A wide passageway led up through the cliffs. It was lit by torches in brackets on the wall. The monks struggled along. Hanging back just slightly were three shorter monks. One of them—Katie—wobbled at every step because the rocks hurt her bare feet. Lily was worried Katie would give herself away. Lily had figured out how to arch her feet so she wouldn’t lurch around in pain, and Jasper didn’t seem bothered at all.
They came back out into the sunlight. They were in a courtyard. The doors were all of shining brass, and banners flapped in the mountain winds.
Jasper, Katie, and Lily were about to cut away from the line of monks when they stopped dead in their tracks.
There were Team Mom, Coach, and the seven remaining Stare-Eyes players, talking in a group.
“Hey, you three!” yelled Coach. “Go into the dining room with the others! Chow time, then back out to work!”
The three turned their heads away, shifting their cloaks to mask their faces. They followed the others.
Lily felt terrified, being near so many guns, so many angry men.
They snaked up halls and down halls and through cloisters. They followed the rest into the dining room. Mob guards stood along the walls.
The procession of monks put down their rocks in a pile by the door and filed along the two sides of the table. Miserably they all sat at once.
Katie, Lily, and Jasper sat with them, heads bowed low. Lily folded her hands and rocked her knuckles back and forth on the table, to have something to do.
Another monk came in with a big vat of tree-squid. It was a Friday, so the monastery was serving fish. He dished out some tentacle and eyeballs for each monk. When everyone had been served, a mobster banged on a gong. They took out their wooden sporks and started eating.
The three kids were hunkered as low as they could over their bowls of squid. They didn’t want anyone to see their faces—or their hair, especially. All the monks were shaved bald. This was a time when Lily really regretted her bangs. They kept flopping in front of her eyes. This was a situation when bangs might mean death. Or, as the mobsters might have put it, bangs might mean ka-pow.
Jasper was slurping up tentacle when the monk next to him (a master artist from the scriptorium) whispered, “Brother Dash. You have returned like the lark in spring.”
Jasper replied, “The lark never strays too long from the nest.”
“Even when the tree is charred,” said the monk sadly. “And cut down and the wood is treated and pressurized and made into an easy-to-assemble lawn gazebo.”
“A cry was sent out by Brother Pghlik.”
“You will not find Brother Pghlik here. He stood up to the invader, and they cut him down and locked him in the board game and tiger closet.”
“With the tiger?!”
“And the board games. We fear he has been eaten.” The old monk took a bite. “Stones do not weep: The water freezes on their faces.”
“We’ve got to save him!”
“Things are very bad here, young Dash. These evil men take their children into the forbidden places in the monastery, to the flame-pits, and hold them before the sacred fires. Their children acquire magical strengths that many men study years to acquire. We seek to acquire those powers with wisdom. They acquire them with foolishness. They steal our priceless treasures and they take them away from the monastery to sell in other lands. They gather wealth so that they may be the most powerful robbers in the—”
He fell silent. His old eyes glistened as he saw the seven Stare-Eyes players walk in with Coach and Team Mom.
Jasper, Katie, and Lily felt their stomachs sink. The squid weighed heavily.
The seven players walked around the dining hall, sneering.
“Okay, girls!” roared Coach, and the monks all stopped eating and looked up at him, except three in the middle of the table, who kept looking down.
Coach smiled and crossed his arms. “We just got back from a little trip. A little trip to other states. Outside Delaware.”
Team Mom snarled, “Our fingers are strong from clawing our way to the top.”
Her husband said, “We sold over two million smackers’ worth of your monastery garbage to museums. Statues and cups and stuff. Bye-bye. You ain’t going to see it no more.”
“No more,” said Team Mom.
“Now. We need a little help,” said Coach. “Because tonight we want to soup up the kids. Give them some more magic power. Already, they can hypnotize by looking. That worked out real well for them. We can do some brain-talking. That’s great. But we want them levitating by a week from now.”
“Floating,” said Team Mom.
“In the air. Magically. You savvy?” Coach made a whistling, rising-up noise and made two of his fingers float like legs over his other hand. “Now we know it’s not just putting the kids in front of the sacred flames. They also got to hear the right stuff to think about. And we wonder which one of you clowns is going to tell us.”
“You only give us what we’ll take anyway,” said Team Mom. “We take the best for our chupperkins.” She rubbed the blond head of the nearest team member fondly. “They are our best boys. They deserve everything wonderful.”
There was a silence in the dining hall. No one wanted to help the Stare-Eyes team levitate. They were awful enough already. Who wanted them to be awful in windows and on roofs?
“Who’s going to spill the beans?” said Coach. “Who’s going to tell them how to levitate?”
No one raised their hand. The Stare-Eyes Champs walked back and forth along the length of the table.
And then #6 stopped just opposite Jasper. He turned his head to the side.
And he said, “Hey! Look here!” He pointed.
Jasper had been recognized.