Queen Liliuokalani: Royal Prisoner (10 page)

Felix appeared in the garden and waved to her. His skin had browned in the sun, making his eyes seem even greener. And the salt air made his cowlick stiffer and straighter, like an antenna, Maisie thought.

“What are you giggling about?” Felix asked her suspiciously.

“Your hair,” Maisie said, getting to her feet and stretching.

Out of habit, she touched the egg-shaped lump on the back of her head where the surfboard had hit her, and winced. It still hurt.

Maisie and Felix walked around the grounds, to the gate that led out to the street. The air was hot
and the sun was strong, but still a soft breeze blew from time to time, cooling their skin and sending the palm trees rustling.

“So,” Felix began, and Maisie knew she was about to hear a speech he’d rehearsed.

“Even though life here is pretty great,” he continued, “and even though things back home are…in flux—”

“That’s one way to describe it,” Maisie interrupted.

“We still need to figure out how we’re going to get back without the crown,” he finished.

“Maybe this is what Great-Uncle Thorne meant when he said to use the anagram when we’re in a pickle. This qualifies as a pickle, I would say.”

Maisie saw the bewilderment on her brother’s face.

“Oops,” she said. “That’s the thing I neglected to mention.”

Felix stopped walking and threw his arms in the air in exasperation.

“You didn’t tell me how to use the anagram the right way?” Felix said, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses.

“I did,” Maisie said quickly. “Sort of,” she added.

“What else did he say?” Felix insisted.

“I heard how sad you were that night back in New York, and I had the crown with me, and I just wanted to make you feel better,” Maisie explained.

That was the truth, wasn’t it? Even then she’d known that she should tell Felix everything Great-Uncle Thorne had said, but it was so unusual for her brother to want to time travel that she hadn’t wanted to miss the opportunity.

“Maisie?” Felix asked impatiently.

“He said it would give us information—”

“I know that! You already told me. We already
did
that!” he said, his exasperation growing by the second.

“Okay, okay. He said that we could also use it if we were in a pickle. That’s exactly the word he used. A pickle. Danger—”

“Thank you! I know what it means to be in a pickle, since I spend half my life in one with you!”

Felix started to walk again, his head bent, his lips moving as if he were speaking to himself. Maisie fell into step beside him.

“I think this constitutes a pickle, don’t you?” she asked.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Felix said. “We aren’t exactly in danger. In fact, we’re safer than we’ve been other times.” He thought of the ship fire with Alexander and fleeing to Shanghai with Pearl, and shivered.

“But we can’t get home,” Maisie reminded him.

“Did Great-Uncle Thorne happen to mention how we use the anagram if we don’t have the crown?”

Maisie shook her head no.

“Usually, we both hold on to the object and that sends us back in time,” he said, and Maisie knew he didn’t expect her to weigh in, that he was just thinking out loud. “This time, we said…well, we said what we said and held on, and it sent us into that…funnel thing…and we learned where we were and who we had to give the crown to.”

He paused, his face set with concentration.

“Then we both held on and said it again, and we landed—”

“Don’t remind me,” Maisie groaned, touching that lump again.

“—right where we needed to be.”

By now they had reached the seaport. The harbor was full of ships from France and England and the
United States, and the air was heavy with the stink of whales and rotting fish.

But Felix didn’t seem to notice.

“Now you’re telling me that if we say…those words…again, without the crown…somehow we’ll get the crown back?”

“I don’t know,” Maisie said.

“Well, I think we should try. Don’t you?”

Felix looked at her expectantly.

“But Great-Uncle Thorne said not to overuse the words,” Maisie said, unsure of what to do.

“What? There’s more?”

“That’s all. I promise. He said if we overuse them—”

“What would happen?”

Maisie shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell me. He said since The Treasure Chest was sealed it didn’t matter.”

“Great,” Felix muttered. “Now I don’t know what to do.”

