling the weight of that night.
Mrs. Ferris tilted her head and pressed her lips together. Her warm eyes gave away the truth, and the nod of her head confirmed it.
“I’m so sorry,” Katie said as her eyes filled with tears.
“Hey, you have nothing to be sorry for, darling. Everyone lost someone during those times. We all knew the risks. If my boys had the choice, they would have given their lives again and again. And your mother….” Mrs. Ferris paused, contemplating her next comment. “Well, she was the strongest woman I knew. She wouldn’t want you to sour her death with pity, deary.”
Mrs. Ferris took one last look at the portrait and then went down the hallway. There were rooms on either side, but Mrs. Ferris didn’t stop until she got to a blank wall at the end. Mrs. Ferris placed her palm on the wall, focused her hadrons, and turned her hand clockwise and counterclockwise as if she were entering a safe combination. The wall became liquid, and they all went through to an elevator. After descending about fifty feet, the metal doors opened into a large laboratory filled with beakers, measuring equipment, cauldrons, pots, potions, containers of multicolored liquids, glass contraptions, and the odd assortment of plants against the walls. The shelves were lined with containers of contents that didn’t exist on Earth.
At the back of the room were four small cauldrons surrounded by varying sizes of glass containers. Allora picked up a container that read “Puffer Fish Stomach.” The contents of the other containers were Pine Tree Sap, Baking Soda, Gremlin Sweat, and Dragon’s Butter.
Mrs. Ferris took up position on the other side of the counter with her own setup. Dax got distracted by what looked like a human skull with scales.
“I wouldn’t touch that, Dax,” Mrs. Ferris said.
Dax had already stuck his finger in the skull’s mouth, which bit down immediately. They all laughed as Dax screamed and jumped around the room, trying to pry the object from his finger. After a few seconds of entertainment, the skull unhinged its jaw and flew across the room.
“You really should listen to me,” Mrs. Ferris said, grinning emphatically. She picked up the skull and placed it back on the shelf. “It’s a skull snare. Tanus gave that to me for my birthday.” She went back over to the counter and picked up the Puffer Fish Stomach container. “All right, let’s get to it. We are going to make another type of glue. It’s called balloon glue. It can be used as a defensive or offensive weapon when in battle. When sparked by hadrons, it will expand when it hits something. When thrown at an enemy, it will expand and debilitate the opponent by surrounding it with the glue.”
“How do you get out of it?” Tanner asked.
“The balloon will eventually get smaller, but if you want it to reduce its size immediately, the individual who sparked the glue must do it again.” Mrs. Ferris put on gloves, instructing the others to do the same. Then she unscrewed her container and poured its contents into the cauldron. “So the puffer fish stomach has been sitting in a highly potent acid for the past few weeks. It will smell a little gross.”
Allora opened the container. The explosion of rancid odor burst into her nostrils. The mixture of rotten eggs and vinegar was nauseating. She coughed and cringed as she poured it out.
“Make sure to rub a little oil onto your spoon. Then scoop out all of the sap, and try to get most of it into the cauldron.” It took quite a while, but they finally got through that step. “Now stir the gremlin sweat, and don’t stop stirring.” This step took even longer. “The gremlin sweat will slowly break down the sap, along with the remaining acid, and will eventually mix with the puffer fish stomach.”
After a few more minutes, the substance in the cauldron turned into a thick, light-brown liquid. Mrs. Ferris poured the dragon’s butter into a plastic burlap sack that she pulled from inside a drawer below the counter. Everyone followed her lead, making sure that the dragon’s butter had thoroughly coated the inside of the sack. The substance was greenish yellow with a metallic sheen. It smelled of salt and petunias, with a hint of charcoal. Allora had never smelled anything like it.
“What is dragon’s butter?” Tanner asked.
“It is the substance that coats the inner lining of a dragon’s organs. It allows them to absorb hadrons and expel fire. It is an amazing thing. Some say that it is what gave Sonorans the ability to focus. Unfortunately, most of the large breeds of dragons are extinct. This stuff is factory developed from the smaller, pet-sized dragons. They’re only about five feet long and can’t breathe fire too well.”
“I want a pet dragon,” Dax said enthusiastically.
Once everyone was done coating his or her sack, they all watched as Mrs. Ferris unscrewed the baking soda and placed her sack next to the cauldron.
“All right, this is the tricky part.” She took a deep breath and picked up the baking soda while keeping one hand on the burlap sack. “There is a tie on the top of the sack that you will need to fasten tightly onto the rim of the cauldron. Once you pour in the baking soda, all hell will break loose.” She took a couple more deep breaths and then poured in the baking soda. Her hands worked quickly, grabbing the top of the sack and pulling it over the cauldron just as the contents almost spilled over. The cauldron shook as she fastened the tie onto the rim. The burlap sack blew up four feet high, like a hot-air balloon. Mrs. Ferris was pushed backward and slammed into the other counter. Luckily, she had fastened the sack tightly, and it remained inflated. Mrs. Ferris let out her breath. With wide eyes, they all took a collective step backward from the counter.
“Dax, you’re up first,” Mrs. Ferris said.
“Seriously?” Dax reluctantly stepped forward and mimicked Mrs. Ferris’s instructions. He held up the baking soda for a few minutes, like a skydiver debating whether to step out of the plane for the first time. Finally he dropped in the powder, pulled the sack over the cauldron, and fastened the tie. He had his head too far over the cauldron, and the inflation of the burlap sack blew up in his face, knocking him back and onto the floor. The tie held, and the sack remained inflated. He shook his head, blinking several times as if he had just taken a hit in a football game. Tanner chuckled over him. “Yeah, g
o ahead and laugh. You’re next.”
“Please. This is easy.” Tanner poured in the baking soda and pulled over the sack, but his hands were still sticky from the oil, and the pull tie slipped out of his fingers. He tried to grab the tie again, but it was too late. The cauldron exploded, with a greenish-brown goo covering Tanner, while the others ran away, snatching their cauldrons before the substance engulfed them. The goo kept growing as if a dam had been broken. The entire back of the laboratory was filling with the strange substance. There was no escaping it. Mrs. Ferris pulled a beaker from one of the shelves in the back. Allora was caught in the sticky substance and slipped, falling into the goo as it kept expanding into corners and over counters. Glass was shattering, and shelves were breaking. Mrs. Ferris threw the beaker into the air.
“Duck!” she said, shooting a hadron burst into the beaker and shattering the glass. The liquid inside exploded out like a spider’s web, covering the back of the room. Allora wiped the goo from her pants, and Dax helped Tanner to his feet.
“Easy, huh?” he said with a big smile. The room smelled of sweet nectar, like they had run through a field of flowers.
“I always forget to get the lilac nectar out before I do this,” Mrs. Ferris said.
Allora and Katie performed the procedure perfectly, while Tanner was tasked with cleanup. After about twenty minutes, the balloons slowly bent one way and lowered onto the counter. Mrs. Ferris instructed the four to take off the burlap sacks and pour the contents onto the counters that Tanner had just thoroughly scrubbed. The glue fell out of the sacks like dough and settled into a blue-tinted pancake shape with a gold glow. Mrs. Ferris placed a honey-filled bowl in the middle of the counter.
“What you’ll need to do is take a small ball of the glue in one hand and a good amount of honey in the other,” she said, demonstrating the instructions. “Focus a small amount of hadrons in your honey-covered hand, and then place the glue in your palm, like this.” Her hand glowed orange, and then she closed it. Orange light seeped through the cracks and then dissipated. She opened her hand. The ball of glue had absorbed all of the honey and solidified. They all followed, making about thirty small balls of balloon glue each.