We Are Not Eaten by Yaks (28 page)

“What is this?” Oliver said.

“I don't know,” Celia replied.

“It looks like the TV Guide Channel.”

“Sort of. But that key symbol.”

“Oh, no,” Celia said.

“Oh, no,” Oliver said. He pressed the button that said INFO in big red letters.

WELCOME TO TABLET 2.0, the screen read. THE COMPLETE CATALOG OF THE GREAT LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA.

“Um,” said Oliver. “Mom slipped us the Catalog of the Lost Library.”

“She said there were no tablets,” Celia said.

“This isn't a tablet,” Oliver answered. “It's digital. So she didn't lie exactly.”

“But . . . but . . .” Celia objected. “Why would she do this?”

“Because of the prophecy. She told us we had a copy.”

“But, um . . . No! No! No!” Celia couldn't think of anything to say, but she really felt like letting the world know that she was not happy about this.

“What do we do?” Oliver finally asked.

“Watch something else!” Celia demanded. “I don't want to get involved in this. I don't want to eat eyeballs or ride yaks or fall off anything anymore!”

Oliver turned the TV off.

“If we show this at the ceremony,” Celia added, “we could win the bet. It's a copy of the Lost Tablets.”

“But then Sir Edmund and his Council would have it. Mom told us not to let it fall into his hands. If we hand it over, everything we went through would be for nothing. And, you know, Sir Edmund's Council might take over the world.”

This was why their mother wanted them to keep watching TV. This was how they were supposed to find the Lost Library in whatever lost land it was hiding. But another adventure was the last thing they wanted. Oliver hadn't been bitten by an exotic lizard in months, and he was going to keep it that way. Whatever clues lurked in that remote control, he did not care to look for them. At the same time, they couldn't just turn it over to Sir Edmund.

“So we'll have to keep it a secret,” Celia agreed. “You aren't very good at secrets.”

“Am too,” Oliver said.

“Are not.”

“Am too.”

“Fine. You are,” Celia gave up. “Let's go to the ceremony and get this over with.”

When she turned to go, Oliver dropped the remote control into their getaway backpack. You never know when a universal remote that opens up the only copy of the Lost Tablets of Alexandria would come in handy.

THE COCKTAIL PARTY
before the Ceremony of Discovery was under way when they arrived. The usual cast of explorers, adventurers, scientists and globe-trekkers were talking and drinking and telling stories to each other about their latest adventures.

As Oliver and Celia walked in, the room fell silent and everyone turned to look at them. Celia felt as if the eyes of the stuffed animals on the walls were following her. Oliver gripped her hand. Their father rushed over from where he'd been talking to Madame Xpertina, the motocross rider, and hugged them both.

“So glad you have chosen to join us,” Sir Edmund called from the stage at the far end of the room. He was wearing a tuxedo but had pinned tons of medals and ribbons to it, awards he had received or bought from governments and armies all over the world. Some of them even looked like antiques. He couldn't possibly have earned all those medals, Oliver thought. As they drew closer, they saw that his cufflinks bore the symbol of the scroll wrapped in chains, the symbol of the Council.

“I am a man of my word,” Dr. Navel told him, mounting the stage and taking the attention from Oliver and Celia.

“Good, then we'll begin!” Sir Edmund tapped one of his medals on the edge of his sherry glass, making a loud ringing sound. “Attention, all! Attention!” he called out.

“Excuse me, Sir Edmund,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg interrupted. “I believe I will call this meeting to order. I am, after all, still the president of our esteemed club.”

“Of course.” Sir Edmund smiled and bowed a little too dramatically, like he was making fun of the professor.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg called out. “Honored guests. Tonight is a very special ceremony. Not for a long time have we had such momentous events on which to report. Our own Explorer-in-Residence, Dr. Ogden Navel, is recently returned from Tibet. As you have certainly heard, it was a journey of great importance and even greater discovery. A wager was made and tonight, we shall settle the results.”

Dr. Navel looked sadly at his children, who looked angrily at Sir Edmund, who smirked with smug satisfaction.

“The wager concerned the Lost Tablets of Alexandria,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg continued. “These tablets, as we have learned, were not found. Nor, it seems, was the land of Shangri-La. Given the terms of the wager made at this very ceremony earlier in the summer, the bet is won by Edmund S. Titheltorpe-Schmidt the Third.”

The room ignited with chatter. Explorers gasped and muttered. Some traded dollar bills and gold coins from side bets they had made with each other about who would win. Some of them clinked glasses and toasted Sir Edmund. Oliver saw that there were other people in the room who wore the symbol of the scroll locked in chains. Those were the only people cheering Sir Edmund's victory, but there were several of them. Maybe that was why the professor couldn't accuse Sir Edmund of anything. Maybe he had too much support from his mysterious Council
inside
the Explorers Club.

“You see that?” Celia whispered to Oliver.

“I see it,” he said. “We can't let them find out about the remote control that—”

“Shhhh,” Celia cut him off. “Don't talk about it!
Secret
, remember!”

“Oh, right.”

“Silence, please!” shouted Professor Rasmali-Greenberg. “As is our tradition, we shall read the terms of the wager.”

Professor Eckhart's monkey climbed onto the stage, carrying a giant old book bound in thick leather and stitched with gold lettering. Every bet that had ever been made at a Ceremony of Discovery was written in its pages. The monkey handed it to Professor Rasmali-Greenberg, who flipped through it and scanned up the pages with his finger.

