The Expeditioners and the Secret of King Triton's Lair Page 3

  So what did Dad’s map mean? Had Gianni Girafalco found one of these undersea trenches? Had Dad gone there? And how was that possible? The New Modern Age inventors had made suits that would let you stay under water for a few hours at a time, but would that have been enough? And how was I supposed to find it, anyway? I couldn’t just search the floor of the entire Caribbean Sea.

  I got more geology books and kept reading. In a huge textbook called Men of Earth and Fire, I finally found another clue in a chapter on geologic exploration before the New Modern Age. “In 1823,” I read, “Gianni Girafalco made the third in a series of trips to the northern Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, to a region known for its strange weather phenomena, and where many ships had foundered and been lost. Girafalco believed that the rough seas and unusual weather patterns were a direct result of an ocean trench and that the points of access to the trench might reveal a mysterious source of fuel. In a stroke of bad fortune for scientific knowledge, Gianni Girafalco’s ship, the Adelaide, sunk in May of 1823. The sole survivor, a boy native to Southampton, UK, described rough and turbulent seas just before the ship had foundered. The boy was found floating on a piece of wood by a fisherman.”

  The library was full of students now, and as I read, I could hear the low murmur of whispered conversation around me, the scratch of pencils on paper, the sound of books being opened and closed.

  I turned the page.

  There was nothing more about Gianni Girafalco. But remembering that Dad had pointed us to the map of Arizona by leaving coded messages in a book, I flipped through again, checking carefully for notations in the margins, even gently shaking it to make sure nothing was tucked inside.

  I slipped the paper cover off and checked out the binding and the endpapers, but everything seemed in order. It was as I was flipping through the title pages and copyright information that I noticed the name of one of the book’s authors: R. Delorme Mountmorris.

  Was it a sign? Dad had left a code for us in another book by Mr. Mountmorris. But Mr. Mountmorris was a historian. He’d written lots of books. Still . . .

  I checked to make sure no one was watching me, then examined the endpapers once more.

  Nothing. I turned the book over again.

  The spine was stamped in gold, and I checked it with the paper cover off. Closed, the spine lay flat against the bound pages, but when I opened the book all the way so that the front and back covers touched, there was a gap between the stiff board and the glued edges of the paper. I peered down into it, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  So I poked a pencil down into the space. The first time I didn’t notice anything. The second time I poked the pencil through, I felt some resistance, as though the pencil was hitting something. I checked to make sure no one was watching and used the pencil to pry whatever it was away from the inside of the cover.

  Suddenly I felt it give way, but before I could catch it, it fell out on to the wooden floor with a metallic clang.

  Trying not to attract attention, I looked down.

  A shiny silver key lay on a square of glossy wood near my foot.

  Four

  I sat very still, not even daring to lean over to pick it up. Instead, I inched my foot forward over the key.

  Joyce Kimani was sitting at the table directly to my right, her Kenyan Snake Falcon, Njamba, dozing on her shoulder. Joyce was fifteen (like Zander), the daughter of a sea captain from Mombasa, Kenya, and one of the best Explorers in Training at the Academy. I knew she hadn’t asked to be placed on Lazlo’s challenge team, and I was pretty sure she disliked him as much as we did. At the table next to her were a couple of boys M.K.’s age. They were drawing pictures of naked ladies in their notebooks and giggling. I was pretty sure they weren’t watching me.

  Casually, keeping my eye on Joyce, I reached down and slid the key out from under my shoe.

  “Hey, Kit.”

  I sat up suddenly, clutching the key, and found Kemal Asker standing in front of me. Kemal was my age, a tall, quiet boy who was in most of my classes. His family was from Ottomanland—the country on the Simerian border that some people called Turkey—and they had fled the Indorustan Empire a couple of years ago. His father had been some kind of adviser to the Emperor, but he had gotten into trouble for speaking out about corruption at the Emperor’s palace. Now his dad worked for our government, advising them on the Indorustans. I had the sense that the other kids at the Academy didn’t quite trust Kemal.

