The Lost Tribes, page 3
Uncle Henry had vanished.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Game’s Afoot
“From the first, I made my learning, what little it was, useful every way I could.”
Mary McLeod Bethune
Shaken, Ben retrieved his recorder, returned to his room and pressed “play”.
No sound played back.
He adjusted the volume control.
Silence.
“Testing. One, two, three, testing.”
“Testing. One, two, three, testing,” the recorder repeated.
Ben tossed the useless device into the drawer then sank into his chair.
“Jackson! Log on!”
While the computer — which he’d named after his favorite NBA player — booted up, Ben’s mind replayed the conversation.
“Seen the signs … calling the teams in … Times up!”
And what was that comment about the family business? Archeology? Anthropology? Ben wanted to go on an adventure. That didn’t mean he wanted to follow in their footsteps. Whatever “Save the Planet” crusade they were on, it didn’t concern him.
He slid the disk into his computer and watched as eddies of sand swirled across the monitor.
The graphics looked so real he could almost feel the wind on the back of his neck. Then he remembered he’d left his window open. He clicked on a gold handle peeking out from beneath the sand.
“Please type password,” a computerized woman’s voice asked.
Ben’s heart sank. He squinted, unable to make out the faint carvings below the handle. The symbols zoomed larger as the cursor slid over them.
“Please type password,” the computer repeated.
“I heard you!” Ben groaned. He should have known the game was a set-up. He’d been blowing off his Social Studies module on Egypt and his teacher had probably ratted him out.
“Got it!” April yelled from her bedroom.
“Got what?” Ben yelled back.
“The password. Want some help?”
“No! I’m already WAY past the first level.”
Ben stared at the eight symbols with no clue how to start.
“How many symbols did you have?” he yelled.
“Five!” April yelled back.
That figured. April’s disk was a different color. Probably had the junior version of the game. Ben pulled a Scrabble game from the bookshelf, dumped the tiles on his desk. E was a common letter and at the end of a lot of words. He rearranged the letters until he came up with his first guess. Creature? From the Black Lagoon? Like his sister?
Nope. Not that simple. The R’s didn’t fit. How about something more logical? What would be behind a trap door? Secret passageways, dangers and … hidden treasure! Of course!
Drats! Same problem. Knowing his uncle, the password wasn’t going to be obvious. He thought about his uncle’s personality — evil drill sergeant archeologist. What do commanders do to people they don’t like?
“There is a mission starting in eight days.”
Goosebumps erupted on Ben’s arms. Deceased? It was like being a red shirt on old Star Trek reruns. If you were sent on a mission, you weren’t coming back. That would fit Uncle Henry’s twisted sense of humor.
Nope. He sighed, partly in relief that he was still “alive.”
“How’s it going?” yelled April. “Bet I’m going to beat you!”
“Fat chance!” he yelled back.
Seething, Ben pulled a dictionary from the shelf and ripped off the shrink wrap. The book groaned and popped as he cracked the spine for the first time. Acerbate? A synonym for April. It meant, “irritating.”
Failure.
“Arggh!”
April poked her head inside the door, her voice a mocking lilt. “Something wrong?”
Ben plastered on his game face and waved her away. “I took a wrong turn and plunged to my death. I have to start over.”
“Really? Can I see?” She put a fluffy pink slipper over the threshold.
“No! Stay out of my room!”
“Fine! Knew you couldn’t beat me!” April stomped off to the bathroom.
Frustrated, Ben scoured the dictionary. What if the E’s were in the wrong place? Ben breezed through the puzzle magazines his mother brought home from the grocery store. Although sometimes he cheated and peeked at the back of the book. No hints this time. He pushed the Scrabble tiles around without success.
Aris pounced on the desk and stared at the screen, his orange eyes glowing in the monitor’s reflection. Ben could swear the cat was grinning as he stretched a paw toward the keyboard.
“Don’t even think about it!” Ben snapped.
Aris growled and swatted at Ben before jumping down from the desk. The weight of his paw on the delete key erased Ben’s worthless attempt at a solution. Aris sauntered into the hallway with a hiss and evil flick of his tail.
“Stupid cat! I was going to do that anyway!”
Ben returned his attention to the newly blank spaces. Dr. Lopez had talked him out of wasting his money on the MegaMax lottery by teaching him how to calculate the number of combinations. Eighty million to be exact. That pretty much canceled his plans for an easy boost to his allowance. The principle was the same, though.
He whipped out his calculator and a pencil. Eight symbols — two were the same so he could eliminate one of them. There were twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Each time he picked a letter, he’d have one less option for the next slot. All that was left was to multiply the options together.
Ben’s heart sank as he felt the expedition slip away. There were thirty-three billion combinations including nonsense words. The Earth would be sucked into a black hole before he solved this problem.
To torture himself, he did the calculation for April’s password: less than eight million. But it didn’t matter how many options she did or didn’t have — she’d cracked the first puzzle and would be gloating about it in the morning.
Ben shoved the Scrabble pieces aside and slumped in his chair. He was going to have to ask Grace for help. Her parents were fluent in most Asian and Romance languages plus hundreds of ancient languages like Egyptian and Latin. He could barely get through Spanish. He didn’t understand how you could learn that many languages and keep them all straight. It was too late to call. He sent a text message instead.