“Nosferatu . . . Necromancers . . . ah! Navels!” he read. “Per the terms of the wager, upon failure to find the Lost Tablets of Alexandria, Dr. Ogden Navel shall be banished from the Explorers Club in disgrace forever and his children—that's you”—he looked at Oliver and Celia Navel—“shall surrender themselves to Sir Edmund S. Thitheltorpe-Schmidt the Third for every vacation from school no matter how long, be it for summer, or a holiday, or a teacher's conference, or a temporary building evacuation because of lead paint toxins, until they turn eighteen.”

The room was silent when he finished reading.

“Lead paint?” Celia whispered.

“It's a big problem in older buildings,” Oliver answered. “I saw a
Newsline Undercover
report about it.”

People looked at the floor and the walls. No one wanted to make eye contact with the Navel family.

“I have determined,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg said at last, “that it is within my power as president of the Explorers Club to change the terms of this wager.” He handed the book back to the little monkey.

“What?” Sir Edmund shouted.

“What?” Dr. Navel asked.

“What?” said Oliver and Celia.

“Our club is one of discovery and exploration, and Dr. Ogden Navel, though he has failed to find the Lost Tablets of Alexandria, discovered much in his time in Tibet. He has firsthand experience of the
Dugmas
, those legendary Poison Witches. He has found not one, but two yetis, and he has climbed on the slopes of the sacred mountain. His discoveries, as usual, will bring honor and glory to our club. I will not expel such an explorer because of a silly bet.”

“Silly!” Sir Edmund huffed.

“He must, of course, tell us at last how he came to escape the yeti on that deadly mountaintop in Tibet and how he came to return safely to us with his children.”

“Gladly,” Dr. Navel said. “You see, the yeti wanted to be reunited with her child, who was still in a cage down at the monastery where Oliver and Celia had left him with Frank Pfeffer.”

Everyone in the room looked back at Oliver and Celia with wonder and with dread. They were the first eleven-year-olds in the history of the Explorers Club to have fed a grave robber to a baby abominable snowman.

“As Edmund certainly knows, yetis are very protective of their children and, at first, she did not want to listen to reason,” Dr. Navel continued. “I tried to explain the situation, but she leaped down from her high boulder and knocked me nearly ten yards through the air. I hit my head again but, having missed so much of my children's adventures up to that point, was determined not to miss any more excitement.”

“Excitement!” Celia groaned. “Was that supposed to be
exciting
?”

Dr. Navel kept going with his story. “I stood again and asked, politely, if the she-yeti would please just be patient. I asked in several languages. I even tried the universal language of interpretive dance, but she did not appear to enjoy my performance. She charged for Oliver and Celia. It was at that point that the parent in me overtook the scientist, and I threw the biggest chunk of ice I could at the beast. It hit her in the head. She froze with her giant claw raised above my children. ‘Leave them alone!' I shouted. I did another dance that made my displeasure very clear. At that point, she charged at me again. After that, well, my children should tell the rest. It was their heroism that saved us all. Oliver, Celia, please come up on stage.”

Oliver and Celia groaned, but they did as they were told. They wanted to get it over with as quickly as they could.

“Well . . . um . . . the mother yeti was pretty upset,” Celia said. Why did all these people want to hear the story, she wondered. It was just a bunch of terrible stuff and boring adventures they'd survived. “She was going to kill our dad and probably us, so we, you know . . . ran over and jumped on her back.”

“I had some experience riding her, you see,” Oliver interrupted, a little excited to be in front of so many people. This is what it must feel like to be famous, he thought. Not bad. “We held on while she tossed and twisted and tried to get us off. She swatted me away and Celia started to hit her on her head. She tossed Celia off too, and all of us were scattered. She ran toward Dad, I think to eat him first. He had the most meat on him.”

“That's gross,” Celia interrupted.

“You want to tell it better, then?”

“Yes,” Celia said. “It was right then that I remembered
Pack Masters
.”

“I love that show!” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg cheered all of a sudden, and then sat quietly in his seat on the stage. “It's very educational . . .” he muttered into his hand.

“Yeah,” Celia said. “So I remembered that Pack Master Michael always says you have to establish dominance to become the Pack Master or else your dogs will run wild.”

“And
I
remembered,” Oliver said, “that the yeti was not a dog.” It felt good to be the one correcting his sister for a change. She just glared at him and kept going with her story.

“I stood up tall between my dad and the yeti and raised my hand and said, ‘No! Bad yeti!' I used the voice I use when Oliver is trying to change the channel off of
Love at 30,000 Feet.
That stopped the yeti in her tracks.”

Some of the explorers chuckled. Oliver looked down at his sneakers.

“Then my brother came running over next to me,” Celia said, “and he stood in between me and the yeti.”

Oliver looked up again and smiled. “I shouted,
‘We are the Pack Masters
!' The yeti stood totally still. The stuff really works!”

“I told you it was a good show,” Professor Rasmali-Greenberg added.

Celia kept going: “I think that's when the yeti saw that we're just like her, a family that wanted to look after each other. She stopped attacking. Then I remembered what Sir Edmund said at the banquet before we left for Tibet . . . how the yeti like musical theater. So we performed the only thing we both knew: the theme song from
Love at 30,000 Feet.ʺ

“She must have liked soap operas,” Oliver said, “because she didn't eat us. She grabbed us right up like it was nothing, one in each arm. I can tell you that a bear hug is nothing like a yeti hug. I thought Celia's eyes might pop out of her head and that the noodles I ate for lunch would pop out of my stomach. She had Dad get on her back and she sped us down the mountain, back to our yak. The yak was scared at first, but yaks are braver than people, and more trusting, so the yak just went along with us back to the monastery. The guards saw us coming and ran off. No one wants to get in a fight with an angry yeti and an angry yak, not even armed guards. We set free the abbot and the little monk who was the Oracle of Dorjee Drakden. The spirit didn't appear again, though. The little monk just thanked us and promised he'd send many blessings.”