Treasure Hunters: Danger Down the Nile Read online

  That was the good news: We actually woke up. Big Bird had flown the coop—though I did see a suspiciously large egg perched on the peak where it had roosted.

  But it was a new dawn.

  Somehow, Beck and I had lived to see another glorious day.

  We also lived to see another raft.

  At first, it was just a black blob against the rising sun.

  Then it was definitely a raft. Then it became two rafts. Three!

  “Woo-hoo!” shouted Beck, waving her arms above her head. “Over here!”

  I joined in. “You guys? Hurry! Before birdosaurus comes back!”

  Tailspin Tommy was in the lead raft. Storm was in the one right behind him. That hippo that dunked Beck and me? It rose up and worked open its enormous mouth to roar at Storm.

  Storm roared back.

  Storm’s roar was scarier.

  “And brush your teeth!” Storm shouted when the terrified hippo dived under the water for protection. “All four of them!”

  Guess who was in the third raft? None other than that lily-livered coward Lord Fred. When he and Tommy scurried up the rocks to rescue us, Lord Fred acted like he was the best friend Beck and I ever had.

  “I was frightfully worried about you two last night. Thought I might never sleep again. Fortunately, I did. Spot of warm milk and a good book and I was out like a light. How about you two? Everything tickety-boo?”

  That was when Beck kneed him. Right in his “tickety-boo,” where it really, really hurts. Lord Fred groaned.

  But I was the one who screamed. “What the…? Why are my feet green?”

  CHAPTER 56

  Maybe it was because I had spent the night worrying about reptiles and amphibious creatures but suddenly my feet looked like they belonged on Kermit the Frog. They hadn’t turned into flippers, but they were definitely green.

  “They tingle and itch,” I said. “My feet are all prickly.…”

  “And how gross is this,” said Beck, studying my feet. “There’s a ton more dead skin flaking off between your toes than usual.”

  Not that anybody asked her, but that was when Storm decided to join us to offer her Unlicensed Medical Genius opinion.

  “I suspect,” she said, without any hint of emotion, “that our unfortunate brother has trench foot, a condition caused by prolonged exposure of the feet to damp, unsanitary, and cold conditions.”

  “We’re in the jungle!” shouted Beck. “How could Bick’s feet get cold?”

  “They did,” I admitted. “Last night. After the sun went down.”

  “Oh, my,” said Lord Fred. “This is a bit of a sticky wicket. I best radio the base camp to let them know of our predicament, what-what?”

  Lord Fred scampered down the rocky slope, climbed onto his raft, and started working his walkie-talkie.

  Meanwhile, Storm, Beck, and Tommy moved in to make a tight family circle around me.

  “What can we do?” asked Tommy.

  Storm shook her head. “Not much from here. If left untreated—which we’ll have to do, at least for a while, since we are nowhere near a hospital or even a walk-in clinic—trench foot usually results in a painful case of gangrene. That leads to a painful amputation and then, given our current jungle environment and the high probability of reinfection… well, it won’t be good.”

  “W-w-whoa,” I stammered. “Back up a little. P-p-painful gangrene? P-p-painful amputation? What comes after that?!”

  “Painful death, little brother.” Storm dropped the bomb of truth like only she knows how. “With our current amount of resources and lack of medical expertise, it’s almost certain. But be brave. We’ll tell Mom that you sacrificed yourself so the rest of us could save her.”

  CHAPTER 57

  So there I was, staring at my green feet and my very certain death, when Beck and I launched into Twin Tirade No. 472.

  We both knew it might be one of our last.

  So we made it a good one, maybe our best ever.

  “You know what I hate most about dying?” I said to Beck. “Losing you.”

  “Hang on. I’m going to miss you more than you’ll miss me.”

  “Impossible.”

  “What do you mean? You won’t even be here, Bickford. How can you miss anything in this world if you’re not in it anymore?”

  “Wherever I am, I’ll miss you, Rebecca! More than you’ll ever know.”

  “Impossible. Because I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

  “Wrong again. I know exactly how much you love me because I know how much I love you.”

