Neil heard a buzzing in his ear. Was he daydreaming? Was he in school, sleeping? Was it his teacher droning on about some boring history lesson or stupid Aesop fable about lizards and chickens having lunch together?
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Was it his ears ringing? He could also hear voices, faint but getting louder. Neil forced himself to open his eyes. Larry was busily helping Jones tie up his leg in a tourniquet made out of a tea towel.
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
“Neil, answer your phone,” Larry said. “We’re kind of tied up here . . . or at least Jones is!”
Neil’s phone had different ringtones for all his friends. Larry’s was Larry yelling “focus” at Neil. (Neil had tried to change that, but Larry had locked his phone somehow.) Nakamura was the theme from Batman. Angel was a Trinidadian steel-drum band playing “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones.
This wasn’t one of his friends.
He rolled over to retrieve the phone, which was lying about a foot away, thrown from his pocket in the battle with the Crayfish. He expected a sharp pain in his ribs, but luckily nothing seemed to be broken. He must have just gotten the air knocked out of him.
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Neil answered the phone.
“Hello, hello. Is anyone there?” said a familiar upper-crust English voice.
“I’m here, Your Majesty, no thanks to you!” Neil said. He’d had just about enough of kings and queens, living or dead, for one day.
“How dare you!”
“No, how dare you! You get me over here to help find Lord Lane. Then your police fire bullets at me—”
“They did no such thing!”
“—and then I get no help from you or the cops when I need protection. What’s so important about this stupid jewel anyway?”
“That’s what I need Lord Lane to explain. Let me be frank with you, young man. Lord Lane is in some serious financial straits, due to some very questionable real estate dealings. If there have been, ahem, complications, then they are due to his dealings with unsavory characters and in no way reflect on the monarchy or the aristocracy.”
“That might have been useful information to know!”
The Queen returned to her calm voice. “We did not feel that it was relevant. We were . . . we were . . .”
“Wrong?” Neil said into the phone.
“Misled by our advisors.”
Neil felt a wave of exhaustion. “Look, Your Majesty, why did you call?”
“We have been informed that the police are on their way. We think it would be prudent if you were to not be there when they arrive.”
“What? What?”
“Please don’t yell. Our son may have large ears, but ours are much smaller and more delicate.”
Neil rested his head in his hands. “Okay, fine. Why should we not be here?”
“Time is running out. It appears that there are many people searching for Lord Lane and the jewel from his note. The police will, of course, be forced to hold you for questioning. This would waste precious hours.”
“Fair enough. But can’t you just tell them to let us go?”
The Queen coughed lightly. “It would be prudent to not have our name mixed up in any of this.”
“What? We’re mixed up in this! Rose just got kidnapped! Kidnapped! I have a friend with a bullet in his leg!” Neil yelled again. “We need help!”
“My grandson is texting you the location of a clinic close by. Everything will be taken care of. But please leave soon.” Then the line went dead.
Neil stared at his phone. “Ahhhhhhh!” he yelled. “Ahhhhhhhh.” His fingers gripped the phone so hard he thought he might break it.
“Shhhh. Deep breaths, Neil.” Isabella was standing in front of him, holding out her hands in a soothing “calm down” gesture. Neil took some deep breaths in through his nose. He calmed down. He could hear sirens approaching.
“We have to leave, now,” he said, getting to his feet and shoving the phone back in his pocket.
“Why?” Isabella said.
“I’ll explain in the car. We’ve got to get after those guys. Jones, are you okay?”
“Merely a flesh wound,” he said. “The bullet didn’t hit any bones or major arteries. I can drive.”
“Whew!” Larry said. “That’s good, because no one else here can figure out an English roundabout.”
Isabella frowned. “Larry, you drive. Now, help me get Julius in the car.”
“Julius?” Neil and Larry said together. They’d never heard him called anything but Jones before. Isabella smacked her head. “Forget that, per favore.”