Maisie stared off at the ships, and the buildings of Honolulu beyond them. On the docks, people were selling silk from China, and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and whalebone carved with pictures of ships. Felix had been down here a dozen
times already. But to Maisie it was new, and she wanted to see everything.

“Let’s think about it awhile,” she said, eager to buy some time. “We don’t have the crown, so we’re not going anywhere.”

“Fine,” Felix said, in a way that let her know it was not fine.

“Who would have thought,” Maisie said as she moved into the crowd on the dock, “that
lame demon
could cause so many problems?”

Felix didn’t hear her, though. Something had caught his eye, and he was squinting in the sun to better see it.

All of a sudden, he grabbed Maisie’s arm with one hand and pointed with the other.

“Look!” he said.

She turned to see what he was pointing at. A group of sailors in dirty striped shirts and bell-bottoms, their faces bearded and sunburned, their hats pushed back on their heads, were selling a heap of treasures. The sailors appeared to be guys you wouldn’t want to mess with, Maisie thought as Felix pulled her closer to them. One of them had a gold tooth that sparkled in the sun. Another had an
elaborately carved saber strapped to his hip. A third had a gold hoop earring dangling from one ear like a pirate. And a fourth had a bright green, blue, and red parrot perched on his shoulder, squawking.

“They look like real toughs, Felix,” Maisie warned as they neared the men. “This doesn’t seem like a very good idea.”

Just as she was wondering why her brother, who was usually cautious and fearful, suddenly wanted to march up to a quartet of scary-looking sailors, Maisie saw exactly what he must have seen.

The treasures they were selling were laid out on a piece of yellow silk. A whale skull. Colorful paintings of a tropical garden. Cinnamon sticks.

And the crown, glistening in the sun.

“Hey!” Maisie said as soon as she could push her way through the small crowd pawing through the objects. “That’s our crown!”

The sailor with the gold tooth laughed. “Not anymore it ain’t,” he said.

Up close, the men were even more grizzled and unkempt than they had appeared from a distance.

“Yes, it is. It’s a valuable…I mean…an important family treasure.”

The parrot said, “That’s a good one! That’s a good one!”

The parrot’s sailor narrowed his eyes at Maisie. “How much is it worth to ya?” he said in a raspy, phlegmy voice.

“I don’t have any money!” Maisie said. “And besides, it’s mine already. You have to give it back!”

All the sailors laughed at that, and the parrot repeated, “That’s a good one! That’s a good one!”

Maisie glared at the parrot.

The crowd had opened to let Maisie and then Felix in, but now all the people turned their attention to the crown.

“Must be worth a thousand dollars,” someone murmured.

“More,” someone else chimed in.

“A thousand dollars it is!” Gold Tooth said.

“I already told you, I don’t have any money,” Maisie said. “And I already told you that it’s mine and you have to give it back.”

“That ain’t the way it works,” the sailor with the earring said.

“Where did you find it, anyway?” Maisie demanded.

“In the sea,” Gold Tooth said.

“That proves it’s mine,” Maisie told him. “I dropped it in the ocean when I had an accident.”

“Poor thing.” Gold Tooth clucked with fake sympathy.

“Poor thing,” the parrot repeated.

“Be quiet!” Maisie snapped at the parrot.

Then to Gold Tooth she added desperately, “If you don’t believe me, feel the lump on my head. I got hit there and was knocked out, and that’s how I lost the crown.”

“And now ya’ve found it,” he grinned, showing off that tooth.

“Exactly,” she said, relieved.

“And ya’ve got to buy it if ya want it bad enough.”

“That’s…that’s…preposterous!” Maisie stammered.

Suddenly, someone shoved her aside and ran past her. In a flash, she saw that the someone was Felix, crouched low. He snatched the crown, and just as the crowd gasped in unison, he ran off with it, fast.

“You little thug!” Gold Tooth shouted, scrambling to his feet.

Stunned, Maisie took off after Felix, with Gold
Tooth pounding behind her.

“Thief!” Gold Tooth yelled.