Grace answered right away. “Stuck on a game? It’s late. Figure it out tomorrow.”
“I need help now! It’s driving me crazy.”
“Any clues?”
“No. Just eight blank spaces. The third and last symbols are the same.”
“Can you send me the program?”
“Yeah. Try this.” Ben compressed the file and attached it to an email.
“Okay, give me a minute.”
Ben looked at the clock: 10:45 pm. He waited for what seemed like hours. The clock read “10:49 pm” when Grace logged back on.
“Got it! Cool graphics. Can I keep this copy to play?”
“That fast? Does it have something to do with girls?”
“Nope. It’s pretty obvious if you ask me. As plain as that big nose on your face.”
“What? WHAT?”
“It’s sooooooo easy, I’m not going to tell you. If you still don’t get it by morning, wear a code. White rose if you figured it out. Red rose if you didn’t. Trust me you’ll kick yourself for not getting it right away. Next time give me a real challenge instead of this easy stuff!”
Ben knew her weak spot. “I’ve got one for you now!”
“Take your best shot. I dare you.”
Ben typed:
“What is greater than God?
More evil than the Devil?
The poor have it.
The rich need it.
And if you eat it you will die?”
“Huh? What? I hate riddles. Can you give me a hint?”
“Nope. Remember what rose to wear. Sayonara! :-)”
“It’s Kali shu! I’m from Tibet not Japan you moron!”
“Yeah, whatever. See ya in the a.m.”
Ben laughed, logged off and flopped on the bed. Grace and April had figured out the passwords in record time, so how hard could it be? His father said the mind was like a cross between a super computer and old library stacks. Just plug in the question and let the “little men” run around the archives until they find the data. While Ben was waiting for that miracle to happen, Grace could stew on his riddle.
He stared at his posters of the Los Angeles Lakers and the Chicago Bulls, both digitally altered to show his face on the rosters. He crumbled notebook paper and lobbed it at a basketball hoop hung on his wall. The wads fell into the trashcan sitting below it. He tossed them with his right hand, then his left. He even stuck a wad of paper between his toes and flung it across the room. No matter how creative he got, he never missed the basket.
His mother knocked on the door and slipped in, as she did every night. She stared at the hieroglyphics on the computer screen, picked up a single tile from the Scrabble pile and studied it for several seconds. She sighed, placed the tile on the top of the monitor, then stepped over the pile of dirty clothes at the foot of the bed.
“I know what you’re thinking. I’ll do my laundry tomorrow, I swear,” Ben said.
“Actually, I was thinking that a few more months in this room and you’ll be immune to all known diseases. It’s your room, do what you want, but I’d prefer a promise to a swear.” Something in her voice seemed sad.
“Everything okay, Mom?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering.”
His mother pursed her lips and placed a candle on the nightstand. When he was little, she told him it kept the monsters away.
“I don’t need that. I’m not a kid anymore.”
“I know. But you’ll always be my little prince.” She sighed and lit the wick.
Ben frowned. “Does that mean I have to slay evil dragons and stuff?”
“If us grown-ups do our jobs, maybe you won’t have to.”
“Fine. But no lavender, okay? It makes me smell like a girl.”
“I remembered,” she whispered. Tonight’s candle smelled like his mother — jasmine. He’d humor her in preparation for future battles over the car keys.
His mother glanced at the computer again. “Try to get some sleep. You’ve got a big test tomorrow. The game can wait.” She rubbed his hands, hummed an old lullaby, then kissed him on the forehead. “There are more important things to think about right now. Trying to impress your uncle isn’t one of them.”
Then, as quietly as she arrived, she slipped out again.
Ben relaxed as hieroglyphics marched past his closed eyelids. Birds, praying priests and odd squiggles appeared and disappeared beneath the sand as he drifted to sleep.
He woke with a start, jumped out of bed and ran to the computer. The answer was so obvious, so simple. His reflection blinked back at him from the darkened screen.
“Jackson, wake up!”
The clock read 3:00 am.
This had better work!
He typed eight letters and hit enter.
“Welcome,” said the female voice as the channels deepened to reveal a trapdoor.
“Yes!” Ben struck high fives with invisible teammates.
He clicked and dragged the handle to the left. The sound of stone sliding on stone filled the computer speakers. The door opened to reveal a long, dark passageway and more hieroglyphics.
Ben collapsed on his bed, excited and exhausted. He’d suffered a temporary setback, but he was on a roll now. He’d have this mystery solved before the end of the week.
Across the room, the password dissolved into its original hieroglyphic form. Soon, very little of the solution remained …
CHAPTER FIVE
Morning Rituals
“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”
Galileo Galilei
Ben jumped out of bed, hit the space bar and roused the computer from sleep mode. He had thirty minutes to shower, grab something to eat, and be out the door for school. Fifteen if he peeked at the game.