  “Oh, hi,” I said quickly, conscious of my closed fist, the awkward angle of my foot. “What’s up?”

  “Uh, I was just wondering whether you know which chapters we’re supposed to read for History of Exploration tonight.” His accent was pretty strong, and he seemed self-conscious about it. He often looked down at the ground when he spoke, his eyes hidden behind his dark bangs, and he didn’t seem to like being called on in class.

  “Oh. Five, six, and seven,” I told him, my voice too high.

  His eyes narrowed. “Okay. Thanks.”

  When he was gone, I got up and went down to the boys’ bathroom, holding my breath as I passed two agents in black uniforms, red BNDL patches on their jackets. They were always patrolling the library, on the lookout for someone stealing a book or putting one back on the wrong shelf. I waited until I was safely locked in a stall to look at the silver key.

  It wasn’t more than three inches long, designed simply, with a solid oval head, and decorated with little star-shaped flowers. I didn’t know if it fit a door or a padlock or something else, but I felt certain that Dad had left it for me. I tucked the key into the new hidden pocket M.K. had sewn into the collar of my vest, got my things together, and went out into the night.

  “A key?” Sukey repeated. “A key to what?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? That’s what I can’t figure out. It has these little flowers carved into it, but no writing or anything.”

  It was late afternoon and we were walking down to the Academy gates to meet Raleigh’s taxi. Most of the agents were up at the Longhouse, getting ready for the Kickoff Dinner, and it was a relief not to have to whisper for once.

  “There’s Dad’s old locker up at the Mountaineering Hut,” Zander said. “The one that he scratched his initials on. But it doesn’t have a lock.”

  I had given the key to M.K. to look at, and she examined it carefully with the little magnifying glass utility from her vest.

  “I already checked with my spyglass, and there isn’t anything written on it,” I told her.

  “I think it must be for a door,” she said, handing it back to me. “It’s small, but it looks like a deadbolt key. I can’t tell anything more than that. I don’t know what these little flowers are supposed to mean.”

  I looked at it again before putting it away in the hidden collar pocket of my Explorer’s vest. Dad had customized the vests for Zander, Sukey, and me, and mine had come with a hidden map pocket on the back panel. But ever since government agents had discovered the pocket, I didn’t trust it anymore. M.K. had helped me construct a new one, accessed through the collar of my vest, where I was also keeping the map of Girafalco’s Trench.

  Sukey had been silent, but now she said, “You don’t think it’s a little—I don’t know—strange, do you? That he would leave it in the book like that?”

  “But the book is here. Somehow, he knew that we’d be here at the Academy, and he put the key in the book about Gianni Girafalco. A book written by Mr. Mountmorris.”

  “If it was him,” Sukey reminded me. “You don’t know that it was. Maybe someone just left it there. Another student.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But if so, it’s kind of a crazy coincidence.”

  “And what did he leave us, exactly?” Zander asked. “I don’t understand what you think you’re going to find.” He reached out and brushed a bit of grass off Sukey’s jacket, prompting her to smile.

  “Zander,” I said. “Don’t you get it? There’s another map somewhere. Th
e map to Girafalco’s Trench was just a clue to lead us to the one that actually tells us where to go.”

  He was silent for a long moment. “Do you think he’s trying to tell us where he is? Do you think he’s trying to tell us where to find him?”

  M.K.’s eyes were wide. “You still think he’s alive, Zander, don’t you?”

  “All I know is that it’s really strange that he’s supposed to be dead, and yet he’s leaving us maps all the time.”

  “Kit, what do you think?” Sukey asked, her eyes focused intently on me.

  “I don’t know. I wish it was—I wish I could believe he’s still alive. You know I don’t believe what BNDL told us about where he disappeared, but I think it’s about something else. I think he’s trying to lead us to another place. I just don’t understand why.”

  “Why don’t we ask Raleigh?” M.K. said. “He might know if there’s somewhere Dad would have had a key to. He might even recognize it.”

  “I thought we said we weren’t going to get him involved,” I said.

