31
WE WISH THIS WAS A BETTER STORY
OLIVER AND CELIA couldn’t believe it. They stood in silence thinking about their mother and the key symbol and the plane and everything they’d been through.
Sir Edmund nodded at the guards. They grabbed Oliver and Celia from behind and lifted the kids off their feet.
“You’re a liar!” Celia shouted. Who could imagine her own mother tossing her out of an airplane?
Sir Edmund didn’t answer. He just kept smiling. The guards started to drag Oliver and Celia from the room. Celia had seen enough Spanish soap operas to know that if your family was insulted, you had to defend their honor, no matter what. And her family’s honor had been insulted enough for one day. She reached back with her free arm and pulled one guard’s giant curved sword from its sheath. The blade sparked as she pulled it free, and the startled guard released her. She spun to face him and waved the sword to make him back up. The other guards drew their own swords and circled around Celia.
“Sis, what’re you doing?” Oliver called out, still held firmly by his guard.
“I’m setting us free,” Celia answered.
“Is this like the pushing thing again?”
“A little bit,” Celia answered, spinning slowly with her sword raised, trying to watch the crowd around her.
“I think it’s going to work about as well,” Oliver said as the guards closed in on her. She swiped at one group, who leaped backwards as another group of guards lunged at her from behind. She ducked and kicked and blocked the way she’d seen Señorita Solano do on Amores Enchiladas. Sparks flew as their blades met, but the guards were wearing her out quickly. Hours and hours of watching romantic sword fights can teach a person technique, but it is hard to build strength sitting on the sofa. And no one sweats on soap operas. Celia’s hands were slippery.
One of the guards rushed at her with his sword raised high, ready to swipe down and split her in two. She lifted her sword to block him, and, at that moment, another guard grabbed her from behind around the waist and lifted her into the air. Her sword slipped from her hand. The fight was over.
Sir Edmund clapped.
“Thank you so much, young lady,” he said. “That was entertaining. But I think we’ve had enough.”
With that, the guards dragged Oliver and Celia kicking and screaming from the room. One of them snatched Oliver’s backpack with a violent yank, nearly ripping out his shoulders. Celia bit her guard’s hand, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“I didn’t know you could fight like that,” Oliver said as they were pulled along.
“Me neither,” panted Celia, still out of breath.
They reached a heavy wooden door with a big lock on it. A prison cell. The room had no windows or other doors. There were no statues with third eyes to press, or corners where strange monk-children could hide to come to their rescue. The guards tossed the twins into the room like rag dolls and slammed the door behind them. They heard locks and bolts slamming shut.
“This is bad,” Celia said.
“That wasn’t much of a showdown,” Oliver agreed. “We mostly got beaten up and locked away.”
“Well, it’s not like we’ve had much help. Our only friends so far have been a yak and a strange kid who might have been a spirit or just a weirdo living in a cave.”
“You really think Mom had us thrown out of the airplane? Why would she do that?”
“She had that symbol on her necklace in the picture, the same ring that the air marshal and the man in the shiny suit had.”
“And the people on the fake Love at 30,000 Feet. What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know,” said Celia. “I just don’t know. I can’t figure all this out. How am I supposed to figure everything out? I’m only three minutes and forty-two seconds older! I can’t do everything!” She was crying now. “I’m not like Mom and Dad at all. I’m not a genius or brave or adventurous. I’m just not.”
“Calm down.” Oliver hugged his sister. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
“You don’t know that,” she sniffled.
“Yeah I do.”
“How?” She wiped the tears out of her eyes.
“Because,” said Oliver. “At the end, when things look the worst, there’s always a turnaround. It’s a rule, just like the wire breaking. This is just how things happen. It’s just good storytelling.”
Oliver knew a lot about good storytelling. You can’t watch as much television as he did and not learn a thing or two.
“Not on Love at 30,000 Feet,” Celia sniffled. “That show’s been on forever, and things always get worse. The Duchess in Business Class doesn’t even know that Captain Sinclair is hiding his deep vein thrombosis.”
“That’s that thing you get if you sit too long on an airplane?”
“Yeah.”
“I always thought it was some kind of musical instrument.”
“Well it’s not. It’s a serious medical problem. And the captain has it.”
“Well, Love at 30,000 Feet is different,” Oliver explained. “But trust me, in stories about kids in trouble, there’s always hope.”
Celia sighed. Her brother was right. If this was anything like TV, there had to be a happy ending. It was about time for their adventures to be more like TV. So far things were not going at all like they should.
“All right,” she said at last. “We’re going to make our own happy ending.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Here we go.”
Minutes passed in silence.
“Celia?” Oliver said after five minutes in the dark without a word or a sound.
“Yeah?”
“You aren’t doing anything.”
“I thought you were.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. I just figured you’d do something. You know, all that good storytelling and happy ending stuff.”
“I was trying to make you feel better.”
“So we still don’t have any way out of here?”
“No.” Oliver thought for a minute. “Wanna try meditating again?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
They sat in silence again. It was hard to tell how much time had passed in that little room with no windows.
“Why did that yak lead us here?” Oliver wondered after a while. “Why did Mom’s picture show us this place if we were just going to be betrayed by that old abbot? If Sir Edmund was telling the truth, then Mom’s trying to kill us too!”
“We were better off in the cave with that kid,” Celia agreed.
Suddenly, a loud gong sounded right outside their door. There was a moment of quiet and then it sounded again, louder.
BONG!
Everything was silent and then they heard the click and squeal of the bolt sliding back. The door opened and the room was flooded with light. The two guards were unconscious on the ground and the old abbot was standing above them holding a big gong. He smiled when he saw the children.
“I find that sometimes the sound of the gong alone is not enough to chase away evil,” he said. Then he stepped aside. A nun stood behind him covered in robes, her head bowed. She held their backpack out and Celia took it from her.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome, Celia,” the nun said, dropping the robes from her head and looking up. She had long dark hair and big dark eyes, and she was not a nun at all.
“Mom!” both children gasped.
“We have very little time,” said their mother.
