Secret of the Forbidden City Read online

  “Speak for yourself, Storm,” said Tommy. “I’m starving.”

  Storm held up her hand. “We really don’t want anything.”

  “Um, Storm?” I said. “I’m kind of hungry, too.”

  Storm held her ground; something she does very well. “Thank you for your generous offer, friend, but we are not hungry.”

  “We insist,” said a waiter pushing a room service cart loaded down with platters of steaming Chinese delicacies. He raised a shiny dome, and all sorts of delicious scents wafted through the air. Beef, pork, fish—all of it smothered with amazing sauces.

  “Okay,” said Storm. “We’ll eat it.”

  Then she held her hand up to the side of her mouth and whispered, “In China, it is considered polite to refuse everything once or twice.”

  “But you said no three times,” I told her.

  “I know. I’m superpolite.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Okay, official Chinese hospitality was awesome. Tasty, too.

  Besides the great food, they presented us with all sorts of gifts. Our names painted on silk in delicate calligraphy. Boxes of Chinese tea. Paper lanterns shaped like goldfish. And those clocks where the cat waves its paw up and down.

  On the other hand, a whole squad of soldiers was guarding us and making sure we couldn’t so much as sneeze without it being monitored.

  Beck flopped down on a sofa and, big mistake, propped her feet up on the coffee table.

  Three soldiers immediately surrounded her.

  “In our country, such behavior is frowned upon,” said Jin Xiang with a soft smile.

  “Look,” I said, “do we really need armed guards to tell us to keep our feet off the furniture? Plus, we already gave you guys two priceless Ming vases. Do you think we’re going to steal a couple of hotel towels or, maybe, a bathrobe?”

  “The bathrobes are pretty awesome,” said Tommy. “Plush.”

  “Okay,” I said, “maybe we’ll steal those.”

  Two dozen stern faces frowned at me.

  “I’m kidding. We’re the Kidds. We kid.”

  The frowns drooped deeper.

  “Sheesh. You guys don’t joke around much, do you? Soooo. What’s on government-sponsored TV tonight? No sitcoms, I’m guessing.”

  As you might’ve guessed, we Kidds really don’t watch too much TV. We’re usually too busy reading, studying, practicing martial arts, or diving for buried treasure.

  But I knew it was time for a family meeting.

  Someplace where our Chinese nannies couldn’t hear what we were saying.

  So I cranked up the volume on Empresses in the Palace, a Chinese soap opera about ancient intrigue and an emperor with too many girlfriends.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” I said to Tommy, Beck, and Storm. “How about you guys?”

  “Huh?” said Tommy.

  But Beck caught on quickly. “Bick’s right. I need to go to the bathroom, too.”

  “Good idea,” said Storm. “Come on, Tommy. We’re all going to the bathroom.”

  Tommy still looked confused. (Yep. That’s why Mom and Dad nicknamed him “Tailspin” Tommy.)

  I gestured toward the TV. “Let us know if we miss anything,” I said to one of the soldiers.

  He saluted.

  “Pardon my question,” said Jin Xiang. “Must you all go to the bathroom at the same time?”

  “Yep,” said Storm. “In our country, it is considered rude to go to the bathroom without the rest of your family.”

  I nodded. “We call it ‘Happy Family Toilet Time.’”

  CHAPTER 23

  All of us grabbed our iPhones and headed into the bathroom.

  Once we had all the water and appliances running, our Chinese handlers couldn’t hear us. In fact, we could hardly hear one another.

  Huddling together around the throne toilet (a rarity in China, by the way), we launched into a hushed and heated debate.

  “We need to lose those people out there,” I said as quietly as I could.

  Beck nodded. “We need to be at that bank first thing tomorrow.”

  “Well,” whispered Tommy, “why don’t we just tell the Chinese about the safe-deposit box?”

  “No,” I said. “We should go into the tomb first!”

  “Bick’s right,” said Beck. “We should follow Dad’s plan and bring out enough treasure to barter for the vase.”

  “If we give them the plan,” I said, “they won’t give us diddly. They’ll just raise the bar and ask us to bring them something else.”

  Tommy nodded. “Like a sandwich or something.”

  “Riiiight. We just have to find a way to slip out of this hotel.”

  “And lose our handlers,” added Beck.

  “Yeah. That, too.”

  “I heard them talking earlier,” reported Storm. “The guards were working out their shifts. First thing tomorrow, we’ll only have two. They assumed we’d be sleeping in till eleven because we’re ‘lazy American teenagers.’”

  They also assumed that nobody else in the room could speak or understand Mandarin.

  “Way to go, Storm!” Beck and I said softly. Then we all gave her a patty-cake-quiet high five. “Excellent eavesdropping!”

  “You know,” said Tommy, who sometimes figures things out after everybody else already has, “Dad is helping us rescue Mom!”

  “Exactly,” I said. “He knew that leading us into the Secret Tomb of Qin Shi Huang would help us, finally, secure the Ming vase we need to bring Mom home.”

  Storm turned to Tommy. “So are we doing this thing?”

  Tommy, the oldest, made the call. “Boo-yah.”

  “And we keep Uncle Timothy out of it,” I added.

