Jakarta Missing (9 page)

“Well, she'd know that,” Dakar said impatiently. “All princesses do.” She imagined that she was holding a pomegranate seed lightly between her front teeth. She loved the way the seeds felt—all smooth and self-contained—just before you bit. Just before that sweet and bitter pomegranate taste came into your mouth.

The third task would be to find the three magic seeds and take them with her on her quest once she got out of the tower. What if the princess failed at her tasks? Then she would be frozen. The cold would creep upward, starting at her feet. Or downward, starting at the top of her head. Either way, when it reached her heart, she would be done for. Maybe the princess had to find a true friend. Only a true friend would know the answer to the pomegranate problem. Melanie could be the true friend.

“I love that story you told last night,” Melanie said. “It's so perfect that you're not from here. And it's so obvious. Because people from here don't talk in paragraphs. I wish you would tell me more about Jakarta.”

Jakarta! “She's incredibly smart,” Dakar said. “If she were the princess in the tower, the evil hen wouldn't be able to hold her more than a few hours at most.”

“Why?” Melanie said. “How would she get out?”

Dakar kicked a stone down the sidewalk and wondered if she'd be able to pick out that same exact stone when they caught up with it again. It seemed terribly important that she recognize it. “I don't know,” she said. “I'm not nearly as smart as Jakarta. Oh, also, she's beautiful. She's like Donbirra. Boys fight their way through dark and miry bogs to touch the edge of her cloak. And she's a soccer star.”

“Will she like me?” Melanie asked.

“Sure.” Dakar bent down to study the pile of rocks. If she could find the exact stone, what she had just said would be true. Jakarta would like it here. “Thanks for coming on ahead of me,” Jakarta would say. “I'm eternally grateful.” There. That was the stone. Wasn't it? Dakar felt a flutter of panic. “Stop it,” she told herself. You made that test up. There is no evil hen. Switch off the imagination. How long would it take Jakarta to fly back to the U.S.? “You know,” Dakar said, “I think I should go home.”

“Hey! We were going to the magic place.”

“Oh, right.” Dakar started to trot. “We have to go quickly, though. I should go home and see if they've got Jakarta's plane schedule yet.”

“It's on my uncle's land,” Melanie said, hurrying to catch up. “I always knew it was magic, but I didn't have anyone else who would know, too.”

Melanie's uncle's land was on the edge of town, and they both were panting by the time they got to it. Melanie pointed to a house but shook her head. She steered them into a grove of trees.

Dakar looked up. Above her head, leaves flickered as if they were candle flames and the wind were trying to blow them out. Trees in Cottonwood were mostly shaped the way Jakarta had first taught her to draw a tree with a fat crayon—two lines, curved at the bottom, and a round top. It made them look friendly and old. Okay, not as old as the old frangapani tree she and Jakarta had loved to visit. But a lot older than the feathery jacaranda trees Yusef had just planted in the Nairobi yard.

If only this magic grove were full of eucalyptus trees. She'd climbed the boarding school eucalyptus trees with Jakarta at least a hundred times, always pretending she wasn't afraid, hoping the skinny branches were as tough as they seemed to be, imagining Jakarta was a red rose and she was a briar. But maybe Melanie's leaves would actually fall off when the weather got cold, the way leaves did in books. They looked green and sturdy, but she could see dabs of interesting colors at the other end of the grove.

“This way,” Melanie said, “for the mysterious, magical place.”

A creek ran through the grove. Tree roots, from a tree growing close to the water, stuck out from the bank, their twisted arms forming ledges and little caves. “Cool.” Dakar scrambled up to sit on a root. It was like sitting on the back of a snake.

“
Très
cool.” Melanie scratched her back against the trunk of one of the big trees. “Is this the kind of place where an Allalonestone would be? Or is the Allalonestone a real thing in Africa?”

Dakar hesitated. She and Jakarta were the only ones in the whole world who knew about the Allalonestone. But Jakarta had never said don't tell anyone else, had she?

“There's no such thing as an Allalonestone,” she said. “I did used to think it was real, though. Jakarta told me about the hoodies that caught people and forced them inside the Allalonestone. Once you were in there, nothing would get you out. Almost nothing.”

“Maybe it's over there.” Melanie pointed to a rock jutting out from the creek, shiny with wetness. “Beware of the Allalonestone.”

“No.” Dakar shivered. “I think it's huge and flat, and the water runs over it. At first, I think even Jakarta halfway believed in the Allalonestone.” She remembered running through trees near Maji. “Look,” Jakarta was calling to her. “That tree has beards hanging from it. Those are hoodie beards.” Looking up at the mossy beards, Dakar walked right into something sticky. She'd screamed and pawed at her face, sure the hoodies must have left a thin ghost film all over everything to catch people and take them to the Allalonestone. But the sticky stuff was only a huge spiderweb.

Should she tell Melanie about the time Mom disappeared? Should she say, “I have this terrible memory of pushing on Mom's door, whimpering”? Should she tell about Jakarta's strong hands pulling her behind the woodstove? Jakarta whispering, “The hoodies have got Mom, but don't worry. We'll get her back.” And they had, hadn't they?