  “We don’t have to tell him about the key,” Zander said. “We can just ask if there were any places that he and Dad used to go. I’ll do it really casually. You’ll see.”

  “Look!” M.K. shouted all of a sudden, as we heard the chugchug of a gleaming chrome-and-brass SteamTaxi making its way up the mountain road. “There’s Raleigh!”

  Raleigh! Pucci shrieked. Raleigh!

  We watched Raleigh clank out of the taxi on his prosthetic IronLegs, his messy brown hair and gray beard even longer than when we’d said goodbye to him in September. I didn’t realize until that moment how much I’d missed him.

  “All right,” he said once he’d wrapped us all up in an enormous hug, surrounding us with the familiar clovey scent of Dramleaf and wood smoke. “Let’s get up to the Longhouse. I’m not going to miss a chance to have a meal on BNDL’s dime.”

  Five

  “What is this stuff?” M.K. asked, letting the gray soup we’d been served as our first course dribble from her spoon back into her bowl. We all watched as she pulled a little cord on her Explorer’s vest and a tiny metal canister appeared out of a hidden pocket. She shook it on her food and then tucked it back into the pocket. “Everything here needs salt,” she said. Zander lifted a bone out of his bowl and examined it for a minute. “Could be human, actually. This is an articulated thumb bone, with cartilage that . . .”

  “Zander,” Sukey protested, spitting out the mouthful she’d just spooned in.

  Zander grinned, his blue eyes lighting up exactly the way Dad’s had lit up when he was joking with us. “Just kidding. I’d say it’s rat, marmot, something like that. Though this bone is kind of human looking.” Sukey laughed, slapping him on the arm.

  It was warm and festive inside the Longhouse for the dinner kicking off the Final Exam Expedition season; we’d each be proposing our own expeditions, and the ten best proposals would be announced in six weeks at the Announcement Banquet. The room was full of energy and anticipation.

  The long tables were filled with parents and special visitors, all of us watched by the stuffed heads of lions and Elebeests, Shadow Leopards and other exotic creatures, the huge Doolandan Elk antler chandeliers casting flickering candlelight on our conversations.

  “We’d better be getting roast beef for the next course,” Raleigh said. “I’ve been looking forward to the roast beef.”

  “This is gross.” Sukey put her spoon down and pushed her bowl away. “Is it my imagination, or has the food been getting worse?”

  “What’s the matter, Neville?” We all looked up to see Lazlo Nackley standing over our table, holding his empty dinner tray. “The food isn’t rich enough for you? They say real Explorers can eat anything. I once ate a cockroach when I was exploring in Deloia.”

  “Don’t they also say, ‘You are what you eat?’” I muttered. Everyone at the table laughed, and Lazlo flushed red.

  “Excuse me?” He fixed his pale blue eyes on me.

  “Come on,” Sukey said. “Leave us alone, Lazlo. Or are you still mad you lost to them in the challenge?”

  Lazlo fixed his cold eyes on her. “I let them win.”

  “Must have been hard losing in front of your dad,” M.K. said.

  Lazlo’s eyes narrowed. “Did you hear I may win the Arnoz Prize for my find in Arizona?”

  “No,” Sukey said flatly, stirring her stew. “That’s great. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” He gave a smug little smile.

  I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t help myself. “Congratulations, Lazlo. Daddy must be really proud of his little boy.”

  He flushed again and swung his gaze around to me, eyeing me coldly, then turned and went back to his table.

  I felt a little stab of caution. The summer before, we’d found ourselves in a race to reach a golden treasure in the Arizona desert before Lazlo and his father could. We’d ended up letting Lazlo take credit for it in order to protect a much bigger secret. So far, Lazlo had seemed willing to accept that he’d found the gold in Arizona and that there hadn’t been anything more to it than that, but I didn’t want him thinking about it too hard.

  Sukey raised her eyebrows at me and hit herself on the side of her head with the flat of her palm before turning her attention back to her soup. She was right. I’d been dumb. When I looked up, Lazlo was whispering something to his father, and they were both watching us from across the room, underneath the gigantic head of a Munopian Mammoth Elephant, its polished and lethal-looking tusks catching the candlelight.

