Curse of the Mummy's Uncle (7 page)

Angelo barely glanced up from his work. “Nope. Why?”

Nick shrugged. “No reason, I guess I thought I
heard something.” Maybe it was the strange carvings on the walls, or maybe it was the fact that they were going deeper and deeper down a pathway that supposedly led to the underworld, but he was starting to feel a little freaked out.

The deeper they went into the pyramid, the cooler the air got and the narrower the passage grew. Soon, Angelo had to duck to keep from hitting his head. Nick tried to imagine what it would be like to be shut up in this cold, small tunnel, and he shivered.

At the top of a staircase, Nick noticed a carving of a man in a small boat floating down a river. The man was wearing a feathered crown and a fur that might have been the pelt of a jaguar. “What's that all about?” he whispered, running his finger along the curving lines of the river.

“The river of the dead,” a voice whispered back.

This time both Carter and Angelo were too far away to have said what he'd just heard. “That's it,” he said, backing away from the wall. “I'm getting out of here.”

Angelo, who had been kneeling a little farther up the tunnel, put away his swab and walked over. “What's wrong?”

“I thought I heard something,” Nick said, the skin on his arms breaking out in goose bumps. “A kind of whispering.”

Carter joined them and tilted his head. “I hear something too.”

“You do?” Nick asked. Maybe he wasn't going crazy after all.

Angelo nodded. “It's coming from down there. A kind of
shhhhh
sound.”

The three of them looked down the staircase.

“I'm officially freaked out,” Carter said.

Angelo started down the stairs, but both Nick and Carter grabbed him.

“Are you crazy?” Nick asked. “There could be anything down there.”

“Which is why we have to find out,” Angelo said. “I want to find the room those men were bringing the boxes from. That might be our best chance to find alien traces.”

Nick rubbed his lips. The voices had totally freaked him out, and all he wanted to do was go back into the tent.

“You can wait here,” Angelo said. “I'll take a quick look and come right back.”

“No,” Carter said at once. “As soon as we split up, the mummies will come and rip out our eyeballs.”

Nick crossed his arms in front of his chest, hands cupping his elbows. “Thanks for those encouraging
words.” But Angelo was right. They had to find out what was going on now, or they might never get another chance. “Okay, we go down. But only to the bottom of the stairs. Then we're out of here.”

Carter and Angelo nodded.

Walking single file, they started down the staircase. The steps were treacherous, worn smooth and slippery by who knew how many footsteps. Angelo led the way—flashlight probing the darkness ahead of him. Carter came next, and Nick was in the back, constantly checking over his shoulder.

The farther down the staircase they went, the louder the whispering became. Nick began to imagine what awaited them at the bottom of the steps. Poisonous snakes, giant scorpions, three-headed aliens, mummies with bandages trailing behind them. Each image was worse than the last.

Carter must have been having the same thoughts, because he held his serape out to Nick. “If I don't make it, I want you to have this.”

“We're all going to make it,” Angelo said. “Look, we've reached the bottom of the—”

Before he could complete his sentence, something reached out of the darkness and grabbed him.

Angelo yelped and dropped his bag of swabs. Carter wheeled around and ran straight into Nick, covering him in loose yarn and knocking the flashlight out of his hands. Wrapped in Carter's yarn, like a fly in a spiderweb, Nick could only watch in terror as the dark figure turned Angelo around.

“What are you boys doing down here?” a stern voice asked.

“Dr. Canul,” Nick said, a wave of relief washing over him. A bright light shined in his eyes, almost completely blinding him.

“I told you three to stay in your tents.”

“We, um, had to go to the bathroom,” Carter said,
trying to untangle the yarn from himself and Nick.

“The
bathroom
? At this time of night?” Dr. Canul's dark eyes glared at each of the boys. “And you chose to do it inside one of the greatest archaeological digs of this century?”

Nick felt something sharp jabbing him in the back, and retrieved one of Carter's knitting needles. “Well, we didn't exactly
go
to the bathroom. We were going to, but . . .”

“We saw flashlights,” Angelo jumped in. “And we were afraid thieves were breaking into the pyramid. And look who we found. Maybe you can explain what
you're
doing down here at this time of night.”

The doctor's thin lips pressed so tightly together that they looked sharp enough to slice cheese. “I have no need to answer to a bunch of trespassing children. But if you must know, my men discovered a new cache of valuable pieces just after dinner. I wanted to get them safely stored and cataloged before morning.”

“Pieces?” Angelo asked. “Are you sure you don't mean
alien artifacts
?”

“Aliens?” Dr. Canul sputtered. “Is that what this is about? Please tell me you're not one of those crazies.” He rolled his eyes. “
Take me to your leader
.”

Angelo dropped his head. Nick couldn't help feeling sorry for his friend.