  “Double boo-yah,” said Tommy.

  “All right,” said Storm. “We better get back out there before—”

  All of our iPhones vibrated simultaneously.

  The four of us pulled them out of various pockets.

  And none of us could believe our eyes.

  There she was, smiling on the screen of all four phones…

  CHAPTER 24

  It was totally amazing.

  Somehow, Mom, wherever she was, was able to text us a video message.

  As the four of us gazed at her image in our palms, there wasn’t a dry eye in the bathroom—and not just because of all the steam coming up from the bathtub, where the hot water was still gurgling loudly enough to camouflage our conversation.

  “My captors have heard from their boss,” said Mom. “He has told them that you four are very close to recovering the Ming vase they require as ransom.”

  “She’s still alive,” I heard Storm mumble. “She knows what we’ve been doing in China!”

  When I glanced up, I saw Storm smiling.

  When she saw me seeing her, she stopped.

  Mom’s video continued on the tiny screen. It was almost as if she were right there in the room with us. That she sensed we were holding an urgent family meeting and wanted to be there to guide us toward the right decision, something she always did on The Lost. Mom and Dad never told us exactly what to do. They just helped us figure out the correct answer ourselves.

  “I want you four to keep up your most important treasure hunts, the ones that reunite family heirlooms with those who have lost so much more than gold or antiques. The Kidd children can be like the Monuments Men of World War II—the art experts that went into combat zones to save as much of the culture of Europe as they could before the Nazis destroyed it all.”

  Mom looked off camera. I heard a man grunt at her.

  “As always, they won’t let me talk with you guys for as long as I want, which, by the way, would be forever!”

  Another off-camera grunt. Angrier.

  “Okay. I gotta go. Live good lives, children. Always be on the lookout for pathetic winged creatures.”

  Oh-kay. That was kind of random. Then again, Mom was always big on animal rights and sometimes sold her share of our salvaged treasures to help
save dolphins from tuna nets and baby seals from worse.

  Then, out of the blue, Mom started humming.

  “What’s up with that?” said Beck.

  “Shhh!” said Storm. “I’m memorizing the tune.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Tommy. “It’s kind of catchy.” And he started humming along with Mom.

  Mom winked at us once and—poof! Our video screens broke into boxy squares of choppy pixels and dissolved to blackness.

  She was gone.

  CHAPTER 25

  Note to self: A bathroom is not the best location for a Twin Tirade.

  But that didn’t stop Beck and me from launching into No. 488.

  We were trying so hard to scream at each other quietly, both of our faces nearly turned purple.

  “That was sooo superhelpful,” said Beck sarcastically.

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “It was awesome.”

  “No, it was weird. Why was she humming?”

  “Because she’s happy to be alive!”

  “You mean she’s happy to be anywhere besides stuck in a stinky bathroom with you.”

  “She’s alive, Beck! She knows we’re close to rescuing her.”

  “Well, why didn’t she tell us what we should do?”

  “Because she never does.”

  “Well, this time I wish she would.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do not.”

  “Do too.”

  “Not!”

  “Do!”

  Then something weird happened. Instead of petering out and ending the way our Twin Tirades usually end, Beck started sobbing.

  “Beck?” I said.

  “You okay?” asked Tommy and Storm.

  “Leave me alone, you guys,” Beck blubbered. “All of you. I’m fine.”

  Then she started bawling her eyes out.

  CHAPTER 26

  Okay. This was freaking me out.

  My twin sister is the strongest, toughest person I know. She never, ever cries.

  Seeing her break down and weep uncontrollably crushed me to the core. It was like someone socked me in the gut and knocked all the wind out of my sails. Yeah, it’s another one of those twin things. We share each other’s worst feelings.

  “Beck? It’s going to be okay. I promise.” I reached out and hugged her.

  Tommy and Storm moved in, too.

  None of us could stand to see Rebecca Kidd cry.

  When Beck was all finished, Tommy handed her a towel so she could dry her eyes.

  “You guys?” he said. “We need to find Mom and Dad. We need to put our whole family back together.”

  We all nodded.

  Tommy kept going: “We need it more than all the pearls in the ceiling of that dead Chinese dude’s tomb.”

  Storm grinned. “I thought you were going to say ‘more than all the tea in China.’”

  “Nah. I like coffee. And root beer. Root beer’s good.”

  Fists started pounding on the bathroom door.

  “Kidds?” It was Jin Xiang, our cultural attaché and chief babysitter. “Is everything as it should be in there?”

  “Um, yeah,” said Tommy. “We just need to, uh…”

  “Find the toilet paper!” I shouted. “Oh. Wait. Here it is. Let me pass the roll around… it’s another American custom.…”

  As we were getting ready to head back to the living room to pretend to watch more TV, our four phones started vibrating again. Tommy had his out and up faster than anyone else.

  “Mom?” mouthed Beck.

  “Another video?” I whispered.

  Tommy shook his head. “No. A text. From Dad!”

  CHAPTER 27

  The screens of all four phones displayed the same message:

  The last line was absolute proof that this text definitely came from Dad. Before he disappeared, he kept cracking the world’s corniest joke: Q: “What’s a Grecian urn?” A: “About thirty dollars a week.”