  Beck stretched out her arms. “I’m talking about a love this big, Bickford. There’s no way you love me more than this!”

  “Really? Well, my love for you is bigger than that hippo that capsized us yesterday.”

  “So? My love for you is bigger than that same hippo inside a black caiman’s belly after the jumbo crocodile eats it.”

  Tailspin Tommy whistled. “That’s big, Bick.”

  Storm agreed. “Humongous.”

  We were done with the tirade. It was time for a hug. We fell into each other’s arms the same way we fell into them the night before.

  “Give me some of that!” said Tommy, moving in to join us.

  “Make room for me,” said Storm, sniffling back a tear. I figured her emotions had finally caught up with her. We all clung to one another in a rugby scrum of a family hug. There wasn’t a dry eye in the clump.

  “Mind if I join in, chaps?” called Lord Fred from his rubber raft.

  “Yes!!!” we all shouted at the same time.

  We didn’t want anyone to ruin our final hug as a family.

  CHAPTER 58

  Lord Fred joined us on our rock.

  “Righty-oh, then,” he said. “After young Master Bickford shuffles off this mortal coil, we press on, what-what?”

  “What?!” said Beck.

  “I’m simply suggesting that once your brother dies, the rest of us should continue on our quest to find King Solomon’s Mines—after giving the poor chap a proper burial, of course. Maybe one of those Viking funerals with a burning boat here on the lake, what-what? Of course, we don’t want to waste too much time on the funeral. Those pirates chasing after us have undoubtedly gained a good deal of ground during this brief and unfortunate detour.…”

  “I’m ignoring you,” said Beck. “This is the darkest day of my life.”

  “Not to worry,” said Lord Fred. “The sun should burn through those clouds any minute now.”

  “Yo, Fred?” said Tommy.

  “Yes, Master Thomas?”

  “Stick a sock in it.”

  “Yeah,” said Storm. “Or I’ll knee you in your tickety-boo like Beck did.”

  “Righty-oh, then,” said Lord Fred, snapping a crisp salute off the brim of his pith helmet. “I will be in my raft awaiting further instructions.”

  He slipped onto his rubber raft and started fiddling with a yellow box that looked like an old-fashioned transistor radio.

  Beck knelt beside me on the rock. I almost couldn’t believe how sad she was.

  But then I remembered our last adventure, when Beck had been the one in serious trouble. She had been kidnapped by Nathan Collier’s thugs. When I thought we had lost her for good, it was as if someone had split me in half. See, twins sometimes feel each other’s pains and emotions, even when they’re miles apart. Well, I know Beck and I do.

  We’ve always been together, even before we were born.

  Will that end when one of us dies? Will something special inside the twin who’s left behind die, too?

  Yep. Things were getting pretty bleak on the rock. Dark clouds of doom were hovering over our heads.

  Then things got even darker.

  Seriously. Something was blocking out the sun and casting a huge shadow over our “island.” And it wasn’t a cloud—it was a helicopter. Not a Black Hawk. Something even stealthier. In fact, I was pretty sure it was a CIA spy chopper.

  Because strange
Uncle Timothy was riding in the passenger seat.

  CHAPTER 59

  “Good work on the landing beacon, Frederick,” Uncle Timothy said after he had climbed out of his high-tech helicopter.

  That yellow box with the antenna Fred had been fiddling with? He must have used it to send up a signal to guide in Uncle Timothy’s chopper. The perfectly balanced whirlybird teetered on the tip of one of the two pointy peaks.

  Uncle Timothy touched the Bluetooth device jammed in his left ear. “Major Lin? Fly the bird to the LZ. I’ll babysit the packages and water evac them to safety. Keep your ears on the Music Box for COMINT and sanitize our flight plans. Zàijiàn.”

  Beck and I looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. When Uncle Timothy started spewing spy lingo, none of us ever knew what he was talking about.

  The helicopter lifted off, zoomed across the lake, and shot out over the surrounding jungle.