“What are these?” Dr. Canul asked, picking up the bag of swabs.

Carter snatched it out of his hand. “Q-tips.”

The doctor narrowed his eyes.

Carter stuck a finger into one ear and twisted it. “Jungles give me nasty earwax. I could start a candle factory.”

Dr. Canul puffed out his cheeks and exhaled loudly.

“There's something down here,” Nick said, pointing past the archaeologist. “I heard it whispering.”

Dr. Canul rolled his eyes. “Did you really?” He waggled his fingers in the air. “Maybe it's ghosts.
Booo
.
Booo
.”

“I heard it too,” Carter said. “It was kind of a whooshing sound.”

“We all heard it,” Angelo agreed.

“Come with me.” Dr. Canul marched them around the corner to a small waterfall dropping into a pool of deep blue water. “What you heard was this. You boys could easily have stumbled into it in the dark. And drowned.”

The archaeologist pointed to the stairs. “This is exactly the sort of reason you shouldn't be here. And I
will see to it that you do not step a foot inside this site again. You three will return to your tents, where I will wake up your parents and tell them exactly what you have done.”

“That won't be necessary,” Nick said, thinking of his mom's reaction. “You have things to do here, and we can tell them ourselves.”

The tall, bearded man shook his head and marched them up the stairs.

Nick gulped. This wasn't going to be pretty.

“I can't believe you did something like that,” Mom growled. It was seven o'clock the next morning, and she was still furious. “If we were home, I'd ground you for the rest of your life. I'm tempted to leave you in the tent for the rest of the day.”

Angelo opened his mouth, but Nick shook his head. He knew his parents well enough to understand that nothing he and his friends said now would make a difference. Besides, he could just imagine his parents' response to one of Angelo's rambling lectures on how the pyramid was actually the home to aliens. “It was really dumb, and we'll never do it again,” Nick said.

Dad pulled his Indiana Jones hat low on his head. “You're right, you won't. The least you could have done
was invited me to come with you.” Mom gave him a look and he quickly backtracked. “What I meant to say was that you will not leave the tent without letting one of us know where you are at all times.”

“Yes,” Nick said. Some vacation this was turning out to be.

Mom gave them all a disapproving look. Even Carter, whose knitting progress had clearly blown her away, wasn't spared.

“Let's get some breakfast,” Dad said. “I'm so hungry I could eat a flying monkey.”

Silently the five of them trooped across the camp to the meal tent. Along the way, Nick noticed that most of the men were already at work. “Why are there no women archaeologists?” he asked.

“Maybe they're too smart to come out here,” Carter said, slapping a bug on his neck.

“More likely Dr. Canul is sexist,” Angelo said. “Some of the best scientists in the world are women.”

Nick yawned. “Guess they start early around here.”

“The early archaeologist unearths the worm,” a cheerful voice said. Mr. Jiménez walked out of the meal tent with a straw hat tilted jauntily on his head and a red bandanna tied around his neck. “It's an archaeologist joke. Because we dig things up, and worms live in the ground.”

When no one laughed, he lifted his hands. “I didn't say it was a
good
joke.” He nodded sympathetically at the boys. “I understand you had a little run-in with the good doctor last night.”

“Don't bring it up,” Carter said.

“Ahh.” Mr. Jiménez twined his fingers together and leaned toward Nick's parents. “Don't be too hard on them. Boys will be boys. And the doctor can be a little, shall we say,
intense
when it comes to his projects.”

“It won't happen again,” Mom said.

“Of course not.” Mr. Jiménez grinned. “Come, let's get you fed. We have a busy day ahead.”

“Are we going inside the pyramid?” Dad asked. His hand went to his belt, and Nick noticed his father's Indiana Jones whip coiled at his side.

“Not today.” Mr. Jiménez led them into the tent, which was thick with the aroma of fresh tortillas and eggs. He nodded to Mom and Dad. “We will start the two of you with cleaning and sorting valuable artifacts.”

“Treasure?” Dad asked, beaming.

“
Priceless
treasures,” Mr. Jiménez said with a wink.

“What about us?” Nick asked as the cook filled his plate with steaming eggs.

“Do we get to look at the treasure too?” Carter asked.

Mr. Jiménez patted Carter on the head. “We have a
very special job for you boys.”

All through breakfast Nick wondered what their special job would be. Maybe there were tunnels so small only kids could fit inside. Maybe the archaeologists would lower them into treasure rooms on ropes and let them pry open caskets. Maybe they'd get to look for the item of power—the missing link that could prove Angelo's theory once and for all.

But after they cleared their trays and marched out to the site, they discovered that their
special
job was none of those. Their first clue was when they were given thick gloves and pruning shears.

“What are these for?” Carter asked. “They look like the kind of cutters my dad uses in the garden.”