No, she couldn't tell that. Some things were way too personal even for true friendship. But this was a magical place, worthy of secrets. Maybe she could share a little part of it, anyway. She took a deep breath. “I thought Mom was stuck in the Allalonestone once.” She glanced at Melanie. Melanie was staring at her with an open mouth. “Dad was off on one of his adventures,” she went on, trying to make her voice not jump even the least little bit. “So Jakarta had to take care of me. We did quests together, and one day Jakarta got the idea of making up an incantation.”

Dakar was afraid to look at Melanie again. She stooped down and stirred her finger in the creek water. “I don't think the incantation had real power or anything,” she said quickly. “But one day we went on what Jakarta called a specially brave quest and then said the incantation. And—here's the weirdest thing—the very minute we stopped saying it, Mom walked out of her room.”

Dakar felt a little sick to hear the words that had come out of her mouth. Even at boarding school she had never told anyone about the Allalonestone or the incantation. She didn't have to look at Melanie to know that Melanie was waiting, waiting to hear the incantation.

Don't think. She straightened up. Don't think. Be brave.

“Fierce!” Melanie whispered. “A real
African
incantation?”

“I guess.” Dakar squeezed her mind, trying to remember. “At least, the day it started, Jakarta was wearing a camel bone necklace. But she had just read me an American book that had something about
eye of newt
in it. She said, ‘Monkey toe, camel bones, petals of lotus, three,' and the rest just seemed to come magically to her after that. Here. Say it after me. Monkey toe.”

“Monkey toe,” Melanie repeated obediently.

“Camel bones. Petals of lotus, three. Elephant tusk. Hair of dog. Bark of sycamore tree.”

“What's a sycamore tree?” Melanie asked.

“I'm not sure. But I think Jakarta got it from the Bible. Anyway, it just sounds good. Okay. Second verse. Wing of eel.”

“But eels don't have wings,” Melanie said.

“I know.” Dakar fought back her impatience. She never should have started this, but now she had to go on. “Still, that's how the incantation goes. Wing of eel. Tooth of snail. Golden lion's mane. Giraffe's eyelash. Murmur of bat. Three silver birds flying home in the rain.”

“The last line doesn't exactly fit.”

“I know,” Dakar said. “But Jakarta said it was too delicious not to use. Besides, we had just looked up and really seen three birds.” She paused. “You must never, ever tell anyone this incantation.” She hoped her voice was solemn and scary enough to get through. “Up until this very moment it's something only Jakarta and I knew. Now you know it, too.”

“I don't even think I remember it all,” Melanie said. “Can we practice some more?”

“First, you have to promise.” Dakar tapped Melanie's arm. “You have to give your most solemn, oathful promise not to tell anyone. And then you have to teach me how to sign, okay?”

“Sure,” Melanie said. “I can teach you that easily. Here's how you say, ‘Are you okay?' Here's how you say, ‘Fine.' Here's how you say, ‘Fancy fine.'” She giggled.

Dakar refused to laugh. “We can only say the incantation when we're here in this magical place,” she said sternly. “And we have to hurry. I can't wait to find out if Mom and Dad know when Jakarta's getting in.”

That night Dakar couldn't sleep even though she went all the way to Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. The ancient poetry in the names wasn't working. She gave up and tried Ivan IV, Theodore I, Boris Godunov, Theodore II, False Dimitri … she felt a stab of guilt. She had to quit being such a False Dimitri. It was getting to be a bad habit. Ummm … Peter I, Catherine I, Peter II, Anne, Ivan VI, Elizabeth, Peter III … okay … who was next? Alexander I? No, she was missing someone. Or maybe more than one. Sophia ruled while Peter I and Ivan V were children, so Ivan must be with Peter. Which Catherine was Catherine the Great? Dakar didn't feel any closer to sleep than before she had started.

Think about something else. Think about Jakarta coming. Tuesday afternoon, Mom said. That was day after tomorrow. Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon. Over and over Dakar saw it, saw Jakarta coming through the door, saw herself running—running swiftly and lightly as only a princess could—to
fling
her arms around Jakarta. Someday she would tell Jakarta about her quest idea and see what Jakarta thought. Also, she would see if Jakarta had felt anything that moment Dakar heard her voice. But in the airport they would simply twine together, right there in the lounge or on the steps, and vow to never live whole continents away from each other again. The red rose and the briar.

D
akar expected to feel gloriously excited when she woke up on Tuesday, but instead, she felt queasy. She wished she hadn't told Melanie about the hoodies and the Allalonestone. “What's the big deal?” she asked herself, rummaging around inside her brain for an answer. But she didn't find one. Only that she was really good at keeping secrets and she didn't have much experience telling secrets. “Do I have to go to school?” she asked at breakfast. “My stomach doesn't feel so great.”

Mom's face was shiny hopeful. “You're probably just excited, like me,” she said dreamily. “We should make a big sign.
KARIBU, JAKARTA
.”

“Too embarrassing,” Dakar said.

“Too embarrassing,” Dad agreed. “Why don't you just stay home? Jakarta's flight comes in at one, anyway.”