  Uncle Timothy, of course, was wearing his mirrored sunglasses (he even wears them to sleep), so I couldn’t read his eyes. But I had a feeling he expected the four of us to start grilling him with questions about why he was following us.

  Instead, I said, “What’s going on with my mom and dad? I want the truth, Uncle Timothy. If I’m going to die, I want to know if they’re still alive. Call it my dying request.”

  “Yeah,” echoed Beck. “What exactly is happening with Mom right now? And where is Dad?”

  Uncle Timothy tapped his Bluetooth earpiece. “Turkey Trot Two? Initiate your sonar scans. Chart your magnetometer, metal detector, and ROV hits. I’ll join you later. Right now, I have to deal with blowback on a family dynamic.”

  Apparently, my green feet and bothersome questions were keeping Uncle Timothy from some very important clandestine operation.

  “You want the truth?” he said.

  For a second I didn’t know if he was talking to me or Turkey Trot Two in his earpiece.

  “Yes,” I said. “I want an honest answer!”

  “Well, son, I honestly don’t know. Either that or I honestly won’t tell you. However, I did bring medical supplies.”

  He unzipped a pouch on his safari vest. First, he pulled out a pair of dry socks and a packet of toe warmers. “Warm your feet for five minutes. Keep them dry. Rotate fresh socks on a regular basis. Try not to sweat so much.”

  “Good luck with that, what-what?” said Lord Fred, whose forehead was spritzing like a lawn sprinkler.

  Next, Uncle Timothy pulled out a syringe loaded with medicine.

  “Broad-spectrum antibiotics,” said Uncle Timothy, flicking the syringe with his finger to dislodge an air bubble. “Should help. You’re not going to die, Bick. At least not today.”

  Beck and I exhaled with relief. “Thank you!”

  “You may lose a foot or two, but you’ll live. Guess you won’t be able to play soccer for Chumley Prep when I ship you back to New York—which, by the way, I plan to do just as soon as you can hobble home!”

  CHAPTER 60

  Tommy hoisted me in his arms and carried me down to one of the rubber rafts.

  “Keep your feet up, Bick!” he said as he waded into the water. “You heard Uncle T. You need to keep ’em dry.”

  “And,” said Beck, “you need to wear clean socks on a regular basis, not just sniff-test your dirty ones to pick a pair. I know personal hygiene is a novel concept for you, but, seriously, Bick, you need to kick it up a notch.”

  When we arrived at the camp Sonkwe had set up on the far side of the raging river, Tommy carried me to a cot in a tent and draped Dad’s yellow rain slicker on top of my blanket.

  “That’ll help you feel better,” he said with a wink.

  After I was settled in my bed, the whole family gathered around to pray, the way we used to every night with Mom and Dad. Well, everybody except Storm. She abstained.

  “I have my own way of communicating with the higher power.”

  She sat cross-legged on the floor of the tent and chanted “ohm” a lot.

  Uncle Timothy also abstained from the family prayer, as did his pilot, Major Lin. But Uncle Timothy did serenade me with some very nice guitar strumming. I guess he always takes a six-string on his top secret spy missions. Anyway, he was playing and singing the opening track from the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album while Major Lin kept the beat on an empty water bottle.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older…”

  Storm snapped out of her meditation.

  “ ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older’? Is that supposed to be a dig?”

  Uncle Timothy stopped singing.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Major Lin was confused, too. “Wŏ bù míngbái,” he said as he stopped bopping his bottle.

  “Just because we’re younger than you,” said Storm defensively, “doesn’t mean we can’t handle ourselves.”

  Uncle Timothy sniggered. “Young Bickford’s lime-green feet seem to suggest otherwise, Stephanie.”

  Major Lin chuckled.

  Storm was about to turn into Thunder Storm. She didn’t like it when anybody called her by her real name, except, of course, Mom and Dad.

  Uncle Timothy was neither.

  CHAPTER 61

  Storm was about to go Incredible-Hulk-ballistic on Uncle Timothy when Tommy held up his hand to let her know he’d handle it.

