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Authors: Peter Lerangis

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CHAPTER FIFTY - ONE
S
OLDIER
, S
AILOR
, T
INKER
, T
AILOR

“H
E’S WHAT
?” P
ROFESSOR
Bhegad was ashen in his wheelchair. I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eye. Tired and sweaty, I stared at the tarmac.

“Gone,” I said. “With the Loculus.”

“Why did no one tell me?” Bhegad demanded. “Why the radio silence until now?”

Torquin glanced guiltily away. “Technical difficulties.”

“Our difficulties have just begun. All of us.” Bhegad spun around and began wheeling himself back toward the campus, ignoring the hospital orderlies who scurried along on either side of him. “Come.”

“We’re…glad you’re feeling better, Professor,” Aly offered weakly.

Bhegad looked over his shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. “And I’m glad Cass is alive and well. How are you feeling, my boy?”

“Peachy,” Cass said with a weak smile.

“Good,” Bhegad snapped back, “because I am going to need all your brainpower to track down Marco. If he is indeed headed home, it could destroy us. It could undo centuries of work.”

“This is my fault,” I blurted out. “I lost Marco. It was my plan to leave him in the hotel room while we went to get Torquin out of—”

“HRRRMMMM!” Torquin belched.

“I’m the wrong guy for this,” I barreled on. “You picked someone who had no talents, Professor Bhegad. I don’t deserve to be here, because I can’t contribute like the others. I will volunteer to go find Marco. If I miss a treatment and drop dead, what’s the difference? I’m no help here, anyway. I only mess things up—”

Professor Bhegad stopped short and stared at me coldly. “Do you really believe that?” he asked.

“That’s ridiculous!” Aly said, stepping in front of me. “You were the one who brought the Loculus to life, Jack. And you rescued Cass. And defeated both the griffin and the Colossus. You gave me good advice—which
I
didn’t follow. And whenever the rest of us couldn’t figure out what to do, you were the one who made a plan.”

Bhegad sighed. His eyes softened. “You know, here at the KI we have nicknames for you four. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor. Marco was—is—the Soldier, the bravest and most fit. Cass is the Sailor, who can navigate in a blind fog. Aly is the Tinker, the one who can understand how anything works and fix it.”

“And I’m…the Tailor?” I asked. “I sew?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Bhegad said. “You, Jack, are the one who puts it all together.”

I laughed. But when I looked up, no one was laughing with me.

My headache was coming on strong. I needed sleep badly. The sky was pitch-black but I had no idea what time it was.

Cass
. “What time is it?” I blurted out. “Cass is due for his treatment!”

“Yes, we know. It’s ten forty-five,” Professor Bhegad said calmly. He glanced up at the orderlies. “Please take the young man to the hospital. And make sure he gets to bed immediately afterward. We need him, rested and ready.”

Aly and I gave Cass a hug. “Thank you,” he said softly to me. “You are my oreh.”

As the workers escorted him away, Bhegad began to wheel himself back toward his cottage. “As for you two, I trust you slept on the plane,” he said as we followed along.
“Because I expect you in my office in a half hour for a planning session. So change, shower, do what you need to do. We must find your friend immediately and bring him back before he’s done any damage.”

“And if he has?” Aly asked fearfully.

“Eliminate,” Torquin growled.

We stopped. As Torquin padded after the professor, the old man didn’t say a word.

Aly crumpled to a small bench against the airport building.

I couldn’t look at her. My blood was running cold.

Soldier, Sailor, Tinker, Tailor
.

The night was cloudless and moonless. Stars spread across the sky like spattered blood. My thoughts raced. Somewhere up there, I knew, was Marco.

I scanned the horizon, looking.

BACK ADS

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

P
ETER
L
ERANGIS

is the author of more than 160 books, which have sold five million copies and been translated into twenty-eight different languages, including books in two
New York Times
bestselling series: The 39 Clues (Book 3:
The Sword Thief
, Book 7:
The Viper’s Nest
, and Book 11:
Vespers Rising
) and Cahills vs. Vespers (Book 3:
The Dead of Night
). He wrote the popular Spy X and Drama Club series; the two-book adventure
Antarctica
; and the Watchers series (winner of Children’s Choice and Quick Pick awards). With Harry Mazer, he co-authored the YA novel
Somebody, Please Tell Me Who I Am
. Peter’s novel
Smiler’s Bones
, based on the true story of a polar Eskimo boy orphaned in New York City at the turn of the twentieth century, was selected as a New York Public Library Best Books for Teens 2006, a Bank Street Best Books of 2006, and a Junior Library Guild pick. He is also author of the hilarious, edgy YA novel
wtf
. Peter
was one of three authors, along with R. L. Stine and Marc Brown, invited by the White House to represent the United States at the first Russian Book Festival in 2003. He is a Harvard graduate with a degree in biochemistry. After college he became a Broadway musical theater actor. He has run a marathon and gone rock climbing during an earthquake, but not on the same day. He lives in New York City with his wife, musician Tina deVaron, and their two sons, Nick and Joe. In his spare time, he likes to eat chocolate. Lots of it. Seriously, he loves chocolate.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

CREDITS

Cover design by Joe Merkel

COPYRIGHT

SEVEN WONDERS BOOK 1: THE COLOSSUS RISES

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

www.harpercollinschildrens.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lerangis, Peter.

The colossus rises / Peter Lerangis. — 1st ed.

p. cm.—(Seven wonders ; bk. 1)

Summary: Teens Jack, Marco, Aly, and Cass begin a quest to find seven pieces of Atlantis’s power that were hidden long ago and that will, if returned to Atlantis, save them from certain death due to the genetic abnormality that also gives them superior abilities.

ISBN 978-0-06-207040-1 (hardback)—ISBN 978-0-06-224939-5 (international edition)

[1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Ability—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Atlantis (Legendary place)—Fiction. 5. Science fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L558Col 2013

2012025334

[Fic]—dc23

CIP

12 13 14 15 16
LP/RRDH
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1