  “What are you going to propose for your expedition?” I asked Sukey.

  The expeditions were the most important thing that happened each year at the Academy. We all knew that leading a successful expedition was the only way to ensure that you would be made a full-fledged Explorer of the Realm, that BNDL would let you travel the world, that you’d get to be a member of the Expedition Society.

  It meant everything.

  I knew that Sukey’s dream was to head a polar flying expedition, taking her glider to a part of the New North Polar Sea that had never been accessed by aircraft and was too full of ice for ships. Now she wanted to prove that gliders could be trusted for polar exploration. M.K. had been helping her modify her glider to use solar power.

  “I want to plan an expedition to southern Africa,” Zander said, “to study the migration patterns of Munopian Wildebeests.”

  “M.K.?” I asked.

  M.K. raised her eyebrows and said noncommittally, “I’ve got something I’m working on.”

  Sukey grinned. “What, you’re not going to tell us?”

  “Not yet. I want to get a little farther first.”

  Zander looked at me. I shrugged and said, “Not much point in my thinking about it, is there? At the rate I’m going, I’ll be lucky to get assigned to one of your crews. Everyone here hates me.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true, Kit,” Raleigh said kindly. “When I was a student, I remember feeling like I was always playing second fiddle to your dad. He was so talented. Everyone loved Alex. But we all have our own skills and things we can offer.”

  Zander reached across the table for the little dish of rancid butter next to Raleigh and asked, “Did Dad have any secret places he liked to go on campus, Raleigh? We need to know.”

  Raleigh looked confused for a moment. Then he said, “Your dad loved hiking, Zander. Loved it. He’d spend hours and hours on the trails, up near the Mountaineering Hut. I used to kid him about having a secret girlfriend, but I think he just loved being on the mountain. Still, I always wondered if—”

  “Enjoying the meal?” We looked up to find Cameron Wooley, our History of Exploration instructor, standing next to our table, wearing his gray synthetic leather longcoat and tweed hat pushed down over his spiky platinum-blonde hair. Though he couldn’t have been older than forty, his face was weathered, lined and permanently tanned, lines feathering the corners of his wide brown eyes. I liked his soft Irish acce
nt. “Hello, Raleigh. Lovely to see you. You’re looking well. Hello, Neville,” he said, nodding at Sukey. He was a Neo, as she was, and though they weren’t supposed to play favorites, everyone knew that the Neo instructors looked out for the Neo kids at the Academy. While Mr. Wooley had completed a few moderately successful expeditions in the North Atlantic, he was best known as a scholar of New Modern Age exploration history.

  “I just wanted to say congratulations to you three. I was watching the challenge. And I wanted to tell you, Kit, that that was a nice bit of thinking on the map and on the sleeve pockets.” He smiled at me. “Aren’t a lot of Archys who would have caught that. Well done. Well done, all three of you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I stammered.

  “How about that?” Raleigh said after he’d returned to his table. “That was nice of him.”

  “See,” Sukey said, grinning at me. “Not everyone here hates you.”

  “Yeah.” Zander punched me on the shoulder. “Just most of them.”

  Six

  The hired waiters served us small slices of fatty, overdone roast beef for our second course. As we started to eat, there was a flurry of activity up at the front of the dining room. “Your attention, please!” We all looked up to see our headmaster, Hilde Magnusdottir, standing up at the front of the huge room, under the giant mounted head of the Munopian Mammoth Elephant. She wore her white leather jacket, britches, and high boots. Her thick, snow-white hair hung in long braids down her back and her Explorer’s vest, tight over her tall, thin frame, was covered with loops and pulls that I knew turned into ice picks and climbing equipment. She had made her name scaling the frozen ice walls of the Newly Discovered Lands north of her native Iceland. Everyone, even the students, called her Maggie.

  “Quiet, everyone,” she called. “Welcome to all of the parents and special guests who have joined us for the traditional Final Exam Expedition Kickoff dinner. As you know, the dinner is a beloved ritual of the training year here at the Academy.