Secret of the Forbidden City Read online

  “Tommy?” said Storm.

  “Yeah?”

  “You watch too many Mission: Impossible movies.”

  “Thanks!”

  Tommy emptied the bottle of orange soda on a sheet and made sure the stain was totally visible before ducking underneath it to hide.

  Storm hollered out a long string of Chinese words. Later, I found out they meant “Housekeeper? Take this terrible stain to the laundry immediately!”

  Ten seconds after Storm shouted her command, the maid was back at the cart. She pushed us down the hall to the elevator. Once we were in the basement of the hotel—and right before we were dumped into an industrial-sized washing machine to be bleached and boiled—we tumbled out of the cart.

  “Sorry,” I said. “We, uh, got stuck in our bathrobes.”

  “They are very roomy,” said Tommy. “And plush.”

  Storm translated for us. But it didn’t really matter. The hotel workers were gawking at us as if we were crazy, which, I guess, we sort of are. Hey, you have to be a little crazy to be a treasure hunter.

  Suddenly, our phones started vibrating again.

  Another text from Dad.

  “‘Are you at the bank?’” read Beck.

  I picked it up from there. “‘If not, hurry.’”

  Dad didn’t have to tell us twice.

  “So long,” I said to the laundry workers.

  “Zài jiàn,” said Storm.

  And the four of us took off running.

  CHAPTER 30

  Racing up an alleyway and out to the street, we quickly realized that Beijing is huge and pretty impossible to navigate.

  We didn’t care. We were totally psyched.

  Dad was alive. He knew we were in China. He might be at the bank, waiting for us.

  Or was Uncle Timothy faking us out so we’d lead him to the safe-deposit box?

  No. It had to be Dad. Uncle Timothy didn’t know the Grecian urn joke.

  Unless Dad told it to him, too.

  I pushed all those thoughts out of my head. Focused on the positive stuff. Like, pretty soon, we’d all be reunited. Dad would show us how to enter Qin Shi Huang’s tomb. Once we knew how to do that, the high cultural minister promised to give us the antique vase we needed to set Mom free.

  By the way, have I mentioned how awesome our dad is? He’s one of the most famous archaeologists in the whole world, but you know what he loves best about his job?

  “I get to work from home and spend time with you guys.”

  Of course, our home back then was a sixty-three-foot-long sailing ship called The Lost. And his work was diving down to sunken ships or digging up buried treasure. But we all did it together. We were the Kidd Family Treasure Hunters.

  “Who has the address to the bank?” barked Tommy as we ran past another jumble of signs that only Storm could read.

  “Number 6 Wu Ding Hou Street, Xi Cheng District,” said Beck and I, since we were the ones who got that info in our fortune cookies.

  “Tap it into your iPhone,” said Tommy. “We’ll use the map app.”

  “Bad idea,” said Storm. “In fact, we should turn off the location finders in all our iPhones—right now. Uncle Timothy is most likely using the GPS chips to track our every move.”

  Storm was probably correct. Bad guys had done that to us in the past. Especially with Tommy’s phone. He’s constantly chatting or texting or sending selfies to one of his many, many girlfriends, and that makes it totally easy for everybody in the world to track him.

  We all pulled out our iPhones and switched off the location service.

  “Guess we’ll have to find our way to the bank the old-fashioned way,” I said.

  Beck made a stinky face. “What, ask directions? Buy a paper map? Wander around aimlessly?”

  “Nope,” I said, raising my arm and whistling loudly. “Taxi!”

  A very suspicious-looking car screeched to a halt three inches from my toes.

  “Taxi here!” cried the driver.

  He kind of reminded me of a river rat. And not in a good way.

  “This is probably an illegal cab,” said Storm.

  “An official taxi license is way too expensive,” said the driver.

  “That’s okay,” said Tommy. “We’ll wait for a legal ride.”

  The driver looked like Tommy hurt his feelings. “Why do you insult me like this, you large-sized American man-child?”

  “I just don’t want to do anything, you know, against the rules.”

