by David Bowles
Dedication
To Salt, Kimi, and all the other cackling cats who’ve hypnotized me into feeding and petting them down the years.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1: Ski Lift Scare!
Chapter 2: Slippery Slope!
Chapter 3: Cackling Cougars!
Chapter 4: Swallowed by a Cypress!
Chapter 5: Pausing in the Park
Chapter 6: The Quiet Prince
Chapter 7: Your Basic Backstory
Chapter 8: Nicked by the Knights!
Chapter 9: The Weird Wood
Chapter 10: Furious Forest
Chapter 11: Chaneks and Catnip
Chapter 12: Tricky Training
Chapter 13: Cougar Camp
Chapter 14: Nighty Night!
Chapter 15: Down the Slope at Last
Activities
About the Author and Illustrator
Back Ad
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter
1
Ski Lift Scare!
Ivan watched the light snow falling on the mountain. The only thing he enjoyed more than reading was skiing. His long arms and legs were always graceful going down the slopes. Every Thanksgiving, his mom and dad brought him to a resort. A wonderful family tradition.
This year, his cousins had tagged along. It had been three months since they’d escaped 13th Street. Malia and Dante thought they were safe now, but Ivan wasn’t so sure. He had been doing lots of research, trying to figure out what had happened and why.
But nothing made sense just yet.
“I kind of wish we were back at the lodge with our tíos, sitting by that fireplace,” Dante groaned as the ski lift wobbled a bit.
“But the view is amazing,” Ivan said, pointing at the landscape.
Malia rolled her eyes at Dante, who was shivering. “If you would just pull up the hood of your parka . . .”
“And mess up this gorgeous hair?” Dante gave her a shocked look. “It took me thirty minutes to get it perfect.”
“I don’t know how you plan to snowboard down the mountain like that,” Malia said.
“Slowly,” Dante replied. “Really slowly.”
Just then, a humming and creaking sound echoed above the soft whistle of the wind. The ski lift shuddered. Ivan’s heart skipped a beat in fear. What if, somehow, they got trapped on 13th Street again and had to fight more monsters?
Ivan looked up the slope. Coming down toward them was another lift, full of people returning to the lodge. For a moment, he breathed a sigh of relief. Then the other group passed them, and Ivan gasped in surprise!
Sitting in between two kids was . . . Doña Chabela!
She smiled and winked at him.
“Guys,” Ivan said. “It’s her!”
Chapter
2
Slippery Slope!
Malia and Dante stared at Ivan in disbelief.
“You’re imagining stuff,” Malia said. “That was just a bunch of tourists.”
“It was Chabela Aguilar.” Ivan’s voice was more serious than usual.
Dante shrugged. “Maybe the cold and snow are messing with your eyes, dude. Three months have passed. Thirteenth Street is over.”
“Yeah,” Malia agreed. “Let it go.”
The lift groaned to a stop. The cousins hopped out.
Ivan gestured toward the ski lift. “Seriously, I saw her.”
Dante sighed. “Why would she be in Utah, dude?”
“To make us go back!” Ivan said. At moments like this, he felt like his cousins didn’t listen to him.
Malia smirked. “There’s no way a portal to 13th Street is waiting for us in the mountains of Utah!”
Maybe I can show them what I mean, Ivan thought. He took his backpack off and pulled out a notebook. “What if Chabela made one? I’ve been doing some research.”
“And here we go,” muttered Dante, rubbing his face. “Nerd stuff from the Brain.”
Ivan’s cheeks turned red with embarrassment. He knew Dante was only joking, but it hurt his feelings. Didn’t Dante and Malia understand him at all?
Ivan pressed on anyway. He pointed at pages where he had made drawings and jotted down information. “Look. The symbol we found on open doors? It’s the number thirteen, written in ancient Mayan. The two spells we learned from Yoliya, the ghost girl who helped us battle the bats? Also Mayan!”
“So what, you think Chabela is a Mayan witch or something?” asked Dante.
“No way that street’s Mayan,” Malia muttered.
Ivan shoved his notebook back into his bag. “Fine. Whatever.”
I kind of wish I were alone on this mountain, he thought.
Malia frowned. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Yeah, you’re being weird, Ivan,” Dante said.
“I am NOT weird,” Ivan said sharply.
“You’re right. You’re actually lucky,” Dante said. “Your parents are so cool. My mom would never let us go snowboarding by ourselves.”
Malia chuckled. “Yeah, she’d hold your hand all the way down the mountain.”
Ivan sighed. “Can we just go already?” “Cheer up, dude!” Dante said. “There’s hot chocolate at the end of this slope!”
The cousins strapped on their boards and skis, and off they went.
As the cold air whipped his face, Ivan tried to do what Dante had asked and forced a smile. It was almost hypnotic, all the white snow, the gentle slope. He glanced down at his skis, flexing his knees a little, and he felt better.
But then his cousins started to scream!
Ivan looked up just in time to see a portal looming in front of him, swallowing Dante and Malia.
Chapter
3
Cackling Cougars!
SCRAAAAAAPE!
Ivan’s skis grated against the pavement as he passed through the portal into the gloomy world of 13th Street. He slowed to a stop and looked at his cousins.
