The Viper's Nest Read online

  “Really? Hmm, that’s not what the newspapers are saying,” Isabel said. “Are they, children?”

  “Indeed,” Ian said.

  “Is that all you can say?” Isabel snapped, then turned back to Dan and Amy. “You know, it is not easy being international fugitives. People tend to want you in jail. You wouldn’t like it. Although I suppose it’s in the genes. After all, Mr. and Mrs. Nudelman were masters.”

  Amy’s stomach knotted. “Another lie!”

  “Ah, the drama,” Isabel said, smiling. “I see you recognize the name!”

  “What do you want from us?” Amy demanded.

  Isabel leaned forward. “I know how you feel about me, and I don’t blame you. But I am in need of a few good young minds. And you, my dears, are in need of something more profound.” She shrugged. “A family.”

  Dan looked at her in disbelief. “You want to adopt us?”

  “Would you like a token of my good intentions?” Isabel reached into her bag and pulled out a vial of green liquid. “Voilà!”

  “Your kids stole that from us!” Amy said. “In Paris!”

  “And I am willing to share it with you,” Isabel said. “You have no idea how important this is to the search for the thirty-nine clues. With it, you will be shoulder to shoulder with the winning team. Think about it. We will fold you into the Kabra family. You will lend your skills and knowledge to us. You will be like brother and sister to Ian and Natalie.”

  Natalie blanched. “Please! Distant poor cousins, perhaps …”

  It took all Amy’s strength to keep from laughing out loud. Isabel had something in mind — but if she was serious about this, she was truly insane.

  She met Isabel’s gaze. The eyes were like a lizard’s, cold and bloodless. But for the first time — even as helpless as she was—Amy felt no fear. Fold into the Kabra family? She would rather die a hundred times.

  “Amy?” Isabel said with a magnanimous smile. “I know, perhaps you need a moment to let this extraordinary opportunity sink in …”

  Amy smiled back. “Actually, I don’t need a moment,” she said sweetly. “You can shove it.”

  Isabel recoiled. Nellie let out a hoot of laughter.

  “Amy!” Dan cried out.

  “So be it,” Isabel snapped. “Some people just like to make things difficult.” She held out the vial to her son. “Ian?”

  Ian rose uncertainly. He placed the vial on a shelf just beyond the horizontal propeller. He paused for a moment, as if trying to decide something, then flicked a switch on the wall.

  The propeller began to spin. It made a low humming sound that quickly grew into a roar. It was only about four feet off the ground, and the wind it created was strewing papers everywhere.

  Isabel gestured toward the green vial. “One by one! Come and get it!” she trilled.

  The mustached man grabbed the back of Dan’s chair. He angled it toward the spinning propeller.

  And he began to push.

  “NO-O-O-O!” Amy was shrieking from behind Dan.

  Dan pulled at the ropes. The propeller was screaming in his ears, a silver blur, the blades coming closer. He smelled the burning motor, the grease.

  Too tight.

  Dan jerked his body, trying to tip the chair.

  Ian Kabra looked queasily from Dan to the propeller.

  Now the blade was inches from Dan’s neck. He leaned back, eyes closed, his mind seeming to detach. He heard a scream and wasn’t sure if it was his.

  But he did feel his chair tilting. And his head hitting something, hard.

  “Get him!” a voice commanded.

  Isabel.

  Dan opened his eyes. He saw Amy hurtling across the room, still tied to her chair, ramming her head into Isabel Kabra.

  Suddenly, he felt himself rolling backward. “Dan! Dan, can you hear me?” a deep voice asked.

  “Owwww …” Dan’s hands were suddenly free. He staggered to his feet. Across the room, Amy was on top of Isabel, pinning her to the floor.

  A hand shoved him toward the door. “Go. We must not waste time. Make a left and head for Hangar Three. I will join you.”

  Professor Bardsley was pushing him. Three of his students wrestled with the Kabras while untying Nellie and Amy. The propeller was slowing.

  Dan felt his neck, just to be sure. Then he ran to grab his sister. “Let’s go!”

  They raced to the door, with Nellie close behind. Isabel was shrieking, her voice piercing through the rumble of the slowing blade. “THIS IS AN INJUSTICE!”

  As Amy and Nellie scurried out, Dan ducked back in to get Saladin. Then he ran around to the other side of the propeller and grabbed the vial of green liquid off the shelf.

  Racing outside, he stuffed the vial into his pocket.