  “Back off, Uncle Timothy,” he said. “You’re totally out of line.”

  “Yeah,” I said from my sickbed. “We know what we’re doing.”

  “And why were you following us, anyway?” demanded Beck.

  “I wasn’t ‘following’ you, Rebecca,” said Uncle Timothy. “I have pressing business of my own here in Africa. You see, children, when I received the distress signal from Frederick—”

  “He works for you, doesn’t he?” I said, propping myself up in bed. “He’s a spy’s spy!”

  “I prefer to think of him as a chaperone. Someone to babysit you children while you work on your Jungle Survivorship merit badges.”

  “Well,” said Storm, “you can tell our ‘chaperone’ that as soon as Bick is able to hike again, we’ll be continuing our quest to find King Solomon’s Mines.”

  “So I have heard,” said Uncle Timothy.

  “Oh, really? Where?”

  “I have eyes and ears everywhere, children. However, I must admit I was a bit surprised by your choice of treasure. I know it’s on your father’s to-do list, but so are many others.”

  “Dad left us a very detailed map,” blurted Beck. “So we know exactly where to find the mines.”

  That was when strange Uncle Timothy did something I have never seen him do before. He whipped off his sunglasses so he could squint at Storm like a gunslinger.

  “Did your father leave you any other maps, Stephanie?”

  “Nope,” said Storm. Because she’s so unemotional, she’s the best liar in the family. “Just the one.”

  “You’re not lying to me, are you?”

  Storm and strange Uncle Timothy stared at each other for what seemed like hours.

  “I’m not lying,” Storm finally said. “We’re children. We don’t know how to lie the way adults do.”

  Uncle Timothy grinned and buffed his mirrored shades on the tail of his safari shirt. Major Lin suddenly piped up: “They could be lying about their final destination.”

  “Impossible,” said Uncle Timothy.

  “How can you be so sure?” said Lin.

  “Look at young Bick’s feet. Would these children have endured all that they have if their eyes weren’t firmly fixed on a prize they believe is waiting for them just over the next mountain ridge?”

  Major Lin shook his head. “No. Not unless they were complete idiots.”

  “Which we’re totally not, dude,” said Tommy. “So, you know, deal with it.”

  Uncle Timothy stood up.

  “I wish you good luck in your quest.”

  And then he dropped his latest bombshell.

  “However…”
r />   “What?” said Tommy.

  “I’m not trying to scare you—well, actually, I am—but I must tell you something.”

  “So tell us!” snapped Beck.

  “I’m not the only one following you.”

  CHAPTER 62

  “We know,” said Beck. “Those Zambian pirates we pelted with Twinkies on the Great North Road have been tailing us for days.”

  “They are not alone,” said Uncle Timothy with a sly smile. “In fact, they have joined forces with Guy Dubonnet Merck, whom I believe you’ve met.

  “And Merck and the Zambian pirates aren’t the only fiends you children need to fear. Intelligence indicates that Nathan Collier is also headed to Africa.”

  “Wow,” said Tommy, sounding impressed. “You sure have to keep tabs on a ton of people, Uncle Timothy.”

  “Comes with the territory, Thomas.”

  And that was when I drifted off. The antibiotics were working. My fever was starting to break, but I was totally zonked. I drifted off to dreamland.

  When I woke up, it was dark out again. Beck told me I’d been muttering in my sleep.

  “You kept saying ‘thirteen’ and ‘Caesar’ over and over.” She was whispering because weird Uncle Timothy was still lurking outside the tent.

  “I had the strangest dream,” I told her. “Thirteen Julius Caesars had thirteen seizures after eating thirteen rancid Caesar salads.”

  “You’re still trying to figure out that thing Mom said, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Don’t worry. I think Storm already has and—”

  That was when Uncle Timothy burst into the tent. Tommy and Storm were right behind him.

  “I think you children need to reconsider your plans here in Africa,” Uncle Timothy said. “Our chief of station in Kenya has informed me that the nefarious Nathan Collier just docked his submarine at the port city of Mombasa. That’s only a five-hour flight from here.”