Dante had fallen flat on his back. Malia was unstrapping her board from her boots.
Behind Ivan, the portal disappeared.
WHOOSH!
“Um, y’all were saying?” snapped Ivan.
“Yikes, sorry, dude. Now we’re back at our last checkpoint,” Dante said.
“Excuse me?” Malia asked.
“Like a video game,” Dante said. “It’s the last place we ‘played,’ remember?”
Malia pointed at the crooked and spooky warehouses that loomed all around. “This is no game, pretty boy.”
Ivan pushed down on his right heel lever with a ski pole. “Wonder what creatures we’ll face this time.”
Malia’s eyes suddenly went wide.
“Um, cougars,” she said.
“Where?” Dante didn’t even try to hide the panic in his voice.
Ivan pulled his boots from his skis and turned around. Slinking up the street were a dozen big, tawny cats. Some of them stood on their hind legs, gripping spears in their front paws!
“Hey, troop!” the lead cougar called. “Knock, knock!”
“Who’s there?” the rest shouted in unison.
The cousins stared at one another, mouths open.
“Talking cougars,” Ivan muttered. “That’s new.”
“Kids,” the cougars’ leader replied.
“Kids who?”
“Kids who’re not supposed to be here!” the cougar shouted.
The entire troop erupted into cackling laughter.
Dante stood up and grabbed his board. “That was a terrible joke.”
“Funky breath. Ferret fire. Now . . . dad jokes? Seems like a step down,” Malia said.
One of the big cats stood
. “Ooh, I’ve got one, pals. Why did the human throw a clock out the window? Because it wanted to see time fly!”
The cougars grabbed their bellies and guffawed. Some even rolled around in the street, howling with laughter.
Suddenly, Ivan felt sick to his stomach. Dante held his hand to his mouth for a second, then rushed off to puke.
The cougars kept laughing, but now their chuckles sounded kind of mean. And they were trotting faster, closing in.
Malia dropped to her knees. “Their laughter . . . it’s making us . . . sick. We need . . . to run . . . but I’m so dizzy.”
Another cougar shouted, “Why did the human put its money in the freezer? It wanted cold hard cash!”
The cackling of the cougars was impossibly loud! Ivan could hardly think.
Dante grabbed Malia’s arm and pulled her to her feet.
“Come on, Ivan!” he screamed. “We have to get away!”
Ivan’s cousins began to hurry up the street. Their bulky snowsuits and boots made it hard to run. Ivan tried to follow. But the cougars’ laughter began to fill up his head. The tall, slanted buildings seemed to swirl all around him. His long legs got tangled up, and he tripped.
In seconds, he was surrounded by snarling cougars. He couldn’t lift his head to look at their faces. But closeup, he made out two strange symbols on metal bands around their ankles.
The lead cougar leaned close to Ivan, its breath hot on his ear. “Go catch your friends,” it whispered.
Ivan felt himself standing. He couldn’t stop himself. His long arms stretched out, fingers hooked like claws.
The cougars’ laughter had hypnotized him!
Then he started running after his cousins, ready to grab them!
Chapter
4
Swallowed by a Cypress!
The cougars’ laughter echoed in Ivan’s head, making him run faster. The street became an avenue with thick, leafless trees on either side. A part of Ivan’s mind recognized them as Montezuma cypresses.
Within seconds, he was almost on top of his cousins.
“Ivan!” Dante shouted. “What are you doing?”
Ivan tried to answer, but his lips wouldn’t move. His fingers had nearly snagged the hoods of their parkas when something yanked him back.
Vines had wrapped around him! They were pulling him straight toward a thick trunk!
Just as Ivan was about to smash into the cypress, it OPENED UP!
THWACK!
He was trapped. The inside of the tree was dark. From outside came the muffled voices of cougars.
“Where’d they go?”
“No clue! It’s like they vanished, Captain.”
Suddenly, a light seemed to switch on. Just inches away from Ivan stood a strange being. It had green skin and mossy hair. In its hands was a green stone.
Jade, Ivan thought. But glowing and held by a . . . tree elf?
The tree elf pressed the stone to Ivan’s heart. “Heal up, Shi-PAH-ti!” it whispered.
Warmth spread through Ivan’s chest. The laughing echoes in his brain stopped. He found he could control his movements again.
The elf pulled its hands away. They were empty.
“Where did it go?” Ivan asked, glad to hear his own voice at last.
“Broke spell. Then vanished. So healing stones work,” the elf replied. “Find the park. Should be safe.”
The tree opened up. Ivan stumbled out into the gloom of 13th Street.
“Wait!” said Ivan, turning back. “How do I stop the cougars from hypnotizing—”
But the tree had closed up.
Suddenly, Ivan remembered the earmuffs hanging around his neck. He pulled them up over his ears.
That was why he didn’t hear his cousins shouting his name.
Chapter
5
Pausing in the Park
Somebody slapped him on the shoulder. Startled, Ivan let out a yelp and spun around.
It was Dante and Malia. Ivan pulled down his earmuffs.
Malia pointed at the trees. “What was that, Ivan?”
