We Give a Squid a Wedgie (21 page)

Oliver looked at his feet. Celia frowned.

“He, like, sacrificed himself,” said Corey. “To some pirates. For us.”

“We need to find Plato’s map,” Celia told her mother. “We need to try to ransom him from the pirates.”

“We can’t do that,” said Claire Navel.

“What?” Oliver objected. “But … it’s for Dad!”

“Ollie, honey, your father would not want anyone else getting their hands on Plato’s map.”

“But it’s just some dumb old artifact!” Oliver stomped his foot. “The Explorers Club is full of dumb old artifacts!”

“This one is different,” she told her son. “This one cannot fall into the wrong hands.”

“Why not? Who cares? This is about Dad!”

“This map will lead to Atlantis, where the Lost Library is hidden.”

“So what?” Celia demanded, agreeing with her brother.

“There is a reason the library was hidden in the lost city of Atlantis,” she told her children. “It is something like locking the key to a safe inside the safe.”

“If you lock a key to a safe inside the safe, no one can get in,” Oliver said.

“Duh,” Celia added.

“Exactly,” said their mother. “You see, inside the Lost Library there are the greatest and most powerful books of all time. Including a sort of instruction manual.”

“All this is about, like, an instruction manual?” Corey scratched his head.

“An instructional manual to bring Atlantis back from the depths,” said Claire Navel. “An instruction manual to return the empire of Atlantis to its former glory and to conquer the world.”

“Oh,” said Corey, because what else can you say to something like that?

“We have to do something to help Dad,” said Celia.

“That’s only one of our problems,” Corey said, pointing at Mount Haircut. Clouds of thick black ash billowed upward into the clear blue sky. “When Eyjafjallajökull erupted, it looked just like that,” Corey said.

“You pronounced
Eyjafjallajökull
really well,” said Claire with a smile. “Not everyone can do that.”

“Thanks.” Corey blushed. “I took lessons.”

“They were worth it,” she said. “Icelandic is a very hard language and your accent is lovely, almost like a young Hilmir Snær Guðnason.”

“Mom.” Celia rolled her eyes. “Maybe we should save the language lesson until after we get off this island?”

“We aren’t going anywhere,” she answered.

“But what about Dad?” Celia wondered.

“I think the pirates will be bringing your father here soon enough. Sir Edmund will probably be right behind,” she said.

“How will they find us?” Celia demanded.

“You’re eleven years old, Celia,” said her mother. “You aren’t that hard to follow.”

“Eleven and a half,” Celia corrected.

“So what are we going to do?” Corey asked.

“They will certainly attack,” said Claire Navel. “And when they attack, we’ll be ready. I don’t know which of our nemeses will attack first, but we’ll have to be prepared.”

“That’s it,” said Celia.

“What’s it?” Her mother turned to her.

“The plural of
nemesis
—an implacable enemy bent on our destruction,” said Celia. “It’s
nemeses
!”­

“You and your words,” groaned Oliver.

Their mother smiled. “It’s from the ancient Greek.”

“Yep,” said Oliver. “Just like Plato’s map and the Lost Library. All our problems come from some ancient Greeks.”

SIR EDMUND
did not like the odds.

“It’s too much of a coincidence,” he said, gazing across the top of his big brandy snifter at Janice the grave robber, Ernest the celebrity impersonator, and a rough-looking woman in brightly colored pants with too many pockets who said her name was Bonnie. “They are plucked from the sea and taken to the very island we’ve been looking for. I don’t like the odds of that one bit. It feels like a setup.”

“How could it possibly be a setup?” Janice asked. “No one knew where this island was. That’s why everyone was looking for it in the first place! And you said yourself you wanted them to find it first.”

Sir Edmund snorted and didn’t answer. He stood and paced across the thick carpet on the floor of his cabin. He studied a large wall map and twirled the end of his mustache with one hand, swirling the brandy in his glass with the other. Ernest and Janice waited patiently for him to finish his thoughts. Bonnie, however, did not.

“So when do I get my revenge on Big Bart?” she asked. “I want to board his ship, toss him into the sea, and take command.”

Sir Edmund turned to her. “Soon,” he said. “When we seize the island and I get what I’m after, you’ll be paid. These two”—he pointed at Janice and Ernest—“work for me already. You don’t. You have to earn your keep by bringing the Navels to me.”

“Or what?” Bonnie did not like taking orders. Big Bart may have tried to kill her, but he never bossed her around. After all, pirate ships were a democracy. The captain was elected and could be removed by a vote. Or by violence.

“Or I will feed you to my kraken,” Sir Edmund told her.

“There’s no such thing as a kraken.” Bonnie laughed.
“Your empty threats don’t frighten me. I—” Her voice caught in her throat as Sir Edmund pressed a button on the wall.

An ornate mahogany bookshelf slid to the side, revealing a giant saltwater tank and, in it, a giant saltwater squid with huge coiled tentacles covered in hundreds of large pink suckers. Shining black hooks, like the claws of a tiger, glistened inside each of the suckers and the squid’s intelligent yellow eyes blazed through the glass as it gazed into Sir Edmund’s cabin.

“I caught it not far from here, with this very ship,” said Sir Edmund. “There aren’t any other ones in captivity in the world. So you see, it would be quite an honor to be eaten by this one.”

Bonnie’s face drained of color. There were countless pirate legends about the kraken devouring entire ships. She hadn’t believed any of them until now.