He paused at the bathroom window. As usual, April was practicing Tai Chi with his parents. Bathed in sunlight, they f lowed through a synchronized routine, crouching and swaying in their bare feet. The sun’s glow always seemed more intense on his mother. Nearby, the garden bloomed brighter than the day before. When it was over, his mother smiled until April was back inside the house, then yanked an iron Shepherd’s hook out of the ground and swung the sharp end toward his father. Surprised, Jeremiah Webster deflected the blow with his arm, then rolled out of the way. Ben’s heart stopped.
Twirling the rod over and under her arm like a baton, his mother jabbed without holding back. Ben sucked air through his teeth. Still favoring his left leg, his father dodged left and then right to avoid the attack. He somersaulted over the edge of the deck, pulled a garden stake from the ground then stumbled as she swept his injured leg. He winced in pain, fell to the ground and raised his hand to stop the match. His face flushed red as Ben’s mother helped him to his feet and examined the wound.
“Definitely not Tai Chi.” Ben glanced at the clock and groaned. Uncle Henry’s lost tribes would have to wait to be discovered.
“Here you go!”
Ben’s mother planted a kiss on his cheek before shoving a pill and a juice glass into his hands. It signaled the daily ritual of a multivitamin so large it could choke a dinosaur and a slimy blue-green drink so vile it probably lead to their extinction. The juice he called “green glob” sparkled and moved as if it were an alien life form.
“I’m trying something new,” his mother said, beaming. “What do you think?”
Ben closed his eyes and drew a tiny sip across his lips. He forced his grimace into a smile. “Tastes like pomegranate.”
Her eyes arched in surprise. “Pomegranate? Good idea! Full of antioxidants. I’ll add some tomorrow!” She placed a second glass on the granite countertop and filled it with the remaining glob, using a spatula to force the last tenuous drops out of the blender. “Finish up.”
Tongue tingling in a way that didn’t seem natural, Ben stared into his glass while slipping the pill into his pocket. This morning, all his friends were sitting down to a breakfast where pancakes, bacon and clearly identifiable fruit juices were on the menu. He was stuck with a botanical concoction his mother brewed — probably in a cauldron.
“You sure this stuff’s good for me?”
“It will counteract the effects of all the junk food you eat when you think I’m not looking. So will that pill in your pocket.”
Busted! He closed his eyes, put the pill in his mouth and took another sip of the drink. The glob had the consistency of partially formed Jell-O.
“I saw you and Dad doing a new weapons kata this morning,” Ben said.
His mother froze a few seconds too long, then smiled again. “Did you?”
“Yeah! You looked fierce! What style was that?”
“Capoeira,” she said, turning to rinse the dishes.
Ben paused. That wasn’t Caporeira.
“How far did you get on the game?” asked April strolling into the kitchen with Aris. “I found a key and an iron gate. There’s a jungle on the other side.”
Ben had guessed right. April was playing a junior version of the game. He wondered if he could sabotage her computer to slow her down. “My password leads into a pyramid or maybe a tomb.”
“Sweet!” April said. “I bet it’s got hidden chambers and booby traps. Evil curses and mummies and stuff.”
“Ah hmm!” His mother held out a glass of glob.
“Uh, uh. No! Nada! Nyet! I’m not drinking any more of that awful stuff!” April made a dash for the door.
“Come on, Tiger. We all have to get a healthy start in the morning.” Blocking April’s escape, Ben’s father stared at the glass, clearly trying to mask his alarm.
April scowled. “How come you don’t drink it?”
“I’m not a growing child.” He ducked as Ben’s mother cast him a backwards glance.
“And if I drink it I won’t be one either,” April sniffed the glass. “Smells awful. And … eeeew! Did a bug fall in the glass? Something’s moving!”
“Well, then eat one of these.” Ben’s mother held out a homemade granola bar.
April recoiled in horror.
“So what’s in this new juice?” Ben asked.
“Trust me,” his father said. “You don’t want to know.”
Ben’s mother threw a dish towel at him. “Bio-organic tofu, seaweed, kelp, soy beans, mango, kiwi, banana,” she said proudly, “and a few secret ingredients from my garden.”
Ben grimaced. He’d seen the weird stuff growing in her garden.
“I told you not to ask,” said his father. “Let’s go, we’re late as usual and I promised to give Grace a ride. I’ve got to run next door first. I’ll be back in five minutes.”
“I call shotgun!” April yelled, racing out the door.
Ben rolled his eyes and tossed his drink on a rose bush just outside the door. He stopped, cut a single stem with his pocketknife and shoved it through a loop on his backpack. His father sprinted into the garage, grabbed a box from the trunk of the SUV, then jogged toward the Lopez’s house.
If something had been wrong with his leg this morning, it seemed fine now.
CHAPTER SIX
Amazing Grace
Tell me your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are.
Assyrian Proverb
“Your mom has the weirdest plants on the planet.” Grace stepped inside the greenhouse and pointed at the avocado plant. It had tripled in size overnight. A plump fleshy stalk rose from the center. “Looks like it has a body inside of it.”
Ben shrugged. “Mom planted it a few days ago.”
“Kind of creepy.” Grace studied the plant from all angles but kept her distance. “I thought avocado plants were supposed to look like trees, not mutant flowers from outer space.”