  He caught up with Amy and Nellie just outside Hangar Three. The door was open, revealing a prop plane under a thick canvas.

  “Are you okay?” Amy asked. “Oh, my God, Dan, I thought you were going to —” She swallowed the rest of the thought.

  “What you did to Isabel was awesome,” Dan said.

  Professor Bardsley was sprinting toward them now. “Children, we are leaving,” he said breathlessly. “You cannot stay in South Africa any longer. The Kabras can be subdued, but they will not be stopped. And there is someone else —” He glanced over his shoulder.

  “Who?” Dan asked.

  But Professor Bardsley ducked into the hangar, calling out, “Hall-ooooo!”

  Two uniformed workers came running. “Do you have flight-path clearance, Professor?” one of them asked.

  “Please get it for me — ASAP!” Professor Bardsley said.

  The man ran off as the other worker helped Professor Bardsley unsheathe the plane.

  Its sides were yellow, with red piping and a name in fancy script: The Flying Lemur.

  “It’s Grace’s plane!” Amy exclaimed.

  “Grace taught me to fly,” Professor Bardsley said. “When she knew she was dying, she gave me permission to keep this old girl in business. Now, let’s take her for a spin, shall we?”

  Amy ran around to the other side and jumped into the passenger seat of the cockpit.

  “Hey! I want to sit there,” Dan protested.

  “Dude, you weren’t fast enough,” Nellie added, sliding into the rear.

  Professor Bardsley turned the ignition. The propellers spun. “Go!” the airport worker was shouting. “You have the green light!”

  “They let you cut in front of everybody, just like that?” Nellie asked.

  Professor Bardsley grinned. “Don’t ask questions. Get in, Dan!”

  Nellie pulled Dan into the backseat.

  Dan plopped in beside her, fuming. “You guys think I’m not fast enough?” he said. “You think it had nothing to do with the fact that I’m holding Saladin, so maybe it was unfair for Amy to jump in like that?”

  “Mrrp,” said Saladin in agreement.

  Nellie shrugged. “You could have done rock-paper-scissors for a half hour or so.”

  “Ha-ha. You just yuk it up with my sister.” Dan folded his arms and sat back as Amy shrank in her seat.

  “Dude, where are you taking us?” Nellie asked.

  “If anything, he will be expecting us to land in Swaziland,” Professor Bardsley said.

  “He?” Nellie asked.

  “They,” Professor Bardsley quickly replied. “Anyone who may be on your tail. So I will take you to Mozambique. There you will board a plane to Germany, where I will arrange transport to—wherever it is you need to go next.”

  The plane rolled out of the hangar and taxied onto the runway, propellers whirring.

  “Why are you doing this for us, Professor Bardsley?” Amy spoke up. “What’s going on?”

  “Because your work is done here,” he replied. “Because you have found a clue. Because even though I am not a part of this, I respect that you are doing your grandmother’s bidding.”

  “How well did you know Grace?” Amy pressed. “Did you k
now which branch she belonged to?”

  As Professor Bardsley yanked back the throttle, the noise was deafening. “What?” he said.

  The plane lurched forward.

  “YEEE-HAH!” Nellie shouted.

  From the backseat, Dan leaned into Amy. “You really think I’m so slow? Well, if I’m so slow, how come I was the one who remembered to hold on to this?”

  He was shoving something in her face now. The Kabras’ green vial.

  “Dan, sit back and put your seat belt on!” Amy spun around. The vial was knocked out of Dan’s hand. It flipped in the air twice. Dan flailed for it but only managed to bat it against the inner wall of the plane.

  It smashed into pieces, spurting green ooze onto Dan’s arm and the seat next to him.

  “Auuuggghh!” Dan shrieked. “Amy, I can’t believe you did that, you idiot!”

  Amy sighed. “It’s a fake, Dan.”

  But as a drop fell onto the seat, the fabric smoldered.

  “UH, DAN?” Nellie shouted to be heard over the engine noise. “WHAT DID YOU SAY THAT WAS?”

  Dan felt as if a zoofull of scorpions had dropped from the sky on his arm. “OW,” he cried out. “IT STINGS!”

  The plane was in the air now. Amy looked at Professor Bardsley in the rearview mirror. “WHAT COLOR DID YOU SAY THAT SERUM WAS?” he asked.

  “GREEN. OOZY. IT’S BURNING THE SEAT.”