  But Dad wasn’t finished. Another text message pushed the other ones up our screens:

  “Pigeon races?” said Beck. “This can’t be from Dad. He’s too smart to write something that dumb.”

  “Actually,” said Storm, “pigeon racing is quite popular in China. A shipping tycoon recently spent three hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars on a single racing pigeon.”

  “No way. All that money for a flying poop dispenser?”

  There was another sharp knock on the door.

  “Kidds?”

  Outside the bathroom, Jin Xiang was growing impatient.

  “Just a second,” I said. “We need to, uh, peel off an extra sheet of toilet paper for Beck.”

  She slugged me in the shoulder.

  “It’s for Bick,” she shouted. “He’s a toilet paper hog.”

  “Tomorrow morning,” whispered Tommy, “we send the guards off to the pigeon races. Bick? Can you cook up a convincing story?”

  I grinned.

  Hey, making up lies is what I do best.

  CHAPTER 28

  I spent the night Googling “Chinese Pigeon Racing” so I’d have enough details to hatch a believable fib.

  Turns out, a bunch of billionaires take their birds to Chinese “country clubs” and pay, like, a thousand dollars to buy their champion fliers a metal ankle band. The banded birds are then placed into pigeon coops and loaded up on a truck. When the truck reaches the starting line, the pigeons are let out of their cages. They take off in a huge flock and head home to their roosts, all the birds flying in different directions. Computers do the math and figure out which bird flew home the fastest.

  Apparently, because there is no official finish line, it is very easy to cheat in Chinese pigeon racing.

  Now, in some races, the winning pigeon can take home a million bucks. Not to mention what you can win by betting on the right one. That’ll buy a bunch of birdseed.

  It might also be enough to persuade our babysitters to desert their posts.

  The next morning, just as Storm had said, we had only two armed guards in our hotel suite. They both seemed extremely surprised to see the four of us up and out of bed so bright and early.

  “Why are you awake?” the bigger guy asked.

  “We want to go to the Pioneer Pigeon Club,” I told him. “We have a sure thing in the third race. Tail Feather is the favorite.”

  The guard raised an eyebrow. “You wish to wager on this pigeon?”

  “Nope,” I said. “Against him. Rumor has it the fix is in.”

  “What rumor?” asked his buddy, who was suddenly very interested in everything I had to say.

  “The guy who drives the pigeon truck says that when he reaches the starting line, he’s going to give Tail Feather a heavier anklet band than all the other birds.”

  “Wait a second,” said Beck, pretending to be shocked. “That’s cheating.”

  “Yep,” I said. “That’s why certain individuals are paying the truck driver major yuan to do it.”

  “Why,” said Tommy, trying his best to recite the lines I asked him to memorize, “a heavier ankle bracelet. Will slow him down. As he flies home. To his roost.”

  Yep. Tommy memorizes stuff in chunks.

  “It’s a sure bet,” I said, rubbing my hands together greedily. “We’ll be rich! Rich, I say. Filthy, stinking rich!”

  “Bick?” said Storm.

  “What?”

  “No way are the billionaire pigeon racers at the Pioneer Pigeon Club going to let you in on their race. You’re too young. Plus, you’re not Chinese.”

  I pounded my fist into my palm. “Darn it all. You’re right, Storm. And it’s such a sure thing. If only there was someone who’s Chinese that we could send to the Pioneer Pigeon Club with our cash. We’d be sure to give them a generous cut for their trouble, of course…”

  “I could place the wager for you,” said one of the guards.

  “So could I,” said the other.

  They looked at
each other suspiciously. I don’t think either one trusted the other to share the wealth.

  “We’ll both go,” they said together, in perfect English.

  “Great,” said Tommy, stretching into a pretty fake yawn. “Because, I don’t know. About my siblings. But I need to go back to bed. This is way too early. For me to be up. I’m an American. And a teenager.”

  I handed each of the guards a bulging roll of Chinese currency.

  They took off running.

  We were, finally, alone.

  When we were certain our handlers were out of the hotel, we all started laughing.

  Something we’d probably do all the way to the bank.

  The one with Dad’s safe-deposit box in it.

  CHAPTER 29

  Of course, before we could go to the bank, we had to get out of the hotel—not just our room.

  Tommy stuck his head into the hallway.

  “We’re clear,” he said.

  The four of us hurried into the corridor and headed for the elevator.

  Which immediately dinged.

  Someone was getting off on our floor. More security guards?

  “In here,” said Tommy, jumping into a nook with an ice maker and soft drink vending machine.

  Beck and I pretended we needed ice. Storm and Tommy pondered the beverage selections.

  We heard a wobbly wheeled cart squeak up the hall.

  Next came a knock on a door and a voice crying, “Housekeeping.”

  When no one answered, the housekeeper opened the door.

  Tommy peered around the corner.

  “She’s in the room. Left her laundry cart in the hallway.” He turned to the vending machine. “Quick, who’s got change?”

  I handed Tommy a pile of coins.

  He bought a big bottle of something called Jianlibao Orange.

  “Everybody—into the cart.”