Seven Wonders Journals (8 page)

Authors: Peter Lerangis

BOOK: Seven Wonders Journals

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“C
ASS, GET AWAY
from itâit thinks you're trying to steal the Loculus!” Aly screamed.

She dove toward Cass, pulling him away from the statue.

Zeus was moving by centimeters. With each jerk of his arm, the marble encasing him cracked. “Lll . . . oc . . . ul . . . ssss . . .”

The word was just barely recognizable. Each syllable was accompanied by a sickening creak.

“Um . . . um . . .” I crawled backward. My tongue felt like a slab of Velcro.

I heard a chaos of noise behind us. Screams. Chairs clattering to the pavement. Children crying. The square was clearing out. Aly clutched my left arm, Cass my right.

Within minutes, the square had completely emptied. No more old men. No bumbling waiters. No begging gypsies or Bouzouki-playing musicians. Just us, the sound of
Family Guy
now on the TV, and the deep groan of the marble cracking.

A mist swirled up from the ground now in tendrils of green, yellow, and blue. It gathered around the statue, whistling and screaming.

The statue's expression was rock-stiff, but its eyes seemed to brighten and flare. With a
pop
of breaking stone, its mouth shot open, and it roared with a sound that seemed part voice, part earthquake. The swirls sped and thickened, and in moments Zeus was juddering as if he had been electrocuted by one of his own thunderbolts.

In that moment we could have run.

But we stayed there, bolted to the spot by shock, as a bright golden-white globe landed on the stones with barely a sound and rolled toward a cafÃ©. Its surface glowed with an energy that seemed to have dissolved the centuries of grit and bird droppings. I felt my body thrumming deeply, as if each artery and vein had been plucked like a cello.

“The Song of the Heptakiklos . . .” I said.

“So it
is
a Loculus!” Aly said.

I couldn't take my eyes from the orb. I staggered toward it, my head throbbing. All thoughts were gone except one:
If we could rescue Healthâwith this, we would have four.

“Jack, what are you doing?” Cass screamed.

I felt Aly grabbing me by the arm, pulling me away. We rammed into Cass, who was frozen in place, staring at the statue. We all looked up. Before our eyes, the statue's veins of marble turned blue and red, slowly assuming the warm,
fluid shape of human skin.

Zeus was shrinking. The massive statue was becoming a man.

Or maybe a god.

As the mist receded, Zeus lowered his head. His eyes were a deep brown now, his face dark and his hair iron gray. The muscles in his arms rippled as he stepped toward us, lifting the scepter high above his head. “Loculus . . .” he murmured.

“Give it to him!” Cass screamed. “He doesn't see it! He thinks you stole it!
Yo! Zeus! Your godliness! O Zeus! Lookâit's on the ground!
”

“He doesn't understand English!” Aly said.

“
IIII'LL GUB YOUUUU MY PITTTTY
!” the statue bellowed.

“That sounds like English!” Cass said. “What's he saying?”

“Wait. âI'll get you, my pretty'?” Aly said. “From
The Wizard of Oz
?”

I have no idea why I wasn't running away. But it was moving so slowly, creakily. It clearly hadn't moved in a long time and its eyesight wasn't good. I had no intention of backing away. I wanted that Loculus. “Guys, I'm going after it. Back me up. Distract Zeus.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Cass screamed. “We came here to be kidnapped!”

“We came here to win back our lives,” I said. “Who knows if we'll ever have this chance again?
Back me up!
”

“Butâ” Cass stammered. Aly placed a hand on his shoulder. Stepping between Cass and the statue, she straightened herself to full height. “Yo! Lightning Boy!”

The statue turned to face her.

And I moved slowly, step-by-step backward, through the shadows, toward the Loculus. The statue's eyes didn't waver from Aly. He was speaking a string of words in a strange language. It sounded vaguely Greek, of which I understand exactly zero, but the rhythms of it seemed weirdly familiar. Like I could hear the music but couldn't identify the instruments.

Go, McKinley. Now.

I turned. The pale moonlight picked up the contour of the fallen orb in the shadow of a cafÃ©. As I crept closer, my head was jammed up with the Song of the Heptakiklos now. Gone was the noise from the TVs, from Aly's conversation. The Loculus was calling to me as if it were alive. As I reached for it, I heard something behind me, in a deep, growly rasp.

“
OHHHH, LUUUUCY, YOU ARE IN BIIIIG TROUBLE NOW
.”

I turned. Aly and Cass were both gawking at the statue. “Could you repeat that?” Aly said.

The statue lifted one leg and hauled it forward. It
thumped to the ground. “
TO THE MOOOON, ALIIICE!”

“What's he saying?” Cass asked.

“
I Love Lucy
,” Aly said. “
The Honeymooners
. Those . . . those are lines from old sitcoms.”

From behind me came the sound of a laugh track. “That TV . . .” I said. “Zeus has been watching it for years. Decades. It's the only English he knows. The sitcoms and the ads.”

The former statue was staring at me now. Its pupils were dark black pools. The muscles in its face seemed to be tightening, its mouth drawing back. As I grabbed the Loculus, I felt a jolt up my arm, as if I'd stuck my finger in an electric socket. I tried to hold back a scream, gritting my teeth as hard as I could.

“Jack!” Aly screamed.

I turned just in time to feel a whoosh against my cheek. Zeus's scepter flew past me, embedding itself in the ground.

Holding tight to the Loculus, I ran for the edge of the town square. In a moment Aly and Cass were by my side. “Follow me!” Cass shouted, leading us down an unlit alleyway.

As we raced out of town, I could see pairs of eyes staring at us out of darkened windows. Mothers and fathers. Children.

A voice behind us thundered loudly, echoing against the stucco walls. “
LOOOOCUULUUUUS
!”

BACK ADS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photo by Joseph Lerangis

PETER LERANGIS
is the author of more than one hundred and sixty books, which have sold more than five and a half million copies and been translated into thirty-three different languages. These include the first three books in the
New York Times
bestselling Seven Wonders series,
The Colossus Rises, Lost in Babylon,
and
The Tomb of Shadows,
and two books in the 39 Clues series. Peter is a Harvard graduate with a degree in biochemistry. He has run a marathon and gone rock climbing during an earthquakeâthough 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.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
hc.com
.

CREDITS

Cover design by Joe Merkel

COPYRIGHT

SEVEN WONDERS JOURNALS: THE KEY
. Text by Peter Lerangis, copyright Â© 2015 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

www.harpercollinschildrens.com

Library of Congress catalog card number: 2014942409

ISBN 978-0-06-223892-4

EPub Edition Â© December 2014 ISBN 9780062238948

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