  Professor Bardsley’s eyes went wide. “IT IS NOT A SERUM. IT IS A SLOW-ACTING POISON! THE KABRAS TRIED IT ON ONE OF MY COHORTS. IT WILL ERODE THE SKIN AND OVER TIME WORK ITS WAY INTO THE NERVOUS SYSTEM!” His hands were all over the controls now, flipping switches, setting dials. “I NEED SOMEONE TO MAN THE COCKPIT!”

  Nellie leaned forward. “I WILL! I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING!”

  Professor Bardsley quickly traded places with Nellie, causing Saladin to jump to the floor with a hiss. The old man reached behind the seat and pulled a canister labeled UMHLABA.

  The pain was spreading. Dan felt his entire body vibrating. He gritted his teeth. Don’t think of it don’t think of it don’t think of it don’t think of it …

  “WH-WHAT’S THAT?” he asked.

  “CONCENTRATE OF ALOE,” Professor Bardsley replied. “IT WILL SLOW THE POISON’S ACTION UNTIL WE GET TO A HOSPITAL IN MOZAMBIQUE. IT WILL TAKE ABOUT TWO HOURS, BUT YOU SHOULD BE ALL RIGHT. I BELIEVE THEY MAY HAVE THE PROPER ANTIDOTE THERE.”

  “MAY HAVE IT?” Amy was screaming. Her face was bone white. “YOU CAN’T LET THE KABRAS KILL HIM!”

  Professor Bardsley nodded, his brows knitted.

  He soaked a handkerchief and applied it to Dan’s arm. It felt like ice water, soothing the fire. Dan’s body began to settle, but there wasn’t enough.

  “MORE!” Dan yelled. “MORE!”

  Professor Bardsley daubed the stuff more thickly.

  “ISN’T THERE ANYTHING ELSE IN GRACE’S PLANE?” Amy shouted. “MAYBE SHE HAD SOME ANTIDOTE HERE!”

  Bardsley suddenly looked up at Amy. “WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT? I DO KNOW OF A PLACE WE CAN GET THE ANTIDOTE. BUT I’LL NEED TO RESET OUR COURSE TO MADAGASCAR!”

  “ON IT, DUDE!” Nellie was flipping dials with confidence now. The plane veered to the right.

  “Mrrp!” Saladin said, sliding across the floor.

  “WHAT’S IN MADAGASCAR?” Amy yelled. Through Dan’s fluttering eyelids, all he saw were the veins of her neck sticking out like tree roots….

  Professor Bardsley was now wrapping a tourniquet on Dan’s arm. It felt good, but the pain was changing. It shot out in waves, up his neck, down to his legs, yo-yoing back and forth like some medieval torture.

  Professor Bardsley’s voice came to Dan like a radio station slowly fading. “WE ARE GOING,” he replied, “TO YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S AFRICAN HOME!”

  “Dan …?” Amy said, dragging her brother across the scrubby pathway, little more than a tangle of vines and roots. “Dan, stay awake!”

  He was moaning. Deteriorating fast.

  Amy barely noticed the entrance. Grace’s “African home” was tiny, little more than a mound of rock and soil, a cave fitted with a custom-carved wooden door.

  “We will not enter her working headquarters,” Professor Bardsley said. “There is a small house around back, where she lived when she was here. I — I have a pass — a pass card….”

  Professor Bardsley was shaking. He’d landed the plane safely but taken a corner too sharp on the taxiing, clipping a wing. He was coming apart, Amy could tell.

  Keep it together, she thought. Keep my brother alive!

  Dan sagged between Nellie and Amy, no longer able to walk.

  “You’re g-g-going to be f-f-fine,” Amy said.

  Alone. The word muscled its way into Amy’s brain. For her whole life, she’d felt like a part, a half. It was never Amy. It was Dan and Amy. Like one word.

  DanandAmy.

  AmyandDan.

  “Here we are!” she said, stopping before a small, shuttered shingle house as the professor fumbled with the lock. Dan was shivering again. His arms were wrapped in white tourniquets soaked in umhlaba, but his face was turning from red to yellow.

  Nellie had her arms around him. “He’s going into toxic shock,” she said. “Hurry!”

  With a loud thwock, Professor Bardsley opened the front door. “Sit him down!” he said. “I will go to the medicine cabinet.”

  Nellie and Amy wriggled Dan through the door.

  Amy couldn’t hold back a shiver of recognition. In a split-second view, she took in details that were hardwired into her memory — lace doilies on small dark-wood tea tables, demitasse cups placed as if Grace were about to emerge from the kitchen with tea, a portrait of Grace that Amy had drawn in third grade.