That's exactly what they were. Dr. Canul had ordered a couple of workers to run knotted ropes down the side of the pyramid of the moon—which was much steeper and harder to scale than the pyramid of the sun. When they reached the top, they found themselves cutting vines and bushes away from the crumbling stone buildings there. Unlike at the other temple, it didn't look like anyone had bothered to come up here, and plants were growing everywhere.

“I can't believe this is our
special
job,” Nick complained. It was backbreaking work snipping off the
thick, woody branches, and his arms ached after less than an hour. Plus, the mosquitoes were relentless—buzzing around his face and biting every square inch of skin they could find. Meanwhile his mom and dad were sitting in the shade getting to see treasures.

“I suspect Dr. Canul had something to do with it,” Angelo said. “He probably wants to keep us as far away from whatever he's up to as possible.” He pulled away a long section of vine from a dangerously leaning wall and tossed it aside. “I wish I had my DNA results to prove aliens are real.”

Nick waved at a cloud of mosquitoes. “Couldn't you have started the tester this morning?”

“I could if I had electricity,” Angelo said. “Somehow we've got to find a way to plug into one of the camp generators.”

“If I'd known I was going to be a gardener, I'd have stayed at the hotel,” Carter said, although he'd cut bushes for only a few minutes before going back to his knitting. “And when we get done, we have to climb back down the pyramid again. We'll be lucky if we don't fall and break our legs.”

Nick scissored his shears on the trunk of a leafy bush, straining until the blade finally cut through. “I wonder why this pyramid is so much steeper than the
other one. It's almost like the people who built it didn't want anyone to climb it.”

Angelo leaned against the stone wall, using its shade to cool off a little, and took a long drink from his canteen. “They probably didn't.”

“What do you mean?” Nick kicked away the bush he'd cut and joined Angelo in the shade. The bugs were as bad, but it felt good to get out of the broiling sun.

“The Mayans built two kinds of pyramids,” Angelo said. “One was meant to be climbed. They used those for sacrifices and other ceremonies. Did you notice how big the temple there was compared to this one? The other kind—
this
kind—was more sacred. It was climbed rarely and was usually considered the home to a powerful god.”

Nick glanced at the shadowy interior of the temple behind him. Unlike the temple on the pyramid of the sun, this one looked like it could fall over with one big push. “What kind of god?”

Angelo shook his head. “No idea. The first archaeologists who came here didn't even realize there
were
two pyramids. They thought this was a hill.” He brushed away the vines hanging over the entrance and walked inside.

Nick paused outside the entrance to the temple. The ruined building had a dank, moldy sort of smell to
it that made him think of open coffins and rotting bodies. Plus, the events of the night before still freaked him out a little. Had he heard the voices of ghosts, or had it really been only the sound of the underground river? Hesitantly, he followed Angelo.

It looked like no one had been inside for hundreds of years. Vines, grass, and even a few small trees grew from cracks in stone. It was like walking into a damp, hot cave. Everything was hidden in shadows, and the floors were covered with dark green plants that felt slippery beneath his feet.

“It smells like the monkey cages in the zoo,” Carter said, coming in behind him. “You think there are any animals living in here?”

Nick looked around.
Great, another thing to worry about
.

Angelo brushed away dirt and vines from one of the walls, exposing faint carvings of people. “I think this is some kind of history of the kings. That's obviously the boy king. This is his father the king. Then this must be the boy king's grandfather.” He shook his head. “I wish I could read these hieroglyphs; I might be able to figure out who, or what, was worshiped here.”

“
Si pudieras leer jeroglíficos, perdería mi trabajo
,” said a female voice.

Nick stumbled toward the light of the doorway. “Did
you hear that?” he squeaked.

From behind the wall stepped a woman with long, dark hair and brown eyes that looked like bottomless pits. With her face half hidden in the shadows, Nick couldn't tell whether she was real or a ghost. But Carter and Angelo seemed to see her as well.

The woman looked the three boys over. “Do you mind . . . telling me what . . . the three of you are . . . doing here?”

Angelo held out his clippers. “We're, um, cutting vines.”

“Who are you?” Nick said, getting back his nerve. “And what did you say before?”

The woman moved into the light, and her eyes, which had looked scary before, now gleamed with interest. “
Si pudieras leer jeroglíficos, perdería mi trabajo.
If you could read hieroglyphs, I'd lose my job.”

“You work here?” Carter blurted. “But you're a lady.”

The woman tilted her head. “
Gracias por notarla.
Thank you for noticing. And you are a . . . boy, I believe? Or possibly some sort of howler monkey? You have the voice for it.”

Carter blushed. “I didn't mean . . . It's just . . . I didn't know there were any ladies working here.” He looked at Nick. “I mean, besides Nick's mom.”