  “Like sneaking out of a hotel in a laundry cart?” mumbled Storm.

  “And ditching our official handlers?” added Beck.

  “And not telling Uncle Timothy what we’re up to?” I tossed in. “Come on, Tommy. We’re the Kidds. We live for action and adventure. We zig when everybody else zags. We’re like the Wild Things in that book by Maurice Sendak.”

  “So let the wild rumpus begin,” said Beck, sliding into the taxi. I slid in after her. Storm and Tommy climbed in, too.

  Let’s face it—we were, more or less, on the run from the Chinese authorities. What better way to escape than in an illegal car?

  It was time for Mr. River Rat’s Wild Ride.

  CHAPTER 31

  Even without a GPS, I knew where we were: totally lost.

  “We need to be at the bank!” shouted Beck. “Number 6 Wu Ding Hou Street!”

  “It’s in the Xi Cheng District,” I added.

  “No problem,” said Ratso, our driver. “This is a shortcut.”

  He took another extremely sharp, tire-burning turn. This time, we scattered half a dozen bikes, made a bus swerve, and nearly knocked a traffic cop off his pedestal in the middle of an intersection.

  Storm, who sometimes gets carsick, looked greener than seaweed on moldy toast.

  We kept bobbing and weaving our way through the crowded streets.

  To make things worse, we all knew that Dad was somewhere right here in Beijing—maybe right outside our taxi. He could’ve been one of the people on the curb that our crazed driver splashed with gutter water.

  “Don’t worry,” said Beck through gritted teeth. “Even though we’re all probably going to die in this taxi before we ever see Dad or Mom again, I am not going to cry. I repeat: I am not going to cry!”

  “Relax, kids,” the driver said to the rearview mirror, totally watching us instead of the road and nearly rear-ending some kind of motor scooter hauling a cart loaded down with melons. “I am an excellent driver.”

  Storm had had enough.

  “Stop this cab!” she screeched. “Now!”

  The driver slammed on the brakes. We skidded to a stop in front of a very modern-looking building.

  We all climbed out of the cab. Except seasick Storm. She sort of oozed out.

  “Why’d you have to drive like such a maniac?” she demanded.

  Our rat-faced driver gave her a knowing wink. “To throw off anybody who might be following you four—just as I promised your father I would. No charge—your father already paid.”

  And with that, he sped away.

  What do you know?

  Dad was still looking out for us.

  CHAPTER 32

  Tommy presented our safe-deposit box key to a bank officer, and we were escorted into a secure room behind bulletproof glass.

  The walls were filled with rows and rows of small metal doors like you’d see in the mail room of a high-rise apartment building. Only, each of these doors had two keyholes. Tommy slid our key into one slot of box 716; the bank officer put his matching key into the other.

  When they both gave their keys a quick turn, the small door sprang open and we were presented with a long metal tray.

  Storm told the bank officer that we wanted a private viewing room, and he politely took us to one.

  “Would you like some tea?” he asked as we sat down with our metal treasure chest.

  “No, thanks,” said Tommy. “We’re cool.”

  We waited until the bank officer closed the d
oor and left us alone.

  It was time to open Dad’s Chinese safe-deposit box.

  Tommy rubbed his hands together, then raised the lid on the long metal tray.

  Inside, there was nothing but eight paper birds. The box was our very own coop of colorful, folded chickens, swans, and cranes. One of the birds was even gray like a pigeon.

  “What?” said Beck. “Dad went through all this trouble so we could come downtown and check out his most recent arts and crafts project?”

  “I think it’s cool,” said Tommy. “Origami is so hard to do. All that folding and junk. You can give yourself a paper cut.”

  “Actually,” said Storm, “in China, the art of paper folding is called zhézhi.”

  “Whatever,” said Beck. “Origami or zhézhî, this has been a colossal waste of time.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “Storm, if you watch how I unfold one of these birds, do you think you can remember how to put it back together?”

  “Definitely.”

  “What are you thinking, little bro?” asked Tommy.