  She and Nellie sat Dan down on a damask sofa. “OWWW … OW OW OW OW!” he cried.

  Professor Bardsley ran in, a hypodermic needle in one hand. “You have to inject him?” Amy cried out.

  “It is the only way to get it into his bloodstream fast,” Professor Bardsley said.

  Amy looked away, holding tight to Dan’s hand. She felt him stiffen briefly, a tiny whine emitting from his mouth that was more breath than sound.

  Finally, she felt him go slack. Amy felt her heart turning inside out. “What’s happening? Is he …?”

  Professor Bardsley wiped his brow. The knots in his forehead were deep. “We can only pray now.”

  “Thank you,” Nellie said, “for everything.”

  Professor Bardsley smiled wanly. “Thank you. If I’d had to change the course of the plane myself …”

  Dan’s head lolled to one side. His mouth moved, but no sounds came out.

  Professor Bardsley felt Dan’s forehead. “I must return to the airfield for a moment. The way I landed The Flying Lemur may be a hazard to other craft. I will not be long. As soon as he is feeling well, we must leave. We cannot stay here.”

  Professor Bardsley was gone longer than Amy expected. Nellie continued to put fresh dressings of umhlaba on Dan’s arm, but he wouldn’t be back to normal for some time. The skin was badly burned.

  “A-Amy?” Dan rasped, wincing. Amy ran to his side.

  “Dan! You’re speaking!”

  “Duh,” Dan said. “That Churchill note — the one Mrs. Thembeka gave us? Where is it?”

  “Your back pocket, I think,” Amy said.

  “Want me to get it for you?” Nellie volunteered.

  Dan groaned. “Could you … get me more dressing? Please?”

  As Nellie disappeared into the bathroom, Amy continued exploring the room. She fought back tears. She had almost gotten Dan killed. Her anger had angered Isabel. Made Ian shove Dan toward the propeller. Then, in The Flying Lemur, she’d made Dan so frustrated he’d forgotten to be cautious about the poison….

  “Dan?” she said. “I’m sorry I’ve been a hothead.”

  Dan smiled weakly. “You’re saving my life,” he said. “So I don’t care. Hey, check out the piano.”

  Tucked in the corner, barely fitti
ng, was a spinet piano with a stack of sheet music on it. Amy stepped over to the piano and hit a few chords, but it was sadly out of tune. She remembered the hours Grace would spend in her mansion in Massachusetts, on a much nicer piano, teaching Dan and Amy all the words to her favorite Broadway showtunes. “Now, tell me the iPod compares to this!” Grace loved to say.

  Nearby sat a desk whose ornately carved designs contrasted with the simple lines of the piano. Amy opened a drawer and jumped as a hairy spider crawled out. She looked over her shoulder, checking Dan. He was scribbling weakly on a pad of paper.

  As Amy went to close the drawer, she noticed a small notebook tucked deeply inside. She pulled it out, rubbing her hands over the soft leather cover.

  It was full of Grace’s perfect, small handwriting, as if Amy were opening a letter written yesterday. Each page was covered with notes — travelogues, mostly— with postcards from various countries taped to the pages.

  Amy paused at a page of notes from a trip to China. Grace had never told them about this trip….

  A & H — Amy’s heart jumped. That would be Arthur and Hope! “Dan?” she called out.

  “Amy … look!” Dan blurted out. He shuffled toward Amy, holding a sheet of paper in a shaky hand.

  “Easy, Hercules,” Nellie said.

  Dan placed the Churchill note on the desk. “The letter … look what he wrote at the bottom.”

  “ ‘The unbroken line shall deliver thy desire to the letter, if thou proceedeth downward ever, in single steps,’ ” Amy read aloud.

  “Remember what we said about an unbroken line?” Dan said hoarsely “Look … Churchill’s circle — one letter, a T. All the way at the top, all the way to the left! Now. ‘Proceedeth downward in single steps’ — that’s what I couldn’t figure out.” Dan flinched as Nellie put gauze tape around the dressing. “What if … you go down … from that first letter. Step by step? Watch!”

  “ ‘A realization … given herein,’ ” Dan said. “The realization was the clue, Amy. It was buried in this letter!”

  “ ‘Tomas clue is umhlaba,’ ” Amy read. “That’s amazing!”

  “Whoa!” Nellie shouted. “I thought the clue was diamonds! The Kabras said it was, too. You guys—you can’t just reject that. There was that message about being ‘in the ground with Shaka’!”