But no one tried to catch Felix. Curious faces turned to watch the boy running with the crown, a girl with a tangle of hair flying in the breeze as she tried to catch up to him, and a dirty, big-bellied, unshaven, gold-toothed sailor shouting and huffing behind her.

Felix ducked down an alley, and Maisie followed, glancing over her shoulder. Gold Tooth was still pretty far back.

Panting, she caught up to Felix, who did not even slow when he saw her.

“I. Can’t. Believe. You. Took. The. Crown,” Maisie sputtered between breaths.

Felix ran alongside a building, then turned the corner to face its entrance.

MONTGOMERY’S
the sign above the door read.

Felix pulled the door open and finally collapsed against the wall just inside, panting for breath, the crown nestled in his arms like a football. Maisie collapsed beside him, panting, too.

“Felix!” a man said, a look of alarm on his face. “What happened?”

Felix took a gulp of air.

“Mr. Melville,” he gasped. “You’ve got to help us.”

From Mr. Melville’s back office they could hear Gold Tooth banging on the now locked front door of Montgomery’s.

“You little thief! You thug!” Gold Tooth shouted.

Felix took a sip of the water Mr. Melville had brought to him and Maisie, and tried to explain.

“That guy out there stole this crown. And it’s ours. And he wanted us to pay a thousand dollars to get it back.”

Mr. Melville let out a low whistle.

“You have to hide us,” Maisie pleaded.

“Maybe we should call the police?” Felix asked, afraid that Gold Tooth might just break down the door.

Mr. Melville shook his head. “They’ll take that crown,” he said, “and keep it until they unravel the story.”

The sound of wood splintering filled the air, followed by the too-familiar, frightening sound of Gold Tooth’s heavy footsteps pounding toward them.

“He broke down the door!” Felix gasped.

Mr. Melville glanced around the office, then ran to the small window above his desk and opened it.

“I’ll stall him,” he told Maisie and Felix as he held out his hand to pull them through the window.

They could hear Gold Tooth opening one door after another, screaming in frustration when he found just storerooms or empty offices.

“Run,” Mr. Melville hissed at them, seconds before Gold Tooth burst into his office.

“May I help you, sir?” Maisie and Felix heard Mr. Melville ask as they scrambled to their feet and began to race down the alley.

At the corner, they stopped to be sure the coast was clear. Felix thought his heart might actually pound through his ribs, it was beating so fast.

“We need to get to the palace,” Maisie said. “We need to get the crown to Lydia.”

“Right,” Felix said, taking off again in the direction of the palace.

Maisie and Felix did not stop again until the palace appeared before them like a beautiful mirage.

We’re safe!
Felix thought with relief.

Just then, he felt a hairy hand on the back of his neck.

Felix peered up and up, into the angry, grizzled face of Gold Tooth.

Gold Tooth gripped Maisie by the scruff of her neck with his other hairy hand.

“I’ll fix you two,” he growled.

Maisie tried to wriggle away, but he just held on tighter.

He easily lifted them off their feet and gave them a little shake, then headed back toward the harbor.

“L
ook what I found,” Gold Tooth announced when they arrived at his ship, the
Rambler
.

The deck was filled with sailors fixing nets and ropes, sharpening harpoons, and swabbing the floor. The smell of rotting fish was so strong that Maisie had to hold her breath so she didn’t throw up.

“Just what we need,” Earring muttered. “Kids.”

He spit right on the floor, as if the very idea disgusted him.

In one motion, Gold Tooth opened both hands, sending Maisie and Felix smack onto the wet, slimy floor.

Felix was staring at fish guts swirling in the puddle of water left by the mop. He struggled to
his feet, the crown still in his hands.

“That,” Gold Tooth said, “is mine.”

Felix held on tighter.

“This is kidnapping!” Maisie shouted at him. “And robbery!”

“Guilty as charged,” Gold Tooth sneered, and he tore the crown from Felix’s hands.