Jones glared at them. “One crack and . . .” He pointed at his leg, and then at Neil and Larry’s chests.
“Fine . . . Julius,” Larry said.
Jones stood up and winced in pain, but steadied himself.
“There’s a clinic nearby. They’re waiting for us,” Neil said.
Jones shook his head. “No time. They’ve already got too big a head start. I’ll be fine. There’s some meds in the back of the van.”
“Are you nuts?”
Jones gritted his teeth. “We’ve got to find Rose. I promised her brother . . .” His voice trailed off.
“That’s the real reason you came to London, isn’t it?” Neil said. “It wasn’t to help us. You knew Rose was in danger.”
“I am sick of your patented stupid ego trips!” Jones said, his voice bellowing and menacing. “I spend more time cleaning up after your messes than you deserve. One day, Isabella will wise up and dump you and then we won’t be around to save you.”
Neil said nothing. The words had hurt. He could feel tears actually start to well up in his eyes. He held up his head and started walking to the van. Then he stopped.
“Look, if they’ve got Rose, that means they want her to tell them where to go next. She might, and our best bet for grabbing these apes and getting her back is to beat them to it.”
“The tower,” Larry said.
“If they find whatever clue is there first, then we’ll lose the trail and lose any chance of getting to her,” Isabella said.
“Or Lane,” Larry said.
“Finding this jewel is the fastest way to find Rose.”
Neil walked out the front door. The police were just a block or so away, and the other customers had run off.
Jones rested his arm on Larry’s shoulder. Isabella helped him on the other side, and together they all walked out to the van. Jones climbed into the back and opened up a plastic box full of gauze, medicines, and surgical tape.
Larry, the only other one in the group with an actual driver’s license, got behind the wheel. “I’m not going to be able to drive anywhere near as fast or as dangerously as Julius—I mean Jones . . . sorry.” He was chuckling as he revved the engine.
Isabella sat down next to Neil and leaned in close. “Rose’s brother was Jones’s best friend growing up. There was some work they did together, and it went badly. Jones became Rose’s older brother. I can tell you more later, but I just want you to understand why he was so angry.”
Neil nodded. “When does this stupid goose chase end?”
“I believe Rose would say, ‘When we find the jewel,’ whatever that is,” Larry said, inching the car forward into traffic. The police were just arriving at the tea shop behind them.
“How many more letters are there in the stupid clue?” Neil said.
Isabella opened the picture and counted. “One more set. That means one more place we need to visit.”
“With the jewel presumably there,” Larry said, “or at least the final clue that ties all this together.”
Neil was silent for a moment. He was feeling tired and frustrated. Rose was in danger. They were all in danger. He’d been away from his kitchen for days. The thrill of the chase he’d been feeling was now fading fast. London was wearing him thin, like croissant dough that had been pounded thinner and thinner until it was almost transparent.
“What if all this was just a game? Maybe Kemp wanted Shakespeare to search for this jewel, then never find it. Maybe this was a four-hundred-year-old dead end from the start.”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“It’s possible,” Larry said finally. “But I guess we have to act like it’s not. Life’s like that sometimes.”
“This is getting way too pointy-headed,” Jones said from the back. Whatever he’d done to treat his leg had worked. He quickly climbed over the seats and then into the passenger seat in mere seconds.
“You heal fast!” Larry said.
“Hanging around with you morons, I have to,” Jones said, undoing Larry’s seat belt. “Where’d you learn to drive, blondie? A supermarket? Let a pro get behind the wheel. We’re losing time here.”
Jones didn’t even give Larry time to pull over. He grabbed him with one arm, lifted him over to the passenger seat, and then slid behind the wheel in one fluid motion.
“Wow, did you ever consider a career as a magician?” Larry said. “A sleight of hand like that could make you millions.”
“Maybe. Can I cut you in half, or make you disappear?” Jones said. He gunned the engine, and they flew through the other cars like a pro soccer player against a team of toddlers.