  “Well, the birds are made out of paper. Maybe Dad wrote something on the other side.”

  Three of us immediately grabbed a bird.

  “Whoa,” said Storm, who would have to refold them all to their original shapes. “One at a time, please.”

  I went first.

  Under Storm’s watchful gaze, I opened up the swan.

  There was nothing written on either side of the paper.

  Beck did the pigeon. Tommy tackled the pterodactyl (well, that’s what it looked like). They flipped over their crinkled sheets of colored paper.

  Still nothing.

  My brother and sisters started to get that dejected look on their faces again. To tell the truth, I wasn’t feeling so positive anymore, either. Why had Dad led us on a wild-paper-goose chase?

  And that’s when I remembered my purple pen!

  CHAPTER 33

  The purple pen was the only halfway-decent gift Uncle Timothy ever gave me.

  Usually, on birthdays, he just mailed Beck and me a card with a packet of chewing gum tucked inside. Something cinnamony. You could smell it through the envelope.

  Then, last year, since I was “always scribbling away in my notebook,” he surprised me with an official Secret Message Invisible Writer Spy Pen. I guess they have boxes of them in the CIA office supply closet.

  Anyway, when I write with my spy pen, the ink goes on clear. You can see what you’ve written only when you shine the tiny ultraviolet light in the cap on the letters, which makes them magically appear. It’s pretty awesome.

  Dad had used the same kind of invisible ink. When we pieced together all eight sheets of paper like a jigsaw puzzle under my tiny purple light, a detailed diagram for a high-tech and extremely incredible drilling device was laid out on the table in front of us.

  It was a crazy, Leonardo da Vinci–style drawing of a complex machine—something Dad labeled S.C.U.B.B.A. The SELF-CONTAINED UNDERGROUND BURROWING AND BREATHING APPARATUS.

  It was like a minisub attached to a giant corkscrew-shaped drill bit for boring holes.

  “Those are oxygen tanks,” said Beck, tapping the drawing.

  I nodded. “So you don’t have to breathe in the poisonous mercury fumes when you reach the moat surrounding Qin Shi Huang’s crypt.”

  “What’s with those ‘hot air’ thruster jets underneath the chassis?” asked Tommy.

  “Makes the whole craft hover a foot or two off the ground,” said Storm. “That way, you don’t crush any artifacts underneath your digging machine while you plow your way into the tomb.”

  “I can’t believe all the sensor gear in the control cab,” I said. “Infrared. Sonar. With this machine, you could read what was buried in a wall before you tunneled through it.”

  “And,” said Beck, “you could use all the rubberized pincer arms to grab any priceless artifacts you dig up on your way in.”

  It was absolutely brilliant. Just like our dad.

  “Okay,” said Tommy, “it is totally awesome. But, could anybody actually build such a complicated contraption?”

  “I think so,” said Storm.

  She picked up the eight pieces of paper and refolded them all into their original shapes. Then she started piecing the zhézh birds together, the way you would if you were building a LEGO model.

  When she was finished, we had a 3-D replica of Dad’s S.C.U.B.B.A. drilling machine.

  “We should take this to that high cultural minister,” said Beck.

  “Wait, you guys,” I said.

  For giggles, I’d been shining my ultraviolet penlight down inside the safe-deposit box.

  “I see more words. Scribbled on the bottom.”

  Everybody peered into the long steel box to read what our father had written, maybe only hours ago.

  CHAPTER 34

  “So how do we get to the Forbidden City?” said Beck after we’d locked up the safe-deposit box and headed out to the street.

  I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe Dad will send another crazy illegal taxi to pick us up.”

  “Chill, you guys,” said Tommy. “We have, like, six hours.”

  We had packed all the origami—I mean zhézhî—birds inside a plastic shopping bag the nice bank manager was kind enough to give us.

  “You guys?” said Tommy. “I am so pumped. Bick was right all along. That scratched tag in Dad’s rain slicker was definitely a clue. ‘Me in China.’ He is so totally here.”