“The cougars,” he explained. “Their laughter doesn’t just make you sick. It controls your mind!”
Dante shook his head. “Not the hypnotism, dude. THE BIG TREES THAT JUST SWALLOWED BOTH OF US WHOLE!”
“You didn’t see the elf?” Ivan asked. They looked at him blankly. “I’ll explain later. There’s supposedly a park up ahead. Earmuffs up, just in case.”
The cousins set off at a run. A few yards ahead, the warehouses disappeared, replaced by sheer rock and trees, and a path that wound through muddy, dead grass.
Only on 13th Street could a park look this horrible, Ivan thought.
The three kids stopped and looked back. No cougars.
Dante’s lips were moving. Ivan pulled his earmuffs away from one ear.
“Excuse me?” he said.
“How’d you snap out of it?” Dante asked.
“Inside my tree was a little green creature, like an elf. It used a glowing stone to break the spell.”
“I knew it!” Dante shouted. “Just like powering up in video games. We need to keep an eye out for more.”
“Jades or elves?” Ivan asked.
“Both, duh!” Malia replied. “The elves hid us till the cougars went away. They might help us again.”
The cousins started walking toward some woods that spread before them on the far side of the park. They tried thinking of options for defeating the cougars.
“Maybe taping their mouths shut?” Dante wondered.
“Good luck getting close to their mouths,” Malia responded. “Even with earmuffs on to keep their cackling out of your head, those were some big teeth.”
“And spears,” Dante added. “They looked like warriors or something.”
Ivan snapped his fingers and pulled his journal out again. “Those symbols on the cougars’ leg bands. I’ve seen them before.” He flipped through the pages and then pointed. “The Maya used to name their days with a number and a glyph, a special symbol that stood for a word. I copied them down. Those two mean . . . Yikes.”
“What?” Malia demanded.
“One is ruler or lord. The other is . . . death.”
Dante bit his lip. “This is the Underworld, isn’t it?”
Ivan swallowed hard. “Sure would explain all the zombies and ghosts and skeletons.”
Malia took a deep breath. “If we’re in the land of the dead, why are there cars and buildings?”
“Because I made them,” an unfamiliar voice said.
The cousins spun around to see a figure on the path behind them.
Chapter
6
The Quiet Prince
Malia lifted her snowboard like a weapon. “Who are you?”
A young man stepped closer. He looked about thirteen years old. He was wearing a cape of black feathers that made a whispery sound as he moved.
“I’m Mickey Aguilar,” he said.
Dante snapped his fingers. “The message I saw on the zombies’ warehouse! ‘Protected by Lord Micqui, the Quiet Prince.’ That’s you, huh?”
“Guilty as charged. And I do try to protect people,” Mickey said. “Like you kids. Let me guess. The cougars found you.”
“Yes,” Ivan replied. “They hypnotized me.”
The Quiet Prince cocked his head. “Did Shopal save you? Little green guy, likes trees?”
Ivan nodded. “Did you send him?”
“Más o menos,” Mickey said. “More or less. I sensed a portal opening near the park. Shopal decided to scout ahead in case the cougars tried to obey.”
“Obey what?” Malia asked.
“It’s a little embarrassing. They’re, uh, following orders,” Mickey explained, looking sad. “You see, they’re my knights.”
He lifted his left hand. Ivan had a sinking feeling in his chest.
The Quiet Prince had a metal band around his arm. It was inscribed with the same scary symbols as the cougars’.
/> Chapter
7
Your Basic Backstory
Dante lifted his snowboard. “You jerk! You ordered them to catch us!”
Mickey sighed. “Not quite, but they didn’t understand me.”
Ivan could relate to that!
Malia jabbed her snowboard at Mickey’s stomach. “Then why don’t you, I don’t know, GIVE THEM NEW ORDERS?”
The Quiet Prince shook his head. “They’re a little dense and pretty literal. They won’t accept new orders until they complete the first ones.”
Ivan narrowed his eyes at Mickey. “We need answers. Where are we? Why are we here?”
With a moan, Mickey dropped onto a nearby park bench. “It’s a long story.”
“You better sum it up fast.” Malia crossed her arms.
“Okay. Five years ago, my parents went to buy a house closer to my dad’s new job. I didn’t want to go, so I stayed behind with my dog, Bruno, at my grandma’s house in Gulf City.”
Suddenly, things lined up in Ivan’s brain. “Wait. Your last name is Aguilar. Is your grandmother Doña Chabela?”
Mickey’s eyes went wide. “How do you know that?”
Malia slammed her snowboard down. “Because she’s tricked us into coming here three times!”
The Quiet Prince pressed his fingers to his temples. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen.”
Ivan sat down beside him. “What happened exactly?”
Mickey’s eyes were red. “Bruno ran out of our house one day. A car hit him. I was so sad. And Grandma . . . she has all these books on magic and the Underworld. I started reading.”
Ivan nodded. Reading also helped him make sense of confusing things.
“An idea came to me,” Mickey continued. “My dad trained me to code on computers. Maybe I could combine technology and magic, make a doorway into the land of the dead, and find Bruno.”