Sir Edmund made a quick gesture with his hands, opening and closing his palm, and the kraken ­responded by spreading wide its tentacles, rearing back and showing its gaping mouth, ringed with rows of teeth like a shark’s jaw, and beyond the
teeth a rough black tongue and a darkness from which nothing could escape. Sir Edmund gestured again and the kraken relaxed.

“They are quite intelligent beasts,” he said. “This one is just a baby, but already it knows who to call its master.”

Janice and Ernest stood frozen in place. In their fright, they had grabbed each other by the hand. Once the bookshelves slid shut again, they looked at each other, blushed, and let go. Janice wiped her hand on her shirt.

“That’s not possible,” Bonnie muttered. “The legends say that only the rulers of Atlantis itself could command the kraken of the deep.”

“Is that so?” Sir Edmund polished the medal on his chest, the symbol of a scroll wrapped in chains, and he shrugged.

“Who are you?” Bonnie exclaimed.

“I am a simple explorer and businessman, founder of the Gentlemen’s Adventuring Society and a keeper of exotic animals,” said Sir Edmund.

“So how do you control the kraken?” Bonnie asked, still backing away from the tank.

“Well, I also happen to be a descendant of the original rulers of Atlantis. There are thirty of us
alive today, as there are always thirty of us throughout history.”

“That’s your Council,” Janice whispered. “That’s who you are!”

“What did you think? We just got together to play bingo?”

Janice nodded a little.

“My Council of Thirty will stop at nothing to raise Atlantis from the depths and restore its glory to the world. Unfortunately, Claire Navel’s stupid library contains the instructions for how to do it.”

“I thought that P.F. hid the Lost Library in Atlantis,” said Janice. “I thought that’s why we were looking for it.”

“He did hide it there, the devil,” said Sir Edmund. “It was like locking a key inside a safe. The only way to get to it would be with an expert safecracker. And that is what the Navels are. They are my safecrackers.”

“Those brats?” Janice asked. “No!”

“I am as baffled as you are,” said Sir Edmund. “But a prophecy is a prophecy and I have seen enough movies to know better than to question a prophecy.”

“What about Corey Brandt?” Ernest wondered. “Is he, you know, part of a prophecy?”

“He’s just a celebrity,” said Sir Edmund. “If we capture him alive, you can do with him what you like.”

Ernest smiled.

“And when we’re finished?” Bonnie wondered. “Then you’ll, what? Bring Atlantis up from the depths and rule the world?”

“I’ll rule what’s left of it.” Sir Edmund smiled. “I imagine that the process of raising Atlantis from the sea will be a little, shall we say, disruptive. It’s a lost continent, you see. It vanished from the earth in a single day some ten thousand years ago. Some things will have to be moved around as it rises. Cataclysm, I believe, is the word. Earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions. Bad television reception.”

“Where?” Janice asked. “Where will there be a cataclysm?”

“Oh, you know.” Sir Edmund waved his hand dismissively. “Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia.” He nodded in thought. “Antarctica will stay where it is, I suppose. The survivors will
flock to us for safety and security. They will crave order, and my Council will give it to them.”

“You’re a madman,” said Bonnie. “Your whole plan is based on a fairy tale! A fantasy! Atlantis isn’t even real!”

“Is that kraken a fantasy?” asked Sir Edmund. “Is this island we’re approaching a fantasy? Perhaps destiny is at work right now. Perhaps you are playing a role in this prophecy yourself?”

“You’re nuts,” Bonnie said. “But I’ll help you get those twins, as long as I get Big Bart. At least I know he’s real.”

“Good,” said Sir Edmund, checking his watch. “We should reach the island by daybreak.”

“And then what?” Ernest wondered.

“Haven’t you been listening?” Janice snapped at him.

“We get the twins,” said Sir Edmund. “And we find P.F. He has a map to Atlantis.”

“And we get Big Bart’s ship for me,” Bonnie added. “Don’t forget.”

“Right, the pirates,” agreed Sir Edmund. “We’ll fight your silly pirates.”

BIG BART LIKED THE ODDS.

“Two children, a teenage actor, and my old chicken alone on an island,” he said. “I like those odds.”

He took a big sip of rum through a long pink curly straw in his pink plastic Princess Cruise Lines novelty cup. He had scrawled “Big Bart” across the cup in black marker so none of the other pirates would take it.

“How do we know they’re alone?” asked Twitchy Bart. He sat next to Big Bart at the round table in the banquet hall, holding a smaller pink plastic Princess Cruise Lines cup with a less curly straw.

“Who could they have run into on an uninhabited island?” Big Bart laughed. “I’ll bet they are all
crying for their mommies right now. Maybe they’ll thank us for kidnapping them again.”

The other scar-faced buccaneers huddled around the table laughed and sipped rum from their own pink plastic cups through their own pink plastic straws and eyed the luxurious curls of Big Bart’s straw enviously. If he weren’t so big they might be tempted to fight him for it, but Bonnie had always been the toughest among them, and she was gone.

“Rmpf bttr ut ffrubrbgur,” Dr. Navel groaned through the oily rag they’d stuffed in his mouth again. All the pirates looked up.

The explorer’s arms were tied behind his back and he was hanging from the crystal chandelier by his pants with the worst wedgie he’d ever experienced in his many years of exploration.

While we must understand that wedgies are to be expected in the explorer’s line of work—there are always Stone Age funeral monuments or tangled mangrove roots on which to snag one’s jockey shorts—a pirate-induced wedgie on the ballroom chandelier of a luxury cruise ship is not a circumstance for which one can adequately prepare.

Dr. Navel’s nostrils flared, and, to add even greater discomfort to his indignity, his glasses
slipped down his nose and he could do nothing about pushing them up again.