  Yes, my chest was puffed up a little. I might’ve even strutted some. Until my twin sister shot me down cold.

  “Even a broken clock is right twice a day,” said Beck.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “Lighten up, Bick. It was a joke.”

  “Oh. So we’re not going to have another Twin Tirade in front of all these nicely dressed businesspeople?”

  “I hope not,” said Tommy. “Because I’m starving.”

  “Me too,” said Storm.

  Tommy sniffed the air.

  “Mmm,” he said. “McDonald’s.”

  Yes, our big brother has a very keen sense of smell. Especially when he’s hungry.

  “It’s only ten o’clock,” said Beck. “Dad can’t meet us till four. I guess we have some time to kill.”

  “So let’s kill it with a Big Mac,” said Tommy.

  “For breakfast?” said Storm.

  “Totally!”

  We followed Tommy’s nose up the street and around the corner to the closest McDonald’s, where, in addition to the famed apple pie, there was a pie stuffed with sweet taro, which are kind of like purple potatoes.

  Tommy was able to order his Big Mac with a side of seaweed shaker fries plus a mint-flavored soda.

  Beck and I went with dessert. She tried the green tea and red bean ice cream sundae. I had something grosser: green bean pie.

  Storm ordered a windmill-shaped chickenand-mushroom pie called The Pinwheel.

  “In China,” she said, “the pinwheel is supposed to bestow good luck.”

  “Cool,” said Tommy. “Guess it’s already working. Because today is definitely our lucky day. We’re going to see Dad!”

  CHAPTER 35

  We wolfed down our Mickey D’s and hustled back to the bustling street.

  We were all psyched. Somewhere in the middle of this city of twenty million was one of the two people we wanted to see more than anything in the world. The man we’d been searching for across three continents and two oceans. The captain whose hat we had tossed into the Caribbean when we gave him a funeral at sea.

  Our dad.

  Guess we owed him a new hat.

  Storm stepped to the curb to hail a cab, and before she even raised her arm, a rattletrap van shuddered to a stop.

  Beck and I shared a twin grin because we were both thinking the exact same thing: Dad was watching our every move and had sent us another ride.

  “Are you touristssss?” hissed the driver, who was superskinny and had one o
f those bulgy Adam’s apples like he’d just swallowed a hard-boiled egg. He also flicked his tongue across his dry lips a lot.

  Beck stepped forward. “Yes,” she said loudly, “we are tourists.”

  She said tourists like it was secret code for spies.

  “We’d like to go to the Forbidden City.”

  We slid open the side door and climbed into the van.

  “So,” said Storm, buckling up her seat belt and pulling it snug, “are you a legal van?”

  “No,” said the driver. “I am an entrepreneur.”

  With that, we blasted off. It was time for us Wild Things to go on another wild ride in another unlicensed vehicle. Actually, this ride was even wilder than the one in the illegal cab. In a van, there’s very little padding, so you feel every bump, rattle, and swerve.

  “So,” I shouted over the rumble and racket, “how long have you known our dad?”

  The driver turned around and squinted at me.

  “Who?”

  “Our father,” said Beck. “Dr. Thomas Kidd.”

  Snake Face looked confused. “Who is Dr. Thomas Kidd?”

  “Sweet,” said Tommy. “Don’t blow your cover. Pretend like you weren’t sent to pick us up. You’re a pro, sir. A real pro. It’s an honor working with you.”

  “You children are Americans?” asked the driver.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “One hundred percent red, white, and blue.”

  The driver shook his head. “No wonder you’re crazy.”

  Sooo…

  Turns out the maniac van man hadn’t been sent by Dad. He was just a random lunatic without a license.

  “A ride to the Forbidden City will cost you five hundred dollars!” Snake Face shrieked over the tortured squeals of his tires. “Five hundred American dollars. Or Canadian. I take Canadian money, too.”

  It was, like, a fifteen-minute ride from the Beijing financial district to the Forbidden City. Even if we survived the ride, we were still being ripped off.